East is East and West is West
 

No matter how many intelligence agencies we have, we will never achieve peace in the Middle East until we in the West can learn to understand Arab Muslim thinking. Unless we can do that, all the actions we take that are dictated by our Western logic will only result in shooting ourselves in the foot.

Iraq, known in ancient times as Mesopotamia, was the birth place of civilization. The Iraqis are descendants of a people who have inhabited that land for millennia. The founder of their religion walked that same land eighteen hundred years earlier. Their holy sites are located throughout the region.

Muslims are a deeply religious people. They don't just practice their religion, they live it daily. It permeates all aspects of their lives. Perhaps because in some instances, life and the land have remained unchanged for hundreds of years, the crusades are still remembered and resented as if they were part of a genetic memory.

When our government believed that our invading forces would be greeted with garlands of flowers, they showed a total lack of understanding of the culture, religion and thinking of the Iraqi people. In what must have seemed like a trip in a time machine, they saw, like their ancestors, infidels once again intruding into their land. Only the weapons had changed. Their nationalism is intertwined with their religion which bids them to drive infidels out and transcends the removal of any dictator, no matter how harsh he may be. A dictator is the lesser of the two evils when the other is an infidel.

We ask why they aren't grateful. We bombed them, invaded them, killed them, maimed them, arrested them and tortured them. We have destroyed their homes, villages, infrastructure and installed our puppet government. We have taken over administering their natural resources. We have brought in foreign labor when they have an unemployment rate of 60%. We allowed the looting of their national treasures and the burning of priceless ancient copies of their Holy Book. We have despoiled their mosques and other holy sites. We are occupying their land. How grateful should they be? How grateful would you be? We smugly and self righteously say we gave them freedom. They don't have freedom. They are occupied. They want us to leave. We won't leave. How is that freedom? They don't have to worry about being arrested and tortured by Saddam. They are arrested and tortured by the occupiers. They don't see the difference. When you are hooded, one set of torturers is the same as the next.

The longer we remain, the harder they will fight. We are told it may take a long time. The first crusade was in 1097 and Muslims still remember it. How long are we prepared to stay? There are 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide. For every one we kill there will be another to take his place. How many American lives are we willing to sacrifice.?

The Iraqis will continue to fight until we leave. They are protecting their homeland and their religious shrines. They are practicing their religion that says they must drive out the infidels from the Holy Land. If they die as a martyr, their place in heaven is assured.

This is not a fight that can be won by military means nor can it be won if we continue to think in Western terms.

8-10-04