Iraq at the Brink: A Decade after the Invasion | Ramzy Baroud

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Ramzy Baroud -- World News Trust

Feb. 13, 2013

Soon after the joint U.S.-British bombing campaign "Operation Desert Fox" devastated parts of Iraq in Dec 1998, I was complaining to a friend in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.

I was disappointed with the fact that our busy schedule in Iraq -- mostly visiting hospitals packed with injured or Depleted Uranium Victims -- left me no time to purchase a few Arabic books for my little daughter back in the states. As I got ready to embark on the long bus journey back to Jordan, an Iraqi man with a thick moustache and a carefully designed beard approached me. “This is for your daughter,” he said with a smile as he handed me a plastic bag. The bag included over a dozen books with colorful images of traditional Iraqi children stories. I had never met that man before, nor did we ever meet again. He was a guest at the hotel and somehow he learned of my dilemma. As I profusely, but hurriedly thanked him before taking my seat on the bus, he insisted that no such words were needed. “We are brothers and your daughter is like my own,” he said.

I was not exactly surprised by this. Generosity of action and spirit is a distinct Iraqi characteristic and Arabs know that too well. Other Iraqi qualities include pride and perseverance, the former attributed to the fact that Mesopotamia -- encompassing most of modern day Iraq -- is the "cradle of civilization" and later due to the untold hardship experienced by Iraqis in their modern history.

It was Britain that triggered Iraq’s modern tragedy, starting with its seizure of Baghdad in 1917 and the haphazard reshaping of a country to perfectly fit the colonial needs and economic interests of London. One could argue that the early and unequalled mess created by the British invaders continued to wreak havoc, manifesting itself in various ways -- spanning sectarianism, political violence and border feuds between Iraq and its neighbors -- until this very day.

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http://worldnewstrust.com/iraq-at-the-brink-a-decade-after-the-invasion-ramzy-baroud

[Fantastic Anarchist]

1. Very impressive article.