Testimony to progress in Iraq

This is a great reminder of the progress being made in Iraq:

"We are disagreeing. We are failing to reach compromises. But we are not killing each other." ~Barham Salih, a Kurd who is Iraq's minister of planning and development cooperation. (Source: Ashraf Khalil and Caesar Ahmed, "Iraqis Extend Deadline for Constitution", Los Angeles Times, August 16, 2005)

Context being everything, that is a welcome statement. Do the Dems and Repubs agree on much? So, neither do these adversarial factions. That's democracy.


On one of the Sunday news shows, Sen. Chuck Hagel reportedly said something like: The war in Iraq has destabilized the Middle East.

And, like most people I'm sure, I immediately thought of the Israeli-Palastinian conflict of decades length; and the Iraq-Iran war; and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait; and the conflicts in Lebanon as well as the conflicts within Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey...

The Middle East destabilized by our current war against terrorism? When was it stable?!

More on this soon...

Brad