How Occupation is Different from War, Part 327

The case has been made that the Iraq war (the second, or the third, depending on how you count it) is over and that we need a real paradigm shift in the way we discuss and argue about it. (There was an excellent article about this on Blackfive or somewhere, if I can find it, I’ll link it.) This article certainly supports that case.

DefenseLink News Article: Chicken Farming Gets Boost in Iraqi Town
FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq, May 8, 2008 – When soldiers of 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment, began inspecting chicken coops in Hawr Rajab, Iraq, in December, they found munitions caches and bomb-making materials instead of poultry.

Click photo for screen-resolution image
A young Iraqi unpacks chicks in Hawr Rajab, Iraq, May 6, 2009. Funds from the Baghdad-7 Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team allowed his family to refurbish its chicken coop. Deliveries of chicks and feed are intended to restore once-thriving chicken farms that were devastated by recent insurgent violence. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. David Turner, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.
Al-Qaida in Iraq fighters terrorized the residents of this community south of Baghdad, destroying buildings, stealing feed and killing livestock.

Although peace has largely returned to the area, agriculture — the main source of employment for local residents — is struggling to recover. With help from soldiers of 6-8th Cavalry Regiment and the U.S. Department of State’s Baghdad-7 Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team, farmers here are hopeful that prosperity will return.

Members of the embedded PRT and 6-8th Cavalry Regiment soldiers distributed more than 13,000 egg-laying hen chicks to 10 poultry farmers in the Hawr Rajab area May 6 with the aim of providing a more sustainable income for the area’s largely family-based farms.

Mike Stevens, the embedded PRT’s agricultural advisor, estimated that the delivery created 40 new jobs. He credits soldiers with the program’s success so far.