Morning at the Office

General Convention

Friday, March 30, 2007

Bicycle in Baghdad


" What can I do with a bicycle in Baghdad ? "


That's what a young Iraqi boy said to Lara Logan, CBS' senior Iraq correspondent, when she asked him why he had sold his bike.

Can you imagine ? Before the US invasion of Iraq children could play in their neighborhoods and ride their bicycles.

Now even their parents are afraid to walk in their neigborhoods without a rifle or arms of some sort. They often didn't even own a rifle before the invasion.

I know, I know there are some of you who will say "Well, Saddam probably wouldn't even let them have rifles.

Even if that's so they weren't afraid to walk in their neighborhoods after dark. They went to worship whether they were Muslim (Sunni or Shiite) or Christian without fear. They lived in the same neighborhoods, shopped in the same shops, went to soccer games together.

Just after the invasion a Chaldean Catholic priest said he expected everything to be fine for all religions after the war just as they had been before. Now everyone who can leave Iraq does. The Christian community that had been there like that in Palestine since the 1st century AD is dwindling down to nothing.

This is what we have done to Iraq.

The ABC/BBC/USAToday poll that came out this past week has most Iraqis saying they wish we had never come, that Saddam was still in power.

Only 42 percent of Iraqis
say life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein.

In countries where there have been dictators or totalitarian rule of one sort or another where the USA hasn't interfered democracy has blossomed. It's been home grown.

In Iran where we put in the late Shah's family we have rule by the Ayatollahs.

Zina Abdulhameed Rajab, a Shiite doctor, said "Whenever I watch my kids laughing or playing, I can't be so happy from inside my heart because I don't know what the next day will bring.
I really regret the birth of my kids here."

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