Feb 1, 2008

Well, my friend got sent to Iraq after joining the army back in April. Basic training was hard, partly due to a bad injury which he didn't report because he didn't want to do it all over again, partly due to him being a vegan. They finally got him on peanut butter and jelly.

I haven't heard too much about what he's doing there yet, except that Iraqis are selling them bootleg DVDs, entire seasons of shows for as little as $ 2.00.

2$ of entire season? I get it free. =p

Is he still trying to do the vegan thing? Unless he got put somewhere cushy like Balad or Taji I'd imagine it would be impossible to next to impossible to adhere to that anyway.

I'm not sure, he's probably had to make some comprimises. You know he might not even be able to tell me much about what's going on there. What are the rules on that?

spidergoat: "You know he might not even be able to tell me much about what's going on there. What are the rules on that?"

Written, or unwritten? Obviously, he cannot legally reveal operational and unit details useful to our enemies. Effectively, and this goes much further than the written rules- he cannot publicly contradict or embarrass the domestic propaganda efforts of the US government without personal consequences.

The Inside Story will not likely be brought to us by a U.S. Soldier, for a host of reasons. The bitter experience of being a member of an unwelcome occupying force is mostly the same, whatever the context. Your friend is not off on a semester abroad for international studies, spidergoat. He won't likely have a clearer vantage-point than you or I. Let's all just hope that your friend comes back in one piece, and can live with it.

It would be foolish to expect first-time foreign tourists to explain the most intense and portentious of US political sentiments to relatives unable to point out St. Louis on a globe. It's even more foolish to expect our occupation troops to provide deep insight into the trajectory of Iraq. But we do have ready access to a resounding majority of Iraqi voices directing a clear, consistent, and passionate message to us- if we will only choose to listen.

The inside story -the only story that really matters when it comes to the American expedition's final outcome in Iraq- is being emphatically expressed by Iraqis, with great detail, and great emotion, every single bloody day. They are almost entirely ignored by the major US media every single bloody day, because the truth is deeply hurtful to popular American feelings; devastating to the comfortable illusions that our government and corporate media are attempting to preserve; it's an agonizing realization about our ongoing elective sacrifice of our soldiers' lives, limbs, and minds- not to mention Iraqi suffering.

To get the inside story, we've got to go beyond major US media filters, that are market-driven to promote USAmerican psychological comfort. When Iraqi sources from all factions observe how the US occupation is a massive imitation of Israeli occupation, the truth gets largely lost in translation. The US audience cannot easily identify with the 1.3 million prisoners of Gaza. That's indicative of what a lot we have to learn in the USA about the Arab experience, and about the collective Arab and Iraqi worldview. This is an example of the sort of issues that should have been well considered before initiating our Iraq adventure. We went in ill-prepared, and we're not going to wizen up by listening to the frustrations of the culturally, linguistically, and politically ill-prepared that we have sent to represent us.

We're mostly blind to the way we are perceived, yet we've gone staggering abroad in a mindless, bloody frenzy since 9-11, our minds still corrupted with deliberate misinformation, even after it has been exposed as lies. Iraqis can comiserate and identify with Palestinian hopelessness so much more than most USAmericans can begin to fathom. Despite the horrific regimes that divide them, Citizens of Arab nations in actuality have a stronger collective identity than Europeans. We in the USA consistently lie to each other about the degree to which we have allowed ourselves to effectively, collectively become ideological zombies, ignorant of basic foreign realities more fundamental than fundamentalism, and more terrible than terrorism.

There is not a great deal of sensitivity training going on in Boot Camps right now, nor while learning MOS and ROEs, as American kids prepare and deploy to this deteriorating occupation. It is absurd to expect young Americans, who are thrust into the cultural isolation and shock of deployment to a bitterly-resented occupation, to assist in our clearer understanding of what is happening to Iraq. The GI experience in situations like this is a long repetition of boredom and confusion, punctuated by moments of horror- sometimes relieved with instants of human compassion- but lost in a background of destruction and resentment.

Iraqis are screaming at us every day, but our lobotomized post-9-11 American mind harkens to our leaders and Our Troops for the "inside" story- preferably feel-good for the nation.

