I am sick of people blaming the Iraqis for the chaos their country is in. It wasn’t there when we invaded and occupied them, was it? Sunnis and Shias were living side by side in peace, even if it was an enforced peace. Unless you were on Saddam’s hit list, you felt safe. People went to jobs, to schools, to the markets. Now they huddle terrified in their homes. Or if they can afford it, are leaving the country.

And those evil “insurgents”? If our country was invaded and occupied, would we just sit with our hands in our laps? And smile and bow and say thank you? I think not. And we would call those who rose up against the occupiers “freedom fighters.”

Even al Qaida wasn’t there before we came. Dictators don’t countenance terrorists within their borders. Too uncontainable. Now we’ve become the best recruiting tool bin Laden could have dreamed of. And the majority of al Qaida there now are Iraqi.

Even Bush Sr. knew better than to invade Iraq directly. His reasons, stated in his memoirs: Going into Baghdad would require fighting house to house, the most dangerous kind of warfare for our troops. And it would, he said, touch off a civil war and destabilize the region. But Junior was having a delayed adolescence and wanted to show Daddy it could be done. Besides, that exact scenario of preemptive strikes, first Iraq, then Iran and Syria, was laid out by none other than Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz in the early nineties. They called it a plan for “global dominance.”

Those people have had their country bombed, their infrastructure demolished, their homes destroyed, and their streets too dangerous to venture into. They even, in their formerly oil-rich country, now have to stand in line for days just to get gasoline for their vehicles. So for heaven sake, don’t also blame them for the chaos!

Patricia Brooks

Coupeville