U.S. Terror In Iraq, Winning Hearts And Minds?

By Steve Argue
April 13, 2004

In an attempt to strike terror into the hearts of the Iraqi people the U.S. government has unleashed extreme violence on the people of Fallujah in retaliation for the Iraqi killing and mutilation of four U.S. mercenaries. While the U.S. corporate media is reporting a cease-fire in that city, the U.S. assault is continuing.

Official reports are saying 600 Iraqis have been killed in the recent and ongoing US assault on Fallujah. Iraqis are pointing out that this estimate is low because it doesn’t count many of the bodies that have not gone through hospitals such as those that are still sitting in rubble as well as those that have been buried in mass graves. Iraqis have been forced to bury many of the dead in quickly dug mass graves because they are being shot at when U.S. forces see them digging holes for the dead.

Reporting from Fallujah on April 12, Rahul Mahjan quoted an Iraqi named Al-Nazzal saying “I have been a fool for 47 years. I used to believe in European and American civilization.” Explaining his change of heart, Al Nazzal described the horrors of ambulances being hit by American snipers and women and children being shot in cold blood.
Rahul Mahjan, an American reporter, was skeptical of the stories he had heard of ambulance drivers being shot while picking up the dead and the wounded until he saw evidence for himself. He describes what he saw:

“This I saw for myself. An ambulance with two neat, precise bullet-holes in the windshield on the driver's side, pointing down at an angle that indicated they would have hit the driver's chest (the snipers were on rooftops, and are trained to aim for the chest). Another ambulance again with a single, neat bullet-hole in the windshield. There's no way this was due to panicked spraying of fire. These were deliberate shots designed to kill the drivers.”

Nazi style collective punishment on the entire city has turned the whole population against the occupation. Even Iraqis that had joined the occupation police force are now reported fighting on the side of the resistance. Throughout the region the US occupation now looks identical to the actions of the Israeli military.

Across the country Iraqis are aware of the brutal assault taking place in Fallujah. In an act of solidarity with the city’s predominantly Sunni population a shipment of aid was recently sent in solidarity by Shi’as. All this as the U.S. plans an assault on Najif to take it back from Shi’a insurgents declaring their intention to kill or capture Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

Moktada al-Sadr’s popularity has been rising since the beginning of the U.S. occupation because of his refusal to work with the occupation in any way and his calls for direct elections. Fearing al-Sadr’s growing support the U.S. moved in to shut down his newspaper, Al Hawza on March 28th. At a protest against banning the paper the New York Times quoted free-lance reporter Omar Jassem, saying he thought that democracy meant many viewpoints and many newspapers. "I guess this is the Bush edition of democracy,"

Besides censoring the press, slaughtering civilians, massacring demonstrators, and denying elections, the U.S. occupation forces are holding 10,000 to 20,000 Iraqis without charges.

Just as the U.S. denied the Vietnamese direct elections and democracy during its occupation of South Vietnam, the U.S. government knows that their puppet regime, if they ever get one going, cannot win a direct election in Iraq.

Just as the Vietnam war was lost by the United States before it was started in 1955, so too is the war to take Iraqi oil for American based multi-nationals. The Vietnam war took 30 years, the deaths of 50,000 U.S. soldiers, the deaths of 3 million Vietnamese, and massive unrest in the streets and on the campuses of the United States before the American ruling class finally cut their losses and realized the war was over. In those 30 years capitalist fortunes were made in military hardware off of the blood of a generation.

Today the inevitable defeat of U.S. imperialism in Iraq has already been determined. As tens of thousands of Iraqis have already been slaughtered along with the lives of over 680 U.S. soldiers, the question must be asked if it will take 30 years to end the occupation of Iraq.

Kerry has made clear that he won’t stop the war and Bush, like a mafia hit man, has vowed to finish the job. To end this war we as workers, students, and soldiers must build the strongest possible movement independent of the Democrat and Republican Parties of war.

U.S. Troops Out Now! UN Troops stay Out!


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