A Shoe Story Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Goes Marching On

The world media has leapt on the story of the shoe-throwing in Baghdad, parched after months of watching victory being snatched from their own declarations of defeat, leaving them with nothing to say about Iraq. This story has already had more coverage in 24 hours than the American victory in Iraq has had all year.

Here’s the BBC pretending to see both sides of this journalist’s disgraceful behavior:

“But others have called Mr Zaidi a hero, for striking a symbolic blow against someone they hold responsible for devastating wars in the Muslim world that have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

“And they celebrate its occurrence at the very heart of American power in Iraq, the massively fortified Green Zone where US forces shelter Iraq's political leaders, American and UK diplomats, and visiting dignitaries, from the anger of Baghdad's streets.” (“Bush shoe-ing worst Arab insult”).

A misprint, certainly, since I'm sure they meant "we celebrate its occurence." Eh, Beeb?

And the New York Times, reporting on the reporting of the story:

“A thinly veiled glee could be discerned in much of the reporting, especially in the places where anti-American sentiment runs deepest.” (“Shoe-Hurling Iraqi Becomes a Folk Hero”).

Thinly-veiled is right. And it's pretty thin at the New York Times and the BBC.

What If They Won a War and Nobody Knew It?

The slow dismantling of the concrete walls is the most visible sign of a fundamental change here in the Iraqi capital. The American surge strategy, which increased the number of United States troops and contributed to stability here, is drawing to a close. And a transition is under way to the almost inevitable American drawdown in 2009. (“As Fears Ease, Baghdad Sees Walls Tumble”)
--The New York Times, October 10, 2008.



Here's a bit of news to think over during the current national crisis over an Alaskan governor firing her Commissioner of Public Safety.

From the October 10, 2008 American Thinker:

Not just good news - really good news from Iraq

Rick Moran

One of the reasons for the success of the surge in Baghdad was the construction of blast walls that separated Sunni and Shia neighborhoods. These walls gave a certain level of security to both sides who had been ravaged by sectarian violence for months.

The walls come a tumblin' down. ..

Market by market, square by square, the walls are beginning to come down. The miles of hulking blast walls, ugly but effective, were installed as a central feature of the surge of American troops to stop neighbors from killing one another.

"They protected against car bombs and drive-by attacks," said Adnan, 39, a vegetable seller in the once violent neighborhood of Dora, who argues that the walls now block the markets and the commerce that Baghdad needs to thrive. "Now it is safe."

Slowly, and not without some fear, the Iraqis are beginning the process of taking responsibility for their own internal security:

On Oct. 1, the Sunni-dominated Awakening movement, widely credited with helping restore order to neighborhoods that were among the most deadly, passed from the American to the Iraqi government payroll in Baghdad. There is deep mutual mistrust between the new employer and many of its new employees, many of whom are former insurgents.

Another element of the transition, which has attracted far less notice than the Awakening transfer, is the effort by the Iraqi Army to begin turning over neighborhoods to the paramilitary National Police. In the future, its officers, too, will leave and be replaced by regular police officers.

All three moves mark a transition to an era in which Iraq's Shiite-dominated government seeks more control over its own military and sway over America's.

"The Iraqi security forces are now able to protect Iraq," said Joaidi Nahim Mahmoud Arif, a National Police sergeant in Dora, in southern Baghdad. "They will depend on themselves above all."

It really is just about over. There may be some backsliding as the bitter enders seek to make a statement thinking they can affect the American election. And there is still a very long way to go to build a society where the past is forgotten and forgiven so that Sunnis and Shias can live together in peace.

But it is the Iraqi's problem now. There is very little the American military can do from here on out. They've done quite enough, thank you. They've won the war.
#

Two-Faced Obama Tries to Slow Iraq Withdrawal--While Telling Voters We Need to Get Out Now

Just when you thought he wasn't that big of a creep after all.

From the extremely credible Amir Taheri writing for the New York Post:

OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL

By AMIR TAHERI
September 15, 2008 --

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."

"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says.

Though Obama claims the US presence is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined.

Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.

