America Did Liberate Iraq
Watching Iraq’s news on TV or reading about it nowadays is an unpleasant experience. It’s not unpleasant because of the pain. I’s unpleasant because I hardly feel any pain watching the death and carnage nowadays. I’ve become emotionally numb. Meanwhile most of those around me who aren’t so emotionally apathetic feel rage, a strong burning inferno of rage and too often the bad situation is all blamed solely on America.
I go into deep modes of thought during such low moods. “Liberation, my foot” would usually be a thought but there were other ones that came into mind too. America did liberate Iraq. Bush did liberate Iraq.
It’s true! Hold up for a second, have a glass of cold water and try to relax. I think there’s something many of us are conveniently forgetting. A few years ago, when the American army arrived in Baghdad, they weren’t greeted with many bombs and bullets, some but not many. They were generally welcomed by Baghdadis. And when Saddam’s statue fell, everyone cheered and celebrated. It was a very symbolic moment, a media spectacle, sure, yes, but nonetheless a powerful symbolic moment. So, there you go, America did liberate Iraq. I emphasize the word “did” though. It’s past tense. I don’t see any “liberation” now. All I see is blood and death. So what happened between now and then?
Here’s what happened. Rumsfailed failed to maintain order and security. Baathists were sacked and the mother of disasters happened, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. It was the main event in my opinion, which caused anti-Americanism in Iraq and the region to shoot up sky high and in effect helped give rise to the current situation. A new government unfortunately seeking revenge was also brought into power. The bad news just kept coming and coming. America screwed up. Bush screwed up. Dickhead Cheney screwed up. Rumsfailed screwed up. They mismanaged the war badly but the terrorists and militias went beyond that. They started terrorizing and spilling the blood of their own people. I can understand if they only fought the invading forces. I can’t be mad at them for that. After all that’s legitimate resistance and nobody would like someone to invade his or her home. They didn’t fight legitimately and today the vast volume of innocent blood is spilled by them, not the Americans or coalition forces. On the contrary, the American forces are trying to help maintain security but everyday we still see the terrorists persisting.
I’m not sure, how badly the Iraqi state of affairs will continue to deteriorate or whether things will improve anytime soon but I am sure of one thing. If, I repeat if, order and security is back and if Iraqis start seeing peace, prosperity and justice in the coming years, then I believe Bush will go down in history as a liberator. If that doesn’t happen, then he will forever be remembered as an evil warmonger and will go down in history as one of the worst presidents in modern times.
Meanwhile, just remember and try not to forget that America did liberate Iraq, but only very briefly. At the moment, things are a mess.
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… Only to place it under a new and frightening occupation.
And why do you think these terrorists emerged in the first place? It is winning the sympathy of more Iraqi youth for a reason – and the American forces have messed up greatly where many have been found guilty of rape and murder (in cold blood) and let’s not forget that these are only the issues we actually hear about .. God knows what else is happening.
I see Iraq today and everyday since the occupation and “liberated” never comes to mind. That said, no one but Iraqis themselves can judge whether or not they have been liberated, we have no right or enough knowledge to, no matter how much we read. No one but the Iraqis know.
Disagree!
I think this is missing a very crucial point and that’s the definition of “liberate.”
My expectation before the war was a best case scenario of getting the same old crap, unfortunely they were surpassed. I was watching this yesterday and it’s kind of errie to look at it now.
Ehm… *scratching head*
I’m not sure if you guys actually read everything I wrote. America liberated Iraq from Saddam. The statue fell, people celebrated. They were officially liberated from Saddam’s brutal rule. They were happy and they cheered…
But only very briefly. So yes, *now* there is no liberation whatsoever. The happiness and sense of liberation/freedom from Saddam lasted for a very short while.
And Esra’a I agree with you that it’s up to the Iraqis to decide whether or not, they have been “liberated”/liberated. However my observations are as a mere outsider.
I read ITM quite a lot by the way (they’re not representative of the majority, I’m sure but they’re still Iraqis and I’m sure there are many like them even if they’re the minority).
I understand that many people are super angry at America. Hell, even I am. But frankly, lately I’ve been way more pissed off at al-Qaeda shitheads and that fat retard with messed up teeth called Muqtada al-Sadr. Sure, the American troops have committed ugly and sickening crimes against poor innocent Iraqis, but what those terrorists are doing to their OWN people is beyond what America has done and continues to do in Iraq.
