American media pundits nowadays tend to see every primary vote, every fresh opinion poll, as a "referrendum" on the Iraq war. Forget about it; history doesn't do deadlines. From the beginning I've said we won't know for 30 years whether this was a good idea or not.
I'm still confident the invasion of Iraq will turn out to be a blessing for the people of Iraq. Even the fear-driven segments of the Sunni middle class that willingly backed Saddam ultimately will be better off, if the U.S. can get its act together and lead the world in nation-building on an unprecedented scale.
But there's reason enough already to be proud of what our men and women accomplished last year. They brought down a vile fascist killer, and they did it with careful attention to avoid civilian casualties. And they've already begun, in ten thousand small ways, the business of rebuilding Iraq, while our government and our electorate still debate how much we want to do it.
People who can't see past their contempt for George W. Bush won't acknowledge that. For them, the war, like everything else about Iraq, is unreal. What's real to them is the political career of one man in Washington, D.C., not the lives of 25 million men, women and children in Iraq. It's sad, because these people used to be the ones I'd count on to care about the real folks behind the geopolitical gamesmanship.
Wake up. It's not about Bush. I didn't vote for him in 2000. I had no enthusiasm for Gore, but even less for Bush. I'd love to have a reason to not vote for him again this year. But Iraq is too important to give up on. I'm delighted that Kerry took Iowa from Dean. He, at least, has the capacity to lead in an international mission -- if he proves he has a grasp of it. Dean was a non-starter for that job. I may yet get through my voting life without ever having pulled a lever for a Bush.
If you're one of the people who likes to think the Iraqis are no better off now than they were under Saddam, check out some of the fine Iraqi blogs on the Web. Here's today's (Jan. 21) entry from one of my favorites, Hamourabi's. Forgive his English and read his passion:
This is a real story from Iraq Saddam that I wished Alfred Hitchcock is a live today to convert it into a film! It is also an invitation to the film producers to study the large amounts of the real stories from the holocaustic horrors of the republic of death!Now, tell him the deposition of Saddam Hussein was an international crime because it was done without U.N. paperwork. And tell him what some of the U.S. and British pundits have said, that Saddam's capture was a sad day, because it might have boosted Dubya's chances for re-election, and that would be the true crime against humanity.The time is March 1991. The place is Babylon (Al Hila). It was a sunny day in the morning. All services have been damaged or destroyed by war. The people are exhausted, tired, confused, and their future is gloomy. Their oppressors and murders that have been defeated in Kuwait have been allowed by the coalition to use the helicopters which facilitated their crime against the Shiite and Kurds.
They landed in every uprising city by air and pushed their humiliated tanks against these cities which were called (the black cities) later by Saddam. One of these cities is Hilla. After they pushed their tanks in, on which inscribed (No Shiites after today) they called by loudspeakers all men between 18-45 years to gather in the main city square in Hila, Mahawel and Assadah! There are big cars waiting for them. When the cars filled they asked the rest to go back. The cars then moved for few miles before it split into two groups each one went into a narrow dusty road to the left of the main road. Then the tippers throw their loads in readily prepared big holes and the mechanical shovels turned the soil on the live people!!
It was a post war and uprising situation. The people are staying either inside their homes or escaped to the bushes. The road between Hila and Mahawel was empty a part from the noises of the tanks and cars of the killers and their horror producing shovels and birds which may be Angels witnessing the crime with deep cry coming from the sky. At that moment there was a Bus carrying passengers with families may be trying to escape the killing fields toward Baghdad! The thugs stopped it and forced the driver to drive into the hole with its passengers on their seats! After few minutes the bus disappeared under the soil and dust with the scream and agony of its passengers silenced forever!
After the bus excavated the passenger where found on their seats as if they are still waiting to complete their unfinished journey! Instead they travelled to their last destiny.
It was Hussien Kamel and his thugs who carried Saddam's orders to kill a fixed percentage of the Shiite from each city after the uprising in 1991.
Thanks to GWB the junior who liberated the Iraqis from Saddam regime and thanks to the Americans who supported that. The coalition soldiers who were killed in Iraq are Iraqi martyrs. This doesn't mean that we accept occupation but we consider it as liberation and we hope there will be a system to give birth to full democracy, after which the coalition forces will go back to their homes and loved ones safe and with flowers and friendship forever. Iraq will need the American support even after that. We think what happened to Saddam regime is the will of God by the hands of the US and its allies. The new Iraq will be a member in this coalition.
When the United States invaded Iraq, the American public and much of the rest of the world believed that Saddam was sitting on a bug ugly stack of weapons of mass destruction. Even opponents of the war, in their pleas against an attack, spoke of the certainty that Iraq's military would unleash such horrors.
That, of course, did not happen. Since then, opponents have accused the Bush Administration of hyping a threat to justify a war. They appear to be at least partly right. Since the war, these conclusions have emerged:
- Iraq had preserved some technological nuclear capability from before the Gulf War, but had taken no significant steps after 1998 toward reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
- The Fallujah II plant, which intelligence officers believed was Iraq's principal site for making chemical weapons, turned out to be abandoned, under 10 years of dust.
