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The News
Iraq suicide bomber kills 25 at Shiite-Sunni meeting
It's a good article about a shitty thing that happened in Baqubah, where I left last month. A lot of people were killed, Perhaps people I’ve met. It's surprising that no Americans were killed, especially considering the number that were there (the article doesn't say how many, but COL Sutherland, a Brigade commander was there, so you can assume he had a decent-sized entourage).
I’ve met Alexandra Zavis - she was embedded with my company in Baqubah. Her reporting, that I have read, has always seemed, better than most, to show the scene of what is happening. She understands the situation and the underlying issues that surround Baqubah and Iraq. My problem with this article, and others like it, is this: the quotes and the location are new, but the story doesn’t feel that way. The article feels like a cut and paste job of "Suicide bomber kills [number] at [denomination] [site]," followed by a recap of similar events all over Iraq. I don't blame Ms. Zavis necessarily for the lack of specifics, but instead the media environment that has become so saturated with this kind of story.
I understand that most people reading the article will be largely unfamiliar with Iraqi, let alone Baquban, geography, but a description that's more complex than "a mosque" would be much appreciated. I probably know some, if not many, of the people who were there. I've likely been by that mosque, depending on which one it is. A simple description, like Khatoon or Old Baqubah, or even just east or west would give informed readers a much more useful picture. I know that I tune out some of the specifics of stories about attacks in Baghdad or Mosul - I just don't know the geography well enough to make us of the details - but I imagine the people there would like to know more about the stories as well. Newspaper websites mediate length constraints, and make the addition of graphics and maps much easier to add to stories. Perhaps if stories about Iraq, especially about violence in Iraq, were less generic, people would read more than just the headline.
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2 Comments:
It was in Shifta. The Baqubah District police chief was killed, along with many others. I was supposed to have a meeting with him this week...third time's the charm with him...remember when they waxed his family and kidnapped his son? Drive-by, Compton style, but with DSHKAs and RPGs.
Weird to think I might have been there if I hadn't been leaving the states that day. Several of my IP chiefs were there (two injured) and I'd been at one of the meetings with COL Sutherland leading up to this with about half the number of sheikhs.
Makes me laugh when I read the president's comments about Baqubah being cleared and done with.
Oi. That is a bit odd, yes, and our president - ah. Always there with the right answer and the right way to say it.
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