September 30, 2004
Take Me Down To The Orwell City
"We were terrified because the strikes were random," said Majeed Minshed, 23, a Sadr City resident, following one of a number of instances in which "U.S. Planes Pummel Iraqi Slum". "By the time it was over, we did not believe we were still alive."
But they don't know what they're talking about, as helpfully explained by "U.S. officials":
U.S. officials, however, insist that the civilian toll has been exaggerated. For example, a senior military official called reports of civilian deaths in Fallujah "propaganda" and suggested that local hospitals have been infiltrated by insurgent forces.
So you can see how endearing the U.S. occupation has become. You can see exactly why Dubya told Bill O'Reilly earlier this week that despite polling suggesting that only 5% of Iraqis see the Americans as "liberators", they (the Iraqis) are "beginning to appreciate the sacrifice" the Americans have made on their (the Iraqis') behalf.
Even though a quick Google News search for suspected insurgents returns some 4,300 items, we can be sure that it's the "insurgents", and not the "Multinational Force", that is solely to blame for civilian deaths; because when the "Multinational Force" brings out the big guns, it's to make a "'precision strike' on 'positively identified targets'", while, "The enemy shows no concern for the Iraqi people."
This being the case, it must also logically follow that not only have Iraqi hospitals been "infiltrated" by "insurgent forces", but so also must have the Iraqi Health Ministry -- whose recent compilation of casualty figures found that, "U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis, most of them civilians, as attacks by insurgents."
How many other agencies and ministries of the interim Iraqi government -- the Prime Minister of which, Bush told O'Reilly, "believes the future of Iraq is the future of freedom" -- have been infiltrated?
One couldn't help suspect that, given the almost daily attacks upon Iraqi oil pipelines, the Ministry of Oil has been infiltrated.
And don't look now, but it appears that in addition to the hospitals, the Ministry of Oil, and the Health Ministry, the Presidency has also been infiltrated:
Drawing a parallel between U.S. tactics in Iraq and Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, President Ghazi Ajil Yawer said the U.S. strikes were viewed by the Iraqi people as "collective punishment" against towns and neighborhoods.
Footage of injured and dead women and children being pulled from bombed buildings "brings to mind Gaza", Yawer said in an interview on CNN.
So why don't we bomb Yawer's office? Why don't we bomb the Health Ministry? Why don't we bomb the hospitals?
Or, here's an idea. Instead of killing a dozen civilians for every "insurgent" we've "positively identified", and instead of "pummeling slums" with explosive munitions; why don't we simply arrest the "positively identified" "insurgents"? (Setting aside, that is, from the fact that "insurgents" have every right to engage in armed resistance to military occupation)?
Just a thought.
Or here's another thought. If the "Multinational Force" is so impotent that, by its own "admission", it has allowed the hospitals -- and by logical extension the interim President's office, and the Health and Oil Ministries -- to have been "infiltrated" by "insurgents", why the fuck doesn't it get out and let somebody that can do its job take its place?
Posted by Eddie Tews at September 30, 2004 04:01 PM
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