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Ustwo · 09-21-2004, 03:53 PM

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/s...11739307c.html

Quote:

Diana Griego Erwin: Iraqi women try to help Americans see the country through their eyes
By Diana Griego Erwin -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Before Iraq's liberation, Ahood al-Fadhal spent her days preoccupied with how she and her husband would feed their three children.

The rice and flour they could get was buggy. Three brothers were killed by the regime of Saddam Hussein, and her husband was imprisoned for three years. In her lifetime, she never expected to see a free Iraq.

Since Saddam's overthrow, al-Fadhal finds life moving in directions previously unimaginable. She teaches literacy classes and writes a biweekly newsletter for women; she was elected to a district council seat in Basra as an advocate for women's rights.

Al-Fadhal sat at Cafe Bernardo in Sacramento on Monday morning, describing how her life has changed since the war in Iraq began in March 2003.

"You (Americans) see (television images of) a lot of violence" in Iraq, and there is violence, she said. "But a lot of good things are happening to us. ... Un der Saddam, we had no rights, especially women. Women could not speak openly, even to their children, not even in their own homes."

Al-Fadhal is part of a group from Iraq touring the United States to tell Americans about the democratic "transformation," albeit slow, in their country. Their opportunity to give voice to the Iraqi experience comes at the invitation of the Iraq-American Freedom Alliance, a project of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Founded two days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FDD is a conservative nonprofit providing research and education on the war on terrorism.

Al-Fadhal, a real Iraqi woman speaking to the situation in her homeland, says most Iraqis are overwhelmingly grateful to the United States for freeing their country from tyranny.

With her is Zainab Al-Suwaij, executive director of the American Islamic Congress, and a frequent contributor to op-ed pages in her adopted country, America.

At age 19, Al-Suwaij was forced to flee Iraq after participating in a 1991 failed uprising against Saddam and resettled in the United States. Now she writes to try to explain to Americans why their presence in Iraq is needed.

Because television images focus on the negative, Americans have a distorted view of what's happening in Iraq, both women said.

"When I come here and watch TV, I think this is the end of Iraq. It's over," al-Suwaij said. In Iraq, however, she sees a country "taking baby steps" toward democracy. She says the economy is booming. Schools are improving. Women fill 25 percent of elected positions, a milestone not seen even in the United States.

"Yes, security is a problem and sometimes there is no electricity and no water," al-Suwaij said, "but at the end of the day when we put our head on the pillow, Saddam is gone and that alone brings us great satisfaction. That allows us hope."

Much of the anti-American sentiment is by those who lost power, together with foreign terrorists who've come into the country through unsecured borders, and the disenfranchised young, the women said. "There is a large population of young Iraqis who don't have jobs, didn't receive schooling and now they are getting money to fight against the Americans and the new democracy," al-Suwaij said.

One of the United States' biggest mistakes, they said, was not securing the borders to keep radical extremists out. To hear them tell it, America's presence is not a mistake.

"A lot of (Iraqi) mothers come to me and say to tell the mothers in America thank you for sending us your sons and daughters, the soldiers, to help us," she said. "We pray for them, the soldiers."

The changes are nearly impossible to comprehend by someone whose country is free, they said. As a young oppressed woman, al-Suwaij recalled wondering, "When is my life going to start?"

Al-Fadhal's three children no longer struggle with the same question. Their father owns a small kitchen and appliance store. The children are mesmerized by computers and the Internet.

More evidence of how their world has changed: Today, their mother meets face-to-face with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Now I'm sure some of you will think this is all republican lies, but just for a minute wonder if you were wrong. Wonder if perhaps this democracy won't fail and wonder what that would mean to an Arab world which has been locked into a 15th century mind set with 20th century weapons.

You can argue that we had no pressing interest in Iraq and that’s fine, I'd argue against you but its a point to argue, but I don't know how anyone with any shred of decency could argue that Iraqi's were better off with Saddam Hussein.