Stuffed up with a cold I’ve been browsing through books most of the day, when I found a quotation that seemed extremely appropriate to the current situation in a devastated Iraq. The eloquent words of one of the great leaders of democracy and equality, speaking in the end days of a dreadful war, he looks beyond the battlefield slaughter to building a lasting peace, rebuilding the land and taking care of the injured, the orphaned and those freed of oppression.



With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.



Abraham Lincoln, 2nd presidential speech of inauguration, March 3rd, 1865.