by James Glaser
December 27, 2005

Washington has been telling the world that we have gone to war in Iraq to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. George Bush has been telling us that we went to war in Iraq to bring the Iraqi people freedom and democracy.

Now we find out that under Saddam Hussein, the estimated 700,000 Christians in Iraq were protected and they enjoyed "freedom of religion." They could attend church and practice their faith freely.

The Times, reports that about half of all Iraqi Christians have fled the country since America attacked and that "Iraq's ruling parties have waged a three-year campaign to islamise the country at gunpoint.

"Priests have been threatened and killed, women abused in the street for not wearing veils, and three months ago the entire lay leadership of Iraq's main Anglican Church were ambushes and killed."

This is a country that George Bush tells us that we are winning in. Bush says that the United States will remain in Iraq until we attain victory. It could be by the time Bush can claim any sort of victory, every Christian in Iraq will have been killed or will have fled the country.

George Bush's tactics are making Iraq totally Islamic.

Bush claims that the vast majority of Iraqi citizens are thankful for us being there and they don't want us to leave. Sunday on Fox News Sunday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Marine General Peter Pace said Iraqis want US and other foreign troops out of their country "as soon as possible." He explained, "They don't want us to leave tomorrow, but they do want us to leave as soon as possible."

Bush claims the right to decide when that day will come. On one hand he claims we are bringing freedom to Iraq, and on the other hand he says that we will decide when we are ready to leave.

America has destroyed much of Iraq. We have killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The children of Iraq will suffer nightmares from this war for the rest of their lives. Whole metropolitan areas have been destroyed. Scores of thousands of families have been displaced.

The infrastructure of the country has been damaged so badly, that after over two years of working on it, Iraq still lacks pre-war levels of electricity, sewage treatment, and clean drinking water. The country is in a state of chaos and things are not getting better. Over half, over 300.000 Christians have fled the country. We don't know how many millions of Islamic Iraqis have left too.

George Bush and the United States have destroyed these people's lives. We are punishing the Iraqi people way beyond anything Saddam Hussein could have done. Millions of innocent Iraqis are suffering from our attack on their country, and we are destroying the once strong Christian community that had taken hold in Iraq.

George Bush did have the election he preached about ever since he sent our troops there, and the Iraqi people decided to vote for an Islamic government that will have strong ties with Iran.

George Bush has screwed up this war in just about every way he could, and no matter what happens, our country is coming out of this war looking like the bad guy.

There are millions of good Iraqis, who just want to live and worship their god, and care for their families. At one time these people might have thanked us for taking on Saddam, but not any more. America has destroyed too much of the good in Iraq, trying to weed out what we thought was bad with the country.

America has failed the Iraqi people. We have not brought them freedom, we have yet to repair that which we have destroyed, and we can't. The Iraqi people want us out of their country. We have damaged them too much, and no matter what we do now, we will never put things right.