It is pretty common knowledge that the Kurdish areas of Iraq were and remain apart from Persian and/or Arab Iraq;
Kurds are neat people, willing and able to sacrifice and to fight back. Willing and able to meet with the press and to rebuild before others would consider attempting it.
But, entirely apart from Kurd/Turk/Iraqi issues, this is not Iraq.
Are there any parallel reports from the south?
Will the tour include the south?
(Sorry if this sounds negative: but we just dumped an election because of 'faulty intelligence' - or maybe 'failure to communicate').
PS: "faulty intelligence"; The Pubbies:
Assumed middle class hispanics would vote conservative
Assumed middle class Jews would vote conservative
Assumed middle class Blacks would vote conservative
Assumed that "war time" still had some meaning in a post Vietnam America
and,
Assumed that the utter lack of a message would doom any left wing effort at repeating its late sixties successes
[That, in turn] ignored the attraction that socialism holds for 'youth', especially educated youth...
Compassionate Conservatism then ignored its conservative base
Which allowed...
Some Republicans to stay home (I'd bet a SMALL percent)
some Republicans to cast protest votes for libertarians, democrats, or space aliens
And, finally; they
Ignored the border issues that might embarrass GWB and Senor Faux
Failed to admit that the cutting edge of Dem policy makers is and remains a socialist conspiracy
Failed to use even remotely similar tactics against a dirty fighter
and,
Allowed the dirty fighter/socialist/antiwar and anti-troops/democrat left to selectively arsenate otherwise viable conservative personalities....
We lost by being nice, by believing that the economy mattered to the way people vote when the key really is manufactured perception & entirely apart from technical reality,
And,
By trying to make nice with the "moderate" fringe of a socialist (Bolshevik) opposition.
I'm no longer in the mood for comforting answers and it has been 33 years since I assumed the other side was in any manner honorable.
Rant completed. I'll be nice now.
Pinging those who can talk to you about the history of this area, how the people define themselves, and what Saddam (remember him? He used to rule Iraq) did in this region.
Thanks for bumping the thread.
Thanks for the rant. We all expect the MSM not to cover this good story but the true disappointment is I haven't heard a single Repub talking about this either. They should be taking every chance they can to get this sort of story out to the public every single day.
They rather let the left and MSM define Iraq and the entire WOT for America.