Peter Van Buren's Blog, page 269
April 9, 2011
Apres US, le Deluge?
While SecDef Gates tries to get into Iraq's undies, doing everything but outright begging the country's leaders to "ask" the US to permanently station troops in Iraq, other players in Iraq's ongoing musical theater seem to have other ideas. Iraqi funny man Moqtada al Sadr has threatened to revive his Mehdi Army and relaunch armed [...]
April 8, 2011
Libya PRT?
Hey, to all my old Iraq PRT teammates, stay in touch, we may be getting the band back together again! Here's the exchange yesterday between Senator Jim Webb and AFRICOM head General Carter Hand: SEN. WEBB: I would assume that planners are considering the prospect that there might be an international force on the ground [...]
Book Review: Fiasco by Tom Ricks
Author Tom Ricks is a kind of patron saint of intelligent writing about the Iraq conflicts, first as a reporter for the Washington Post and now as a blogger and author for Foreign Policy. Ricks is known for his connections within the military, who, knowing he will handle information intelligently and better yet, understand its [...]
April 7, 2011
Coitus Diplomaticus
Salon and others report that the US would like to keep troops in Iraq past the announced "total" withdrawal planned for December 31, 2011. SecDef Gates is now in Iraq on what he calls his final visit. Gates cautioned the Iraqis that they need to decide very soon whether to invite the US troops to stay [...]
Blood for Services
There are a lot of good reasons to read the MEMRI blog, but one of the best is that they often feature political cartoons from Middle Eastern newspapers, such as the one on the left here. The loose translation is "Citizen: 'It's April Fools Day and I haven't heard a single lie from you.' Iraqi [...]
April 6, 2011
Lunch with a Sheik
On the theme of food, following my alleged meal with Bradley Manning, a few good words on Iraqi vittles. My thoughts on Army food are in the book, where DFACs, Buffalo shrimp, T-rats and MREs get a whole tasty chapter. The only time we ate Iraqi food was when invited to a meal by one [...]
Dinner with Bradley Manning
I probably had dinner with Bradley Manning. Manning, the soldier who allegedly handed over massive amounts of classified material to Wikileaks, was stationed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Hammer at the same time I was. The office where he worked was right down the hall from mine and though I never knowingly met him, it is [...]
April 5, 2011
What is a PRT?
My year in Iraq, and our efforts to reach the hearts and minds of Iraqis, was focused on the work of the PRTs, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Some stood alone, with their own security and administrative staff, some were embedded and dependent on the military (ePRT). Here's what Embassy Baghdad has to say about what [...]
Welcome!
I'll be updating this blog regularly in support of my book, We Meant Well. The book is due out in late September, but is available for pre-order now at all the stores listed to the right. I've read it; it is pretty good and I think you'll like it. This blog will talk about the [...]