If someone invades my home and then that same invader commits criminal acts against me, I’ll be pissed. But if my OWN blood and “home-mates” did the same thing to me, I’ll be more pissed. Wouldn’t you?
Most of the people around me are angry ONLY at America. Yet I see almost no bitterness or anger at what the terrorists are doing to their OWN people!
The whole article itself is just misleading, from the title to the end. There is no such thing as liberate if you are just going to be placed under a new occupation. It rid Iraq of Saddam – that’s not liberate. Horrific, unjust crimes took place after that – life has become unbearable. That’s not liberate. Call it what you want, but don’t use “liberate” unless you’re an Iraqi yourself living there and can truly feel this way. You shouldn’t assume this about an entire nation that we all have almost no connections to.
Don’t judge others based on how certain people feel around you.
As for there not being any bitterness, that’s nonsense. Just because you’re not reading the material doesn’t mean it’s not out there. In Bahrain we do have articles written about this (mostly because we fear the same things happening to us), and people discussing this from blogs to news articles to daily discussions about what Iraqis are doing to their own people, even in Al Jazeera you hear these discussions but you cannot also DENY what America is doing or rate it any less than what these “terrorists” are doing. You just can’t.
In a lot of the conferences I go to we discuss these things at great length. People know it. You just have to reach for the material because it’s not mainstream – it’s not what you rely on for your news. And just because it’s not in what you read, still, doesn’t mean that people don’t realize this… there is a LOT of bitterness and anger at what the terrorists are doing to their own people, a LOT of it. Having recently met and engaged with several Iraqis, some of which are Kurds, I can tell you that with all honesty. What I hear from Iraqis who live in Iraq is far from what I hear from Iraqis in the news. It just doesn’t even compare.
You shouldn’t judge people if you just measure their reactions based on what you see on the news or based on how you see others react around you, especially if you are claiming things about an entire country and the fate of its nation. It’s not accurate. And this is why I disagree entirely with what you’re doing here – you yourself admitted that this conclusion was gained from “reading” and “watching” news about Iraq. Is that truly the extent of your interaction with Iraqis? And having admitting that, can you honestly tell me that your opinions on this are “factual” if there is a huge limit to your sources?
It’s very unfair, and sometimes dangerous, to draw conclusions like these. We have no right to assume such things about a country we have no connections to. Believe it or not, there are MANY Iraqis out there who still favor the rule under Saddam.. of course a significant number who don’t, but also many who do. It’s much more complicated than you think. There are still many Iraqis who respected him as a leader and who find it very threatening how his leadership was taken away. And here you are assuming that Iraq itself was liberated when many Iraqis themselves can tell you otherwise. It’s not fair – we don’t have the full picture, we lack too much access to true Iraqi sources, we lack enough coverage, we lack a lot. We shouldn’t jump to these conclusions, and we shouldn’t assume what others are thinking about America’s invasion or the local terrorists. We are seriously blind as to what the real public discussion is in Iraq, it’s not only what we read in blogs and newspapers, it goes way beyond that… think of the millions who have no access to share their opinions and concerns with us.
Who’s “they”? Were you there? In any case, these cheers did not last for long. Many knew that something horrible was coming as a replacement – and they were right.
“Were you there?”
Nope. Duh!
“In any case, these cheers did not last for long.”
Precisely my point. The liberation (or whatever other term you may want to choose) wasn’t maintained. If the mistakes that were made didn’t happen and things were done right instead, we would be witnessing a totally different situation right now. Think Japan and Germany after WW2.
They key word in the title is “did”, as in past tense. There is *no*, I repeat *no* liberation now. Maybe it’s just my writing style and how I’m thinking out loud. Esra’a I think the main issue here is semantics really.
Anyhow, I disagree that I don’t have the right to make my own judgements based on my own resources and experiences. Why not? My judgement is only as a mere outsider. I am free to think freely even if my way of thinking is flawed. That’s my right.
I do agree with you however that I can’t draw such a large conclusion based on how Baghdadis (or a group of Baghdadis) cheered when the statue fell. So yes, you’re right in that regard.
“You just have to reach for the material because it’s not mainstream – it’s not what you rely on for your news. And just because it’s not in what you read, still, doesn’t mean that people don’t realize this… there is a LOT of bitterness and anger at what the terrorists are doing to their own people, a LOT of it.”
