ANOTHER VIEW
Recently a British friend of mine visited the northern, predominately Kurdish part of Iraq to set up an audio-visual production studio. His trip was not one for the faint-hearted. When his commercial passenger plane took off from the Baghdad airport it rose just a few feet off the ground and stayed there for much longer than normal before finally pulling into a steep climb. Arriving at his destination the plane descended in a sharp, tight spiral and just before the final approach had to pull up suddenly. The pilot explained that the unusual procedures were meant to make them a harder target for surface to air missiles.
Once he landed and joined his friends at the studio the people welcomed him with overflowing hospitality. In the evenings they visited friendly homes where their hosts served them plates heaped with the simple but tasty fare of the land. They always washed it down with endless cups of tea, “black, very sweet, no option to refuse”.
During his visit gunmen shot dead four American relief workers in a nearby city. Sadly, their risk of attack might have been reduced had they known to vary their times and routes of travel. As it was, they apparently took the same vehicle on the same road each morning.
Thinking about the present conflict makes me consider those of years past. Soon my father will turn eighty-five. He’s a WW2 veteran, a member of a generation that’s slowly leaving us. The stories he has told me of the Great Depression and the War have left a deep impression. His generation seems to have known something about hanging on, not giving up, and eventually overcoming. Hearing some of the opinions about the current conflict in Iraq one could get the impression that a lot of quitters and doubters are around today.
The picture is always more complex than either side is often willing to admit. My British friend and others, in spite of traveling in Iraq at risk of a SAM attack or an armed ambush, are seeking to bring development, stability, and peace to a country that just a year ago suffered with a ruthless dictator loose within its borders. His final comment about his trip was, “things are going fast, fast, fast towards a very open democratic country.” Not fast enough for some people perhaps, but for those who try to exercise perseverance, the progress already made promises a better future for the formerly oppressed Iraqi peoples.
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