IRAQ: Things Far Better Than Media Portray
Charles Farley
Full article follows:
The Wall Street Journal
August 19, 2003
'Bush Good, Saddam Bad!'
A Marine reports from Iraq, where things are far better than the media
let on.
By JOHN R. GUARDIANO
AL HILLAH, Iraq -- There's more to America than New York, Washington
and Los Angeles. The same is true for Iraq; there's a vast country
outside Baghdad and the "Sunni triangle" that's now the center of a
guerrilla campaign. It's understandable that Western press reports are
fixated on attacks that kill American soldiers. But that focus is
obscuring what's actually happening in the rest of the country--and it
misleads the public into thinking that Iraqis are growing angry and
impatient with their liberators.
In fact, there is another Iraq that the media virtually ignore. It is
guarded by the First Marine Division, and, unlike Baghdad, it has been
a model of success. The streets are safe, petty and violent crime are
low, water and electrical services are almost universally available
(albeit rationed), and ordinary Iraqis are beginning to clean up and
rebuild their neighborhoods and communities. Equally important, a deep
level of mutual trust and respect has developed between the Marines
and the populace here in central and southern Iraq.
I know because I'm one of those Marines. My reserve unit was activated
before the war, and in April my team arrived in this small city
roughly 60 miles south of Baghdad. The negative media portrait of the
situation in Iraq doesn't correspond with what I've seen. Indeed, we
were treated as liberating heroes when we arrived four months ago, and
we continue to enjoy amicable relations with the local populace.
The "Arab Street" I've meet in Iraq loves--that's not too strong of a
word--America and is deeply grateful for our presence. Far from
resenting the American military, most Iraqis seem to fear that we will
leave too soon and that in our absence the Baath Party tyranny will
resume. This sentiment is readily apparent whenever we venture into
the city. We don't make it far outside of our camp before throngs of
happy, smiling children greet us.
"Good, good!" they yell, as they run into the street, often oblivious
to oncoming traffic. They give us a hearty thumbs-up and vigorously
wave and pump their hands. They are eager to see us and to talk with
us. To them, it is clear, we are heroes who liberated them from Saddam
Hussein.
"Bush good, Saddam bad!" many Iraqis tell us emphatically--and
repeatedly. I'm not sure how George W. Bush is faring with the
American public, but he's got a lock on Al Hillah.
Iraqis routinely ask me to "thank Mr. Bush for freeing us of Saddam"
and tell me, "We are very grateful, because you have freed us of our
worst nightmare, Saddam Hussein." (A lot of Iraqis speak surprisingly
good English because most studied it in primary and secondary school.)
It all reminds me of my experience a decade ago in Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union. Most ordinary Russians, Poles and Czechs
hailed Ronald Reagan as a hero for bringing down the "evil empire"
when few people had the courage even to call it that.
In much the same way, ordinary Iraqis have a tremendous reservoir of
goodwill for the president who coined the term "axis of evil"--and who
then acted to eradicate a primary source of that evil.
The Iraqis know who their foes are too. Two Iraqi children once
spontaneously shouted to me, "France, Chirac!" while giving the
thumbs-down sign and shaking their heads disapprovingly. The children
quickly smiled and shouted "Bush!" while punching the sky.
"We are very glad that you are here and we hope you never leave,"
Zaid, a 31-year-old mechanical engineer, told me. "If you leave, then
there will be more trouble. The Bath Party thugs will take over."
Zaid makes a decent living selling pirated American movies. He enjoys
sophisticated dramas like "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Saving
Private Ryan." But most Iraqis, he notes, prefer action-packed
adventures starring Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme and
Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Mr. Van Damme especially is quite popular with
Al Hillah children.)
This is not to say that everyone here likes America, nor that Al
Hillah is problem-free. Iraq, after all, is still quite poor and
suffering from the aftershocks of Baathist rule and economic
isolation. One of the biggest problems is looters who steal oil from
pipelines and parts from electrical generators to sell on the black
market. The country needs more electrical power plants and a better
police force.
There are more than 15,000 unemployed ex-Iraqi soldiers in Al Hillah
and the surrounding Babil Province. When these soldiers discovered
that the U.S. was making interim payments to local municipal
employees, they demanded similar financial compensation. A small
number of these soldiers even staged a protest at city hall.
The soldiers' complaint was not that the United States is too heavily
involved in Iraqi affairs. They were instead complaining that we are
doing too little to help them. They want more help, not less; they
seek greater engagement, not a withdrawal of American military forces.
The difficulties here aren't the result of the U.S. being
heavy-handed. Rather, they result from our inability to bring greater
resources to bear.
The news from Baghdad, Tikrit, Fallujah and Ramadi--the Sunni
triangle--suggests a bleaker image because these areas are very
different politically, religiously and culturally from the rest of the
country.
