When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Hunter S. Thompson

11 January 2007

Back in Baghdad

No, I'm not talking about the President's cunning plan to win the war; blogger Michael Yon is back in Baghdad, riding with the troops and reporting from a perspective that you're not going to find in Time, Newsweek, or the major newspapers, because their reporters never leave the Green Zone.
Excerpts from Part 2:

Apparently many of the EFPs ["explosively formed projectiles," or shaped-charge explosives - bc] are being factory-made in Iran, and shipped to Iraq. During 2005, I asked many American and Iraqi commanders if they were capturing Iranians. They were capturing foreigners, surely, but what about Iranians? Not a single commander, Iraqi or American, told me that his people were catching Iranians. Times have changed. Today, American commanders talk about capturing Iranians. Not rumored Iranians, but real ones; some of whom are believed to be involved in importing EFP technology into Iraq. To be sure, EFPs are deadly, but from a broader military perspective, they are merely a nuisance.

[...]

This does not look like a big or intense war to people at home. It doesn’t look like that because we have so few troops actually in combat. But for those who are truly fighting, this is a brutal death match where every mistake can get them killed, or make worldwide headlines. Yet when the enemy drills out eyes or tortures people with acid, it never resonates.

There is an explanation for why when some of these young soldiers and Marines go home and people are trying to talk with them they might be caught silently staring out a window. Many people back home seem to think they have an idea what is happening here, but most do not. And nobody is here to tell the story of our people in this war.


Whatever you may think of the War in Iraq, I guarantee that you will learn something by reading Michael Yon.

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