Hm, CB at Fear and Loathing in Iraq is back with his first post after a mysterious absence - an entertaining account of just another evening on the watch in Mosul (NOT!). Not the usual action-packed stuff - perhaps he's been told to tone down the operational details...
Anyway, speaking of the amazing/inspiring/&c Iraqi soccer team (who are out of the running for the gold but could take a bronze by beating Italy Friday), I'm sure many of you that follow these things heard the negative comments made about Bush and the war by a few Iraqi players this past week (& thanks for making sure I saw it, TDB!), and while we're on the subject it's worth mentioning, as Iraqi soccerfan Nabil notes, that the two players quoted (neither of which are starters or star players, who would've been quoted if they had anything similarly negative to say) are from Najaf and Fallujah, and the coach is an ex-Baathist who was Uday's coach 'back in the day' of player torture &c - i.e., if anyone's going to have negative comments about Bush/America it'll be these guys. Of course, I'm sure that after last night's loss to Paraguay, they're all thanking Allah that Saddam isn't still in charge... If you are into checking out anecdotal evidence of the war's success/failure, I highly recommend Artie Chrenkoff's super-substantial Best of Iraq series?