Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Baghdad's cinemas, cafés and restaurants are empty after dusk, according to Ali Ilhiam, a Baghdad University student quoted in a story in the Times UK (online). It is too dangerous for people to go out at night, not only because of the suicide bombs and insurgent gun battles, but also because of the armed Islamic zealots policing the streets, not to protect people from terrorist attack, but to enforce their own brand of extremist religious rules. Is that what freedom looks like?

When the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, one of our mantras was that we were doing so to bring freedom to the people.

Today the bad guys are ruling the streets of Iraq and the liberators are hiding behind the walls of the fortified Green Zone. No one is safe and the future looks terribly bleak. Even if the new Iraqi government and armed forces "stand up" so that U.S. troops can "stand down," the view of the future for most Iraqis is terribly dim. The oil industry is in ruins. A health care system that was way ahead of its time 20 years ago has been knocked back to the stone age. Women have been forced back into hiding, wearing head to toe burkas, and facing death should they fall in love with someone not accepted by their family.  

Afghanistan is no better. Even in the relatively calm streets of Kabul, just about the only part of the country truly ruled by President Karzai, freedom is a fuzzy concept. Having been there in June 2002, and spent considerable time listening to people's stories of life under the Taliban, I know that they are better off without the monsters who enslaved them during that most-awful time after the Soviets fled.

There were also stories though, of the times before the Soviets invaded and the United States created a Mujahadeen (including Osama Bin Laden who was paid, armed, and trained by our CIA) to drive the Soviets out.

People do remember a time before all that when literature, music, scholarship, thriving trade, beautiful vineyards, and real freedom reigned. Why can't Afghanistan go back to those times, instead of the nightmare Afghans live in now?

If the United States invaded Iraq and Afghanistan to drive out the dictators and bring the people freedom, why aren't we doing everything we can to bring true freedom to these people who have suffered so much? Why aren't we protecting the good guys, like the new Iraqi vice president's family (as our secret service protects our own)?

True freedom requires security for the good guys, the ones who are trying to get the country back in shape, after we drove out the old bad guys. If we were truly trying to bring people freedom, why aren't we protecting the good guys?

The only answer I can come up with is that our leaders are, and for too long have been, liars. Our leaders don't care about the freedom of the people in the nations we invade. If that isn't the case, why are we leaving the people of Iraq and Afghanistan to fend for themselves against just another form of tyranny? Why are we leaving those countries, once again, to become breeding grounds for a new group of terrorists who might some day turn their wrath against the west?

If our U.S. leaders even cared about our own safety and freedom, surely we wouldn't be leaving these countries in this condition, would we?

To me, freedom is about being able to walk the streets of your town in safety, with whomever you please whenever you please. Freedom is about access to a decent education, good health care, safe and plentiful food, a safe place to live, jobs that take advantage of your skills and pay a living wage, good schools for boys and girls, clean air, clean water, hope for an even better future, and a belief that you can influence the direction of your government if you feel that future is in peril. That's what freedom looks like to me and I see none of that in Iraq or Afghanistan's future.

As the bodies continue to pile up in the morgues, and the women disappear behind closed doors, and ersatz governments pretend they have control while thugs rule the streets and innocent blood flows like a river, perhaps the only place Americans can look forward to good news is by sticking to the business, entertainment and sports sections of our daily newspapers and ignorning the truth about real life in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

I guess to our U.S. elected leaders, that is what freedom looks like. Very sad.