SF Democ

"The Mayor of Ar Rutbah"

Don't miss this piece from Foreign Policy by Green Beret James A. Gavrilis. It describes how he and his company set up a functioning democracy in the early days of the Iraq war.

The story reminded me of the evening I spent listening to LtCol Couvillon, USMC, describing his stint as "military governor" of Wasit. Obvioiusly these good ideas aren't limited to the Special Forces. (I also met Omar and Mohammed on the same evening, though they don't know they met me -- I only shook their hands, thanked them, and left them to talk to more important people than me.)

As we have apparently decided to take stock of Iraq right now, we can usefully remember how far it has come in those two years. A tyranny that had known no self-government for decades now has flourishing small communities like this. They exist in spite of the violence, which seeks to blot out these small acts of freedom and return a new tyranny to the land. It will not be.