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 Another child's face shows only joy - no doubt drawing her feelings from her mother’s realization that her daughter will have a life worth living after all. Tell them it’s all about oil. Tell them this was unjust and immoral; that the U.N. simply needed more time and all would be well. Go ahead. Just don’t be surprised when they don’t agree, and hope the mother’s joy doesn’t turn into a firm slap across your smug, deluded and privileged face. This war, to expropriate a line from the confused left, was for everything else very much for the children, and by extension their parents and families. Can there be any greater pain for a parent than to gaze into their child’s eyes and feel dread and fear? Perhaps one day they might, in their youthful exuberance and naivety, misspeak in forbidden ways in earshot of the wrong person.  Might a mother then find herself pleading with the caretakers of the prison for children, begging for any scrap of news, for any grain of hope? You did hear about the prison, didn’t you? The one where those who committing the awful affront of being less than enthusiastic about joining a Baath Party Youth League were sent to rot and decay. Can we even imagine the emotions of the moment of their liberation?
A mother that can smile again, a child freed from cruel bondage and heaven knows what else. Now multiply by the millions. How must those young American soldiers have felt, embraced by parents who now weep tears of joy instead of terror and dread? And some said this war would bring only misery. What kind of air do those people breathe?  In Baghdad, a picture of three boys perhaps nine or ten, looking with curiosity at the fallen statue of the deposed tyrant that struck fear in their parents' eyes. He doesn't seem very fearsome to them now, does he? Do they see the Americans as liberators or occupiers? Start with the boy in the middle, the one wearing the Manchester United shirt, or his friend to the right with the soccer ball. They don’t have to go to prison today, they can go to the local pitch. They can be children again, and maybe dream of wearing that jersey for real. They don’t need the experts to analyze what the future holds, they need only to look in their parents’ eyes. Eyes now filled with dreams and hope; dreams of liberty and freedom.
 In Baghdad, the children run gleefully along Task Force 2-69 Armor, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. No fear at all in their eyes, despite being with a crew of individuals that could destroy a column of armor in seconds.
 And in Nasariyah with the 15th MEU on patrol the children's smiles tell a tale beyond words. Do they see occupiers or liberators? Why not ask them, Al Jazeera? 
Children celebrate on a tank abandoned by fleeing Iraqi troops in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, south of Kirkuk,in northern Iraq. History will record many images of the war to liberate Iraq. Have we ever seen anything as forceful as the sight of a Presidential compound under relentless attack from precision guided munitions fired from hundred of miles away and thousands of feet in the air, pounded, relentlessly digging away at the horrors and savagery that emitted from within it’s walls?  But it will be the face of the Iraqi girl holding the Stars and Stripes that will remain with me forever. I can’t escape her face, nor do I ever want to. No propaganda, no spokesman’s spin, can create such a picture, ever. Look at it, President Chirac, bow your head to her Prime Minister Chrétien, for you sought to deny her that moment. Explain to her mother, Doctor Blix, how “just a few more months of inspections” could have produced the same result. Better yet, don’t try. Just hang your head in shame and hope that someday before you are called to account for your mortal life that the mother of that girl can find it in her heart to forgive you and your ilk for caring more about your precious process than her daughter’s dreams. Maybe an Iraqi mother can find that in her heart, and if so you’ll be fortunate, as I for one would be incapable of such forgiveness, for to me you are just one more of her jailers and oppressors.
Look again at the pictures. Look again at the faces. I hope for all their burdens and busy schedules President Bush and Prime Minister Blair find time to as well, for those smiles are for them, too. Gaze at them in the heartland of the Land of Liberty, as your sons and daughters righted a historic wrong of dare I say biblical proportions. The children of Iraq are now very much your children as well; your dreams are now echoed in the streets of Basra and Baghdad. Let history record the pictures of liberation, and may the dream of freedom overcome the fear of the tyrants and murderers. Let freedom ring; let liberty prevail. It’s for the children, after all.
       
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Mitchell Solomon
