Fadhil Brothers Meet President Bush!

The Fadhil brothers of Iraq The Model have met with President Bush, according to this report at American Faith. (Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.)

Now here’s the best part: today, without prior notice, Omar and Mohammed went to the Oval Office and met with President Bush! They said that the meeting lasted about a half hour, and the President was very interested in hearing the thoughts and opinions of Iraqi citizens first hand. He wasn’t aware until then of the good things that Spirit Of America has been doing over there to help the Iraqi people and assist in their obtaining democracy. Omar joked that he got to meet POTUS and they didn’t even search his pockets beforehand.

This is very exciting news! I've been following Omar, Ali, and Mohammed at ITM for a year now; their meeting with the Chief is a well-earned honor. I hope the exchange was inspiring and informative to all parties.

Department of Wayward Relatives

I don't know whether I'm related to this fellow.

I'm not sure I want to know.

Bush: Iraq Elections Must Happen On Schedule

President Bush has refused to back down on holding national elections in Iraq on January 30, 2005, as scheduled. According to news reports, the Chief rejected calls from some political parties for postponing the elections, saying, 'It's time for Iraqi citizens to go to the polls.'

Providing some perspective on the various parties' attempts to delay the vote, Omar at Iraq the Model writes:

Some of these parties cannot think beyond their partisan interests and it seems they want things to calm down in the so-called Sunni triangle so that more Sunnis participate in the elections. This seems like a reasonable demand, but the problem is that they do not seek that as much as they seek to strengthen their own individual and partisan positions.

The Iraqi National Congress also stands firm on the election date:

Delay in holding the elections will be a delay in the restoration of full sovereignty to Iraq. It will also be a delay of withdrawal of foreign troops. The INC upholds that the legitimacy of the Iraqi government is based on the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), which clearly states in Art.2.b.2. that elections must be held no later than 31 January 2004. Moreover, Art. 3 of the TAL reconfirms the January election timetable by stipulating that “likewise, no amendment may be made that could abridge in any way the rights of the Iraqi people…; extend the transitional period beyond the timeframe cited in this Law; delay the holding of elections to a new assembly”. The TAL is also reinforced in United Nations Security Resolution 1546 that also refers to date for the elections which must be respected.

The sooner Iraqis get to take an active role in choosing their own future, the better. The elections should take place as scheduled.

(Besides which, I confess I am a little bit partial to the January 30 date: it's my birthday.)

Muslim Zionist Speaks Out

Professor Khaleel Mohammed of San Diego State University is not afraid to speak out in favor of Israel - and he cites the following verse in the Koran for support:

"O my people! enter the land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin." Koran 5:21 (al-Ma'ida)

According to this article in Ha'Aretz, Professor Mohammed stands by his controversial view that the land of Israel is ordained - "katab" in Arabic - for the Jews. ""If Allah katab the Holy Land to the Jews, then it is theirs unless stated otherwise - and it is not stated otherwise in the Koran," he says. In fact, Mohammed explains, the Koran goes on to record that the Jews were punished for their "cowardice" in failing to enter the land at Moses' call, and had to wander 40 years in the wilderness. But "They received punishment for their sins - a prohibition limited in time on their entry to the land. This makes no difference to the principle whereby the land was intended for them."

As for Israel and the Palestinians: "The establishment of the State of Israel is the expression of the fact that the Jews desired to return to their land. The State of Israel was established thanks to the `Jewish jihad,' and the acts of terror that are being carried out by Palestinians inside Israel are not jihad because this is not their land."

Go read the whole article at the link. Hat tip: Ocean Guy.

Muslim Liberals Call for Justice

Three leading Muslim liberals - Jawad Hashim, Shakir al-Nabulsi, and Lafif Lakhdar - have written an open letter to the United Nations calling for strong action against terrorists. The letter, now available in English translation, urges the UN Security Council to establish an "international tribunal to prosecute individuals, groups, or entities including, but not limited to, Muslim clerics, who issue religious edicts (fatwas) inciting terrorist acts."

Go visit Iraq the Model to find out more, and be sure to follow the e-mail link. Dr. Hashim welcomes signatures from people of all religions and nationalities; I've just added my own name - now it's your turn.

Thanksgiving Day: Freedom and Responsibility

As Americans, we have much to be thankful for. Yes, it may be a trite sentiment, but it's still true. We need to acknowledge, individually and as a nation, our blessings; and for those of us who are religious, it goes without saying that this implies acknowledging how deeply we are beholden to the Creator.

I will argue here that thanksgiving is not merely a fair sentiment, nor even solely a spiritual experience; it is a moral duty. This is because our good fortune places a moral burden on us. If we have wealth, then we have the duty to spend it wisely and to donate to charity. If we have power, then we have the duty to use it in the service of justice. If we have freedom, then we have the duty to learn about the plight of those living under tyranny - to ask the questions they themselves are forbidden to ask - and to work to set them free.

