A little girl lost

The picture at right has been all over the news and the blogs today, but I haven't seen the whole story anywhere on the MSM. Click on the picture for a larger view.

The story is very sad, as told by Michael Yon reporting from on the ground in Mosul (I've copied his entire short post; I trust he won't mind):

Major Mark Bieger found this little girl after the car bomb that attacked our guys while kids were crowding around. The soldiers here have been angry and sad for two days. They are angry because the terrorists could just as easily have waited a block or two and attacked the patrol away from the kids. Instead, the suicide bomber drove his car and hit the Stryker when about twenty children were jumping up and down and waving at the soldiers. Major Bieger, I had seen him help rescue some of our guys a week earlier during another big attack, took some of our soldiers and rushed this little girl to our hospital. He wanted her to have American surgeons and not to go to the Iraqi hospital. She didn't make it. I snapped this picture when Major Bieger ran to take her away. He kept stopping to talk with her and hug her.

The soldiers went back to that neighborhood the next day to ask what they could do. The people were very warming and welcomed us into their homes, and many kids were actually running up to say hello and ask soldiers to shake hands.

Eventually, some insurgents most have realized we were back and started shooting at us. The American soldiers and Iraqi police started engaging the enemy and there was a running gun battle. I saw at least one IP who was shot, but he looked okay and actually smiled at me despite the big bullet hole in his leg. I smiled back.

One thing seems certain; the people in that neighborhood share our feelings about the terrorists. We are going to go back there, and if any terrorists come out, the soldiers hope to find them. Everybody is still very angry that the insurgents attacked us when the kids were around. Their day will come.

Isn't it telling that the Iraqi citizens welcomed our soldiers back, even after some of their children were injured and killed? Clearly they don't see the American soldiers as the bad guys. I sure wish more of that reality was portrayed in the MSM...

William at Pardon My English has a moving tribute to our soldiers posted, using the event captured in this photo as an example, with liberal reference to some of MacArthur's finest words. An excerpt:

The American soldier does indeed, drink deep from the chalice of courage.

The terrorist, on the other hand, drinks deep from the tin cup of cowardice. His very existence a scurrilous blight on humankind. A pox to be eradicated.

The American soldier, as manifestly evidenced by the above, does America proud. We as a grateful nation are not only proud of our military prowess in achieving swift and certain victory on distant battlefields but also notably in how often our brave soldiers have placed themselves in harm's way in the service and defense of the oppressed.In fact the motto of the United States Special Forces is; 'De oppresso libere' - 'To liberate the oppressed.'

DO take the time to read the whole thing...

A tip o' the hat to Michelle Malkin for getting me started reading about this incident.

What a blog!

Tip o' the hat to the Mudville Gazette -- thanks so much for pointing this wonderful blog out.

Just when you think that our schools are completely hopeless, churning out brainwashed liberal zombies, along comes something wonderful like this. Mind you, this didn't come from an ordinary public school -- this came from KDES, a primary school associated with the famous Gallaudet University for the deaf. Nonetheless, it raises ones hopes...some students are being directly (and gently) exposed to the real world, very directly, by making very creative use of blogs and email. A wonderful thing. And I'll bet it was a wonderful thing from the perspective of this Marine and his family, as well...

Here's the blurb on the blog's home page:

The war in Iraq can seem like a world away unless you know someone there. For the deaf and hard of hearing students at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES) in Washington, D.C., the war is made more immediate through their on-line dialogue with U.S. Marine Sgt. Earl (Jay) Beatty. Through a new kind of correspondence commonly known as a blog, the students, as part of a Visual Literacy project, exchange letters and photographs, and share their extraordinary drawings of the war as they see it with Beatty in Iraq, and with his wife, Donna, in the U.S.

How did all of this happen? Beatty, a Maryland state trooper and Marine, was deployed to the Iraqi town of Fallujah in late August. Prior to leaving for his new post, he was asked if he would be willing to communicate with KDES students while stationed in Iraq as part of a visual literacy project. He eagerly accepted the offer. He and his wife have corresponded with the students ever since.

