24 Steps to Liberty

I am reading an Iraqi site that is new to me, called 24 Steps to Liberty (thanks to Farouz). The first post for the new year was long and depressing, at least until I read the last paragraph. Life under Saddam was contrasted with life today. 24STL finds that it is much worse in every way, with one small proviso:

And this “free to choose,” is enough for me to keep breathing. This “free to choose,” is expensive and we paid for it and still are paying, and what comes hard and expensive is not something I would not appreciate. I would say that this “free to choose,” is the only thing to go under “now is better” I could think while writing this entry, and it is enough to make me happy that I am still alive experiencing the slow change.

I'm very curious what the 24 steps are.

To me the current trauma of Iraq is not indicative of an error on our part, but proof that we should have done something far earlier. The ME is gripped by deep currents of evil, evil which needed and needs to be uprooted. We're talking about despotism, tyranny of the worst kind, extremism, intolerable sexual inequality, slavery, religious persecution exercised in every aspect of life, repression of every civil liberty, monstrous ignorance and self-deception, xenophobia and the worshipful admiration of the worst cruelties, murder and unprovoked violence. A body can be shot in a moment for mere words spoken, for being in the wrong place, for small religious differences, for wearing the wrong clothes. Violence in Iraq is comparable to the fever of fighting a disease. The worse it gets, the more we should fear the disease, and the harder we should fight it.

1/8/2006 3:21 PM