Center for a New American Security

This priceless email report is from Beirut-based Mitch Prothero, of The National:

The New York Times profiles one of the great counterinsurgents of the contemporary era ... and a great friend and mentor to this blogger.

RARELY does the hulking commander of American forces in Iraq meet with Iraqis or go to a news conference without a slight, dark-haired woman standing just a little to one side — as if to give him space, but almost always in his line of sight and within earshot.

 

Is this story for real?! I never thought Iraqi prisoners could be so freaking awesome. These guys should all be pardoned:

BAGHDAD - It seems that the Brett Favre-Green Bay Packers saga is such a worldwide phenomenon that it's being used by detainees in American military camps.

 

According to a military official, detainees at a Wisconsin National Guard camp in Iraq are using Brett Favre as a manner of getting at the guard troops there.

 

I often do not agree with my friend Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, but he is certainly one of the more talented journalists I know and surely one of the bravest as well. I was having dinner at his house in Beirut one evening about a year ago, and as the night wore on and more wine was imbibed, a journalist visiting from London started in on me for having served as a solider in Iraq. Ghaith, who was himself severely wounded in a U.S.

Josh Foust passed along this report arguing that "the surge dovetailed a series of converging dynamics on the ground, facilitating more so than engendering a cessation of hostilities." I think this both correct and relatively uncontroversial. I also think the key takeaway from this report -- the we should be very wary of thinking we need only replicate the mechanics of the Surge to be successful in Afghanistan is also correct ...

Kim Kagan, author of this book on the Surge, has a new documentary worth watching because it features testimony from a lot of the commanders w

Either this guy is an idiot or, more likely, he or one of his relatives has made a lot of money from kick-backs on the $85 million the Iraqi government paid for this electronic snake oil:

“I don’t care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them,” General Jabiri said. “I know more about this issue than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world.” [emphasis added]

Well, this looks ... awful.

Abu Muqawama's Iraq correspondent, Devil Dawg, weighs in on our host nation partners in Iraq:

In Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith is the principled former deputy to Kai Eide who spoke out on Afghan corruption. In Iraq ... well, it's a little more complicated. Reidar Visser reports.