And iti s because people like this writer now have a real chance at a liveable future that my conviction that liberating Iraq was the right thing to do has never faltered.
What has made me proud (and no, I never doubted that it would be this way) is something I learned on a blog by two Iraqi men I consider friends, Omar and Mohammed. Their blog, "Iraq the Model", always told it straight; they never put shine on something un-shineable, but I guess they did have a basic optimism that not only would a representative republic in Iraq work, that it would become a model for other Arab countries surrounding Iraq as their country's living conditions improved.
What came out in their not-so-daily reports from street level in Baghdad was how American troops were behaving. They said time and again how American troops were acting towards them, until someone seemed to be a "bad guy": They were polite, almost apologetic about going into people's homes to search for weapons or ammo, not tearing their homes apart, and when it was all finished, they tried to make the place the same as when they had arrived, if they had the time to do so. They gave candy and soccer balls to the little kids, they treated people with respect, and they fought the terrorists who were attacking Iraqi civilians with the same gusto they evinced when their own were attacked.
The photo set that said it all for me was a Marine standing in a public market crowded with civilians, and then the shooting started from across the square. There was the US Marine, standing firm like a bulwark in a storm, firing over the heads of the crowd at the bad guys, and a little Iraqi kid was wrapped around his leg like a creeper vine hanging on for dear life. That Marine did his job, the kid was safe, and when the firing stopped, the Marine picked up the kid, hugged him, put him down on his feet and walked off to continue his job.
Then, at one of the State of the Union speeches, there was a father and mother of a US Marine who died in a firefight defending his buddies. Behind them was an Iraqi daughter who opened the front door one morning before the liberation after her father had been dragged off by the Iraqi Secret Police to Abu Ghraib. She found her father on the doorstep, all right: In pieces, in a transparent plastic bag. When President Bush recognized the father and mother of that brave Marine, she laid her hand on the mother's shoulder, the lady turned around, and she hugged the father and the mother, just saying "thank you, thank you" over and over again.
And then, that morning came, the first major national election in Iraq. All voters would have to dip their index fingers in purple ink to signify they voted. The terrorists broadcast their threat to the Iraqi people: ANYONE with a purple finger would be hunted down, their finger chopped off, and they would then would be killed. What was the reaction of common Iraqi people? They marched through the streets, arm-in-arm, their purple fingers in the air in defiance of the thugs. Omar and Mohammed posted a photo on their blog that day: A Point-of-view photo, a Baghdad street, and two purple fingers thrust into the air in pride of their new nation. Then, at the State of the Union speech rioght after that historic vote, three Republican Congressmen, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana among them, thrust their own fingers in the air of the House of the Representatives to show their own respect and solidarity with the Iraqi people, purple ink-stained fingers all.
What it all boils down to is that I am proud that we did not just go in, remove the Ba'athist government, and just leave the Iraqis to the same hell they were living in before we moved in. We stayed to do the heavy lifting, we chose to do the hard part, the difficult road, and it worked. And we didn't do it all ourselves: Free nations from around the world helped as well, but most importantly, the Iraqi people themselves decided the road they were going to tread.
Iraq has a future, America has a new ally, and ALL Arabs living under dictators have a new beacon of hope and blueprint for their own marches to their own purple finger moments: "Iraq: The Model".
Let us all hope the Iraqi people will work to KEEP their new Republic. Somehow, deep in my heart, I know that they will. :bravo:
