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| Iraq-Jordan |
| The Courage of Many Ordinary Iraqis Is Extraordinary |
| 2004-12-27 |
| From The Washington Post, an article by Fred Hiatt Returning to Washington from Baghdad this month for home leave gave A. Heather Coyne a shock, and not just thanks to the cold. In Iraq, as chief representative of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Coyne spends her days working with that country's emerging civil society. Back home, she finds Americans astonished to hear that there is an emerging civil society -- that Iraqis remain involved with rebuilding their country despite all the explosions and killings. No, this is not a "good news" story. To the contrary, Coyne's experience confirms the deterioration of conditions in Iraq. She is confined, for security reasons, to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. That's been true for a long time; now her Iraqi colleagues for the most part dare not visit her there, because the terrorists are always watching those who come and go. Communication is by phone and e-mail. Recently the institute held a workshop on conflict resolution in Sulaymaniyah, in the relatively peaceful Kurdish north, because the capital is too dangerous. One participant was a Mosul professor who lectures with 10 armed bodyguards in attendance in his classroom. The insurgents, in other words, are succeeding, not only in killing and wounding Iraqis and Americans but in impeding Iraqis' ability to rebuild their country and to interact with each other and with foreigners. They are blocking precisely the kinds of interaction a society needs to begin recovering from decades of dictatorship. Worse: The violence is exacerbating sectarian tensions, as the insurgents also intend. So far a remarkable feature of the war has been Kurdish and, especially, Shiite restraint in the face of provocation from Sunni terrorists. .... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #6 Since I don't have high blood pressure, I watched ABC News tonight. Their Iraq coverage was all doom and gloom about the chances for an election, oversimplifying an Iraqi General's statement that his forces weren't fully ready, praising the terrorists' resiliency, generalizing hotspots to the whole country; ie the usual simplistic propaganda that passes for sophisticated interpretation among self-described "progessives," that is, the brain-dead legions of authoritarian media-conformists. The election will be a media Tet; they are betting everything that it will be a disaster. Some, still suffering from the monstrous hubris of Old Media's victory in Vietnam, are probably counting on their own ability to portray the election as a disaster to vindicate their slant. It won't work this time around. Like most pathological narcissists, the overlords of Old Media are completely unable to process facts that contradict their cherished notions. The steady erosion of their power and authority is the most important such fact. This time it will cost them. It is the reason that they cannot reform. The MSM will not evolve, it will be utterly destroyed as a power center in modern culture. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-12-27 7:08:56 PM |
| #5 Exactly. Watching the watchers would probably pay dividends. I would suspect that the watchers are not full-fledged terrorists, but sympathizers, and their discovery and subsequent tortu^H^H^H^H^Hinterrogation would yield valuable information. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-12-27 4:02:58 PM |
| #4 "...because the terrorists are always watching those who come and go." Maybe I'm a bit naive, but it seems to me that the use of some counter-surveilence (sp) techniques would expose the "watchers", that could then be rounded up for proper disposal. -AR |
| Posted by: Analog Roam 2004-12-27 1:13:58 PM |
| #3 Article: One participant was a Mosul professor who lectures with 10 armed bodyguards in attendance in his classroom. Conversely, enemy leaders also need to be surrounded by dozens of bodyguards, because US forces are literally unstoppable when they go on raids. This is the reality of guerrilla warfare for the guerrillas - their leadership is always insecure and paranoid about that knock on the door or that JDAM through the roof. The guerrillas are trapped in the same country as our boys, not the other way around. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-12-27 12:28:47 PM |
| #2 After that however, the legitimate government will have to get mediaeval on their asses - and the Iraqi people will be right up for it I hope you're right and that do-gooders from State and JAG do not meedle in what is long overdue. The remarkable "restraint" that Ms. Coyne refers to regarding the Kurds and Shiites is due no doubt to the short leash imposed on them by the US/UK, and that's okay for the short term because I don't want to see our GI's put in a position of shooting at the good guy Iraqis in order to protect the bad guy Sunnis from revenge. But in short order, after the duly elected Iraqi gov't is in place, who can take responsibility for giving orders to assassin squads to nail the Sunni SOB ring leaders and their co-dependent families and immediate neighbors ... then let the Sunnis get the message that they are a MINORITY living in the midst of a MAJORITY Shiite-Kurdish nation and they'll live to see a tomorrow only at the behest of that majority. |
| Posted by: joeblow 2004-12-27 12:25:24 PM |
| #1 In my opinion, this *is* a good news story. The Iraqis are trying to rebuild their country under extreme provocation from the terrorists. I am sure that the situation will get worse, right up to, and for some little time beyond the election. After that however, the legitimate government will have to get mediaeval on their asses - and the Iraqi people will be right up for it. Expect to see a fair few executions sometime in Feb-Mar '05 (hopefully including that shit Saddam). |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2004-12-27 12:09:24 PM |