Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 3 - 2004 (mainly Iraq)
Anti-American voices get louder across Iraq by Fiona O'Brien  ;:406d49aa:4fe917a7b7e16586?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4735435
02 Apr 2004 10:29 Anti-American voices get louder across Iraq By Fiona O'Brien BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The people who burned and kicked the corpses of four American contractors in the Iraqi town of Falluja this week were not armed insurgents or foreign fighters. Children joined in as jubilant crowds played with the charred bodies, dragging them like trophies through the streets of a town overwhelmed by hatred for the occupying forces. Those who participated in the brutality may represent just a tiny minority of Iraqis, but across the country anti-American voices are getting louder and more insistent. "There's an increasing feeling of anti-Americanism definitely," said Paola Gasparoli of Occupation Watch, an independent organisation that monitors the occupation. "It's like all their hopes were destroyed. Families who had some hope the Americans would help Iraq now have sons who were killed or arrested, houses destroyed. This hope has died." The U.S. authorities in Iraq cite polls showing that a vast majority of Iraqis are happy to have them in the country. But one survey of 2,500 Iraqis released in March found that while they were happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein, 41 percent said they were humiliated by the invasion, four in 10 had no confidence in occupation troops, and one in five believed attacks on foreign soldiers in Iraq were justified. A number of factors fuel the growing resentment. A year since the invasion, there has been no let-up in violence, infrastructure is still poor, jobs scarce. There is often friction between civilians and occupying troops. Raids across the country leave houses damaged and property broken. Iraqis complain that troops coming under attack are quick to fire in self defence, but fire randomly and without regard for civilians nearby. In Tikrit last month, U.S. soldiers killed a three-year-old boy when they fired on a car carrying four children and three women. The troops said the car jumped a checkpoint, the Iraqis said they never saw one. Rights groups say that in the so-called battle for hearts and minds, the occupying forces are often their own worst enemy. One tank rumbles through Baghdad with "Bloodlust" painted on its barrel. Another says "Kill them all". DUTY TO FIGHT Frustration at the breakdown of order since Saddam's fall on April 9, 2003, has been compounded by a perceived disregard for Iraqi lives. "They come and destroy our houses, it's the duty of all Muslims to fight them," Ahmad Muhammad, a Falluja resident who watched the carnage on Wednesday said. "We're happy to see this...This is the democracy that Bush was waiting for." Falluja and the region west of Baghdad have long been a hotspot for resistance, but the problem is wider. When two foreigners were shot dead in the northern city of Mosul on Sunday, Iraqis cheered as their bodies lay in the street. Anyone linked to the U.S.-authorities is a target. Iraqi policemen, foreigners, local politicians have been killed in Baquba, Kirkuk, Basra, Baghdad. Rumours stoke the hatred and Americans are blamed for everything. When Iraqi insurgents fire rockets and mortars, locals shout "Death to America" and "Bush is the enemy of Islam", and often claim sightings of U.S. aircraft. "It was a plane, the Americans dropped a bomb from a plane," a small girl wounded in a rocket attack on a residential neighbourhood in Baghdad recently wailed from her hospital bed. The U.S. army has increasingly linked the insurgency to foreign terror networks, but Wednesday's killings showed their No. 1 enemy within Iraq is hatred of the occupiers. "On the issue of hearts and minds, trust and confidence, that's something we need to work on every day with the people of Iraq," the deputy director of operations for the U.S. army in Iraq, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, told Reuters. "It's an active battle. It's as important for us to win the moral battle, the trust and confidence as it is to provide a safe and secure environment for the people of Iraq." |