Good News From Iraq

The Opinion Journal has a good pice by Arthur Chrenkoff about recent good news out of Iraq. Two things are particularly touching. In the first,

[T]here 's an ad on Iraqi TV, which "declares January 30th is Iraq's 'date with fate and duty.' It shows masked gunmen confronting an elderly man in an alley. He stands firm and is joined by others who eventually outnumber the militants. As the Iraqi national anthem swells in the background, the ad proclaims, 'We are not afraid. We are not alone. Our power is in our unity.' "

Second is this project which put digital cameras in the hands of ordinary Iraqis,

[T]hree Americans (two filmmakers and a former Marine) distributed 150 digital video cameras to ordinary Iraqis, asking them to record anything they considered worthwhile and then pass the cameras on to others. The resulting 450 hours of footage from 2,000 Iraqis was distilled into an 80-minute documentary, "Voices of Iraq." As Jacoby writes, the documentary "is by turns heartbreaking, exhilarating, and inspiring. The war and its destruction is never far from the surface. . . . But bad as the war is, the horror it ended--Saddam's 24-year reign--was worse. . . . Yet for all they have been through, Iraqis come across as incredibly optimistic, hopeful, and enthusiastic. And above all, normal."

This comes on the heals of a trial balloon being floated by the Iraqi Interim Foreign Minister stating that the election could be delayed to secure greater Sunni cooperation. The US however seems to be dismissive of the idea. Indeed, it would be a mistake to delay it.
- posted by Base10 @ 7:12 PM