SeanAhern's Journal: Good things we're doing in Iraq

Reasonable people will disagree about why we went into Iraq. Was it justified? Should we have garned more support before we went?

This journal entry suspends that debate for just a bit to praise some of the work that we're doing there, no matter how we got there.

Here's a (multiply) forwarded email I received recently:

This is a letter from Ray Reynolds, a medic in the Iowa Army National Guard, serving in Iraq:

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently: (Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper is producing.)

• Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.
• School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.
• Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur.
• The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off-loaded from ships faster.
• The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.
• Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.
• The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.
• 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war.
• Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.
• Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.
• Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.
• Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.
• Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers.
• Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever.
• Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.
• An interim constitution has been signed.
• Girls are allowed to attend school.
• Textbooks that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.

Don't believe for one second that these people do not want us there. I have met many, many people from Iraq that want us there, and in a bad way They say they will never see the freedoms we talk about but they hope their children will. We are doing a good job in Iraq and I challenge anyone, anywhere to dispute me on these facts. So If you happen to run into John Kerry, be sure to give him my email address and send him to Denison, Iowa. This soldier will set him straight. If you are like me and very disgusted with how this period of rebuilding has been portrayed, email this to a friend and let them know there are good things happening.

Ray Reynolds, SFC
Iowa Army National Guard
234th Signal Battalion

textbooks?

[John Harrison]

History texts should certainly mention Saddam. Of course there is not much need for the math books to mention him as they did before.

just to clarify...

[Incongruity]

Sean, I just want to be clear on this...was this email sent directly to you from SFC Reynolds or was it a forward? Either way, I'm really glad to see/hear that news but I want to be sure of the source because it'd be easy to undermine if it's a forward of a forward kind of thing...

Re:just to clarify...

[SeanAhern]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. It was a forward. Very possibly a forward of a forward of a forward, etc.

I'll update the main page to clarify this.

Sgt. Reynold's email is real. Facts? Less clear.

[LinuxParanoid]

Snopes [snopes.com] has a brand-new writeup [snopes.com] on this Reynolds email that verifies that such an email was written by a Sergeant Ray Reynolds who does serve in US Army in the division indicated.

Snopes also points to a more critical and in-depth assessment of the piece (and an ensuing discussion) at OrwellianTimes.com [orwelliantimes.com]. Reading the Orwellian Times, it seemed like to a certain extent they sometimes made good points and sometimes they were protesting too much in a counter-spin sort of way (For example, see their assessment of

Re:Sgt. Reynold's email is real. Facts? Less clear

[SeanAhern]

LinuxParanoid, thanks for the "counter" article from OrwellianTimes.com. It's useful information.

Power Point slides

[AutumnLeaf]

I was cringing when I read that mail. It was like reading a power-point presentation from the Department of Special Plans.

The orwellian had a follow up to their counter-article that indicated the author wrote his article in response to his perception of the potrayal of the war in Iraq in the mass media. So he wrote his letter as a counter-point. This email had as much of an agenda as anything I've seen written, and it was not altrusitic.

One example of an item that was screaming red-flags:
* Over 60,000

Re:Power Point slides

[AutumnLeaf]

... and to close the loop. Something more interesting for the original email that started this debate would have been a comparison of those numbers with pre-war numbers. The orwellian did some of that.