Iraqi army proving stubborn in the north

You gotta love it when the criteria for stubbornness rests on whether or not you actually put up a fight. Raise the bar a bit guys!

Six weeks ago, a top Kurdish rebel commander boasted that the roar of just one American warplane would be enough to make the Iraqi army on the hill come stumbling down with their hands in the air.

But that hasn’t happened, despite surprise airstrikes on the frontline near Chamchamal and a massive 24-hour blitz of the northern oil capital of Kirkuk, just over the ridge and 40km away from this Kurdish-held town.

Twenty-four hours and they haven’t surrendered yet?! What’s wrong with these people?! What’s wrong with our guys?! OH NO! Maybe we should pack up and go home! Oh the bittersweet irony!

Northern Iraq folks. No tanks, no field artillery, just remote air support. We have three corps outside of Baghdad, complete control of Umm Qasar, and we are reporting on how some guys holed up in a mountain in Northern Iraq haven’t given up after twenty-four hours?

O’Reilly et al. were commenting earlier last night on how we tend to focus on the negative no matter how many positives we get. My dad used to tell me that one “awwshit” takes away twenty “attaboys”. Same for war coverage, and believe it or not folks, war is a terrible thing.

I just can’t help but think that with all of this coverage concerining Northern Iraq, Nassyria, Umm Qasar, and Basra being viewed as setbacks, its no wonder that at one moment we think we are stalled on the Euphrates, but two hours later Hannibal is knocking on the gates of Baghdad.