Living the Iraqi Dream

Reality TV has hit Iraq. The government run TV station has begun airing a show called Terror in the Grip of Justice. The show features terrorists, insurgents captured and tried for their crimes. It also has recently shown the families of the victims being allowed to talk about the crime and directly address the terrorists. It's part of the propaganda war that the Iraqi government is fighting inside it's own borders. For the full story, cut and paste the following address into your browser: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1518168,00.html

GWBush is promoting the idea that democracy is the stabilizing factor that will help the entire Middle East. He says that freedom will be enough motivation for the peoples of Iraq to become a self governing, stable, productive country. Maybe he's right. Maybe he's not.

What if he's not right? What if the Arab world continues to pour their homicidal, suicidal jihadists into the country of Iraq? What if the terrorist attacks in Iraq, on funerals, on police stations, on churches, on school buses, continue for a year? two years? five years?

I was born in America. I have always enjoyed good medical care. I've always had clean clothes. I've always had food. I was given a high school education. While I've seen death up close, it's been painful and tragic and rare.

I believe that not all cultures value life and mourn death as I do. Clearly, the jihad (and Islam's view of the difficulty of getting into heaven) creates a culture where death and murder are not so feared and reviled as in our own culture. What if murder is considered an acceptable form of political expression in Iraq through the foreseeable future? What if the prevalent religions of the nation continue to view a martyr's death as the ONLY sure way into heaven?

Our American culture, as broad as it is, includes motivators for staying alive. Our primarily Judeo-Christian religious culture teaches us that we can be assured of our own salvation by accepting God's grace. We don't need to be martyred to believe that we can go to heaven when we die. If you're an American atheist you may buy into the capitalism and upwardly mobile society where purchase power, health and comfort are the motivators and a long, happy life is the end goal. There's no reason to give life or take it for most of us.

It's hard to sort out from this side of the world. I'm certain that the majority of Iraqis just want to get up every morning, shower, shave and go to work. They want to earn a living for themselves and their families. They want to see their children grow up and have families of their own. They want to live without pain, without fear, without hunger. They want to walk through their neighborhoods at night, greeting the other walkers, seeing the lights in the houses as families like theirs fix dinner, get ready for bed. They didn't have this comfort under Saddam and they don't have this comfort yet, under the new Iraqi government. I read the news and I really wonder what it will take to make the Iraqi dream, much like the American dream, come true.