{"id":17792,"date":"2014-07-12T13:25:36","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T17:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=17792"},"modified":"2014-07-12T13:25:36","modified_gmt":"2014-07-12T17:25:36","slug":"an-iraqi-perspective-how-americas-destruction-of-iraqi-society-led-to-todays-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2014\/07\/12\/an-iraqi-perspective-how-americas-destruction-of-iraqi-society-led-to-todays-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"An Iraqi Perspective: How America\u2019s Destruction of Iraqi Society Led to Today\u2019s Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Moyers & Company<\/em> web site has the article An Iraqi Perspective: How America\u2019s Destruction of Iraqi Society Led to Today\u2019s Chaos<\/a>.\u00a0 I have Elizabeth St John to thank for posting this on her Facebook page<\/a>.\u00a0 Below is a short excerpt to give you the gist.\u00a0 You have to read the interview to see the justification for this.<\/p>\n

Sect wasn\u2019t really a part of the national consciousness. I was born in Iraq and I\u2019d never in my life been asked if I was a Sunni or a Shiite. And I didn\u2019t know who among my relatives or neighbors or co-workers or colleagues at school were Sunnis or Shiites, because it wasn\u2019t an issue. It\u2019s not that people were tolerant toward each other \u2014 they weren\u2019t aware of sectarian backgrounds. It\u2019s similar to some areas in the US where you don\u2019t necessarily know what Christian sect your friends belong to. You might know, or you might not know.<\/p>\n

That was before the US intervention. The US destroyed that Iraqi national identity and replaced it with sectarian and ethnic identities after 2003. I don\u2019t think this is something that many Iraqis argue about, because you can trace the beginning of this sectarian strife that is destroying the country, and it clearly began with the US invasion and occupation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wow, this is mind-boggling.\u00a0 I didn’t realize how much of this sectarian strife originated from US prejudices that we foisted on the Iraqis.\u00a0 Separating the country into regions for each part of Iraq society seemed to me to be an adaptation to their situation, when in fact it was an adaptation to fit our prejudices.<\/p>\n

Here I thought I was being understanding of the situation by thinking that I could understand why the Shiites were taking such a hard stance against the Sunnis because of what the Sunni minority did under Saddam Husein.\u00a0 According to the Iraqi native in the in the interview, this “understanding” is a figment of my imagination (or the propaganda I have been fed).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Moyers & Company web site has the article An Iraqi Perspective: How America\u2019s Destruction of Iraqi Society Led to Today\u2019s Chaos.\u00a0 I have Elizabeth St John to thank for posting this on her Facebook page.\u00a0 Below is a short excerpt to give you the gist.\u00a0 You have to read the interview to see the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17793,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17792\/revisions\/17793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}