ABC News is carrying a report from Baghdad that has more candy and kites than I’ve seen since Fahrenheit 9/11. We will obviously need sustained coverage on these developments in order for the general public to start realizing that Iraq is headed in the right direction, but every little bit counts.
Now if only more news organs would begin referring to Ahmadinejad as a figurehead for the mad mullahs, we’d really be getting somewhere…
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While I welcome any bit of good news coming out of that region, isn’t that report a little like saying: “Today some of the janjaweed have stopped running amuck in Darfur…the rest couldn’t be reached for comment…”.
In all seriousness: When was the bloodiest day of the entire conflict in Iraq (Non-military personell)? Wasn’t it this past Monday (Tuesday for us)? Sure, one incident a trend not make, but I just don’t see how one could argue that, as a whole, the situation in the entire country of Iraq as we know it is not only better today then it was yesterday, but is better today then it was last year. Yes, it is all relative to the observer and their hierarchy of needs. But still, we are enmesshed in a fundemental flaw involving the middle east: The failure of the local peoples to let the past reside in the past. There is little diplomacy, guns, or money can do now – if decades under saddam hasn’t taught these people to seize freedom and love their fellow man, then what exactly will?
I really, really do wish other then doom and gloom, and hope to be proven wrong.
Source for that, if you please. It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s that I don’t recall reading anything about an event of that scale.
Bypassing the subtle racism of the notion that Arabs are somehow unable to grasp democracy, I think that you aren’t looking very hard for the good news that is coming out of Iraq – see Michael Totten, Michael Yon and Jules Crittenden for starters. While they do not report all positive news, they do a far better job of providing balance and actually reporting any positives, as opposed to the doom n’ gloomers in the MSM.
The primary problems in Iraq are no longer due to Iraqis – they are due to Salafist/Wahabbist holdouts from Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa and the House of Saud and Hidden Imam End Timesers from Iran. Mookie scrambled back to his puppet masters in Tehran with his tail between his legs and his once-vaunted militia lies in ruins. The former Baathists have realized that their future, if they wish to have one, involved cutting political deals and getting in on the Iraqi oil trust deal. The Sunni shiekhs long ago realized that backing the central gov’t, even if it is ostensibly “Shia”, was in their very best interests and so have been sending their young men to the Iraqi Army in droves.
The death squads have been reduced greatly, particularly with Mookie’s exit and the Iraqi Police have been getting better with each passing day. The Kurds are off in a land of their own, making a good living of it. The terrorists that remain are concentrating their efforts on Baghdad because, to paraphrase Willie Horton, that’s where the reporters are. They appear to have given up the notion that Ramadi will remain an AQI stronghold for any considerable amount of time and we seem to be bagging high-ranking AQI operatives quite regularly. We have 300-400 Quds Force nutjobs in custody and are arresting/detaining all manner of other Iranian agents, primarily due to Petraeus’ changes to/reiterations of the RoE for our forces.
There is a great deal to be positive about. It’s a shame the press doesn’t seem to see it that way and instead fall back on “If brown people bleed, it leads!” It’s just easier that way, I guess. Plus they get to knock down the Rethuglican Neocons in the process, so double bonus.
Source: Was on cover of USA Today on Tuesday – the only reason I know is because I was at the airport at the time, and had nothing to read…
As to your assessment, I can’t say that you are wrong, nor can I say that you are right. We HOPE the fighting is done by the sword of foreigners, yet just today Time had a posting on how the insurgency is ticked off at Bin-Laden and wants the tergetting of sunis to stop, so they can focus on what’s really important: “Killing Americans and Ending the Occupation” (Their words).
As to arabs and democracy – I don’t think that’s the issue. I would like to think they understand exactly what it means and what is involved: I am asserting that they (broad generalization here) don’t want it. They WANT to continue focusing on righting percieved wrongs of the past, and that past happens to extend to the time of their Prophet. Therefore, putting their past differences aside isn’t really part of their vocabulary, and from what we have witnessed, they aren’t all that interested in phonics right now…