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Defending the virtues of liberty, free markets, and civilization... plus some commentary on the passing scene.
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Freedom's Fidelity
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
2003: A Good Year For Freedom
So says The Command Post.
Happy New Year!!
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
The Continued Misunderestimation of W.
There's a lot of things I could criticize Bush on and I'll admit I usually don't do it here because, given the candidates that the Democrats are putting up, it's too damn important that he wins re-election. You'll read a lot more criticism of Bush here if and when a second term happens, until then, it will be pretty muted.
There are qualities that endear me to this president though, and Michael Novak has a nice column rounding up some of Bush's more impressive speeches regarding the war on terror, and their war on civilization. It will take you back to those numbing days of fall 2001 and serve as a welcome reminder of how far we've come since then and what we've been through to get here, all in the context of presidential speeches.
This is required reading... now!
Saddam's Capture - What do Iraqi's think?
Zeyad has translated some poll results published in a daily Baghdad paper, the study was conducted by the Iraqi Center for Research and Strategic Studies (ICRSS). Here are some of the more fascinating results:
Gender of participants:
Male 81%
Female 19%
What was your reaction to Saddam Hussein's capture?
Overwhelming joy 59%
Shock and confusion 20%
Sadness 16%
None of my concern 5%
Are you personally convinced that it was really Saddam who was captured?
Yes 86.9%
No 13.1%
Do you think that Saddam deserves a fair trial?
Yes 84%
No 16%
Do you prefer that Saddam be tried by:
An Iraqi court? 60%
An Iraqi court with International advisors? 15%
An International court of justice? 25%
What is the fair judgment you believe Saddam deserves?
Execution 56%
Imprisonment 25%
Clemency 19%
What do you think a speedy trial of Saddam would achieve?
It would prevent an internal schism or conflict 45%
It would ensure security and stability 30%
It would increase chaos 14%
It would help end the occupation 10%
Others 1%
How do you think Saddam's capture would affect the resistance?
Decrease resistance activities 53%
Increase resistance activities 27%
Cessation of resistance 20%
How do you see Saddam's capture?
He surrendered without resistance 52.4%
He was drugged or anaesthetized 31.5%
He was taken by surprise 12.6%
Others 3.4%
Which is more important to you?
Providing security 54.9%
Providing fuel 35.8%
Saddam's capture 34.4%
Providing electricity 28.8%
Improving the economic situation 5.3%
Do you agree that those who suffered from the regime should be compensated?
Yes 12%
No 88%
Jeez, over here we've decided that fat people should be compensated for eating too much and being fat.
The last few questions ask whether or not Saddam's various atrocities (gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait, mass graves, etc.) were justified or criminal. All by at least an 80-20 margin were thought to be crimes. That is of course, except the attack of Israel, that was about 80-20 in favor of justified.
Click here for the rest.
Finally!
DSL and phone connection restored. It only took you 12 effen days SBC!!
I'm way behind, hopefully I'll have a chance to play some catch-up this weekend. There's so much I want to comment on.
I did get a chance to see Lord of the Rings: Return of the King this past weekend. It's definitely the best of the three, the effects were absolutely phenomenal, the best I've seen in any movie. I read somewhere that they took a good chunk of the money made on the first two and re-did some scenes. It certainly shows. One of the most likeable characters of course is the dwarf, Gimli. Andrew Sullivan points to this interview with the actor, John Rys-Davies, who I like even better, excerpt:
I'm burying my career so substantially in these interviews that it's painful. But I think that there are some questions that demand honest answers.
I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me....
What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a jewel it is.
How did we get the sort of real democracy, how did we get the level of tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you around this table, and yet you will take it and you will think about it and you'll say no you're wrong because of this and this and this. And I'll listen and I'll say, "Well, actually, maybe I am wrong because of this and this."
[He points at a female reporter and adopts an authoritarian voice, to play a militant-Islam character:] 'You should not be in this room. Because your husband or your father is not hear to guide you. You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.'
I mean... the abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True Democracy comes form our Greco-Judeo-Christian-Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world. Hear. Hear. The whole interview is well worth reading, especially the conversation he recalls having with his father in 1955, go read it all.
