Mohammed: Terrorism to Lose its Bet

Today's post by Mohammed in Iraq The Model emphasizes several points that freedom activists must keep in mind: that democacy is never perfect; that perception is of great importance; and that by staying the course, we can defeat the enemies of freedom.

Citing what he diplomatically calls the "modest performance" of the GC to date, Mohammed admits to having had some doubts about the urgency of the June 30 transfer of sovereignty. However, he recognizes the need for the new Iraqi government to have credibility in the eyes of the world and the Iraqi citizenry. Most important, Iraqis must feel invested in their own future: this is what he means by the "birth of the new Iraqi citizen who has the faith in the good results in the future and who is free from the paranoia that inhabited the minds of Iraqis and Arabs in general".

This feeling of investment is the key to meaningful citizenship, in the West no less than anyplace else. Individuals who, for whatever reasons, feel they have no stake in the future of their country - the United States for example - will inevitably yield to cynicism. This is the dynamic behind much of the Left's psychology.

Mohammed concludes by noting that "international terrorism that bet a lot on the failure of the project in Iraq will find that it has lost a great deal of its war" when the claim of American "colonialism" in Iraq is shown to be a fraud. This can only happen when full Iraqi sovereignty - warts and all - is restored.

Iraqi Prisoners Abused by Americans

Disturbing photographs show Iraqi POWs were subjected to inhumane conditions in American custody at Abu Ghraib prison, according to news reports. Still worse, an American soldier who complained of the abuse was silenced by superior officers. According to the AP report on Fox News: Army Reserves Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick wrote that an Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad lacked the humane standards of the Virginia state prison where he worked in civilian life, according to a journal he started after military investigators first questioned him in January. The Iraqi prisoners were sometimes confined naked for three consecutive days without toilets in damp, unventilated cells with floors 3 feet by 3 feet, Frederick wrote in materials obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. "When I brought this up with the acting BN (battalion) commander, he stated, 'I don't care if he has to sleep standing up.' That's when he told my company commander that he was the BN commander and for me to do as he says," Frederick wrote. The writings were supplied by Frederick's uncle, William Lawson, who said Frederick wanted to document what was happening to him. ... All freedom lovers must join in condemning any such abuse. This goes against everything we stand for. President Bush has wasted no time in giving his reaction: President Bush has condemned the apparent mistreatment of some Iraqi prisoners, saying, "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's not the way we do things in America. I didn't like it one bit." He was asked about photos showing Iraqi prisoners naked except for hoods covering their heads, stacked in a human pyramid, one with a slur written in English on his skin. That and other scenes of humiliation have led to criminal charges against six American soldiers. Arab television stations were leading their newscasts on Friday with the photos. "I share a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated," Bush said. ... It is essential that we root out not only this anti-human behavior itself, but also address the underlying problems in the military hierarchy that allowed these obscenities to happen. I trust all freedom lovers in America and elsewhere will join in insisting on a full investigation and the strictest justice for those responsible.

Best of Blogdad: Freedom and the Third Element

What role do we play in our own fate? How much power does society have in our lives, and what is our complicity in it?

These are some of the questions Ali addresses in his essay “The Second Element”, dated December 3, 2003. Provoked to reflection by a reader’s remark that “you guys deserved (Saddam Hussein)”, Ali explores the forces that shape individuals and society. The first element is genetics – our natural predisposition. The second element is society itself. Ali observes the role of the media, both in Iraq and in the West, in shaping opinion.

But beyond society – the “second element” of the post’s title – there is

“a 3rd. element that forms and shapes the ultimate course of the life of an individual, and let me call it “the free zone”, a zone of free will that neither the genetics nor the environment and not even God have any influence whatever, and as this zone is free, it is liable for frequent changes throughout its short course on earth.”

Ali makes it clear that the first step in exercising our free will – and sometimes the only step left to us – is to use our capacity for critical thinking. In America we have the choice of what to watch on TV, what books to read, what to view on the internet. In Ba’athist Iraq these choices were nonexistent. But the people did have one choice: whether to take the hateful propaganda of the regime into their own minds, their own lives, and their children’s lives, or to reject it.

This is the choice that all of us – free and not yet free – still have. We can decide who we are, and who we want to be.

Ali said it better than I can. Read the whole post here.