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April
9, 2003, 11:40 a.m.
Freedom & Dignity
Iraqis get a
taste.
By Amir Taheri
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 he
Don't-Touch-Saddam lobby in Europe and the U.S. had prophesied that Baghdad
would become Stalingrad 1942.
On Thursday, Baghdad
became Paris after liberation in 1944.
It was a day
of song and dance and jubilation in a capital liberated from more than four
decades of brutal tyranny.
It was a day in which
the accumulated angers and frustrations of almost two generations were
released. In just hours the villainous icons, created over a quarter of
a century, that symbolized a despicable regime, had been smashed into
oblivion.
The people of Baghdad
showed the world that they recognized liberators when they saw them. Their
cries of Shukran Ya Bush (Thank You Bush) confounded the Hate-America
International that had insisted that the Iraqis did not wish to be liberated
and that, even if they were, they would hate the U.S. even more for it.
Here is the first
lesson to draw from the liberation of Baghdad: Iraqis, and Arabs in general,
are no different from other human beings. They, too, prefer to live in
freedom and dignity. They, too, are grateful to those who come to their
aid in their hour of need. They, too, reject the disease of anti-Americanism
that prevents so many otherwise sane people from acknowledging that the
United States can be a force for the good.
—
Amir Taheri, Iranian author of ten books on the Middle East and Islam,
is based in Europe. He's reachable through www.benadorassociates.com.
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