This blog posting from IraqPundit caught my eye yesterday and I thought it was very important to share some of it here.
Maybe this is a good time to pass along more such news, not to “refute” the Times‘ portrait of Baghdad as a city of fear (it’s certainly that), but to demonstrate the chasm between the Times’ approach to Iraq now, and Iraqis’ view of our own troubled country.
I spoke to an aunt in Baghdad the other day. She and her husband live in a mixed area that locals call “The Judges’ Neighborhood.” They and their neighbors have seen a lot of terrible violence, and have experienced far more than their share of fear.
I’ve talked with this aunt frequently, and while she’s always tried to sound as if she and her husband will be just fine, this recent call was different. This time, she had palpable optimism in her voice. For the first time in a long, long time, she told me, she and the people around her feel that things might turn out okay after all.
Soldiers have been going door to door, she said, trying to locate those who had been chased away from their homes, to help them return. People are coming back to the neighborhood; daily life on the streets in her quarter is beginning to assume an air of routine. Her friends and neighbors are increasingly hopeful that things are taking a meaningful turn for the better. For them at least, the latest security crackdown is showing signs of success.
Are my aunt and her neighbors kidding themselves out of desperation? That’s possible; it’s hard to live without hope, and people can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be optimistic. (Though the truth is that Iraqis are not, as a rule, an optimistic group, and are inclined by cultural habit to see things darkly. But that’s another story.) It’s true that the murderers in Iraq are still at work. On the other hand, I’m far more inclined to take seriously a picture of Baghdad that comes from a life-long Baghdadi than one coming from a Westerner who has parachuted into town for a while, and who doesn’t speak the language.
Yet Iraqis who desperately want to lead normal lives are not the only ones with an incentive to interpret events in their own interests. If one listens to the usual suspects among certain journalists, academics, and politicians, the ongoing crackdown is futile and doomed to fail. But that’s a conclusion that many of these figures reached even before the security sweep began. In other words, some of the crackdown’s critics have created incentives, professional and personal, to perceive Iraqi and American failure. People can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be pessimistic, too.
I don’t know whether the Baghdad crackdown will ultimately succeed, but I know that so far it has benefited at least a pair of communities where my own relatives live. I hope that greater security and a sense of peaceful routine soon spreads throughout Baghdad, and allows the city’s many communities – there are more than two – to resume living in trust. And I’ll let those who see things differently speak for themselves.
But wait….there’s more! Michael Yon, who by any account is the most seasoned War on Terror correspondent, has this latest dispatch: Meanwhile.
With the odometer running over many embeds, Mellinger has taken me about 4,000 miles (total) up and down Iraqi roads, visiting units from north to south, east to west, showing that the military truly opens their doors to writers who will stick it out. They don’t even have to like you: my fights with the Army are well-known, yet they continue to open their doors. There’s a lesson in there. I wrote that Iraq was in a civil war shortly after covering the first elections. I wrote about commanders who did poorly, and ISF units that couldn’t shoot straight, and I wrote about the veneer of victory in Afghanistan cracking under the weight of a poppy-fueled Taliban resurgence. Yet they still let me in.
It’s a reminder of why I am so proud of my country, despite our many problems. It’s also a caution about why we must stick with our people who have been mostly abandoned at war. I understand the position of the journalists. Especially the ones who get blown up or shot at fairly regularly, but the informed interest of ordinary Americans is critical to the outcome of this war. And the truth is that our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of whom rarely (if ever) see a writer, are abandoned by default.
Low morale in a particular unit can be the result of poor leadership in that unit, or just not getting mail, for instance. But gauging morale is not a simple affair of asking a few soldiers. A person has to live with them across Iraq. Having done so, my opinion is that overall troop morale is good to high. (If their morale could be bottled, it would probably would sell like crack, then be outlawed.)
And, finally, can you believe THIS from NBC News King Brian Williams?
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Now I want to ask you the big question. How is the surge going in Baghdad?
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Well, I’ll tell you. It`s in its early stages and with – if you mention the so-called surge, you have to talk about it in tandem with this new policy of these small outposts, these – what they are really is glorified police stations.
We saw it today in Ramadi. There is patently no way a few weeks ago we could have stood outside an armored vehicle and had a conversation as we did today in Ramadi.
They have changed policy there. The war has changed.
Is it better? That’ll be for other people to judge. But it is already being felt here, that is, the increase in troops. The first ones are already here.
There’s a huge field behind us they are clearing for the 3rd Infantry, for their next tour of duty here. And so, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s on a continuum.
