Baghdad fashion statements

In one of Yon's recent dispatchs there's one paragraph that is perhaps the most telling I've read in the past year of reading Iraq news..

We also recently completed work on a soccer field that is used nightly by the young people here. Much to our surprise, on the opening night, each team had “1-4 CAV” printed on the back of their soccer jerseys. It is not uncommon for us to see guys with these jerseys on walking down the street. A second soccer field will open shortly.

• The insurgency has lost ALL influence in that neighborhood or the kids would dare not do it
• The kids parents are comfortable with the idea
• The Americans aren't considered the "occupier" anymore, they're like a favored sports team

This is as significant an event as when Yon noted over a year ago that the number of dimes being dropped had gone up like 10X and the number of tips being received forced a change in tactics to the "cascade" style raid to handle the volume. It was then that I knew the insurgency was broken.

posted by Purp at 01:46 AM

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