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Sneaking Up on Peace in Iraq

Friday October 19, 2007

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We may be sneaking up on victory in Iraq. The other night, Charlie Gibson on his ABC World News Tonight program reported (according to a transcript from Rush's website):

"One item from Baghdad today. The news is... that there is no news. The police told us that, to their knowledge, there were no major acts of violence. Attacks are down in Baghdad and today no bombings or roadside explosions were reported."

It would be too much to ask that continue and, indeed, it will not, but imagine if deaths in the US were covered the same way as we cover deaths in Iraq.

According to the UnitedJustice.com website, on any given day in the United States:

114 people die in car crashes
55 people die from the flu
42 people are murdered

In addition to those data, the American Heart Association tells us that on any given day in the US some 2,500 people will die of cardiovascular disease.

Ok. It is true that no one in the United States has died of an IED planted in a roadway, so those numbers don't really mean much, but I wanted to show you that a lot of people die from a lot of different causes every day and they are rarely reported anywhere, much less on the network news.

On the other hand, the White House reports that in Iraq, "murders are down from a peak of over 161 reported murders per week a year ago to less than five per week" now.

Which is pretty far below the average of nearly 300 murders per week in the US.

In the Islamic world Ramadan, the month in which Muslims take no food or water during the daylight hours, has just ended. According to a White House analysis unlike the previous three years when violence spiked during Ramadan, "This year, however, the decreased levels of violence in the weeks prior to Ramadan continued through Ramadan."

ABC news reported yesterday:

"A school in Fallujah, visited by ABC News, is now packed with children. It's a sight that presents a stark contrast to what the city has seen in recent years �
"Just eight months ago, Marines were battling suicide bombers and al Qaeda."

Fallujah? Zounds.

The Associated Press reported earlier this week that "a top Pentagon envoy and a leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite political party � were paying a visit to Sunni sheiks who have joined the U.S. battle against extremists."

According to the piece by Hamza Hendawi,

"In what could be another landmark visit, the [Sunni] Anbar leaders have said they wanted to travel to the Shiite holy city of Najaf to meet with Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani."

Schools in Fallujah. Decreases in violence during Ramadan. Shiites and Sunnis meeting with each other.

Is this the beginning of the end of the war in Iraq? And if it is, how will we know when the war has been successfully concluded?

There are two ways, not including the continuing draw down of troop levels.

First, we will know the war in Iraq has been won when Western political leaders no longer have to take secret or surprise trips to Baghdad. When they can announce their trips like they do when they travel to Paris or Toronto, we will know that Iraq is stable and, within the meaning of Washington, DC, safe.

The second way we will know the war has been won is when Western media organizations begin closing down their Baghdad bureaus.

A bureau in Baghdad is an astonishingly expensive operation to run what with security for the equipment and people, the hazardous duty pay for the employees, and the Blackwater-type security squads which the Western press has used to protect itself - much like Embassies and other governmental agencies.

Newspapers and TV networks are not toys for a latter day Charles Foster Kane. They are businesses owned, in many cases, by other businesses which have stockholders who have some desire to have their shares gain in value.

Thus, as soon as "there is no news" (as Charlie Gibson put it) coming out of Baghdad with any regularity, the equipment will be packed up and shipped out, and the staffs will be redeployed to a different trouble spot.

We may, indeed, be sneaking up on victory in Iraq because Iraqi leaders are walking up to their responsibilities to take control of their nation.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Lot's-o-Links to just about everything mentioned above. Another in the never-ending series of interesting license plates and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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