A year ago, we liberated a country from a man who thought nothing of throwing his people, feet first, into plastic shredding machines. Or cutting out their tongues. Or having his female citizens raped by an officially appointed “violator of women’s honor“. Or having his sons torture his country’s Olympic athletes.
All the while controlling what was reported by no less a news organization than CNN, who had the gall to dub themselves the “Most Trusted Name in News“.
For a flashback to how events occurred last year, click here and then start scrolling up. There are numerous dead links and fog of war fuzziness, but I think it’s still quite an interesting as-it-happens chronology. By American standards, I had no life last year: I blogged incessantly about the war, because I was living in a hotel room while my home was being remodeled, and the plumbing was off and the front entrance consisted of sheets of plywood nailed in to keep the elements out.
In other words, compared to the people who lived in Iraq, I was living a life of unimaginable wealth, not to mention unimaginable personal freedom. (Not the least of which is the ability to say anything I want via this Weblog and my magazine articles, and not fear my new front door being kicked in.)
How are things today? Be sure to check out Michael Graham’s post on “The Year That Wasn’t“. The Wall Street Journal notes that “the natives must not be reading Reuters“. And Stephen Green notes that “Germans are less optimistic about their future than Iraqis are.”
The media as a whole won’t put the pieces together–won’t remind people how despicable Saddam Hussein was. Or the now-unarguable proof that Saddam and Al Qaida worked together. Or the million or more people Saddam killed.
Given the speed at which we liberated Iraq, and the astonishingly low number of soldiers killed, this should be a day we remember just as we remember V-E and V-J day. Or the day the Berlin Wall fell.
In time, maybe it will be.
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