Iraq
Archived Posts from this Category
Waving the White Flag
Human Events | Michael Reagan | Nov. 16, 2007
It has been said that there are none so blind as those who will not see. The quote is attributed by some to Jesus (Matthew 13:13): “Therefore I speak to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand”
That’s a perfect description of Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, both of whom disingenuously state that that there has been no sign of progress in Iraq and that we are losing the war there and must pull up stakes and run as fast as we can with our tails between our legs.
comments off Sunday 18 Nov 2007 | Banescu | Iraq, Politics |
Christians, Muslims erect cross in Baghdad
knoxnews | Michael Yon | Nov. 8, 2007
I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome. A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from ‘Chosen’ Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.
comments off Thursday 08 Nov 2007 | Banescu | Iraq, Orthodox Christianity |
Winning Iraq
FrontPageMagazine | Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu | Nov. 5, 2007
If the old saw “no news is good news” has any truth to it, then things must be going very well indeed in the Iraq war. Increasingly obvious signs of success as a result of the “surge” under the able leadership of General David Petraeus have all but rendered the mainstream media speechless on the warfront. From the days of constant television showing video of black smoke billowing from burning car bombs in marketplaces, we have now reached a virtual blackout. When was the last time you saw a detailed listing of U.S. and Iraqi casualties in the top right column of the New York Times or Washington Post?
The media are not going to report good news, which leaves Americans with the impression that the war is going as poorly now as it was a year ago. Nothing could be further from the truth.
10 comments Monday 05 Nov 2007 | Banescu | Iraq |
Baghdad Christians Find New Life in Kurdish North
New York Times | John Spanner | June 27, 2007
Some Iraqi Christians who fled the violence of Baghdad have returned to their ancestral homeland in the country’s north.
KARA-ULA, Iraq — The 70 houses of this tiny village spring from the treeless, arid plain here in the northern tip of Iraq with the uniformity of an army camp.
comments off Wednesday 27 Jun 2007 | Jacobse | Iraq, Religion (general) |
Blood of Iraqi Martyrs
FrontPageMagazine.com | Kenneth R. Timmerman | May 25, 2007
There is another tragedy taking in place in Iraq on a daily basis, far from the front pages and the TV news. It does not involve the kidnapping of U.S. troops, nor even the fire-bombing of Muslim shrines by other Muslims, both of which by now are familiar to most Americans.
This is a tragedy taking place in a total media vacuum. Even our government has remained silent as it continues.
Perhaps it’s because the victims are Christians. Indeed, members of the most ancient Christian communities in the world.
Over the past three years, Iraqi Muslim extremists have targeted Christians in systematic attacks, aimed at driving them from their homes, their work places, and their churches.
Just last week, a group of armed Muslims set fire to St. George’s Assyrian Church in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, completely decimating what remained of a church already hit by a deadly fire-bombing in October 2004.
. . . more
4 comments Friday 25 May 2007 | Jacobse | Iraq |
‘I Love Those Guys’
Wall Street Opinion Journal | Jeff Emanuel | May 23, 2007
Embedded journalists in Iraq are having their minds changed left and right by U.S. soldiers.
Operation Iraqi Freedom saw the advent of a practice that revolutionized modern war reporting: the embedding of journalists with frontline combat units in war. This practice gave the media, the American public and the world unprecedented access to the soldiers on the front lines, as well as to the war itself, through the filing of stories, photographs and video from the battlefront in real time, by reporters who were right there with the soldiers doing the fighting. “We were offered an irresistible opportunity: free transportation to the front line of the war, dramatic pictures, dramatic sounds, great quotes,” said Tom Gjelten of National Public Radio. “Who can pass that up?”
comments off Wednesday 23 May 2007 | Jacobse | Iraq, Media |
No More Stains
Townhall.com Chuck Colson March 30, 2007
For Americans over, say, fifty, the image of desperate Vietnamese surrounding the American embassy during the fall of Saigon is one we will not soon forget. Watching American helicopters fly away leaving people, many of whom had helped us, to their fates in Vietnam made me feel ashamed—a sense of shame that only grew when we learned what happened to many of those people. These memories are why I find some recent stories coming out of Iraq troubling. As I have told “BreakPoint” listeners and readers, I believe that we should not leave Iraq until we have first established a measure of stability and restored order. To do otherwise would be bad for American security and even worse, of course, for the Iraqi people.
comments off Friday 30 Mar 2007 | Jacobse | Human rights, Iraq |
Can Gen. Petraeus turn war in Iraq around?
Jewish World Review Victor Davis Hanson March 15, 2007
The verdict on four years of fighting in Iraq hinges on the events of the next few months.
23 comments Thursday 15 Mar 2007 | Jacobse | Iraq |
Moral Culpability When Holocaust Follows Retreat
Hugh Hewitt interviews Christopher Hitchens.
4 comments Friday 19 Jan 2007 | Jacobse | Iraq |
Hussein’s Voice Speaks in Court in Praise of Chemical Atrocities
New York Times John Burns January 9, 2007
The courtroom he dominated for 15 months seemed much smaller on Monday without him there to mock the judges and assert his menacing place in history.
