"We have freedom now,. . ."

80-year-old Iraqi Rashid Majid is quoted in the NYTimes:

We have freedom now, we have human rights, we have democracy. We will invite the insurgents to take part in our system. If they do, we will welcome them. If they don't, we will kill them.

Oh, I hope so.

I've thought many times that the essence of freedom is being willing to fight for your rights. If you're lucky, that means only showing up as the Ukrainians did. If not, you might get killed by those opposing your rights. Either way, I wondered if the Iraqi people would get it. I think that most of them did. There are some real patriots there, willing to give Zarqawi the purple finger.

I think that our media have made it appear that Iraq is one vast battleground, when the truth is that these terrorist strikes are really isolated events which most Iraqis see as something like California earthquakes are seen by the rest of the United States. We hear about them, but they don't make us feel threatened. Most Iraqis used to feel threatened by Saddam's regime, but haven't since America overthrew him. We need to understand how we have transformed their lives, and support the policy of continuing to train and equip indigenous security forces for as long as it takes. We must not leave Iraq the way we left South Vietnam, knowing that the enemy would be back and that Americans didn't have the will to honor our treaty commitments.

We have no treaty commitments with Iraq, but we have invested 1500 lives and more injured men and women. That, by itself, requires that we complete the mission and not break faith with these heroes.