Urban legends in Iraq
By Miguel Guanipa (07/14/06)
A prominent journalist recently commented on a story which was making the rounds in Iraq. Allegedly some insurgents had decapitated a young girl and sewn a dog’s head onto the young girl’s body. The journalist remarked that the story was more than likely fictitious, but he noted that given the state of affairs in that country, it could easily acquire the marks of authenticity in no time, given the fact that Iraqi citizens were quickly becoming inured to expect the unthinkable when it came to the levels of cruelty the terrorists were capable of.
This journalist made an interesting point about how the soul of that nation had been so utterly plundered by its past leaders that Americans were not prepared to witness what the Iraqi people themselves were capable of. Thus he felt that the government of Iraq would eventually devolve into another strong man theocracy in spite of the sacrifices Americans are making in that country in order to bring about a functioning democracy.
Part of what surprised me about what this journalist had said (most of which I believe was rather insightful), is that he still believed that the best that we could hope for in Iraq was another ruthless dictator to rule over that volatile region; a Saddam Hussein clone so to speak. Partly because the one dubbed the Butcher of Baghdad was the only one who had been able to maintain order, albeit through methods which included the assassination and wholesale intimidation of those who opposed his style of governance.
I found it particularly distressing that the people of Iraq had been so spiritually crushed by those who had oppressed them through the centuries that they did not find the story of the headless child to be too far fetched. But what disturbed me the most was that an American journalist -who knew what life in a democratic society was like – would so blithely conclude that the best course of action is to call for another murderous tyrant to take hold of the reins of a country whose people are but on the threshold of apprehending the high cost of freedom.
We sometimes forget that the US armed forces are not fighting the Iraqis, but fighting against an ideology that has been codified as part of a religion which only a very disruptive minority adheres to. This minority is sold to the notion that the best way to make any social or political progress is through murderous campaigns and violent uprisings. It is the terrorist’s ideology. And many Iraqis are increasingly getting tired of living under this type of regime theory.
That is why Iraq should not be relinquished to another oppressive form of government that will keep its people starving for lack of freedom. The harm that has been done by the previous arrangement is made evident by the fretful manner in which Iraqis themselves reluctantly grab a hold of a new form of government. And their facile adjustment as a free electorate demonstrates a craving for this new social order. They yearn to fully embrace this new life, by virtue of the fact that they too are members of the human race, in spite of what many, including myself, have sometimes been tempted to believe.
Yet one of the major roadblocks to this new way of life is the many presumed advocates of a resolution to the conflict who speak only of withdrawal and surrender in the midst of this epic struggle. The only Iraqi voices which are to be heard loudly in this choir are of those who prefer to govern through fear and destruction; the very ways that define the terrorists.
The rest of the voices in that choir is that of the “end-game only” crowd; those who pretend to care for the lives of the Iraqis and the American soldiers, insisting their dissent is launched for the preservation of civil liberties, and proclaiming their cause is the virtuous cause of freedom, when in reality their actions are merely the thinly veiled partisan efforts of a fringe and cowardly constituency cloaked in the mantle of patriotism.
By contrast, those who want to persist in the struggle until a stable Iraq is achieved, recognize amongst other things, that no one in a free society should listen to a grotesque story true to the terrorist’s mind numbing atrocities and be in any way inclined to take it for granted.
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