Falluja speaks volumes
United States President George W Bush ought to take heed of the unfortunate incident which took place in the Iraqi town of Falluja where US troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators.
The fact that 13 Iraqis where gunned down in cold blood by US troops should not go unnoticed. Ostensibly US forces are in Iraq to "liberate" and "democratise" the country. What the world sees instead are images of a brutal suppression that bears the unmistakable imprint of a bloody occupation force. Such images are concrete evidence of the Bush administration's hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. Such images will only deepen the resolve of the Iraqi people to end the military occupation of their country.
"The Iraqis are out from the heel of a truly brutal regime," said US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld upon his arrival in the Iraqi capital. But there is little if any evidence of the supposed gratitude of the Iraqi populace. Instead, incidents such as the dramatic sight of Iraqi demonstrators carrying portraits of their ousted leader as they converged on a school occupied by US troops predominate. It is a crying shame that Iraqi schools are now being turned into military barracks. If that is "liberation" the Iraqis reject it outright.
The massacre of Falluja will only intensify the bitterness of a large segment of the Iraqi population and, further afield, the entire Arab and Muslim world. Stones and shoes were hurled at the US troops in retaliation by Iraqi protesters -- a grim reminder of the Palestinian Intifada. Unsurprisingly, Rumsfeld was surrounded throughout his stopover in Baghdad by black- clad US special operations troops.
Obviously Iraq is still not safe for the Americans, and time will only confirm that the latent animosity felt by the vast majority of Iraqis and Arabs towards the Bush administration is a ticking bomb that will explode with dire consequences. The ever increasing numbers of Iraqi civilians protesting against the US military occupation of Iraq will only bring the day of reckoning closer.
