Ian Welsh at Fire Dog Lake does a nice job explaining why things went to hell after the Iraqi army stopped fighting in the post: The Rules of Power.

This is very old knowledge and applies not simply to wars, but to policing everywhere. If you think about it, this is also the reason that schools should be aggressively stopping bullying, and why it is so hard to uproot gangs.

The minute that the US forces allowed looting to continue, they lost control. It is a lot easier to maintain control than to regain it.

Steve Bates at Yellow Doggerel Democrat, in comments, wondered if I had seen Glenn Greenwald‘s e-mail exchange with Colonel Steven Boylan, the head of MNF-I agitprop and personal spinmeister for General David Patraeus.

I’d already read Noah Shachtman’s post, Petraeus Throws Out the Book, Launches Airstrikes (Updated), in which he notes: “Colonel Steven Boylan, Petraeus’ public affairs officer, disagrees with just about every letter and punctuation mark in this post.”

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that they didn’t have an exit plan, and went in anyway. This is a rookie mistake. Every flag officer who went along with this is an amateur not worthy of any respect for military ability. They were Judas goats leading their troops to disaster.

The BBC is running a two part television show: No plan, no peace in Iraq

“Iraq will be better,” declared Tony Blair five days after the fall of Saddam.

“Better for the region, better for the world, better, above all, for the Iraqi people.”

That contrasts starkly with the 100,000 or so civilians dead, four million refuges inside and outside Iraq, 4,141 coalition solders who have died and the cost to the UK of well in excess of £5bn.

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Position: 17.1 N 72.1 W. [10PM CDT Update]
Movement: North-Northwest [330°] near 5 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 60 mph.
Wind Gusts: 70 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 115 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 996 mb.

TS Noel [pronounced like ‘Nole] is about 105 miles South of the Port au Prince, Haiti and about 295 miles Southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba.

[More than a month to go in the season.]

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Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.