Even if you opposed the invasion of Iraq, believe that the United States is an evil empire and trying to turn Iraq into a colony, and are at best indifferent to the notion of democracy in Iraq, it’s possible to believe that things are getting better in Iraq:
People are building houses (tons of them), sharing chai in neighbor’s diwans, and getting down to the brass tacks of figuring out how the hell to rebuild infrastructure that was already neglected and miserably dilapidated before it was bombed to pieces. In a way, Anbar is exactly where it should be upon waking from the nightmare of civil war–fucked up.
The crucial fact is the state of fucked-up is moving in a positive direction and doing it rapidly. Just two years ago, the country’s top politicians were worried about making it to work alive. Today, they’re setting up anti-corruption networks and guilty politicos are nervously looking over their shoulders, realizing that as the violence drops off, so too does their cover. The people of Anbar are leaving their houses again and the markets are full. I’ve shopped in them.
and, implicitly, that the U. S. military is filling a positive role in the country:
I’m phobically allergic to the conservative Republican types the military is rife with, but I’ve only been in country four months and already I hate liberals. There’s plenty of ugliness to report in Iraq (as there are thousands of stories of hope and headway)–and the U.S. military certainly isn’t beyond reproach. Nobody’s telling you to report on one side or the other. But manipulating the truth because of your own personal biases is wretched and works in the face of progress.
The link is to The Huffington Post, one of the relatively few times I’ve ever linked to it and the post was written by S. D. Liddick, a freelance journalist currently in Iraq.
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things are getting better indeed. but it looks increasingly likely that iraq is a tactical victory, whereas Pakistan/Afghanistan are a strategic loss in the WOMBAT. Case in point: the Taliban have imposed Shari’a law in the Swat valley, with the (supine) Pakistani government’s acquiesence. This is major, major bad news.
The sad reality is that the liberals–the progressives fer crissakes–have been on the wrong side of this issue for at least five or six years now. It’s shameful. Shameful.
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