But, again, the combination, with this change in policy – getting out, decentralizing, going into the neighborhoods, grabbing a toehold, telling the enemy we’re here, start talking to the locals – that is having an obvious and palpable effect.
MATTHEWS: Do they – have you been there long enough, Brian, this time over, to sense whether it’s different than the last time you were there?
WILLIAMS: Already there are some obvious differences in security in some spots. It doesn’t take that long on the ground to instantly compare it to previous visits. So, yes.
We covered a lot of ground in one day. And when you travel with a three star and a Black Hawk, you can do that. We had a lot of heavy armor on the ground to facilitate our travels.
Still a very dangerous place. There are pockets of peace and serenity where the soldiers can go to relax, the contractors can do their jobs.
But yes, Chris, all of them revolving around the issue of security. There are some very obvious differences, starting with the arrival at the airport.
MATTHEWS: Has there been any cost to morale? And again, it’s a hard one to get perhaps this quickly after a couple of days there, Brian.
But the British withdrawal of troops from Basra, are people feeling we`re out there on point all alone as a country now?
WILLIAMS: I heard no talk of that, and that’s all I can speak to.
Today, the message that we’re prepared to report tonight on “NBC Nightly News” is this kind of tale of two wars.
I’m fresh from, you know, weeks of putting together “NBC Nightly News” and televising this debate in Washington, a lot of members of Congress saying we should be out now.
And today, we literally airlift into a place like Ramadi, where they are so proud of the latest city block they say they have been able to “peacify.” They have been able to forge an agreement with the local religious leaders and knock al Qaeda one city block further away from the center of town.
They are so involved in the battle. Many, many soldiers told me today the local people are so worried they’re going to leave cities like Ramadi and Hit. That’s the war they know.
And they say very politely, they can talk all they want in D.C.; we’ve got to enforce the policy, the job we’re here to do.
Well, Brian’s shrill TV colleague Keith Olbermann must be having a continuous stroke over all of this positive news!
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
OMG!!! We have to think of another way to bring the Iraq war down! Quick, someone invent a massacre story!
Well, clutch the pearls! NBC is finally trying to shed its “left-wing bias” image through FAIR and ACCURATE reporting!
Gee, you think that maybe they’ve finally gotten a clue from listening to Bill O’Reilly?
Regards,
Peter H.
I can’t remember where I read this – might have been Instapundit – but someone speculated that Market Forces finally drove NBC to send reporters out for original, on-ground reporting.
P.S. I wouldn’t expect it to last 😉
It is possible the American Left-Center elitists looked into the abyss of another potential American military failure and realized they would be blamed for it…again.
Maybe they DID learn something after 9/11 after all.
This thread and subsequent comments reveal quite a bit on the psychology of the right…
Now that the “msm” provides news that you agree with, you think there might be truth in it.
However, when they provide news you don’t agree with, the news is fake and they are unpatriotic, treasonous evil doers
Oh, they’ve not stopped being treasonous, unpatriotic evildoers, keogh. Don’t think that, if given the opportunity, they wouldn’t go right back to the same type of reporting they have been doing.
However, what’s happened is that the reality of the situation has finally reached the point where their attempts to spin it as negative break the bounds of credibility. NBC and its leftist coterie still loathe the Bush administration, but they loathe losing viewers more — and that’s what happens when people realize that NBC will flat-out lie to smear the Bush administration.
what I don’t get is the slow bleed concept from fellow liberals. don’t they realize that if they win the White House in 2008 they will still have to contend with the Middle East? The shieks and others will not capitulate to them any more than W. In fact, if it’s Hllary or Obama, they may be out and out shunned. And if those two don’t have the sincere capacity for strongarming, then what will they do?
Getting out of Iraq will not equal peace. It won’t even guarantee that our soldiers will not end up going back again. The Middle East was violent beforeW was in office and will continue to do so. Diplomacy can only be part of the solution when the other side continues to strike. And despite the issues we have had over Iraq, I do not want to see another 9/11 before we strike.
Islam waged Jihad from 6xx AD to 1683 AD. Almost 1000 years.
Democrats think Bush is the reason it’s back? That just proves how utterly obtuse they are.
I imagine how fewer lives would have been lost if the MSM and American leftists would have stuck with the troops and yes the Generals through some tough times. I have no doubt the enemy would have rolled over much sooner.
I read today that nearly 2,000,000 people have fled Iraq since the beginning of the war 4 years ago. This means that 1 out of 13 people have left to escape the violence. 1 out of 13 people have been either been injured, been threatened with a violent death or have had relatives/friends killed by violence.
