I wasn't planning on posting anything today, have to much to do and other thoughts on my mind.

But yesterday I watched, as many have seen by now, someone who should have a much better understanding, above that of it's citizens, what this countries policies are and their implementation.

McClatchy has a couple of reports that hit on a couple of the Points of the 'surge':

Political: The 'surge' Working, Take 1

Iraqi army prepares assault in Diyala as election law vetoed

McClatchy has started a series today on our 'War on Terror'.

McClatchy tracked down 66 men released from Guantanamo in the most systematic survey to date of prisoners held there. Many had no connection to terrorism, but their experience turned them against America.

Banner © McClatchy

McClatchy Baghdad chief wins Polk award for Iraq reporting
Leila Fadel, McClatchy's Baghdad bureau chief, won the George R. Polk Award for outstanding foreign reporting and The Charlotte Observer won the Polk Award for outstanding economic reporting, Long Island University announced Tuesday.

Related stories, background, pics on site.
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good stuff, rba. -- cho

Michael Massing: As Iraqis See It:
When it comes to covering the war in Iraq, McClatchy Newspapers has always done things a bit differently. .. About a year ago, it set up a blog exclusively for contributions from its Iraqi staff. "Inside Iraq," it's called, and several times a week the Iraqi staff members post on it about their experiences and impressions (the blog can be found at washingtonbureau.typepad.com/iraq). "It's an opportunity for Iraqis to talk directly to an American audience," says Leila Fadel, the current bureau chief, whose father is from Lebanon and whose mother is from Michigan, who grew up in Saudi Arabia, and who is all of twenty-six years old. [The New York Review of Books (17 January 2008)].

[This just in (via standingup): McClatchy has launched a new blog called Crisis in Pakistan, with entries by Jonathan Landay & Warren Stroebel.]
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[Logo grabbed @ McClatchy Co.]

McClatchy has been at the forefront of reporting on the run up to the Iraq war, the prosecution of the war, and veteran's issues. David Goldstein has the first in what is billed to be a four part series about the Bravo Battery of the Kansas National Guard's 161st Field Artillery. There is something unique about the Iraq war - it is being fought with the use of so many National Guard units. The note from the editor at the beginning of Goldstein's article explains "Twenty percent of the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan come from the Army National Guard. Many are from small towns, and go to war alongside family and friends."