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| John King is a graduate student and writes 'King's Eye Land' for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. |
I remember the Gulf War.
I was 15 when Saddam Hussein's other 'moment of truth,' passed, and our 41st president, George Herbert Walker Bush, gave the order to launch Operation Desert Storm.
Coalition forces liberated Kuwait in 1991, but in an effort to keep Iraq crippled, bombing runs have been going on in southern Iraq ever since.
Saddam's attempt to organize an assassination attempt on George H.W. Bush during the former president's 1993 visit to Kuwait was answered with a prompt bombing run over Baghdad.
Imagine the cultural stunting caused by a decade of bombing. Ten years is a generation. You'd have to be a Middle Easterner to understand.
I'm in a campus minority because I remember the Gulf War. I also know a certain truth about history -- textbooks and newspapers don't always make human connections. (Sorry.)
Newspaper headlines from the era are eerily similar to today's: "Saddam threatens U.S.," "Bush: We will prevail" and "Iraqi forces retreating." Talk about history repeating itself.
Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather -- the journalists are still around. Wolf Blitzer's career flourished in the Persian Gulf, along with that of Arthur Kent, who became known as "The SCUD Stud" for his live reporting of bombings.
I can still see Arthur Kent ducking, frightened by explosions. I wonder where he is now.
I supported the war then, because we wanted to make an aggressor stand down. But in the years that have passed, I've wondered about the cause of freedom to which I clung at the time.
There's something to be learned here. Right or wrong, Middle Eastern perception of the United States isn't rosy.
I saw an interview with an Iraqi teen on MTV Wednesday night. The reporter asked the kid what he thought of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"They deserved it," he said.
This kid wore American clothes, admitted to listening to American music and said he enjoys Hollywood films.
Our culture isn't what they hate. It's our government and its questionable foreign policies. The United States has been more involved in Middle Eastern governments than most Middle Easterners, and not always in a good way.
The United States assisted the shah in Iran in 1953 and helped to overthrow Prime Minister Mussadegh. Once in power, the shah abused U.S. assistance and formed a police state.
That's just one example. Fifty years of oral history and resentment are potent where education isn't.
We want to free Iraq, but we forget -- Iran is right next door, and Iraqi people aren't stupid. They know the history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. We don't.
They resent us because we think we know what's best for them.
No U.S. foreign policy was ever created that wasn't opportunist in some way, and no conservative or liberal fact manipulation will convince me otherwise.
We're not humanitarians by nature; we're capitalists. Can you be both? Certainly, but people like that Iraqi teen are more interested in what makes us human than what makes us rich.
And yet, Americans still don't get it.
I can support this war only if coalition forces really are bringing freedom to Iraq.
But if the United States government and its allies are just repeating history without learning from the past or considering the future, no American can expect this to be the last conflict in the Middle East.
That's just wishful thinking.
Write to John at kingseyeland@bsu.edu
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