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Look Who Wants the US to Stay

Iraq's government is prepared to offer the U.S. a long-term troop presence in Iraq and preferential treatment for American investments in return for an American guarantee of long-term security including defense against internal coups, The Associated Press learned Monday. 

A Story You Haven't Seen in the MSM

Iraqis have raised money to help the victims of the fire in SanDiego.  Michael Totten writes:

Iraqi Army officers in Besmaya raised a thousand dollars in donations for fire victims in San Diego, California, and the only place that seems to have reported the story is the military blog OPFOR. Author Richard S. Lowry learned about it in a press release from the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq Public Affairs, so it’s unlikely he’s the only one in the media who knows something about it.

Sending a thousand dollars to California will be about as helpful as throwing a glass of water into the firestorm. It’s the thought that counts here. And what surprising thought it is. How many Americans expect charity from Iraq?

As Lowry points out, “most Americans do not consider Iraqis as people.” He’s right. Most of us only know them from sensational media reports about masked insurgents, wailing widows, and death squads. Most of us may instinctively understand that the majority of Iraqis are just regular people, but it’s hard to keep that in mind when the only thing we get Stateside is war coverage. I’ve met hundreds of Iraqis myself during trips to their country as a reporter, so it’s a bit easier for me to see them as just people. I’m still surprised that anyone in that broken impoverished land would even consider donating hard-earned money to Californians.

A thousand dollars is a lot in Iraq. The average salary is only a few hundred dollars a month. I can’t for the life of me figure out how entire families can survive on so little, considering most have so many children. Basic necessities are cheaper in Iraq than in the West, but not that much cheaper.

Some Iraqis have been learning a similar lesson about American generosity lately.

Two months ago I went on a humanitarian aid drop mission outside Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province, with American soldiers and Iraqi Police officers at four o’clock in the morning. The goods we delivered were paid for by the United States government. Sometimes, though, soldiers and Marines deliver items donated through American charities. “When we tell them that some of these packages aren’t from the military or the government,” a Marine told me, “that they were donated by average American citizens in places like Kansas, people choke up and sometimes even cry. They just can’t comprehend it. It is so different from the lies they were told about us and how we’re supposed to be evil.”

Advice on What Americans Should Do in Iraq...

...from an Iraqi.  Blogger Michael Totten interviews an Iraqi who works as an interpreter for the American military and has an extremely interesting pro-American perspective. Read it.

Our Fantastic Troops

Journalists who are embedded with American troops come to Iraq against the war and leave with their minds changed after witnessing their bravery and whole hearted belief in what they are doing:

The most spectacular recent case of a journalist with an antiwar mindset being completely overwhelmed into a change of heart by American soldiers, according to the public affairs officer, was a Greek public television reporter who had been embedded with an infantry unit that became entrenched in a 45-minute firefight with insurgents. Yanked out of the line of fire by a soldier who put the journalist's life above his own, he waited under cover and in fear of his life for the almost hourlong duration of the battle, with the best view possible of American soldiers in action against an armed and murderous enemy. He credits his having lived to tell the tale directly to those young troops.

"He had tears in his eyes as he talked about it," said the public affairs officer. "He just kept saying, 'They saved my life, they saved my life. . . . These are great men; they are heroes.' Even after telling it several times, he couldn't get through the story without choking up--and this was a man who had arrived here with all of the disdain for the Iraq mission and for the American soldiers who he [like seemingly most Europeans] had seen as the bad guys in this fight."

Read the whole thing.

Vacation? When There's So Much Work to Be Done?

VP Cheney had to make a special trip to Iraq to inform the Iraqi Parliament that they have no business taking vacation time until they finish up the crucial tasks of governance:

Vice President Dick Cheney’s surprise trip to Baghdad today was meant to deliver a tough message to the Iraqi government – put off your vacation plans and get back to work.

U.S. officials have been livid since discovering that Iraq’s fledgling parliament – hardly a hive of activity in the first place – was planning to take a two-month summer recess, postponing work on a bill spelling out how oil money would be shared among Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups or a law authorizing new regional elections.

The new American ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, told reporters flying with Cheney that the vice president would convey American displeasure over the planned vacation. “The reality is, with the major effort we’re making, the major effort the Iraqi security forces and military are making themselves, for the Iraqi parliament to take a two-month vacation in the middle of summer is impossible to understand,” Crocker said.

Unbelievable. 

Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory

It's damned near impossible to tell what really is going on inside of Iraq.  I have absolutely zero trust in the MSM to get the story right.  Amir Taheri explains how the MSM obscures the truth - through incompetence, naivete and blame-America-first mentality.  And this same media bias and incompetence has a negative effect on the Iraqis too:

[A] problem is that Iraq has become the focus of anti-American passions. Millions want Iraq to fail so that the United States will be humiliated. And Iraqis watch satellite TV - including channels from Iran, Egypt and Qatar that make a point of presenting post-liberation Iraq as a tragic quagmire. When CNN and the BBC send a similar message, Iraqis can be persuaded that their country is lost.

Imagine a resident of, say, Mandali or Nasseriah, who is told day and night that Iraq is sinking in a sea of fire and blood. He looks around and sees no evidence of that - but one can't blame him if he thinks that what the media say must be true in other parts of Iraq.

The fact that more than 90 percent of the violence that dominates reporting from Iraq takes place in five neighborhoods in Baghdad, plus one of the 18 Iraqi provinces, is neither here nor there. The perception is that all of Iraq is lost.

The old rule in the news business still holds: "If it bleeds, it leads." Stories about suicide attacks and carnage are more attractive than boring stuff about the emergence of a pluralist political consciousness and the mushrooming of thousands of small businesses.

Even the violence can't be properly covered. Reporters have no access to those who cause it and can only guess at their motives.

For a Western journalist who speaks no Arabic and has no contacts in the country, there are two options: embed with a U.S. or British military unit, or rely on Iraqi aides. Being embedded means seeing things through a narrow, and necessarily biased, angle. Relying on hired Iraqis means becoming a secondhand dealer in information that one cannot verify.

*

Last month, Iraq received the U.N.'s special environmental prize for reviving parts of the marshes drained by Saddam, thus saving one of the world's most precious ecological treasures. Almost no one in the media noticed.

Also last month, the Iraqi soccer squad reached the finals of the Asian Games - beating out Japan, China, South Korea and Iran. Again, few in the West noticed.

In 2006, almost 200 major reconstruction projects were officially completed and 4,000 new private companies registered in Iraq. But few seem interested in the return of private capitalism after nearly 50 years of Soviet-style control.

Iraq's new political life is either ignored or dismissed as irrelevant. The creation of political parties (some emerging from decades of clandestine life), the work of Iraq's parliament, the fact that it is almost the only Arab country where people are free to discuss politics to their hearts' content - these are of no interest to those determined to see Iraq as a disaster, as proof that toppling Saddam was a modern version of the original sin.

Iraq may still become any of those things - but right now it is none of them. When the real history of the Iraq war is written, posterity might marvel at the way modern media were used to manufacture that original sin.

Read the whole thing

And so what we have is a snowball effect, from the left-leaning media that wants nothing more than to see failure, to the US that is trying to fight the good fight, to the rest of the world that watches and criticizes, to the Iraqis themselves.

It is frustrating beyond belief to see the potential for victory, a free Iraq, and peace in the Middle East being ruined in this way. It is there, right in front of us all, ready to reach out and grab it - - but the naysayers and negativity junkies keep aiding those who fight us to move the goal further out of our reach.

And maybe the most egregious sin of all - - those who fight for freedom deserve better. 

A Few More Opinions About the Hanging of Saddam

Saddam, a Rope, and a Great Escape - Michael Young
Saddam Hussein's execution was a fitting finale for an aging despot who once dispatched tens of thousands of people in a like manner. Much offense was taken from the fact that in his final moments he had to endure the insults of onlookers. As fate would have it, those Shiites for whom Saddam had displayed such contempt were the ones dropping him into the pit. There was also much commotion about the fact that Saddam was hanged on the religious holiday of Eid al-Adha. But the criticism missed the point. For a man who had ordered the bombing or plundering of myriad holy sites, whose intelligence services had murdered thousands of prisoners in their cells just to make more room for new ones, whose soldiers had slaughtered with unflinching barbarism hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, the hangman's rope was almost too polite a way to go. What justified the reaction of so many Arabs outside Iraq, who could never work up indignation over the regime's crimes, yet now stand in condemnation of Saddam's hanging? (Daily Star-Lebanon)
    See also Measure for Measure - Fouad Ajami
We have been asking the Iraqis to claim responsibility for their country. On that morning in Baghdad, three years after he had been flushed out of his spider hole, Saddam Hussein came face to face with the wrath and hurt he had bequeathed Iraqis. Those vengeful men taunting him as he fell through the gallows' trapdoor were in the most direct way the children of his cruel reign of terror. (U.S. News)
    See also Aftermath of a Hanging - Nibras Kazimi
If you wanted Saddam executed, then all you took from the spectacle was the end result: Saddam is no more. If you didn't want Saddam executed or were conceptually against the death penalty, then you nitpicked every detail and decried what happened. Saddam's mortal remains were respected and returned to his clan, who promptly turned his grave into a shrine. Back in Saddam's era, should you be a lucky family to get the corpse of a loved one back after an execution, you would have received a bill from the regime for the price of the bullets used. (New York Sun)

