When reading about Iraq I ty to find sources that aren't political in nature. I feel they perhaps will give me more a sense of what is really happening over there. It is the reason I love the milblogs. Most soldiers are not political, at least not in describing their own experience. I have found their blogs to be a window into the world of the war.
I found two gems (articles) in this month's National Geographic. One is an article dealing with the Kurds and their independence and what they have suffered. The life of torture and death that they lived with daily under Saddam is hard to imagine here. The reporter found not one family that had not been affected by Saddam's brutality.
When reading the article, any American has to feel proud to have been a part of bringing this monster down. Lefties say there are many monsters. Why this one? Just as in the story you probably heard about the little boy on the beach throwing a starfish back into the ocean as thousands lay on the beach and the Dad says, "There are so many, throwing one back just doesn't matter." The little boys says as he is throwing one back in,"It matters to this one."
God knows, it mattered to the Kurds. As the reporter points out:
"I met not a single family there that had not fled its home at some point in the past 20 years, not a single farmer who had not seem his village shelled by bombs or artillery, not a single person without a tale of chemical weapon attacks, torture, or execution under Saddam Hussein."
Even if you believe that this war was for the oil, you have to be glad this genocide has ended and the person responsible for it has been brought down.
The sad thing is that most Kurds are the exact kind of people we would like see lead Iraq and the middle east into a democracy, but they have long considered themselves independent from Iraq. They have held elections and formed a legislature and chosen a President. They are not thrilled with being a part of Iraq in any form. One can certainly understand why. But they seem to be a forward thinking people at a time where that kind of thinking is much needed.
In the 2nd article, "Genocide", we are introduced to anthropologists of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who are exhuming remains from the mass graves of the Kurds. As the lead anthropologist, Paul Rubenstein tells us:
"As you work with the victims, especially the children, their clothing, the baby bottles, the little shoes, just like the ones we bought for our daughters years ago, the little hands, so expressive in death-you have to try not to get into the heads of the monsters who did this, or it becomes overwhelming. You look at a perfectly knitted baby bonnet with two bullets holes in it, and you think, These could be your own kids."
The reporter interviews Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel who says there is some reason to believe that the work being done with Iraq's mass graves victims could help ensure that the 21st century is less violent than the one before it:
"The moment you give a face and a name, not just to the victim but to the killer, people respond with greater comprehension. It somehow puts limits on the phenomenon, which otherwise is incomprehensible because of the numbers and the magnitude."
What I believe Bush understood about Saddam was that Saddam was this kind of madman dictator in a region that was the hotbed of terrorist activities. Could we allow him to ignore U.N. resolutions to prove that he was the not the danger we suspected? Could we ignore someone capable of mass murder to possibly supply terrorists? No and no.
Argue the reasons for the war. Argue about the motivations. You still have a brutal killer off the world stage and a democracy struggling to grow where one once thought impossible.
And that, my friends, is something for America to be proud of.
I found two gems (articles) in this month's National Geographic. One is an article dealing with the Kurds and their independence and what they have suffered. The life of torture and death that they lived with daily under Saddam is hard to imagine here. The reporter found not one family that had not been affected by Saddam's brutality.
When reading the article, any American has to feel proud to have been a part of bringing this monster down. Lefties say there are many monsters. Why this one? Just as in the story you probably heard about the little boy on the beach throwing a starfish back into the ocean as thousands lay on the beach and the Dad says, "There are so many, throwing one back just doesn't matter." The little boys says as he is throwing one back in,"It matters to this one."
God knows, it mattered to the Kurds. As the reporter points out:
"I met not a single family there that had not fled its home at some point in the past 20 years, not a single farmer who had not seem his village shelled by bombs or artillery, not a single person without a tale of chemical weapon attacks, torture, or execution under Saddam Hussein."
Even if you believe that this war was for the oil, you have to be glad this genocide has ended and the person responsible for it has been brought down.
The sad thing is that most Kurds are the exact kind of people we would like see lead Iraq and the middle east into a democracy, but they have long considered themselves independent from Iraq. They have held elections and formed a legislature and chosen a President. They are not thrilled with being a part of Iraq in any form. One can certainly understand why. But they seem to be a forward thinking people at a time where that kind of thinking is much needed.
In the 2nd article, "Genocide", we are introduced to anthropologists of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who are exhuming remains from the mass graves of the Kurds. As the lead anthropologist, Paul Rubenstein tells us:
"As you work with the victims, especially the children, their clothing, the baby bottles, the little shoes, just like the ones we bought for our daughters years ago, the little hands, so expressive in death-you have to try not to get into the heads of the monsters who did this, or it becomes overwhelming. You look at a perfectly knitted baby bonnet with two bullets holes in it, and you think, These could be your own kids."
The reporter interviews Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel who says there is some reason to believe that the work being done with Iraq's mass graves victims could help ensure that the 21st century is less violent than the one before it:
"The moment you give a face and a name, not just to the victim but to the killer, people respond with greater comprehension. It somehow puts limits on the phenomenon, which otherwise is incomprehensible because of the numbers and the magnitude."
What I believe Bush understood about Saddam was that Saddam was this kind of madman dictator in a region that was the hotbed of terrorist activities. Could we allow him to ignore U.N. resolutions to prove that he was the not the danger we suspected? Could we ignore someone capable of mass murder to possibly supply terrorists? No and no.
Argue the reasons for the war. Argue about the motivations. You still have a brutal killer off the world stage and a democracy struggling to grow where one once thought impossible.
And that, my friends, is something for America to be proud of.
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