I just got back from lunch—I went home to play with the puppy for awhile —and got to watch a bit of the news. I was really struck by the shear number of Iraqi people celebrating in the streets.
I've mentioned this a couple of times in the past to friends and family. When you've watched the news coverage on Iraq over the past 30 days or so, you'll notice that anytime they show a group of Saddam supporters, it consisted of 20-70 people—most of which are fully armed and in some kind of military guard (not necessarily official military garb, but military non the less.) Even the recent footage of Saddam walking around the streets of Baghdad, there were were still less than 70 people surrounding him. Granted, the camera man would try to be creative by standing in the middle of the crowd making it look bigger, but really it was quite a small crowd of supporters.
Now all the sudden the streets are laden with thousands (and tens of thousands) of Iraqi citizens all cheering and celebrating Saddam's regime being brought down in Baghdad. This tells me that without a doubt, the citizens of Iraqi are glad we're there and are happy for this liberation operation.
Hopefully the people of a democratic Iraq will soon know the same kind of joys and freedoms I experience every day as an American. It's days like today that make me immensely proud to be an American.
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