{"id":415837,"date":"2010-03-11T10:31:55","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T15:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=78982"},"modified":"2010-03-11T10:31:55","modified_gmt":"2010-03-11T15:31:55","slug":"new-%e2%80%98iraqi-surge%e2%80%99-and-%e2%80%98iraqi-sovereignty%e2%80%99-commendations-for-u-s-troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/415837","title":{"rendered":"New \u2018Iraqi Surge\u2019 and \u2018Iraqi Sovereignty\u2019 Commendations for U.S. Troops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Troops who served in Iraq earn the right to display the Iraqi Campaign Medal. From the perspective of the medal, there have been four phases of the war that the medal recognizes: &#8220;Liberation,&#8221; &#8220;Transition,&#8221; &#8220;Iraqi Governance&#8221; and &#8220;National Resolution,&#8221; all covering the period from 2003 to 2007. Draw your own conclusions about the implicit politics of those designations.<\/p>\n<p>But today the Pentagon added two more phases, signified by &#8220;a bronze campaign star&#8221;:<span id=\"more-78982\"><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Iraqi Surge &#8211; Jan. 10, 2007 to Dec. 31, 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Iraqi Sovereignty &#8211; Jan. 1, 2009 through a date to be determined.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>What, they didn&#8217;t want to start &#8220;Sovereignty&#8221; on Jan. 20, 2009? I kid. Sort of. Though that &#8220;date to be determined&#8221; endpoint would make a wag suspicious about whether all troops will really be withdrawn at the end of 2011 in accordance with the terms of the <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/19252\/mcclatchy-publishes-a-translation-of-the-us-iraq-basing-deal\">Status of Forces Agreement<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Troops who served in Iraq earn the right to display the Iraqi Campaign Medal. From the perspective of the medal, there have been four phases of the war that the medal recognizes: &#8220;Liberation,&#8221; &#8220;Transition,&#8221; &#8220;Iraqi Governance&#8221; and &#8220;National Resolution,&#8221; all covering the period from 2003 to 2007. Draw your own conclusions about the implicit politics [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}