Sarasota Herald-Tribune
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031015/OPINION/310150311/1029
Opinion Section
October 15. 2003
Iraq on the road to recovery
The liberal media are continuously carping about Iraq. First, they said we were in a quagmire, and now, almost daily, we hear about soldiers being killed, although the numbers -- for a war -- are quite small. Would they have said, when 800 men died on Omaha Beach during the Normandy landing in World War II, that we should turn tail and run?
It takes a Democratic congressman from Georgia -- Jim Marshall -- to tell us what is going on, as well as sources like Liberty Magazine and Masonic publications, from which we learn that the majority of Iraqi people are happy we freed them from the clutches of Saddam Hussein.
Shops are open, schools are operating and many are being retooled. Parents are even forming PTAs. Hospitals are open and treating patients. The people are on the road to democratic self-government. All the major cities and more than 85 percent of the towns have town councils, which are concerned with governing and jobs. Iraq's electric grid, water treatment plants, telephone service and other infrastructure (which were run down or destroyed during Saddam's misrule) are being restored. Water and sewage-treatment facilities are being upgraded.
Marshall said it best: "� I think we have a problem with overly pessimistic media coverage that emboldens our enemies, discourages our potential allies and lessens our resolve. We may need a few more Baghdad Bobs to undo the harm done by our media. I'm afraid it is killing our troops."
Remember, we were in Germany for five years after World War II and seven years in Japan. We have only been in Iraq for a few months!
Abraham Shames
Longboat Key
Further Reading:
The Morgan Report - A 9/11 Commission & War on Terror Retrospective?
