The front pages of newspapers are usually filled with bad news from Iraq. Although the Iraqi people have been freed from a tyrant that equals Adolph Hitler in many respects, there are still groups of Hussein followers causing havoc to the general public and Allied troops. What the first pages of most newspapers do not print, are the good things going on in Iraq. I found an article on the 17th page of a big city newspaper that printed some of this good news.
It stated that Iraqi power production surpasses the pre-war level. Baghdad lost power in early April, and looters raided electrical installations nationwide to steal equipment and cable. The United States Corps of Engineers, along with Iraqi engineers have been working since late April to repair damage and to rehabilitate the outdated pre-war network.
The power hit 4,518 megawatts in early October, which exceeds the pre-war average. The article went on to state that more than 13,000 reconstruction projects have been completed. There are more than 40,000 police on duty nationwide, including 7,000 in Baghdad, compared with virtually none at the war’s end.
A first battalion of a re-trained Iraqi army graduated from basic training and is on active duty. Twenty-two universities and 43 institutes and colleges are open, along with almost all primary and secondary schools. An increase in deliveries of pharmaceuticals grew from 800 tons in May to 12,000 tons. There was also a clearing of 8,000 miles of irrigation canals. And there was the establishment of 170 newspapers.
We also got word from a clergy member that women are going to beauty parlors. This is quite a difference from the pre-war days. There are many other good things going on in Iraq, but you will most likely not hear about it through the media, or you will have to read the back pages of a newspaper to find them.
But there are still people who will back Saddam Hussein.
As president Bush stated in a recent speech: "Who can possibly think that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power? Surely not the dissidents, who would be in his prisons or end up in mass graves. Surely not the men and women who would fill Saddam's torture chambers, or the women in his rape rooms. Surely not the victims he murdered with poison gas. Surely not anyone who cares about human rights and democracy and stability in the Middle East. There's only one decent and humane reaction to the fall of Saddam Hussein: Good riddance."
Was the United States and her allies wrong to oust Hussein from power? Do you think the world is in better or worse shape now, than before the recent war? Now just think if some president, country or group of countries had enough guts to rise up against Adolph Hitler in the 1930's, and to oust him from power before he gathered up his weapons of destruction and marched through Europe. Fifty-million people who died during the Second World War would have lived instead, if Hitler had been stopped.
By George Konig
Christian Internet Forum
www.georgekonig.org
October 19, 2003
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