Internally displaced people start returning home

via Reuters

According to Iraq's Ministry of Displacement and Migration, 170,000 people were displaced in the months following the Samarra incident. However, like the Wissam family, the ministry said on Sunday that some 40,000 Iraqis have returned in the past month because security is improving....However, analysts believe that the security situation has not really improved.

It's so hard to know which news to trust...analysts that say Baghdad is getting worse, or 40,000 people who thinks it's gotten good enough to move back there.

Honor First and Last

Neptunus Lex tells a great story, a humbling story from training days, that’s a must read.

Not to spoil a good story, but the moral’s right here:

Never come back without your honor, he said.

U.S. built subs for Taiwan?

"Experts" -as is their wont- are concerned about this:

China would likely react with hostility to any attempt by the United States to build and sell eight submarines to Taiwan, The Day newspaper in Connecticut, reported.

Submarine experts said Monday that China would likely impose economic sanctions against the U.S, but this would not necessarily stop the Groton, Connecticut-based Electric Boat Co. from building them.

If there is money available and if the program is endorsed by the United States government, Electric Boat wants to design and build the ships for Taiwan," said John B. Padgett III, vice president of Electric Boat, the submarine-building division of General Dynamics.

I leave it to the Bubblehead Brotherhood to fill in details.

UPDATE: Some background info here.

Not clear on the concept

Saddam Hussein blew a gasket at his trial yesterday after listening to the testimony of an Iraqi Kurd who survived his Operation Anfal genocide:

Hussein and the six other defendants sat silently in the courtroom as other witnesses related the horrors of Operation Anfal, the 1987-88 campaign to suppress a Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq during which the prosecution claims about 180,000 Kurds died.

But when Hussein heard a lawyer describe Kurdish guerrillas, known as peshmergas, as freedom fighters, the ex-president bellowed: ``You are agents of Iran and Zionism. We will crush your heads.''

I'm not entirely certain that Mr. Hussein fully appreciates the gravity of his situation.

How very frustrating it must be for him, in the silence of his cell afterwards, to reflect that his head-crushing days are well and truly over.

Ah, well: sic transit gloria

The Cold Shoulder

This past Friday I went back to Walter Reed, hoping to get some more interviews with the Code Pink protesters. But Bruce Wolf, the Code Pink bouncer, was on to my game.

Bruce: Sir, please leave... I’m not trying to be fascist or something...

SMASH: No, hopefully not! Nobody wants that...

Bruce: But it’s making people feel uncomfortable... We’re not here to do interviews... What we’re thinking about, to be really honest, are the soldiers. You know, whether you believe us or not, that’s what we’re here for... when soldiers come out, we like to talk to them, because we know that they need to… I mean, it’s healthy for them. They can say whatever they want, but just to be able to speak their minds. We have no problem with that. We communicate, and they can tell us what’s going on. But, that’s 'cause we’re here for them.

So I leave the protesters alone.

About an hour later, two wounded soldiers from Walter Reed, P.D. and Mason, go down to talk to Code Pink. I catch them as they're headed back, and ask how they were received by the protesters.

Mason: They wouldn’t even talk to us! How are they supporting us, if they won’t even talk to us, or look us in the eye?

P.D.: The general attitude was, they were kind of pushing us out. Wouldn’t talk to us. Just blowing us off.

SMASH: Had you identified yourselves as soldiers from Walter Reed?

P.D.: Oh, yeah...

Mason: Oh, yes sir. We had told them all about our background. I served in Iraq. He served in Afghanistan and Iraq. We were patients at the hospital. That we were just curious... But that did not seem like a good answer to them.

P.D.: They were closed-minded. They have their beliefs, and they won’t even open their minds to what we believe.

SMASH: They weren’t interested in dialogue?

P.D.: Exactly.

Mason: The majority of ‘em, ninety-nine percent of ‘em, didn’t even look us in the eye. Wouldn’t even turn and acknowledge our presence.

P.D.: Yeah, they wouldn’t even turn around and look at us.

SMASH: Do you feel that they’re being sincere when they say they support the troops?

P.D.: I don’t feel they are.

Mason: One or two, maybe. But the majority, no. Not at all. I mean, if you really support the troops, as we said before, you’d turn around and talk to us. Acknowledge us. You know, all these people here (indicates the pro-troops rally), we walked out, and they said "thank you," you know, "how are you feeling?" Those guys (indicates Code Pink) say, "Don’t talk to them." That guy (indicates Bruce) literally came out and said, "Don’t talk to them."

Is this what Code Pink calls "supporting the troops?"

More, including photos and audio, here.