But the thick, high-register voice of Saddam Hussein was unmistakable. In audio recordings made years ago and played 10 days after his hanging, Mr. Hussein was heard justifying the use of chemical weapons against the Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s, predicting they would kill “thousands” and saying he alone among Iraq’s leaders had the authority to order chemical attacks.
In the history of prosecutions against some of the last century’s grimmest men, there can rarely have been a moment that so starkly caught a despot’s unpitying nature.
On one recording, Mr. Hussein presses the merits of chemical weapons on Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, his vice-president, and now, the Americans believe, the fugitive leader of the Sunni insurgency that has tied down thousands of American troops. Mr. Douri, a notorious hard-liner, asks whether chemical attacks will be effective against civilian populations, and suggests that they might stir an international outcry.
“Yes, they’re very effective if people don’t wear masks,” Mr. Hussein replies.
“You mean they will kill thousands?” Mr. Douri asks.
“Yes, they will kill thousands,” Mr. Hussein says.
Read the rest of this entry>>
15 comments Wednesday 10 Jan 2007 | JBL | Human rights, Iraq |
Moral Purification
Wall Street Opinion Journal Josh Manchester November 14, 2006
Why intellectuals love defeat.
James Carroll, recently writing in the Boston Globe, wondered if America could finally accept defeat in Iraq, and be the better for it, comparing it to Vietnam:
2 comments Tuesday 14 Nov 2006 | Jacobse | Iraq |
Saddam’s Nuclear Script
Ed. Although not mentioned in the article, it’s nice to see the NYT concerned with national security for a change.
Wall Street Journal November 4, 2006
The troubles in Iraq have caused many Americans to conclude we should never have toppled Saddam Hussein. So it’s worth noting a new report that reminds us that if Saddam were still in power he’d almost certainly be in a race with his arch-enemy Iran to obtain a nuclear bomb. The alternative to regime change was not the continuation of a sanctions regime that was crumbling, thanks in part to Saddam Hussein’s manipulation of the U.N. Oil for Food program.
A Military Solution for Iraq
Front Page Magazine Ralph Peters November 2, 2006
We went to Iraq to overthrow a police state. Through a combination of stubbornness, naivete and noble intentions, we’ve replaced it with another police state - more violent, more corrupt and less accountable.
‘My Country Needs Me’
Wall Street Opinion Journal Heather Robinson November 1, 2006
Iraqi democrats haven’t given up the fight. How can we?
With the midterm elections fast approaching, the panic over Iraq seems more intense than ever. That country, the thinking goes, is a hopeless mess, and there could be a precipitous American withdrawal, especially if the Democrats win.
Kurdistan
Wall Street Opinion Journal Judith Miller October 28, 2006
A conversation with the president of Iraq’s most successful region.
ERBIL, Iraq–Unlike Baghdad, 200 miles away, the air here does not echo with the sound of gunfire, car bombs and helicopters. Residents of this city of a million people picnic by day in pristine new parks and sip tea with friends and relatives at night. American forces are not “occupiers” or the “enemy,” but “liberators.” Mentioning President Bush evokes smiles–and not of derision.
Unholy Month of Ramadan: Persecution of Assyrians Increases in Iraq
Asia News October 18, 2006
Fasting from sunrise to sunset is a struggle for Muslims during this month of Ramadan. The month will present a more dangerous struggle for non-Muslims in Iraq, against whom Islamic terrorists promise to increase their violence.
Don’t Look at Us!
Wall Street Best of the Web James Taranto October 17, 2006
“British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett last week issued the latest European demand to close down the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” The Washington Post reports. “The existence of the prison is ‘unacceptable’ and fuels Islamic radicalism around the world, she said, echoing a recent chorus of complaints from Europe about U.S. counterterrorism policy.”
comments off Tuesday 17 Oct 2006 | Jacobse | Europe, Iraq, Politics |
Some 500 people attend funeral of beheaded priest
Asia News October 12, 2006
Relatives confirm that US$ 350,000 ransom was demanded. Sunni Ulema Council condemns the killing: “a cowardly murder [. . .] committed by people who want [. . .] to start a religious war”.
Mosul (AsiaNews) – Some 500 people attended yesterday the funeral of Fr Paulos Eskandar at Mosul’s Syrian-Orthodox St Ephrem Church. Father Eskandar, who was abducted on Monday, was founded beheaded some time later.
Decapitated Syrian-Orthodox priest laid to rest in Mosul
Asia News October
Funeral held today. Captors demanded public apologies for Benedict XVI’s Regensburg address and payment of US$ 250-350,000 ransom. Christians are enduring more brutal violence; a 14-year boy is crucified.
Mosul (AsiaNews) – Fr Paulos Eskandar was laid to rest in Mosul today. The decapitated body of the Syrian-Orthodox priest was found in an eastern district of this Iraqi city yesterday. He was abducted last Monday by an unknown Islamic group which posted a hefty ransom of 0-350,000, the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) reported. The group also demanded that signs be posted on his church apologising for the Pope’s Regensburg remarks as a pre-condition for negotiations.
Iraqis to Consider Autonomous Regions
My Way News Qassim Abdul-Zahra September 25, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq’s feuding ethnic and sectarian groups agreed Sunday to consider amending the constitution and begin debating legislation to create a federated nation, while the Shiite prime minister appealed for an end to violence during Ramadan.
