Intellectual freedom is the only guarantee of a
scientific - democratic approach to politics, economic development, and
culture.
-Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov-
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin-
Mark Adams is [in no particular order] a Lawyer, Restauranteur, Husband, Father, Grandfather, Landlord, Singer, Guitarist, Political Scientist, Amateur Historian and Rhetorician with no sense of reverence for anything except the freedom to speak one's mind. To visit Mark's Family Law Website
OK, so I didn't want us there in the first place, but since we're there I would not expect this kind of scene, repeated throughout Iraq. I expected us to do it right. We're creating martyrs, as many in one day, more sometimes, as US soldiers have been lost in the last year. Just how are we supposed to fight that?
Once the fighting stops, it is hard to believe that the damage of the past week can be undone.
Perhaps the most surprising result of the fighting is the unlikely support of the poor Shias for the Sunnis. This has always been a difficult relationship for foreigners to understand. On the one hand, there is enormous distrust; on the other, they are fellow Muslims.
Before driving to Ramadi on Wednesday, we spent the night at the home of a Shia family in Sadr City. 'There is no difference between [Shia] Falluja and [Sunni] Sadr City,' said Nassir Salman, a barber who was working late. 'They are fighting and we are fighting. Inshallah , there will be jihad. But we are jealous of Falluja. We are waiting for our leaders to declare jihad. Now, it is worse than Saddam. He killed secretly - but the Americans kill us on the streets.'
Is this the uprising GHW Bush (41) was expecting back in 1991? We compared Saddam to Hitler and Stalin. These people regard Bush as no better. This was not how things were supposed to happen, but it is what many of us feared.
We have crossed the line from "liberators" to "occupiers." Will we have to become "conquerors?" If we do then count me out. Call me traitor, but I will not support this if we start supressing the population "in the name of freedom." We aren't there yet, but that line is getting dangerously close. If we don't back away from it, momentum alone will send us off into the abyss.
I am begining to believe that forcing Sadr's hand was no reconnaisence in force, but a terrible miscalculation of how our presence in Iraq was being tolerated. We better find someone with some true legitimacy to turn this mess over to, and quick. If all we got is the UN, so be it. If we don't then Bush might as well start calling this a crusade ... again.
