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It has been only three years since
the Iraqi people were handed their freedom by the United States
coalition. The Iraqi people
are failing to aggressively embrace their rights and achieve their
potential after being handed liberty by the United States. Iraqis
have centuries of history filled with myriads of people who fought, won, and
effectively used freedom to build productive societies. |
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Is Iraq a failure of the
principles of ancient Greek democracy? Those principles have been effectively implemented across multiple cultures for centuries
across the world. They could be implemented in Iraq by the Iraqi
people. |
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Why are the Iraqi people
failing? It has only been three years. However, Iraq's progress is
slow considering the Iraqi people's potential and Iraq's vast oil
reserve. |
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This conundrum can be cleared by
review of Iraq's recent history. Reviewing history exposes Saddam
Hussein and the mass murder and ubiquitous fear
perpetrated upon the Iraqi people by his regime and sadistic
henchmen. |
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Saddam Hussein was in complete
control of the Iraqi people for one-third of a century. He and his
henchmen were known to be ruthless torturers and killers, sadistic
in their methods. |
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Saddam's methods resulted in the
killing of the intellectuals, educated people, and opposition
political forces who wanted freedom and success for Iraqis. The
intellectuals, the inventive, the teachers, anyone who might have
been at variance to Saddam's control was brutally and ruthlessly
publicly eliminated. |
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The Iraqi people witnessed the
overt and often public tortures, killings and mass murders
perpetrated by Saddam and his sadistic henchmen. The Iraqi people
knew of the dungeons and torture chambers used to dissolve any
opposition to Saddam and his minority ruling elite. |
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Saddam skimmed off - destroyed -
the cream of the Iraqi people. The remaining Iraqi people were - and
remain - terrified. The vast majority of today's Iraqis were born
into, indoctrinated by, and taught in Saddam's terror factory. |
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It is naive for anyone to believe
that Iraqis who grew up in fear of many forms of violence would not
see violence as the natural method to deal with
problems. That acculturation explains why today there is so much
violence in the streets across middle and Southern Iraq. |
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US policy in Iraq has not been
perfect. The US should have done some things differently following
liberation in April, 2003. But who among us comprehended that the
Iraq people would not be like the liberated French in 1944? |
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Of course anyone with even fuzzy
hindsight can clearly see that today. |
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But the slow progress toward
liberty and success of the Iraqi people is not a US failure. |
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It is a success of Saddam's
legacy. |
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More relevant questions are:
Why is the United States failing at home? Have Americans had too
much success too easily handed to too many of them without their
having worked to earn their comforts? Why do the American people
fail to understand that it took their forefathers decades longer
than three years to build the United States of America into a solid
democracy following America's Revolutionary War? |
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Most importantly, why are the
American people so willing to follow short-sighted politicians who
pander and point to the immediate simplistic way out? Why do the
American people fail to see the blackness beyond that simplicity? |
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