Keith D. Milby :: blog

From the AP: U.S. Teen Runs Off to Iraq by Himself

It begins with a high school class on “immersion journalism” and one overly eager _ or naively idealistic _ student who’s lucky to be alive after going way beyond what any teacher would ask.

As a junior this year at a Pine Crest School, a prep academy of about 700 students in Fort Lauderdale, Hassan studied writers like John McPhee in the book “The New Journalism,” an introduction to immersion journalism _ a writer who lives the life of his subject in order to better understand it.

Diving headfirst into an assignment, Hassan, whose parents were born in Iraq but have lived in the United States for about 35 years, hung out at a local mosque. The teen, who says he has no religious affiliation, added that he even spent an entire night until 6 a.m. talking politics with a group of Muslim men, a level of “immersion” his teacher characterized as dangerous and irresponsible.

The next trimester his class was assigned to choose an international topic and write editorials about it, Hassan said. He chose the Iraq war and decided to practice immersion journalism there, too, though he knows his school in no way endorses his travels.

“I thought I’d go the extra mile for that, or rather, a few thousand miles,” he told The Associated Press.

Cool lengthy story. Talking about lucky to be alive, this is it.

Do read the whole thing.

From FOX News: Cheney Makes Surprise Trip to Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq  — Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise visit to Iraq Sunday under heavy security, touring the country after parliamentary elections that he suggested were a major step toward drawing down U.S. forces.

“The participation levels all across the country were remarkable,” Cheney told reporters after an hourlong briefing from the war’s top military commanders. “And that’s exactly what needs to happen as you build a political structure in a self-governing Iraq that can unify the various segments of the population and ultimately take over responsibility for their own security.”

The daylong tour was so shrouded in secrecy that even Iraq’s prime minister said he was surprised when he showed up for what he thought was a meeting with the U.S. ambassador only to see Cheney waiting to greet him.

Cheney’s tour of the country came on the same day that President Bush was giving a prime-time Oval Office address to the nation on Iraq.

It’s nice that they are letting the Vice President out more.

Who else is having an unexpected Prime Time Sunday Presidential Address from the Oval Office Sandwich Party?

Nice summary of the elections here by Kagan and Kristol on Iraq: “Happy Days!”

THE PURPLE INK on 11 million Iraqi fingers had not yet dried after an unprecedented, almost miraculous exercise in democratic freedom–and already there were querulous American critics working hard to make light of the whole thing. “Experts Cautious in Assessing Iraqi Election,” ran the headline on a Friday Washington Post story by Robin Wright; “High Turnout, Low Violence a Positive Step, but Not a Turning Point, Analysts Say.” And indeed, the indefatigable Ms. Wright had telephoned her usual cast of sour experts, each of whom was eager to help explain why, whatever else it might be, the peaceful election of a national assembly for a fully self-governing Arab democracy was Not a Turning Point. Elsewhere in the Post, former Clinton assistant secretary of state Susan Rice took the occasion of Iraq’s elections to reject, with a bit of a sneer, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s assertion that democracy in Iraq serves American security interests.

Funny, isn’t it? We seem to remember that the Clinton administration’s declared foreign policy doctrine was something called “democratic enlargement.” No longer operative, it seems. Will any leading Democrat, other than Joe Lieberman, bring himself to unambiguously celebrate this eruption of democracy in the heart of the Arab world?

I am sure John F’ing Kerry will be taking credit for or denying anything to do with it, just depending on which  way the winds blows on this one for quite some time.

“I was for it before I was against it.” What a moron.

I was certainly glad to hear that the elections in Iraq went to well. Before you know it the vast majority of the troops will be home or in some other part of the world. Our actions will have gone so well in Iraq, that most media outlets will move on to other things and the democrats will have one less hammer to pound the administration with.

Excellent, Excellent, Excellent!

That was what I was thinking after I read this post at Reporting from Iraq by Margaret Friedenauer, embedded with 172nd Stryker Brigade in Iraq.

Think about everything you’ve heard about the conditions in Iraq, the role of U.S. forces, the multi-layered complexities of the war.

Then think again.

I’m a journalist. I read the news everyday, from several sources. I have the luxury of reading stuff newspapers don’t always have room to print. I read every tidbit I could on Iraq and the war before coming.

Everything I thought I knew was wrong.

Wow! This is just the beginning and it only gets better.

I really appreciated her honesty about the conflict she is facing on reporting the news out of Iraq. She was honest and open about the unpleasant side of what she was seeing but more importantly she recognized that there was another side that had not been reported.

Thank you. That is all I ever wanted, both sides of the story.

Hat Tip: KJL, The Corner

The President had another great speech today on the progress in Iraq and the upcoming elections.

From GOP.com

Victory will be achieved by meeting certain clear objectives:  when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can protect their own people, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks against our country.  These objectives, not timetables set by politicians in Washington, will drive our force levels in Iraq.  As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.  And when victory is achieved, our troops will then come home, with the honor they have earned.

The President also had answers for the critics of this war who want to raise the ‘White Flag’ of surrender and retreat:

Some in Washington are calling for a rapid and complete withdrawal of our forces in Iraq.  They say that our presence there is the cause for instability in Iraq, and that the answer is to set a deadline to withdraw.  I disagree.  I’ve listened carefully to all the arguments, and there are four reasons why I believe that setting an artificial deadline would be a recipe for disaster.

First, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message to the Iraqis. As Iraqis are risking their lives for democracy, it would tell them that America is more interested in leaving than helping them succeed, put at risk all the democratic progress they have made over the past year.

Secondly, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message to the enemy. It would tell them that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run. It would vindicate the terrorists’ tactics of beheadings and suicide bombings and mass murder.  It would embolden the terrorists and invite new attacks on America. 

