OPENING UP A CAN OF NEW YEAR

Getting up the morning of 1 January 2006, we, of course, turned to morning television news. That experience quickly made us think that we had been served cups of hot, steaming feces, instead of tea:

Not violating the laws of identity and causality, Muslims around the world were being, well, Muslims. In Gaza, they had been firing rockets into Israel and protesting Israel bombing them a “neutral zone.” In Iraq, they bombed other Arabs and Muslims. In Palu, Sulawesi, they set off one or more nail-filled bombs in a market filled with grocery shoppers. And how could we forget France? The first report cited 250 cars torched, and now it seems that some 425 were torched. During this rite of savagry, fireman and rescue vehicles were stoned, to prevent them doing their jobs, while journalists twisted themselves into pretzels not to identify the perpetrators as Muslims in France.

Well, did we expect anything different? No.

Our Schumer Meter registered another close encounter with microphones and cameras as he trampled down people to get to the spotlight. We had to watch something less nauseogenic. Texas and Oklahoma were incinerating and officials were screaming how the feds ought to do something. And so it went. Not an auspicious start to 2006.

Then we encountered one news story, and one news program that changed everything for us.

The news story involved our troops finding a small Iraqi child with rather severe-looking spina bifida as they were doing their usual work. The soldiers set in motion a process to get Baby Noor transported on volunteer nickels to Atlanta where a neurosurgeon plans to fix Baby Noor as much as she can be fixed, on his nickel.

Then John Kerry came to mind—not a pleasant reverie. Here were our soldiers “terrorizing women and children” in Iraq to the point of arranging for a baby to get a lease on quality life. Using Kerry’s logic, we are sure this was just an opportunistically staged event by the soldiers to curry favorable press before they returned to their usual raping, pillaging, and terrorizing of the Iraqis…

Later in the day, we watched a Fox News program stored from the day before on the TiVo, “Winning Iraq: The Untold Story.” Our strongest wishes and recommendations to anyone who has not seen this hour-long program, do so a.s.a.p.

Reporter Greg Palkot spent some six weeks going all over Iraq seeking data to determine if what John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and all of the Defeatocrats (term courtesy of Tony Snow) were saying about success in Iraq was true. Mr. Palkot went from the marsh Arabs in the far south up to Hilabja in the Kurdish territory, a town made famous by Saddam’s nerve gas attack on them in the early 1990s. He included Baghdad, Sadr City, and many other hamlets. He visited the Iraqi Stock Exchange during business hours, attended a wedding and had extensive time interviewing the bride and groom, and did many “man on the street” interviews. He finished by touring with and interviewing a Kurdish Donald Trump and the Prime Minister of Iraq.

John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, et al, would not have liked the program and would have charged that the program was rigged and not objective, like the New York Times. The Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, L.A. Times, and all the rest of the ilk, would have rejected the program immediately, most without seeing it first. After all, it did not fit political-academic-journalistic positions on progress in Iraq.

Of course, the program was positive. No one watching it needed to be told that the positivity arose from the information presented. But, first, for the Left and moderates, let’s do the disclaimer, to get it out of the way. No, Iraq is not fully well. Yes, much remains to be done. No, Iraq is not yet secure, in certain areas.

Is Iraq better off than before our invasion? Iraqis say yes, and some want us to leave just about as much as we do—but not until the job has been done more. Much of Baghdad and places like Sadr City have been pacified. Iraqi troops are picking up a major load of responsibility, and they are proud of themselves. Per capita income is 30% higher than before the war, and the Iraqi economy is growing over 16% per annum. Close your eyes, and the Iraqi Stock Exchange sounds like the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

You should see the consumer goods for sale almost everywhere. People are making money and are spending it for refrigerators, generators, and everything else to be found in Home Depot, Circuit City, and Best Buy over here. Our troops have done things like put in a real sewage system in Sadr City under previously sewage filled streets, and they have put in a fresh water system. Don’t think for a minute that any of this is lost on the Iraqis.

In the south, the marsh has been restored; Saddam had drained it to spite the marsh Arabs who are Shiite. The marsh Arabs are back caring for and farming the marshes, down where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers meet. Halabja in the north is thriving, and they have a museum and a regular educational program for the children to show them what Saddam was really like and did to them. Compare that to the Japanese and Germans who hide their history from their children. A 5-star hotel is being built in the Kurdish area, which also has the most coveted recreational spot in all of Iraq, for all of Iraq. Many Iraqis now have the money to use such a hotel. And, the stories go on and on.

What America and the Coalition brought Iraq was freedom, individual liberty, by unseating Saddam Hussein. It also brought capitalism, and what you see all over Iraq is capitalism blossoming and doing what capitalism always does: improving the quality of life of free individuals. It is inspiring to see. Iraqis are making the very best of their opportunity.

Having seen the Baby Noor story and the news program, we felt that 2006 was off to a very good start. We also felt real gratitude for not being of the mind-set of Murtha, Pelosi, Schumer, Reid, Durbin, Kennedy, Kerry, and all the rest of the life haters.