Another Iraqi Voice

Raed in the Middle:

"...So if there was a question whether this war and occupation was worth the cost paid by Iraqis and U.S. people, I would say: 'definitely not'. The right change should have come from the inside, and the right type of democracy should have emerged from a long-term grassroots movement growing within Iraq....

The foreign occupation turned the dream of having an Iraq without Saddam to a darker nightmare, a nightmare where Iraqis lost even the smallest benefits they used to have before the occupation while the political oppression stayed the same if not worse. The biggest irony in this nightmare is when the 'liberators' compare themselves to the former dictator to market their “new” Iraq. 'Saddam killed 300,000 but we just killed a 100,000 to make you vote', this is the how the logic of the mainstream pro-war activists and media sounds like. The same people who used Saddam’s crimes to justify the war on Iraq are committing the very same crimes against Iraqis....[snip]

The occupation turned Iraq into the heaven and haven of violent extremists, and everyday of occupation is a happy day for extremists. I’m sure AMZ never dreamt of having such a comfortable space where he can work and launch attacks against Jordan, Israel and other countries in the region.

The only way to stop the violence in Iraq is to pull out the US troops. The British troops are pulling out after the elections; most of the smaller troops are pulling out as well. The only people who know how to stop violence in Iraq are Iraqis themselves. They’ve done that for the last decades, and they can do it again when the occupation troops give them back their country...."