I was willing to

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“I was willing to fight with a gun, but not to commit suicide.” That’s the best quote from an article by Anthony Shadid in Sunday’s Washington Post. It’s about a 22-year-old member of the Saddam Fedayeen who finally deserted several days ago in Baghdad. He fought under threat of death, though perhaps not altogether unwillingly, and then finally bailed when his superiors selected him for a suicide mission. Reading this piece you start to get the details of the picture of how the paramilitary resistance was at first unexpectedly stiff and then rapidly collapsed.

I really haven’t done the sort of systematic reading of different reporting by different reporters that would make me comfortable saying whose has been the “best.” But I’ve been consistently struck by the quality of Shadid’s, most of all the depth of the detail (which is the essence of good reporting), the material that goes beyond the standard stock interviews and anecdotes. I’m sure he’ll win tons of awards for it. Deservedly.

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