Two posts of the day about Iraq.

The first is by Michael Yon. An excerpt:

Every day, the Deuce Four launches dozens of combat missions in Mosul. Recently, a patrol was heading downtown, and its tasks included meeting with Iraqi police. I asked to go along. The Battalion Commander led the patrol, which also included two Strykers led by LT Sean Keneally from Charlie Company.

As the ramp on our Stryker began to close, I inserted earplugs, pulled a fire-retardant hood over my head, put on my helmet and buckled the chin strap, then pulled the ballistic goggles over my eyes.

Flash burns from bombs are deadly. I’ve seen it many times: anything exposed is fried in an instant. Skin and flesh just peel off. The super-hot flashes also melt contact lenses to eyeballs before people can blink. Years ago, when I was a jumpmaster, I remember sticking my face outside the aircraft to check surroundings, and my eyelids slapped and flopped in the torrent. That was only about hurricane force winds. The blast in an explosion opens the eyelids, fusing the melted contacts to the eyeballs. Smart soldiers don’t wear contacts in combat, but others often do.

As the excerpt shows, Michael Yon is in the thick of things in Iraq. His blog posts, unlike the majority of MSM articles about Iraq, are not second or third hand reports inspired by insurgent-paid material shown on Al Jazeera. Yon’s posts are a good way to get an idea of the nature of warfare in Iraq, from an American perspective. Click here to go to his site, Michael Yon: Online Magazine.

Keep in mind that Yon is there entirely on his own dime. He has a whole series of posts on the fighting in Mosul, and if, like me, you read and dig them all, and learn quite a lot, you might toss him some loot via the PayPal button. (I gave him $50.00 bucks. Who will top me???)

The second post of the day is by Eric at Classical Values. Also about Iraq, it deals with the Iraq/Iran war, its genesis and its lessons. I won’t excerpt from it, as I’m hoping Eric will agree to post the whole thing here at the UPC. But it is an excellent read.

Like Yon’s post, it talks about something the MSM cannot or will not talk about. With all the talking heads and paid consultants and professional writers and editors and contributors and XXXers the MSM remains pretty much useless when it comes to Iraq. It is almost like MSMers have agreed to only discuss what other MSMers discuss- to AVOID rather than ATTEMPT to present different ideas or perspecitves.