 | ||
 | McCain camp targets media (!) | |
| Feingold targets immunity for telecoms | |
| Cochran running for re-election | |
| Paul Weyrich gives Team Fred a massive opening | |
| Remainders: What happens in Vegas... | |
| Population Shifts Toward GOP | |
| The VRWC Is Back | |
| The Daily 2008 | |
| Chatter in the Blogosphere | |
| Is Fred Dead or Just Resting? |
| Which Dem is the Real Change Candidate? | |
| Miracle of Plenty | |
| The New Fire in Fred's Belly | |
| Can Bloomberg Fill JFK-Sized Hole in American Politics? | |
| Income Confusion |
| Non-News From Iraq | |
| 'No News' Is Bad News? | |
| What General Sanchez Said | |
| The Press Proved Sanchez's Point | |
| AFP Takes Lessons from TNR |
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November 20, 2007
There's Good News In Iraq, It's Just Hard To Find
By Jack KellySt. John's Assyrian Catholic Church in the al Doura district of Baghdad reopened the week before Thanksgiving. The pews were packed.
The church had been shuttered after two nearby churches were bombed in 2004. The al Doura neighborhood had been predominantly Christian until al Qaida began targeting Christians. Since then, most of the Christians have fled to Syria, Jordan, or northern Iraq.
Many pews at St. Johns November 15 were filled by Muslims.
"The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people might take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and the Christians will never come back," said Michael Yon, a former Special Forces soldier turned freelance journalist. "And so they came back to St. John's today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said: 'Come back to Iraq. Come home.' They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word."
Mr. Yon, who is embedded with the 2-12 infantry battalion of the 2nd (Indianhead) Infantry Division, attended the service, as did LtCol Stephen Michael, the battalion commander, and many of his soldiers.
The service was conducted by the Most Reverend Shlemun Warduni, Auxiliary Bishop of the St. Peter the Apostle diocese.
"Speaking in both Arabic and English, Bishop Warduni thanked those American soldiers sitting in the pews for their sacrifices," Mr. Yon said. "Again and again throughout the service, he thanked the Americans."
LtCol. Michael told Mr. Yon that Muslims from the neighborhood had reached out to him to protect the Christians from al Qaida.
"Real Muslims here are quick to say that al Qaida members are not true Muslims," Mr. Yon said.
Mr. Yon talked to area residents through "Ice," a young Iraqi Christian who serves as an interpreter for the 2-12.
"I asked Ice if the Muslims treat the Christians poorly in Iraq," Mr. Yon said. "Ice said they had no problems at all until al Qaida instigated friction between people."
Mr. Yon has spent most of the war embedded with various U.S. and British military units throughout Iraq. When "mainstream" journalists were reporting from their hotel rooms in the Green Zone, Mr. Yon was where the action was. The Iraq he sees today is very different from a few months ago.
"It's been a long time since I've seen any fighting," he said. I can't remember my last shootout: it's been months. The nightmare is ending. Al Qaida is being crushed. The Sunni tribes are awakening all across Iraq and forswearing violence for negotiation. Many of the Shia are ready to stop the violence."
The reopening of St. John's is a heartwarming story of Iraqis reaching across sectarian divisions for peace, and a powerful indicator of how much the security situation in Baghdad has improved since the troop surge began. But apparently Mr. Yon's camera was the only one on hand to catch it. I searched in vain for stories other than Mr. Yon's about the reopening of St. John's.
On Nov. 7 Mr. Yon took a photograph of Iraqis, Muslims as well as Christians, placing a cross atop the refurbished church. The photo bears a startling resemblance to that of the Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi on Iowa Jima in 1945. Few Americans have seen it, though Mr. Yon has offered it free of charge to all news services.
Perhaps the Associated Press couldn't cover the reopening of St. John's because it was too busy trying to manufacture bad news.
"Soldiers strained by six years of war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003," said an AP dispatch Nov. 17 by Lolita Baldor.
About nine soldiers in every 1,000 deserted in the fiscal year that ended in September, up from seven per 1,000 in the preceding fiscal year. What Ms. Baldor chose not to mention is that Army desertion rates were nearly as high in 2001 and 2002 (before the invasion of Iraq) than they were last year; that the desertion rate plunged when the Iraq war began, and that last year's rate was well below that of the Vietnam war (52.3 per thousand in 1970) or World War II (63 per 1,000 in 1944).
If you want antiwar propaganda, the AP is an excellent source. For news, visit Mr. Yon's Web site.
