I suspect most Iraqis wouldn't mind the US presence if we'd been able to provide security--the principle aim of the insurgency has been to make this impossible.
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I remember reading an essay some time ago, I don't recall the author at the moment, in which the idea of resistance - legitimate and illegitimate - was discussed.
The justness or un-justness of Native American actions (the Lakota in particular as I remember) during the most intense period of warfare with the westward expanding United States formed the core of the argument.
Would the indigenous peoples of America been right to violently resist U.S. expansion if this movement had been handled better? Perhaps if treaties had been respected and Native governments consulted with respect warfare would have been morally wrong.
The author concluded (I must find this thing) that since the endpoint of US expansion - whether it was smoothly or roughly done - was the destruction of Native American freedom of movement and, to a great extent, cultural expression total war was not only justified but an imperative.
Of course, because we know the United States waged a relentless campaign - with genocidal objectives - against the Native population many of us have no problem accepting this conclusion.
But in the case of Iraq, we're not so sure.
You present us with a closed loop Luke - if only the Americans had provided security the Iraqis would peacefully accept their presence but they cannot provide security because some Iraqis resist. Therefore, the Iraqis are unhappy with the American presence.
You say the point of resistance is preventing the Americans from providing security but perhaps there's another explanation; perhaps some Iraqis violently resist because they understand that the endpoint of American occupation is a nation that cannot call its own shots - that they'd be trading, in other words, the direct problem of Hussein for the
remote problem of puppet masters in Washington.
But there's more to chew on...
In the beginning, long before the guerrilla war reached its current level, we received stories of Americans firing into crowds and destroying minivans full of families and precision bombing neighborhoods in hopes of "decapitating the Iraqi state". A sniper fired from a house, the Americans sprayed and prayed. Innocents died by the score.
Do you remember how conflict started in Fallujah? A crowd gathered to protest the lack of employment, shots were heard, the Americans responded by firing wildly into a mass of unarmed people. Between 15 and 17 died, many were wounded. Things rapidly deteriorated.
We learned that Iraqis were being treated like animals, indeed, much worse - Americans do love their pets after all.
How much resistance is the result of all this? Do you ever wonder?
You write as if one day, unsuspecting Americans, working hard to create security, restore power and create jobs, found themselves assaulted by sinister men intent on sowing chaos for chaos' sake.
You write as if the starting point of all this woe was not an unprovoked attack but the stubborn criminality of some Iraqi guerrillas who refuse to simply sit quietly waiting for Americans to work it all out.
...
We've been down this road before Luke and I think I know where it begins.
Long ago, you wrote that "something had to be done" about Hussein's Iraq because, with all that oil and his ambitions of developing nuclear weapons some horrible outcome was sure to happen. It's not necessarily the fact that it was done but the way it was done that seems to trouble you.
.d.
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