Rebuilding clinics and schools that were destroyed during the current war in Iraq brings the situation back toward where it was before Shock and Awe, so it's hard to accept such news as more than parital reversal of a negative, not a net positive accomplishment. Iraqis were not savages living in mud huts before the war -- they were among the more literate, well-educated people in the Middle East, though of course living in the shadow of a thuggish leader and his henchmen. The real mark of progress will be a lower daily body count, both military and civilian.

I am glad that the media gives an accurate account of the atrocities in Iraq. A good dose of reality for Americans is appropriate. Thousands are dying in Iraq every month and Americans seem to be more interested in what Paris Hilton or Angelie Jolie are doing. It shows how shallow we are. But Bob has a good point too. There is hope that the situation will improve and there are Iraqis and Americans who will risk life and limb to make it a better place.

First of all I am speaking from being in Iraq. I have friends who I talk to on a daily basis who just returned from Baghdad. I will start by saying progression is being made. It may be two steps forward 1 step backwards, but progress is being made. I will also say that I do believe that several things have been blown out of proportion by the media. War is a terrible terrible thing, but it is necessary for freedom. However the media is a completly acting in a completly differnt capacity than it has before. When the media started reporting and showing bloody scenes from Vietnam, people turned. Americans don't want to see their soldiers being killed, or the devastation caused by war. They want to see statues being torn down, and victorious troops marching through streets. However that makes for about a months worth of "good" tv.I will also say that when I was in Iraq I saw plenty of people that were tortured by Sadaam, but thanked us everyday for their futures. The children smiled at us because through our sacrifices they had a future. I'm not saying every Iraqi wanted us there. But most were happy. Iraqis atleats understand that they must go through this to have a future of freedom. I will also say that most of the insurgents that have been killed and captured are not Iraqi. Most are Syrian, Jordanian, and Saudis. They see this as a free pass to heaven, and an open battleground. Its hard to get an unbiased opinion. People have their views, and no matter how hard they want to portray otherwise, I dont' believe it happens. From a soldiers perspective I think that we are making progress, I do believe there is a bright future for Iraq, no matter how long it takes. I think the secret isn't with the "fighting age" Iraqis, but rather the young Iraqis. If we can show them that we will protect them, teach about democracy and how it works, thats where we can win this war. Unfourtunetly in a modern age where people can get anything they want rather quickly that translates into people wanting results rather quickly.

Congrats to Bob for doing what he is being paid to do and by the way who is paying him? I am not in favor of the way our government is handling things in the world. I am very proud of the young men and women who are serving over there and I wear a yellow ribbon on my lapel everyday and will until they all come home. Has anybody every asked how many of these young people are injured and how bad are their injuries. We see a daily account of the ones who have died doing what they feel is right but how many have lost limbs, severe head injuries and a lot with mental conditions. We are spending a lot of our hard earned monies over there trying to rebuild and make that area a democracy that has had since the same problems since the beginning of time. I am afraid that our government started something that will haunt us forever.

We need more Bob and less Jane; hope not biased pessimism on the future of Iraq. There will be more Iraq's in the future as long as tyranny allows to thrive. I'm proud of our troops and the "W" Administration for toughing this war out. We were ALWAYS told that it would not be easy. i think the media forgot that one!

Bob's description is based on his experience ON A MILITARY BASE. And even it doesn't sound all that great. How's the effort to improve life for typical Iraqis going (recall that this is the new invented reason to invade since WMDs and Iraq's ties to al Qaeda have been shown to be "creative".

Bless him for trying, but let's be realistic about how conditions in Iraq are - they stink.

You seem like a big-hearted person and so does Bob. It sounds trite to say so, but it's nice when people actually get along with each other

Yay...Bob's good news is like a tiny MOUSE...while the reality of torture and murder, no infrastructure, and religious violence is an ELEPHANT!

Those who cry to have 'both sides' shown in the media are hilarious. You want equal time? Make sure there is equal news!

If a football game ended 41-0, you wouldn't expect to give equal time between winner and loser in the highlight reel, would you?

This war and everything connected with it is a waste of my tax dollars.

