This blog will be going silent for at least a few days. I mention this for those of you who check in daily. I’m OK, thanks for caring!
This morning started off with a bang. Our first bomb woke me promptly at 6 AM. Since that is my normal rise and shine time, I got in the shower and went to work. The bombs don’t stop daily life here, unless you happen to be in the immediate vicinity of the blast. We heard two more by 8 AM. The only thing worth mentioning about them is that they are the first I’ve heard in almost two weeks.
Iraq is floating the middle of a sea of carefully orchestrated violence. It’s awash in disinformation campaigns. Everyone here has an agenda. Bearing that in mind, remember that the coalition’s mission is to provide basic infrastructure, security and what boils down to hope for humanity by providing choices in government. In particular this involves creating a government that respects human rights and values life. For three years, the old guard evil that lives in and around Iraq has been fighting against these things. It’s not in the interests of men who need complete control of a society to allow rebuilding and prosperity. Freedom of movement, freedom of information and freedom of thought are incompatible with rule by fear and ignorance.
Well fed, well clothed and well educated Iraqis who are happy in their daily lives represent a great threat to the status quo in this part of the world, especially in Syria and Iran. If we can all be convinced to give up on Iraq, the destroyers and parasites will again take power here, and the daily hopelessness of 26 million Iraqis will fade from the world stage for a time. Bad things will breed inside corrupt minds in that forgotten darkness. One fine day, you’ll be on your way to work and the world explode in flames around you, like it did for thousands of us on September 11, 2001.
Iraq may not have been the direct source of the twisted minds of the 9-11 hijackers, but the same mentality they had was born here more than one thousand years ago, and continues to breed wherever resolute men are unwilling to fight it.