Surprise, surprise! Yesterday's strike at a mess tent on an American base at Mosul, Iraq, was likely an inside job; some Iraqi servitor ― pardon me, loyal ally ― apparently carried explosives into the tent in a knapsack and blew himself, and twenty-odd other innocents, to bits. How can such things happen?
Is there no one left in the military (or, perhaps, in the press) who remembers the Vietnam War and how, in South Viet-nam, our loyal and loving ally whose freedom and democracy (under the all-powerful Ngo family) we were there to protect, it was considered unsafe to walk past an eight-year-old boy on a bicycle because he might be carrying a bomb aimed at those who were there to protect him?
If there is, to them the bombing at Mosul will come as no surprise. There are people in the country who love us little and our presence even less. These range from the Saddam hardliners and the Al-Qaeda agents, recently infiltrated, who, according to our propaganda machine, are the "dead-enders" who make up 100% of the insurgency, to that portion of the population (not a negligible fraction, I'm afraid, particularly among the Sunnis of the center) who are worse off now than they were when Saddam was in control. Probably there are even a few genuine patriots involved ― I would like to think that if America were occupied by Arab armies, there would be Americans who would not hesitate to infiltrate Arab mess tents and blow them to Hell and gone, even at the cost of their own lives. Can we expect less of Iraqis? They are, after all, no less human than Americans.
Molly Ivins, in a column today, suggests that the best we can hope for in Iraq is for the Iraqis to elect Ali Sistani's Shi'ite slate, whose stated intention is to ask us (politely, she hopes) to evacuate the country as soon as they take power. One is left to wonder, of course, what we will do if this happens. Democracy will have triumphed, but we won't have. Despite our oft-stated goal of bringing democracy to Iraq ... what will we do if democracy results in Iraq making the "wrong" decision?
Bonege! La milito estis kaj estas tre malbona ideo. Mi estas hontas esti Usonano.
Posted by: Suzanjo Alexander at January 11, 2005 10:55 AM