Welcome to The Faulty Bagnose

Time for me to get back into the blogging business! I've decided to start a new one rather than continue the old one, for reasons not entirely clear even for me.

I could write a bunch of personal stuff, and will, but for my first post, I'd like to link to something that I would like to see widely read. It's a long message board post from a Marine officer who has done a couple of tours of duty in Iraq, on the history of Anbar province since the 2003 invasion. The piece, while candid about American mistakes, does not engage in finger-pointing, nor does it argue directly for any particular policy in the future; it simply tells what happened -- how the province went to hell and how it's crawled its way back. It is post number 14 in this thread:

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=736349#post736349

Written by DesertRat, a guy I've never met, but who seems to me to be a pretty shrewd and realistic observer. He explains the situation much better than any magazine piece or news story I've heard for some years.