Iraq: The Face of ‘Terror’?

By: Shamsa Mangalji, YAC 07 On May 1, 2003, President George Bush asserted, “"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror.” We in the U.S. have since been inundated with Reuters images of bloodthirsty, ruthless terrorists who kill others simply because of difference in religion and dissent of thought. We are quick to come to the conclusion that Iraq is nothing more than a war zone, full of these cut-throat and somber soldiers ready to die for their causes. These images that we see on TV well illustrate the “terror” that Mr. Bush has our country fighting against. Not much attention, however, has been given to the vast number of civilians who are trying to live in Iraq.

According to multiple news sources, the war in Iraq has left over two million Iraqi civilians at a refugee status. The dismal situation in Iraq is “what is becoming the biggest refugee crisis in the world,” a humanitarian group said yesterday. Many refugees live in conditions of acute poverty not only in their own country, Iraq, but also in the countries surrounding it, like Syria and Jordan, who can’t help but impose restrictions on the massive hordes of refugees that enter their borders. Most of the refugees who have fled their country cannot get access to work, healthcare, or any other public services. The government in their own country is extremely unstable and, in a state of war, corruption, and turmoil, cannot support the refugees. Can you imagine what it’s like not to be able to appeal to your own government for aid when things go wrong?

In the United States, though many of us like to badmouth the current administration, we actually depend on our government for things we take for granted. Take infrastructure, for example. Our government foots the bill for our country’s infrastructure, the roads and bridges that make it possible for us ship goods across the country, and feed our (massive) consumer appetites. Infrastructure has made it possible for our economy to be as productive as it has been. Even menial things like stop lights are subsided by our government. We depend on the government to protect our lives and our assets with forces like Fire Department and the FBI. In other words, we trust our government to take care of our interests, and our lives. Without government taking care of these tasks that we take for granted, we would have a much harder time feeling secure and comfortable. The Iraqi people cannot depend on any of these things from their current government, thus life for them is unpredictable and terrifying.

We must remember first and foremost that Iraq was an actual country before it was transformed into a war zone, a country full of normal civilians who far outnumber the minority of soldiers or sectarian rebels we see on TV. These people feel the same way we do here. They all want to live under stable circumstances where they can be guaranteed enough to eat everyday. They all want to have education, high-paying jobs, vibrant social lives. Haider, An Iraqi refugee currently living in Damascus, Syria, laments, “What was the mistake that Iraqi people did [for other countries] to punish us like this? Iraqis are not [living] like humans now. They can’t pay for their food. They don’t have money to live.” (CBS news)

These people deserve justice. They have been forced, through no fault of their own, to leave their homes and lives behind. Since the United States catalyzed the war, the United States and the Allies should be responsible for the Iraqi civilians. However, the US has “admitted only 466 [out of the 2,000,000] Iraqi refugees since the American-led invasion.” (The Boston Globe) Can we not do better than that?

I would like to pose a question to Mr. Bush: Is terror the eyes of a hungry child, a defeated man like Haider with tattered clothes and no one to turn to? I don’t know what’s scarier, that terrorists may take over the United States, or that our President is terrified by poor, broken refugees.