Third, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message to the region and the world.  It would tell our friends and supporters that America is a weak and unreliable ally, and that when the going gets tough, America will retreat.

Finally, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message to the most important audience — our troops on the front line.  It would tell them that America is abandoning the mission they are risking their lives to achieve, and that the sacrifice of their comrades killed in this struggle has been in vain.  I make this pledge to the families of the fallen:  We will carry on the fight, we will complete their mission, and we will win.

So like I have said before in the past, this is all good stuff. But, the President needs to keep it up and continue to drive the point home, that we are winning in Iraq and that we are winning the War on Terror.

The one other thing that is really irritating me, is this constant mantra from democrats like ‘Dusty’ Harry Reid that the President does not have a plan on Iraq. Like this from FOX News today:

But Democrats say staying the course isn’t good enough and that Bush should be outlining a strategy that puts light at the end of the tunnel. Democrats are divided over how long that should take and have endorsed plans ranging from six months to two years or longer.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats on Wednesday sent a letter to Bush calling for a “frank and honest dialogue” about Iraq.

“While we appreciate your recent speeches on this issue, we regret that the American people have still not been presented with a plan that identifies the remaining political, economic and military benchmarks that must be met and a reasonable schedule to achieve them,” Democrats wrote.

All of this even after the President purposely delivered a speech on that very subject.

Let the democrats try and continue to speak of these lies and untruths, they are only doing harm to themselves.

The news coming out of Iraq continues to be positive. The Iraqi’s will vote tomorrow to elect their representatives. The taste of freedom has been experienced in the Middle East and will continue to spread. Even though the democrats are on the wrong side of history and doing all they can do to stop it for political gain, they will not stop the march of freedom and democracy, now that it has been set on it’s way.

UPDATE:
Don Surber has a nice Audio Post sharing his thoughts on the President’s speech today.

The Washington Post is letting the truth fly. From Ben Connable, a Major in the Marine Corps: The Truth On the Ground

We know the streets, the people and the insurgents far better than any armchair academic or talking head. As military professionals, we are trained to gauge the chances of success and failure, to calculate risk and reward. We have little to gain from our optimism and quite a bit to lose as we leave our families over and over again to face danger and deprivation for an increasingly unpopular cause. We know that there are no guarantees in war, and that we may well fail in the long run. We also know that if we follow our current plan we can, over time, leave behind a stable and unified country that might help to anchor a better future for the Middle East. It is difficult for most Americans to rationalize this optimism in the face of the horrific images and depressing stories that have come to symbolize the war in

Iraq. Most of the violent news is true; the death and destruction are very real. But experienced military officers know that the horror stories, however dramatic, do not represent the broader conditions there or the chances for future success. For every vividly portrayed suicide bombing, there are hundreds of thousands of people living quiet, if often uncertain, lives. For every depressing story of unrest and instability there is an untold story of potential and hope. The impression of

Iraq as an unfathomable quagmire is false and dangerously misleading.

It is this false impression that has led us to a moment of national truth. The proponents of the quagmire vision argue that the very presence of U.S. troops in

Iraq is the cause of the insurgency and that our withdrawal would give the Iraqis their only true chance for stability. Most military officers and NCOs with ground experience in

Iraq know that this vision is patently false. Although the presence of U.S. forces certainly inflames sentiment and provides the insurgents with targets, the anti-coalition insurgency is mostly a symptom of the underlying conditions in

Iraq. It may seem paradoxical, but only our presence can buffer the violence enough to allow for eventual stability.

UPDATE:
I wish I had had time early so that is why I am taking it now. First, I want to thank WaPo for at least putting the voice of the Marine Major in the paper. It would be nice if they would continue to let alternative voices coming out of Iraq to be heard. For those of us that have been paying attention over the last 3 years, these are the things that we have been hearing coming out of Iraq from journalist like Michael Yon and many others.

Now I would also like to say that I believe the main reason that the media has not been reporting the far more positive story out of Iraq, is because it did not fit the agenda. Bush bad, everything he does, everything he supports, everything he is for, we have to be against. The problem the media is encountering now, is that the good news can no longer be suppressed. The elections are going forward, the Iraqi people are more positive and all of this just simply can longer be covered up.

When the history is written into the books on President Bush and Iraq it will only be then that we will get the true, fair and accurate accounting of what went on with all of this. I can only hope that history will remember all of the ney sayers, those democrats, elites, lefties, moonbats and others and the sad and miserable part they played. So history will teach yet another lesson as to what it was like to be on the wrong side of history.

Hey that’s not me saying it, that is this Iraqi that is saying that.

“Anybody who doesn’t appreciate what America has done and President Bush, let them go to hell”

If she can say it to all those that do not support what is going on in her country, then I feel I can say it to.

Go to Hell Moonbats.

The Political Teen has the video.

VDH delivers a good article on the actions and reactions in Iraq.

On the plus side, we have not seen another attack on our shores. No one is quite sure why, but there has at least been a radical change in Americans’ attitude about tolerance for Islamic extremism. It is generally felt that the populace has become a collective powder keg ready to go off at the next attack. And perhaps that fear has awed and silenced radical imams and their hate-filled madrassas — for a while at least.

Hat tip: Little Greens Footballs

Related:

Wizbang - Why we just might be winning in Iraq

With the recent upsurge in violence in Iraq (hundreds killed by suicide bombers, random shootings, and the like), I’ve been reminded of Donald Rumsfeld’s comments about the insurgency being in its “death throes.” And while I’m not signing on to it, I think I see some signs he might not be completely talking through his hat.