1) It seems to be going very, very well. Not going so well: The plan for post-war Iraq, which looks increasingly like it will be U.S.-led, which means we’ll be there a long, long time — which means a bloody mess.

2) Yes, it’s trite. Yes, it’s old now. But the Jessica Lynch story has yet to lose its appeal for me. I could hear it over and over. And despite what Virginia Postrel woud like you to think, the fact that her name is “Jessica,” that she is a “she,” is what makes this story so damned compelling. Consider:

A) Does anyone really think that the Iraqi lawyer who tipped off U.S. marines to her whereabouts would have done so — and risked his life and the lives of his family in the process — had it been an American man who was getting slapped around by Iraqi thugs? I certainly don’t.

B) There’s still a bit of chivalry left in America. Yes, U.S. commando squads rescuing a male POW would certainly have been compelling. But not as compelling as Lynch’s story. I think we still like the idea that a squad of American boys risked their lives to save a pretty girl in obvious distress. And that they were successful.

C) She’s a female soldier. She was captured fighting a regime that doesn’t allow women to drive. That in itself is pretty damned fascinating — and testament to the “there’s no moral equivalence” examples you regularly see on this site. When our women are in trouble, we send commando units in to rescue them. The regime we’re fighting straps explosives to pregnant women and — again playing off of our chivalry — then “detonates” said pregnant woman when our troops rush to her aid.

D) She’s a fighter. Apparently, she took a couple of bullets. She killed several would-be captors before getting taken. As many as eleven others in her ambushed unit didn’t survive.

Add all of these together. It makes for a wonderful story. And yes, her sex certainly has much to do with it.

3) Reactions on the extreme left to Michael Kelly’s death were obscene. But so were the pro-war side’s attempts to use those reactions to indict everyone who opposed the war. Let’s make a deal: Don’t use shithead IndyMedia posters to libel my position, and I won’t use shithead Little Green Footballs commenters to libel yours.

4) Add to the long list of “stuff we’re going to have to deal with later:” Retired Russian generals advising the Iraqi military.

5) Normally, Michelle Malkin’s anti-immigration rants tend to irritate me. But her latest — about how Desert Storm Iraqi POW’s were granted refuge and welfare assistance here in the U.S. – is pretty outrageous. The nut:

After Gulf War I, the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration recklessly opened our borders to former Iraqi prisoners of war — from conscripts to elite Republican Guardsmen. The resettlement program was launched in response to pressure from the United Nations, the Saudi government (which balked at taking in the captured soldiers), and our own feckless State Department (which has, and always will, act like a hostile foreign entity).

As a result, an estimated 6,000 enemy Iraqi soldiers have resettled in the U.S. at public expense since 1993. Their welcome gifts included air travel, Medicaid, job and language-training assistance, health care, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), food stamps, Refugee Cash Assistance, and other welfare and housing benefits worth about $7,000 per person.

In total, the resettlement of Gulf War I-era Iraqi POWs and their family members in America soaked up some $70 million in taxpayer funds. No such aid was offered to American troops and their families who sacrificed during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Wow.

6) Another outstanding American journalist dies in Iraq, but apparently of an embolism, and not of factors war-related. The guy was always a fun, interesting guest on Imus.

David Bloom, R.I.P.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2003 at 11:03 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.