Thursday, April 24, 2003

From the Daily Star in Lebanon.

Well, that thing they feared has come, but it is by no means an “occupation.” And people everywhere should refrain from calling it that unless, of course, it becomes evident that it is one, both de facto and with regards to its intent.

Although American officials have not formally stated that the war is over, what we are witnessing now are the very beginnings of a post-war Iraq. And it is nonsensical, absurd, and preposterous that Arabs are already calling for American troops to leave Iraq, when their job is not yet even done. In a way, the US is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn’t. If America were to leave Iraq immediately (and it won’t), Arabs would be quick to raise the allegation that the US never cared about the Iraqi people, that it did not stay long enough to change the humanitarian situation on the ground there, that it did not implement the democratic and economic reform it claimed it wanted to bring the people of Iraq, and that it came to the Middle East with the sole intention of destroying a defiant Arab country which posed a challenge to the West (and as we have seen, not much of a challenge, at that). If America stays on, though (and it will), Arabs, as they are today, will be quick to launch into their conspiracy theories of American “domination,” “subjugation,” “imperialism,” “colonialism,” and “expansionism.”
But the facts speak for themselves. Many, if not most, elements of Saddam Hussein’s regime have yet to be found. Officials have no idea where Saddam himself is right now. America has yet to find him (or his remains) and the suspected illegal weapons of mass destruction to which American intelligence pointed and upon which coalition forces acted: the chemical and biological weapons laboratories, and the snthrax, the botulinum, and the Sarin and VX nerve agents, among others. And that’s just the investigatory part. The US will not, and should not, leave before that is done.

America went into all of this with the intent to change Iraq once and for all, to bring democratic reform to its citizens, and to welcome all of its inhabitants, Sunni, Shiite, Kurd, and Christian, back into the international community. And it’s about time. Too long have the Iraqi people been the victims of their own brutal dictator and too long has their plight been ignored by the international community. Ironically, if Arabs had it their way, to this day the Iraqi people would remain oppressed and subjugated.

And then this from the article. An insight into the pride in their mission that American soldiers have. How many Western scribblers and TV babblers understood this? Only the ones who understand pride in doign a job well and pride in representing a great nation.

Coalition forces are liberating the Iraqi people today and Iraqis are thankful for that. (The Arab news media would rather repeat the few instances an American flag was waved by a happy American soldier with a sense of purpose and pride in his duty, though.)

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