Amid the Bombs, Flowers Bloom in Iraq

An untold victory in Iraq

Shouting atop the rooftops of news-drunk America, the liberal press has done a sensational job of bamboozling Mr. and Mrs. Headline-Scanner with the most fictitious and leading above-the-fold “news” stories. Usually within the first two or three lines, these reports unfailingly paint George W. Bush and the United States military as an over zealous band of civil rights stomping, trigger-happy rednecks.

Indeed. It is this same liberal media that hides behind the protections of the First Amendment, and its self-imposed importance as the society’s protector via a free and unvarnished press. Yes. And if that is true, that penny stock you bought in 1987 really is worth millions today.

So, while the New York Times busies itself by exposing the National Security Agency’s efforts of tracking terrorism within and outside the countries borders, the Washington Post decides to tell the world of top al Qaeda captives being held in secret prisons in and around Eastern Europe. Yes. “Unvarnished,” as in “no bias.”

Obviously, free and clear-thinking Americans see just how dangerous a free and unvarnished liberal media can be. In the bag for terrorism many moons ago, papers all across the country like the New York Times and the Washington Post also excel in not reporting the good news that flows alongside the bad. Let’s take the case of one Aaron W. Simons.

Simons, a 20-year old Marine Lance Cpl. from California, died while fighting in Anbar province, Iraq on April 24. Simons leaves behind his family and friends who loved him so, and his comrades-in-arms who admired the faith and poise of so young a man as Aaron.

And Aaron also leaves behind little Hamade Hadeal.

Hamade is an Iraqi girl who, at the tender age of twelve, was actually teaching these “trigger-happy redneck” Marines how to speak the Iraqi language. It was here, at the Iraqi troop quarters, or Jundi hut as it is called, that Aaron first encountered Hamade.

Upon meeting Hamade, Aaron discovered through talking with his fellow soldiers that she was going to die unless something was done, and soon. For Hamade’s lack of a simple pair of sandals, deadly parasites that are found within the Iraqi soil enter through the feet, and attack the body’s organs. This vastly complicated a condition (kidney disease) that had already claimed the lives of four of Hamade’s siblings.

In Hamade’s case, she will need a kidney and liver transplant just to give her a shot at life. Even after this, Hamade will need anti-rejection drugs and medication that may well cost some $15,000 per month.

Even before this was known, Lance Cpl. Simons and fellow Marine Lance Cpl. Ian Kutner decided that whatever it took, little Hamade would have a chance at life. It was after Simons was tragically killed in Iraq that his parents learned of their son’s efforts on behalf of Hamade. But then, word had spread.

By the sheer determination of organizations like the Modesto Blue Star Mothers, whose sons and daughters die daily in foreign lands protecting the freedoms that this nation enjoys, Hamade is getting that chance at life. With the help of others like Rep. Dennis Cardoza, (D-CA) and Marine Lt. Col. Larry White and Navy Cmdr. Tara Zieber, Hamade becomes somewhat symbolic of what the American spirit, inspired by a God that cherishes life, can do. (http://www.mcvbluestarmothers.org)

As of this writing, Hamade is getting the medication she needs to buy her precious time--time to go to Jordan in order to be evaluated, and decide which course of action best to take. Because of the determination and love shown by Cpl. Kutner and Cpl Simons, and the outpouring of goodwill and generosity that Hamade’s plight has generated, Hamade may not only live, but also become a citizen of the United States, as Cpl. Kutner is aggressively seeking to adopt her. (http://www.modbee.com/local/story/12502890p-13218699c.html)

The story of Hamade may well start and end here in this very column. As far as I can tell, very few have written about people like Hamade and the many others like her. I do not just speak of a little Iraqi girl whose life may end shortly, but the fact that it is the American spirit that drives men such as Aaron Simons and Ian Kutner to not only free a country of tyranny, but to also display the compassion that walks hand in hand with the casualties of war.

How do the Iraqis see this? From the Modesto Bee, the only major paper known to have reported on this compelling life and death story, it was summed it up this way:

“The story of the Marines who befriended an Iraqi girl is leaving a deep impression. The goodwill is keeping soldiers alive. The Iraqi community recognizes what the Marines are trying to do.”

And the rest of the mainstream media? Better you should hope for actual world peace than think the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times would actually pen stories that would make America proud and confident about what is happening in Iraq. When one wonders just why President Bush’s poll numbers are in the toilet, think no further than the media’s obsession with bad news, and the continuing cadence of the war on terrorism death-count in Iraq.

It’s time to ask just what the American media are doing by continually writing about the “desperate and dire circumstances” thrust upon the country by a Republican President and his Republican Congress, and purposely creating a vacuum concerning the good news that is a daily part of the war as well.

It is time that this liberal and partisan media get away from the daily pursuit of writing of the political death of Bush and Republicanism in general, and start writing about what it is that makes America great. One can report the bad, yes. But one should not ignore the good. It is here that the media acts like the 21st Century version of Tokyo Rose, and carries water for the very terrorists that seek to replicate 9/11.

Dying for one’s country as Aaron Simons did is the ultimate sacrifice a soldier can make. To say that men like Aaron Simons are heroes is, of course, an understatement born out of the callousness of war, and the sometimes pedestrian view of war taken by the populace at large.

It does not help when the stories of just how heroic and compassionate a man as Simons--and so many others in this war on terror--are short-shifted and purposely ignored and relegated to obscurity for political king-making, ala the media.

In a land torn by the trials of war, a flower springs forth that grows strong, and its roots are deep. By the strength of this one flower, others follow, and the seeds of the one multiply into the many.

"The Hamades Story" is a story that needs to be told to an American public that has grown weary of war primarily because of a liberal media that has told it to.

As Ronald Reagan knew, the American spirit is unconquerable, whether that spirit finds itself in Iraq during war or back home during peace. America is still that “Shining city on the hill” that Reagan spoke of, and that is because America and its people are forged by the deeds of people like Cpl. Aaron Simons.

Shamefully, the liberal media can only report the bombs in Iraq, and ignore the flowers that bloom there daily.

*The parents of Aaron W. Simons, John and Charlotte, have asked those interested in helping Hamade Hadael to work through Our Children International. Its Web site is http://www.ourchildreninternational.org.

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Vincent Fiore is a freelance political writer who lives in New York City.

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