Tuesday, March 22, 2005

The right to bear arms pays off for Iraqi shopkeepers





Baghdad Shopkeepers Kill Three Militants
By Traci Carl, AP, for the Las Vegas Sun



Chalk up one stellar victory, thanks to several of Baghdad's Iraqi shopkeepers. In the true spirit of self-defense, something that is getting to be a lost art here in the good ol' US of A, armed shopkeepers took matters into their own hands and laid out some hooded terrorists taking pop shots at passers by.

The clash in the capital's southern Doura neighborhood erupted when militants in three cars sprayed bullets at shoppers, Interior Ministry officials said. Three people - a man, a woman and a child - were wounded.

The motive was unclear, but there have been previous attacks in the ethnically mixed neighborhood. Earlier in the day, gunmen in the same quarter killed a policeman as he drove to work, police Lt. Col. Hafidh Al-Ghrayri said.

A forceful citizen response is rare, but not unheard of in a country where conflict has become commonplace and the law allows each home to have a weapon. Early this month, police said townsmen in Wihda, 25 miles south of Baghdad, attacked a group of militants believed planning to raid the town and killed seven.


It's no surprise that the AP writer finds the "motive" of hooded terrorists to randomly kill anyone "unclear". And,in the same breath, the writer can't resist the need to insinuate that the motive is ethnic in foundation. Now how could that be? Did the terrorists stop and ask any of their victims whether they were Sunni, Kurd or Shi'a before firing?

What is very telling wth this reporter's statement is that the quest to goad Iraq into a civil war by media onslaught and unfettered suggestion continues in full force by the MSM. Only with a country at civil war lies even the smallest a measure of redemption for their highly critical coverage, and apparent siding with terrorists over the goals of the US Coalition forces and the Iraqis.

Hard to believe that even now some in the MSM still don't get it...

But the very bold action of these Iraqi citizens show that those for whom it is MOST important for them to "get it"... DO. While some in Iraq continue to wring their hands, whining of their fears of a divided country, the citizens themselves are undergoing an enlightening change. They flat out refuse to be victims to thugs. And this nothing short of miraculous for those held hostage under Saddam for decades.

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