- Iraq tried hard to keep some capabilities for biological warfare. It maintained an undeclared network of laboratories and other facilities within the apparatus of its security services.
- Saddam since 2000 had been trying to build proscribed ballistic missiles. Iraq negotiated with North Korea to buy technology for No Dong missiles, which have a range of 800 miles.
Iraq did retain prohibited WMD programs, but those programs were not the threat the Administration said they were. The nuclear threat, always the most chilling, was the furthest from reality. No doubt Saddam still cherished his dream of being a nuclear menace. But his program was a shambles.
Ever since the spring of 2002, voices in the intelligence community had warned that the Administration had "spun" the Iraq dossier: cherry-picking the most lurid claims, regardless of whether the experts believed them, and squelching or chilling dissent. That's not illegal. But it's far from the best use of America's dedicated spies and analysts, or of the vast tax dollars spent on the intelligence network. Nor is it the wisest basis for risking the lives and honor of men and women in the Army and the Marines.
As a result, raw, unverified intelligence got passed to senior Administration officials, who made public statements based on it. And much of the American public believed it. Now a sense of betrayal hangs over the Administration, and over thoughtful people like Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institute, who supported, and still support, the war on Iraq for other reasons.
That being said, here are some other points to bear in mind:
- The war was one of the great liberation acts of the last half-century. It brought the long-overdue demise of a murderous fascist regime. Average Iraqis are less concerned than anyone else in the world about Iraqi WMD. They're simply glad to be rid of that bastard.
- The U.S. belief that Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear program and was aggressively pursuing other types of WMD dates from the Clinton years. Intelligence services in other nations -- Israel, Russia, Britain, Germany, China and even France -- held similar views.
- The evidence now indicates that the solidarity of international containment in the mid-1990s was what finally convinced Saddam to give up trying to hold on to a WMD program. Yet the performance of the United Nations Security Council, especially France and Germany, in 2002-2003 proved that that containment had broken down; Saddam eventually would have got his WMD.
Am I holding my breath waiting for George W. Bush to do that? No, but there's always the next guy.
Meanwhile, thousands of Americans are rebuilding broken lands and lives in Iraq. And hardly a business or a block of America doesn't have someone serving abroad. Support the troops, yes, but a big way to do that is to support the people the troops went over there to deliver. The Iraqi people have suffered much and they look to America now to pull them up out of dictatorship and war.
Those who supported this war largely for humanitarian reasons shouldn't need to be reminded of this. We need to go to work. Putting your money where your mouth is makes it a lot harder to put your foot there. Those with friends or loved ones in the military will know that giving to charities that help average Iraqis is a patriotic act: Donations do good in communities where U.S. soldiers serve. They improve perceptions of the American people in places where the military is America's only face.
And for those who want to wake up from the dream that everything only matters as it pertains to George W. Bush's place in history, here's a chance to take a deep breath and do a simple good deed that will prove you can distinguish good causes from bad politics.
Here are three worthy charities I've found that are helping average Iraqis. I've given $100 to each of them. They are run by volunteers: their overhead costs are minimal. What is given to them goes into the hands of those who need it. I recommend them to your hearts and minds:
- OPERATION GIVE coordinates the collection and distribution of toys and other items for Iraqi children. You can send your own package, you can go to their Web site and buy toys that they then ship in bulk or you can buy items from Internet retailers and designate Operation Give as the recipient. If you live around here, you can drop off donations at their warehouse in Columbia, Maryland, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. See the Web site for directions.
If you prefer to donate by check, you can send to: Operation Give, 15915 Yukon Lane, Rockville, MD 20855. In addition to donations, they need trucking or shipping assistance, especially bringing donations to the warehouse; screen printing of T-shirts for Iraq and for volunteers; volunteers to sort donations at the warehouse; shipping boxes and packing tape; and tables or racks for sorting.
- SPIRIT OF AMERICA, a not-for-profit organization, is involved in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. It works through U.S. service men and women doing informal humanitarian relief.
The projects begin with the soldiers. Spirit of America offers them the technology and organization to help them succeed. For instance, the group recently helped a U.S. Army captain in Iraq bring musical instruments to two Kurdish communities with a rich cultural heritage that had been nearly wiped out by the Islamofascists of Ansar al Islam. "There are children who are only now hearing their traditional music," the captain writes, "and adults who very much want to celebrate their traditions."
- HELPING IRAQI SCHOOLS gathers and ships school supplies to the children of Iraq. This would be a great place for teachers and schools to get involved. The younger grades need crayons, markers, coloring books, pencils, sharpeners, paints and brushes, and handwriting tablets. For older grades, the group seeks notebooks, pens, rulers, loose-leaf paper, binders, and pencil cases. They also welcome donations of candy, which is a big favorite among children and adults alike, teddy bears, and hygiene products. They have an "adopt-a-school" program and are looking into a "sponsor-a-teacher" program.
"Thanks to everyone's efforts so far, the situation is improving, but still a long way to go," the directors write. "We have been making teachers boxes from the items we have received for the children. The only thing distinguishing the teacher from the students is the obvious age difference. They are in just as bad a shape as the students."
You can donate to Hamourabi, too, by the way, via Paypal, to defray the cost of blogging.