And Now For A Little Good News from Iraq

 
Want some good news for a change? Tired of “frothing fundos” as eteraz calls them? Sick of listening to Beltway chatter?

Well, here’s a little gem from the comment section in Iraq The Model’s post, The UIA Faces the Threat of Being Outnumbered. The post itself is informative — it sounds busy, contentious and hopeful:

It looks like the real negotiations between the political powers have just begun with great pressures on the politicians to contain their differences and start building the state especially with escalating public contempt about the delay in forming the government.

There's also pressure from the international community in this regard; today the security council urged the Iraqi politicians to form the government as soon as possible and to make it a government that represents the entire Iraq spectrum.

Then, way down in the responses, you find this information from a commenter, Maurice. Unfortunately, his comment is without email or homepage, but I’m willing to believe him when he says he did the research:

LIFE IN IRAQ:

During the past few weeks, I have done some careful research into what is happening in Iraq.

I have discovered that 47 countries have re-established their embassies there. The current Iraq government employs 1.2 million Iraqis. More than 3,100 schools have been renovated and 364 are being rehabilitated, with 263 under construction. Twenty universities and 46 institutes are operating. Some 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary schools by the end of 2005.

The Iraqi police force has more than 55,000 fully trained and equipped officers and there are five police academies producing 3,500 new officers every eight weeks.

There are at least 1,190,000 mobile-phone subscribers. There is a fully independent media network of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations.

Much normal life is going on, although we rarely hear about it.

Maurice is right, we don’t hear about it. Why do you suppose that is?

What’s your favorite statistic? I like the almost-two million cell phone users. In my own life, I loathe the darn things, but to think of a country like Iraq being able to communicate so openly... yeah, the MSM naysayers will remind you that some are being used to set off explosives and for other nefarious, murderous projects. But the overwhelming and vast majority of calls are from or to Ali Whomever, talking to his wife, finding out what he’s supposed to pick up on the way home. Iraqis are enjoying the fundamental pleasures of routine lives. To quote the song from the Wallflowers:

You'd have a wonderful day
If you could see how lucky you are...

One thing Maurice didn’t mention was the incredible rate of building, refurbishing and rehabbing medical facilities across the country. There are more than three hundred in the last two years…

Someone start humming “Movin’ On Up.”