One

The Big Day looms. Or is it just another day?

Here's group of folks who predict failure and illegitimacy, but what the story really tells us is that there is still apparently a demand for ignorance masked as news.

Here's a quote from the NY Times on-line teaser to a story:

Shiite Faction Ready to Shun Sunday's Election in Iraq

A radical cleric's refusal to endorse the election foreshadowed a less than overwhelming voter turnout in Iraq.

Foreshadowed? Has the election happened? Here's the actual quote from the story:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 28 - Less than 48 hours before nationwide elections here, Nasir al-Saedy, one of the city's most popular Shiite clerics, stood before a crowd of 20,000 Iraqis and uttered not a single word about the vote.

Sheik Saedy spoke of faith, humility and the power of God. But about Sunday's elections, the first here in more than 30 years, nothing.

For the throngs of Iraqis who had come to Al Mohsen Mosque to listen, the sheik's silence came through loud and clear.

And it foreshadowed a less than overwhelming voter turnout in many parts of Iraq.

On consideration, the line can not be refuted. Certainly many areas will not be overwhelmed with voters. But what signal is the Times sending here? And not to play linguistic games, but might foreshadows be the more appropriate form?

Another story from the AP:

With crucial national elections only two days away, Iraqi officials announced the arrests of three more purported lieutenants of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, including the Jordanian terror mastermind's military adviser and chief of operations in Baghdad.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh told reporters that U.S. and Iraqi authorities were closing in on al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq who is believed responsible for many of the car-bombings, kidnappings and decapitations of foreigners in Iraq.

The arrested al-Zarqawi associates included Salah Suleiman al-Loheibi, the head of his group's Baghdad operation, who met with al-Zarqawi more than 40 times over three months, said Qassim Dawoud, a top security adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Dawoud said Ali Hamad Yassin al-Issawi, another associate, was also captured. Dawoud said the two arrests took place in mid-January but gave few details.

Also captured was al-Zarqawi's military adviser, a 31-year-old Iraqi named Anad Mohammed Qais, 31, said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.

"We are getting close to finishing off al-Zarqawi and we will get rid of him," Saleh said.

Seems like a fine bit of reporting - who what where when which why how - unfortunately the paragraphs above were separated and buried in a story headlined Insurgents Warn Iraqis Not to Vote. In fact, you must wade through a lot of doom and gloom before getting to the paragraphs describing just who was captured - they come at the very bottom of a long article that includes these paragraphs too:

Despite Saleh's assurances, al-Zarqawi's group posted a new Web message Friday warning Iraqis that they could get hit by shelling or other attacks if they approach polling stations, which it called "the centers of atheism and of vice."

"We have warned you, so don't blame us. You have only yourselves to blame," it said.

<...>

In the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, residents said the rebels decapitated six Iraqis from the majority Shiite community Friday. Shiites, who comprise 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, are expected to turn out in large numbers for the election in hopes of gaining power after generations of suppression by minority Shiites.

<...>

Insurgents, meanwhile, stepped up their own attacks, killing the five American soldiers in three separate strikes in northern, western and southern Baghdad, according to the U.S. command. More than 1,411 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since fighting began in March 2003.

American troops and insurgents exchanged fire on a major Baghdad thoroughfare. The crackle of gunfire could be heard over the noon call to prayer. U.S. fighter jets thundered through the skies over Baghdad throughout the morning in a show of force against the militants.

Those measures, however, have not been enough to stop the violence. A suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle Friday in Baghdad's Doura neighborhood, killing four Iraqi policemen. Hours later, another car bomb exploded on the neighborhood's main road, damaging a school where voters are to cast ballots Sunday. No one was hurt.

Elsewhere, insurgents hit designated polling centers in at least six major cities across the country. Gunmen attacked a school to be used as a polling station in Kirkuk, killing one policeman, officials said.

Bombs blasted three more schools designated as polling sites in the city of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. A mortar shell landed on a house close to a school believed to be used as polling site in Ramadi, wounding two women and two children, a hospital doctor said.

"We have warned you, so don't blame us. You have only yourselves to blame," it said. Interesting logic there. Of course, the "it" that the report was referring to was a "message", and not the messenger. Let's not de-humanize the foe. "A mortar shell landed on a house close to a school believed to be used as polling site in Ramadi, wounding two women and two children, a hospital doctor said." AP refrained from using the phrase an increasingly bold and sophisticated insurgency in this report.

