Monday, January 31, 2005
A Job Well Done
Is the Iraqi Vote a "tipping point"? I think so -- one of many to come.
Via BlackFive, from an Air-Force photographer in Sadr City:
For the next five hours the Colonel toured many neighborhoods and polling areas throughout Sadr City. And Sadr City was an unbelievable site. Hundreds of people lined the streets and congregated outdoors. Children, teenage boys, and men played dozens of soccer games in the grass between the streets. Children swarmed me and the other troops chanting "Good, Good Mistah (the nickname they call us)! Good, Good Mistah!" Men and Women held their blue fingers high with pride and thankfulness so that I could get pictures of them. One man came up to my camera, held his blue finger up and shouted, “Bush Good! Bush Good!" They played music and danced. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Soldiers with me smiled and shook their heads in disbelief telling me that this was the same street they'd traveled down 8 months ago when they had their bloodiest and costliest battle. It was the route you could not go down for many months without being ambushed with RPGs and towing back at least one tank or Bradley. These soldiers leave in a couple of weeks and I think the best thing they could have experienced-proof: their job well done.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Iraq Vote Slideshow
From the NY Times:
A woman held up her ID card and wept with joy after casting her vote in Najaf.
A Great Victory for Freedom
Defying those who say democracy has no appeal to Mid-East Muslims, and defying threats of extreme violence, millions of Iraqis streamed to the polls to vote.
Via Fox News:
Truly a great day for all who love Freedom.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Civil Rights for all Iraqis
As Iraqi elections near, The Lead and Gold blog compares the Shia struggle against their Sunni oppressors to the American civil rights era, highlighting a few heroes who died here in America in support of freedom for all Americans.
Is that comparison merited? Consider this report from an Iraqi blogger:
I had an interesting conversation with a middle-aged taxi driver who used to live in Fallujah and is now at relatives in Amiriya, Baghdad. After asking me which tribe I belong to (thus assessing my sectarian background) he started hurling abuses at the Shia, calling them Persians, Majoos (fire worshippers), rabid dogs and a handful of other descriptions that I can't mention here....I haven't heard of that kind of hate and bigotry since.... well the 60's. And yet it seems the same people who supported minority civil rights in America seem to be hoping that the Iraqi elections will fail?
He said that resistance was the only commonsense solution. First driving out the Americans, then fighting the Shia back into submission (as in 1991).
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Help Wanted
The call is going out to those who would defend the Iraqi people from "illegal aggression" during the upcoming elections: The Human Shields!
A statement from one:
So what would happen if several thousand Western citizens migrated to Iraq to stand side by side with the Iraqi people? Along with at first just a few hundred people - from hundreds of millions in the west - I will be going to Iraq to volunteer to act as a human shield in the interests of protecting human life. We will join our fellow citizens of the world in Iraq to bear witness for peace and justice.So I ask, Where are the human shields when they are really needed?
We will run the risk of being maimed or killed - but it is simply the same risk that innocent Iraqis will themselves face. I would rather die in defense of justice and peace than "prosper" in complicity with mass murder and war... It is about saving the lives of those in our human family. We will be expressing to the Iraqi people the reality that most people in the West do not support this criminal war. And we will bring home to western publics the human cost of war because, unfortunately, the death and destruction faced daily by countless millions of our fellow human beings seems somehow an unfathomable abstraction unless western lives are at stake as well.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Iraq government: Bomb mastermind arrested
From CNN:
The Iraqi government announced the arrests of several suspected insurgent leaders Monday, including one man they say has claimed responsibility for 32 car bomb attacks since March 2003.It's hard to imagine a punishment too severe for this mass-murderer.
"Abu Umar al-Kurdi claims responsibility for some of the most ruthless attacks on Iraqi police forces and police stations," said al-Naqib, who said al-Kurdi was responsible for 75 percent of the bombs used in Baghdad attacks in the past two years, including attacks on the Jordanian embassy and the United Nations compound in August 2003.
He also claimed responsibility for a blast that killed Shia religious leader Ayatollah Bakir al-Hakim and more than 100 others at the holy Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf in the same month, al-Naqib said.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Religion of Peace Update
Money Quote: "This isn’t shocking — it’s nothing new," one Tehran-based analyst said.
Indeed.
Anti-Christian Hate Crime?
Possible evidence implicating Islamic extremists in the slaughter of the Christian New Jersey family.
Ask yourself what kind of attention this would be getting if some rednecks were suspected of a brutal killing of Muslim immigrants in Texas, including cutting the throat of their teenage daughter.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Inauguration Thoughts
Powerline provides us with some wisdom from Teddy Roosevelt, aimed at Bush's incessant critics, who never seem to be able to offer anything helpful or constructive:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.Somehow I suspect President Bush already knows this.
Manufacturing the News
Via Powerline, ABC News is soliciting information about military funerals on Inauguration Day:
Jan. 19, 2005 — For a possible Inauguration Day story on ABC News, we are trying to find out if there any military funerals for Iraq war casualties scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 20. If you know of a funeral and whether the family might be willing to talk to ABC News, please fill out the form below:This seems backwards: 1) Decide thesis of news story. 2) Find evidence. I guess the News is more art than science.