If freedom brings responsibility, does oppression - or victimhood - bring absolution from responsibilty? No. If we lack the freedom to act, then we must learn from our experience and resolve to right such wrongs as we have endured as soon as we have the chance. My Islamic teacher, Imam Mamadou Toure, explained it this way: "Every person has a duty to fight oppression. If they are experiencing oppression, they have a duty to fight for freedom. If this is not possible - for example, if the person's family is threatened - then, at a very minimum, the person has a duty to hate the oppression in their heart, and to fight it when they do have the chance."

Jason Holliston has an excellent post on the subject of victimhood. The victim mentality is the greatest enemy of dignity, of responsibility, and ultimately of freedom.

We are often tempted to believe that "suffering ennobles". It does not. As liberals, we are sometimes taught that "oppressed people understand the suffering of others". This is a dangerous myth. To be dealt with cruelly by others is not, in and of itself, either uplifting or enlightening; it is an opportunity to understand the pain of injustice, but it is no more than that. How we grow from our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, is our choice as individuals - and our responsibilty.

The Torah teaches this principle unequivocally:

"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." - Exodus 22:29

"You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor, nor show deference to the rich..." - Leviticus 19:15

"You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger ... Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment." - Deuteronomy 24:17-18

On this Thanksgiving holiday, let us remember our blessings and acknowledge them; let us also give thanks for the moral burden they place on us. For that, too, is a blessing.


Biblical quotes are from the Jewish Publication Society translation.

Postscript: Please read this recent post by the Ten O'clock Scholar.

Pilgrims

As Americans reach for the stuffing and turkey basters, it is well to reflect on the meaning and origins of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.

William Bradford, in his classic Of Plymouth Plantation, records that in 1621:

They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strenth and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came firest (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.

A letter by Edward Winslow, dated December 11, 1621, relates:

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labours. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king, Massasoit with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted.

And so the Pilgrims embarked on their task of founding a new nation, a new culture, a new world. Sustained by their courage and their faith in Providence, they persevered through good times and bad.

But all was not perfect among these early pioneers. For all their virtues and their ideals, they, too, had human failings. Life in the settlements was harsh, and sometimes, despite the Pilgrims' heroic efforts towards virtue, the more unpleasant aspects of human nature emerged. And so we read, in chapter 32 of Bradford, the unfortunate case of a young man who was brought to trial for unnatural acts involving

a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves, and a turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving.

News Roundup: Japan, China, Iran

Japan's more assertive stance was apparent at the recently concluded APEC summit, with Koizumi showing little interest in mollifying either China or Russia in territorial disputes stemming from East China Sea gas fields and the Kuril Islands respectively. The increasingly confident - and pro-US - Japan is seen as a potential ally against possible threats from China and North Korea. More information is available from Stratfor.

China, eager to fuel its faltering economic engine, has recently been courting the IRI regime in Iran. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is working to produce a nuclear missile, with over 350 sites involved, according to this Debka report:

... a “walk-in” source approached US intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages purported to be Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to delivery an atomic strike. The warhead design is based on implosion and adjustments aimed at fitting the warhead on existing Iranian missiles. DEBKAfile’s military experts believe the data referred to the Shehab-3 and its improved version, the Shehab-4. The US official said he would not have revealed this much had not Powell alluded to the intelligence publicly. If the information is confirmed, it would mean the Islamic republic is further along than previously known in developing a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it.

MEMRI reports that Omar Hadid, one of Saddam's private guards prior to the liberation of Iraq, was also a key aide to Zarqawi and went to Afghanistan for training with al-Qaeda. Omar's brother, Hamid Hadid, was the bureau chief of al-Jazeera in Iraq, before al-Jazeera was closed by the Iraqi government for inciting violence. (This would fall under the category of "Saddam-Zarqawi-al-Qaeda-al-Jazeera links".) This November 19 item at the MEMRI News Ticker is attributed to al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, November 19.

Iraq The Model Celebrates One Year

I've got a lot going on right now and I don't have time for regular posting ... but THIS I've got time for:

Iraq The Model is one year old. The Fadhil brothers - Omar, Ali, and Mohammed - are marking their first anniversary of blogging today.
Iraq The Model homepage
first anniversary post

Dogface: The New Georgia Doughboy

From my father's World War II memoirs. Posted in honor of veterans everywhere.

This is the New Georgia doughboy, returning from the front. He's wearing his green-and-brown-mottled camouflage suit - the one he has been wearing continuously for the past three weeks. It has seldom been off of him, even to be washed - the rains take care of that. If his unit happens to be anywhere near a creek, he washes himself, but that happens only once in a while. Oh, yes, and that camouflage about his face is not really camouflage. Can he help it if the dust, kicked up from the road, sticks to his sweaty, bearded face? All available water is used for drinking, but even with the supply on New Georgia augmented by purified water from neighboring islets, he has to exercise rigid economy. His daily supply which he carries with him in two canteens doesn't last very long in New Georgia's baking sun and steaming jungles.

