.Was It the Right War?
The sound of sirens woke me up after midnight on a beautiful spring night.
Shortly afterward, the telephone rang; it was a friend of mine, saying “Congratulations.” On March 20, 2003, the war against Saddam Hussein was being waged by the United States military. The war for which we, most Iraqis, had impatiently waited. I was so delighted, but at the same time I was anxious. I know what war means because I have been living in a war environment since I was 11. But this war was different from the others because it was the right war.
“I am an Arab soldier, carrying my rifle by which I protect my country from the villainy of the enemy.” That was the first song I learned in preliminary school in Baghdad. I was 5 years old when I asked my mother, “Who is the enemy?” She impatiently answered, “Everybody … Jews, Communists, nationalists, religious leaders.” When I was a teenager, I realized that the enemy was everyone but the Baathists, the members of the sole governing party. When I was 20, a student at the University of Technology, I realized the enemy was everyone who was not loyal to Saddam’s regime, including the Baathists. Eventfully, I realized the enemy was myself.
Born in 1968 in Baghdad, I was raised by my mother and elder brother. My father died when I was 20 months old. Like normal children, I grew up trying to understand the influence of my circumstances, which were not by any means normal.
If I used a word to embody the atmosphere I lived in, I would say “fear.’’ Like most Iraqis living during Saddam’s reign, I had been living in fear since the first moment that I could remember. We were afraid of everyone: friends, neighbors, colleagues. Parents felt afraid of talking about Saddam before their children. Everyone was frightened of everyone else. We were even intimidated by our own shadows.
I grew up in a secular middle-class family. My elder brother, Sadoon, played the role of father shortly after the death of my father, although he was only 15. Sadoon was a kind, generous and intellectual man. He was my role model. In May 1993, Sadoon disappeared. He was taken by Saddam’s state security forces. At the time of his disappearance, he was a military officer and a director of a state construction company. He left a wife and three children: two daughters and a son. I spent 10 years of my life trying to find and help him, but to no avail. There are no accurate records of the total number of the Saddam regime’s victims; however, my family’s catastrophe was similar to that of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families. The fall of the tyrant, Saddam, was the only hope for families to find out what had happened to their missing children, parents and siblings.
Disappearance was just one page of a large chapter of Saddam’s brutal actions. For more than three decades, most Iraqi people, including myself, lived an unbearable life. We suffered from systematic human rights abuses, including torture, kidnapping and enforced deportation. Saddam used weapons of mass destruction to kill civilians. He used chemical weapons to attack Kurdish towns in the north of Iraq. Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. Iraqi forces committed robbery, raped Kuwaitis and expatriates and carried out summary executions. The United Nations issued several resolutions demanding Iraqi forces to withdraw from Kuwait, but Saddam repudiated those resolutions. Because of that refusal, the coalition forces, led by the United States, attacked Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991, beginning the first gulf war. The results of that war were the destruction of Iraqi’s infrastructure and the defeat and destruction of the Iraqi Army. Furthermore, Iraqis lived with stiff and unfair international sanctions until 2003.
We need more than a book to describe the suffering of Iraqis during Saddam’s reign and how hundreds of thousands of Shiites perished during the uprising in 1991. The United Nations, the European Union and many countries and international organizations issued many reports denouncing human rights abuses committed by Saddam’s regime.
“How will our suffering be ended”? We kept asking ourselves this question. Saddam had spoken one language: force. But we had been completely powerless and hopeless. Force was the only tool to stop Saddam from committing crimes and to free us. Who had the capability to remove and destroy that regime? The answer was the United States armed forces. Before 2003, the end of the brutal regime was an unattainable dream. On that beautiful day in the spring of 2003, the dream became reality, and the gate of freedom and democracy finally opened.
Despite the motivations of President Bush’s administration to invade Iraq, we believed that the war was not between the United States and Iraq, but between Saddam and the United States. Just a few weeks after the toppling of the tyrant’s statues, I found my brother.
It was the end of my catastrophe, an end that would not have come unless the war had occurred. I found his grave in the backyard of Abu Ghraib prison. He was killed in November 1993. I found his death certificate, issued by Saddam’s secret police. My family took his remains and buried him in our own cemetery.
We had been liberated and saved by the United States military. The end of Saddam’s regime was the end of one fear, but it was the beginning of a new fear. We believed that the United States would know how to plan for the war and for the postwar, but we were shocked when we found out that there was no plan. We believed the invasion would open a gate for a new free and decent life. Eventually, we realized how naïve we had been. We may have gained our freedom, but we have lost our country. We have been condemned to live in terror. Before 2003, we had lived in a state of terror that was very systematic and organized. Now, we live in a terror that is random. The war caused much damage. However, we still have hope for a better future. My mother, 77 years old, is still praying for President Bush because she thinks that he waged the right war.
Baghdad Bureau
Looks like the Democrats have achieved the unachievable, they've put the fear of god into the Baghdad Bureau..
