Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.
TOP TOPICS
- Despite calls for a six month postponement, the January elections in Iraq will go on. Look for calls to postpone to grow louder as election day nears.
- The fighting in Fallujah is over for now. Take a good look at the men who fought there and what they saw in two separate accounts of 2-2 Infantry's battle for the city. (Hat tip: Unqualified Offerings.)
- M. Simon of Power and Control also points us to the letter up at 2Slick's Forum from a soldier who served in the Battle of Fallujah.
Other Topics Today Include: "Charlie's Angels" in Iraq; Al Qaeda in Iraq; thoughts on Iraq's elections; Japan considers leaving Iraq; oil-for-food update; war advice from the Left; being like James.
REPORTS FROM THE FIELD
- Al Qaeda in Iraq has taken responsibility for killing dozens of members of Iraq's security forces in Mosul, raising fears the insurgents are trying to reestablish themselves in a new city.
- M. Simon's Power and Control links to this post about "Charlie's Angels" in Iraq: Sgt. Angela Magnuson, Sgt. Kristen Pagel and Sgt. Jessica Fisher. I enjoyed the picture. I enjoyed the stories more. Great stuff.
- Hopefully it means nothing, but The Mesopotamian hasn't been updated since November 14, and Healing Iraq since November 20. Here's hoping they'll be posting again soon.
IRAQI POLITICS
- Omar at Iraq the Model has some thoughts on the pending elections and just what is riding on them.
- There are some policymakers hoping that the inclusion of Ayad Allawi in the new Iraqi government will help to co-opt Sunnis into supporting it. Iraq'd strongly disagrees.
THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE
- The Japanese government is considering pulling its troops out of Iraq in late 2005. It is to be hoped that Iraq will largely be able to care for itself by then, but that is likely a trifle ambitious.
- Wretchard has a good roundup of the current state of the oil-for-food scandal.
- Tom Hayden is advising the U.S. antiwar activists to help the U.S. lose the Iraq war. To which al Zarqawi can only say, faster, please. (Hat tip: Instapundit.
ETCETERA
- Want to be like Mike? We'd be better off if more people wanted to be like James. James Jordan, older brother of the famous basketball player, is delaying his retirement in order to go to Iraq with his battalion.
- Halliburton just can't seem to catch a break (although that may well be their own fault): now they can't account for a third or more of the government property they were paid to manage in Iraq. (Hat tip: The Agonist.
- The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!
- Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!
Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.
Andrew, it appears that your links are hosed. From the looks of it, I'm guessing you use MS Word or some other other program with "smart quotes" which create problems with the href attribute of the HTML link tag. (I'm guessing this since I ran into the same problem and my hosed links look exactly like yours).
Update style posts are problematic because they require substantial embedded markup, and yet they also require correct spelling (which for me is only achieved through electronic aid).
I have a set of macro's I wrote for MS Word which automate the HTML markup for links, quotes, and list bullets. If anyone is interested, holler.
Glad the links are fixed now. Personally, I turn Word's "smart quotes" off via the Autocorrect preferences - but many do not.
Lewy, I'd be interested in those Macros. In fact, we might make them available via Winds as a public service if that's OK with you.
Having been responsibe for government property in Liberia and Sierra Leone during part of the civil wars there I can sympathize with Halliburton.
Everything can be there but not show up correctly in the inventory. One big problem I had was inventory - where one person may record 10 end tables and another come alone and find 10 lamp tables. That shows an overage and an underage while 10 small tables that stand at the end of a couch are right where they should be.
People in the same culture often call things by different names - imagine how confusing it could be to people of other cultures.
I say lets give them a chance to sort it out.
Here's a link to the latest New York Times story that throws cold water on the Iraq project, along with a brief letter I received about the story. The writer asks good questions. Anyone interested in stepping back from the success in Falluja and the individual battles elsewhere and responding from the perspective of 10,000 feet, i.e., big picture? Even 5,000 feet will do.
Here's my correspondent's letter:
"Is it that this acccount misrepresents the situation? Or that we'd be better off with the problems attendant to Saddam Hussein's continuance in power?"
I can answer question number 2 in the negative, easily. But what about question 1?