I'm giving you a longing look

I'm always a little leery of reading the latest Michael Yon post. His last one, about the Birds of Baghdad, made me cry but I liked the gentleness of the account and felt refreshed afterwards. That has not always been the case. I can say without exaggerating I've cried from a broken heart a couple of times after finishing a story.

This time it's a straight read of the situation in Iraq after this third election and much of the brutality inherent in his other stories is missing and fine for all that. If Iraq and the other countries that have been led by monarchs/dictators can get to this place, another day another election, then the world will become more secure and fair and full of broad sunlit uplands.

Michael's clean prose and reserve is different to other bloggers in the region.

Michael J. Totten writes like a twinkly, cheeky copywriter. Here's a recent post about a pub crawl in Cairo:

"I asked Big Pharaoh what he thought would happen if Egypt held a legitimate free and fair election instead of this bullshit staged by Mubarak.
“The Muslim Brotherhood would win,” he said. “They would beat Mubarak and the liberals.”
I was afraid he was going to say that.
“I’ve had this theory for a while now,” I said. “It looks like some, if not most, Middle East countries are going to have to live under an Islamic state for a while and get it out of their system.”
Big Pharaoh laughed grimly.
“Sorry,” I said. “That’s just how it looks.”
He buried his head on his arms.
“Take Iranians,” I said. “They used to think Islamism was a fantastic idea. Now they hate it. Same goes in Afghanistan. Algerians don’t think too much of Islamism either after 150,000 people were killed in the civil war. I hate to say this, but it looks like Egypt will have to learn this the hard way.”
“You are right,” he said. “You are right. I went to an Egyptian chat room on the Internet and asked 15 people if they fasted during Ramadan. All of them said they fasted during at least most of it. I went to an Iranian chat room and asked the same question. 14 out of 15 said they did not fast for even one single day.”

The commander writing 365 and a Wake Up is a poet at heart, recently describing the tactics employed by soldiers who need to stay alert:

"Security is far and away the most critical element in a defense, but that duty also shares the distinction of being one of the most onerous. The difficulty with pulling guard doesn’t stem from any physical exertion; in fact it’s quite the opposite. When you stand guard behind a fortified position your awareness collapses down into a single lonely arc. As the hours wear on focusing on the same narrow shard of earth starts to weary the eye and numb the brain. Although you won’t read it in any book there are thousands of techniques to wile away the time."

He wrote about a funeral in November and his poetic style takes the moment to a higher plane.

"Today, under the bleached light of the sun, the Nightstalkers gathered to pay our final respects to our fallen brothers. Our soldiers filed in for the better part of an hour, some so fresh off of a mission that their faces were still powdered with dust. They stood there in rows as straight and silent as a well tended field, lending solemn dignity to this inelegant patch of concrete. At our sides stood soldiers from every battalion in the 3rd Infantry Division – proof that the sense of loss that had rippled through our battalion echoed in every unit in the Division."

There are other bloggers writing from the Middle East, although not any Brits which is odd when you think of all the Irish blood sloshing around inside some of them. Andi has a good list of bloggers on the left hand side of her blog. When you have a quiet moment in the midst of the madness that is the Christmas season, have a read and a think.

"Oh come all ye grapefruit, woeful and obnoxious." No wait, those aren't the lyrics...