Leive and I are feeling a bit under the weather, so we’re staying home and recuperating today, rather than going out when another cold front puts the chill on the state.
Anyway, in previous messages I talked about how most of the media doesn’t want to report good news, and how it loses money when there’s no news. That’s especially the case with local TV news broadcasts. No matter how much they talk about how different they are from other local TV news programs, they always focus on crime stories, to the point that their motto is, “If it bleeds, it leads. If it booms, we zoom.”
Along that line, have you noticed that Iraq hasn’t been in the news as much lately? I know, there’s a presidential election underway, and most Americans are probably more interested in knowing what is wrong with Britney Spears, but is this a case where no news = good news? It sure looks like it. Establishing a new order in place of the Baathist dictatorship has taken longer than we wanted, but it’s happening nonetheless. The Kurds have been on our side from the start, and most of the Shiites (except for Moqtada al-Sadr and his Iranian-backed goons) came around by the end of 2003, when they realized that a majority-rule democracy would put them in charge. The Sunnis in the middle of the country were the main problem after that, but eventually the brutal behavior of foreign “insurgents” alienated them, even before the 2007 “surge” started. What’s more, all three factions are learning to work together in the government, and natural gas has been discovered in Sunni areas (previously, all of Iraq’s petroleum reserves had been in Shiite or Kurdish provinces); both events reduce the possibility of a future civil war tearing the country apart.
Now, I’ve just read a report on another blog about an Al Qaeda leader’s diary, found after a recent battle. The most interesting entry begins as follows:
In the Name of Allah the Most Merciful the Most Compassionate
Date: Third of Shawaal of 1428 Hijri (H) [ 15 OCT 2007]
Islamic Greetings
This is My Will:
I am Abu-Tariq, Emir of Al-Layin and al-Mashadah Sector.
There were almost 600 fighters in our Sector before the Tribes changed course 360 degrees under the influence of the so-called Islamic Army (Deserter of Jihad) and other known believer groups. Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters, and later on I will mention the names of Fighters who stood by us (faithful fighters), but things started getting worse ever since, and as a result of that the number of fighters dropped down to 20 or less which led us to move some of our vehicles to another location (Al-Muthanna Establishment Area) for security reasons where our brother [REDACTED] is stationed at (I will also mention the type vehicles at the end.)
If you want to read more, click on the link below.
Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group
So the unit started with nearly 600 terrorists, and is down to 20 as of last October? And last week the suicide bombings in Iraq were carried out by two mentally retarded women, leading me to believe that they’ve run out of men willing to die for Allah. We are winning, but the mainstream news networks don’t think it’s a story worth reporting, so it falls on the blogosphere to do the job they won’t do.
(I take back part of what I said, now I have found a link to the story and diary on the Fox News website. Still, the other networks are slacking on the job!)
US Military Says Seized Docs Show Al Qaeda In Iraq is Weakened
Last night, our church had its Valentine’s Day dinner, something it does every year so that married couples don’t have to go out on dates. We went last year, but Leive and I had a date anyway–lunch at Popeye’s and a chai latte in Fayette Square Mall. Afterwards, the pastor gave a sermon on “The Languages of Love” series of books, written by Gary Chapman. I’m mentioning all this because I learned there that Patrick Kihiu (see the June 16, 2007 and January 20, 2008 entries) is back in town; after dinner he gave a brief account of how things were going in Kenya. Again, the media has overblown the violence; while 1,000 have been killed in the past month and a half, and 300,000 have been driven from their homes, that’s mainly in the western (Luo-populated) part of the country; Patrick was in the Nairobi area, and didn’t feel in danger there. Ominously, he also told us that he wasn’t seen so much as a spokesman for Kenyan Christians, as a spokesman for the Kikuyu tribe. That could spell more trouble in the future, if the country is splitting along tribal lines.
