This column is about Iraq, but it isn't about withdrawal, or about how the issue is dividing our country, or about the justifications for our occupation or invasion. It has been three years since our country sent our friends, brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, sons and daughters to Iraq. You've probably already got a pretty well-developed opinion on all of the issues currently being debated in the press.
With the three-year anniversary now a week behind us, we have seen the papers display retrospective figures, charts and graphs. This Monday's State Press included one such summary, listing in detail the number of dead and wounded American soldiers and the estimated amounts of Iraqi civilian casualties (our Department of Defense prefers not to keep track of such trivial issues).
The chart also tracked the amount of oil production, the availability of electricity and the amount of telephone and Internet subscriptions, presumably to offer some sort of insight into how the quality of life of Iraqi citizens has changed over the course of our involvement.
Even when presenting the staggering amount of civilian casualties, what such charts lack is an appropriate amount of perspective.
Many more deaths have been caused by our actions in the Middle East than those that resulted from what has callously been referred to as "collateral damage." If we are to understand how modern Iraq has been affected by America and the United Nations, we have to at least begin to look back to the first Gulf War.
After the invasion of Kuwait, the rest of the world decided to punish Saddam Hussein by implementing economic sanctions on his country. Soon after, according to United Nations reports and statistics, and a recent article by international public health consultant Dr. Cesar Chelala, Iraqis went from having obesity as one of their primary health concerns to having malnutrition comparable to that of Burundi.
The country also experienced one of the most drastic falls in the history of the U.N. Human Development Index, which ranks countries in terms of various quality of life issues. The United States is usually somewhere in the top 10. In the decade following the sanctions, Iraq fell from 96 to 127, and is currently not even listed on the 2005 report.
A press release by the White House in 2003 said that the health services in Iraq are at "pre-war levels." The fact sheet proudly announces that 1200 primary health care clinics were in operation "offering basic health care services" as of late 2003.
But what it doesn't tell us is that the lack of supplies during the sanctions meant many health care services might not have been available for many Iraqis.
Ultimately, Saddam Hussein deserves much of the blame for refusing to submit to the conditions that would remove the sanctions. However, if we expect to heal our image in a rapidly dividing Iraq, we cannot absolve ourselves of any responsibility for the current lack of basic necessities experienced by many Iraqi civilians.
The direct impact our policies have had on the lives of Iraqis makes it almost impossible to expect that almost anybody living in poverty in the entire country wouldn't hold some level of resentment for the United States.
According to the book "Imperial Hubris," by Michael Schever Osama bin Laden once said, "Why are we against you? The answer to that question is very simple. Because you attacked us and continued to attack us." If we don't make drastic changes to right the wrongs we have played a part in, then it may only be a matter of time before more people share in his point of view.
Ben is a journalism junior. Reach him at benjamin.horowitz@asu.edu, but please try to use creative insults.