The students set up their message center in the TecEds lab where staff members help them to send and receive e-mail from Beatty. The spontaneity of the Internet and the flexibility of digital pictures have enabled the students to have a front-line experience of the war through the eyes of a soldier serving his country.Please...go read this wonderful blog, and see the photos and paintings from the students. But grab a box of Kleenex before you start reading...

Fireman's revenge

Betting pool

The Strategy Page is full of good stuff every day, including a daily news report on the war in Iraq. I've excerpted today's report below. I was especially interested to read the end of the report:

May 4, 2005; The capture of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi’s laptop computer last month has led to a series of additional raids, which resulted in many al Qaeda members killed or captured, and the seizure of still more documents. Among those documents was a letter from one of Zarqawi’s subordinates to his boss. There are complaints of poor leadership and lack of direction. The letter writer says that all Zarqawi calls for are more and more suicide bomb attacks, without any apparent strategy. The subordinate complains that he does not even see Zarqawi anymore. This is understandable, because the growing number of Sunni Arabs disenchanted with terrorism, have been giving more and better tips to the Iraqi police. This has led to more raids that are getting closer to nailing Zarqawi himself, who is spending most of his time evading capture. Tellingly, some American intelligence officers in Iraq have set up a betting pool on when Zarqawi will be caught.

I wonder what date has the lowest return? I hope it's something like tomorrow or the day after!

Junk science

I've long been unhappy with the way science and technology (amongst other things) are taught in our primary and secondary schools. It's been very visible to me because I've worked closely with two groups of engineers: American teams (mostly based in Southern California and Florida), and Eastern European teams (based in Tallinn, Estonia and St. Petersburg, Russia). These folks were educated under very different systems, and the quality of the results is distinctly different. And America is on the losing side of that particular comparison.

Pamela Winnick has a column in the Weekly Standard that touches on this, paying particular attention to the way "political correctness" has affected our science texts. I'd like to see more reporting on this in the MSM...but even more, I'd like to see a lot of Americans angry about it. So far the only public anger I've seen that was focused on these issues came from captains of industry, and for some silly reason their anger doesn't seem to resonate. It should.

Ms. Winnick's column starts:

SEVERAL CENTURIES AGO, some "very light-skinned" people were shipwrecked on a tropical island. After "many years under the tropical sun," this light-skinned population became "dark-skinned," says Biology: The Study of Life, a high-school textbook published in 1998 by Prentice Hall, an imprint of Pearson Education.

"Downright bizarre," says Nina Jablonski, who holds the Irvine chair of anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. Jablonski, an expert in the evolution of skin color, says it takes at least 15,000 years for skin color to evolve from black to white or vice versa. That sure is "many years." The suggestion that skin color can change in a few generations has no basis in science.

Pearson Education spokesperson Wendy Spiegel admits the error in describing the evolution of skin color, but says the teacher's manual explains the phenomenon correctly. Just why teachers are given accurate information while students are misled remains unclear.

Read the whole thing!

Lady Grunts

Stars and Strips has an interesting article about female Marines in a combat unit. An excerpt:

“This is history. This is huge for us,” St. John said. “I’ve been in the Marine Corps for 18 years, and this is my first opportunity to be out with an infantry company. Even five years ago, the Marine Corps wouldn’t be doing this. This is a major change in how we think women can be used in the military.”

On the ground

Michael Yon has a terrific post from the field, complete with pictures. The excerpt below is just a short taste of this post, which has a lot more great on-the-scene reporting. You don't want to miss this one!

LTC Kurilla ran to the burning Stryker, threw off his protective gear and helmet, leading a swarm of soldiers atop and over the burning hulk, in a determined push to get their buddies out. Kurilla dropped himself down a top hatch, to get into the burning Stryker, while men passed up fire extinguishers and even bottles of water. Major Mark Bieger and others were also atop the vehicle, alongside one gutsy Private First Class that everyone calls "Q."

