Understandable Hate: The Iraqis' Inevitable Reaction

Jeof Oyster

One can’t really blame the Iraqis’ for hating us. Who can really say if they were in their position they would do any better? Humans are, essentially by nature, short-sighted and emotional people. Yet before one judges “those desert simpletons,” let’s consider what they’ve experienced in the last twenty years and just try to walk a kilometer in their leather sandals. Yet before we venture too far down nightmare lane let’s remember that hate in any form is a wretched destructive thing, primal to human nature yet also humanity’s ultimate oppressor. Hate, in all its forms, should be dissolved. But if we try to understand why hate erupts, we can begin to make things right; because ultimately, that’s what our action in Iraq is about.

You see, ultimately, the Iraqi station in life is America’s fault. Of course we didn’t do anything directly or intentionally to them, but we sure played a role in it. For the last fifty-plus years we have attempted, in various ways and by similar means, to police the world not at our standard. Most of the time it was out of an interest to our own national security. Other times, maybe we were just bored. But that’s where our Iraqi story begins.

The year was 1980, and Iran was nobody’s friend. In fact, we darn well hated them and when they captured 52 Americans, things weren’t made any easier. Jimmy Carter, exasperated and running out of time in his term, is rumored to have “green lighted” Saddam’s invasion of Iran that fall; perhaps he promised help or weapons or just our good graces, we’ll not know, but one thing is for sure … at the time we were relieved. Consider this: we had the fundamentalist kidnapping Iranians on one side, a progressive Arab leader on the other side, and 52 of our own people stuck in the middle. It makes sense to support any distraction or threat to our perceived enemy of the day.

Except we forgot that inevitably, a dictator at war will always oppress his own people to finance and promote his own psychotic venture. Hitler did it. Romanian dictator Ceausescu did it too. It’s what dictator’s do. It was our short-sightedness at the time that plunged the Iraqi and Iranian people into an eight year war that ultimately destroyed the standard of living for much of the Iraqi people. Whether we pushed him over the border is unsure, but it is the common belief in the Arab world; to them, we encouraged the war that was largely responsible for their incessant poverty.

To make things even better, fast forward a few years to Ronald Reagan. Almost two years into the war Iran had the advantage. Continuing the effort to squash Iran’s dominance, Reagan apparently authorized the delivery of weapons and weaponic supplies to the Iraqi government. Such supplies were ultimately used, either directly or as guides, to build the chemical and biological weapons that Saddam is so famous for. Such a delivery wasn’t outside our scope of experience, either. We’d done it for years; it was our weapons, intended for use against Soviets, the Taliban used against their own people. Ultimately, our weapons and supplies given to Saddam ended up being used against the Iraqi people and especially the Kurds.

Eventually, 1988 rolled around and the Iran-Iraq war finally ended. In its wake, however, was a economically devastated country. The people were destitute, abused, hunted, killed and oppressed. All they have seen was war and weapons; as far as they knew they had an insane dictator president, supplied by the Americans, who was out to kill whomever didn’t agree with him. And he wasn’t done.

In 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait and we responded. Everyone knows the story of the Gulf War but what is important to remember is that, even while we protected the people of Kuwait, the people of Iraq were left out in the scorching sun. Despite promises to depose Saddam and free the people from Tyranny, President Bush the First conceded to the United Nations and stopped at the border. Baghdad would not be invaded, Saddam would be left in power. The Iraqi people would be left oppressed, devastated, and defenseless. *They* would have to live with *our* betrayal for years to come.

But the story just gets sadder. For years, sanctions were imposed against Iraq. No-Fly Zones and economic embargoes restricted supplies from flowing to the people. And they continued to live in squalor. The Oil-For-Food program was supposed to aleve some of the suffering; except until it was revealed this year that the UN administration of the program was nearly as corrupt as Saddam himself and most of the money ended up in Saddam’s pockets. And the people continued to go hungry while Saddam lived in glory and the civilized West did nothing.

Now comes Operation Iraqi Freedom. Now comes the time when America does what is right and frees the Iraqi people from their tyrannical oppressors. Now, Bush the Second would be the Iraqis’ savior and the people would rejoice in the streets. Except, it didn’t entirely happen like that. Instead, the cities were bombed, the people were confused, the power went out and water stopped flowing. Water and power didn’t come back for weeks. The stability that existed under Saddam – as fearful as it was – was gone as looters took to the streets and vigilantes ruled the villages.

You can’t blame them for how they feel. A good portion of Iraqis’ have grown up in fear. What we know about abused and feral children, even in “civilized” Western countries, is that the fear never leaves them and trust does not come easy. For the last twenty years the Iraqi people have been abused, oppressed, tortured, hunted, killed, gassed, bombed, stricken, poor, betrayed and forgotten. Those who said they would come to help, didn’t. Those who said they would supply aid, didn’t. The rest of world failed to act as their oppressor was left in power. Who, after experiencing twenty years of such psychological and emotional torment, could possibly be expected to trust anyone again? And yet here we come, Americans with guns in hand, strolling into Baghdad, installing martial law “for their own protection,” and we expect them to dance in the streets? After all they’ve been through, how can we expect them to be anything but petrified?

To make matters worse we now have a small group of American soldiers who were so depraved they would torture the Iraqis’ in ways they hadn’t been before. Reports have been flying all week about American and possibly British soldiers engaging in raw torture – physical, psychological, and emotional – of Iraqi detainees. From the Iraqi point of view, how are we any better? Or perhaps are we worse? The torture imposed on these prisoners – specifically erotic humiliation – goes explicit against the Iraqis’ otherwise prudish Islamic heritage. We’re not even sure that Saddam went that far. And despite the fact this is only a dozen or so soldiers out of 135,000, consider that to the Iraqis’ its just another stage of their oppression.

Who could blame them for hating us? Who can blame them for fearing us? Who can blame them for thinking we’re just going to oppress them to get what we want and then leave them out in the desert sun all over again. You see, that is exactly what we’ve done for the last twenty years, directly or indirectly. Their mindset of hate comes from a mindset of fear. We know, from our perspective, that we’re not out their to hurt, oppress, or rob them. They don’t know that. They fear that of us.

All that leaves us in a single place – now we’ve got to make it up them. This action in Iraq has been about freeing them from the oppression of Saddam. If none of the other aims of the war were accomplished, at least Saddam has been deposed. But more than that, this action in Iraq is about corrected almost two decades of wrongs. Its about doing good to a people that have had so much wrong done to them. It’s about correcting the horrifying effect of our willful ignorance. It’s about making things right.

But we can’t expect that to take place quickly. While we will pull out of Iraq as fast as possible, and while we should imprison our soldiers like we did Saddam, it will take a lot of time, investment, and protection for the Iraqi people to stop hating us. Eventually they’ll somewhat tolerate us. In a few generations they may forgive us. They’re not likely to ever forget it; but in about thirty years, we’ll probably be several Iraqi companies’ top clients.

originally posted at www.jeof.net