2006-11-07

Hussein Death Verdict: "Now There Will Be Freedom"

Here's some local Iraqi and other Arab immigrants in the Detroit area (mostly Dearborn) celebrating Hussein's death sentence; notice the car parading around flying American and Iraqi flags. One Palestinian says, "Now there will be freedom." I hope to god he understands the word "freedom" as I do, which is to say what he experiences here in the the US.

From the article: ================
"It was bumper to bumper," said one, about Warren Rd, which runs through Dearborn and neiboring Detroit (and right through my subburb, Westland). "They were lined up on the streets, too, and standing outside businesses with big flags." Beating drums, throwing candy and dancing to Arab music, Iraqis flowed into streets lined with Arab businesses. At the corner of Warren and Mansfield in Detroit, old men and young children waved Iraqi and American flags.

"There is such a thing as justice."
"This is another step in moving Iraq forward. But it is not as big a step as before." [So "before" -- the invasion -- constituted a step forward?]
"
There is a better chance of freedom. Now the infighting in Iraq will end."
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I didn't know that this was going on; the last time this happened on the day that the Hussein statue got pulled down. I drove my daughter to see the Arabs in Dearborn celebrating the end of a tyranny, and the birth of a chance at freedom. Freedom does not seem yet to have taken hold in most of Iraq. Will it now? The quotes from the article were hopeful; while not universally supportive of the US, far from the universal, absolute condemnation from US peaceniks before even before the first shots rang out.

As always, Christopher Hitchens provides here the best argument even now for praising and supporting the US invasion, and articulates the drawbacks of accepting defeat and leaving.

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