But Ed, please, button up on the superficial optimism. Reconciliation is not going to happen quickly. This odd faith in nearly instant solutions is one factor that appeared to contribute to our disastrous and inexplicable policy of passivity in ‘05/’06.

It’s bad enough that the signficant improvement in trends in Iraq has been cloaked in media silence (naturally, without any serious attempt to educate by the administration). Every step forward should be accompanied by the proviso “It sucks, and will continue to suck for a long time, and but will yield to determined effort and patience”. Reconciliation isn’t even absolutely essential to our objectives (long discussion) – but there’s no question that it’s NOT going to occur “quickly”.

Final note. The media clip used here repeats the standard media distortion about security detainees – the implication that “arrested without charges” means swept up randomly, or punitively based on affiliation or ethnicity. This was/is not a judicial operation, but a war. The Coalition and Iraq have attempted to apply quasi-judicial standards and processes as much as has been feasible, but to always add the “arrested/held without charges” line to every story on detainees is a deliberately misleading move that over-simplifies with an eye towards distortion. And naturally, per the usual procedure, this distortion has never been countered by military or administration public affairs efforts.

What they do best is kill each other, and amnesty should help bring the death total for Iraqi on Iraqi murders up.

Excellent. You know what those of us over here working with actual Iraqis would call that? The polite ones of us would call that “a foolish generalization”. The less polite would call it something like “stupid sh$t” or “ignorant @#$%”.

How many Iraqis do you know? All slavering to kill, kill, kill, eh? Believe it or not, almost everyone here just wants to be left alone to take care fo their families and get on with life. There are opportunists, jacka$$es, theives and scoundrels, like anywhere else – and they happen to have some neighbors who have no trouble sending in people who will saw heads off and bomb markets. Why not spill a little bile on them, rather than their victims and the people fighting them?

Well, I am off to go work with the people you might even deny exist. The Iraqi Army that happens to be the ones doing most of the fighting (and dying) against the scum.

Fixed.

:)

When casualties were high in Iraq, Democrat leaders deplored them loudly. Pretended they gave a damn about Americans and Iraqis dying. And SO, when casualty-rates dropped 80 or 90%, did they express pleasure? Satisfaction? Of course not, the liars…….

NY Times headline: Iraqi prison break

Akzed on April 22, 2008 at 1:04 PM

That’s great…

Ed Morrissey notes that Iraq is continuing down the path to political reconciliation even as the media choses to largely ignore these developments in favor of more pressing stories, like the present cost of Barak Obama’s half-eaten waffle on eBay…….

NY Times headline: Iraqi prison break

Actually, I figure that the MSM will be interviewing the released prisoners in hope of finding one that will give them a juicy story about how they were mistreated and tortured.

We shall see. I don’t have much confidence that iraq will do anything right. What they do best is kill each other, and amnesty should help bring the death total for Iraqi on Iraqi murders up.

saiga on April 22, 2008 at 1:06 PM

I understand what you are saying but just remember that the iraqi people themselves are not the ones doing the killing. The large majority of the people doing the killing in iraq are foreign to the country. I believe the iraqi people are beginning to wake up and smell the coffee. It is a slow painful process, but then again anything that is worth doing is (japan, germany, north korea). Keep it up Iraqis, soon you will be the gem in the middle east.

Akzed on April 22, 2008 at 1:04 PM

LOL!!!

We shall see. I don’t have much confidence that iraq will do anything right. What they do best is kill each other, and amnesty should help bring the death total for Iraqi on Iraqi murders up. — saiga

That was my initial thought too, so we’ll see. But it still beats what might happen if we did the whole cut n’ run policy envisioned by the loonies on the left.

Iraq? What Iraq?

Don’t you know that that our economy is crumbling, man?

Good God, I hope the screening process works!

Perhaps at some point, the US will notice this progress and recommit themselves to encouraging and protecting it.

I assume you mean the media and those won HAVEN’T heard the good news from Iraq?