The problem with most of the news the US gets from Iraq is that it gets it from Westerners; even the statements we get from Iraqis are filtered through Western media. There is a cure for that problem, though: MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute). I was particularly struck a few weeks ago by a piece they posted excerpting (at length) three columns by an expatriate Iraqi, who flatly declared, “the occupation is a blessed and promising liberation for Iraq, even if the U.N., Europe, Russia, India, and all the Arabs say otherwise.”
Kamel al-Sa’doun, writing from Norway in a London-based Arabic daily, makes this argument for two reasons: the evil of the Saddam regime (which, he notes, it was easy for his supporters in other Arab nations to ignore—they didn’t have to live through it), and the past history of American occupations. His hope for Iraq is “a safeguard that will create an open vista in which we can thoroughly reexamine our assumptions, just like Germany, South Korea and other nations . . . which the Americans liberated.” Here’s hoping he gets his wish. We certainly owe Iraq no less.