When will people admit that Iraq is deeply mired in a civil war between 3 factions and this is not about terrorism and America securing freedom? Good thing that we’re “fighting over there so we don’t have to fight over here”. Yeah, I’m quaking in my boots over the idea of Al Queada storming the beaches of American by the millions to take over this country.
Kevin: I bet you belive the lancet study too
Kevin if you are serious, post your address so Al Quieda can come to YOUR house. I’m for allowing the Comander and Chief to protect my sister and my neice as he’s been doing the past 6 years. Funny how leftists are so cavilier with other peoples lives. Like, “the war in Iraq is so disproportionate to the 3,000 lives lost on 9/11.” Disproportionate unless it was your sister, daughter, mother or son. Liberal minds are so tiny, they aren’t serious enough to be in charge of big things.
Oh btw how many people have “fled” the liberal enclaves of the northeast United States because of years of corrupt mayhem? Millions have “fled” blue New Orleans while red south Florida and Mississippi are flourishing again.
14: Well, that means that Bush & Company are doing their job if you really believe that Al Queda is going to invade our shores, let alone in numbers large enough to start a real war in this country. Let’s be real: A war has not been waged on American soil since 1865, the end of the Civil war – that’s 142 years as of May 10th. The 2 attacks by enemy forces since then were meticulously planned and covert one shot deals; they were attacks of opportunity. If we get attacked again, then it will probably be in the same manner – unless of course Canada and/or Mexico become full enemies and overrun us in the millions. Despite our political differences, our country remains in a fairly stable state, unless conditions like poverty become so overwhelming one day that we plunge back into civil war.
15: Last I checked people weren’t being killed by militant forces on a daily basis in the Northeast and it remains one of the most populous areas of the country. From my experience, people who move to the south are mainly doing so because of the weather, not the politics. Being that the poverty of New Orleans has only increased since it was decimated, crime and murder have increased because the structure to make it stable has not is not existent. People are leaving beasue they feel that their safety and liveliehood are now at stake; somewhat of a mini-version of why people are leaving Iraq.
Kevin: you’re argument that there is no jihad is premised on the fact that a brutal war hasn’t been fought in North America since the 1800s?
Gosh darn it! Count me converted to your profound wisdom!!!
Meanwhile back on planet earth , even CNN is concerned about the unreality of the Democrat plan of sedition:
CNN Reporter: Artificial Iraq Deadline ‘Serves Only America’s Enemies’
http://newsbusters.org/node/11288
Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 8, 2007 – 16:08.
Something is happening on the ground in Iraq. Something that even certain representatives of the MSM can’t deny. Earlier this week, as NewsBusters noted here and here, NBC’s Brian Williams, reporting from Iraq, offered some unusually positive observations. Now comes this eye-opening exchange from earlier this afternoon on CNN International between host Jim Clancy and correspondent Michael Ware, also reporting from Iraq:
JIM CLANCY: “The Democrats are pressing for a deadline, be it at the end of 2007, 2008 to bring all U.S. troops home. How is that going to affect General Petraeus, the Iraqi government and the Iraqis themselves?”
MICHAEL WARE: “Well, Jim, certainly in terms of the Iraqis and the war that’s being fought in the streets and the deserts of this country, I mean, what’s happening over there, what the Democrats are saying about timetables may as well be happening on the planet Pluto for all that it counts, to the bloodshed and endless combat that we’re seeing day in, day out. All that it does, anyone setting time frames like that without real pre-conditions, anyone trying to put artificial deadlines upon this conflict is only aiding the enemies, so-called, of America, al Qaeda and Iran. It allows them some leverage to know when to put the pressure on, to know that the clock is ticking and to know where the pressure points are.
WARE: “So, in terms of the battle, day-to-day here, General Petraeus isn’t looking more forward than five or six months. He’s trying to make this surge work. But in terms of the broader strategic framework, it serves only America’s enemies.”
Nancy & Harry, are you listening?
Aside: Speaking of positive reports on Iraq come from unexpected sources, as I reported here for NB’s sister operation Cybercast News Service, on Wednesday an al Jazeera reporter based in Baghdad told MFN spokesman MAJ GEN William Caldwell that residents of the city are experiencing positive changes.
Kevin one of the reasons there haven’t been more attacks on America’s soil is because when they do, we rain hell down on their asses. Not shrug like liberals and say hey…”it was only 3000 people”.
Kevin did you mean to imply that our, Americas Civil War, was because of poverty?
Kevin, what is your solution to Iraq other than griping?
#19 – And Gene, it gets funnier. Some news outlets are also lumping in the 9/11 HIJACKERS as “victims” of the terrorists attacks.
I kid you not.
God help us.
Regards,
Peter H.