My guess is that they are laying low until Congress does something really stupid, like vote on a amendment that would limit the response by US troops in this area. When they are sure that US troops won’t be allowed to intervene, they’ll gleefully go back to killing each other.

On a related subject. Tonight I saw PBS’s The Marines on my local TV station. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend that you do.
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One scene showed the mock Iraqi village at 29 Palms that they use for training units about to deploy to Iraq. They role play using Arabic speaking “Iraqi’s” in order to train the troops. I’ve read that the Army does something similar.

It strikes me that the Sgt’s description of quiet is probably outside of their training, and clearly outside his experience. While welcome, the troops must be getting edgy.

After watching this fine documentary about the Marines, I caught the last few minutes of our local news sportscast. Before switching channels. One second, I was watching images of young men getting their Eagle, Globe and Anchor. The next moment was I watching a bunch of professional athletes whining about not getting more millions.

I came away convinced that professional athletes are spoiled, overpaid, undisciplined, poseurs, who are for some reason that I simply cannot understand, are held out to be heroes and roll models, while America’s finest men and women work their hearts out for a bit of brass to wear on their uniforms.

God bless the soldiers of Charlie Company, 2-12 Cavalry, America’s real heroes. Keep you heads down and come home safe.

War-torn Baghdad neighborhood is quiet — too quiet

Do you mean, it’s life goes on minus jihad instantaneously . . .or . . .

Too quiet, as in where did everybody go?

Recall . . .• Iraq insurgents using chlorine gas in ‘dirty’ attacks

“This is a great opportunity to drive a wedge between the militia and the general population.”

Go, boys, GO!

- The Cat

My own personal theory is that they realized that all the explosions they were causing were contributing to global warming so they, in keeping with the Kyoto protocals, simply withdrew from the battlefield unilaterally disregarding previous instructions from Mohammad to kill all the Jews, Christians, and Muslims from a different sect. (See, that year I spent in a Military Intelligence S-2 slot paid off!)

For some reason I have the nasty suspiscion they will cherry pick and only report the violence that does maximum damage to the Bush strategy.