On January 19, 2002, in his State of the Union address, George W. Bush poured gasoline on the raging fire resulting from his ill-conceived invasion of Iraq. He had long since talked about our war against terror, but was smart enough to realize that the American people would need to personalize their hatred if they were willing to support the war. Saddam Hussein had been deposed and would be executed in 2006, but the President needed to find a larger focus for his and the American peoples’ hatred. So in that speech he identified “the Axis of Evil,” which included Iraq, Iran and North Korea at the center and Cuba, Libya and Syria on the fringes.
Over 14 years has elapsed since that speech. Iraq has been destroyed, its ancient historic significance obliterated and the nation divided by Islamic in-fighting. Now in light of the loss of a coherent central government, there has come ISIS rising from the ashes generated by our “shock and awe.” And we cannot defeat it because we do not understand the devastation that has produced it. In order to save Iraq we needed to see it decimated. And that obscenity leaves nothing behind with which to do any political reordering.
But what if instead of seeing these nations and their people as part of the Axis of Evil, we saw them as mothers, fathers, little children, young people making their way in a difficult world, seniors trying to live out their last years in peace, while they had only the rubble of destroyed buildings on their streets and the ubiquity of death on their doorsteps? How many innocent Iraqis or Syrians have been blown to bits? What if we had realized that perhaps they faced the same concerns we have—just overarched by the hope to survive? When the bombs hit they were just doing what families do in the evening; cleaning up after supper, getting the kids ready for bed, telling them stories read from their favorite books, singing the tiny ones to sleep.
Erik Hillstad has published a collection of lullabies from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Cuba—nations Bush designated as the axis of evil. Here is one, a peace song that is a traditional Iraqi lullaby. Picture a mother bending over here little child, and as the infant drifts off to sleep, she softly sings:
Peace to your dreams my little one.
Peace to all the children.
Peace to the world.
Peace to my country, my love.
Under the whispering trees our children will be free
We will see their beauty through the eyes of peace.
Peace to your heart.
Peace to our homeland.
Peace to the world.
Peace to our country.
I have heard this song sung by a group of children as a soft flowing Arabic chant.
And I have pictured a mother singing it to her child in the midst of the destruction all around her.
What if instead of “shock and awe” we had offered all that is positive about the United States. A new Marshall Plan for Middle East might have included the best of medical care and technical knowhow. There was a time before it was too late to make friends of these potential enemies. Why we even might have won the admiration of Saddam. But that is not what we did. Now we have reaped, not only a devastated Iraq, but also an entire part of the world that has been blown into so many incoherent pieces that it cannot be put back together again.
When battles were fought hand to hand, at least the combatants could see the faces of those they were seeking to kill. And then came horror from 40,000 feet, and the hostile forces, and civilians who lived around them, were just spots on a map. Now we can attack a totally faceless enemy from 7,000 miles away when somebody looking at a computer screen pushes a button hoping for what the military now calls “a good kill.”
And in the antiseptic confines of that room, the button pusher and all those who caused that event to happen, may not know that when the missile hits its target it strikes a hospital, or a mother bending over her child singing:
“Peace to your dreams my little one.
Peace to all the children.
Peace to the world.”
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