Third Year Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq
Three years ago after the invasion of the country of Iraq I kept hearing comments about Iraq and people were so passionately for or against the war. I could only listen to both sides and shrug because I did not know enough about the situation to make an informed comment. So at one point I decided three years ago to read all I could read about the past wars in Iraq and the leadership in Iraq. I remember reading through articles and articles about Iraq on the New York Times online and it was very easy to do because the articles were all linked all the way back to the invasion of Kuwait. I also consulted the UN website which had some information to impart also. Below are the impressions I came away with.
The first impression I came away with is that the Iraqis have been fighting forever. Saddam Hussein was the first leader ever to have held the country together in a "long time" for over ten years. Until Saddam Hussein the country was embroiled in numerous and unending civil wars.
The second impression I came away with was that through Kuwait, through Iran-Iraq, and other wars that Saddam had participated in there were not many men in Iraq. I seem to remember reading a UNICEF report, written before the invasion of Iraq begging that there be no more wars in Iraq; the report went into the number of children there without parents, the fact that they had just rebuilt roads and schools and Iraq was on the precipice and all things necessary should be done to avoid war with Iraq. Three years later I seriously question who in Iraq is doing the fighting, I doubt seriously that many of the men fighting in Iraq are even from Iraq. I also firmly believe that our war dealing with a dictator who built buildings, provided food for his nation, even had an interest in educating his populace was seriously misguided for their are so many dictators all over this world who have no interest in providing just a basic quality of life for their people. Saddam at least had an interest in giving the people a life outside of clouds of dirt. When we see the people of Saddam's Iraq we are not looking at uneducated people we are looking at very educated people. We are looking at men and "women" given opportunities to en masse become doctors, teachers, attorneys, artists, curators, engineers, etc. And the strangest thing about this is that when we invaded Iraq and started going door to door and knocking down and bashing down doors the first place we started to go was to the area of Iraq made up of the educated class. We followed a tenet that most dictators use and that is to get rid of the educated class, the thinkers, the people who may question what's going on. "This is a thread that runs through the Bush administration" an almost avid hate for intellectuals and the intelligentsia, which for conspiracy theorists we must also acknowledge that the world trade center held some heavy weights in terms of intelligence. I hate to say this but if we could so easily knock down the doors and of course kill some of the Iraq's intelligentsia could we have done it to our own. For at this point I have become resigned to the fact that this administration has no regard for human life outside of its inner circle, a death is a death. At this point when we look at images from Iraq we see that as Americans we have made Iraq a country that looks like a third world country, I see dirt every where. Trust me I have not forgotten the images of Iraq that the media showed before the war. The images of "many" cars not tanks riding through the streets. The images of people arm in arm walking through the streets en masses past fruit stands and sitting at coffee bars. I can not resign in my mind all of the prior to what I see now. I see a country in ruins and the cynical me says that it was done for oil by an oil man. .
In any event as I continued my research into Iraq three years ago. I also came away with the impression Saddam Hussein was a bad man who did bad things. However I was convinced that he was old and quite scared and that the U.N. basically had had Saddam Hussein quelled and that his hideous days were long gone. I think three years later as we reflect back on images of Saddam prior to the invasion and his ouster from power and images of him now, he looks much younger now. I write this to say that I believe that Saddams meaner days were over prior to our invasion.
Anyway I'm out of thought........l...
The first impression I came away with is that the Iraqis have been fighting forever. Saddam Hussein was the first leader ever to have held the country together in a "long time" for over ten years. Until Saddam Hussein the country was embroiled in numerous and unending civil wars.
The second impression I came away with was that through Kuwait, through Iran-Iraq, and other wars that Saddam had participated in there were not many men in Iraq. I seem to remember reading a UNICEF report, written before the invasion of Iraq begging that there be no more wars in Iraq; the report went into the number of children there without parents, the fact that they had just rebuilt roads and schools and Iraq was on the precipice and all things necessary should be done to avoid war with Iraq. Three years later I seriously question who in Iraq is doing the fighting, I doubt seriously that many of the men fighting in Iraq are even from Iraq. I also firmly believe that our war dealing with a dictator who built buildings, provided food for his nation, even had an interest in educating his populace was seriously misguided for their are so many dictators all over this world who have no interest in providing just a basic quality of life for their people. Saddam at least had an interest in giving the people a life outside of clouds of dirt. When we see the people of Saddam's Iraq we are not looking at uneducated people we are looking at very educated people. We are looking at men and "women" given opportunities to en masse become doctors, teachers, attorneys, artists, curators, engineers, etc. And the strangest thing about this is that when we invaded Iraq and started going door to door and knocking down and bashing down doors the first place we started to go was to the area of Iraq made up of the educated class. We followed a tenet that most dictators use and that is to get rid of the educated class, the thinkers, the people who may question what's going on. "This is a thread that runs through the Bush administration" an almost avid hate for intellectuals and the intelligentsia, which for conspiracy theorists we must also acknowledge that the world trade center held some heavy weights in terms of intelligence. I hate to say this but if we could so easily knock down the doors and of course kill some of the Iraq's intelligentsia could we have done it to our own. For at this point I have become resigned to the fact that this administration has no regard for human life outside of its inner circle, a death is a death. At this point when we look at images from Iraq we see that as Americans we have made Iraq a country that looks like a third world country, I see dirt every where. Trust me I have not forgotten the images of Iraq that the media showed before the war. The images of "many" cars not tanks riding through the streets. The images of people arm in arm walking through the streets en masses past fruit stands and sitting at coffee bars. I can not resign in my mind all of the prior to what I see now. I see a country in ruins and the cynical me says that it was done for oil by an oil man. .
In any event as I continued my research into Iraq three years ago. I also came away with the impression Saddam Hussein was a bad man who did bad things. However I was convinced that he was old and quite scared and that the U.N. basically had had Saddam Hussein quelled and that his hideous days were long gone. I think three years later as we reflect back on images of Saddam prior to the invasion and his ouster from power and images of him now, he looks much younger now. I write this to say that I believe that Saddams meaner days were over prior to our invasion.
Anyway I'm out of thought........l...
posted by blackhippychick @ 8:04 AM
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