Thus All Too Seldom to Tyrants - David Gelernter
"Rejoice not when thy enemy falleth"--that is the Bible's advice (Proverbs 24:17), and the classical rabbinic tradition cites this verse in urging us never to celebrate the death of an enemy no matter how evil. But Americans have plenty to celebrate in the trial and punishment of Saddam Hussein by his own nation, which America and her allies made possible. The trial of Saddam was a triumph for one of the noblest of all causes: the sanctity of justice no matter how powerful the criminal, no matter how poor or powerless the victim. May the same thing happen to terrorist tyrants everywhere. But it isn't likely to. For a nation to pass sentence on its own deposed dictator is a rare event.

In the days following Saddam's execution we heard often about how the Iraqis (and by implication their American protectors) had botched it. Saddam was taunted on the gallows, and his last moments were videotaped by witnesses who should not have been collecting souvenirs. Those infractions of execution etiquette ought not to have been allowed, but don't kid yourself: No execution is ever pretty. And in this squeamish, fastidious nation it is easy to forget the significance of a hanging; a British royal commission once spelled it out. Hanging is "a peculiarly grim and derogatory form of execution, suitable for sordid criminals and crimes."

In any case, those who criticize the manner of Saddam's execution invite the world to contemplate the ways in which the convict himself did the deed. How much dignity did his thug henchmen allow Iraqis who were about to be fed into industrial shredders or to have nails driven into their skulls? "Execution with dignity" is virtually a contradiction in terms, but many believe that a noose and a swift broken neck were too good for a man who had murdered so many and created so much misery and agony in this sad, suffering world.

All things considered, the trial of Saddam Hussein was a moral bull's-eye in a field where bull's-eyes are rare. The last hundred years have seen many of the most vicious murderers the world has ever known. Some were tried; plenty were not. (The Weekly Standard)

2008 Candidates on Iraq

Mitt Romney and John McCain, both potential Republican candidates, have each come out with similar statements on Iraq.  McCain used the Powerline blog as a forum, and sounded cautiously hopeful:

Increasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq will expose more brave Americans to danger, and increase the number of American casualties. Extending combat tours and accelerating the deployment of additional brigades is a terrible sacrifice to impose on the best patriots among us, and they will understandably be disappointed. Then they will shoulder their weapons, and do everything duty requires to win this war.

We have made many mistakes since 2003, and these will not be easily reversed. But from everything I witnessed on my most recent visit, I believe that success is still possible. Even greater than the costs incurred thus far and in the future are the catastrophic consequences that would ensue from our failure in Iraq. By surging troops and bringing security to Baghdad and other areas, we will give the Iraqis the best possible chance to succeed. Our national security, and that of our friends and allies, compels us to make our best effort to prevail, and to do it now.

Romney sounds a similar note on his own site:

I agree with the President: Our strategy in Iraq must change. Our military mission, for the first time, must include securing the civilian population from violence and terror. It is impossible to defeat the insurgency without first providing security for the Iraqi people. Civilian security is the precondition for any political and economic reconstruction.

"In consultation with Generals, military experts and troops who have served on the ground in Iraq, I believe securing Iraqi civilians requires additional troops. I support adding five brigades in Baghdad and two regiments in Al-Anbar province. Success will require rapid deployment.

"This effort should be combined with clear objectives and milestones for U.S. and Iraqi leaders.

"The road ahead will be difficult but success is still possible in Iraq. I believe it is in America's national security interest to achieve it."

Damned if We Do and Damned if We Don't

Think Progress reports on Tom Brokaw's reaction to Saddam's hanging, which is the same reaction many have had:

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, who delivered a eulogy at President Gerald Ford’s funeral today, appeared this morning on the Don Imus radio show. Brokaw agreed with Imus that it is “difficult to imagine” how the execution of Saddam Hussein “could have turned out worse.”

