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Crazy
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Here ia an e-mail I recieved from a friend of mine in the Jag. He's working to get a representative government in charge of Iraq so he can come home:
THE REAL IRAQ
By AMIR TAHERI
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July 17, 2003 -- Open up almost any American or European publication these
days, and you'll be bombarded with grim news about "horrific" conditions in
Iraq - and America's "poor handling" of the post-war reconstruction effort.
All of which, it is claimed, is made all the more tragic - because
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair maliciously
exaggerated the threat from Iraq. They may have won the war, but they're
losing they peace.
Author and Middle East expert Amir Taheri spent several days on the ground
in Iraq last week and found reality to be starkly different from what is so
ubiquitously reported.
Here is a first-hand account of an Iraq that is rapidly moving forward in
nearly every aspect of life - political, economic and cultural. And a
people that, while understandably skeptical after decades of tyranny, is
nonetheless hopeful - and grateful for their liberation.
- THE EDITORS
BAGHDAD, IRAQ
'THE Iraqi Intifada!" This is the cover story offered by Al- Watan Al-Arabi
, a pro- Saddam Hussein weekly published in Paris. It finds an echo in the
latest issue of America's Time magazine, which paints a bleak prospect for
the newly liberated country. The daily Al Quds, another pro-Saddam paper,
quotes from The Washington Post in support of its claim that "a popular war
of resistance" is growing in Iraq. Some newspapers in the United States,
Britain and "old Europe" go further by claiming that Iraq has become a
"quagmire" or "another Vietnam." The Parisian daily Le Monde prefers the
term "engrenage," which is both more chic and French.
This chorus wants us to believe that most Iraqis regret the ancien regime,
and are ready to kill and die to expel their liberators.
Sorry, guys, this is not the case !!
Neither the wishful thinking of part of the Arab media, long in the pay of
Saddam, nor the visceral dislike of part of the Western media for George W.
Bush and Tony Blair changes the facts on the ground in Iraq.
ONE fact is that a visitor to Iraq these days never finds anyone who wants
Saddam back.
There are many complaints, mostly in Baghdad, about lack of security and
power cuts. There is anxiety about the future at a time that middle-class
unemployment is estimated at 40 percent. Iraqis also wonder why it is that
the coalition does not communicate with them more effectively. That does
not mean that there is popular support for violent action against the
coalition.
Another fact is that the violence we have witnessed, especially against
American troops, in the past six weeks is limited to less than 1 percent of
the Iraqi territory, in the so-called "Sunni Triangle," which includes
parts of Baghdad.
Elsewhere, the coalition presence is either accepted as a fact of life or
welcomed. On the 4th of July some shops and private homes in various parts
of Iraq, including the Kurdish areas and cities in the Shiite heartland,
put up the star-spangled flag as a show of gratitude to the United States.
"We see our liberation as the start of a friendship with the U.S. and the
U.K. that should last a thousand years," says Khalid Kishtaini, one of
Iraq's leading novelists. "The U.S. and the U.K. showed that a friend in
need is a friend indeed. Nothing can change that."
In the early days of the liberation, some mosque preachers tested the
waters by speaking against "occupation." They soon realized that their
congregations had a different idea. Today, the main theme in sermons at the
mosques is about a partnership between the Iraqi people and the coalition
to rebuild the war-shattered country and put it on the path of democracy.
Even the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr now says that "some good" could
come out of the coalition's presence in Iraq. "The coalition must help us
stabilize the situation," he says. "The healing period that we need would
not be possible if we are suddenly left alone."
Yet another fact is that all 67 of Iraq's cities and 85 percent of the
smaller towns now have fully functioning municipalities. Several
ministries, including that of health and education, have also managed to
get parts of their operations going again. The petroleum industry, too, is
being revived with plans to produce up to 2.8 million barrels of crude oil
a day before the year is out.
To be sure, life in Iraq today is no bed of roses. But don't forget that
this is an immediate post-war situation. There is no famine - in fact, the
bazaars are more replenished with food than ever since the late 1970s -
while food prices, having jumped in the first weeks after liberation, are
now lower than they were in the last years of Saddam's rule.
