The Command Post
Iraq
April 27, 2003
A Final Dispatch By Michael Kelly

For those who enjoyed Michael Kelly's reporting, here is his last article in the Atlantic Monthly prior to his death in Iraq. If you were a fan, read it slowly, twice.

Today's phony peaces really are phony. Now (I am writing this in early March), as in the winter months of 1990-1991, no one has any real belief that peace is at hand, or may be brought to hand. War is expected, by everyone, and it is this expectation that allows the luxury of the phony peace—an interim between the advent of expectation and the arrival of reality, during which concerned parties may enjoy protesting against a war they know their protests will not stop. The phony peace provides a period of global theater in which the natural order of things may be reasserted: France behaves like France, Russia behaves like Russia, the United Nations behaves like the United Nations, America behaves like America. It is comforting in its way.

Posted By Alan at April 27, 2003 12:57 AM | TrackBack
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