Redstate

By pilgrim Posted in War — Comments (12) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Michael Yon's latest dispatch from Iraq, Thanks and Praise, is a wonderful account spreading across the blogosphere. I do not see the account anywhere in the Driveby media. I google news stories, and get only 1 hit, NRO.

Read on.

Michael Yon is making this photograph available to media outlets, such as print publications and cable and television news broadcasts, at no cost for a limited period of time.

Here is a snippet of Michael's dispatch about this photo.

Thanks and Praise: I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.

The Anchoress has written her impressions on her blog I completely agree with her, and appreciate her take on this. Here is a snippet of The Anchoress

In truth, we know so little. So much of the information we get from Iraq is filtered and delivered from “safe” locations. So little of it is unfiltered and delivered from the Iraqi streets.

Yon is delivering Iraq to us from the streets, and he’s doing it on donated dimes.

Wretchard compares this photo, in spirit, to the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. Rand Simberg calls it Pulitzer-worthy. I don’t know; I’m no judge of such things.

What I see in this picture is something more than a historic moment - I don’t even know if that’s what we should call it - I see the sort of thing people do when they are neighbors, when they are working together for their neighborhood, for the good of all who live there, and that makes it seem less “historic” than calmly, wonderfully normal, ordinary, wholesome and sane. I see tolerance, which so many are so certain cannot exist in Iraq - or anywhere in the Middle East. Tolerance in the best sense of the word - converting no one, insisting on nothing beyond ordinary acceptance; tolerance that gives people room to live their lives.

Thank you Michael Yon, Jeff Emmanuel, and others like them who provide a glimpse, a snapshot of events in Iraq that we otherwise will never know about.