Supposing he wins, Obama's administration wouldn't be fully operational before February - and naming a new ambassador to Baghdad and forming a new negotiation team might take longer still.

By then, Iraq will be in the throes of its own campaign season. Judging by the past two elections, forming a new coalition government may then take three months. So the Iraqi negotiating team might not be in place until next June.

Then, judging by how long the current talks have taken, restarting the process from scratch would leave the two sides needing at least six months to come up with a draft accord. That puts us at May 2010 for when the draft might be submitted to the Iraqi parliament - which might well need another six months to pass it into law.

Thus, the 2010 deadline fixed by Obama is a meaningless concept, thrown in as a sop to his anti-war base.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration have a more flexible timetable in mind.

According to Zebari, the envisaged time span is two or three years - departure in 2011 or 2012. That would let Iraq hold its next general election, the third since liberation, and resolve a number of domestic political issues.

Even then, the dates mentioned are only "notional," making the timing and the cadence of withdrawal conditional on realities on the ground as appreciated by both sides.

Iraqi leaders are divided over the US election. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (whose party is a member of the Socialist International) sees Obama as "a man of the Left" - who, once elected, might change his opposition to Iraq's liberation. Indeed, say Talabani's advisers, a President Obama might be tempted to appropriate the victory that America has already won in Iraq by claiming that his intervention transformed failure into success.
#

Obama's office tried to talk their way around Taheri's claims, but ended up reiterating the gist of it themselves:

Obama camp hits back at Iraq double-talk claim
2 days ago

PUEBLO, Colorado (AFP) — Barack Obama's White House campaign angrily denied Monday a report that he had secretly urged the Iraqis to postpone a deal to withdraw US troops until after November's election.

In the New York Post, conservative Iranian-born columnist Amir Taheri quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying the Democrat made the demand when he visited Baghdad in July, while publicly demanding an early withdrawal.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview, according to Taheri.

"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open," Zebari reportedly said.

The Republican campaign of John McCain seized on the report to accuse Obama of double-speak on Iraq, calling it an "egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas."

But Obama's national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri's article bore "as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial."

In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said. [Exactly what Taheri wrote--TRC].

In the face of resistance from Bush, the Democrat has long said that any such agreement must be reviewed by the US Congress as it would tie a future administration's hands on Iraq.

"Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations, nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades," Morigi said.

"These outright distortions will not changes the facts -- Senator Obama is the only candidate who will safely and responsibly end the war in Iraq and refocus our attention on the real threat: a resurgent Al-Qaeda and Taliban along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border."

Last Tuesday, Bush announced plans to remove 8,000 US troops from Iraq in the coming months and send 4,500 to Afghanistan by January.

Obama said the president was belatedly coming round to his own way of thinking, but also accused Bush of "tinkering around the edges" and "kicking the can down the road to the next president."
#

Safely and responsibly end the war? He's willing to prolong the tours of U.S. troops, and gamble with the lives of Iraqis, just to rob the Bush administration of credit for the win, and gain an edge in the polls in November to get his own sorry ass into a chair he can never fill.

There's no way this President would ever kick this can down the road to the likes of the treacherous Barack Obama. He couldn't trust this clown with an empty can of SPAM™.

Sneeze Alert: Al Qaeda Fleeing Baghdad

If you read your Saturday’s Detroit News in a hurry, you may have missed this 72-word paragraph in the Nation/World Briefs:

Iraq premier: Al-Qaida is on the run

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's prime minister said Friday that U.S. and Iraqi troops have chased al-Qaida in Iraq out of Baghdad in the year since a security crackdown began, and he promised to pursue insurgents who have fled northward. Underscoring the rising violence in northern Iraq, a double suicide bombing targeted Shiite worshippers as they left weekly prayer services in the city of Tal Afar, killing at least four people and wounding 17, officials said.

I like the way this notice saves its “underscoring” not for the ongoing and unheralded success of coalition forces in Iraq, but for the “rising violence in northern Iraq"--which is only rising because a routed AQ has no place left to go.

Measures of Progress in Baghdad

This Thanksgiving Day feel-good story has everything.

