maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
For my current Geography unit on Iraq I had a guest lecturer come in to my 7th & 8th Grade Geography class yesterday. She is ethnically Armenian and a Christian but born and raised in Iraq and now a U.S. citizen. She lived in Iraq for most of her life including the time when Saddam Hussein came to power through the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. She came to my class to talk about life in Iraq. Her sister, who is currently living in Iraq, but has come to Saipan to visit until December when she goes back to Baghdad also came along.
Her presentation was absolutely fascinating.
A couple of things that really struck me:
1. How truly scary it is to be living in Iraq right now. They say they rarely go out—they just stay inside most of the time, because it’s so dangerous. When they do go out they say their goodbyes, not certain if they’ll see each other again. They try to avoid gathering in groups because terrorists tend to target large gatherings. One my friend’s mother died in February, she was unable to return to Iraq for the funeral because it would have been too risky for her to go as a U.S. citizen. But of the people that were there, only four went to the funeral because it was just too dangerous to do anything bigger.
2. She says that suicide bombings and kidnappings etc are done by outsiders, non-Iraqis that have come into Iraq’s porous borders to wage holy war. According to her, these terrorists have no compunctions about killing Iraqi citizens if need be to get at the Americans and the soldiers under the command of the current Iraqi government. She also talks about the fighting between the Shia and Sunni factions but seemed to imply that they were less indiscriminate in their killing.
3. I found it fascinating how wars are named differently and what those names often say about the attitude during the conflict. She refers to the Iran-Iraq war as the Persian War and the Persian Gulf War she calls The First American War (the current one being the Second, I would assume).
4. She says she worries about the religious people getting into power, because they will make life much stricter especially for women. One thing that rarely gets mentioned about Saddam Hussein was that his government was essentially secular. He may have occasionally wrapped himself in the mantle of religion as a way burnishing a populist image (similar to our own president)—he was responsible for adding the words “God is Great” to the Iraqi flag, but personally Saddam wasn’t very religious, and as such had little in common with religious fanatics like Osama bin Laden.
5. She says that Iraqis were really happy when they heard the Americans were coming, but now they hate having the Americans there. She says people began to stop feeling “liberated” and more “invaded” when the U.S. started putting up it’s flags everywhere.
6. And this was the thing that really got me: She says that the Iraqi people always hated Saddam. He was horrible. But now most Iraqis want Saddam back. In their view things were bad under Saddam, but at least (if you weren’t on his hit list) you were safe, and things were basically secure and stable. Things are much worse now for the average Iraqi citizen then they were under Saddam Hussein. (Though, I’m sure Sting2 would be happy to sit down with this woman and explain to her how she and her family are misinterpreting their own experience and that in fact things are much, much better
) The attitude seems to be that Saddam knew how to keep the people under control and was best able to keep the various factions in Iraq subdued.
In summary, this on the ground account—which is admittedly subjective (she is after all an Armenian Christian. If she were a Kurdish Muslim, or Shia Arab she might have a different view) but I believe still very much valid—combined with the more objective facts, indicates that we have erred gravely in our actions in Iraq. When the people are wishing they had a tyrannical dictator back, something has gone terribly wrong.
Her presentation was absolutely fascinating.
A couple of things that really struck me:
1. How truly scary it is to be living in Iraq right now. They say they rarely go out—they just stay inside most of the time, because it’s so dangerous. When they do go out they say their goodbyes, not certain if they’ll see each other again. They try to avoid gathering in groups because terrorists tend to target large gatherings. One my friend’s mother died in February, she was unable to return to Iraq for the funeral because it would have been too risky for her to go as a U.S. citizen. But of the people that were there, only four went to the funeral because it was just too dangerous to do anything bigger.
2. She says that suicide bombings and kidnappings etc are done by outsiders, non-Iraqis that have come into Iraq’s porous borders to wage holy war. According to her, these terrorists have no compunctions about killing Iraqi citizens if need be to get at the Americans and the soldiers under the command of the current Iraqi government. She also talks about the fighting between the Shia and Sunni factions but seemed to imply that they were less indiscriminate in their killing.
3. I found it fascinating how wars are named differently and what those names often say about the attitude during the conflict. She refers to the Iran-Iraq war as the Persian War and the Persian Gulf War she calls The First American War (the current one being the Second, I would assume).
4. She says she worries about the religious people getting into power, because they will make life much stricter especially for women. One thing that rarely gets mentioned about Saddam Hussein was that his government was essentially secular. He may have occasionally wrapped himself in the mantle of religion as a way burnishing a populist image (similar to our own president)—he was responsible for adding the words “God is Great” to the Iraqi flag, but personally Saddam wasn’t very religious, and as such had little in common with religious fanatics like Osama bin Laden.
5. She says that Iraqis were really happy when they heard the Americans were coming, but now they hate having the Americans there. She says people began to stop feeling “liberated” and more “invaded” when the U.S. started putting up it’s flags everywhere.
6. And this was the thing that really got me: She says that the Iraqi people always hated Saddam. He was horrible. But now most Iraqis want Saddam back. In their view things were bad under Saddam, but at least (if you weren’t on his hit list) you were safe, and things were basically secure and stable. Things are much worse now for the average Iraqi citizen then they were under Saddam Hussein. (Though, I’m sure Sting2 would be happy to sit down with this woman and explain to her how she and her family are misinterpreting their own experience and that in fact things are much, much better
) The attitude seems to be that Saddam knew how to keep the people under control and was best able to keep the various factions in Iraq subdued.In summary, this on the ground account—which is admittedly subjective (she is after all an Armenian Christian. If she were a Kurdish Muslim, or Shia Arab she might have a different view) but I believe still very much valid—combined with the more objective facts, indicates that we have erred gravely in our actions in Iraq. When the people are wishing they had a tyrannical dictator back, something has gone terribly wrong.
