Iraqis, vets know about freedom

Denver Post ^ | October 04, 2004 | David Harsanyi

[aynrandy]

Hamela Aqrawee's words are saturated in emotion.

"We love you" is not the kind of declaration you usually hear at Aurora's Buckley Air Force Base. But Aqrawee says it and then expresses her gratitude another 20 times, at least.

The approximately three dozen members of the Colorado Air National Guard, many recently in Iraq, greet this woman's words with a zeal typically reserved for comrades. Why?

Because not one airman I spoke with believed Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time or even the wrong place. None of them called it a colossal misjudgment or even a grand diversion.

But what do they know about Iraq? They've only been there.

And what does Aqrawee, an interpreter for U.S. forces, know about Iraq?

She's come to Aurora with Abid Khalid, a civil engineer and Sunni Baghdad city councilman, as part of a tour sponsored by the Iraq-American Freedom Alliance to provide a positive and hopeful message from the Iraqi people.

"Don't ever forget that the Iraqi people will not forget what you did for them," she tells the airmen.

Aqrawee is a brave young woman. A Kurd, she put her English skills to use as an interpreter for the 101st Airborne Division. She's traveled in the combat zones across Iraq, even participating in the raid against Saddam Hussein's vile sons Odai and Qusai.

Her sister was recently executed by terrorists masquerading as insurgents. Years ago, her brother's severed body parts were sent home by Hussein, a terrorist masquerading as a world leader.

Aqrawee says she was thrilled "to be able to come here today and speak my mind freely, to tell the truth about my country and not worry about being executed when I get back home."

But what does she know about Iraq?

Let's ask Master Sgt. Donald Johnson, a 25-year veteran of the Air National Guard.

Johnson believes that the majority of the men he serves with don't consider Iraq a quagmire.

"For me, it was a good thing to have someone from Iraq reaffirm to us that what we're doing are good things for them, not just the negative stuff we hear on the news."

How about Abid Khalid? What does he know Iraq?

He knows it was replete with evil and now it's filled with hope.

Khalid lost two of his brothers in the Iran-Iraq War and another to Hussein's henchmen. Yet, he risks his life each day to serve in the provisional government.

Khalid told me he thinks Americans aren't getting "all the facts." He mentions that over 600 schools have opened, that 150 new newspapers are now published each day, and that Iraqis have clean water to drink.

"What you see represents what 1 percent of the population is trying to do to the rest of us. The media should show both the good and the bad."

He understand it's hard to extract the good news when soldiers and civilians are dying daily.

But Khalid also knows we're in the middle of a war - not at the end of one.

And he knows we'll win.

On the day we met, 35 Iraqi children were murdered by Islamic terrorists in Baghdad. They were at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of a new sewage treatment plant.

Is that sacrifice worth freedom?

Khalid's demonstrative tone says far more than his words. "What kind of person kills children? What will it accomplish?" he asks me. "Once you give people democracy, you can't take it away. They (the terrorists) won't win. Only if the U.S. leaves, then there will be chaos and disaster."

To many Americans, it looks a lot like chaos and disaster right now.

"I think there is a lot of good things that are going on there," Johnson explains. "These folks are going to be having elections in January. We're seeing another country turning from a dictatorship into a democracy.

"I have no doubt we'll win."

David Harsanyi's column appears Monday and Thursday. He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.

[americangirl1031]

Great article.

[Mi-kha-el]

However, Kerry will brand her a Bush puppet.