I have been one of the government contractors operating in Iraq that you may have heard about in the news. I work with many other contractors who, like me, are on Authorized Absence (or discharged) from either Special Forces, Marine Recon, SEAL Teams, and so forth.
Old ways die hard among thugs. And pure thuggery is what has ruled Iraq for more than ten years before Saddam Hussein under Al-Bakir. There are still a few thugs standing in the wings trying to vie for power because that’s all they know. It doesn’t matter what variation on Islam they are spouting they are nothing more than mob bosses, and the Iraqi people, in general, are tired of it. Add some foreign terrorists to the mix and a liberal media in an election year and these thugs think they are going to win. I pray American voters see that we must finish this one the right way. If we walk away now, we will be responsible for a lot more than the two million Cambodians and every last Montainyard that was murdered the year after we abandoned Indochina. Here is the reality I see everyday.
The Iraqi people as a whole love us. You read it right love us. Terrorists may hate us and radicals in different ethnic groups within Iraq may hate each other. But in general, the common Iraqi people Shias, Sunis, Kurds, Chaldeans, Turkomen all have one thing in common: for one instant in time, they have hope for their future and the future of their children, and that hope is centered around one group of foreigners you guessed it Americans, the good old USA.
And there are dozens of coalition forces who help us. Young military people from most of the free countries in the world are here and willing to lay down their lives because America has led the way in spreading the good news of freedom and democracy to the oldest land on Earth.
We are all helping to train Iraqis to protect themselves with sound moral and ethical procedures. We know that teaching adults is important, but educating children is the key. So there is a lot of money going to rebuilding schools in Iraq and getting rural children to attend for the first time in history.
Mike viewed the images of friends mutilated and hanging from a bridge in Fallujah. The scene was horrific. What should be done?
He related three examples of how Americans dealt with indigenous people and their dead and prisoners we take. The missions took place in the two weeks following the Fallujah atrocities, just outside the gates of his Forward Operating Base.
Whether thugs attempting to steal freedom away, terrorists enacting barbaric behavior or the examples that Mike shares over the next few days, the truth of where these acts come from remains.
The acts result from the state of the heart. The inner man must be examined. Our thoughts and speech, as well as every act is an overflowing from the heart.
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries.” (Mark 7:21)