Atwar Bahjat could have been the future of Iraq:
"She was a poet, a journalist and a feminist. She had written a book tracing her adventures as a war reporter and had begun work on a second book, examining the role of women in Iraq. She didn’t fit into either side of the mounting religious clash ‚Äî her mother was Shiite, her father Sunni.
She had the talent and connections to get out of Iraq, but she chose to stay because she was determined to see her country knit into a coherent nation.
She wore a gold pendant in the shape of Iraq as a symbol of her indignation over efforts to thwart that unity, and she argued with editors against identifying people as Sunni or Shiite in her broadcasts, friends and colleagues said. The hatred was hot enough already, she told them. She wanted to calm things down, not stoke the anger."
And so she was murdered in the "unbelievable mess" the Bush administration let grow and fester for the past three years. May she rest in peace.
The Dish 