NationStates Jolt Archive

How about good Iraq war news from a liberal?
http://www.cartoonbank.com/newyorker/slideshows/060410onco_packer.html#
There is no link to the article but if you click the slideshow, it will show photographs and an interview with the reporter of the piece.

And this from the Washington Post:
"The regiment's campaign began in Colorado in June 2004, when Col. H. R. McMaster took command and began to train the unit to return to Iraq. As he described it, his approach was like that of a football coach who knows he has a group of able and dedicated athletes, but needs to retrain them to play soccer.

Understanding that the key to counterinsurgency is focusing on the people, not the enemy, he said he changed the standing orders of the regiment to state that in the future all soldiers would "treat detainees professionally." During the unit's previous tour, a detainee was beaten to death during questioning and a unit commander carried a baseball bat that he called his "Iraqi beater."

"Every time you treat an Iraqi disrespectfully, you are working for the enemy," McMaster said he told every soldier in his command. He ordered his soldiers to stop using the term hajji as a slang term for all Iraqis, because he saw it as inaccurate and disrespectful. (It actually means someone who has made the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.)"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502586.html

I haven't read all of the post article, I'm still going through the article which is in the New Yorker.

During the unit's previous tour, a detainee was beaten to death during questioning and a unit commander carried a baseball bat that he called his "Iraqi beater."
...

And the war crimes investigation and subsequent lock-up is where?

The IEDs are working. Ok fine bad joke. Some stuff is working I know it is (though I haven't heard what. If nothing was working they would have revolted) and today I'm in a "we have to stay mood." Last week I thought we shoul leave and the hell with the Iraqis. I hope everyone knows that if we leave hundreds of thousands of Iraqis will die in the chaos that follows.

I hope everyone knows that if we leave hundreds of thousands of Iraqis will die in the chaos that follows.
What difference does it make? A hundred thousand are dead already.

...

And the war crimes investigation and subsequent lock-up is where?
HA HA HA... that was a good joke.

HA HA HA... that was a good joke.
One can hope, can't one?

By the way, does anyone know what happened to those British soldiers who beat up the kids in Basra (I had a thread about it a while back)?

By the way, does anyone know what happened to those British soldiers who beat up the kids in Basra (I had a thread about it a while back)?
As I recall there were 3 or 4 arrests, then nothing. I expect they will have been released pending an investigation, which will be closed around 2008 for lack of conclusive evidence. (It's been done before).

Seriously... for all those who were saying there is no good news coming out of Iraq, here's the good news and no one wants to talk about it.

Seriously... for all those who were saying there is no good news coming out of Iraq, here's the good news and no one wants to talk about it.
The point is that all the "good news" are things like these...tiny personal achievements (in this case more like "Yay, we're not beating up random people anymore - Good News!").

On the whole, the thing is still a disaster. Electricty, Water and so on is still nowhere near the levels it was under Saddam. Security is still non-existant in key areas. The political process is a token and even that doesn't move forward. And thousands of Sunnis and Shi'ites have left their homes as the country starts to divide itself along religious and ethnic lines.

It's of little consequence that a new person has taken over command of some regiment in Iraq. But it's exactly that sort of thing that some people would prefer to hear, and yell all sorts of expletives when the "liberal media" doesn't own up.

The point is that all the "good news" are things like these...tiny personal achievements (in this case more like "Yay, we're not beating up random people anymore - Good News!").

On the whole, the thing is still a disaster. Electricty, Water and so on is still nowhere near the levels it was under Saddam. Security is still non-existant in key areas. The political process is a token and even that doesn't move forward. And thousands of Sunnis and Shi'ites have left their homes as the country starts to divide itself along religious and ethnic lines.

It's of little consequence that a new person has taken over command of some regiment in Iraq. But it's exactly that sort of thing that some people would prefer to hear, and yell all sorts of expletives when the "liberal media" doesn't own up.
Well... yeah...


Gee, thanks...