Some Thoughts From Iraq

While spending the last several months in Iraq, I have spent a lot of time thinking about a lot of issues. While spending time around Muslims and making a point to hear what is being preached from the Mosques, I have really gained a much more, well, realistic understanding of the religion. This is one such thougth that I had one afternoon.

While I am a government employee, right now I am going to step into my civilian shoes for this rant.

I see that there will never be a real change in Iraq which the United States seeks. The people of Iraq will never improve their way of life and I believe it will not be a result of the terrorists but rather the peoples own failure to improve their lives. The reason for this is the presupposition of freewill. Freedom is the result of belief in freewill. In western culture, freewill is a presupposition that has become secularized but stems from the Judeo-Christian principle that man was given the ability to make free choices in his life. Apart from the Theological debate between Open Theism and Predestination, freewill and freedom is a foreign concept to Muslims.
In 1776 when the Continental Congress drafted the Declaration of Independence, the “self-evident” truths held so dear included unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of freedom. The reason these seemed so obvious to the writers of the Declaration of Independence was because they believed that man was capable to influence his path in life with decisions he makes.
The contrast in Iraq and Muslim culture in general is that the concept of freewill is nonexistent. Allah is seen as sovereign to such an extreme that man is incapable of doing anything to effect his future or events surrounding his life. Through talking with Iraqi nationals while being deployed I consistently heard the phrase “insha Allah” which means “if the god wills it.” The context for Muslims is that God has directly caused an event rather good or bad and they can not change anything.
The result of this thought process is, “Allah has chosen this as my lot in life, Allah is sovereign therefore I can do nothing to change it.” Many of the people in Iraq live in squalor and absolute destitution. They believe that this is their lot in life, it can not be changed and therefore they do not attempt to change it because they presuppose they can not change it. They do not even attempt to change their situation. Freedom is foreign to Muslims because they do not even practice freewill. So given the chance of freedom, I believe that they would not know what to do with it.