curmugeon | The story of Iraq.

A history lesson. Irag was secular country. Saddam didn't put up with religious bullshit. All religions were free to worship but not to play politics. He protected Christians and Jews too.

Then we had a problem with Iran. We did not want to directly engage them in war so we got Saddam to do it. We sold/gave him weapons of mass destruction which he used to kill tens of thousands of Iranians. All was good.

Saddam had a problem with a province called Kuwait that broke away from Iraq at the whim of some oil companies. He decided to take that province back. He invaded. Because we had American interests in Kuwait we went to war. Gulf war one. Saddam lost.

Sanctions were placed on Iraq. They couldn't sell their oil. But Saddam found ways to sell his oil. A friend used to broker these clandestine deals. And to add some irony, he shipped the oil on Kuwaiti tankers. They "laundered" the oil through on of the Emirates. My friend would buy this oil from Iraq at very low prices. Then he would sell it on the spot market.

Saddam ruled with an iron grip. He did not tolerate dissent. But he had a thriving economy, a string middle class. An Iraqi friend who lived in Baghdad lived well. His family owned a produce distributorship. They would have farmers grow crops then harvest and market them in the city. Then 9/11 happened.

The war of words and lies started. Dubya never liked Saddam. Saddam had said he wanted Dubyas dad dead. Dubya sought revenge. He would manufacture lies to get Saddam. That was even though Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, we went to war with Iraq.

We destroyed the country. We destroyed the infrastructure. We took a Sunni Arab country and gave it to the Shiites. We knew the Shiites were aligned with Iran but being short sighted we did it anyway. My friend and his family became refugees and fled to Europe.

Well it was a failure, big time. The Sunni population fought back. Al Qiada thrived. We created our own nightmare. This was the point that marked the beginning of ISIS.

Iraq is still there. The oil we coveted is being sold to China. ISIS has thousands of supporters in the country. However ISIS doesn't like the Iraqi government. So they are working to overthrow it. ISIS wants revenge. Revenge for Fallujah. Revenge for the killings of millions of Muslims. They were born of blood and they to this day spill a lot of blood. They see Islam very differently. Much like fundies in Christianity. The Muslims of ISIS see everyone else as infidels and kills, enslaves, or worse.

Such is the history of Iraq in brief.