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
I've heard a lot of nightmares about SBC's DSL service. I've had it for almost a year now with no complaints. Until last Thursday that is. That's when it (and my phone line) went down. And despite their daily "check's in the mail" type promises, it has yet to be restored. Looks like it's time for an IRATE phone call.
Merry Christmas! (but not to SBC)
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
A Sad Day at The Vatican
No there is no new law against child molesting (THAT'S ALREADY ILLEGAL ASSHOLES.) It's the capture of Saddam Hussein that has Cardinal Renato Martino so blue:
"I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures," he said.
"Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he said in answer to questions about Saddam's arrest. Sad to see the man and his military destroyed? They looked at his teeth? What?!?! I guess we would have been better off to make like Saddam and order some thugs to pull HIS teeth out with pliers as he's done to so many, without the Vatican's wrath. If I was a lefty conspirator theorer I might wonder if the Vatican didn't have a secret deal with Saddam. Saddam had a children's prison, mostly males that didn't want to join his army when they were in grade school. The Catholic Church has for years systematically covered up regular sexual abuse and relocated accused to preists to locations where they could get more boys. hmmm......
I should give them some credit though, the Church did have a conference last year where they tried to hammer out the number of kids they were allowed to molest. You might think I'm being gratuitously harsh here, but I'm not. The result of that conference was that they would not adopt a zero tolerance policy. Maybe my math is off, but to me that means that there is some level of molestation that is tolerable.
Pathetic.
The last few years I've seen this from the Catholic Church; a scandalous child sex abuse cover-up; a declaration that homosexuality is evil, but no such declarations regarding Saddam; and now this.
Note to the Republican Party: Dump the influence of the religious right and embrace a more socially libertarian position. Make the South Park Republicans a permanent part of your constituency.
And hey cardinal, here's some pictures that you do need to see.
Jeez, twice in one week I've got posts ripping the Vatican.
An interview with Dennis Miller
I've always enjoyed his comedy and rants, I even liked him as an announcer on Monday Night Football. He's got a new show starting January 26 on CNBC, here's part of what he had to say in an interview with Time Magazine:
Q: Your politics have drifted right in recent years. How come?
A: I'm left on a lot of things. If two gay guys want to get married, I could care less. If a nut case from overseas wants to blow up their wedding, that's when I'm right. (Sept. 11) was a big thing for me. I was saying to liberal America, "Well, what are you offering?" And they said, "Well, we're not going to protect you, and we want some more money." That didn't interest me.
Q: Who in politics inspires you?
A: George Bush. He's been dealt an amazingly heavy hand of cards here, and I think he's doing his best ... Bush had the balls to start something that's not gonna be finished in his lifetime. The liquidation of terrorism is not gonna happen for a long time. But to take the first step? Ballsy.
Q: Explain how the war in Iraq makes sense to you as a response to 9/11.
A: Like there's no chance that the secular state of Iraq and Islamic fundamentalists cohabitate? They both think we're Satan. How about that as a nice point of departure for them car-pooling? I wish there was a country called al-Qaedia that we could have invaded, but there wasn't. (Saddam was) the only one who had a home address. I think it is often overlooked, especially by the rank and file of his political opponents, how well of a job Bush is doing especially considering the circumstances he was dealt. More on this later.
I'm looking forward to Dennis Miller's new show.
Enviro-blogging!
I have yet to really blog on any environmental issues, but a friend sent me an article recently from Rolling Stone that has inspired me to do so.... just not yet. I did come across the text of this speech by famed author Michael Crichton:
There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago. When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden?
And what about indigenous peoples, living in a state of harmony with the Eden-like environment? Well, they never did. On this continent, the newly arrived people who crossed the land bridge almost immediately set about wiping out hundreds of species of large animals, and they did this several thousand years before the white man showed up, to accelerate the process. And what was the condition of life? Loving, peaceful, harmonious? Hardly: the early peoples of the New World lived in a state of constant warfare. Generations of hatred, tribal hatreds, constant battles. The warlike tribes of this continent are famous: the Comanche, Sioux, Apache, Mohawk, Aztecs, Toltec, Incas. Some of them practiced infanticide, and human sacrifice. And those tribes that were not fiercely warlike were exterminated, or learned to build their villages high in the cliffs to attain some measure of safety. The Eden he is referring to is the mythical world that environmentalists think we would be living in if we could only rid ourselves of corporations (and Bush of course). A direct rebuttal to Rousseau's romanticized idea of the noble savage I think. Read the rest, it's very insightful.
