Saturday, July 23, 2005

The World's Greatest Nation

I was talking to a friend of mine and he was justifying the war on Iraq. His logic was that after 9/11, the US needed to prove its strength and get back at its attackers, the Al Qaeda. Sounds fair. Except that there is no Al Qaeda in Iraq. The few militants in Iraq who were being sponsored by Al Qaeda were actually against Saddam's government.
The Baath regime has not committed any act of terrorism against the US since 1993. What the US has done is gone and created terrorism in Iraq. Maybe 8% of militants in Iraq are foreign jihadis. Most of the 25,000 guerillas in pre-war Iraq were Iraqi Sunni Arabs who opposed any form foreign military occupation. By going in to Iraq, the US has successfully converted them into terrorists.
So now they have 'liberated' Iraq. And what happens then? Churches, mosques, hospitals are bombed. Abductions, raids and deaths become a way of life. About 50% of the student and working population in Iraq was female under Saddam's regime. Now women do not venture out without two male armed escorts. Women could dress as they pleased in Iraq, within the restrictions of a conservative society. Now wearing a 'hijab' or headscarf has become a compulsion. A burkha is preferred.A woman whose brother and father were killed by Saddam claimed that conditions were much better before the war.
Iraq used to follow a secular Iraqi law. After the American occupation, a proposal was put forth that Iraq come under Sharia law, which is very biased against wome. Sharia law allows temporary marriages, marriage of minor girls etc. So basically America is helping Iraq become everything they claimed it to be.
The 'spoils' of the war go to America - Haliburton more so than the others. Iraqis are out of work. Do Iraqi companies get to participate in the reconstruction of their own country?No way - they aren't educated enough for that. Of course not -they are barbarians, aren't they? Not civlised like the Americans and Brits at Abu Ghraib.
Over 40 children died in firing between American troops and 'insurgents' in Iraq. It is terrorsim when bombs explode in the US or the UK but it is 'liberation when the same happens in Iraq. A civilian in Iraq is anyone who is not Iraqi.
Many people in the American prisoners are from normal families who were unfairly detained. They are sexually abused, raped, forced to eat pork. The Q'uran is trashed in front of them. It is sickening. I find it difficult to believe that 'humans' could actually do things like this to fellow human beings. But oh wait, for the Americans, Iraqia aren't fellow human beings. And of course, the Americans are scared, they are under a lot of stress and they are putting their lives in great danger to liberate another country...how selfless....and so these little excuses must be understood and pardoned.
'There isn't any other nation in the world that would treat people who were determined to kill Americans the way we're treating these people' said Cheney. Well, the Germans did give them some close competition.
And just when you think things cant get worse, the Americans go ahead and elect Iraq. Well, maybe it was too mcuh to expect of that nation to not elect him.And they deserve him after all. The only thing that enrages me about his reelection is that Iraq doe snot deserve Bush. The hundreds of children killed for committing the crime of being born in Iraq, they dont deserve Bush.
The next time any of you speak up in support of Bush, stop for a moment and think how you would feel if you were in Iraq. Living without electricity, gasoline or water, listening to explosions around you everday, worrying about missing relatives and friends, worried that your house will be raided one day, worried that some female member in your family could be raped any day, being a prisoner in your own home. How would you feel if a loved on stepped out of the house one day, neevr to return, blown up in one of the many explosions rocking the country? What did they do to have to live like that?
After crippling a nation with more than a decade of sanctions, the US goes and cuts off its limbs. We watch. We all call America 'The land of opportunitites'. Its the country where dreams turn to reality. Its a country where the life of its citizens is so precious that for 3000 Americans killed in Iraq, over 100,000 of the locals are killed. But of course, didn't you know that an American life is much more valuable than that of a person of any other nationality?
Yes I know, no one said it was a fair world.