I've discussed this style of reporting before, burying the good news from Iraq in layers of bad and calling it a "round-up." This could be called "balanced" reporting, but though you'll often see bad news without mention of good, you'll never see good news presented in any other format - from major media outlets, that is.

Odd that among all this weekend's stories of insurgent bombs that almost hit their target (or that "detonated near polling places", if you prefer) these sorts of stories are overlooked:

Alpha Company, 1-112 Infantry, a National Guard company based out of the Pittsburgh area, and Soldiers from the 201st Iraqi Army Battalion established a hasty traffic control point Jan. 22 north of Tikrit, in the area called Kadasia, and swiftly apprehended two insurgents.

The Soldiers operating the traffic control point identified the suspected vehicle as it approached their position, slowed the vehicle and instructed the passengers to get out of the car. The occupants of the vehicle, one of whom was an Iraqi National Police officer, were found in possession of a 120-millimeter artillery round wired as an improvised explosive device.

The Explosive Ordinance Disposal team arrived on site and destroyed the device. Through questioning, the insurgents revealed their plan to place the explosive device at an elections polling site in the area.

The intelligence developed by the Tikrit Joint Coordination Center increases the Iraqi Security Forces? ability to react to actionable intelligence and thwart insurgents schemes to disrupt Iraqi elections.

Yawn.

"I am tired of hearing the crap, the whole, well, 'We are barely hanging on, we're losing, the insurgency is growing.' All that. We are doing fine. It's just a small, a small amount of people out there causing the problems. I mean, it is a small number, and we?re killing them."

--Marine Sgt Kevin Lewis, to Dan Rather during his recent visit to Iraq

Truth is, no one really knows what's going to happen in Iraq tomorrow. (A few "insurgents" might have a "plan", of course, but others plan too.) If asked, I'd say that this forecast seems a bit more realistic than most I've seen. (Go look, I'll wait.)

And by the way, this will have more of an impact on voter turn out than Zarqawi could hope to. After all, bad weather kept over a quarter-million Democrats from voting in Ohio last year, and thus was God's chosen allowed to continue his reign. Let's call it the Inshallah factor then, and tomorrow looks fine.

The NY Times does not have a forecast available.

Without a doubt the story from Iraq is a compelling one. And a fundamental example of good vs evil. Those who'd offer excuses or moral equivalency lectures in response to insurgents beheading Iraqis or disemboweling aid workers, mortaring homes or striking at schools with car bombs have clearly chosen sides. Don't blame us if we kill you, you have only yourselves to blame, cries an "insurgent" - and around the world certain heads nod.

Still others might recall this quote from a recent movie:

"A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you *stand, Men of the West!"

Aragorn, of course, from The Return of the King. There have been numerous superficial comparisons made between current events and the Lord of the Rings, and the appearance of the movie at this point in history was certainly fortuitous. Successful films reflect the times, and though no one knew at the time these films were being made exactly what the world situation would be upon their release they've meshed amazingly well. Gandalf's response to Frodo's lament that "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened." seemed extraordinarily fit for 2001: "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work, Frodo, than the will of evil.

Or the next year, as the US prepared to go into Iraq, Grima dismissed Gandalf as a warmonger in the court of Theoden. Later, Theoden: I will not risk open war. Aragorn: Open war is upon you whether you would risk it or not. Later still: Aragorn: You have some skill with a blade. Eowyn: The women of this country learned long ago, those without swords can still die upon them.

In spite of the chillingly accurate applicability, it's not the superficial and obvious comparisons that make the real connection to modern events; it's the underlying theme of the books that rings true. For Tolkien's story was much larger, much grander than the trilogy, after all. That tale was of but one battle in an ongoing war, and references to the larger theme gave the books a depth that most imitators lack. Tolkein had fleshed out that larger history before he began his sequel to The Hobbit, it was in fact his true life's work. And that grand story was of the eternal struggle between good and evil, and that's why the books sell today and why the movies have an appeal to a worldwide audience unmatched by anything else. Tolkein tapped into something fundamental that dwells within us all, the conflict of the positive and the negative, of darkness and light, good and evil that struggles in each soul, as it does in the world at large. And that is why the words of the characters have a resonance with us today.

I harbor no illusions about what we're doing, and I certainly don't imagine myself as a warrior at the gates of Mordor. But tomorrow is yet another skirmish in the real world war, the one I've personally been involved in for 20 years now. I'll predict a victory for the good guys.

After all, there are other forces at work, Frodo, than what you read in the papers.