(Hat tip toInstaPundit for the link)
Monday, December 15, 2003
Some Pictures
Here's some pictures I came across related to the capture of Saddam. The pictures kind of mess up the formatting of my blog (you have to scroll to the right now to see my sidebar) but who cares?
Iraqi's celebrating in Nasiriyah (Click the link for more)
UPDATE: Picture has been removed cause I'm sick of the formatting problems, click the above link for more.
Saddam or young Frankenstein?
and two great photochops:
Chirac's nightmare
(Last two via InstaPundit)
Good for Lauryn Hill
Because of the obvious significance of the capture of Saddam this won't get much attention, but I do want to note it here.
Lauryn Hill stuns Vatican Christmas Concert
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Hip Hop singer Lauryn Hill, from a stage used by the Pope, has shocked Catholic officials at a concert by telling them to "repent" and alluding to sexual abuse of children by U.S. priests.
The broadside came during the recording on Saturday night of a Christmas concert attended by top Vatican cardinals, bishops and many elite of Italian society, witnesses said.
Hill made her comments when taking the microphone to sing at the concert, held in the same huge hall and stage Pope John Paul uses for his weekly general audiences and other events. The Pope was not present.
"I did not come here to celebrate the birth of Christ with you but to ask you why you are not in mourning for his death inside this place," she said according to a transcript of her statement run by the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.
A spokesman for Prime Time Productions, the concert's organisers, said the newspaper's quotes were accurate.
"God has been a witness to the corruption of his leadership, of the exploitation and abuses ... by the clergy," she said.
This was an apparent reference to the scandal in the United States last year over the sexual abuse of children by priests. I don't really know anything about Lauryn Hill other than she is a singer, but the Catholic church deserves unending criticism over this systemic problem they have until they fix it. Sadly for kids (and stupid parents) they are still in denial.
Great Day!!
The Packers won, the Vikings and Seahawks lost. Brett Favre played great. Saddam Hussein was captured hiding in a dirt hole in the ground, though he was armed he gave up without a fight. I watched footage of him looking like a scraggly old hobo, getting checked for lice with those grade school nurse chopstick looking things and I loved it all.
On top of all this the little lady and I spent quality time hosting my parents and grandparents for the day and were able to enjoy all of the above with them, but most of all we enjoyed their company.
There's much I need to read tonight, and I'll get to it and put together some thoughts, but that will happen later this week.... As for today though, what else could I ask for? WHAT A GREAT FUCKING DAY!!
Friday, December 12, 2003
Baghdad's Thanksgiving Special
Yeah, I'm way late on commenting on Bush's surprise Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad, but like I said, I'm busy damnit! As everyone has probably forgotten by now George Bush made a surprise visit to Baghdad to join and serve some much deserved Thanksgiving dinner to our soldiers. This was not the somewhat bland George Bush from that other world of roughly 1990-September 10, 2001. This was the post 9/11 Bush, the one that has been shockingly successful with all of his major policy initiatives. The one that faced a paradigm shattering crisis that no president has ever been confronted with before, and showed that he can lead. This was the George W. Bush that I am proud to call our president. He was of course incredible well received, and I think it provided a good moral booster for coalition forces as well as sending a message to the citizens of Iraq -- We will not abandon this mission to bring you peace, democracy, and prosperity.
Not surprisingly, critics have spun this as a photo-op, and it would certainly be naive to think that political considerations were not made. But if photo-op was the primary motivation for this, he picked the wrong day. Most Americans spent their Thanksgiving visiting with families, eating, drinking, and watching football, not watching news. Ditto for Friday and into the weekend. This was one of those rare things that was a good political move, but more importantly the right thing to do. Bush did it with sincerity.
