Reassuring News from Iraq

The author of Porphyrogenitus.Net posts a reassuring letter from his uncle in Iraq:

. . . For the first time in decades, public executions, the torture of children in front of their parents and the killing of people who might disagree with the Iraqi government are no longer taking place. The rape of school girls as young as thirteen are no longer conducted in the son's palace and the oil for food program is actually going for food for the population, rather then the palaces for a select few. I can tell you from being in one of [Saddam's] reported 70 palaces, (seventeen just in Baghdad) that the amount of money spent just in marble for the floors would have fed and clothed hundreds if not thousands. . . .

Medical supplies, food aid, employment, free press, representative government and schools opening back up are things that are going on over here but for what ever the reason those very good things are under reported in Western news papers. I guess, "Thousands getting clean drinking water" which happens to be a frequent occurrence, doesn't sell as many newspapers as "soldier being killed" which is a much less frequent happening.