Last night I read one of the most disturbing articles on Iraq that I have come across so far. It was Jonathan Schell's latest column in The Nation. You must be a subscriber to read it online but I'm going to post just the first 2 paragraphs of it because it is soooo important you read this.
This is what we are up against. There is no winning this war in Iraq. The longer we stay, the more the resistance will grow. There are very few Iraqis who view the United States in a favorable light. These poor people just want their land and homes back, safe from attack.
Sometimes the truth of a large, confusing historical enterprise can be glimpsed in a single news report. Such is the case in regard to the Iraq War, it seems to me, with the recent story in the Washington Post by Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru called "Building Iraq's Army: Mission Improbable." Shadid and Fainaru did something that is rarely done: spend several days with a unit of Iraq's new, American-trained forces. (The typical treatment of the topic consists of a few interviews with American officers in the Green Zone in Baghdad, leading to some estimation of how long it will take to complete the job.) The Post story starts with the lyrics of a song the soldiers of the unit, called Charlie Company, were singing out of earshot of their American overseers. It was a ballad to Saddam Hussein, and it ran:
We have lived in humiliation since you left
We had hoped to spend our life with you
The American press often discusses the political makeup of the insurgency, but no one until now has suggested that some of the very forces being trained by the United States might be longing for the return of Saddam. To the extent that this is the case--or that these forces are otherwise opposed to the occupation--the United States, far from improving "security," is now training the future resistance to itself. Indeed, the soldiers of Charlie Company told Shadid and Fainaru that seventeen of them had quit in recent days. They added that every one of them planned to do the same as soon as possible. Their reasons were simple. They were bitter at the United States. "Look at the homes of the Iraqis," one soldier remarked. "The people have been destroyed." When asked by whom, he answered, "Them"--and pointed to the Americans leading the patrol. The Iraqis had enlisted in the new army only for the salary--$340 per month, an enviable sum in today's ruined Iraq. But the money had come at the price of self-respect. The new recruits had been bought off and hated themselves for it. One said that after they had all quit, "We'll live by God, but we'll have our respect."
Bush's agenda is destroying this country. It is time to demand a new path and bring our troops home.
