Wow, that article had a weird tone. Is it surprising that a volunteer military, mostly comprised of young men, some of them from an urban environment, would have some gang and ex-gang members in it? Is it surprising that an invading force would have little respect for their surroundings?

Minor point: He's Shef. His crew is BK.

I agree that the tone was a little odd (is English the writer's first language?), but there are a lot of interesting subjects intersecting there. It's a shame that the graffiti isn't very good.

(Also, and just to get one of Mecha's favorite topics in here, do you think that Chris Partlow is ex-military?)

Good to see that it's not just the upper-class groups of criminals being exported by the US.

I think.

The writer is Italian. The post I linked to was lifted from his blog.

So when these guys start to come home, we get gangs that are trained in urban warfare. Great...

doctor_negative: I'm sure I've seen articles referencing the 'Latin Kings' specifically (among others, whom I don't recall), which said that the urban warfare training was exactly the reason these blokes were joining up.

Perhaps the Iraqis will get some (roundabout, random, belated) payback after all.

Winning hearts and minds for democracy.