IRAQ SOVEREIGNTY DAY

UNITED STATES FORCES EXIT THE CITIES OF IRAQ
[take up defensive positions in....the suburbs?....
still armed -- still ready to kick ass]

Greyhawk says so.

A carefully chosen word, sovereignty, to distinguish between the advent of liberty (long since achieved by the coalition forces) and the commencement of the safeguarding of liberty by native Iraqi forces. I'm grateful that the Iraqi government chose this mode of expression, even if President Al Maliki was somewhat less than gracious in his public pronouncements, neglecting to give credit where credit is principally due.

Ahem.
























And ahem.























And even ahem.


Some Iraqis -- I'd even venture to guess MOST -- know how to say "thanks" to their liberators. And to them all I say, you are so very welcome.

There could be no more important assessment of the day than that provided by two of Iraq's truest-bluest patriots, who have raised their voices through the miracle of emerging cyber media, as witnesses to their country's reality, for better or for worse, since the explosive days of early 2003. I refer to Omar and Muhammad, the faithful brother scribes at Iraq The Model. Their commitment to the truth on the groud, their faith in the future and their pride in every inch of their country's slow creep forward have been an inspiration. Today it is Omar who has this to say:

For Iraq and its people however, this war was the beginning of a struggle for rebirth, a very difficult but necessary one, for sure. People of my generation who were born in democracies may take the freedom they enjoy for granted. This is certainly not the case for me or my people. I was born a decade after the murderous Ba'ath Party grabbed power in Baghdad in the sinister coup of July 1968. To us, the war brought an end to that 35-year-long nightmare and the beginning of an era of freedom, thanks to our friends in the coalition.

For me and many Iraqis, it was certainly worth it. Life is better today than it was before 2003. That is even though we were on the receiving end of this war in all its phases, from initial invasion through the bloody sectarian violence and terror that paralysed the country for years. Despite the high price in blood, today is brighter than yesterday. Above all, we have hope - something we did not have under Saddam's dictatorship - that tomorrow will be even brighter.

OOH-RAH.

Speaking of which, Cincinnatus exits the sandbox sometime in the next little sometime. That's all I can -- any more info and I'd have to kill you. Junior Buttons at home has taken to saying, "Daddy soon!"

Speaking of too much info:

Well, come to think of it, I don't want to speak of it. There's too darn much speaking going on altogether. I do NOT want to know how Whacko Jacko looked at his last rehearsal, or how the make-me-puke Governor of South Carolina found his "soul-mate" and how many times they tristed -- dude! STFU!!!!

And I sure as hell don't want to hear the Comrade-in-Chief dither on about how spending more money on health care saves money [exsqueeze me?], or blather on how we didn't let the bastards get us down in Iraq. (We didn't, of course, and there were bastards -- and he was one of them. Thought we'd forget, did you, Bambi? Fat chance.)