Young, armed, and up-armored Americans are no more privy to insight into what is happening in Iraq than young armed Iraqi gangs would be, if somehow suddenly transported to sit in hideouts in Mayberry; to occasionally move out to pan their guns around American streets; to kick in American doors, and to pow-wow with American collaborators. It's not a positive or efficient intercultural exchange going on over there, any more than it would be if the tables were turned. The occupation of Iraq remains a mutually-abusive relationship. Both parties require safe distance and time for any understanding or progress to emerge from here. We USAmericans can learn much more about Iraq present and future from the outside- Iraqi voices do get out, all we have to do is listen.

We can certainly look to our troops to validate the comforting assertion that they are deploying and sitting, and sometimes fighting and dying for the benefit of Iraq, and/or the benefit or the USA. But if we want to look inside at where this occupation is taking Iraq, we must get information from as far away from US soldiers as is possible in Iraq.

As with every insurgency and civil war in history, local opinion is the closest thing to a crystal ball. Local opinion is already crystal-clear all across what used to be Iraq, regarding US intentions and results in Iraq. All we have to do to understand where this is all going is to stop listening to the White House, stop listening to the Congressional and media corporatocracy, selling us what we want to hear, and listen to what our intervention has actually elicited. Listen to them scream- and if you don't think they're screaming, then you still aren't listening at all.

The year of 2007 was the bloodiest among the occupation years, and no matter how successful the situation looks to Mr. Bush, reality is totally different. What kind of normal life are he and the media referring to where four and a half million highly educated Iraqis are still dislocated or still being forcefully driven out of their homes for being anti-occupation? How can the people live a normal life in a cage of concrete walls, guarded by their kidnappers, killers, and occupation forces? What kind of normal life can you live where tens of your relatives and your beloved ones are either missing or in jail and you don't even know if they are still alive or, after being tortured, have been thrown unidentified in the dumpsters?

What kind of normal life can you live when you have to bid farewell to your family each time you go out to buy bread because you don't know if you are going to see them again? What is a normal life to Mr. Bush? If we're lucky, we get a few hours of electricity a day, barely enough drinking water, no health care, no jobs to feed our kids…

Little teenage girls are given away in marriage because their families can't protect them from militias and troops during raids. Women cannot move unescorted anymore. What kind of educations are our children getting at universities where 60% of the prominent faculty members have been driven out of their jobs -- killed or forced to leave the country by government militias? Is it normal that areas like Saidiya and Arab Jubour are bombed because the occupation forces are afraid to enter the areas for fear of the resistance? It is always easier to control ghost cities. It becomes very peaceful without the people.

Petraeus wants us to celebrate the return [to Baghdad] of 50,000 Iraqis who were starving in Syria, when five million remain in exile and internally displaced. What he conveniently forgets to mention is that those who returned found their houses either destroyed or occupied by others. He also wants to be praised for handing over the nation's security to militias he allowed to form rather than to academics and technocrats. Iraq has no medicines in its hospitals, no electricity, no potable water, no real security, and no well-guarded borders. Nevertheless, some people say they are happy for what is going on in Iraq!

What the Americans hadn't destroyed by the end of the military operations of 2003, they have finished off over the past four years, and I don't think that the occupation forces and their assigned government would like to do anything about the displacement of Iraqi families, simply because they are the ones who created that situation.

"The sectarian violence, which led to this mass displacement, was initiated by the U.S. and its allies to divide the Iraqi community in accordance with American plans and the published 'new' Iraqi constitution, which emphasizes sectarian issues. The occupation would like to divide Iraq into small sectarian and ethnic regions to be able to easily command, control, and conquer them. The major objective of the occupation is to control oil production and reserves in Iraq and the Middle East region. Displacing families is, to them, acceptable collateral damage.

The Americans destroyed the electricity, water-pumping stations, factories, bridges, highways, hospitals, schools, burnt the buildings, and opened the borders for the strangers and terrorists to get easily into the country. The one who does all these things is void of humanity. I hate America and Americans.

At the very beginning of the occupation, the people of Iraq did not realize the U.S. strategy in the area. Their strategy is based on destruction and massacres. They do anything to have their agenda fulfilled. Now, Iraqis know that behind the U.S. smile is hatred and violence. They call others violent and terrorists while what they are doing in Iraq and in other countries is the origin and essence of terror.


We in the USA are not going to see the future of Iraq through the eyes of our soldiers there. The future of Iraq is inextricaby linked not to them, but to the reaction of Iraq to this occupation.

It seems that all U.S. politicians and the majority of Americans think the way McCain does. But they should not think Iraq is Japan or South Korea.

