Saturday, November 27, 2004

Good News From Iraq #15

Arthur Chrenkoff has his 15th edition of Good News From Iraq up and there's a ton of it. Just a couple of items from this fortnight's edition:

"Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, has secured assurances from various countries, including the U.K. and Germany, that they would support the cancellation of a large part of Iraq's $120 billion foreign debt burden. However, the pledge was only partial. 'We're not talking about just forgiving debts; we can't be that generous anymore,' said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. 'But we do want to make sure that Iraq's substantial resources aren't used just to pay off debt, but to rebuild the country. We want to contribute to that.'

This is an incredible development that the MSM is evidently dumbfounded by since they've said next to nothing about it. We can be sure that had, say, the Clinton administration secured such a diplomatic coup the media would be chiseling his visage in the side of Mt. Rushmore even as we speak.

And there's this from Stan Coerr, a Marine helicopter pilot who went into Iraq in the first wave of the Coalition troops. Coerr reflected recently on the significance and purpose of America's mission:

"For years, you have watched the same large, violent man come home every night, and you have listened to his yelling and the crying and the screams of children and the noise of breaking glass, and you have always known that he was beating his wife and his children. Everyone on the block has known it. You ask, cajole, threaten and beg him to stop, on behalf of the rest of the neighborhood. Nothing works. After listening to it for 13 years, you finally gather up the biggest, meanest guys you can find, you go over to his house, and you kick the door down. You punch him in the face and drag him away. The house is a mess, the family poor and abused - but now there is hope. You did the right thing.

"I can speak with authority on the opinions of both British and American infantry in that place and at that time. Let me make this clear: at no time did anyone say or imply to any of us that we were invading Iraq to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction, nor were we there to avenge 9/11. We knew we were there for one reason: to rid the world of a tyrant, and to give Iraq back to Iraqis."

One cannot reflect upon this report by Chrenkoff, taken in its entirety, without thinking that the United States, despite its historical black marks, is the greatest nation ever to grace this planet, and that the American people, our many shortcomings notwithstanding, are among the greatest people ever to inhabit the earth.