The taste of toxic smoke combined with heat of the fires were overwhelming sensations. Rescuers and the men trapped inside were choking to death on that smoke. Attention was split between the urgent rescue at hand and the threat of follow-on attacks. Within minutes of our arrival, the men had wrestled out their severely injured friends and were climbing off the burning Stryker, separating into teams that shored up defensive positions while others scoured the area searching for other IEDs.

Iraqi perspective

A couple of weeks ago, I posted some Iraqi perspective that included an open letter from President Talabani to Tony Blair. Today, Ali of Free Iraqi posted his reaction to President Talabani's letter: Thank you, Mr. President, for speaking on my behalf. Read the whole thing, especially Ali's description of pre-war impressions of Tony Blair. Here's how it begins:

Thank you, Mr. President for speaking on my behalf.

A friend of mine, Dr. Jawad Hashim e-mailed me the full script of president Talibani's letter to PM Tony Blair. And although it was published on many sites and newspapers about a week ago, I'd like to post it here on my blog in full so that more people would have the chance to read it. I'm no fan of politicians in general but the truth is that I admire MR. Blair a lot and I also feel honored that Mr. Talibani is my president. I think it's something that honors all Iraqis, Arabs even more than Kurds that Iraq has finally started to cross the line of fanaticism to see each others as brothers and sisters and that soon we will join the whole human family although it's been a tough road and it's going to be so for a long time.

I chose to post Mr. Talibani's letter because I don't see it as a political letter and I don't think that he had to write it, but more it's a letter from an Iraqi who was oppressed and treated like a second degree citizen (in a country where 1st degree citizens were killed tortured and raped on a regular base!) and who now, thanks to the sacrifices of the coalition and to the bravery and determination of men like Mr. Blair has finally found his much deserved position in his country. I feel that Mr. Talibani did not really have to write this letter but instead he wanted to and I feel the same way and have always hoped of doing something like that. In fact I've written a "thank you" letter to Mr. Blair on the Internet but I don't think it reached him.

I like Mr. Talibani's letter more because it speaks exactly the way I feel and the way I wanted to write such a letter. For the first time an Iraqi president says and thinks the way I do! I must say I'm not the only one who feels this way and that so many Iraqis feel the same (even anti-American ones who I found that they still like two coalition leaders; Blair and Colin Powel).

Happy days are here again

Claudia Rosett is one of our favorite columnists. Usually she's to be found reporting on the progress of liberty, such as the recent events in Lebanon. Today she weighs in with a cheerful column reflecting on how far we've come in the past few years. The beginning is excerpted below; you can (and should!) read the whole thing here.

It's always risky to celebrate security and good times, especially in an age when there is no way to rule out that along with the usual perils of life, we will suffer another terrorist attack. But this spring, more than 3 1/2 years after Sept. 11, it does seem that since that day America has weathered a rough passage awfully well. That, and with the cherry trees just done blooming in Washington and New York's Central Park full of flowers (and, in the grand old tradition, amateur baseball teams), it feels worth a moment to stand back and observe that for all the usual ructions of politics and the more prominent idiocies of such institutions as Hollywood, academia and the imploding United Nations in our midst, rarely in recent decades has there been more sanity and self-respect abroad in this land.

That is clear not only in such minor but telling details as the humor with which Laura Bush, onstage at a press dinner in Washington this weekend, poked affectionate fun at the president's early bedtime habits--and was received with clamorous applause by an audience not overly loving of George W. Bush. It is also clear in such major matters as the resolve of most Americans, despite the loud groans of our most precious elite, to stay united behind the president in the need to win both the wars and the peace, in Afghanistan, Iraq and by extension a world in which we spend less effort appeasing our enemies and do more to address real threats. Better times can be seen in an economic recovery that has left room for the country to debate such matters as the fixing of the decrepit and wasteful Social Security system. And broadly better days are manifest in the general grace with which Americans in recent times have put up with high gas prices, disastrous weather, the threat of more terrorist attacks and the costs of trying to prevent them.

Quote for the day

The difference between a moral man and a man of honour is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

   H. L. Mencken