Such leaders will write the final page of history for their country. If Americans keep electing such adventurers, then I can see the end of their country approaching fast.

Enough is enough, do not say Sunnis and Shiites; the Americans who directed the Death Squade in El Salvador are the same Bloody Americans. They are ready to eliminate the whole Iraq to make Idiot Buch [touch] the victory he is insisting on his war in Iraq. Those Sunnis and Shiites who are killing each other, their leaderships are being paying highly by the Americans.. Iraqis Bewar, YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE EVERYTHING.

Because of the Death Squads, the Iraqis stopped speaking about the occupation; they are speaking about the Sunni Terrorists and Shiite Death Squads. Iraqis your first enemy is the American occupation.

According to Newsweek, the American weekly, the Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq (http://www.newsweek.com/id/47986). Read the following American article to realize the truth. The Americans organized and financed death squads in El Salvador killed even Americans just to demonize the resistance in El Salvador.


The Iraqi public really can see us much more clearly than we them, and in some cases even more clearly than we see ourselves, when it comes to our foreign policy. They have only to read President Bush's signing statements, better covered in their press than ours, to clearly understand our official intentions: In our most recent defense appropriation bill, President Bush rejected the following exemptions to Constitutional Congressional expenditures:

(1) To establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq,

or

(2) To exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.

Sources:

Electronic Iraq: Iraqis on "Success" and "Progress" in Their Country (http://electroniciraq.net/news/opeds/Iraqis_on_Success_and_Progress_in_Their_Country-3285.shtml)

Counterpunch.org (current main page) Waking Up to the Human Costs: The Iniquities and Inequalities of War -Ray McGovern (http://www.counterpunch.org/)

General reference:

Various Iraqi Blogs in English (http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/iraqblogs.htm)

Local opinion is like standing and inch from a tree and trying to explain what the forrest looks like. Its accurate to a minute detail about a minute detail of the whole picture.

Wrong, desi- It really is the big picture. There is a whole forest of local opinion all across what's left of Iraq. It's the one thing there is agreement about, across all sectarian lines. Iraqis overwhelmingly wish we had never intervened, and they overwhelmingly want us to go home. No Surge, and no protracted occupation will ever turn that kind of sentiment around.

Local opinion is like standing and inch from a tree and trying to explain what the forrest looks like. Its accurate to a minute detail about a minute detail of the whole picture.

Agreed.

What is the 'agreed upon' opinon of the USA by Americans? Ron Paul and Obama agree? Oprah and Rush Limbaugh? You'd get the same opinion in a coffee shop in San Fransisco as Jordan, Montana?

A cause of poor foreign policy is generalizing about nations that are even more diversethan one's own with differences going back much longer and carved much deeper.

Yeah, I guess all those millions of Iraqis who risked execution to go vote for democracy just did so for lack of anything better to do. :rolleyes:

Millions of Iraqis were never consulted before the invasion. Millions of Iraqis never voted for occupation. We weren't invited then, and we're not wanted now.

Millions of Iraqis want freedom. They were too terrorized under Saddam to even get a chance to vote for it. Evil muslim terrorists are trying to prevent democracy. The Iraqi people are finally coming to their senses and turning in the evil muslim terrorists. We'll finish the job there. Unless a democrat wins the election. :(

Iraqis got a taste of freedom. I bet if you had another election they would support our staying there and finishing the job instead of letting the demonic muslim terrorist take over.

They want jobs and a normal life.

Those greedy bastards...

Millions of Iraqis want freedom. They were too terrorized under Saddam to even get a chance to vote for it. Evil muslim terrorists are trying to prevent democracy. The Iraqi people are finally coming to their senses and turning in the evil muslim terrorists. We'll finish the job there. Unless a democrat wins the election. :(

Iraqis got a taste of freedom. I bet if you had another election they would support our staying there and finishing the job instead of letting the demonic muslim terrorist take over.

Yes, They wanted freedom. and what did they get ?

A government that is ineffective in preventing militias from taking over, a government that is dominated by one sect only. Still having rolling blackouts from the lack of power. People and children that die every day thanks to DU(depleted Uranium rounds) left over from the initial invasion, and the 10 years of bombing from the last war.

A government and a occupying Authority, that forces the privatisation of Iraq's national industries. Which means that they do not have to hire any Iraqis, with a country that is going to get 50 % higher unemployment. Security Contractors who randomly shoot their way through traffic, alienating the local populace and who do not apply to normal ROE.

