BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Arcade Fire have made it to Camp Liberty, after a fashion: MSNBC is broadcasting on the huge flatscreen in one of the recreation centers, and as I typed an e-mail I heard them play something from Neon Bible, which they announced as the top iTunes download. As far as I could tell, no one cared. There are three soldiers in the row in front of me engrossed in World of Warcraft, and no Arcade Fire hype can sway them from the duties of their guild.

So, what's with the Iraqi Police? I have a bit on that up on IraqSlogger here, and today met with the senior police commander of the Karkh Directorate, which encompasses the western half of the city. (East of the Tigris is the Rusafa Directorate.) Like the commanders I interviewed in the Slogger piece, Brigadier General Saleh blames a lot of the sectarianism within the police on the Ministry of Interior, but some of the MPs I'm with deride that explanation as buck-passing. Unlike the other commanders, Saleh blames Iraq's problems on the "generation born in the '80s, during the war with Iran." The kids have gone feral, and he laments that there's practically nothing he can do about it. When I asked him if that meant Iraq was destined to get worse and worse, he replied, "I believe so."

One of the MPs I rode with today is a sergeant named Gary Comeau from Boston. Goddamn, what a good guy. He spent his morning collecting police stats at Karkh and correcting IP mistakes at checkpoints in Mansour -- like the daydreaming gunner who let U.S. advisers get between him and a detainee -- and the afternoon bullshitting with me about the Yanks and the Sox. He served six and a half years in the Army, and then returned to Massachusetts to become a state trooper and a National Guardsmen. He volunteered to come to Iraq. He couldn't take "reading about an 18-year old at Walter Reed while I was home eating a steak dinner, or a free cup of coffee 'cause I'm a trooper. It's a good job, you know, but this, this is a calling."

Nearby me is a briefing for a bunch of soldiers who are getting ready to go home on leave. "Sex," the instructor advises. "Just take it slow." Lots of laughter. Later on: "Don't think about VBEIDs, RPGs, any of that," an instructor advises. "Just enjoy yourselves." I don't think he meant during sex, but it's still good advice.