I’m glad there is and I know it does exist out there. I admit I hardly get to hear about that bitterness often and frankly, I get really pissed at the mainstream channels like the Arabic al-Jazeera and most of their crap. You hardly get to see any real bitterness expressed there against the terrorists. Why doesn’t it exist in the mainstream Arab media? It’s all America this, America that. That’s what I find depressing and that’s my main point (I prefer the English Al-jazeera a lot better by the way).
“Believe it or not, there are MANY Iraqis out there who still favor the rule under Saddam.. ”
Guess what? Even though I hated the guy, at many times, I just wish to see him back again.
PS: liberation mainly refers to liberation from Saddam which brought a sense of joy. That could have been maintained. It wasn’t thanks to America’s big time screw ups. Then the terrorists came (again thanks to America) and screwed up more, way more than what US troops themselves did.
Does that make it clearer?
Yeah that makes it clearer, but it wasn’t so much clear in the article itself.
I didn’t say you should stop it, I just said that it isn’t fair to declare something like this without understanding the whole picture especially if the resources are this limited and the conclusions were drawn solely based on media coverage.
Who said it was there in the first place? Whether or not the joy lasted… liberation is still not something to describe that very small period of time that lasted no more than a day. The war got much bigger as soon as Saddam went down. That placed the Iraqis under a new occupation immediately – they weren’t free at all; suspects were imprisoned, women and children caught amidst the violence, prisons were re-opened and were being used for the same purposes as Saddam was using them for, and rape and murder was all over the country. The terrorist attacks against Iraq’s own people didn’t begin until later, and when there is an occupation, you will always have opposing forces that resort to violence. I’m not justifying it, but then again you can’t blame them for reacting. It was a weak strategy and it’s only getting weaker. When a country is under no official rule of law all hell breaks loose because people begin struggling for political dominance, and many would literally kill for that.
As far as I know Al Jazeera does include these disputes… you yourself posted a video about this on your blog, do you remember? I wrote an entry about it here too which you commented on. It was two Iraqis fighting each other over Saddam’s execution, one opposed it and one justified it, and Al Jazeera in no way blamed the US for these kinds of disputes. It does report the attacks by Iraqis vs. Iraqis, at times without analysis to allow you to arrive to your own conclusion. Al Jazeera International tries its best to cover the civil war as well, not always accurately but the representation is there. I also see a lot of Arab blogs, some from Iraq, that are asking themselves the same question – why do this to each other, if we’re all one and the same?
Of course, like any other news agency, it’s biased and has an agenda, but it’s not fair to say that they don’t try to cover this when they do… it’s not as anti-American as people make it out to be especially if a lot of perspectives are given a voice.
I see more bitterness towards the civil war but of course a lot of bitterness directed towards the American forces… and just as you have the right to your opinion they have a right to their anger, it doesn’t mean they are any less angry about the local terrorists but many do believe that America is fueling these civil wars especially when it approved of Iraq’s sentencing of Saddam, which only added to the Sunni/Shiite gap. It’s difficult not to arrive to that conclusion when the US remains to be the dominant force within Iraq.
Next time I’ll try to be less philosophical!
To say that Iraq was liberated from Saddam makes sense; he’s no longer in power. But, Iraq is certainly not free in an autonomous sense. There is time and effort required behind stabilizing the country. Regardless of the semantics, the fighting between all groups needs to be diminished in order to make real civil progress. I cited this blog in my recent post… check it out:
http://www.warperspectives.blogspot.com/
I didn’t think it was so philosophical, since it’s full of actual statements and not many theories, I just found it misleading.
I agree with Drima here, Iraq was liberated, it was liberated from one tyrant and it didn’t take long for another tyrant to replace him.
It’s not just a matter of security. SCIRI and Daawa as liberation is kind of lol, judging by how many tv stations and newspapers they’ve shut down and how many people got killed, and how the constitution has put women’s rights back about 40 years. People cheered in the Ukraine when Germany “liberated” them from the Soviet Union too. Al Qaeda and the Sunna Islamist crap shouldn’t be apologized for either and it’s important to look at that aspect and not ignore it simply cause americans aren’t doing it but seriously this is not the way to go about it.
anyways:
http://electroniciraq.net/news/2994.shtml
Don’t forget the executions taking place, which have included women. A very threatening reality of Iraq.