Must-Read from TPM

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo posts this must-read dispatch from a retired millitary intelligence officer, currently on the ground in Iraq and working as a security contractor. Go read. Here's a taste:

The Iraqi people, even my 150 staff think the Americans are essentially not welcome anymore. They fear for their security but would rather go through a cataclysm with a new Iraqi police and army as their security force, rather than be occupied by the Americans. Then they could work through the system and know that their security was in their hands ... Trust me I am training 40 Iraqi bodyguards and the demand is getting serious. Listen Josh, EVERYONE outside of the Green Zone, Iraqis Westerners and Americans alike refer to the CPA and the US Army as "The AMERICANS" as if they were a third-party nation.

No one sees them as part of the solution anymore but as a foreign entity that does as it likes and pisses everybody off in the process.

It's a good one.