“Americans are our protectors and saviors,” said the killer of Al Qaeda’s “White Lion” in Baghdad.

It gets better.

“You can move freely in Amariyah at any time of the day or night,” Abul Abed said. “You can even see women without head scarves, wearing tight jeans!”

From last Thursday's Chicago Tribune:

New boss turns the tables on Al Qaeda
Ex-Sunni insurgent becomes U.S. ally

By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent; Nadeem Majeed contributed to this report

November 22, 2007

BAGHDAD

The once-dreaded Al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold of Amariyah has a new boss, and he's not shy about telling the story of the shootout that turned him into a local legend and helped change the tenor of the Iraq war.

Earlier this year, Abul Abed, a disgruntled Sunni insurgent leader, began secret talks with the Americans about ending Al Qaeda's reign of terror in this run-down, formerly middle-class Baghdad neighborhood, renowned as one of the city's most dangerous. He had been gathering intelligence on the group for months.

One day in late May, he said, he decided it was time to act.

He hailed the car carrying the feared leader of Al Qaeda in the neighborhood, a man known as the White Lion, on one of Amariyah's main streets. “We want you to stop destroying our neighborhood,” he told the man.

“Do you know who you are talking to?” said the White Lion, getting out of his car. “I am Al Qaeda. I will destroy even your own houses!”

He pulled out his pistol and shot at Abul Abed. The gun jammed. He reloaded and fired again. Again, the gun jammed.

By this time, Abul Abed said, he had pulled his own gun. He fired once, killing the White Lion.
“I walked over to him, stepped on his hand and took his gun,” Abul Abed, which is a nom de guerre, said at his new, pink-painted headquarters in a renovated school in Amariyah, as an American Army captain seated in the corner nodded his head in affirmation of the account. “And then the fight started.”

It was the beginning of the end for Al Qaeda in Amariyah. The next day, a firefight erupted. Al Qaeda fighters closed in on Abul Abed. Most of the 150 men who had joined him fled. Holed up in a mosque with fewer than a dozen supporters, Abul Abed thought the end was near.

“The blue carpet was soaked red with blood,” he recalled. Then the imam of the mosque called in American help.

A friendship was born.

Now Abul Abed, a swaggering former major in the Iraqi army and reputedly a top leader in the influential Islamic Army insurgent group, reigns supreme in Amariyah -- with considerable help from the U.S. military.

Still wearing the White Lion's pistol tucked into his belt, he commands his own 600-member paramilitary force, called the Knights of Mesopotamia. He receives $460,000 a month from the U.S. military to pay, arm and equip them. They wear crisp olive green uniforms with smart red and yellow badges bearing the Knights' horse-head logo. They are well-armed, and some have flak jackets.

But they don't really need them. Since the Knights drove Al Qaeda out of Amariyah after a two-month battle, the neighborhood has become largely safe.

“You can move freely in Amariyah at any time of the day or night,” Abul Abed said. "You can even see women without head scarves, wearing tight jeans!"

An 'Awakening' in Iraq

Men like Abul Abed have helped change the face of the war. Following in the footsteps of the late Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the tribal leader who led the Sunni revolt that drove Al Qaeda from the base of its operations in Iraq’s Anbar province, more than 70,000 people, most of them Sunnis, in 148 groups have joined in the so-called Awakening, or Sahwa, movement, according to the U.S. military, turning against Al Qaeda and turning to the Americans for help.

Since Abul Abed's fight in Amariyah, some of the most feared Baghdad neighborhoods, including Abu Ghraib, Fadhil, Ghazaliyah, Dora and Adhamiyah, have followed suit, forming their own brigades of Knights, welcoming the U.S. military and receiving U.S. money.

Abul Abed is coy about his insurgent connections. He gave his real name as Saad Erebi Ghaffouri al-Obaidi, though he is known across Baghdad as Abul Abed. U.S. officials, Amariyah residents and Sunni leaders say he was a prominent commander in the Islamic Army. He described himself as a former Iraqi army major who "went into business" after the regime fell. He won't say what business.

But he acknowledged that many of his men once fought Americans and now work closely with them.

