Baghdad Report: Tomba kids
Bryan Preston
Our second patrol from FOB Justice took us to see the after effects of war and economic ruin. Iraq’s economy is booming, but unemployment remains a major problem, and a major wedge for the various insurgencies that plague the country.
The displaced Shia we meet on this drivealong have ended up in makeshift slums that have popped up all over Baghdad where the loss of jobs has driven people from their homes. Across the highway from this city of cinder blocks, called Skut, there are homes and shops and schools like any normal neighborhood, but on this side, the homes are made of whatever the refugees could cobble together. The one vendor shop looks like a squared off pile of garbage.
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Officially, these slums don’t exist. Unofficially, they’re a source of recruits for JAM and other militias. That’s one of several reasons they need to be cleaned up, and the best way to do that is for the Iraqi government to stop pretending that they don’t exist and for the adults here to find jobs. The first will help make the second possible. School for the kids can come once these places have security and aren’t breeding grounds for Moqtada al-Sadr to exploit. And once the rockpiles have been replaced by real homes.
Even though it could be argued that Iraqi’s economic collapse is an after effect of the ouster of Saddam and the subsequent collapse of basic law and order, the slum dwellers we talked to were pretty happy to see the Americans pull up. ...
Hot Air: Tomba Kids
Confederate Yankee
Bryan could have--and I'll argue he should have--named this post something else.
How about Why We Fight.
This is what I want you to think of when you hear Democrats in the House and Senate (along with the Republicans defectors) talking about defunding the troops and argue against the very surge of troops so many of them supported until Bush agreed with them.
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