MOST hospitals are functioning again with essential medical supplies
trickling in for the first time since 1999. Also, some 85 percent of
primary and secondary schools and all but two of the nation's universities
have reopened with a full turnout of pupils and teachers.
The difference is that there no longer are any mukahebrat (secret police)
agents roaming the campuses and sitting at the back of classrooms to make
sure lecturers and students do not discuss forbidden topics. Nor are the
students required to start every day with a solemn oath of allegiance to
the dictator.
There has been no mass exodus anywhere in Iraq. On the contrary, many
Iraqis, driven out of their homes by Saddam, are returning to their towns
and villages.
Their return has given the building industry, moribund in the last years of
Saddam, a boost. Iraqi exiles and refugees abroad are also coming home,
many from Iran and Turkey. Last month alone the Iranian Red Crescent
recorded the repatriation of more than 10,000 Iraqis, mostly Kurds and
Shiites.
In Iraq today there are no "displaced persons," no uprooted communities and
no long lines of war victims in search of a safe haven.
FOR the first time in almost 50 years there are also no political
prisoners, no executions, no torture and no limit on freedom of expression.
Iraq today is the only Muslim country where all shades of opinion - from
the extremist Islamists of the Hezbollah to Stalinists, and passing by
liberals, socialists, Arab nationalists and moderate Islamists - have full
freedom to compete in an open market of ideas. Better still, all are now
represented in the newly created Governing Assembly (Majlis al-Hukum). Iraq
is also the only Muslim country where more than 100 newspapers and
weeklies, representing all shades of opinion, appear without a police
permit and are subjected to no censorship.
Much is made of power cuts, especially in Baghdad. But this is partly due
to a 30 percent seasonal increase in demand because of air-conditioning use
in temperatures that reach 115 degrees. In other cities - for example,
Basra - the country's second-most populous urban center, more electricity
is used than at any time under Saddam Hussein.
A stroll in the open-air book markets of the Rashid Street reveals that
thousands of books, blacklisted and banned under Saddam Hussein, are now
available for sale. Among the banned authors were almost all of Iraq's best
writers and poets, whom many young Iraqis discover for the first time.
Stalls, offering video and audiotapes for sale, are appearing in Baghdad
and other major cities, again giving Iraqis access to a forbidden cultural
universe.
The flower stalls along the Tigris are also making a comeback.
"Business is good," says Hashem Yassin, one florist. "In the past, we sold
a lot of flowers for funerals and placement on tombs. Now we sell for
weddings, birthday parties and gifts of friendship."
The free-market economy is making its first inroads into Iraq's socialistic
system in a number of small ways. Hundreds of hawkers are offering a
variety of imported goods and making brisk business by selling soft drinks,
often bottled in Iran, and biscuits and chewing gums from Turkey.
Some teahouses, in competition to attract clients, offer satellite
television as an additional attraction. Every evening people pack the
teahouses to watch, and zap and discuss, what they have seen in an
atmosphere of freedom unknown under Saddam. It may be hard for Westerners
to understand the Iraqis' exhilaration at being able to watch television of
their choice.
But this is a country where, under Saddam, people could be condemned as
spies and hanged for owning a satellite dish.
Another symbol of newly won freedom is the multiplication of cellular and
satellite phones. Most belong to returning exiles. But their appearance is
reassuring to many Iraqis. Under Saddam, their illegal possession could
carry the death penalty.
The portrayal of Baghdad as an oriental version of the Far West in
Hollywood Westerns misses the point. It ignores the fact that life is
creeping back to normal, that weddings, always popular in summer, are being
celebrated again, often with traditional tribal ostentation. The first rock
concert since the war, offered by a boys' band, has already taken place,
and Iraq's National Football (soccer) Squad has resumed training under a
German coach.
THERE are two Iraqs today: One as portrayed by those in America and Europe
who wish to use it as a means of damaging Bush and Blair, and the other as
it really exists, home to 24 million people with many hopes and aspirations
and, naturally, some anxiety about the future.
"After we have aired our grievances we remember the essential point: Saddam
is gone," says Mohsen Saleh, a geologist in Baghdad. "A man who is cured of
cancer does not complain about a common cold."
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