Patrick OsgoodVerified account

@PatrickOsgood

Journalist and researcher, covering Iraq. Former Kurdistan Bureau Chief, Iraq Oil Report (2012-2017). patosgood at gmail / Instagram:

Joined April 2010
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  1. Retweeted
    Apr 5

    The US just announced a proposed $1.3b arms deal to upgrade Saudi Arabia's artillery, and "improve the security of...a leading contributor of political stability and economic progress in the Middle East." No mention of the civilians wounded and killed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.

    9 replies 71 retweets 56 likes
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  2. Apr 5

    To and everyone else: please specify in stories like these, up top, that you mean T2 diabetes. T1 diabetes is a whole different thing, and shouldn’t be lumped into a generic term.

    Getting kids to a good weight by 13 may help avoid diabetes
    1 like
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  3. Apr 5

    That they metastised prior extorion etc ops in Mosul under a bigger brand simply underscores the above. Best not to fetishise what they did as ‘realising their dreams’ or what have you.

    1 reply 3 retweets 4 likes
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  4. Apr 5

    Just because ISIS subjectively took the business of governance seriously, doesn’t mean they were objectively serious. The NYT is far too credulous in granting them the latter.

    9 replies 8 retweets 19 likes
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  5. Apr 5

    Early on after the ISIS invasion I heard a wise person relay a description of the group as “the unholy alliance of school shooters and bureaucrats.” That’s about as seriously as one should take the mountains of paper these people left behind.

    2 replies 10 retweets 17 likes
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  6. Apr 5

    The metrics for ISIS ‘state’ durability shouldn’t be chit generation, but whether ISIS was capable of generating economic value after external windfalls dried up. The answer to that is no, because ISIS was a parasitical gangster entity albeit with a high chit ethic.

    10 replies 8 retweets 25 likes
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  7. Apr 5

    Weirder still to largely ignore ‘caliphate’ costs on the other side of the ledger, or to frame durability outside of military intervention.

    1 reply 1 retweet 4 likes
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  8. Apr 5

    It’s so weird; deeply, deeply weird, to mainly report on one’s recovered trove of chits and not the (mostly unmentioned) windfalls and the extreme murdering.

    1 reply 3 retweets 9 likes
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  9. Apr 5

    And yes, it’s easy to get the streets cleaned for a while, when you have billions in windfalls (CBI Mosul deposits, oil, payroll, open remittances), plus lots of murdering.

    1 reply 2 retweets 5 likes
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  10. Apr 5

    ISIS murdered, by the end of 2015, thousands of Iraqis in and Mosul who were on civilian payroll. CPA Order Number 1, but with murder. Literally the first thing they did, and kept doing. There are mass graves. Any survivors were outliers.

    2 replies 7 retweets 14 likes
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  11. Apr 5

    The mere use of the term ‘tax’ to describe what ISIS was doing is absurd. Take these weird grafs from the NYT story:

    2 replies 4 retweets 11 likes
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  12. Apr 5

    Iraqi payroll, grey market remittances, stricken assets (oil & fuel stores, grain, fertilizer etc); these and predations thereon were the things on which ISIS in Iraq was built. Not chits.

    1 reply 6 retweets 16 likes
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  13. Apr 5

    ISIS’s endless issuance of chits laid a thin veneer over gangsterism, arbitrary mass murder and larceny. It’s unfortunate that this NYT account is so myopic and credulous to conflate paperwork with governance.

    Authoritative chronicle of how ISIS made millions not off the resources of the land they occupied (oil) but off the people whose lives they plundered.
    9 replies 32 retweets 57 likes
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  14. Apr 5

    Thank god this guy got fired

    Replying to @davidfrum
    One crucial step to keeping Europe safe: halt and repatriate the Middle Eastern mass migration of the past 2 years, not because …
    6 retweets 23 likes
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  15. Apr 5

    A personal bonus to this odyssey is that it gives some insight into why BVH was a great editor and reporter to work for.

    What must a foreigner do to register with the Iraqi government and live here legally, without paying a bribe? Gather round, friends, for a story of woe, of hardship, of Iraqi bureaucracy.
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  16. Retweeted
    Apr 5

    Farewell to the Crafty Cockney. Eric Bristow was the John McEnroe of darts. RIP.

    4 replies 3 retweets 22 likes
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  17. Retweeted
    Apr 5

    The Pentagon's own aircraft have killed more U.S. troops than militants in Afghanistan have in the last year

    1 reply 26 retweets 18 likes
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  18. Retweeted
    Apr 5

    The expanding network of outposts look much like the fighting positions once seen in Afghanistan, which projected a clear message: “We’re here for a while” by

    2 replies 5 retweets 6 likes
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  19. Retweeted
    Apr 5
    Replying to

    You’re very right to point out that the government’s failures affect Iraqis in much more profound ways than the inconveniences I experience when visiting.

    1 reply 1 retweet 3 likes
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  20. Retweeted
    Apr 4

    An open international ideas contest has been launched to transform ’s abandoned Old Governorate Building into a new design centre. The competition is open to multidisciplinary teams of , , engineers and designers:

    , , and 5 others
    1 reply 24 retweets 28 likes
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