Kitchen: Alsatian Farm Museum
Good Morning, this is a fine day over here for a change and as we are on daylight saving time now, too. I’m not even so very late in submitting my morning read. So, grab a cuppa and see what met my eye this morning. It’s lots.
The Guardian of today is a bonanza of well researched information and useful tools to understand the Shia conflict in Iraq. Sudharsan Rhaghavan reports “Under siege in Baghdad’s Mahdi army stronghold”. To better understand the different factions fighting it out, you can go here, and for a map of who is controlling wich areas of Basra, go here. Less technical, but definitely heartbreaking is the account of the miseries this renewed outbreak of violence causes to ordinary Iraqi families.
Change of topic: A must read is the essay by Paul Harris: Forty years after the shot rang out, race fears still haunt the US. If anything good has come from the bloody nomination battle this year, the race speech opened up the very necessary discussion, that for so long has been neglected.
The Telegraph concentrates on the US – UK relationship in the whole mess, leading a number of stories with “Gordon Brown accused by US adviser over ‘hasty troop withdrawal’ in Basra” For a better understanding of the importance of this rift between the former(?) allies, here more on and by Frederick Kagan: Analysis: Frederick Kagan and US-UK relations. The Telegraph, too, provides you with a fact sheet on who’s fighting whom. Con Coughlin is explaining why President Bush is right to see the current violence as a defining moment for Iraq, by saying: New Iraq receiving baptism of fire in Basra.
The Independent on Iraq:”British and US forces drawn into battle for Basra, As the Iraqi army’s assault on Shia militias in the city falters, the government’s strategy is looking to be a dangerous gamble”:
Mr Maliki’s confident prediction that he would crush the Mehdi Army is turning out to be a dangerous gamble that is fast eroding his authority. It is damaging to President Bush, who had claimed the US “surge” had brought about a turning point in America’s five-year-old war to pacify Iraq. Mr Bush had praised the offensive as showing that the Iraqi security forces, trained and supported by the US, could at last stand and fight on their own. So far, the gun battles in Baghdad and the Shia south of Iraq are providing evidence that exactly the opposite is true.
You can find a row of articles on the Zimbabwe elections, here, here and here and another stab at trying to understand the Democratic nomination battle, here: “The question on every Democrat’s lips: should she stay or should she go?”
The Times‘ website is currently inaccessible for me, I may do an update a little later, but maybe again I won’t, I’m a bit disappointed by their increasingly tabloid-style reporting anyway.
This an awful lot of reading and should do for a cup of coffee or more, I hope you all enjoy your reading and have a nice, happy and healthy Sunday. Take care!