A little judicious discernment between emotions and intellectual reasoning is indicated here. The fact that Bob's story is heartwarming and makes you feel a sense of hope really has little to do with whether there actually is any realistic chance of there being a stable, peaceful, pro-western Iraq at any time in the next 50 or 100 years. It is probably fair to say that all dictatorships and countries torn by civil strife (including war) have individuals in them that are dedicated to working hard and with resolution to trying to improve their personal lives, but the fact remains that more powerful and often less benevolent forces dominate events to the exclusion of the well-meant but much less politically and economically significant activities of the Bob's and their students. Despite Bob and his students, and despite the seemingly high morale of most posters on Milblogs (for example), the fact remains that the internal violence in Iraq remains as bad as ever (especially in Bahgdad) and the new Iraqi government as lacking in control as ever, with no improvement in sight to the point where important Republicans in Congress (e.g. Senator John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee), military officials both high and not-so-high, and the Bush administration itself are admitting that things don't look promising, but rather that things require an overhaul of strategy (at a minimum). If you look at President Bush's and Vice-President Cheney's own comments on the matter, they themselves say little about actual progress in Iraq, and I cannot recall their giving any specific examples of meaningful progress on the political or economic fronts, but rather they seem to rely primarily on insubstantial pep-talk generalizations about "appeasement" and "staying the course." Moreover, a few months ago the White House itself, after years of taking advice on Iraq from only a handful of insiders (including Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard perle, & Condoleeza Rice) finally put together the seemingly innocuously-named Iraq Study Group made up entirely of well-respected former statesmen headed by heavy-hitters like James Baker (Reagan administration White House Chief of Staff and Treasury Secretary & George H.W. Bush Secretary of State) and Lee Hamilton (see bio here: http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_hamilton.htm ) , which after interviewing dozens of experts as well as actual officials on the ground in Iraq (something the administration never bothered to do at any time prior or after the war's start, until now) have made preliminary comments implying that they will be highly critical of the whole situation (bearing in that their formal report won't be released for something like another month). Thus, while Bahgdad Bob may may make you feel better, his kind of perspective is probably not the one that matters in judging where things are in Iraq, or where they are likely to be going.

It's nice to see that some positive things are coming from us being in iraq, but the fact of the matter is that the amount of damage the US invasion has caused to Iraq far outweighs any good. You can find one or two hopeful stories out of a thousand other hopeless one. Iraq is a disaster, it will go down as the second biggest foreign policy mistake in US history. A few "hopeful" stories wont' change that...

Someone above posted that we should use what happened to South Korea since the Korean war as an example of what could happen in Iraq. AFAIK, the South Koreans all belong to one ethnic group and did not hate each other's guts like the Sunni and Shiite. There were no deathsquads roaming around the country killing the other side. The South Koreans weren't running around planting IED to blow up American troops either. So there is no legitimate comparison between the two.

Bob, if this president had gone to Congress and said "Saddam is not a threat to the US, does not have WMD, had nothing to do with 9/11 (all true), but he is evil and I want to remove him" would they all have voted for war? I think not. I think "W" is a coward and a liar.

The "media" has become just another convenient location to park our own collective guilt. Is the "media" biased? Of course. Are you and I? Of course. Bias provides us all a frame of reference from which to make judgements. Nothing new here.

What we may have overlooked is that, no matter which finger you point, and in which direction it may be pointed, it is we (all of us)who must take responsibility for whatever is done in our name. That burden of responsibility is even more sobering when one considers the enormous suffering borne by honorable men and women on behalf of the millions who argue comfortably from the safety of their homes, surrounded by those they love.

So here we are. We may stay or we may go. The outcome is not knowable but this is....our continued presence merely delays what will be.

Bravo to Ramesh for putting things in perspective. Sure people in Iraq want security, democracy, etc!, but does that make any kind of slaughter and foreign intervention acceptible.

