The Rejected

From Paul McLeary writing for the Columbia Journalism Review.

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. For many of the journalists who have covered it, it has been the story of their lifetime, but we’ve nevertheless seen coverage of the war slip off the front pages over the last few months. While there are still plenty of reporters risking their lives doing great work in Iraq, much of the political, social, and economic complexity of today’s war seems to be getting lost in the election-year crush, even as the war continues to be a major issue in the campaign. This series is CJR’s attempt to add a little bit of context to the whole, while digging into stories that don’t always make it into our morning newspapers.

Mr. McLeary writes of his embed with Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 21st Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, part of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. In this article, he writes of Captain Glenn Helberg'as meeting with sheik Munder. During the meeating, the power went out. Mr. McLeary explains.

Power failures are so common that the sheik just kept talking; mostly about the dark days just a few months ago when al Qaeda ran the area, of the family members killed, how his sons had to drop out of school. He joked that he was thinking of renaming his tribe “The Rejected,” since that’s what al Qaeda used to call Shia.

This article is very interesting as it writes about the "strategic corporal", the "three-block war", and cultivating relationships with Iraqis which are all tenets of counterinsrugency doctrine. It is a first in a series of planned articles about how all these tenets are affecting the war in Iraq, where we are in our counterinsurgency fight, and where we and the Iraqi government have to go.

For a full read, click here.