XPost: alt.france, alt.world, uk.local.yorkshire   
   From: jlindman@earthnetspammenot.net   
      
   How the Left Betrayed My Country - Iraq   
   By Naseer Flayih Hasan   
      
   Before the last war, we Iraqis spent decades cut off from the outside   
   world.  Not only did the Baathist regime prevent us from traveling   
   during the Iran-Iraq conflict and the period of the sanctions, but   
   they punished anyone possessing satellite television. And of course,   
   internet access was strictly limited.  Because of our isolation, most   
   of us had little idea or sense about life beyond our borders.   
      
   We did believe, however, that democracy and human rights were   
   important factors in Western civilization.  So it came as a shock to   
   us when millions of people began demonstrating across the world   
   against America’s build-up to the invasion of our country.  We   
   supposed the protests were by people who had no idea about the   
   terrible atrocities that the regime had inflicted upon us for decades.   
   We assumed that once they learned what had happened in Iraq, they   
   would change their minds, or modify their opposition to the war.   
      
   My first clue that this would not happen was a few weeks after Baghdad   
   fell.  I had befriended a French reporter who had begun to realize   
   that the situation in Iraq was not how the international media or the   
   so-called “peace camp” described it.  I noticed, however, that   
   whenever he tried to voice his doubts to colleagues, they argued that   
   he was wrong.  Soon afterwards, I met a Dutch woman on Mutinabi   
   Street, where booksellers lay out their wares on Friday morning.  I   
   asked her how long she’d been in Iraq and, through a translator, she   
   answered, “Three months.”   
      
   “So you were here during the war?”   
      
   “Yes!” she said.  “To see the crimes of the Americans!”   
      
   I was stunned.  After a moment, I replied, “What about the crimes of   
   the regime?  It killed millions of Iraqis.  Do you know that if the   
   regime was still in power, the conversation we’re having now would   
   result in our torture or death?”   
      
   Her face turned red and she angrily responded, “Soon will come the day   
   that the Americans will do worse.”  She then went on to accuse me of   
   not knowing what the true facts were in Iraq—and that she could see   
   the situation better than me!   
      
   She was not the only “humanitarian” who expressed such outrageous   
   opinions.  One afternoon, I was speaking to some members of the   
   American anti-war group “Voices in the Wilderness.”  One of the   
   group’s members declared that the Iraqi Governing Council (then in   
   power at the time) were “traitors.”  I was shocked.  Most of the   
   Council were people whom we Iraqis knew had suffered and sacrificed in   
   a long struggle against the regime.  Some represented opposition   
   parties who had lost ten of thousand of members in that struggle.   
   Others came from families who had lost up to 30 loved ones to the   
   Baathists.   
      
   After those, and many other, experiences, we finally comprehended how   
   little we had in common with these “peace activists” who constantly   
   decried American crimes, and hated to listen to us talk about the   
   terrible long nightmare that ended with the collapse of the regime.   
   We came to understand how these “humanitarians” experienced a sort of   
   pleasure when terrorists or former remnants of the regime created   
   destruction in Iraq—just so they could feel that they were right, and   
   the Americans wrong!   
      
   Worse, we realized it was hopeless to make them grasp our feelings.   
   We believed—and still believe--that America’s removal of the regime   
   opened a new way for democracy.  At the same time, we have no   
   illusions that the U.S. came to Iraq on a white horse to save our   
   people.  We understand this war is all about national interests, and   
   that America’s interests are mainly about defeating terrorism.  At   
   this moment, though, U.S. interests are doing more to bring about   
   democracy and freedom in Iraq than, say, the policies of France and   
   Russia—countries which also care little for the Iraqi people and,   
   worse, did their best to save Saddam from destruction until the last   
   moment.   
      
   It’s worth noting, as well, that the general attitude of peace   
   activists I met was tension and anger.  They were impossible to reason   
   with.  This was because, on one hand, the sometimes considerable risks   
   they took to oppose the war made them unable to accept the fact that   
   their cause was not as noble as they believed.  Then, too, their   
   dogmatic anti-American attitudes naturally drew them to guides,   
   translators, drivers and Iraqi acquaintances who were themselves   
   supporters of the regime. These Iraqis, in turn, affected the peace   
   activists until they came to share almost the same judgments and   
   opinions as the terrorists and defenders of Saddam.   
      
   This was very disappointing for someone like me, who thought for   
   decades that the Left was generally the progressive power in the   
   world.  You can imagine how aghast I was when my French reporter   
   friend told me that the Communist Party in his country actually   
   considers the “insurgents” to be the equivalent of the French   
   Gaullists!  Or how troubling it is to hear Jacques Chirac take   
   satisfaction from the violence wreaked by the terrorists—those bloody   
   monsters that we Iraqis know so well—because they justify France’s   
   original opposition to the war.   
      
   And so I have become disillusioned, at least with the Leftists I met   
   in Iraq.  So noble in their rhetoric, they looked to the stars, yet   
   ignored what was happening around them, caring only about what was   
   inside their minds.  So glorious in their ideals, their thoughts were   
   inflexible and their deeds unnecessary, even harmful.  In the end,   
   they proved to me how dogma and fanaticism had transform peace   
   activists into—lifeless peace “statues.”   
   http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16513   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)