Don't Let Me Stop You: Oldie, But Goodie at ITM

One of our favorite blogs is Iraq the Model, started in November, 2003, by three Iraqi brothers: Mohammed; Omar; and Ali. At considerable personal risk they have described Iraq's march to democracy from the inside for the benefit of the world. Regular readers of their blog were not surprised at all by the strength the Iraqis showed on election day. Here is our favorite post from before the election, as Ali describes their confrontation with power:

A failed revolution. In the past in Iraq (and till now in all arab and Muslim countries except for very few, and since Trotsky came up with his idea of the “Everlasting revolution”), any attempt to change the government or even part of it was considered as a “conspiracy against the revolution” and an act of treason that no one would imagine a more horrible crime and a worse punishment for.

In Iraq for a long time a revolution seemed to us to be the only way to overthrow Saddam and achieve our dreams in freedom, justice and democracy. There’s always something fascinating about revolution especially for people like us who suffered for a long time under a very brutal dictatorship. I used to watch the injustice that’s happening allover the world and the people’s silence about it and think that the only thing that’s going to save us is a wide revolution that spreads through Iraq to the neighboring countries, as the only thing the people of the advanced world seemed to be interested in was delivering fast aid to areas in most need for it, to make our suffering less terrible but not to deal with the primary cause that was continuously causing such crisis. It’s a noble and generous effort but it wasn’t enough, as we didn't want to just live, we wanted to live as human beings.

Read the rest to get the full effect.

Ali now writes on his own blog, Free Iraqi, but Omar and Mohammed are still going at ITM.