[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Just to remind anyone who hasn't looked at it in a while or who has never seen it: The blog from Baghdad. It's been infrequent lately, but really interesting.

I really enjoy it. The most interesting thing to me is the understandable dichotomy in what he says between his frustration in the way things are/aren't being done by the Americans and the fact that Saddam's regime is gone.

I liked one quote of his:

It is difficult, a two sided coin. On one side they are the US Army, invader/liberator – choose what you like, big guns, strange sounds coming out of their mouths. The other side has a person on it that in many cases is younger than I am in a country he wouldn’t put on his choice of destinations. But he has this uniform on, the big gun and those darkdark sunglasses which make it impossible to see his eyes. Difficult.

That puts a spin on things that is sometimes easy to forget. All of the people involved are just that, people. People who are going through a broad range of emotions. Iraqi civilians who are happy that Saddam is gone, but want their old lives back. American soldiers who are glad that they succeeded in their mission, but who really want to go home, tired of being away from friends and family for so long. Lots of other people with different agendas all trying to put their mark on the future, for good or ill, or just trying to survive. It is going to be a long time before we really begin to understand the ramifications of what has happened over the Last few months.