In Other News: Goth Suicide Pact

It's interesting to contrast the local reportage on the Iraq imbroglio with the American news, since the papers over here are marginally less concerned with US electoral point-scoring. The press here seems to report the whole mess as a battle between an occupying military and a nationalistic insurgency fighting to remove said occupying force. Perhaps this is fair enough, but it strikes me as worth mentioning that the principal US policy goal relating to Iraq involves removing the military as soon as things stop exploding. If the goal of the insurgency is to get US/allied troops to leave Iraq, then it's the worst idea ever, since without an insurgency the US/allied troops would have left already. This leads one to suppose that this is not actually the goal of the insurgency, and that there is a bit of projection going on.

Meanwhile, another enjoyable feature of the local media is that crazy people with books to promote don't feel obliged to say that "of course I support the troops etc etc..." going instead with:

The defeat of America and its allies in Iraq is vital to ensure...

etc, etc.

Oh, well. Enough of this nonsense. Back to the novel.