While we were in the park by the Petronas Towers letting the kids play, two young men came over and asked if they could take a picture with Adayla. We've become used to the requests, and so we said yes. The one guy immediately started towards Adayla and she started to move away. So he moved faster towards her, causing Adayla to start running away and cry. He kept on chasing her, so finally I (Tim) had to pick up Adayla to calm her down and they got their pictures.
They asked us where we were from and we told them. They smiled and asked us to guess where they were from. I had no idea - they told us they were from Iraq. Both of them spoke English very well and said they had experience working with the British and US militaries in Iraq.
The ladies went off to go play some more, but I stayed with these guys for a very interesting conversation. Obviously we discussed the war, but I only told them that my occupation is a graduate student studying in China
While not detailing the entire conversation (30 minutes), I do want to share a couple of things they said...
They both had very favorable opinions of the United States and the US military. They were grateful to be freed from Saddam Hussein, but were weary of the lack of security currently plaguing the country. Despite the difficulties, they are still grateful that the US led the invasion which resulted in the disposal of Hussein's regime.
They were also impressed with how much I knew about the war and surrounding issues. Again, I'm a graduate student and I keep up with the news.
The thing that they said that hit me the most was this: "The United States is the greatest country on the Earth. There is nothing that the US can't do. So the fact that Iraq hasn't stabilized isn't because the US can't do it, it's because the US doesn't want to do it." They had an attitude that the longer the situation is destabilized, the longer the US can justify high military spending to make businesses rich.
I wish it were that simple, that there was nothing that the US can't do. But one thing is true, the US isn't demonstrating that it wants to stabilize Iraq. Setting a deadline to pull out our troops like one of the American political parties is advocating is not helpful. A pullout would only lead to a collapse of what has been built thus far, and progress has been made.
Unfortunately our actions in Iraq have been a military success, but a diplomatic and economic failure to this point. I'm not going to expand on that point any further.
I just wanted to point out that two Iraqis that I spoke with are grateful that the Americans came to their country and they have hope for a better country and a better life that they did not have before the invasion in 2003.
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2 comments:
I know that we are there in Iraq to keep the peace. It may be as slow a process as learning a new language. Tally loooks more grown up.
That's interesting to find out what other cultures, especially those involved, think of the war. It would be nice to have the soldiers home, but I don't think they can leave until the job is done so it the country doesn't relapse like it did after the Persian Gulf war. Thanks for sharing the story. It was really interesting.
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