Ed Morrissey has an excellent post up over at Hot Air, in which he warns that the Iraqis are watching us closely, and with good reason. He quotes Vet for Freedom Michael Hunnicutt:
I was on the ground in Iraq for 16 months, and in that time I talked to hundreds of Iraqis. Some didn’t like us; some wanted us to leave, but most did not. What they wanted was for America to live up to its word. They wanted us to rid the country of terrorists and militias so that they could live in peace.
They were willing to help us, but they are not a stupid people. They know that if they commit to the American side and the Americans abandon them as we did in 1991, it means death for them and their families. They know this, and it is real. It is not an abstract idea for them.
Most Iraqis don’t support Al-Qaida and the militias, but when our commitment to stay in Iraq and finish the job is in doubt — as it was when Sen. Harry Reid went on TV and said, “this war is lost” — Iraqis are going to hedge their bets.
Indeed, why wouldn’t they?
Ed writes:
…we can argue over 2002-3 all we want, but it doesn’t have anything to do with 2008. We are in Iraq, and al-Qaeda is arrayed against our troops. In fact, this is the best possible situation if we want to fight terrorists — to have them on a battlefield in straight-up fights against our military. It’s exactly what terrorists don’t want. If they wanted to fight our military, they wouldn’t use bomb commuter trains and fly civilian airplanes into their targets.
We have plenty of politicians who still don’t understand the strategic advantage this gives us…The best commitment they’re willing to offer is that if they get too comfortable in their new digs, we’ll stage another invasion of Iraq — without considering the costs involved, both logistically and in human lives, and that it depends on finding another country willing to host us after twice leaving the Iraqis twisting in the wind.
It also presupposes that we’ll get welcomed back for a third round of destruction by the people we would have abandoned twice. If we betray them a second time, don’t expect a third welcome.
Indeed, why would they welcome us?
It’s one of the strange inconsistencies of the left. As I wrote about a year ago:
Didn’t George Clooney make a movie a few years ago called Three Kings, wherein the Iraqi people were shown to be victims of the Bush 41 Administration’s inability to keep its promise to the people of Iraq, due to political considerations? That was deemed – correctly – a negative sort of thing.
Why is it suddenly a positive thing for Congress to want to umm…rather unilaterally abandon the Iraqi people, once again…due to political considerations?
The Iraqis, not stupid people, are already pleading, please don’t abandon us.
Oh, that wacky side of the aisle and their staggering double standards! My sides hurt.
The question of why it was wrong to abandon the Iraqis to chaos in 1991 but is right to do it in 2008 is a really good one that I wish someone in the mainstream media with access to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Pelosi — or for that matter with access to someone like the anti-war George Clooney — would finally ask. I would love to hear the answer.
Meanwhile, Michael Totten, who is there, on the ground, writes about Fallujah, and how the surge brought order to that “mean” city.
April 14th, 2008 | 2:56 pm | #1
Jules Crittenden had a rather lovely post last week in which he quoted a MEMRI compendium of op-eds from Arab journalists. I loved this one, from an Iraqi. Please forgive me if you have already seen it, and for the length. It is worth reading again:
“Yesterday – one day before the anniversary of April 9 [2003] – I spent the early morning hours devoting all my attention to what has been and what will be. I jumped up, eager to visit the places, to walk in the streets and on the sidewalks, allowing my gaze to take in what it may. Oddly enough, as I was doing so I found myself reciting a poem by Nazar Qabbani from 1962:
“Baghdad, oh rhythm of anklets and adornments,
“Oh store of lights and fragrances,
“Do not do me wrong, as you see the rebab in my hand.
“The desire is greater than my hand and my rebab.
“Before the sweet meeting you were my beloved,
“And my beloved you will remain after I leave.”
“I walked in the public street and observed the faces of the people I passed by – those sprawled on the sidewalks, selling goods, those who make their livelihood in the souks and the parking lots, and the beggars. I imagined them five years ago. I might not see a great change in their appearance, but there was something written in their facial features that showed that these people have their freedom to deal with things. As one of them said to me, no one comes and scatters their wares, or chases them away, or demands bribes. They come when they will and leave when they will.
“At the start of my journey I stopped by the newspaper seller to ask how he was after five years of change. He said: I will sum up what you ask in a few words. Despite everything that happened and is happening, I feel pride in the fact that the years of dictatorship are gone. There were no worse years than those, when we were afraid of our own shadows and our own children. I won’t claim that the situation now is ideal, but compared to the past, it is much better, without any comparison… Despite the sorrows I find in our present situation, I feel relieved. In the days [of the dictatorship] I didn’t feel optimistic. Now, I am optimistic about what is to come. What is happening now is passing; while it has gone on long, it will end – it could end in the twinkle of an eye.
“The residents of Baghdad, who recall the days from before April 9, 2003 and up to today – 1,727 days and nights, one after the other, together with all that has befallen and befalls their city – profess nothing but fidelity to it, even though it is engulfed in dangers. They reject those who say ‘Baghdad fell,’ and will answer you sternly if you say this, saying ‘it was the regime that fell’…
“I called a friend who lives in Sadr City and asked him how things were under the traffic ban in force now for a week. He said: I feel love, and then laughed, and continued: There are some things I fear, but I do not fear the coming days. People [here] are in a lamentable state and are afraid of evils that may befall them, but they are not despondent. They are awaiting a change for the better.
“Five years of Baghdad’s new life have passed… and there has been much talk of Baghdad. This is because it is not a city like other cities; it is exceptional, as is everything in it…
“You see that people, despite their proud grief, are talking about hope, and optimism, and the happiness to come. Despite the confusion, the anarchy, and the unconceivable occurrences, you hear the words: the breakthrough is at hand. They speak of the democracy that they had misunderstood, and they emphasize that these five years have taught them a lot and enriched their experience. They have come to know the true from the false and to distinguish between the good and the evil. You hear people saying: April 9 is a national holiday, despite the imported terrorism, or that concocted by the former regime, that came in its wake.”
****
This was worth, and more than worth, being apart from my beloved husband for an entire year. This is history in the making. And we are too stupid to see it.
April 15th, 2008 | 10:27 am | #2
Cassandra, that’s fantastic…God bless you and your husband. Do you have a url to that so I can link to it?
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