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It seems obvious that life in Iraq is better without Saddam Hussein's domination of Iraqi life. But to appreciate that attitude is to understand that the recent changes in Iraq have been liberating for most Iraqis, and to believe that freedom is a better state of affairs than even the most comfortable captivity. Does a cockatoo have a better life in a cage in an American living room or living in the wild, in the rain forest where it was hatched?

There is an old story of the 98 year-old man who worked for the circus. Every day he would get up at 5 am, dress, and then spend a sixteen hour day shoveling elephant dung. Day in, day out, usually seven days a week he would clean the cages of the elephants, clean their paths, clean up after them as they trudged from town to town; years and years of shoveling dung. One day his brother came to visit him and was appalled at the way the old man was wasting his life, shoveling dung.

"You should really find another line of work", the brother said.

"What, and give up show business?" came the reply.

Okay, it's an old joke, and not hysterically funny, but it points out that various people have varying ideas about how to be happy; about what is better or worse for them.

In order to examine the question more deeply we should compare the lives of some Iraqis under Saddam's reign with their present lives, and try to judge which situation seems better. So let's discuss the lives of the Kurds, who live in Northern Iraq,
some Iraqi athletes and the Iraqis who were forced at gunpoint to act as human shields in the 1990 war.

Strictly speaking the Kurds are no more Iraqis than the people of the Ottawa tribe are Americans. The Kurds have lived in the areas of present-day northern Iraq and southern Turkey for centuries, and have little in common with a resident of, say, Baghdad or Al Bas-rah. They are, however, considered Iraqi by the United Nations and by the western world, since their homes lie within the boundaries of modern-day Iraq.

The Kurdish tribes have lived in the areas now called southern Turkey, northern Iraq and the northwestern tip of Iran for over a thousand years. The modern boundaries of Iraq were drawn by the League of Nations in the 1920's, so it's not too surprising that few Kurds consider themselves captives in a state they did not choose.

It is widely known that in 1988, probably as a demonstration of power and a punishment for perceived insolence, Saddam Hussein attacked the Kurds with conventional and chemical weapons.

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