Yes, there are good people in the world, lots of soldiers and civilians over there, but we surely can't count our craven, cowardly politicians among them.

yada yada...this little snippet of good going on in Iraq has been paid for with 2700 american lives, countless 10's of thousands of Iraqi lives and 100 of billions of tax dollars...whoopee

Have the warmongerers grown so desperate that they are willing to celebrate lame stuff like this and ignore the fact their president is lying through his teeth about Iraq? Just wondering

Death squads in Iraq? Weren't there death squads in Central America? Is this just a coincidence?

Are you people retarded? You want the reporters to report on the "good things" happening in Iraq, when something like 40-50 people are being violently killed each day in the capital, when 600,000 have died in the last 4 years from violent causes?

I'd agree if the "good things" included some news we might, you know, actually consider good. Opening schools that were blown up during our invasion, or restoring 20% of the electricity that existed pre-US occupation, isn't exactly "good news" in the grand scheme of things.

You people are disgusting. You don't want the truth, you want a certain perspective. (Notice how when "conservatives" claim there is liberal bias, they never actually want a correction of the record, they want a "conservative viewpoint" added, and "liberal viewpoint" removed).

You people also claimed liberal bias because the media wasn't reporting 3 years ago about how the Iraqis were greeting us as liberators (they weren't), or because 5 years ago the media wasn't reporting that Iraq was behind 9/11, or had nuclear weapons programs, or because 10 years ago they weren't reporting that Clinton had committed an impeachable act by launching cruise missiles into Sudan and Afghanistan to distract the American people from the very important issue of adultery with this made-up threat of Osama bin Laden.

You people are the real Fifth Column in America, and I hope God has mercy on your souls.

One of the commenters above said we were never told the Iraqi invasion would be easy.

That's not what Donald Rumsfeld said.

"It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." -in Feb. 2003

Jane, after reading your biased first article I pretty much just chalked it up to another left wing perspective on the typically liberal MSNBC.com site. I do, however, give you credit for presenting the other side of the story, at least somewhat. It's a proven fact the majority of journalists, for whatever reason, are registered Democrats and it's obvious their opinions come through in their reporting. This couldnt be any more obvious than in the way the situation in Iraq is covered. There's no question things aren't going well and there is a long road ahead, but it's astounding that there is virtually ZERO coverage on the good that happens. The fact of the matter is that there were no easy answers in dealing with Iraq post 9/11. And a big reality slap to the moron above who mentioned that Iraq wasn't on anybody's radar except the Evil George Bush. The President acted on the same intelligence that most dems and many other nations believed to be true regarding Saddams weapons capabilties and he acted accordingly. We need to see Iraq through, for their good and ours...and some objective coverage of things would be refreshing.

During the first Gulf War, we got press breifings from military commanders every day. We were told how many missions were conducted, how many enemy targets were distroyed, and they had the video to back it up.

You will notice we have nothing like that coming out of Iraq now.

The difference?

In the first Gulf War, we were clearly in control, and in this war, we clearly are not.

So the "Good News" isn't coming from the military.

We have daliy press breifings coming out of the White House every day.....any good news there?

No.

What about Fox News, the unofficial Aljazeera of the conseritive movement in this country. Do they have a show devoted to all the good news coming out of Iraq?

Well, no, they don't.

What about the President? He wastes a lot of time talking about all the progress we are making, but he has yet to talk about the number of schools that have been rebuilt, the water and power that has been restored, bridges repaired, or the number of areas under complete Iraqi Army Control.

If you want generalities, call George Bush. If you want specifics, just leave a message on his answering machine and he'll get back to you on that.

So really, no good news there.

I would define "Good News" in Iraq as anything done to improve the sitiuation on the ground.

I don't care what you do, if it doesn't change anything on the ground, you are wasting lives, money and time.

I would like to ask Bob and all his friends to do something they haven't done in a long time....

Think! Use your head!

If the "Good News" isn't coming from the military, the White House, the President, or even Fox News, then where is it?

Instead of complaining about the liberial media, you might want to ask your guys why they aren't telling you what you want hear.