This is not freedom. Its oppression,exploitation, anything but freedom.

Feb 1, 2008

Well, my friend got sent to Iraq after joining the army back in April. Basic training was hard, partly due to a bad injury which he didn't report because he didn't want to do it all over again, partly due to him being a vegan. They finally got him on peanut butter and jelly.

I haven't heard too much about what he's doing there yet, except that Iraqis are selling them bootleg DVDs, entire seasons of shows for as little as $ 2.00.

Spider, I recommend looking for alternate sources on the web. Such as Dahr Jamail's blog (http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/), and other Iraqi blogs.

Spider, I recommend looking for alternate sources on the web. Such as Dahr Jamail's blog (http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/), and other Iraqi blogs.

Here is another one

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

But I have to warn you, parts of it are really difficult to read. :bawl:

Here is another one

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

But I have to warn you, parts of it are really difficult to read. :bawl:

Thanks. Sounds interesting.

April 3, 2008

Well, after waiting for 2 months, it seems his unit is heading out of the base, from "temp duty" to replacing a unit stationed in one of Saddam's bombed out palaces. He was getting food from local vendors, but they started poisoning it.

Yea, he didn't pay attention to the safety briefing 'DO NOT BUY FOOD OR ELEcTRONICS FROM LOCALS"
i had that one a while back ago

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

But I have to warn you, parts of it are really difficult to read

I haven't been able to find anything by her since she got into Syria. Anybody heard anything ?

Yea, he didn't pay attention to the safety briefing 'DO NOT BUY FOOD OR ELEcTRONICS FROM LOCALS"
i had that one a while back ago
Pogues just be jealous I got my VCD of Vantage Point already, yo.

She does not blog regularly. :)

Pogues just be jealous I got my VCD of Vantage Point already, yo.

yo sargen i got dat new chip for my ps2 it plays all des games day sell...



just two weeks ago i saw someone get smoked for a few hours for buying that chip, because they could easily put ied's in your electronics... all i have is a laptop i brought with me, and we bought the internet here. what a war

Pogues just be jealous I got my VCD of Vantage Point already, yo.

VCD?

So, he's in the green zone, foward operating base Prosperity.

She does not blog regularly. Been a longer while than average, though.

yo sargen i got dat new chip for my ps2 it plays all des games day sell...



just two weeks ago i saw someone get smoked for a few hours for buying that chip, because they could easily put ied's in your electronics... all i have is a laptop i brought with me, and we bought the internet here. what a war
This wouldn't happen to be your cell phone would it?

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/8877/luckposterdt1.jpg

VCD?
Video CD. Ancient MPEG-1 compression allows you to fit a feature length film on a 650MB CD-ROM with asstastic quality somewhere around what VHS offers. It never took off in the US, but is popular pretty much everywhere else. The pirate movie market is awash in them. A buddy of mine I went through OCS with sent me a copy of Vantage Point last week that he bought over there. It was obviously filmed by some dude with a camcorder in a theater here in the US, made its way to Iraq on a CD, to be sold at a merchant's kiosk in a Baghdad strip mall. And the movie isn't even out of theaters here yet. Small world huh.

What are the ranks? He said PFD, is that right? I had to transcribe his address from a phone message.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/8877/luckposterdt1.jpg

Heh, wicked pic.

- N

This wouldn't happen to be your cell phone would it?



actually, i haven't seen one of them yet... but hey, it's hard finding nokia now a days.

i wonder if that thing works...

What are the ranks? He said PFD, is that right? I had to transcribe his address from a phone message.
PFC (private 1st class) is an E-3 paygrade in the Army (E-2 in the USMC).

June 30, 2008

Just got a call from my friend for the first time since basic. He's doing fine but it's 120 degrees in Iraq sometimes. He hasn't been in any combat, just patrolling around and having guard duty. The most annoying thing is the kids that beg for candy. He never thought he could get mad at children, but they piss him off, they do it every time and they don't give up. He's taking college courses through the mail or internet, watching lots of DVDs, and reading alot. He used up all the vegan food I sent, so I'm sending him some more. Turns out it wasn't that hard to eat healthy, the store on base in the states sold all kinds of natural stuff.

I don't suppose it's ever occured to anyone that the only people who will take the time to "blog" about life in Iraq are those who want to do little more than speak negatively about it.

