People should not wonder that ordinary Iraqis are not all rejoicing at the freedom that the Allies have brought them. It has taken 60 years for the aftermath of the second world war to lead to complete reconcilliation on the Western front. This is marked with the presense of the German Chancellor for the first time ever at the D-Day celebrations. ‘For us Germans, the war is finally over’. However on the Eastern front of the war such reconcilliation is still nowhere near complete due to the legacy of the Iron Curtain.
I guess then, as I have said in a previous post, history may well have a rather more positive view of the liberation of Iraq than our media does currently. If the country is stabilised, rehabilitated and becomes a fully functioning member of the international family of nations, maybe there will be widespread gratitude for the birth of a democracy. Then, any excesses of the invading troups will be lost to memory as the infrequent abberrations they almost certainly are. Does anyone even know whether there were such abuses by Allied troops in the second world war?
Our history shapes us. Perhaps the links being made between the current ‘war on terror’ and WW2 are inevitable. When the two nations are credited by almost all with saving democracy and freedom for the whole world, is it any wonder when faced with the perceived inaction and possibly complicity of other nations in another oppressive regeime the US and the UK should once again rise to the challenge. I am not old enough to know for sure, but I guess that there wasnt universal thanks for the actions of our troops in WW2 either. Just because we are honoured and thanked now by the free world, does not mean that we should expect thanks from the Iraqis right now.
Detractors of the war will mention ulterior motives for the invasion of Iraq, and they will of course be right. But who says that WW2 was conducted for purely noble reasons also? No contry ever goes to war unless it perceives its own interests are under threat. This threat may seem oblique to some, it may even be in reality quite indirect. It is highly likely for example that the US would never have entered the war if it wasnt for Pearl Harbour. Europe would probably be a very different place today.
This war will eventually be judged not for the reasons it was carried out, but rather by the consequences of the war for Iraq and the rest of the world.
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