This doggie, like most of his buddies has been in combat for around twenty consecutive days. That means that during that time he has no hot food. His meals when he could get them, were C rations eaten right out of the can. Sometimes his fare wasn't even that sumptuous. Sometimes he subsisted on a bar of D ration chocolate a day. Now he returns, stripped down to barest essentials, without even the light battle pack he started out with. He still has his faithful M-1 Rifle with possibly some ammunition left, his precious water, first aid packet, and sulfanilamide tablets.

He trudges along the dusty road, his trousers legs rolled up to just below the knees, revealing a dirty, soggy, reeking pair of green canvass jungle boots. He walks along the road which Army engineers and Navy Sea Bees have hewn out of the jungle. But the soldier doesn't always find the road dry and dusty; all too often he slogs through channels of knee-deep mud which must serve as travel routes. On this isle of the dead and living dead, the stench of this mud suggests that decaying bodies are blended in with the soil, but the smell is more probably from rotted vegetation. When it rains in New Georgia, this is what the soldier eats in, sleeps in, lives in. Now, as he walks along with expressionless eyes focused on the ground a few paces ahead of him, his presence adds a poignantly personal touch to the procession of peeps and three-quarter tons which are laden with supplies for the front. Daily he (for "he" represents all such front line men) passes our gun positions with an air of mingled apprehension and respect. He dreads being near them when they fire, yet he wants to get a good look a t the guns that probably helped save his life. "How do you guys stand it? How do you stand the noise?" he asks with a seriousness that dumbfounds us. How do we stand it! He's been sniped at, mortar-shelled, has our artillery barrage seventy-five to one hundred yards ahead of him, and he asks us that! He comes up to the guns once in a while when there is a lull in the firing, and pats a howitzer affectionately. "I could kiss these babies," he says with a wan smile. Once he asked if we'd let him pull the lanyard that would send a 95 pound shell on its destructive mission. He was tickled as a kid with a new toy when we let him fire on the next fire mission.

He sits and exchanges a few words with us; he's never very talkative - sits and broods a lot. As he gets up to leave, his valedictory usually is: "Keep shootin' them out there. It sure is good to hear them land." Though they go through hell, that is all that he and his buddies ever ask of us, that we keep shootin' out there, and they'll carry on their share.

- Ken McLintock (1929-2000)
Battery A,146th Field Artillery Battalion, 37th Infantry Division
January 1942 - October 1945
Urban Renewal: "Pacific Driftwood"

Morning Report: November 11, 2004

Arafat dies. Terrorist leader Yasser Arafat died in Paris in the early hours of Thursday, November 11, according to media reports.

Mohammed: Emergency state enhances security in Iraq. Mohammed at Iraq the Model believes the current state of emergency declared by Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi will help restore confidence among Iraqis:

Declaring the state of emergency laws had a positive effect on the majority of Iraqis although it should’ve caused worries but I believe that this explains the public hopes to see an end for the violence and presence of criminal groups in some parts of Iraq and this is a public feeling that grew bigger because of the brutality of the atrocities committed against Iraqis by those criminal groups. I think it also shows that Iraqis are convinced that this emergency law won’t be similar to the “laws” that governed their lives under Saddam; people know that a real change is under way and that the new laws are going to protect the citizens instead of oppressing them. Perhaps the fact that most the Fallujans left the city proves that they have no intention to confront the Iraqi and multinational forces and it clearly means”go get the bad guys” and this discredits the media’s theory which claimed that “most of the Fallujans are willing to fight”.

Wretchard: The enemy's prospects in Fallujah. The Belmont Club assesses the position of Ba'athist remnants and insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq: 'Simply reading the map shows that the enemy is pinned in a strip north of the highway, which is now a barrier to further escape south. As Major Piccoli put it, the "enemy fighters were bottled up in a strip of the city flanking the major east-west highway that splits Fallujah". Pressing them against the highway are four US battalions from the north and two from the east.'

Three relatives of Allawi abducted. Gunmen kidnapped three relatives of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - Allawi's 75-year-old cousin Ghazi, Ghazi's wife, and their daughter-in-law, according to this Fox News report. A militant group called Ansar al-Jihad claimed responsibilty, threatening to kill the three hostages in 48 hours unless the Iraqi and US governments met its demands.

LGF on Netherlands jihad: It's not about race.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs gets it exactly right when he says:

This is the almost universal, wrongheaded slant on the story in mainstream media: that the horrific murder of Theo Van Gogh had something to do with race, when in fact it was driven by a violent, supremacist religious ideology.

Read more at these entries:
Jihad in the Netherlands
"Murder Is Normal"