Gangsters in Iraq continue their descent towards feral butchery; capping several recent low-impact car bombs with a cowardly drive-by shooting on a bustling market. Police and soldiers, undeterred, are reportedly completing preparations for the security cordon in Baghdad known as Operation Thunder while civilians, terrorists' primary targets for months, are unafraid and approaching peaceful life in freedom. Mohammed Fadhil read a local paper report on a very Western protest against a very Near Eastern staple — tobacco. Freelance journalist Michael Yon, meanwhile, visited the sanctuary that is northern Iraq's Kurdistan: a place spared from Saddam Hussein's wrath by twelve years of Allied jet fighter patrols, where the intentions of liberators were understood both before and long after March 2003, and where terrorists haven't a toehold. Reconstruction moves forward. The rule of law expands while the tracts of thugs shrink.
Iraq's enemies still win more headlines than heroes and protectors. But for how much longer?