Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader believes you ought to go over to Beautiful Atrocities to read Jeff’s profile of Masooda Jalal.

What a courageous woman with a vision for the future of her country!

This story, like so many others that various bloggers (like Jeff) and MSM outlets like the Wall Street Journal, is not often enough reported outside the limited realm of the blogosphere and certain other outlets. Just the other day, your Maximum Leader and the Smallholder were chatting on the phone and the subject of how bad Iraq is came up. Your Maximum Leader does not doubt for a moment that the situation in parts of Iraq is grave. But he doesn’t believe that what we hear about every day is the whole story of the whole nation. He once saw a map of Iraq showing where all the headline news stories came from. As most know, they come from the “Sunni Triangle.” That is still the problem. The south and north of Iraq are rebuilding and moving forward.

Does this mean that there is no problem? Of course not. But it does mean that we shouldn’t start to close our minds to the overall mission upon which we’ve embarked. We Americans are an impatient lot. We need to take heed of the positive changes we’ve affected so far, and continue to make the incremental changes that will have lasting impact on the region.

Carry on.