However much the American media makes the US presence in Iraq the source of violence there, and however hard the world tries to suggest ours is a hopeless pursuit against terrorism and violence, there are many in Iraq who see things quite a bit differently.

I struggle every day to grasp what it must be like to live in Iraq and fear for my life with every explosion I see, hear, or feel. I wonder, as a parent and grandparent, what I would do were I forced to face those demons in my daily life. One thing I know for sure, I would NOT stop living, and I would NOT give in to evil in the name of some faux sense of security or a mindless belief that rooting for the bad guy would bode well for my family’s future.

I feel a twisted sense of kinship with the Iraqi people. Not because I have even the slightest idea what it must be like to live through this hell of theirs, but because I know given similar circumstances, I would act no differently than they are today…the ones trying to get on with their lives and take care of themselves and their families at least.

There was a suicide bomb set off on Tuesday at Mustansiriya University, a largely Shiite university in northeastern Baghdad. The New York Times piece, in standard form, covered the story in the typical “adding to the body count”, “it’s the US’s fault” style. Their piece ended with this:

As a group gathered at the site, a convoy of American Humvees drove past. An old man spit on them, shouting, “You are the ones who brought to us all this disaster.�

This comes as no surprise really. The Washington Post even takes this tiresome meme a bit farther, concentrating on death tolls and weakly overlaying that issue with the idea of Bush’s troop surge:

President Bush is sending an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, and the majority will deploy to a capital city ever more entrenched in sectarian enclaves, guarded by homespun militias. Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said in a televised interview that the insurgents were expending their surplus bombs in anticipation of the security crackdown.
[...]
In the last two months of 2006, 6,376 civilians were killed in Iraq, three-quarters of them in Baghdad, the U.N. report said. While the figure represents a slight decrease from the previous two-month period, the “extra-judicial executions, rampant and indiscriminate killings of civilians went virtually unchecked during the months of November and December,” the report said.

Death tolls in Iraq are controversial because they vary so widely and because there is no uniform, transparent system of tabulating killings throughout the country. The 2006 civilian death toll of 34,452 provided by the United Nations — drawn from the Health Ministry, hospital reports and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad — exceeded figures released by the Iraqi government.

Iraq’s ministries of defense, health and interior said in early January that there were 12,357 violent civilian deaths last year. An Interior Ministry spokesman, Abdul Kareem al-Kinani, said Tuesday that the U.N. figures were “incorrect, unsuccessful and very exaggerated.”

Even over at Newsday, where they at least STARTED to focus solely on the story at hand, their title alone shows the incessant desire to lump agendas onto news:

The attacks came on an already grueling day of sectarian and political violence in the capital that left at least 64 more Iraqis dead, underscoring the findings of a United Nations report released Tuesday that said at least 34,000 Iraqi civilians died last year in acts of violence. The figure, nearly triple the number recently released by the Iraqi Health Ministry, jibes with Times estimates that about 100 people a day have perished in political violence since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine last February.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. military reported the deaths of four American soldiers, killed a day earlier by an improvised explosive device near the mostly Sunni Arab northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The university attack stood out for its grisliness and cruelty even amid Baghdad’s grim standards. It appeared calculated to inflict maximum civilian casualties and heartbreak.

A story from the Kuwait News Agency suggested:

The attacks followed two weeks of relative calm after the execution of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. They took place a day after the execution of Barzan Al-Kikriti and Awad Al-Bander, former Saddam Hussein aides.

This type of reporting allows the distant reader to think this was about “botched” hangings, and revenge killings, and allows for random acceptance of the notion that there is a civil war. You need to read 5 stories to piece together the notion that Sadr Shiites are going to college, and many of the victims here were women.

I strongly suggest you consider a look at what Mohammed, also an Iraqi College Student has to say about this horror inflicted upon the innocent, and how HE feels about whether the story is about the dead or the updated body count. He gets the last word here:

Nothing was more painfully clear than this message; they are killing our future by killing students and knowledge. They are killing the flowers who filled the world with laughter, energy and hope since the first school was built thousands of years ago somewhere on this very land.

65 families or maybe more mourn their sons and daughters today and I know their feeling very well…I’ve been through it when I lost my loved ones and I know what their obsessions are telling them; why did send them to school? Did I have to, was it the right thing to go on with our lives and defy terror? Oh God, they threatened and they did it but what future would we have if my son didn’t go to school!?
Why did I let her go? Oh God help me answer my bleeding heart.

A policeman says: the cell phones didn’t stop ringing in their pockets and purses but there was no one to answer…they were gone.
The ringing will keep me awake tonight angels of Iraq…you were the bravest when you chose to go on in the face of danger. I will not close my eyes tonight; your phones and your voices echo in my head waking up the demons who want revenge in cruelty that splits heads from shoulders.

Isn’t this sight enough for the world to stand with us? Doesn’t it look clear now? Damn you if you watched this and saw only new numbers for your counts.

I bet my life on it; tomorrow students will go to their schools again carrying their books, wearing their best clothes. Even if one student remains I bet you these crimes will not stop life from going on.

Please, go light a candle for their souls and let the world hear your voice…let’s expose the criminals and let’s fight them with all the strength we can find so that our sons and brothers can walk to school every day.

Oh, angels of Iraq, I mourn you like I mourned no one else.