“They recognize that they made a big mistake,” he said. “They realize that they were on the wrong path and that they wasted many chances with what they did.”

The implications of creating this network of trained, armed paramilitaries loyal not to the government but to an assortment of local strongmen have yet to be played out. U.S. officials said they are relieved that the revolution within the Sunni community has helped to sharply reduce the number of attacks. According to the military, attacks in Iraq fell 55 percent between March and October.

The U.S. wants to absorb the Sunnis who have joined the Awakening movement into the Iraqi security forces, but so far the Shiite-led government has hesitated, concerned that they will one day turn against the government. If the government continues to frustrate the Sunnis, U.S. officials are concerned their new allies could go back to the insurgency.

“That's the big intangible that makes me nervous,” said Col. Martin Stanton, who oversees the reconciliation and engagement effort. If there is no progress on getting the paramilitaries regular jobs with the security forces and delivering services to Sunni areas, Sunni frustrations will continue to mount, he said.

“The question is, what's the break point? ... How long before people start getting sick of it and start checking out?” he said.

‘Americans are our protectors’

Abul Abed said the Sunni revolution has gone too far for that.

“Americans are our protectors and saviors,” he said.

The real enemy of Iraq, he says, now is Iran. He pulled out his mobile phone to show pictures he has saved of the bodies of his four brothers, who were kidnapped and murdered in 2005 by what he suspects was a Shiite death squad with ties to Iran. One of them had a nail driven into his head. Another was missing a hand.

“Even animals wouldn't do that,” he said, his face darkening. “Iran is so deeply infiltrated in Iraq, the problem here still cannot be solved. Iran wants to demolish us. If the Americans leave, then you can count Iraq as a second Tehran.”

The Great Blackout of 2007

“The steady falloff in Iraq coverage isn’t happenstance. It’s a barometer of the scope of the tragedy. For reporters, the already apocalyptic security situation in Baghdad keeps getting worse, simply making the war more difficult to cover than ever.”

Thus the New York Times’s Frank Rich in July 2006, in an op-ed column with the handy recyclable title of “The Peculiar Disappearance of the War in Iraq.”

Though I avoid the overused term, “irony,” I do really find Rich’s complaint about a “steady falloff in Iraq coverage” ironic, because we’re in the middle of a much more substantial falloff in coverage right now. Who knows but that it may be studied years hence as the Great Blackout of 2007, ranking in enormity, perhaps even surpassing, the phantom “blacklisting” of Hollywood Reds during the McCarthy era.

Rich’s thesis in July 2006 was that the Iraq war was getting less and less news coverage because the American people were tired of watching it, suggesting, illogically, that news coverage decisions instantly track audience demand, nor even reflect it.

The truth is, and it's remained the case especially when it comes to trumpeting bad news from Iraq, that the news media shows their public exactly what they want them to see, for exactly the reasons they want them to see it, regardless of audience demand. No one ever asked for a year of coverage of Abu Ghraib. No one will ever learn about Medal of Honor winners nor stories of battlefield heroism from the nightly news.

And contrary to what Rich was griping about last summer, the falloff on coverage isn’t a “barometer of the scope of the tragedy” of the Iraq war, (nor was it last year--Rich’s Bush-hatred has made him a lunatic; compare his analysis of Iraq just this September). The present falloff is a barometer of the media’s embarrassment and chagrin at the strategic turnaround, and approaching triumph in Iraq, the good outcome the media had gambled everything on being utterly impossible.

As the Left never tires of saying about the Bush administration, the media has no Plan B if the quagmire/endless war/failed strategy version of events turned out to be, well--so WRONG.

The press’s response to this unexpected turn of events, (though it may slowly be giving way now), has been to emphasize the most negative stories they can find, and carefully avoid reporting the blaring good news of progress.

A case in point. Where we live in southeastern Michigan, the formerly great daily, The Detroit News, has done everything it could since early November to avoid reporting the dramatic improvement in Iraq, and especially in Baghdad.

On November 7, The Detroit News ran a prominent story headlined, “U.S. troop deaths set record in Iraq/Six fatalities push the total for 2007 to 853, making this the bloodiest year of the war.”

