Wednesday, April 09, 2003

I would like to see all of the Michael Moores, Susan Sarandons, Robert Fisks, Mike Farrells, Susan Sontags, Maureen Dowds and other self-centered hate-filled people who were against the use of force to free the people of Iraq drop their smug me-attitude for a minute and do a little thought exercise. Pretend you are one of the people we saw cheering in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere, tearing down posters and statues of Saddam. For three decades you have known nothing but fear. You may say something wrong, your child may cry and irritate someone who will have your family executed for the inconvenience, your village may be gassed because some of the people there were involved in activities to bring down Saddam, you have at least one family member who has gone into a prison never to be heard from again, maybe you spent some time there being tortured, you fear a knock on the door at night, maybe your daughter/sister/mother caught the eye of one of Saddam's sons and was raped and then murdered by them. Today the man, and those surrounding him, responsible for that are gone. It was a hard time, maybe you lost someone you loved in the past few days maybe to an allied bomb maybe someone who was forced to fight the allies, because you would be killed if he did not, maybe you were one of those forced to go fight and you threw down your gun and ran home as soon as you heard Baghdad was free of the Butcher. Your whole life, or the past thirty years of it at least, have been nothing but fear, powerlessness and secret (lest you and your family be tortured) hatred of those who have made you feel less than human to be a quiet and secretive person who cannot speak without fear of saying the wrong thing. Today those people are gone, today you got to throw rocks at any image of Saddam you could find, you got to drag pieces of his statues through the streets and kick him in the face as you have been kicked, you got to shout anything you wanted at the top of your lungs with no fear of retribution, you went to a government office or store and carried away something of value a tiny repayment of the life that has been stolen from you. Night is falling and you know when you lay your head down to sleep tomorrow is the beginning of something new something unknown. More than likely you won't sleep, your mind will be racing thinking of what lies ahead and what has passed you will mourn the dead and maybe even curse America or Britain for taking someone from you but even while you curse you will know that you will never again have to fear you or a family member disappearing into a place of torture and death at the hands Saddam and his killers.

With all of these things running through your head, how would you spend your first night of freedom? Can we even begin to imagine the feelings they must have? We who, despite what we may shout at rallies, have lived in freedom all our lives?

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