Freedom is the absence of restraints upon our ability to think and act (except those restraints that are of natural cause).
I’ve given up a lot of my personal freedom to serve my nation in Iraq. I’ve been engaged in that activity for almost a year now, and I think it is time to ask myself whether giving up a large measure of my own freedom has enhanced anyone else’s.
I am wondering – are Americans freer than when I started? Are Iraqis freer?
The answer, I think, at least in the short term, is a resounding no.
The State of Iraqi Freedom
Iraqis do have some new freedoms. But those were in place before I arrived here. They are free to use cell phones. They are free to watch satellite television. They are free (in theory) to wear whatever they want, go wherever they want and pursue many new choices in life. In reality, here and now, cosmopolitan Iraqis are trapped in a dangerous world where death lashes out randomly at any moment for any reason you could imagine.
In Baghdad and other cities, Iraqis find themselves strictly controlled in day to day movement. They have to worry about being kidnapped or murdered for a wide variety of reasons. There is a resurgence of intolerant religious fundamentalism that is responsible for getting people killed. Shias and Sunnis are attacking one another. The power is unreliable. Unemployment is high. Crime is rampant. Iraqis who would like to travel aboard will find they are persona non-grata in many places, including the U.S.
On the other hand, there is massive investment in infrastructure that wasn’t taking place under Saddam. Schools are being built and rebuilt. Water is being piped into places that used to have to haul it in by truck. The province of Muthanna is fully under Iraqi government control. Rule of law is being taught and reinforced as a concept that Iraq’s civil servants must abide by and adhere to.
Women are serving in Iraq’s government at high levels. If Iraqis can beat the insurgency and defeat the criminal warlords who live among them, they can flourish and prosper. The environment necessary for freedom to grow and become strong is not yet achieved, but the potential exists down the road. Perhaps in five to ten years.
Iraq’s freedom quotient depends on establishing an environment where people have access to basic services we all take for granted in the U.S. These service includes water, power, educational choices and basic social freedoms, like being able to choose what to wear or how to style your hair without fear of being killed for the choice you make.
The State of American Freedom
America is much freer than Iraq. There is no doubt.
But I question whether we are moving backwards or forwards. It costs more to accidentally or purposely bare your breast on TV than it did a year ago. In a truly free society, you would just change the channel if something offended you. You wouldn’t rely on a nanny state to filter content on your behalf.
Americans have come to rely far too heavily on government to provide solutions to all their aches and pains. Look at Katrina for a prime example of where we have gone wrong. We’ve built a society that values instant gratification and puerile pursuits above all. Personal responsibility is dead and groupthink is in vogue. When a group of a million people living below sea level is struck by a natural disaster, we blame the federal government for not doing enough to stop the tragedy and re-elect the idiot mayor who had the primary responsibility for designing and acting on an evacuation plan for that city. FEMA hands out debit cards and they are used for strippers and alcohol.
Our best students are the ones who come here from overseas. Those of us who are born here tend to wear badges of entitlement and are often undeservedly arrogant and proudly ignorant all at once.
We talk about freedom while lining up in our airports to be herded like cattle through largely ineffective lines of unarmed bureaucrats who are doing a poor job of looking through our belongings for many items which represent no threat to the public at large. In the battle to trade the appearance of security for once cherished liberties, the illusionists are winning.
American freedom in 2006 is the freedom to wear a thong that hangs out of your lo-rider jeans as long as you don’t wear any shoes with metal in them (they would set off the metal detector). American freedom in 2006 is the lady with plastic breasts who doesn’t know the name of the capital city of Iraq and couldn’t tell you who her Congressman is if it meant facing a firing squad for giving the wrong answer. American Freedom in 2006 is new legislation from a former prisoner of war to regulate what you can blog about (to protect his own political career.)
We pay lip service to freedom while enacting new legislation that chips away at the choices you get to make in your own life about your own life and puts those choices into the hands of people who have never seen you and don’t even know your name. And I’m scared for the future.
I hope things turn out well for the people of Iraq and for my adopted people of America. And I’ll keep serving my nation in whatever ways I think will have the most impact. Whether or not that includes continued military service remains to be seen. I recently read an article where Donald Rumsfeld said the solution to Iraq’s problems isn’t a military one. That statement could be applied to most of the world’s troubled spots. The military cannot change what is in a man’s heart although they can stop a man’s heart from beating. I’d rather change the man’s heart than stop it.