US Troops Withdraw From Iraq: Iraqis Celebrate

 

The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?

“One reveller at an outdoor concert in Baghdad’s zoo, Tamader al-Waeli, 25, said: “It has been a long time since the last big celebration. We have now got rid of the occupiers and will not see them again on Iraqi streets. Baghdad needs the peace of its past life back again, we want to regain what we had, but at the same time the security forces now have extra duties and responsibilities and I hope they carry them out.

Another man at the concert, Ahmed Ebrahim, 35, said: “No words can describe how I feel. The occupation stayed in Iraqi hearts for six years and this is a big occasion that deserves to be a permanent national day in future. The occupiers put me in Bucca [an American-run prison in Iraq]. But now I am free and so is Iraq.”

Occupation? Occupiers? Surely now these people enjoy the majesty of liberal democracy they could thank the US military as ‘liberators’, no? Seems odd they don’t see things that way…Guess that’s what happens after 6 years of death, terror and aggression.

This is probably only the end of the beginning for the people of Iraq, but life can only improve now the British forces are completely removed from the country and the US are mostly on their way (even though they’ll maintain strategic bases there for decades to come). This whole vile war will probably remain some footnote in the history of the west’s effort of ‘democracy promotion’, with the blame put squarely on the shoulders of a few fruitcake neoncons rather than our own citizenry, media and civil society (or lack thereof). Rather than learn the lessons of this brutal occupation, I’m afraid they’ll be repeated elsewhere.