Our
Viewpoint: The Children of Iraq
by Editor in Chief Eve
Brown-Waite
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to Eve read this commentary. Thanks to WFCR - www.wfcr.org
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Iraq
is a country of over 23 million people. Among them is a
seven year old girl named Haifa who likes to giggle and
pose for the camera; and eleven year old Abdula who
loves to play soccer; and six year old Foad who helps
feed his family by shimmying up trees to pick dates.
Iraqi children laugh and play and make mischief just
like our children. They are inquisitive and loving and
occasionally infuriating just like our children. They
carry the seeds of hope, the light of the world, and the
promise of the future, just like our children. Their
parents want the best for them and try hard to protect
them, just like we do for our children.
It's quite possible that you've never thought about the
children of Iraq before. Maybe that's because it's in
our government's self interest if all we know about Iraq
is Saddam Hussein. After all, it would be easier to
sleep at night believing that our tax dollars — and our
young soldiers — will be used to kill one despotic
leader than to kill innocent Iraqi children.
But Iraqi children will die — by the thousands — and
their parents will be unable to protect them if our
government moves ahead with its apparent intention to
bomb Iraq. The children of Iraq have no more to do with
Saddam Hussein and his policies than my children have to
do with George W. Bush and his. So why is it even
considered a valid option to annihilate them?
The children of Iraq are already struggling for their
very existence. Largely due to our bombing and 12 years
of economic sanctions, they are already suffering
greatly. They are overwhelmingly malnourished. They
suffer from diarrhea, cholera and dysentery because
there is no access to clean water. They die from a host
of treatable diseases because there are no medicines.
Their schools have deteriorated and there are no
supplies to fix them and no money to pay their teachers.
Their parents must decide every day which of their
children to feed and which to leave hungry because the
rations that we allow in are not enough to feed
everyone.
The Bush administration is trying desperately to
convince us that it is in our best interest and self
defense to bomb Iraq. And in today's America, where the
grief of 9/11 is still deep and where the fear of
another terrorist attack is high, it could be all too
easy to start a war and get patriotic Americans to fall
in line behind it. But we must remember that war is an
admission of failure. Even my children know that
violence is what we resort to when more intelligent
options elude us. And once it gets that far, everybody
loses. Before we commit ourselves to another war, before
we begin killing the children of Iraq, aren't we
compelled–as civilized human beings and as citizens of
a great nation–to thoroughly explore every other
available option?
I am not convinced that Iraq poses an imminent and
massive threat to me and my country. I am not convinced
that the Bush administration is being honest about its
true motives in Iraq, nor that they have listened to and
heard the various sides of the issue. And I am certainly
not convinced that we have exhausted every peaceful
option for dealing with what may or may not be a
legitimate threat.
And that's the least we should do before Haifa, Abdula,
Foad and millions of other Iraqi children are bombed in
our name. Isn't that what we would want for our
children?
Note: If you'd like to make your feelings on Iraq known
(like Eve did in this Op-Ed piece), the White House has
a public opinion poll phone line at 202-456-1111. When
you call, a machine will detain you a moment and then a
pleasant operator will thank you for saying "I
oppose" or "I approve of" the proposed
war against Iraq.
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