The problems in Iraq go way back.

I found a letter on the web that was published in the Sunday Times back in August 1920 that seems very similar to the situation we have now in Iraq.

He talks about how they went into there to liberate the people of Mesopotamia from Turkey and the oppression of the Turkish government.

He discusses the financial costs and the costs of the lives that were lost.
He goes on to say that Arabs are being killed for acts of rebellion and questions why, as they were not supposed to be at war with the Arabs.

There seem to be a lot of parallels to the current war.

A Report on Mesopotamia by T.E. Lawrence
The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour...

...We said we went to Mesopotamia to defeat Turkey. We said we stayed to deliver the Arabs from the oppression of the Turkish Government, and to make available for the world its resources of corn and oil. We spent nearly a million men and nearly a thousand million of money to these ends. This year we are spending ninety-two thousand men and fifty millions of money on the same objects.

Our government is worse than the old Turkish system. They kept fourteen thousand local conscripts embodied, and killed a yearly average of two hundred Arabs in maintaining peace. We keep ninety thousand men, with aeroplanes, armoured cars, gunboats, and armoured trains. We have killed about ten thousand Arabs in this rising this summer...

...We are told the object of the rising was political, we are not told what the local people want. It may be what the Cabinet has promised them....

...Meanwhile, our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad...

...The War Office has made every effort to reduce our forces, but the decisions of the Cabinet have been against them...

...The Government in Baghdad have been hanging Arabs in that town for political offences, which they call rebellion. The Arabs are not at war with us...


...We say we are in Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the world. all experts say that the labour supply is the ruling factor in its development. How far will the killing of ten thousand villagers and townspeople this summer hinder the production of wheat, cotton, and oil? How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?...

I know it's not exactly the same but I still found the letter to be interesting.

Are you aware that T E Lawrence is "Lawrence of Arabia"?

That's obviously written by someone who hates America and collaborates with terrorism. Yeeaaah...

Originally posted by LordofLard
Are you aware that T E Lawrence is "Lawrence of Arabia"?

The name seemed very familiar but it didn't click until you mentioned it.
I haven't read his work, the Seven Pillars of wisdon, yet but I just might do so now.

[edit on 23-8-2004 by AceOfBase]

History repeats itself.

Another fact is the UK was the first country to use chemical weapons from airplanes on the Arab and Kurdish people.

I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.

I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.

Winston Churchill, 12 May 1919 War Office

Irony is timeless.

Remember how in the 80s we helped all those freedom fighters in Afghanistan? Man I wish we had those freedom fighters now to help us in Iraq.