Totten: The bravery of Iraqis
posted at 4:30 pm on January 11, 2008 by Allahpundit
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Short but superb. No sugar coating, either. Tales of valor typically don’t begin with recitations of the darker chapters of the units from which they emerge but Totten’s giving you the full kaleidoscope here. It’s because you don’t know who the men were and what might have driven them that makes it compelling. A complicated place.
Not the first time we’ve heard stories like this, either. Make sure to click these three links and read the captions. Totten gave you the names, the AP gives you the faces.
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The few, The Proud of Iraqi Army. Catchy eh?
gr8inferno on January 11, 2008 at 4:38 PM
Very sad. Equally sad is how we could be farther along securing Iraq if our GI’s weren’t hampered by lawyers and politicians.
HotAirExpert on January 11, 2008 at 4:39 PM
Malik Abdul Ghanem
Asa’ad Hussein Ali
Abdul-Hamza Abdul-Hassan Rissan
*salutes*
RushBaby on January 11, 2008 at 4:41 PM
:salute:
trailortrash on January 11, 2008 at 4:45 PM
Heroes.
mattyj86 on January 11, 2008 at 4:45 PM
Damn.
Frozen Tex on January 11, 2008 at 5:01 PM
Thank you, gentlemen.
amerpundit on January 11, 2008 at 5:02 PM
Those people are heroes and I thank them. I’ve met good people from the Islamic world — even a Muslim woman in Saudi Arabia I chat with and talk to online who covers her face when we talk on web camera. That’s why I despise the people who say all Muslims everywhere are the problem.
These people hurt our cause of civilizational survival and spread of freedom as much as they help it.
Christoph on January 11, 2008 at 5:19 PM
God bless them. May the Muslim world follow their example, and join us in the modern world.
joewm315 on January 11, 2008 at 5:31 PM
*salutes*
Yakko77 on January 11, 2008 at 5:42 PM
Their generation’s children will thank them and our military. (Call me a pollyanna if you must). I thank all of them now.
SouthernGent on January 11, 2008 at 6:22 PM
Decades from now we will finally hear the stories of valor of all concerned. We are just too close to it now.
RobCon on January 11, 2008 at 6:39 PM
Amen
Zorro on January 11, 2008 at 7:36 PM
I’ve always been impressed that anyone in Iraq volunteers for the army or police force. It seems like half the suicide bombers attack recruits, or they get kidnapped, beheaded etc. Yet another reason why it’s important to rally the ‘troops’ and win the White House with someone who won’t let the deaths of these 3 men go in vain.
My hat is off to them. May they rest in peace with their 70 virgins… they’re the ones that truly deserve it if that’s what they believe heaven will be like.
Luckedout on January 11, 2008 at 8:19 PM
Those of us in TTs (Transition Teams) know them. And I mean “them” in the larger sense. Those three were of the very best. There are more like them, too.
I, and my fellow TT members are going to make sure that the “inferior training and equipment” part of Totten’s commentary is knocked down a peg or two.
major john on January 11, 2008 at 9:27 PM
All respect to Michael Yon, one of the great journalists of our time, and I hate to contradict any tribute to the incredible people on flight 93, but that is not what they did. They knew what happened earlier that day. They knew they were doomed if they did not act. They did not “sacrifice themselves so that others could live.” They went to war in the hopes that they would live, and others would live. Moments before, they thought they were on a routine flight, but they got off their asses and rose to the occasion and brought down the enemy. That they died was a tragedy. That they rose to the occasion as any true American can only hope that he, or she, would if placed in a similar, impossible, situation, was magnificent. It was not a sacrifice. It was a battle in a war. They fought and died, losing for themselves, but winning for their country. Sacrifice is too small a word for what they did.
Splunge on January 11, 2008 at 9:37 PM
Michael J. Totten wrote this piece.
RushBaby on January 11, 2008 at 9:46 PM
Oops, thanks for the correction. Sorry.
Splunge on January 11, 2008 at 9:48 PM
Poem.
RushBaby on January 11, 2008 at 9:52 PM
Our military rocks, not change.
Hening on January 12, 2008 at 12:01 AM
Better than a daisy in the barrel of an M-16.
MSGTAS on January 12, 2008 at 8:52 AM
I’m in Iraq training Iraqis and they cannot be seen coming or going from our place of work for fear of being seen with any coalition members. They risk their lives every day coming to work and going home. These guys are truely dedicated along with the soldiers in this story. What the previous regime did to this poplulation was simply unforgivable and they are trying to turn things around…with or without 100% unwavering support from the left side of the aisle.
JetBlast on January 12, 2008 at 9:57 AM
If you get a chance, please tell as many of them as possible that they have 100% unwavering support, admiration, and inspired pride from plenty of Americans.
RushBaby on January 12, 2008 at 11:36 AM
RushBaby on January 12, 2008
I’ll tell them tomorrow…we just had another rocket attack here…probably 4-5 of them landed in camp from the sound of it. 8:00 PM Sat night. Gotta keep that route to the bunker clear again tonight.
Thanks all the same. PLEASE make sure that the unwavering Americans VOTE then….we’ve come way too far to just walk away with the job not quite done.
JetBlast on January 12, 2008 at 12:46 PM
Brave, brave Iraqis. They are surely missed. This kind of courage needs to be exposed to the American public.
oakpack on January 12, 2008 at 2:29 PM
You can count on it. You’ll be in my thoughts, send news if you can.
RushBaby on January 12, 2008 at 11:43 PM
“Greater love has no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends.”
jbinnout on January 13, 2008 at 2:13 AM
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