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Daniel Pipes: Delivering liberty and justice for all for decades
An editorial from the Australian newspaper that explains why the world is a better place as result of American actions over the last half century. EFLThe discovery of Saddam Hussein in a crypt-like hole, hidden by bricks and dirt, in a farm house in a small town near Tikrit, brings to mind the story of another Iraqi who also hid from the authorities by going underground. That Iraqi would be Jawad Amir Sayyid, 45, of Karada, a town southeast of Baghdad. He dwelled for an astonishing 21 years in a cell below his familyâs kitchen, entering it on December 2, 1981, and never once emerging from it until April 10 this year, a day after the toppling of Husseinâs regime. Sayyidâs story makes a powerful symbolic counterpoint to Husseinâs capture on Sunday. A young man hides in a crypt for more than two decades as Hussein rules the land as a brutal and absolute dictator. The US-led coalition liberates the country. The no-longer-young man comes out of his stifling cell and staggers into the sunlight just as the monstrous ruler abandons his gleaming palaces and himself begins haunting crypts to escape the authorities. The contrast in their spirits on leaving the crypts bears notice: Hussein was described by the US military as "a tired man, a man resigned to his fate". In miniature, this tale points to the profound morality of the US-led invasion, symbolised by the fact that, since April, innocent Iraqis move about freely above ground while Hussein and his henchmen slip from one rat hole to another. In the broader sweep of history, the Iraqi vignette serves as a reminder of the role Americans have played across the world for 60 years -- defeating totalitarian regimes and bringing a modicum of decency and freedom to desperate lands. The list is a long one and would include virtually every country of western Europe, saved once from the Nazis and a second time from the communists. It includes all the states and satellites of the former Soviet Union, which collapsed after failing to sustain a rivalry with the US. The list also includes many East Asian countries saved from Japanese imperialism. And it includes Kuwait, saved from Iraqi aggression. Conversely, the one place where the US lost a war -- Vietnam -- totalitarian rule continues. In short, however flawed the US government is -- and it certainly is flawed -- in the course of pursuing an enlightened self-interest since the 1940s, it has liberated people worldwide. Or, to quote Sayyid back in April, soon after he left the crypt: "I believe that Allah worked through Mr Bush to make this happen. If I met Mr Bush, I would say: âThank you, thank you, you are a good human, you returned me from the dead."â The words may be hyperbolic, but this sentiment of gratitude towards the US is one that hundreds of millions of people have shared at one time. Posted by: phil_b 2003-12-17 |
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