I have all the patience and open-mindedness in the world for those that disagree with his politics. But absolutely none for those that would paint him as an evil war-monger that hates the poor, wants to steal all the oil, and run the world. Never mind the fact that his actual policies are doing nothing to secure the success of these alleged goals. Bush does not have the shrewd instincts of Bill Clinton, he does not have that amazing ability to empathize with seemingly every specific person in his general audience, public speaking is not his strong suit. When he takes the podium and says he’s doing what he is because it is in the best interest and safety of the American people, he means it. I'm not being naive, if Bush wants only to kill the Arabs and steal the oil he simply does not posses the charisma to convincingly say things like this:
"Thanks for inviting me. I can't think of finer folks to have Thanksgiving dinner with than you all."
"We thank you for your service, we're proud of you, and America stands solidly behind you," Bush said. And he urged the people of Iraq to "seize the moment and rebuild your great country based on human dignity and freedom."
"You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq," he said, "so we don't have to face them in our own country."
Terrorists are testing America's resolve, Bush said, and "they hope we will run."
"We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins," the president said, prompting a standing ovation and cheers.
He also had a message for the people of Iraq: "The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone forever," he said, and pledged the help of the United States and its coalition partners, saying "we will stay until the job is done. I'm confident we will succeed."
He flew into a hot zone, a place where he would be the prized target to send his message. That is the Bush we saw on Thanksgiving and that is the George Bush that realized the powerful message he would send and the moral boost this would give to the troops. As blogger Michael Graham notes:
WHAT CAN PRESIDENT BUSH DO IN BAGHDAD THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN CAN'T? Appear in public. If that doesn't send a message to the Ba'athists and their would-be allies, I don't know what does.
Wag The Turkey?
Of course as I mentioned not all see it this way, some cannot help but look for conspiracy theories and proof of the "Bush is evil" meme. Political columnist and author Wayne Madsen was surely aware of the political boost this would give to the President as he noted in his column titled Wag the Turkey:"
I may be a bit naive, and it has been a while since I served on active duty, but I can't recall ever sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at 6:00 AM. Air Force One touched down at Baghdad International Airport, under cover of darkness, at 5:20 AM Baghdad time. Bush was on the ground for two and a half hours, his plane departing Baghdad at around 7:50 AM. Considering that it likely took some 30 minutes for Bush to disembark from Air Force One and travel by a heavily secured motorcade to the hangar where the troops were assembled, that means our military men and women were downing turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and non-alcoholic beer at a time when most people would be eating eggs, bacon, grits, home fries, and toast.
[...]
And the abysmal and sycophantic Washington and New York press corps seems to have completely missed the Thanksgiving "breakfast dinner." Chalk that up to the fact that most people in the media never saw a military chow line or experienced reveille in their lives. So it would certainly go over their heads that troops would be ordered out of bed to eat turkey and stuffing before the crack of dawn.
Madsen sure is confident in his understanding and recognition of politics and grandstanding, unfortunately the same cannot be said for his comprehension of such complexities as time zones and typos. If Madsen were to change all those am's to pm's he would have a real story, but instead he appears to simply have misread the report (Baghdad is 8 hours ahead of New York) and ran with a typo that appeared in an early edition of The Washington Post. But why bother with facts when farce more closely fits your vision?
And why bother with fools like Madsen. Who cares what they think when the wonders of the internet can bring us a sample what real Iraqi's think. Here are some excerpts with links.
Zeyad had this to say after watching coverage on Al-Jazeera:
You could easily detect the anguish in their analysis to the fact that Bush didn't go down to the streets or meet everyday Iraqis, or that Air Force 1 wasn't hit by an anti-aircraft missile fired by Iraqi militants. They were really frustrated. Their news have become so predictable. My father was peculiarly furious with one of these 'analysts', he almost kicked the tv. The guy was saying that this visit would practically achieve nothing, or to be more accurate "would trick nobody". He also said that it would have no effect whatsoever on morals of American troops...etc.
I have mixed feelings myself. The fact that he is the first American president to set foot on Iraqi soil is a huge event in itself, and a three hour visit to Baghdad Airport definitely wouldn't be the same as a tour in the country and most importantly meeting Iraqi citizens, Iraqis who would be grateful for this visit. But I understand the security considerations and this gesture alone would be sufficient to send a message to whoever it may concern that Iraq is safe enough for an American president to visit. To tell the truth I'm still shocked to this moment that he took the risk to come here. I used to like him before, but now I admire the guy.