By the date it ran this story, The Detroit News already knew that there was a trend in Iraq of steadily decreasing fatalities, because it was reported in this very same article, far below the lead:

“The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, said last week that there had been a sharp decline in the number of explosively formed projectiles found in Iraq over the past three months. At the time, he and Gates said it was too early to tell whether the trend would hold.

“The noticeable drop in U.S. and Iraqi deaths in recent months follows a 30,000-strong U.S. force buildup, along with a six-month cease-fire order by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, among other factors. There were 39 deaths in October, compared with 65 in September and 84 in August.”

Even this story outlined an unmistakeable downward tredn in violence and fatalities. But the News instead chose to lead with the “grim milestone” angle, even though, in this context, it was meaningless--in fact, misleading. They liked these numbers so much they ran them again the next Saturday, with no explanatory context whatever:

Quick Read

Numbers in the news

853: Number of U.S. troops killed so far this year in Iraq, making 2007 the deadliest year of the war for American forces since combat began in March 2003. A total of 3,858 troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began.

On November 8, the day after the prominent "grim milestone" article, The Detroit News did actually report the profoundly historic announcement that U.S. forces had all but driven the last vestiges of al Qaeda from Baghdad. By "reporting" it, I mean they buried it in a 65-word News Brief paragraph, which I quote in its entirety:

Baghdad free of al-Qaida, U.S. says

BAGHDAD -- American forces have routed al-Qaida of Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, allowing American troops involved in the "surge" to depart as planned, Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said Wednesday. "Murder victims are down 80 percent from where they were at the peak," and attacks involving improvised bombs are down 70 percent, he said.

That's it. And to immunize their readers against even this small germ of good news, they ran a prominent 585-word piece, with a photo, a smooshy soft-news thing proclaiming, as the “Toll of War”: “Advocates fear surge of homeless veterans”). You can decide for yourself if the article makes the case that the Iraq War is a shortcut to homelessness for returning veterans.

Since then, as the news from Iraq has only gotten better, (or the information, anyway, as the news media won’t cover it), The Detroit News’s own stubborn emphasis in its Iraq coverage is revealed in these headlines of related Iraq-articles:

More on this topic

Pakistan rebuffs U.S.
Blast kills Iraqi children, U.S. soldiers
Senate blocks measures to fund Iraq, Afghanistan wars
Roadside blasts decline
Peace group to award anti-war activist Sheehan at Cobo
Report: 14 of 17 Blackwater shootings unjustified
Dems: U.S. wars cost family of 4 $20,900
Guards kill Iraqi taxi driver
Iraq soldier's wife turns her worries into comedy
Peace returns to Baghdad district
Mich. native Woodruff, Springsteen honor military wounded
Easing unrest renews Iraq's taste for booze
U.S. troop deaths set record in Iraq
Bombs kill five U.S. soldiers in Iraq
Ranks of people displaced in Iraq swell, relief group says

Another clearly negative story not in this list included, on November 17, “Stressed GIs desert posts.”

So, out of 16 stories, 13 emphasize bad news from Iraq, and even the favorable ones have misleading headlines. For instance, “Roadside blasts decline: Military says explosive devices down by more than half from March high, but still considered significant.” Of course any roadside bombs are significant. But not as significant, at this point, as the dramatic decline. News people are supposed to be able to recognize the real story out of jumbles of facts.

In fairness, I note that last Tuesday, the News did run a prominent AP story, “U.S. begins troop reductions”, fairly huge news, I’d say, considering that troop reductions are the only thing the Left has left to scream about.

But then again today’s big Iraq story, “U.S. agrees to further talks with Iran about security in Iraq,” is another red herring, an insubstantial piece reporting talks about talks, none of which is relevant to coalition progress in Iraq right now. Rather, it only reflect the nostalgia of the editors for the days when the Left still thought they could browbeat the administration into seeking peace terms on Iranian terms.

