dabbing n.— «A veteran of the Balkans, this general recalled that his troops had a term for routine, pointless patrols. “Dabbing,” they called it, from the caustic acronym for “driving around Bosnia.”...
EJK n.— «On July 25, a death squad shot her mother and uncle—each three times in the head—in their dilapidated half-finished squat. E.J.K.‘s, in American military shorthand: extrajudicial killings.» —“Troops Shelter an Unlikely...
atmospheric n.— «The hard part to deal with is that women and children shop in markets, so the person who planned and executed the bombing was clearly targeting women and children. I had been in that exact market only days earlier meeting...
big boy rules n.pl.— «Current and former Triple Canopy employees said they policed themselves in Iraq under an informal system they frequently referred to as “big boy rules.” “We never knew if we fell under military law...
ghost n.— «What was meant to be a day meeting the Iraqi people in one of Baghdad’s eastern neighborhoods abruptly turned into a long day of what the soldiers now refer to as “chasing the ghosts of small arms fire.” The troops...
DAB n.— «Whether this move will calm the capital, much less help stabilize Iraqi politics, depends in part on what the troops and MPs end up doing. Will they just “drive around Baghdad” (the term even has a jaundiced acronym...