One of my favorite blogs is Baghdad Burning, hosted by Riverbend, a woman in Baghdad. She worked as a computer programmer before the war, but after the invasion, when she went to inquire about her old job, she was told they aren't hiring women anymore. (Hey, how'd ya like that Freedom we brought ya?!)
Here's what she had to say the other day, after our government announced the hunt for WMDs was over:
Link: Baghdad Burning.
I hope Americans feel good about taking their war on terror to foreign soil. For bringing the terrorists to Iraq- Chalabi, Allawi, Zarqawi, the Hakeems… How is our current situation going to secure America? How is a complete generation that is growing up in fear and chaos going to view Americans ten years from now? Does anyone ask that? After September 11, because of what a few fanatics did, Americans decided to become infected with a collective case of xenophobia… Yet after all Iraqis have been through under the occupation, we're expected to be tolerant and grateful. Why? Because we get more wheat in our diets?
Terror isn't just worrying about a plane hitting a skyscraper…terrorism is being caught in traffic and hearing the crack of an AK-47 a few meters away because the National Guard want to let an American humvee or Iraqi official through. Terror is watching your house being raided and knowing that the silliest thing might get you dragged away to Abu Ghraib where soldiers can torture, beat and kill. Terror is that first moment after a series of machine-gun shots, when you lift your head frantically to make sure your loved ones are still in one piece. Terror is trying to pick the shards of glass resulting from a nearby explosion out of the living-room couch and trying not to imagine what would have happened if a person had been sitting there.
The weapons never existed. It's like having a loved one sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit- having your country burned and bombed beyond recognition, almost. Then, after two years of grieving for the lost people, and mourning the lost sovereignty, we're told we were innocent of harboring those weapons. We were never a threat to America...
Congratulations Bush- we are a threat now.
What I want to know is, why are we still there?
A year ago, some wise liberals I know were saying we had to stay the course. I agreed. Even though a bad decision had been made to invade Iraq, we couldn't withdraw precipitously, and leave the Sunnis to face a bloodbath.
Looks like that bloodbath is about to happen anyway, at the ballot box.
That is, if any Iraqi citizens are brave enough to go to the ballot box. (I wouldn't blame them one bit for staying home. Just as I don't blame the thousands who've left the country, in anticipation of "democracy." I'd have done the same, oh, yeah, you betcher sweet bumpkiss!)
So tell me, is there any valid argument for staying in Iraq? Let's send the C130s in again, this time to withdraw our sitting duck troops, remove our weapons of mass destruction, (we can leave the tanks--I hear scrap metal's a hot commodity nowadays) and sure, I'll even pay to have the Halliburton mercenaries airlifted out of the country.
Because people like Riverbend have paid enough for "Freedom."
