It's not all bombs and beheadings

I was inspired to blog about this by some comments to a post in another blog I enjoy, What Now? The post was written by the blogger's sister about how the rest of the world views America. This commenter, who didn't have the courage to sign their name, objected to the use of 9/11 to praise President Bush, and proceeded to list all the reasons why the situation in Iraq is a mess and how President Bush is a big failure.

We all see the news everyday. There's bombings quite regularly. American troops are being killed. The war is costing America money. There's continuing violence by insurgents in many parts of Iraq. We've yet to catch bin Laden. The rest of the world hates America. Iraq hates America and wants us out. It's all bad news. That's all that's happening, Iraq is a mess, we shouldn't have gone in, America is going downhill, and it's all the fault of George W. Bush.

This is the news coming out of a liberal media, who in some cases are quite blatant about their bias to the left and their dislike of Bush and the war. This is the news coming out of a media that knows that showing a car explode garners much better ratings than showing Iraqis building a school. This is not fair and balanced reporting by any stretch.

There are good things happening in Iraq. There are good things happening in Afghanistan. There are even good things happening in Indonesia. You just have to care enough to find out what they are. I do care what they are, and I found a long list here.

Afghanistan had it's first public election of a leader last weekend. A woman was the first person to vote. Women are allowed to walk in public freely. Young girls are going to school. It's a great step for both democracy and human rights in Afghanistan.

Indonesia only recently became a democratic country, after years of dictatorship- one of the few democracies in Southeast Asia. They are now serving as a model to Iraq in building a democracy. Some members of the Iraqi government travelled to Indonesia to take a tour of their government and take their lessons back to Iraq.

Saddam Hussein is gone. His cruel regime is over. His people are free. He's in jail. That in itself is cause to rejoice. The Iraqi people are working together with coalition forces to rebuild their infrastructure - roads, schools, hospitals, water treatment plants, electrical plants.

In Baghdad, people have lived with the contaminated water from the much-polluted Tigris River for many years, resulting in health problems and water-borne disease. With the addition of the water treatment facilities, Baghdad will have clean, pure water to drink, to cook with, to bathe with. How simple a pleasure that is - to have clean water. Yet the Baghdadi people have lived without it under Hussein.

The Iraqi economy is slowly improving. State workers are now being paid a living wage, a salary they can support their families with, and even have money left to repair their homes and buy appliances, which they haven't done in 15 years. Before, they made enough to buy 2 kilos of meat.

I saw an interview with country singer Cheley Wright yesterday. She just came back from visiting the troops in Iraq. The Iraqi women were shocked to see that she was the boss. The men listened to her, served her, and catered to her. She walked next to them, not behind them. What a great but simple image of free, unoppressed women for the Iraqi women, along with the fact that women are being encouraged to vote in the elections in January.

There are good things happening in Iraq. It's not all bombs and beheadings.