I suppose it never occured to you that what is happening throughout the occupation of Iraq is a negative experience: Not fulfilling; not gratifying; not securing a new stable, oil-rich, and pro-USAmerican Arab ally; not inspiring other Mideast nations toward pro-Western democracy; not elevating the influence of Arab and Muslim moderates. Loyal USAmericans should speak out negatively in describing this campaign that has always been and remains wholly counterproductive to USAmerican interests. Defending the official line as a journalist or blogger is serving the same virus that corrupted and wrecked other nations with blind nationalism.

Spidergoat: Any updates?

2 posts ago. From that one soldier's point of view, it's rather boring. It's a steady income and means to get schooling by correspondence course. He goes on patrol and sometimes people try to kill you by IED, but that hasn't happened to him.

I should add, he wasn't exactly able to speak freely, but he didn't sound too distressed. He will be on leave in a couple months.

The most annoying thing is the kids that beg for candy. He never thought he could get mad at children, but they piss him off, they do it every time and they don't give up.
The open-top Humvee is the ice cream truck of OIF.

Has he told you where he's deployed to? He should be able to tell you without breaking OPSEC. Only reason I ask is because the summer months are awful in the slums where most of the patrol routes are. The amount of raw sewage that runs through the streets is obscene. Kids play in it. Feral animals eat it. If there is one smell I'll never forget it is the stench of Sadr City in the summer.

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/8131/sadrcity1tm3.jpg

Baghdad, the Green Zone, he probably patrols Sadr City.

I suppose it never occured to you that what is happening throughout the occupation of Iraq is a negative experience: Not fulfilling; not gratifying; not securing a new stable, oil-rich, and pro-USAmerican Arab ally; not inspiring other Mideast nations toward pro-Western democracy; not elevating the influence of Arab and Muslim moderates. Loyal USAmericans should speak out negatively in describing this campaign that has always been and remains wholly counterproductive to USAmerican interests. Defending the official line as a journalist or blogger is serving the same virus that corrupted and wrecked other nations with blind nationalism.

Spidergoat: Any updates?

Did it make you feel better to write that?

2$ of entire season? I get it free. =p
That was what I was thinking. I just watched Wanted last night on my laptop.

He's not that computer-savvy. He can watch DVDs on a portable DVD player, but they only have one computer to share.

click and watch is about as easy as one can get. The site is legal. ovguide

He likes to be alone for a movie. They all have to share a computer, so they can't hog it for hours.

countezero: "...the only people who will take the time to "blog" about life in Iraq are those who want to do little more than speak negatively about it."

What is happening throughout the occupation of Iraq is a negative experience.

"Did it make you feel better to write that?"

No. I'd discuss a completely different subject for something positive. Do you still contend that the occupation of Iraq is an inspiration?

I'm sorry, did I say somewhere that it is an inspiration?

An inspiration; a cause for positive reflection; a promising enterprise. You have consistently alluded to a notion that the occupation of Iraq has a brighter side than what I and most other people concerned with Iraq are seeing, but you also consistently avoid getting into specifics.

I'm inviting you to be direct- use your own words, thoughts, and references in providing the antithesis to the prevalent observation- that US nation-building in Iraq is by its own flawed, failing nature a negative experience for the majority of people involved and affected.

An inspiration; a cause for positive reflection; a promising enterprise. You have consistently alluded to a notion that the occupation of Iraq has a brighter side than what I and most other people concerned with Iraq are seeing, but you also consistently avoid getting into specifics.

No, asking you to acknowledge reality and not see something other than the absolute horror in everything is slightly different than arguing for a "brighter" side.

And I think my point about the bloggers stands. Sure there is a lot of miserable shit happening in Iraq, but reading blogs about all the miserable shit is hardly an accurate picture of reality there, because, as I said, the odds of someone, perhaps a Kurd, starting a blog about the positives or the things that have improved, is very small.

countezero: "And I think my point about the bloggers stands."

Not without some corroboration. I've offered that a negative situation brings overwhelmingly negative news. You're suggesting that negative bloggers and reporters are the source of a negativity that is not based in reality.

"the odds of someone, perhaps a Kurd, starting a blog about the positives or the things that have improved, is very small."

