{"id":841,"date":"2004-04-07T11:12:25","date_gmt":"2004-04-07T15:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/04\/on_the_ground\/"},"modified":"2004-04-07T11:12:25","modified_gmt":"2004-04-07T15:12:25","slug":"on_the_ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/04\/on_the_ground\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

The blogger of Baghdad Burning offers a report on the conflict Iraq<\/a>. Highlights:<\/p>\n

This [fighting in Fallujah] is supposed to be ‘retaliation’ for what happened last week with the American contractors- if they were indeed contractors. Whoever they were, it was gruesome and wrong. . . I feel for their families. Was I surprised? Hardly. This is an occupation and for those of you na\ufffdve enough to actually believe Chalabi and the Bush administration when they said the troops were going to be ‘greeted with flowers and candy’ then I can only wish that God will, in the future, grant you wisdom.
\nThis is crazy. This is supposed to be punishment for violence but it’s only going to result in more bloodshed on both sides\ufffd people are outraged everywhere- Sunnis and Shi’a alike. This constant bombing is only going to make things worse for everyone. Why do Americans think that people in Baghdad or the south or north aren\ufffdt going care what happens in Falloojeh or Ramadi or Nassriyah or Najaf? Would Americans in New York disregard bombing and killing in California?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And<\/p>\n

Then Bremer makes an appearance on tv and says that armed militias will *not* be a part of the New Iraq\ufffd where has that declaration been the last 12 months while Badir’s Brigade has been wreaking havoc all over the country? Why not just solve the problem of Al-Sadr’s armed militia by having them join the police force and army, like the Bayshmarga and Badir’s Brigade?! Al-Sadr’s militia is old news. No one was bothering them while they were terrorizing civilians in the south. They wore badges, carried Klashnikovs and roamed the streets freely\ufffd now that they’ve become a threat to the ‘Coalition’, they suddenly become ‘terrorists’ and ‘agitators’.
\n. . .
\nThe only people still raving about ‘liberation’ are the Iraqis affiliated with the Governing Council and the Puppets, and even they are getting impatient with the mess.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The blogger of Baghdad Burning offers a report on the conflict Iraq. Highlights: This [fighting in Fallujah] is supposed to be ‘retaliation’ for what happened last week with the American contractors- if they were indeed contractors. Whoever they were, it was gruesome and wrong. . . I feel for their families. Was I surprised? Hardly. […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}