Liberating Iraq

The US troops are poised in the deserts of Iraq, waiting for the order from their Commander in Chief, President George W. Bush, to advance on Baghdad and liberate the oldest people in the world from the oppression of the assassins of freedom. The present people of Iraq are not all Arabs. Arabs came to Iraq after the Islamic period eleven centuries ago. They were defeated by the Mongolians and the Ottoman Turks a few centuries later. After the Ottomans were defeated in WW I, the British occupied Mesopotamia. The British renamed the country Iraq and set up a monarchy. The Arabs were the biggest percentage of the population and, therefore, they became the dominant party in government.

The original inhabitants of Mesopotamia, however, are the Ashurai and the Chaldeans. They are the natives of Mesopotamia from the dawn of recorded history. The Ashurai adopted Christianity at the time of Jesus Christ.  The Chaldeans did also, but the Chaldeans turned Catholic in 1553. The Chaldeans formed an alliance with the Iraqi government in 1962, and have been able to hold positions in the ruling Ba'ath Party and the government of Iraq ever since. There are also the Kurds, who became Muslim in the 7th Century; Yezidis, who maintain their ancient religion, and Turkomans from the Ottoman days, who like the Turks are Muslims. Besides these people there are Armenians, Syrianis, and Sobai, who are all Christians. There are many descendants of the Jews who remained in Mesopotamia from the days of the Babylonian Captivity; however, most Jews had to flee to Israel in 1948, losing everything they had. Besides the tragedy of the Shiite Arabs, there are a lot of other tragedies in Iraq.

Today, the government of Iraq is run by the Ba'ath Party, which was started by Gamal Abdul Nasser, the President of Egypt, in an effort to unite the Arabs into one leadership, with himself as the supreme commander. Saddam Hussein joined this party as a young man and succeeded in becoming the leader of the Ba'ath Party in Iraq by assassinating all the Iraqi officials who wanted Iraq to remain an independent state. There is no difference between Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or any other assassins who rose to power by murdering their rivals.

Iraq before the advent of the assassins in the 20th Century was a relatively peaceful country. The British gave Iraq to the Faisal family after WW I. The king of Iraq was Ghazi, the first king of Iraq and the son of King Faisal I of Arabia. In 1932 the British ended their Protectorate over Iraq and abandoned the government of Iraq to the ruling Sunni Arabs. They exiled Ghazi, the king of Iraq, and appointed his son, Faisal II, as king, under the tutelage of his uncle. Abdul Karim Kassem, a general of the Iraqi Army in 1958, killed the king and the leaders of Iraq and took over the country. The Ba'ath Party moved in and killed Kassem in 1962. From that point on, things in Iraq went from bad to worse.

Saddam Hussein is Iraq's worst nightmare. He has posted a $10,000 reward for any Palestinian family whose sons or daughters kill Jews in suicide bomb attacks on Israel. Saddam Hussein has dragged Iraq into a hatred for Jews that's unprecedented in history. Iraq and Israel don't share a border. They don't have any territorial disputes. Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the Palestinians have signed treaties with Israel, but Iraq has not. Why has Saddam Hussein declared himself as the number one enemy of Israel?

Iraqis have suffered long enough at the hands of this brutal assassin. Saddam Hussein has desecrated the history of the Iraqi people by painting his image over the walls of Babylon. The history of Babylon has nothing to do with the Arabs, let alone an assassin like Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi people are hostages in their own country. The UN keeps passing resolutions about weapons of mass destruction, but what about the Iraqi people who are being systematically destroyed by this maniac? Why do the UN countries vote against the US going into Iraq and liberating it like they did Afghanistan?

Why do the liberal and socialist governments of the world betray the Iraqi people at the hour of their greatest need? The governments of Europe, except for England under Prime Minister Tony Blair, are all out clamoring to leave Saddam Hussein in power a little longer. What's so liberal about these liberals? Do they only seek liberty for themselves? Or are they only liberal with respect to economic policies?

The people of Iraq are starving for freedom. Their land can grow its own food. They have scientists and doctors that can treat their sick. What they need is not the resources of the liberals in Europe; they need the respect of the world for their human rights. What greater right is there than to be allowed to live in freedom? By supporting the regime in Iraq, the European liberals and the war protestors in the US are denying the Iraqi people their right to live in freedom.

Of course, war is bad, but what dictator went into exile of his own free will? Of course, war is hell for the American soldiers who must risk their lives for the liberation of the Iraqi people, but why was it all right only to liberate the Europeans from the dictatorship of Hitler and the Nazis?

In the news we saw the Palestinians and the Jews in Israel marching together against the war. So the Palestinian Arabs and the Israelis want to live in freedom and friendship? Why not the Iraqis and the Israelis living in freedom and friendship also? So who's stopping all the people of the world from living together in freedom and friendship, except for those leaders who have genocidal tendencies?

The UN is a great forum for working out international problems, but the security of the United States of America depends on the US preventing the genocide of entire nations. The UN does not have a force equipped to handle the disarming of Saddam Hussein's regime. The US is the only power that can do it and the Iraqi people have no other hope if Saddam Hussein will not resign.

-- March 1, 2003