Good News From Iraq?
- added November 21, 2007
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- dmfoster
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Last year, I blogged here that we should forget about all the benchmarks that attempt to measure whether the situation in Iraq is improving or deteriorating. We will know, I wrote, that things are getting better if the Iraqis themselves feel it is so and the millions who fled the country begin to return.
Today, the BBC reports that Iraqi authorities estimate that 1,000 people a day are now making there way back home. This is the latest in a sudden string of "good news" stories coming out of Iraq.
Last week, my hometown newspaper, Newsday, ran a two-page feature that began with this:
"Since the last soldiers of the 'surge' deployed last May, Baghdad has undergone a remarkable transformation.
No longer do the streets empty at dusk. Liquor stores and cinemas have reopened for business. Some shops stay open until late into the evening. Children play in parks, young women stay out after dark, restaurants are filled with families, and old men sit at sidewalk cafes playing backgammon and smoking sheesha pipes."
And yesterday, the New York Times reported that a sense of normalcy was returning to Baghdad.
"The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February...As a result, for the first time in nearly two years, people are moving with freedom around much of this city."
Most stories credit the "surge", particularly the US's alliance with local Sunni tribal leaders to get rid of Al Qaeda types in Baghdad and the Al Anbar province.
We don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, especially since there are many great challenges to achieving peace in the country as a whole. But we can hope that these reports are a sign of shift toward better days for the Iraqi people. Inshallah.
Today, the BBC reports that Iraqi authorities estimate that 1,000 people a day are now making there way back home. This is the latest in a sudden string of "good news" stories coming out of Iraq.
Last week, my hometown newspaper, Newsday, ran a two-page feature that began with this:
"Since the last soldiers of the 'surge' deployed last May, Baghdad has undergone a remarkable transformation.
No longer do the streets empty at dusk. Liquor stores and cinemas have reopened for business. Some shops stay open until late into the evening. Children play in parks, young women stay out after dark, restaurants are filled with families, and old men sit at sidewalk cafes playing backgammon and smoking sheesha pipes."
And yesterday, the New York Times reported that a sense of normalcy was returning to Baghdad.
"The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February...As a result, for the first time in nearly two years, people are moving with freedom around much of this city."
Most stories credit the "surge", particularly the US's alliance with local Sunni tribal leaders to get rid of Al Qaeda types in Baghdad and the Al Anbar province.
We don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, especially since there are many great challenges to achieving peace in the country as a whole. But we can hope that these reports are a sign of shift toward better days for the Iraqi people. Inshallah.
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This is very good newsI hope desperatley that this trend will continue. It would be a blessing for us all. I hope that the US forces will withdraw as soon as possible but we all fear the doomsdayers warning that the Government will destabilize and more bloodshed will continue. This may be the turning point in this horrible war.
As an aside, I posted another hot story about three Iraqi football members that have defected in Australia. I'm not posting this to dispute the above article only to enhance the discussion. Any thoughts?
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