Visiting Iraqis Find Little Comfort Here

[MountainLaurel]

The peace activists from Iraq were not surprised that a visit to Washington had stirred their emotions. An effort last week to persuade some members of Congress to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq had left them frustrated, and a subsequent meeting with local peace activists to discuss the horrors of war in their homeland had rekindled their outrage.

But the feelings stirred up during a peace march through downtown Thursday and other more light-hearted events seemed to catch them by surprise. The four Iraqi women were accustomed to battling frustration, anger and fear. Experiencing everyday pleasantries, on the other hand, took some getting used to.

During the march, Rashad Zadan, a pharmacist who provides aid to widows and orphans, noticed that the stores along Connecticut Avenue were well stocked and the pedestrians well dressed and that infants traveled in the safety and comfort of car seats and strollers. And when it dawned on her that three years had passed since she'd last heard the sounds of leaves rustling on a tree, she began to weep.

The next day, the women gathered for breakfast at Busboys and Poets, a new restaurant and bookstore at 14th and V streets NW, a part of the city undergoing the kind of urban reconstruction that has eluded Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/12/AR2006031201353.html

[ixion]

1. what we have done to those poor people in the name of 'liberation'

or WMD's or whatever the excuse du jour may be. In the end, all we have done is destroy a soverign nation, kill thousands of civillians and turn millions of others into refugees in (what's left of) their own country.


Really, it makes me very sad. :cry:

[Rose Siding]

2. One congress-"person" dared to ask if they'd rather have saddam back

snip>
Eman Ahmad Khamas, a human rights advocate, replied: "The destruction caused by the U.S. occupation is so bad that even people who hated Saddam the most are beginning to wish he was back."