Not an easy feat I tell you, not easy at all.
Shortly afterward, the telephone rang; it was a friend of mine, saying “Congratulations.” On March 20, 2003, the war against Saddam Hussein was being waged by the United States military. The war for which we, most Iraqis, had impatiently waited. I was so delighted, but at the same time I was anxious. I know what war means because I have been living in a war environment since I was 11. But this war was different from the others because it was the right war.
“I am an Arab soldier, carrying my rifle by which I protect my country from the villainy of the enemy.” That was the first song I learned in preliminary school in Baghdad. I was 5 years old when I asked my mother, “Who is the enemy?” She impatiently answered, “Everybody … Jews, Communists, nationalists, religious leaders.” When I was a teenager, I realized that the enemy was everyone but the Baathists, the members of the sole governing party. When I was 20, a student at the University of Technology, I realized the enemy was everyone who was not loyal to Saddam’s regime, including the Baathists. Eventfully, I realized the enemy was myself.
Born in 1968 in Baghdad, I was raised by my mother and elder brother. My father died when I was 20 months old. Like normal children, I grew up trying to understand the influence of my circumstances, which were not by any means normal.
If I used a word to embody the atmosphere I lived in, I would say “fear.’’ Like most Iraqis living during Saddam’s reign, I had been living in fear since the first moment that I could remember. We were afraid of everyone: friends, neighbors, colleagues. Parents felt afraid of talking about Saddam before their children. Everyone was frightened of everyone else. We were even intimidated by our own shadows.
I grew up in a secular middle-class family. My elder brother, Sadoon, played the role of father shortly after the death of my father, although he was only 15. Sadoon was a kind, generous and intellectual man. He was my role model. In May 1993, Sadoon disappeared. He was taken by Saddam’s state security forces. At the time of his disappearance, he was a military officer and a director of a state construction company. He left a wife and three children: two daughters and a son. I spent 10 years of my life trying to find and help him, but to no avail. There are no accurate records of the total number of the Saddam regime’s victims; however, my family’s catastrophe was similar to that of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families. The fall of the tyrant, Saddam, was the only hope for families to find out what had happened to their missing children, parents and siblings.
Disappearance was just one page of a large chapter of Saddam’s brutal actions. For more than three decades, most Iraqi people, including myself, lived an unbearable life. We suffered from systematic human rights abuses, including torture, kidnapping and enforced deportation. Saddam used weapons of mass destruction to kill civilians. He used chemical weapons to attack Kurdish towns in the north of Iraq. Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. Iraqi forces committed robbery, raped Kuwaitis and expatriates and carried out summary executions. The United Nations issued several resolutions demanding Iraqi forces to withdraw from Kuwait, but Saddam repudiated those resolutions. Because of that refusal, the coalition forces, led by the United States, attacked Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991, beginning the first gulf war. The results of that war were the destruction of Iraqi’s infrastructure and the defeat and destruction of the Iraqi Army. Furthermore, Iraqis lived with stiff and unfair international sanctions until 2003.
We need more than a book to describe the suffering of Iraqis during Saddam’s reign and how hundreds of thousands of Shiites perished during the uprising in 1991. The United Nations, the European Union and many countries and international organizations issued many reports denouncing human rights abuses committed by Saddam’s regime.
“How will our suffering be ended”? We kept asking ourselves this question. Saddam had spoken one language: force. But we had been completely powerless and hopeless. Force was the only tool to stop Saddam from committing crimes and to free us. Who had the capability to remove and destroy that regime? The answer was the United States armed forces. Before 2003, the end of the brutal regime was an unattainable dream. On that beautiful day in the spring of 2003, the dream became reality, and the gate of freedom and democracy finally opened.
Despite the motivations of President Bush’s administration to invade Iraq, we believed that the war was not between the United States and Iraq, but between Saddam and the United States. Just a few weeks after the toppling of the tyrant’s statues, I found my brother.
It was the end of my catastrophe, an end that would not have come unless the war had occurred. I found his grave in the backyard of Abu Ghraib prison. He was killed in November 1993. I found his death certificate, issued by Saddam’s secret police. My family took his remains and buried him in our own cemetery.
We had been liberated and saved by the United States military. The end of Saddam’s regime was the end of one fear, but it was the beginning of a new fear. We believed that the United States would know how to plan for the war and for the postwar, but we were shocked when we found out that there was no plan. We believed the invasion would open a gate for a new free and decent life. Eventually, we realized how naïve we had been. We may have gained our freedom, but we have lost our country. We have been condemned to live in terror. Before 2003, we had lived in a state of terror that was very systematic and organized. Now, we live in a terror that is random. The war caused much damage. However, we still have hope for a better future. My mother, 77 years old, is still praying for President Bush because she thinks that he waged the right war.
Baghdad Bureau
Looks like the Democrats have achieved the unachievable, they've put the fear of god into the Baghdad Bureau..
Not an easy feat I tell you, not easy at all.
posted by madtom at 11:04 PM
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