The day we leave Iraq
There’s official announcements shooting across the world’s media outlets about the day. The day we leave Iraq, June 30th 2004. For most, this will be the real end of the war. Not the day Dubya wanted it to be. The ending of wars are quite different events (or non-events). From VJ day in 1945, ending WWII to The Fall of Saigon in 1975, ending the Vietnam conflict. We just got the hell out of Dodge with that one.
Are we to change the power structure in Iraq to one that is satisfactory to United States interests? Of course! Is that what the majority of Iraqis want? I don’t know the percentages. The thing is this: There’s an ideological free-for-all going on right now, due to the lack of a single way of life deeply etched in stone, that Saddam provided, for better or worse. There will be a democratic government installed, with their ideals. There is now, and there will be, even when the only Americans in Iraq will be tourists and diplomats, the Orthodox Muslim laws, and broad interpretations of the Koran.
There have been rumblings that the order established by Saddam, those who did not get swept up in the power-mongering or were people Saddam just happened to not like, especially women, were treated fairly. Men did not want the local authorities to get medieval on him for committing any form of crimes on the townsfolk.
From the point when everything went to hell, from Shock and Awe to today (Jan. 17) to June 30th, normal, non-despotic Iraqis have been trying to conduct their secular ad spiritual lives with ammo, rockets and bombs flying every which way. Can we blame them for acting rash? Can we blame them for panicking?
In this human drama, it becomes fight or flee. Iraq is these people’s home. For those not caught up in Saddam’s sick games and conflicts, for which we are warranted in taking him and his regime out, we haven’t been conscious enough of the fact that people call this very foreign place to us, home. They love their country for better or worse. But some of them panic, some of them make the wrong move, not even with the intent of malice, and a United States soldier, paid, housed, armed and fed by our tax dollars that we earn working in the town, state and country that we love, machine-guns and kills them. There will always be bad people with bad intentions. Even when we leave Iraq. For the next six months until our go date, we will be trying to incarcerate or incapacitate every enemy or suspected enemy of the United State’s occupation of Iraq, who will most likely not be a supporter of Saddam Hussein. He/She just wants their home back. I agree with the concept of self-defense,for both sides, but for any Iraqi or any other Middle Easterner who cannot read the blog, I can sum up how the majority of peace-loving, benevolent Americans feel with a simple salutation: متر كاليكمو س-سال