And look over today’s Iraq-related headlines from the News:

More on this topic

Stressed GIs desert posts
Dems tie Iraq funds, withdrawals
U.S. begins troop reductions
Levin says wars will tax future generations
State Dept. may phase out use of Blackwater
Blackwater scrutinized
Firms in Iraq face court jurisdiction
Congress grills Blackwater CEO
Dems push tax to pay for Iraq war
Report: Blackwater out of control
Levin keeps pushing Iraq policy changes
Iraq shootings scrutinized
War funds fight looms
Al-Maliki: Shooting tests Iraq autonomy
Iraq: U.S. company 'guilty' in shootings

One favorable story out of 15.

If I were a casual reader of the News, I guess I'd conclude that today, November 21st, all that's going on in Iraq is that soldiers are deserting their posts by the thousands, Blackwater is still running daily shoot-em-up tours through Iraqi villages, a brave Congress is valiantly trying to curb overspending on the war, and Carl Levin is still relevant. Oh, and I might notice that maybe a few troops are coming home.

The Detroit News has plainly decided that, if they can’t find bad war news, they'll report on Blackwater, the war tax on “future generations,” and alleged war crimes.

No question these profesional journalists are working very hard at all this. But are they doing their jobs?

Does This Count?

Women walk through Baghdad's Zawra Park. (NYT)

I wonder if it’s official enough when the newspaper of record reports that we're prevailing in Iraq.

In today’s New York Times, we’re given a picture of returning normalcy, freedom of movement, and defiant hope by returning Iraqi exiles, and Baghdad residents enjoying the return of peaceful neighborhoods. (“Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves”).

This is all thanks to the surge, by the way, as even the Times reporters eventually acknowledged, with conditions, in paragraph seven.

Iraqis are clearly surprised and relieved to see commerce and movement finally increase, five months after an extra 30,000 American troops arrived in the country. But the depth and sustainability of the changes remain open to question.

Open to question, that is, by the New York Times.

Nor is it only Iraqis who are clearly surprised. I’ll bet they are less surprised than the New York Times staff, and the rest of anti-war media who made a solemn pact not to report any progress.

Not two weeks ago on November 7th the Times editorial board (which monitors the nation’s pulse from Times Square, NY, NY), had this message to Congress from “the Heartland”:

Iraq War: The Heartland Speaks

By

The Editorial Board

How does middle America feel about the Iraq War? Yesterday’s election gave a good indication, in the results of two referendums in Montana.

In Helena, voters backed a referendum – by a 5,032 to 3,108 margin — “urging the Congress of the United States to authorize and fund an immediate and orderly withdrawal of the United States military from Iraq.” That’s nearly 62 percent of the vote.

A referendum asking Congress to “fund our military forces totally and without conditions in the global war on terror” went down to defeat.

In Missoula, a referendum asking Congress “to authorize and fund an immediate and orderly withdrawal of the United States military from Iraq in a manner that is fully protective of U.S. soldiers” won with nearly 65 percent of the vote.

The question now is what Congress intends to do about it.

We’re all for the Big Sky state. But is Montana, which has a population lower than 1 million, (all patriots, I'm sure), really the heartland?

And as for what Congress intends to do about it, and did do about it, they launched yet one more Iraq funding bill with withdrawal strings attached in complete detachment from reality of what's happening in Iraq.

Since taking the majority, they have forced 40 votes on bills limiting President Bush’s war policy. Only one of those has passed both chambers, even though both are run by Democrats.

That one was vetoed by Bush.

I don’t think you rack up a 40-0 record when you know the heartland is behind you.

In any event, today’s Times article proceeds, by fits and starts, to report on what are clearly significant signs of returning normalcy in Baghdad:

“Today she is home again, cooking by a sunlit window, sleeping beneath her favorite wedding picture. And yet, she and her family are remarkably alone. The half-dozen other apartments in her building echo with emptiness and, on most days, Iraqi soldiers are the only neighbors she sees.”

Reporters Damien Cave and Alissa J. Rubin use a lot of this kind of cautious language. Moreover, I think they do some imputing onto their interviewees of their own real difficulties believing that they could have gotten it so wrong--the liberation of Iraq, the battle against Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Shia insurgents, the surge. This kind of thing wasn't supposed to be possible, ever, ever again:

Mrs. Aasan, 45, a Shiite librarian with an easy laugh, is living at the far end of Baghdad’s tentative recovery. She is one of many Iraqis who in recent weeks have begun to test where they can go and what they can do when fear no longer controls their every move.

