I watched as they waved the American flag; saluted the U.S. tanks that rumbled by, and recalled that not long ago these same people burned that flag and saluted their own troops.
I watched as they thanked Bush, and beat their shoes against effigies of Hussein, and recalled that not long ago these same people cursed Bush and praised Hussein.
Then I watched as they set fires to their own town; looted and pillaged what little they had left.
Call me naive, but I'm a bit confused.
What was this all about?
Weapons of mass destruction, that we have yet to find?
Oil, that we Americans burn too much of?
A regime change, just in case?
An end to terrorism, although we could never prove Iraq was tied into 9/11?
I agree that Hussein was/is a maniacal dictator. In that I have no doubt.
I have no doubt that our men and women fought valiantly, and will finish their task. I have no doubt that they will question what they did and why they did it, they way they did it. That's the nature of mankind; even the warrior reflects.
The Iraqi people have suffered at the hands of Hussein and his minions. Their children starved and their women subjugated, and their men? They followed whatever, whomever.
Just as they followed the U.S. troops who came to "free" them.
I watched the coverage closely when Bagdad was liberated. I watched the children and women. To me, those faces told the true story.
The male children took direction from their male elders. They whooped and hollered and gave the peace sign, all the while their eyes were on their countrymen.
Followers in the making.
It was then I saw one Iraqi woman, shrouded head to toe in black, take off her shoe and beat it against a poster of Hussein -- she moved shyly through the crowd of out of control men to vent her pain, and that pain was genuine.
Unlike the machismo of the Iraqi males, that one woman showed me what this war is all about.
It has nothing to do with weapons or oil or terrorism or some regime we could not control.
This war is for her freedom - to live and think and learn and thrive.
This war is for her right to raise her sons and daughters in the ways of her choice.
This war ...
This war that took innocent lives, so that others might have - what we here take for granted.
I bow my head ... in prayer ... and shame.
J. A. Stroud