We can agree on the effect, but not the cause: You say it's about perception, and I say it's about reality. I'm interested in exploring blogs from Kurdistan (http://www.bloglines.com/public/kurdistanblogcount) or Iraq (http://electroniciraq.net/news/war-every-day-blog/index.shtml) with you here, with special attention to the most optimistic ones. Dig right in. I'm open to some good news, if it's based in reality.

Obviously Kurds have been asserting their autonomy, which is not a healthy symptom for the Iraq that once was. But Kurdistan is no picnic. Kurds are suffering under rampant corruption and poverty, and remain under threat from all sides.

The dearth of happy blogs would seem to reflect an unhappy place, but you suggest that things are instead looking up, but we can't see it (and need not bother with corroboration) because only cynics are getting their views out. Is this really your idea of making a point stand up?

July 3, 2008

The latest news is that he feels discriminated against for his diet. He doesn't eat meat or use any animal products, and he has to go outside to cook his own meals, from food he buys himself. He's made some complaints through the proper channels...

He might consider having someone register his requests at AnySoldier (http://anysoldier.com/ContactApplication.cfm)

I'm able to send him anything he wants, but thanks.

It would be interesting if you would relay his impressions of our mission in Iraq: What the larger mission is, and how it's going.

What is the experience like when he goes shopping? Can he venture outside the Green Zone on personal business?

He would say the country is pretty fucked. The children run around begging, and are poor. He doesn't shop locally except on base, and through the internet. He never goes out alone. Early on, he would buy falafels, but they put a stop to that. I've been sending him boxes of food from my local supermarket and he reimburses me. He has bought alot of DVDs from Iraqis close to the base, pirated copies very cheap, also stuff from from Amazon.

I haven't heard alot about the mission, he is limited as to what he can say, and he's not too political, although he would be leaning left if he was. At home, he says Democrats and Republicans are just as corrupt.

Mmmm, falafel- I would get in big trouble if my command were to forbid me fresh falafels. May he come home safe and sound, and never be stop-lossed and sent back for more tours by McCain.

Not without some corroboration. I've offered that a negative situation brings overwhelmingly negative news. You're suggesting that negative bloggers and reporters are the source of a negativity that is not based in reality.

No, I'm not. Learn how to read. What I'm suggesting is that it's more likely negative news gets reported, a maxim that can applied to any situation anywhere in the world, and one I've seen first-hand from the news room.

We can agree on the effect, but not the cause: You say it's about perception, and I say it's about reality. I'm interested in exploring blogs from Kurdistan (http://www.bloglines.com/public/kurdistanblogcount) or Iraq (http://electroniciraq.net/news/war-every-day-blog/index.shtml) with you here, with special attention to the most optimistic ones. Dig right in. I'm open to some good news, if it's based in reality.

I posted a link to the Economist elsewhere on this site, in which all of the good going in Iraq is discussed at length, as well as the problems that still remain. You're free to delve into that reality all you like...

I posted a link to the Economist elsewhere on this site, in which all of the good going in Iraq is discussed at length, as well as the problems that still remain. You're free to delve into that reality all you like... If it's the article in the "benchmark" thread, describing it as discussing "all the good - - - at length" in Iraq is damning to the situation in Iraq if true.

The only good discussed is the recent drop in violence, which is problematic - and even that discussion is incomplete, omitting as it does US airstrikes etc.

One hilarious factoid, instead of R&R, they call it "freedom rest".

If it's the article in the "benchmark" thread, describing it as discussing "all the good - - - at length" in Iraq is damning to the situation in Iraq if true.

The only good discussed is the recent drop in violence, which is problematic - and even that discussion is incomplete, omitting as it does US airstrikes etc.

It talks of political and economic gains as well. And yes, the situation in Iraq is such that "damning" it applies. No one with any sense can deny that, but the point made in the article, which I am reiterating here and elsewhere, is that for about 12 to 15 months things have been getting better. That is, less "damning" than before. No one with any sense can deny that, either.

It talks of political and economic gains as well. It asserts opportunities for such gains as a consequence of the drop in violence. And it does not discuss them "at lengh" .

The only established gain that it discusses is the drop in violence itself, considered in its various aspects - the Sadrists are not fighting Maliki's forces, the Sunni have quit fighting the Americans, etc.

Those who observe Iraqi pauses in fighting (while competing militias marshal their assets, and foreign troops and alignments ebb and flow) and proclaim it a sign of pacification need to study the Lebanese civil war.

Why? The two situations are totally different.

Please contrast and explain.