Dept. of Famous Victories
Dept. of Famous Victories - I ran out of Samarra puns months ago, so I’ll just note that the unraveling of our latest Samarra victory took even a little less time than I anticipated:
Samarra desertions show challenge of training Iraqi recruits
BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 300 Iraqi soldiers abandoned their 750-man unit after they were deployed to Samarra earlier this month as part of a U.S.-Iraqi operation to retake the militant-controlled city.
says Jim Michaels of USA Today. And Reuters reports that
SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - At least six civilians were killed and 11 U.S. soldiers wounded in clashes in Samarra Wednesday, a northern Iraqi town the U.S. military said it had pacified following an offensive earlier this month.
I can’t help but note that Reuters, perhaps skittish after all the second guessing about what terms they use to refer to various Iraqi insurgent factions, seems to have decided to avoid referring to them at all when grammatically possible. The article is full of US troops having “clashes.” Who with? They never say. This war truly is a transforming experience, even turning transitive verbs intransitive.
UPDATE: Damn. Looks like Flit beat me to this one. But I don’t make you wade through a bunch of stuff about the Canadian submarine fleet to get to the parts about us.