Politically, greater Baghdad is populated with people who owe their
privileged status in life to Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. Most
Iraqis, by contrast, were brutally oppressed by Saddam. Religiously,
greater Baghdad is heavily Sunni. Iraq, by contrast, is two-thirds
Shiite, and Al Hillah is 99% Shiite. Culturally, greater Baghdad is
relatively secular, political and cosmopolitan. The nation as a whole
is more religious, apolitical and insular.
It helps, too, that we Marines have maintained a friendly and visible
presence in Iraqi neighborhoods and bazaars. The bottom line: In the
Marine-administered towns and provinces in the south, the Iraqi "Arab
Street" is mostly docile, compliant and eager to engage rather than
shun the West.
As my experience in Al Hillah shows, most ordinary Iraqis are in no
way disillusioned with the U.S. What they want--and need--is greater
help. This will necessitate a sustained military presence here until
the seeds for economic growth and development have taken root.
For that I know the men, women and children of my Arab street are
grateful. As Zaid has told me, "It will take 10 to 15 years for Iraq
to become a normal country. It is important during that time that the
United States be here to help us." Semper fidelis, Zaid.
---
Lance Cpl. Guardiano is a field radio operator with the U.S. Marine
Corps' Fourth Civil Affairs Group and, as a civilian, defense editor
of Rotor and Wing magazine.
Bob M.
"Charles Farley" <cha...@farley.net> wrote in message
news:a2r4kv8diir3ciuqt...@4ax.com...
>
> Full article follows:
>
>
> The Wall Street Journal
> August 19, 2003
>
> 'Bush Good, Saddam Bad!'
> A Marine reports from Iraq, where things are far better than the media
Yeah sure, that's why we had more than 20 killed by a truck bomb today. Get
a clue, we invaded that country and the Iraqis are doing what we would do if
somebody, say the Russians, had invded us. We'd do everything to get rid of
the invaders and you know it. Why should Iraqis be any different?
Bob
Starman
wrote:
Damn Straight-Up! What is it about Americans who can't or won't see
beyond the media spin-stories that offer superficial 'news', to
realize that the bungled invasion/occupation is creating the incentive
for determined resistance -- precisely what Americans of integrity,
grit and conviction would do in the same situation?
What's especially remarkable is the certainty that, but for decades of
covert political and military interventions in the Middle East, the US
could have established a dynamic, prosperous partnership based on
cultural exchanges, economic development, and respect for human
rights, establishing cooperative trust and justice. Iraq had achieved
a remarkable and inspiring degree of societal development until the US
exploited friction between secular Iraq and theocratic Iran to provoke
and surreptitiously support both sides of the horrible Iran-Iraq war,
entirely for the US's hidden agenda of preventing pan-Arab unity and
cooperation, in the belief that US National Interests --including
Israel's security-- were furthered by keeping the Middle East weak and
disorganized, thereby keeping a window of opportunity for US influence
in the region (playing one group against another).
The US's cynical fabrication of conflict (as it is presently doing
with North Korea) and exploitation of crisis for advantage has led to
numerous devastating, far-reaching blowback consequences which its
political 'leadership' is unwilling to even acknowledge, let alone
learn from -- leading to the most incredible rhetorical contortions by
US politicians, policymakers, analysts and spokespersons to ignore,
deny, and revise reality to suit their projections of artificial
models -- much as the pretext for the Iraq war was created to support
the administration's war agenda.
The US's invasion and long-term hostile occupation of Iraq makes a
mockery of expressed American values of respect for human rights,
liberty, rule of law, and justice. The consequences of this policy
fiasco may well lead to the impossibility of the US enjoying good
relations in the Middle East and other parts of the developing world
for the next decade at least, thereby playing-into the hands of
hardcore militarists by demonizing Arabs unmercifully and who would be
thereby 'resigned' to using force of arms and the threat of same to
compel political and economic concessions according to American
interests. The lack of accountability for bad decisions, malfeasance,
incompetance, conflict-of-interests, collusion in fraud and criminal
abuse of authority by corporate and Government officials -- that led
us to this mess -- is simply unconscionable and inexcusable.
It's amazing how the rest of the world sees the US far more clearly
than America sees itself.
Starman
Gogarty
says...
>
>Damn Straight-Up! What is it about Americans who can't or won't see
>beyond the media spin-stories that offer superficial 'news', to
>realize that the bungled invasion/occupation is creating the incentive
>for determined resistance -- precisely what Americans of integrity,
>grit and conviction would do in the same situation?
(Snip)
Thank you. Some posters have common sense.
Altasrecrd
Just goes to show that there are partisan GOP L00ns in the Marines too.
> Charles Farley cha...@farley.net
>Date: 8/19/2003 2:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <a2r4kv8diir3ciuqt...@4ax.com>
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
- Hermann Goering