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28 Oct 2006 12:48 pm

Chrenkoff Re-emerges

Remember Arthur Chrenkoff? He did some great work showing how in the early period of the Iraq invasion, there were indeed signs of hope and progress, now fast eclipsed by civil war. He has a new book out, called "Night Trains". He describes it thus:

"A supernatural, alternative reality war thriller about a contemporary young man travelling back to help right the greatest wrong of the last century."

Calling Dr Freud. I asked him whether he now recants his former optimism about Iraq and scorn for MSM reporting, championed by me and others like Reynolds and Taranto and NRO. His response:

Re Iraq - it's funny, because I'm not by nature an optimistic person (I think that the stereotypically romantic but melancholic and fatalistic Polish psyche has been too strongly beaten into us over the centuries between the hammer of Germany and the anvil of Russia), but I remain cautiously optimistic, even if for the sake of all the decent people in Iraq. I remember what it's like to live in a shit state, so I feel great empathy for all the people over there who want to transcend the horror or the three decades of Baathism and the current problems just to have a normal life, that all too many in the West take for granted.

As my late grandmother used to say, things are rarely as good or as bad as they seem. I think that one way or another Iraq will muddle through. It really sickens me to see people who seem to cheer the problems over there just so they can score a political point domestically.

On that last point, I am in complete agreement. My only motive in exposing the lies and incompetence of the Bush administration is precisely because I want Iraqis to have a decent future, and my heart breaks for those brave souls facing down murder and blackmail each day to protect themselves in the face of our arrogant incompetence. I fear it's too late now. But then I'm Irish, not Polish.

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