A mostly positive report about the effects of the new security strategy in Baghdad from Mohammed at Iraq the Model.
It’s always good to be reminded that there are actual non-aligned, normal Iraqis who welcome the increased police presence provided by the new U.S. tactics. Mohammed is an unusually judicious and clear-eyed observer, and those of us taking potshots from podiums in the back pews should never forget this:
Here we are not in a rush to judge the operation unlike some media or politicians who seek anything they can use to serve their agendas. We, Baghdadis, only want this operation to succeed and we still have some patience to show.
Travel safe, Mohammed, in your daily patrols–and thank you.
Update: Speaking of our tendency to lose sight of the war being experienced by ordinary Iraqis, these latest polling figures are fairly appalling. The average American thinks fewer than 10,000 Iraqis have been killed in the war? Jeezus.
Reader response from Thom:
You link to a Pajamas Media “network blogger” and call him an “actual non-aligned, normal Iraqi” who just happens to tow the Bush admin. line and claims to speak for all Baghdadis (!!). Michelle Malkin is a PJM “network blogger.” You’re going to have to do a bit more to convince me that he’s non-aligned.
Guilt by association? How narrow-minded. In my occasional visits to Iraq the Model over the past year, I’ve seen the various bloggers write quite honestly about the disastrous situation on the streets, the departure of their middle class friends and the incompetence of the Iraqi government. Obviously, I don’t agree with every last opinion that Mohammed and friends put out–as reader Zota points out, M seems to have been taken in by the government accounts of the rape story I’ve been writing about this past week. But I certainly have great sympathy for the tendency at Iraq the Model to hope for the best, which I would guess is the dominant feeling amongst Baghdadis (and should be among even those Americans who oppose the war).
It would be a shame if, instead of reading and considering Mohammed’s first-hand accounts of life in Baghdad, the commentary string wandered off into ranting about the well-known idiocies of Michelle Malkin et al. But then, as I’m beginning to learn, the Swampland commentariat ranges from really thoughtful, concerned, well-informed and intellectually supple people to those who seem to swim in a very narrow, shallow, fetid pool of like-mindedness and self-satisfaction–the very thing you often accuse people like me of doing.
Addendum: Several readers have recommended Baghdad Burning, a blog written by a young women in Iraq. She posts infrequently, but is excellent, too. Here is her initial posting on the rape case. Are there any other blogs from Iraq that readers can recommend?
