Category: War

Another update from my friend Paul, working as a journalist in Baghdad, this time on an unfortunate collision between the Sci-Fi Channel and reality: —————– Today two suicide bombers walked into a police commando recruitment center and blew themselves up, killing 35 recruiting hopefuls. The night before I watched a TV show where a young… Continue reading Baghdad Update: Too Much TV

Here’s another email from my friend Paul, who’s working as a journalist covering Iraq’s descent into civil war. In this message, he describes the hard life of a photographer in Iraq, and reports a downright Rumsefeldian analogy: “We had our militia phase, maybe the rest of the Iraq will get over its own.” It’s a… Continue reading Baghdad Update: Just a Phase

For those who are new to the blog (which is a lot of people…), a good friend of mine (best man at my wedding) is a journalist based in Cairo, who does regular shifts as a wire service stringer in Baghdad. He sends occasional email updates about what’s going on over there, and I repost… Continue reading Baghdad Update: Media Culpa

John Scalzi saves me some typing: I’m proud to be an American, but I’m tired of being ashamed of my government. I’m tired of having to count the seconds until this bilious waste of a president is shoved out the door in January of 2009. I’m tired of hoping that some members of the president’s… Continue reading The Torture Bill

Since everybody else left of Limbaugh is linking it, I might as well throw in a pointer to the Fox interview with Bill Clinton, where he lights into Chris Wallace for asking him about Osama bin Laden: CLINTON: What did I do? What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I… Continue reading What Might’ve Been

Senior Middle East Correspondant Paul Schemm checks in with another email update from Baghdad, this time describing a visit to a tank graveyard. ———————– It was a graveyard. That was the only way to describe it. The place where old war machines came to die. Row upon row of massive sand-colored metal tanks, their huge… Continue reading Baghdad Update: Rust and Paint

Via Making Light, Aasif Mandvi on The Daily Show delivers a blistering yet deadpan assessment of American Middle East policy to date. I deeply resent living in a world where the only worthwhile political commentary comes from a comedy show.

Another update from Official Middle East Correspondant Paul Schemm, working as a journalist in Baghdad. These arrive at irregular intervals, but I figure they’re worth reposting when I get them, in case people want a view-from-the-ground perspective. One officer described it to me as the “new face of violence in Baghdad is senseless indirect fire.”… Continue reading Baghdad Update: There Is No Normal