“[W]e portray ourselves around the world as the champions of democracy and the rule of law,” Brokaw said, yet Hussein’s execution “resembled the worst kind of nightmare out of the old American West.” As a result, Hussein, who “had disappeared, in effect, as some kind of a symbol over there, suddenly becomes a martyr.”

I absolutely agree that the hanging was brutal and ugly.  I think Saddam deserved to die, but I would have preferred it to be out of the public's eye, and to be by lethal injection rather than by hanging, which I think is as cruel, unusual, and archaic as the guillotine. And I think his execution was rushed.  I would have much preferred that he be tried for the remainder of his crimes, including the gassing of the Kurds.  I think it would have been a very good thing for all the details of his murderous ways to be made public over a long series of trials.  Each nasty thing should have been reported in the press for people to be sickened by. 

The thing of it is, is, it was not up to me.  And you know, it wasn't up to the US either. Bush stayed out of it deliberately.  Why?  Because it was an Iraqi affair.  The point is for Iraq to be a sovereign nation, not a puppet of the US, which is exactly what everyone would have said if the US had taken charge of Saddam's trial and execution.

The brutality was an Iraqi thing.  The lack of professionalism, the escaping cell phone video, the the cursing and the mobbishness can't be blamed on the US.  That's just ridiculous. The entire fiasco-like properties of the thing are proof that we had no part, because if we did, it would have gone much differently.

Are Brokaw and other critics actually saying that the US SHOULD have been in charge?  

Saddam's Death: Justice Served

HalabjaMoreThe Iraqi Holocaust

Saddam Verdict Watch

Verdict due Sunday (tomorrow):

Iraq's prime minister on Saturday urged his countrymen to accept the verdict against Saddam Hussein without violence, then in the next breath declared that the former dictator must get "what he deserves" with the decision that could send him to the gallows.

Nouri al-Maliki - the highly partisan Shiite Muslim prime minister who was forced into years of exile during Saddam's Sunni-dominated rule - imposed an open-ended curfew on Baghdad and two nearby provinces, and closed the international airport until further notice.

Checkpoints went up across Baghdad, and many cities and towns to the north were sealed by Saturday morning to keep residents in and potential attackers out.

The onerous measures threatened gunmen or anyone who ventured out with being shot on sight. Residents scrambled to stock up on food to wait it out indoors, and streets emptied by nightfall.

Iraq's High Tribunal hands down verdicts and sentences Sunday for Saddam and seven co-defendants - judicial findings that stood the chance of tipping the country into a full-blown sectarian civil war after a trial that stretched over nine months in 39 sessions and ended nearly 3 1/2 months ago.

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A survey of the works of "The Butcher of Baghdad" from the Times of London:

IN 24 years of tyrannical rule, Saddam Hussein brought death to millions in three wars, torture to the countless pitiful souls incarcerated in his dungeons and isolation from much of the world to the once-proud country that he cowed.

Today Iraqis expect to see the leader who terrorised them condemned to face a hangman’s noose for just one of his many crimes — the execution of 148 Shi’ite men from the village of Dujail, 40 miles north of Baghdad, in retaliation for an attempt on his life there in 1982, when he had been in power for only three years.

The country is braced for the verdict amid fears that the dictator’s Sunni supporters will mount revenge attacks on Shi’ite areas.

In a clear echo of the mood of most Iraqis, Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, said yesterday that he hoped Saddam would be given “what he deserves” when the verdict is handed down.

If, as expected, Saddam is convicted of crimes against humanity and stands in the dock to hear his sentence, I will watch with that particular attention that comes from fascination and disgust. I have reported on the misery that he has inflicted on his countrymen for more than 20 years, from the ill-judged invasion of Iran that left more than a million dead, to his equally disastrous foray into Kuwait, which left his nation in ruins.

He has cast a dark shadow of evil over every moment I have spent in Iraq — a man who had personally tortured some of his victims and even walked his young sons through his prisons to witness the barbarity.

Today’s case dates back 24 years to an ambush in which 10 gunmen fired at his convoy. In revenge, the surviving villagers testified, Saddam had hundreds of them arrested and tortured. As well as the 148 executed, a further 399 men, women and children were consigned to a desert camp.

The survivors say they relish the prospect of Saddam suffering the same punishment that he meted out to so many others. He ordered myriad death sentences for crimes as petty as insulting him or his sons, Qusay and Uday, sometimes in remarks conveyed to the authorities by teachers overhearing their pupils’ accounts of conversations at home. Nowhere was safe in Saddam’s Iraq.

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