How the Left Betrayed My Country - Iraq

How the Left Betrayed My Country - Iraq, By Naseer Flayih Hasan, FrontPageMagazine.com, January 3, 2005.

This article celebrates independence of mind even in a terrible tyranny.

Referring to the anti-freedom behavior of the Western Left, the author, an Iraqi, says, "We assumed that once they learned what had happened in Iraq, they would change their minds, or modify their opposition to the war."

He was not to meet reason or reasonableness:

My first clue that this would not happen was a few weeks after Baghdad fell. I had befriended a French reporter who had begun to realize that the situation in Iraq was not how the international media or the so-called “peace camp” described it. I noticed, however, that whenever he tried to voice his doubts to colleagues, they argued that he was wrong. Soon afterwards, I met a Dutch woman on Mutinabi Street, where booksellers lay out their wares on Friday morning. I asked her how long she’d been in Iraq and, through a translator, she answered, “Three months.”

“So you were here during the war?”

“Yes!” she said. “To see the crimes of the Americans!”

I was stunned. After a moment, I replied, “What about the crimes of the regime? It killed millions of Iraqis. Do you know that if the regime was still in power, the conversation we’re having now would result in our torture or death?”

Her face turned red and she angrily responded, “Soon will come the day that the Americans will do worse.” She then went on to accuse me of not knowing what the true facts were in Iraq—and that she could see the situation better than me!

The author properly describes these people who descended on Iraq as "humanitarians." And, the quotes are essential because there is nothing humanitarian about these modern Western barbarians.

We came to understand how these “humanitarians” experienced a sort of pleasure when terrorists or former remnants of the regime created destruction in Iraq—just so they could feel that they were right, and the Americans wrong!

They came with their minds made up: "Worse, we realized it was hopeless to make them grasp our feelings."

Very perceptively, the author identifies what motivation drives these Western barbarians, who should be properly called "nihilists," as we have dealt with in this blog and our website.

...[T]he general attitude of peace activists I met was tension and anger. They were impossible to reason with.

What the author does not quite bring himself to state is that what drives these people is HATE. They hate values as such, and America still holds the trump card on freedom, individualism, and capitalism. They do not want to replace America with anything. They just want to destroy America, the West, freedom, and the even the capacity to value. That is the essence of nihilism. Note that these people are not for the jihadists and Saddamists. They support them, however, because the jihadists and Saddamists hate America and are trying to destroy America. The nihilists want merely to pour fuel on the fire and fan it in order to facilitate America's destruction.

Finally, this author poignantly describes his disillusionment with Leftists (Nihilists):

And so I have become disillusioned, at least with the Leftists I met in Iraq. So noble in their rhetoric, they looked to the stars, yet ignored what was happening around them, caring only about what was inside their minds. So glorious in their ideals, their thoughts were inflexible and their deeds unnecessary, even harmful. In the end, they proved to me how dogma and fanaticism had transform peace activists into—lifeless peace “statues.”

I disagree with this Iraqi that the rhetoric of the Left is "noble" or even as uplifting as looking at the stars while not seeing what is in front of them. If you know your principles, you quickly see through the rhetoric of these people. Hatred of values is not noble, but they love to package their nihilism in deceptive language, just as Muslims do.

Otherwise, I can say that if this author can survive Iraq, he has the independence of mind to go very, very far. More American citizens need to follow his example.