Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.
TOP TOPICS
- Terrorists detonated a pair of car bombs in Baghdad on Sunday, wounding U.S. and Iraqi forces. Total casualties were not yet known.
- Chrenkoff's Good News From Iraq post, vol.11, is up. See also this related post on Post Totalitarian Stress Disorder. Chrenkoff, who lived in Poland under a communist government, is qualified to comment from first hand experience.
- Colin Powell confirmed that the U.S. will move into parts of Iraq currently controlled by terrorists and insurgents to attempt to clean them up prior to the January elections. If nothing else, this should guarantee that they're ready for us.
Other Topics Today Include: the new focus of terrorist operations; new technology heads to Iraq; al-Sistani threatens January elections; will January elections be nationwide; ROKs hit Iraq; Pakistan takes a stand against Iraq war; the Screaming Eagles prepare to return to Iraq.
REPORTS FROM THE FIELD
- A large portion of the terrorist operations being conducted in Iraq today is not aimed at multinational forces troops. It is designed to keep the streets of Iraq from becoming safe. The evidence of this seems to be the large number of attacks against Iraqi police stations and training centers.
- A new sheriff may be deploying to Iraq. The Sheriff "active denial system" that is. It uses a non-lethal energy beam to "zap" its targets. The deployment of the sheriff would serve as a test for this new crowd control technology.
- The Carnival of the Liberated features a weekly round-up of Iraq's growing blogosphere.
IRAQI POLITICS
- Captain Ed reports Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the most powerful moderating force in a passionate political system, is concerned the upcoming national elections might be delayed. He has threatened to withdraw his support for the elections if Shi'ites do not have a larger representation in the political process.
- Donald Rumsfeld has opened quite a can of worms with his comments regarding the potential that the January elections might not be nationwide.
- Brad DeLong explains why the people of Fallujah "have, I believe, a much larger stake in figuring out how to get Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and company out of Fallujah than the U.S. Marines do."
THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE
- South Korea has completed its deployment of 2800 troops to the Irbil region. This contingent will be conducting rebuilding operations and carries 295 medics. 800 more South Korean soldiers will be deployed to the area after the engineer units have levelled the ground for construction. Also attached to this unit are elite forces and arabic translators.
- Pervez Musharraf is speaking out against the war in Iraq, marking a not-insignificant foreign policy problem for the Bush administration.
- British hostage Kenneth Bigley's brother claims that Bigley is still alive. While it would be pleasant to believe that is true, it seems highly unlikely given past experience.
ETCETERA
- 2100 101st Airborne Division (Screamin' Eagles) will return to Iraq as a part of the Pentagon's troop rotation plan. The units currently on orders are listed in the link above.
- The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!
- Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!
Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.
I'm wondering why there hasn't been any effort to register cars, with RFID or other Lojack GPS devices, to track ownership and movement more closely. This is quite big brother like, but it might well reduce the car bombings a lot.