7-19-05,9:18am
It is impossible to read the daily press reports coming out of Iraq without feeling that the Bush/Cheney war for oil is going nowhere. Here is an update on what is going on in one city, courtesy of the New York Times of 7-15-05 (“8 Months After U.S.-Led Siege, Insurgents Rise Again in Falluja” by Edward Wong.”)
Wong begins his article by saying since the US has turned Falluja in a “police state” it should be the “safest city” in Iraq. After all we killed over a thousand people, mostly civilians, to bring “freedom” to the Fallujans, so what does it mean to say the insurgency is back? How could this be? Don’t the Iraqi’s appreciate Bush’s bombing and machine gunning them into “democracy”?
It would appear not. One of the rules of guerrilla warfare is that it cannot succeed without the support of the people. The guerrillas mix with the civilian population like fish in the sea. This seems to be what is happening in Falluja, as Wong reports, the insurgency is back in operation – car bombs are going off again, American and Iraqi troops are being killed and innocent civilians are being killed by both sides.
What is most telling is the attitude of the people that originally were supportive of the US – that is, people who did not support the insurgency. Wong quotes as widespread the following attitude expressed by a typical Fallujan, “after the unfairness and injustice with which the city’s residents have been treated by the American and Iraqi [puppet] forces, they now prefer the resistance, just so they won’t be humiliated.” In other words, Falluja is more like Paris under the German occupation than under the allied liberation. Once you lose the people the game is up.
As Wong points out, anti-Americanism was “fanned” throughout the Middle East by the attack on the civilian population of this city. It is not a stretch to say the US attack on this city was state terrorism against the civilian population – the figures speak for themselves. When Bush ordered the invasion the city had 300,000 residents – last January the population was 30,000. Ninety per cent of the people had been driven out of their homes! If unleashing a modern army against civilians doesn’t constitute a war crime then the word is meaningless. Today, as people have slowly begun to return, the population is up to 140,000 – still less than half of the original number of inhabitants.
The US is maintaining “order” by a “perpetual” lockdown of the city, according to Wong. The US imposes a 10 PM curfew and has check points scattered about the city to keep tabs on the population. The usual unnamed American official source admitted that “We’re starting to see friction [starting ?], and we’re starting to see the insurgents try to rebound.” So far the insurgents have set off four car bombs, killed six US troops, and fire bombed forty per cent of the new “police forts”. This is supposed to be a “secure” zone. It only shows that you can’t play Blitzkrieg in the Middle East.
We destroyed half of the city, as they say, in order to save it. Once known as the “City of Mosques”, the US endeared itself to the Muslim inhabitants by blowing up minarets, which now punctuate the “landscape” according to the Times. Wong says “much of the city remains in ruins.”
The US is not unmindful of the problems. It knows it has to try and get the Fallujans on its side – but the contradiction is, as in Vietnam, that the material interests of the US – we do want to control that oil – and those of the majority of the Iraqi people are in basic conflict. This means we cannot succeed in attaining our goals (passive acceptance of long term domination) in that country.
The newly “elected” government is not being too helpful either. It was estimated that at least 500 million dollars was required to get rebuilding really underway in the city. Under the old interim government of Ayad Allawi about 20% of that money was sent into Falluja – but the new Shiite government has not provided any more money. This is a provocation to people who are living in rubble.
Wong’s article tries not to be all gloom and doom, but even his “positive” evaluations can be seen as really going against US plans. He quotes Sunni leaders who say, more or less, what the Americans want to hear – about wanting to take part in future elections, etc., but this can be dismissed as the typical type of cant a people under occupation gives to the occupier to relieve some of the pressure put upon it.
Wong says a sign of “political engagement” is a recent manifesto drawn up to give to the US forces. Its main demand, however, is absolutely incompatible with the Bush/Cheney plans to make Iraq a perpetual US satellite. That demand is, of course, “setting a timetable for the withdrawal of American-led forces.” The reason Bush won’t give a timetable is that the major problem of post war Iraq has not be resolved – how will we control the oil without a permanent military presence in the region. We are building long term bases in Iraq and it looks like we intend to have some presence, as in South Korea, for the long term.
Meanwhile, in “lockdowned” Falluja a US military spokesman stated “marines and Iraqi forces found or were attacked with homemade bombs almost every day.” Some lock- down!
What is true of Falluja is also true for the country itself. Falluja is a microcosm of Iraq. How long will our supine Congress and lied to citizens (“Bush lied, soldiers died” – and not only soldiers) put up with this tragic farce in the Middle East. It is time to demand the troops be brought home now – they are not the private army of Halliburton.
--Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at pabooks@policialaffairs.net.