I think the main point behind Bob's story is that as small as it may be there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Did we gain our independence over night with out blood shed ? And most might say is that it is not our war to fight. I ask who's is it then, I to have friends and family members in Iraq and I wish they were home, but I can say if they die trying to make the world a better place, then blessed is their sole. With out people like Bob and our soldiers there is no hope for the world. I fret everyday about raising my kids in todays society. We mourn weekly over shocking stories of shootings in schools where a few kids die here and there, and as horrific as that may be that is an everyday occurence for these poeple, and even though the Bush's original inttention may not have been to free the Iraqy poeple, it is a focus now and we should back our soldiers and our country, because we are doing something no other country can or will do.

One of the responders who made a sarcastic reference to my usage of neo-cons, implies that the war our military is waging is a sacrifice they are doing for our sake. This is exactly the type of spin that is dished out as if any critical assesement on the ground realities is a critique of our military and its accomplishments. True, our soldiers are making the ultimate sacrifice, but there is not an iota of evidence to suggest that our (read "USA") liberty and freedom were in any way, form or shape threatened , prior to this war. This kind of brainwashing which somehow seems to inculcate to the rest of us that barring this invasion we would have been forced to lose our freedom and liberty is exactly why I chose to use the term neo-conservatives. This is not about what Bob is doing or not doing. The question is, we as a country need to be asking why Bob is forced to be there doing the magnanimous work he is undertaking, when Iraqis were leading a peaceful existance prior to our invasion. To those who spin the deceitful invasion as something related to preserving our freedom, I can only say this. This country is firmly protected by our Constitution and does not need any further protection by GWB or Cheney. Contrary to what they would like us to believe, we do NOT need a military to protect our liberties. They are firmly entrenched in our Constitution and no force on earth can take those away. To wage these unilateral wars and then take shelter under "protecting our freedom" is the most despicable insult to our prevailing inalienable rights and liberties enshrined in our most sacred document. The fact that this document was produced after a bitter war is no reason to state that the only way to preserve its existance and its guarantees is by continually starting other wars. This is not just twisting the facts or provide incomprehensible reasoning for the war. This is suffering from delusions of grandeur. As one other responder put it, Iraqis weren't living in caves prior to our invasion. On the contrary, those who attacked us are still somewhere in those caves in Afghanistan and instead of aggresively pursuing them, we are pretending to "preserve our liberties" by making life miserable for the Iraqis and necessitating the work for Bob and hundreds of blessed souls like him.It is high time we stop using "our freedom" as a pretext to justify this war. Our freedom is pretty safe in the hands of our constiutional laws and the power of democracy that we have. We do not need to force every other country to embrace our principles by such violent means and catastrophic results just so we can maintain our status quo with respect to enjoying our freedom in our country. And given that the focus is on the current pitiable state of affairs in Iraq, it is of paramount importance that more visbility is given to the ravages of the war.

We here in the states are always reading about how hopeless the war is going from you people in the press. Meanwhile people line up to join the police after hearing about how so many police have been murdered. Kids still line up to go to school crossing check points where they know they could be kidnapped or killed. Would it kill you to just ask some of these people why they gladly risk there lives everyday in hopes of a better future? So today when you’re dieing because you’re stuck in traffic ask yourself if it could be that these people understand something that you could never understand.

Jane,

Cover your hair, jump in a vehicle and cruise the Karrada market streets on a Wednesday or Thursday night. Take an interpreter with you so he can tell you what he/she sees. Blog what you see and hear.

I admire both Jane and Bob for their efforts. Bob is providing a valuable service by teaching and Jane is providing a valuable service by reporting on the realities of Iraq, thereby ensuring the integrity of our democracy. However, it is not realistic to paint a positive picture of Iraq in any regard. The place is hell on earth. Baghdad is the single most dangerous city on earth and the whole of Iraq is descending into all out civil war based on uncontrolable religious hatred. Our soliders are being killed every day. Innocent men women and children are being killed every day, often in large numbers, often after being tortured and mutilated. The violence is growing all the time. And those are the facts that people need to know. That is the stark reality that needs to shape our policy and that is what the news should be reporting. I cannot believe anyone can come to the conclusion that the news is biased towards negative reporting in Iraq. That's like saying they are biased towards reality. The truth is, we cannot even view the true horrors of Iraq on American television.