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Iraq
Violence ebbing. Wealth returning. Can this be Iraq?
2007-07-16
A major western newspaper has noticed. The Observer, fergawdsakes. Perhaps the NYT will now get a clue? EFL to remove the hand-wringing and moral equivalency.
For there are two Iraqs in evidence these days: not just the one where weddings are bombed and young women murdered in reply. The other Iraq is harder to dramatise but it is equally real. It is a place where boring, ordinary things take place. And in taking place become extraordinary in the context of conflict.

Last week it was the opening of a new $20 million government centre next to Tal Afar's ancient ruined fort. The day before Jamil detonated his explosives' belt, the sheiks and dignitaries came in and crowded through the building's corridors, muttering approvingly as they examined its new painted walls, the photocopiers, printers and computers - some of them still wrapped in plastic - sitting on the brand new desks.

Last week the debate over whether to pull out of Iraq took on an urgent new intensity as the struggle between the Democrat-led Congress and the White House of President George W Bush finally reached a head. Driven by a presidential election cycle, six years of building animosity in US politics has finally been focused on the lightning rod that is Iraq. After four years of war, perhaps more than 650,000 Iraqi dead, ...
Wrong, it's 1/3 that or less.
... it has finally come to a single question of accounting: which of the two Iraqs is winning, the Iraq of death or an Iraq that looks to peace?
Posted by:Steve White

#10  Frozen Al is right, someone needs to call this Bozo on his "mistake." I mean good grief, that narrows down to 445+ people killed/day, every day for the last 4 years. Yes, it was probably hell at first (it was a war, after all), but once the "dust settled" on the major skirmish, AQiI and Sadr's effects have been NO WHERE near that level of violence. Heck, it gets MSM coverage when only 1/day is killed, you think they'd let us off the hook if over 400 were killed every stinkin' day? Naw, I didn't either!
Posted by: BA   2007-07-16 13:56  

#9  If you hold him still long enough... you can put chaps and a cowboy hat on a Duroc. He'll look western, but deep inside, he'll still be a Duroc.
Posted by: Besoeker   2007-07-16 11:26  

#8  650,000 dead. Somebody added an extra zero.

AQI has killed 4000 in 6 months. I doubt that 650,000 prople have died from all causes in Iraq, including old age.

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al   2007-07-16 11:06  

#7  Their currency and financial systems were completely redone as well. For now, some of the financial people are in Amman waiting out the violence in Baghdad, but the mechanisms are in place and the people trained at the higher levels.
Posted by: lotp   2007-07-16 10:56  

#6  From the very beginning, I watched carefully as the much maligned J. Paul Bremer reconstructed the high level institutions of Iraq. And while there was little to see on the short and mid-term, I could tell that when the economic engine finally started to run, Iraq was, is, going to have a recovery that will even eclipse post-WWII Japan.

And while it has taken far longer than expected to get the engine started, I suspect that in the next few years, Iraq is going to redefine the expression "explosive growth", assuming that they don't get into a major war.

The terribly dull sectors of the Iraqi economy that are never in the news, like their agribusiness and their financial sector, are going to be producing some jaw dropping economic impacts, and soon.

To start with, when the harvest comes in this year, as the reporter noted, Iraq is going to be bulging with food, which will not only strongly lower prices, but will have considerable surplus for export.

And nothing succeeds like success.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2007-07-16 10:35  

#5  The Brits, as represented by the journalism of the Observer, know about as much of a Constitutional Republic form of government as we know, via the NYTs, of a Parlimentary Monarchy form of government they have. What do they mean that after 6 years of politicians acting like politicians that we are "now" focused on Iraq? What were we focused on - Social Security reform (one week), Immigration (two weeks).
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2007-07-16 10:15  

#4  Eggs, omelette, and all that...
Posted by: M. Murcek   2007-07-16 10:05  

#3  So long as Muslims lose I call it a win.
Posted by: Excalibur   2007-07-16 08:52  

#2  The Kurds had their civil war in the 90s. The Sunnis appear to be coming out of theirs now, whereas the Shiia civil war has barely started.

Until recently, I thought the Sunni would be the big losers in a 3 way civil war. I now think it will be the Shiia.
Posted by: phil_b   2007-07-16 06:06  

#1  Or maybe New Orleans.
Posted by: Gary (no Samoyeds in hotel)   2007-07-16 01:00  

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