Amidst the prevailing bad news, it is good to see signs of the good. Even near Tikrit, Saddam’s home town, there is recent evidence of the locals helping out the soldiers. In one case, a child came to soldiers near Riyadh to tell them about an IED, which the soldiers were able to locate and destory. In another case, an Iraqi citizen came forward to tell soldiers about a cache of 127 mm (think big boom) rockets, which the soldiers were then able to capture and destory.
As Brig. Gen. Kimmitt put it earlier in the week, it is fair to say that the conditions here have not been business as usual. But the conditions are not at crisis level either. While the instances above are but two examples, it is useful to remember that these kind of acts go on daily, and unfortunately do not make the news. For every insurgent, there are many more people who silently support the Coalition, and there are a fair number who, like those in the examples above, step forward to do something.
Small victories like this are certainly welcome news. But with al Jazeera shaping the information space in the Arab world with a constant drumbeat of U. S. atrocities the effect is limited, indeed.
We can only hope that virtue is its own reward.