CNN Has censored my photos.  These are of the following: 1. Garbage in Baghdad 2. Soldier giving a mini soccer ball to an Iraqi child. 3. Roadway paving 4. A crossroads.

Missing photos are: 1: An auto repair location, perhaps something else, but two blocks at a business on the side of the road.  2: (3) bazaar photographs of open street markets 3:  Old tangled power lines 4: New telephone/electirical pole 5: Water on the street near where a new water main was connected 6: A barren wasteland of bombed out buildings uploaded 2/28/2009 taken a week prior.

We invaded, and cannot leave them in shambles after a sustainable

peace has been acheived. If we leave them in a poverty we have in

part created, lasting peace will be very difficult to maintain. The

civilians who stay behind to help Iraqis to rebuild their country

must be protected. This should be a top priority for the soliders

staying behind as a residual force.

I understand that we have watched reconstruction happen during

wartime. Bush's policies and misguided approach to this war were at

best sophomoric. When you rebuild while war is being waged, you

invite your own demise. I would argue that this war is over.  The Iraqis

have Baghdad as long as they want it, and we are there to help them if they should need us. No one is moving to take it

from them or us. There is a sustainable level of peace, a somewhat or mostly

functioning government, an Iraqi army, none of these things are

perfect, but they are self-sufficient, and not destroying one

another. I can tell you from a first person perspective, things

have changed in Iraq. My brother is there. He used to face constant

shelling in the green zone. That threat is gone. Suicide bombings

are not happening ever day or every week, or even every month. There is an established level of peace, it is

not complete, nor is it perfect, but it is a definitive positive change. There

is nothing for us to win but the retentaion and protection of peace. So I ask, how do

you win peace? You feed it. You give your help to see that its basic needs are

met. You help clothe it. You police the streets for criminals. You

encourage economic growth. You help people to rebuild their homes

and their lives. You do not walk out on the embers and hot ashes of

a war zone, same as you would not walk out on a camp fire without

seeing that it is entirely put out. We do not want the forest to

burn down. We want to help gather water, build tents, help rebuild sewers, reconnect water lines,

reconstruct houses, schools, electrical lines, bridges, roads, businesses, aid the Iraqis in reestablishing the substance of their lives and livelyhoods. We

do not want to walk out on this smoldering fire pit, not when the

world is watching, and everyone knows who to blame if/when it catches

the forest. Make no mistake, the Middle East is on par with a dry bed of pine needles in the California hills.  We have an opportunity here to right some of the wrongs

of the past, by changing the present for a better tomorrow. Lace up

your boots.