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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! September 14, 2005 From IraqBy GreyhawkVia email, from Haider Ajina: Greetings, The following is my translation of a headline and article in the September 12 edition of the Iraqi Arab newspaper ?bentalrafedain? (a newspaper targeting women in Iraq) "Iraqi & U.S. Liberation of Telaafar increases confidence of Iraqi street in Government?Haider's comments: Here we have an Iraqi politician and political leader show the Iraqi government?s concern in guarding its citizen?s rights and safety while being tough against its enemies. It is a tough balance for a democratic government and Iraq has to deal with it just as we do in the U.S.A. These are strong signs of a government answerable to its citizens instead of oppressing them. What a tremendous change in a little over 3 years. Over the last two months, I have noticed a substantially more up beat mood in Iraqi newspaper, radio, TV news and commentary as well as from speaking to my family in Iraq. I sense an enthusiasm in their voices. An enthusiasm about the future, an enthusiasm you hear from people who have a stake in their future and feel that they have some control over how to shape it. Sunni mosques & political leaders are calling on their followers to get out and register to vote. They tell their followers that it is their religious duty and their duty as loyal Iraqis to register and vote. This is a far cry from what these same mosques told Sunnis to do for the January election. Then they discouraged them from voting and called voting unislamic. Shiite mosques and political leaders do not have to work as hard and they are reminding their followers to be sure to vote. Women specially have a lot at stake. Women?s organizations are working overtime, to educate Iraqi women about the proposed constitution and their rights. It is very heartening and encouraging, especially when I remember that only 30 months ago my family could not speak freely for fear for their lives and had little hope in their voices. Once again, a thank you to this great country of ours from the Ajinas in Iraq and us in Mckinleyville for bringing hope, freedom and optimism to Iraq, a land which desperately needed it. Regards Greyhawk here: This came to us just before news of the al Qaeda response - the brutal murder of over 150 citizens of Iraq: Witnesses say a man, posing as a potential employer, pulled up in a car near a large group of poor day laborers, assembled in a large square, hoping to be hired.Though the days when such things can happen in Iraq are obviously not yet over, the days when the people of that nation could be controlled and cowed by such acts are in the past. Meanwhile, according to the same story at least six suicide car bombers failed to kill anyone but themselves. And as coalition forces engage terrorists in other areas of western Iraq, this news: A U.S. Army commander said militants battling for control of Tal Afar had committed atrocities against civilians, including beheadings, torture and the booby-trapping of a murdered child's body.But also in the news from Iraq today: the constitution has been finished, and has been sent to the UN for printing and distribution. Posted by Greyhawk / September 14, 2005 11:16 PM | Permalink 1 TrackBackIn yesterday's installment in the Washington Times' serialization of Tony Blankley's new book The West's Last Chance starts out on a good enough point: Read More 1 Comment |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
The next time I hear someone say there is no such thing as evil in this world, he's gonna get popped in the mouth with a hundred newspaper stories about these murderous bastards glorified by al Jazeera and the MSM. How any civilized person can characterize Zarqawi as some kind of "freedom fighter" when compared to the Iraqi Army, Iraqi police, Iraqi citizens, and the American military is beyond belief.
There is such a thing as evil in this world. Look in the dictionary and you'll see Zarqawi, bin Laden, and Zawahiri's pictures staring back at you. And I'm tired of hearing anyone support them.
Subsunk