Resurrecting Eden
November 15, 2009 4:53 PM
In Iraq, where many biblical scholars place the Garden of Eden, Scott Pelley finds a water world where the Marsh Arabs are making a comeback after Saddam nearly destroyed the cradle of civilization.
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Good Job Bush and the men and woman of the u.s. military. Iraq will be in the near future a better country in the world. Its finally coming around.
In a world of gloomy financial news and inane celebrity stories, this was like a breath of fresh air.
More, please.
how appropriate that this man should hail from a country who not only nurtured the rise of a great culture, of numerous successive civilisations as empires, but that may even rightly claim as its own
the very "cradle of human civilisation". let us all not forget, then, that Irak, beyond being the theatre of two modern wars (one very much still ongoing) in which the U.S. is intricated - & which might yet be the theatre of a civil war with potential to engulf the whole of the region..., was & is also that: the fountainhead from which, not just middle-eastern, but western civilisation ultimately sprung.
on a related subject: isn't the costly process (in lives & treasury to the American people) that aims to leave behind the legacy of a stable society alone able to preserve that common rich human heritage, worth it to be left to run its full course (since most of that cost has already been expensed - the families of the fallen soldiers of this [otherwise] absurd war can attest to that) & not now [in its last phase] be derailed and condemned to failure by a politically-motivated early withdrawal of troops, certain to starve it of the few ressources & of the time required to achieve that very stability? it seems to me that, beyond words or medals, THAT would be paying a proper tribute in "sense & significance" for the incalculable sacrifices of the dead-in-arms, the wounded and maimed men & women of the military, & the untolled numbers of civilian dead, wounded or otherwise gravely impacted... there is still an opportunity here to turn a bad thing (a maybe unnecessary invasion)
into a very good one (a more or less democratic but free Iraq); so long [that is] as everyone keeps being mindful of the aforementioned costs... which [that i can tell you for sure] are NOT going to be forgotten (not anytime soon nor ever) or erased (a $3 trillion war, anyone?) by every victim in whichever way of this controversial conflict...
p.s.: i can't remember who it was who said that the only things that would
survive even the end of mankind (or, a nuclear holocaust, was it?)
would be "the memory of those who died in wars" and... well, "debts"
Our Institute for Integral Innovation in Germany works togehter with the PUCP University Lima
for the other contemporary Reed World: Totora Floating Islands on Titicaca Lake.
They are more than one Garden Eden...still.
We would appreciate the exchange with the Mudh'if Project in Iraq.
See: www.integralinnovation.org
What your story didn't mention is that this all happened because of General Swartzkoph's blunder in negotiating the surrender of the Iraqi army at the end of the first gulf war. When the Iraqi generals asked if they could retain use of their attack helicopters, Swartzkoph agreed -- and that meant death for all the Shiites who responded to President Bush's appeal to take up arms against Saddam. Without those helicopters, the rebels would have had a fighting chance to overthrow Saddam -- and in that case, their civil war would probably be over now, and we wouldn't have had to stage a second, infinitely more bloody invasion. Allowing those helicopters to fly was the crucial error of the first war. Swartzkoph is a good man, but he made a terrible mistake for which all Americans are paying the price -- too many of them in blood.
Thanks for doing such a good -- and long overdue -- report.
- by BruceFurman November 15, 2009 8:40 PM EST
- What a joy it was to view a positive news story; Resurrecting Eden from Iraq. Having lost a son in law at the beginning of the war, seeing the joy of those people gave my wife and I a feeling that there is some good to come out of this mess.
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See all 19 CommentsBruce Furman
Fort Scott Kansas