According to some of the United States news outlets, such as Fox News, they claims that the Muslim world hates America because of its love for democracy and freedom, and also because America is prepared to liberate any people that needs freedom. Bill O’Reilly of Fox News claims too often that the Arab world is envious and jealous of the American way of life that is based on the freedom that they do not want for their people. They have also justified the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a liberation attempt to free the Iraqi people from Saddam and introduce the American form of democracy for other nations.
The essential questions are: What is freedom? Who are liberators? And who had the power to define the previous two questions? According to the Webster dictionary, it defines freedom as independence, release, frankness, privilege, ease, unrestricted, and exemption. The same dictionary defines a liberator as one who frees from bondage, and to raise others to equal rights and status. These words sound like words that should be embraced and appreciated by anyone in need of liberation. As far as I am concerned, the liberated or the oppressed should have the power to define who his/her liberator is and what his/her freedom should be.
In term of liberators, the best way to know them is to see how the oppressed who needs liberation reacted to the presence of the supposed liberator. A liberators as earlier defined ultimately brings ease, equality, and frankness to the oppressed and usually there is always an appreciation from the oppressed to their liberators. Since the beginning of American liberation of Iraq, the American military has killed more oppressed Iraqis in three years than Saddam could ever do. The oppressed Iraqis have killed more American soldiers now than before Saddam was captured. In fact, they have killed over 2,500 American liberator soldiers. I though they wanted to free the Iraqis from Saddam. Now, the American Generals of the liberators are admitting for the first time that Iraq is at the beginning of a civil war. Do you call this ease and equality? Did the Iraqi nation not have more ease than this under Saddam? You liberate people to make life better for them and not to create anarchy. Oppressed people do not kill their liberators; they enhance their liberators and even die with them.
Look at the case of small Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah is a small group that came together to chase Israel out of Southern Lebanon in 2000. Israel did claim that it withdrew, but the truth was that they had no choice. The Lebanese people did not only die along side with Hezbollah, they also elected them in their recent elections to make up 23 out of their 28 seats in government. The Lebanese people transformed them from street fighters to their political leaders. This is an ultimate sign of respect and gratitude given to liberators by the liberated. Even when Israel throws directed and targeted bombs at Hezbollah hideouts, the Lebanese civilians are killed as well because they refuse to take Israeli warnings to leave their cities and betray their liberators.
If American leaders can truly understand what the word freedom and liberators mean and live by them while making their foreign and international policies, maybe we will not have many people hating us. Maybe we will not have to lie to the American public about weapons of mass destruction that did not exist in an attempt to go liberate an Iraq that never asked for our presence on their land. Maybe if we learn to be frank and advocate for fairness, we would not publicly say that we want Israel to destroy Hezbollah first before we allow a cease-fire. What is the purpose of a cease-fire when one side is destroyed? Who should we liberate? Should we liberate Israel that has an army and nuclear weapons, or Hezbollah that has not even a uniform but is fighting for its land.