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. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says.

As a result, for the first time in nearly two years, people are moving with freedom around much of this city. In more than 50 interviews across Baghdad, it became clear that while there were still no-go zones, more Iraqis now drive between Sunni and Shiite areas for work, shopping or school, a few even after dark. In the most stable neighborhoods of Baghdad, some secular women are also dressing as they wish. Wedding bands are playing in public again, and at a handful of once shuttered liquor stores customers now line up outside in a collective rebuke to religious vigilantes from the Shiite Mahdi Army.

The Times reporters tell us, “Iraqis sound uncertain about the future, but defiantly optimistic.” And who exactly are the pessimists they're defying?

“Many Baghdad residents seem to be willing themselves to normalcy, ignoring risks and suppressing fears to reclaim their lives. Pushing past boundaries of sect and neighborhood, they said they were often pleasantly surprised and kept going; in other instances, traumatic memories or a dark look from a stranger were enough to tug them back behind closed doors.”

And yet, from what we read here, the traumatic memories are only that--memories--and the perceived “dark looks” aren’t real--strangers aren’t bothering them now. The story nowhere mentions where any returning Iraqi, or any Baghdad resident daring to cross into the other sect’s territory, or venturing out after dark, finds out that the thing he fears happening actually does happen.

These Baghdad residents aren’t “willing themselves to normalcy”; they're re-discovering that the conditions of normalcy--or many of them--have returned, and are willing themselves to take their neighborhoods and lives back. Willing it even in spite of these buzzkill reporters who undoubtedly keep suggesting to them that this progress--that the media has long since declared could not possibly happen--is happening, has happened. That in spit of many signs to the contrary, this may not be “only a temporary respite from violence,” something the reporter cannot possibly know.

Time and again the reporters run across residents who refuse to be the terrified victims Times readers have been promised. Instead,

“They can joke because they no longer fear that the violence will engulf them.

“In longer interviews across Baghdad, the pattern was repeated. Iraqis acknowledged how far their country still needed to go before a return to normalcy, but they also expressed amazement at even the most embryonic signs of recovery.”

What pattern was repeated? The pattern of "longer" interviews with unsinkably cheerful Iraqis. The only thing a reporter wants is a good quote, then he's done. Prolonging an interview means he hasn't got what he wants yet. These interviews that had to be prolonged so realistic (and much smarter) journalists could wear these poor Iraqis down with suggestions that all this apparent progress may seem good now, but has its “limits,” lor lacks “depth and sustainability,” or is only “tentative.”

No matter.

Cave and Rubin may as well be Tom Cruise telling his sob story to that little kid in "Jerry Maguire": it's hard to be serious when the other party can't stop laughing from sheer joy. (And see how the reporters do report the Iraqi reactions with something like pity mixed with awe.) In spite of lenghty interviews, the interviewees continue to express amazement with how well things are going. Amazement even at these “most embryonic signs of recovery.”

But hey. I have to remind myself these are Times reporters, after all. They're hard-wired not to see anything amazing in the "embryonic." Nor have they any concept of the tell-tale signs of victory, even when they're reporting it for themselves.

Mass in Baghdad

I have complained on this blog that almost every instance of Muslim-Christian ecumenism and/or “bridge-building” invariably seems to entail the Christians going chapel-veil in hand to Islamic turf. We see images of young Catholics, (or not so young, e.g., Speaker of the U.S. House, Nancy Pelosi), wearing hijabs, and learning the history of Islam, but never see Muslims in Christian settings.

In the interests of fairness, and genuinely pleased for the chance to do so, I am linking to a notable exception. Michael Yon has posted an account of Muslims and Christians working together to prepare St. John’s Catholic Church in Baghdad for a special visit by the auxiliary bishop. By all means read the account on Yon’s site. It is yet one more example of the turnaround of the situation in Iraq since this summer.

This photo is from Yon’s site, with the caption he wrote to go with it.

Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”