The Good, Bad and Ugly in Iraq

After reading Fred Barnes' report from Iraq, I think it may be premature to turn over power in Iraq on the schedule we've adopted. I hope it will be more like self-government with training wheels, because we don't need to have all our efforts there wasted.

He says the Iraqis are whiners, which is not unusual for people who have been used to having the government do everything for them; that their press is anti-American, only slightly more than ours; and that their economy is in for a jolt as economic aid for rebuilding comes in. The economy is already ahead of the last year of Saddam's regime and moving up fast. I guess that when you have a lot of whining going on, the best way to shut it up is to put the whiners to work.

I hate the way freedom of the press is used everywhere to mislead people and promote single points-of-view. I guess that's inherent in the concept of professional journalism, and reflective of the training of reporters, who should be trained on the job, not in universities; as well as the marketing of news, as in tabloid, but I don't know what we can do about the likes of Al Jazeera except prove them wrong on the ground. You'd think Iraqis and other Arabs would have learned their lesson from Baghdad Ali, but it will probably take more time.