London, December 26, 2003
David Irving
comments: Fisk --
one of the greats MEET Robert Fisk
-- consistently one of the world's
greatest and bravest writers. Unlikely to
win the Noble Prize for Literature or any
other "meaningful" award; but able, I make
so bold as to say, to sleep with his
conscience untroubled each night.
A few months ago
he spoke at a university in the United
States. No US newspaper (to my knowledge)
carries his despatches, and yet over a
thousand students turned up to meet and
hear the British journalist in person.
What does that tell us about
the growing might of the Internet? And
about why the traditional enemy is taking
frantic steps to control it? |
[source] Iraq through the
American looking glass Insurgents
are civilians. Tanks that crush civilians are
traffic accidents. And civilians should endure
heavy doses of fear and violence By Robert Fisk
in Baghdad SOMETHING very unpleasant is
being let loose in Iraq. Just this week, a company
commander in the US 1st Infantry Division in the
north of the country admitted that, in order to
elicit information about the guerrillas who are
killing American troops, it was necessary to
"instill fear" in the local villagers. An Iraqi
interpreter working for the Americans had just
taken an old lady from her home to frighten her
daughters and grand-daughters into believing that
she was being arrested. A battalion commander in the same area put the
point even more baldly. "With a heavy dose of fear
and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I
think we can convince these people that we are here
to help them," he said. He was speaking from a
village that his men had surrounded with barbed
wire, upon which was a sign, stating: "This fence
is here for your protection. Do not approach or try
to cross, or you will be shot." Try to explain that this treatment -- and these
words -- offend the very basic humanity of the
people whom the Americans claimed they came to
"liberate" and you are met in Baghdad with the same
explanation: that a very small "remnant" of
"diehards" -- loyal to the now-captured Saddam
Hussein, etc, etc -- have to be separated from
the civilians whom they are "intimidating". To point out that the intimidation is largely
coming from the American occupation force -- to the
horror of the British in southern Iraq who fear,
understandably, that Iraqi revenge will be visited
upon them as it was on the Italians and the Spanish
-- is useless. Instead, we are told that American troops are
winning those famous hearts and minds with the
spirit of Christmas. There was a grim example of
this -- and the inherent racism that pervades even
reporting of such events -- on the Associated Press
wire agency just this week. Describing how an American soldier in a Santa
Claus hat was giving out stuffed animals to
children, reporter Jason Keyser wrote that
one 11-year- old child "looked puzzled, then
smiled" as the soldier gave him a small, stuffed
goat. Then the report continued: "Others in the
crowd of mostly Muslims grabbed greedily at the
box," adding the soldier's remark that: "They don't
know how to handle generosity." I don't doubt the soldier's wish to do good. But
what is one to make of the "mostly Muslims" who
"grabbed greedily" at the gifts? Or the soldier's
insensitive remarks about generosity? Iraqi
newspapers have been front-paging a Christmas card
produced by US troops in Baghdad: "1st Battalion,
22nd Infantry Wishes you a very Merry Christmas!"
it says. But the illustration is of Saddam Hussein in his
scruffy beard just after his capture, with a Santa
hat superimposed on top of his head. Funny enough
for us, no doubt -- I can't personally think of a
better fall-guy for St Nicholas -- but a clear
insult to Sunni Arabs who, however much they may
loathe the beast of Baghdad, will see in this card
a deliberate attempt to humiliate Muslim Iraqis. It
is for Iraqis to demean their ex-president -- not
their American occupiers. It's almost as if the occupying powers want to
look through Alice's looking glass. This week, we
had the odd statement by British General Graeme
Lamb that Saddam could be compared to the
Emperor Caligula. Now the good general was probably
relying on Suetonius's Twelve Caesars for
his views on Caligula. But if anything, the Roman
was a good deal more insane than Saddam and even
more heedless of human life. The crazy Uday Hussein, son of Saddam,
might have been a more appropriate parallel. But
what was all this supposed to achieve? A serious
war crimes trial -- preferably outside Iraq and far
from the country's contaminated judiciary -- is the
way to define the nature of Saddam's repulsive
regime. All references to the ex-dictator as Hitler,
Stalin, Attila the Hun or Caligula -- like all
suggestions that Tony Blair or George
Bush are Winston Churchill -- are
infantile. And again, they will appear insulting to
the Sunni Muslims of Iraq, the one community which
the Americans should be desperate to placate, since
it is the Sunnis who are primarily resisting the
occupation. But the looking-glass
effect seems to have taken hold of US pro-consul
Paul Bremer's entire authority. Like
President George Bush, Bremer has now taken to
repeating the absurdity that the greater the
West's success in Iraq, the more frequent will
be the attacks on American troops. "I personally feel that we'll actually have more
violence in the next six months," he said a couple
of week ago, "and the violence will be precisely
because of the fact that we're building momentum
toward success." In other words, the better things
become, the worse they're going to get. And the
greater the violence, the better we're doing in
Iraq. I wouldn't worry about this nonsense so much if
it wasn't mirrored on the ground in Iraq. Take the
US claim -- now regarded as an absurdity -- that
they killed "54 insurgents" in Samara a month ago.
The truth is that they killed at least eight
civilians and there's not a smidgen of evidence
that they killed anyone else. But still they insist
on sticking to the story of their great
victory. Last week, they pushed out a similar version of
the same story. This time there were 11 dead
"insurgents" in Samara. But when The
Independent investigated, it could only find
records of four dead civilians and a lot of
wounded. None of the wounded -- presumably
"insurgents" if the Americans believe their own
story -- had been visited in hospital by US forces
who might, if they didn't question them, at least
have apologised. An even more peculiar habit has now manifest
itself among spokesmen for the occupation
authorities. When a tank drove over a prominent
Shiite Muslim cleric in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr
City three weeks ago, they claimed this was a
"traffic accident", as if driving an M1A1 Abrams
tank over a car and a robed prelate is the kind of
thing that can happen on any downtown street. A few days later, after a truck-bomber crashed
into a car and killed 17 civilians, the occupation
lads churned out the same rubbish again. It was,
they said, a "traffic accident" involving a petrol
tanker. But there was no tanker attached to the
lorry. The first American troops on the scene found the
grenades intended to detonate the bomb and the
victims were all blasted to bits -- not burned, as
they would have been if the petrol tanker had
simply caught fire. Those of us who reached the
scene shortly after the slaughter could still smell
the explosives. But it was a "traffic
accident". Only yesterday we had an equally bizarre event.
Jets, C-130 aircraft mounted with chain guns, and
heavy artillery were all reported to be striking
"guerrilla bases" in Operation Iron Hammer south of
Baghdad. But investigation proved that the targets
were empty fields and that some of the heavy guns
were firing blank rounds as part of an artillery
maintenance routine. So let's get this right. Insurgents are
civilians. Truck bombs and tanks that crush
civilians are traffic accidents. And the
"liberated" civilians who live in villages
surrounded by razor wire should endure "a heavy
dose of fear and violence" to keep them on the
straight and narrow. Somewhere along the way, they will probably be
told about democracy as well. © The
Independent 
... on this
website
Are we now to
support atrocities against the 'scum of the
earth' in our moral campaign against Evil?
-
We Are Paying
The Price For An Infantile Attempt To Reshape
The Middle East
-
"They're
getting better," Chuck said approvingly. "That
one hit the runway"
-
The hunt
for weapons of mass destruction yields --
nothing
-
Official Is
Prepared To Address Issue Of Iraqi
Deception
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