By a show of hands, who can tell me when Iraq won its fight against British colonialists who at the time, wanted to “liberate” Iraq? Anybody? History Prof. Mark Bradley, you can put you hand down.

It’s fair to say that the everyday American’s knowledge of Iraq doesn’t extend far past Iraq’s relationship with the United States. And even the history of Iraqi-U.S. relations has been skewed by the misguided debates we have with one another about a war we know very little about.

Because when it comes to matters of war and patriotism, being an American is less about what you know, and more about where you stand and how loudly you can profess your position.

But rarely do we delve into the history of these conflicts to find our answers. We sit around our dinner tables and classrooms, hotly debating the merits of killing to save lives, while using vague information, talking within the narrow confines of conservatism and liberalism and valuing our resoluteness over our open-mindedness.

But I’m convinced that once Americans are given accurate historical information, where we stand on issues won’t be a matter of conviction or patriotism but a product of true understanding.

And after looking closely at the history of Iraq, it will be almost unbearable to stand among the men and women who support this war.

In 1917, British troops armed with bombs, mustard gas and colonial ambitions invaded Iraq in an effort to “liberate” it from Turkish rule. But Britain’s occupation was met by strident Iraqi resistance. More than 40,000 British died in this campaign, according to research by Robert Fisk of the Global Policy Forum.

In 1958 a revolution led by Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim and the Free Officers movement sent the British colonials running home.

But in the early ’60s, the United States helped Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party seize power from this new order in Iraq through a military coup.

During this same time, an Islamic Revolution in the Middle East was gaining steam. Led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamic Revolution placed fear in the hearts of American officials who didn’t want to see the Middle East turn into a theocratic powerhouse.

By the ’70s, the revolution had swept over Iraq’s neighbor, Iran. Later, the Iranians held Americans hostage for 444 days.

When Ronald Reagan came to office in 1980, he initiated an alliance with Saddam Hussein to use Iraq — which shares a 1,000 miles border with Iran — to fight Iran with American-made chemical and biological weapons. More than 1 million people were killed in the region during the eight-year war of attrition.

Iraq then had the military might to reclaim its old province Kuwait, which had been taken away by the British. But the first president Bush decided to abandon our former ally and launched the 1991 Persian Gulf War and, at war’s end, imposed a series of brutal sanctions.

The Sept. 11 attacks became the platform the current Bush used to declare war on Iraq, arguing that Hussein’s weapons technology and capabilities were a feeding frenzy for terrorists.

Bush repeated rhetoric similar to that which Britain used decades before by saying he invaded Iraq to free its people from tyranny.

But the recently-released Duelfer Report concluded that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction and that its capability to manufacture them was less last year than in 1991.

The sanctions were effective.

Now, can you please raise your hands and tell me where you stand?