Here's a few words from Omar about the visit:
A wonderful sunny day in Baghdad, I couldn't sleep last night, I was anxious.
The day is my day.
I've stayed awake late watching the news channels broadcasting the news about president bush's visit to Baghdad.
I tried to figure out the meanings behind this visit.
I shared the tears with him, tears of joy, anxiety, and care for the future of his country men.
I was also afraid for the future of my people and I felt some kind of unity of feelings with all the good on earth.
I expressed that today as I marched with my brothers in the demo. That fights the terrorism and defends freedom and democracy. The rest of his post is about the Iraqi demonstrations against terrorism, it's well worth reading the rest.
Here's Nabil'scomments:The president of the USA Bush make his first visit to Iraq in Baghdad airport for tow hours in the thankful day he had eat his launch with the US soldiers, and this is the first visit from an American president to Iraq, he came with secret plane, no one know this visit, and he said if anyone run out any news he is able to cancel this visit, what a brave man he is a lot of the presidents was afraid to come to Iraq but he did it he has come to Iraq. The Arabic channels like (ALJAZEERA and ALARABIA) says that if he came to Iraq to makes the freedom for its people then why he doesn't go out side with Iraqi people and visit the schools, this is toddle not right because there are some of the terrorist out side maybe the could kill him, so this is the first visit of him and we want a lot of another visits to Iraq from president BUSH and we hope that the another visit from him came with new Iraq republic that will be great to rebuild the new Iraq.
Yes.
Finally, this from the Alaa (aka The Messopotamian):Yes GWB, though the visit was brief, it was very meaningful. We know that you have come, not as the President of an invading nation, but as the friend who wishes to renew commitment to our people, and as long as your intentions are what you have repeatedly said (and we don't doubt your sincerity), the land and the hearts welcome you.
It gives us pain that the visit is so short and that the masses cannot in the present circumstances come out to give you the welcome that you deserve, but the day will come, the day will come (God's Willing). Yes the day will come when the millions will come out to welcome the best friend that the Mesopotamian people have ever had, and he will be amongst the most devoted and allied people that America will ever have.
The bones in the mass graves salute you, Avenger of the Bones.
Avenger of the bones.
What a powerful, yet chilling observation. Those that used to be loved brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers have since been reduced to anonymous piles of bones in shallow graves. Look at the pictures, here are the bones he's talking about. Fair warning, the pictures are pretty gruesome, there are 50 pages of them, I made it through 10. You should at least look through that many before you continue reading.
Now that your back, realize this was the status quo for Saddam's Iraq, as this piece in The Guardian reminds us:
The killers kept bankers' hours. They showed up for work at the barley field at 9 a.m., trailed by backhoes and three buses filled with blindfolded men, women and children as young as 1.
Every day, witnesses say, the routine was the same: The backhoes dug a trench. Fifty people were led to the edge of the hole and shot, one by one, in the head. The backhoes covered them with dirt, then dug another hole for the next group.
At 5 p.m., the killers - officials of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party - went home to rest up for another day of slaughter.
In this wind-swept field in the central town of Mahaweel, witnesses say, this went on without a break for 35 days in March and April of 1991, during a crackdown on a Shiite Muslim uprising that followed the first Gulf War.
"I watched this with my own eyes,'' said Sayed Abbas Muhsen, 35, whose family farm was appropriated by Saddam's government for use as a killing field. "But we couldn't tell anyone. We didn't dare.''
The mass grave at Mahaweel, with more than 3,100 sets of remains, is the largest of some 270 such sites across Iraq. They hold upward of 300,000 bodies; some Iraqi political parties estimate there are more than 1 million. Saddam has been out of power since March. How many lives have been saved from his brutality in that time? Who could possible know? Bill Whittle does:
Here's a math quiz for you:
During the 30-odd years he was in power, Saddam Hussein murdered at least 300,000 of his own people. These are the ones we are finding in mass graves in Iraq. Another 300,000 – at least – were killed in his war with Iran and his two conflicts with the US. Those are bare-bones, undeniable, non-speculative, minimums.
