Iraqi Political Analyst Haidar Said: We Iraqis Do Not Possess the Courage to Criticize Our Violent Past

Following are excerpts from a program featuring Iraqi political analyst Haidar Said, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on August 17, 2012.

Haidar Said: We still do not possess the courage to criticize our past. As a nation, as a country, and as a people, we have been involved in violent acts, even towards some sectors of the Iraqi people itself – the 1940 Farhud pogrom against the Jews, and the stripping of the Iraqi Jews of their citizenship, as well as the invasion of Kuwait. Indeed, the invasion was carried out by the regime, and the Iraqi people as a whole did not support the invasion, but there were still those who were involved in the plundering of a [neighboring] country and its people. We are too sensitive about criticizing the past.

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