Wars, especially at the time they are being fought, tend to generate a lot of lost stories. No surprise there, as wartime secrecy and anxiety produces lots of reassuring, exploitative or self-serving theories by those not-in-the-know. Actually, some of those in-the-know play the deception game as well, creating propaganda that masks more important stories. And this is no where more true than with the current war on terror, and is especially true when you get to the action in Iraq. Some of these lost  stories eventually got some play, while others are still largely out of sight. We covered all of these, for years, on StrategyPage. But you won?t find much coverage elsewhere. Here are what we consider the ten most important lost stories.

Troopnet. Until the 1990s, military innovation was slow because there was no quick way for the millions of soldiers on the planet to communicate with each other. New ideas spread slowly. For the last century, military journals spread some ideas. But editors, and often the senior officers, decided what was published, and the circulation of these journals was quite small anyway. The Internet has changed that, dramatically. Anyone can get on the Internet, and no one censors what is said. The result has been dramatic. New tactics, opinions on weapons and equipment, practical advice on how to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, and just the sheer sense of community, has appeared and changed the way thing work in the military. You hear some stories about how al Qaeda uses the Internet, but it is used much more, and to greater effect, by professional soldiers, particularly Americans.

Smart Soldiers. Three decades of using only volunteers, continually raising recruitment standards, and a growing culture of innovation has created a force of American troops who are not only bright, but also inclined to quickly coming up with innovative solutions for new battlefield problems. Many of these innovations are kept quiet, or secret, lest the enemy have a better chance of figuring out a counter solution. But plenty of novel thinking is right out in the open, but rarely gets reported or recognized. And when it is mentioned, the reporter tends to think it's an exception. It's not. 

The Iraqi Civil War. The fighting in Iraq is constantly misreported as an ?insurgency,? evoking images of Vietnam or World War II guerillas. In actuality, the fighting is the attempt by Saddam?s enforcers to hold off their encounter with a democratic Iraq?s application of punishments for past crimes. Saddam?s army was defeated, but his secret police and enforcers went home and kept fighting. Saddam?s people believe that they have a choice between getting back control of the country, or suffering prison, or worse, for old sins. But for complex political reasons, the media lovingly depicts these murderous thugs as brave freedom fighters. It?s generally ignored that nearly all the violence is occurring in areas dominated by Sunni Arabs, who are but 20 percent of the population. Kurdish and Shia Arab areas are quiet. Calling this fighting a civil war is being generous, as one could make a case for it simply being a case of organized crime writ large. It?s gangbusters, not guerillas. 

Uninformed Media. Few reporters in Iraq speak Arabic, or know much about Iraqi history or how military operations work. This means much reporting is flawed and misleading. To make matters worse, news editors outside Iraq often decide what stories to pursue, more concerned with what they, or the audience back home, wants to see, rather than what is actually happening in Iraq. Reporters are woefully ill informed about military matters. Some of this ignorance is obvious, like misidentifying weapons and units. Using the phrase ?exploding mortar? rather than ?exploding mortar shell? is a favorite. The mortar is the metal tube, or barrel, from which the mortar shell is fired. Worse yet, the methods and results of military operations are continually misinterpreted and misunderstood. Many reporters revel in this ignorance, feeling that getting too close to the troops will compromise their journalistic integrity. Alas, integrity, and reliable information, are in short supply.

The Cultural Crises in the Arab World. In the last half century, despite enormous oil wealth, the Arab countries have fallen behind the rest of the world in most categories that matter (economic, education, scientific, political.) These failures have been the main cause of the unrest in the Arab world, and the growth of radical groups like al Qaeda. It?s been popular, for the last half century, for Arabs to blame everyone but themselves for these problems. But even Arabs are now having second thoughts about these popular excuses for Arab failure. There are problems within Arab culture, and only now are they being openly talked about by Arabs. But solutions will be difficult, and won?t att