That darling arithmetic works out to no less than 20,000 people a year killed by that lunatic, or about 1,700 people a month.
So how many innocent people have not died as a result of the Iraq war?
I get about 13,000 so far.
Thirteen thousand is about the size of a good basketball game. Perhaps we can convince the Lakers to play a charity game against the Spurs, say. Then we can put 13,000 Iraqi men, women and children into the Staples Center, and make Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, George Clooney, The Dixie Chicks, Janeane Garofalo, and every single person who signed the Not in Our Name petition kill those people in cold blood - electrodes, acid baths or shredders, to get the full effect, although the weak-stomached should be allowed to merely shoot them in the back of the head.
Because that is exactly what would have happened if these people had gotten their way. The rest of his column offers some insightful observations on foreign policy, go read it all.
As for me, I feel like a broken record, these horrific stories just keep coming out. I've documented them on more than a few occasions, here's one such time. But go ahead critics, step right over those bones, close your eyes, ears, and nose to the sights, cries, and stench of mass destruction and call this an evil war. Keep doing that, and I'll keep showing you pictures like this:
Lots of souls to step over there, you'll need to be long on legs and short on conscience to make it. Perhaps you can join Sarandon, Robbins and the rest of the gang at the Staples Center.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Here are some things you can do to help our troops.
Keep a good thought for them, especially during this holiday season. Each day brings new dangers, challenges, and responsibilities as this David Brooks column reminds us:
Soldiers in all wars are called upon to be heroes, but our men and women in Iraq are called upon to define a new sort of heroism. First, they must endure the insanity of war, fighting off fedayeen ambushes, withstanding the suicide bombings and mortars, kicking down doors and searching homes.
But a day or an hour or a few minutes later, they are called upon to enter an opposite moral universe. They are asked to pass out textbooks, improvise sewer systems and help with budgets. Some sit in on town council meetings to help keep the discussions on track. Some act like foundation program officers, giving seed money to promising local initiatives.
Trained as trigger-pullers, many are also asked in theater to be consultants and aldermen. They are John Wayne, but also Jane Addams.
Can anybody think of another time in history when a comparable group of young people was asked to be at once so brave, fierce and relentless, while also being so sympathetic, creative and forbearing?
Read the rest and be proud of the character and determination and compassion that our country's finest are exhibiting.
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
So many ideas, so little time, or desire, or whatever.
It's that time I guess, holidays, birthdays, and news so slow that evening news outlets are leading with items such as its cold in Chicago and shopper horror stories. On top of that, it's the busiest month of the year work wise. I have three partially written items I'd like to post, but am still struggling to organize them into coherence and not just leave them half finished forever, like I usually do. Anyways.....
I've discovered several new Iraqi blogs as of late (some of which are mentioned below.) Judging by the number of comments their posts are generating they are attracting a lot of readers. We hear all the time about technological advancements 'revolutionizing' the world - and they do of course. But this kind of revolution in action really captures the essence of the word, the essence of human struggle and triumph. What a fascinating thing! The ability to read AND trade unfiltered thoughts with citizens of a country we just invaded and liberated on such a scale is truly unique in history. For the first time in their lives, these men can dream and have a rational hope for the future of their once great country. For the first time in their lives they can think, speak and act freely, without fear of torture and death for their families. These blogs offer a unique insight into what is going on in Baghdad, one you won't get from any reporters. I encourage you to check them out if this sort of thing interests you. Here are a few:
Zeyad - Healing Iraq
The Messopotamian
AYS
Omar
(I've also added these to my "Baghdad's Eye View" roll on the right ---------->
I'll still be reading as much as possible every day so I'll link the good stuff I read here and there, but you likely won't see anything too long and involved posted until mid-January or so.
Enjoy The Holidays!!
Thanks Blogger!
I've wanted to upgrade this blog for a while now but Blogger's online pay system for this has been down. I sent an email to tech support and they upgraded me for free. You'll notice the add is gone, not sure exactly what else they gave me, maybe some space to upload images etc. We'll have to see. Thanks guys, it's gestures like that that make people like me loyoal customers.
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