By security, you mean being free from daily bombings, kidnappings, robbings, lootings, and so forth, provided that you do not resist or even criticize authorities and bear with poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, lack of political freedom, etc. quietly. That's the sort of security that apolitical Iraqis enjoyed prior to the US invasion of Iraq. Washington could have secretly negotiated for cooperation of Ba'ath Party leaders and Iraqi military and police forces before invading Iraq, settling only for a small change at the very top of the Ba'ath Party, but Washington wanted to transform Iraq from top to bottom, from politics to economy to culture to everything else, including such minor details as whether or not farmers can replant seeds: "Law May Prohibit Iraqi Farmers from Replanting Seeds" (<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4185354>, November 24, 2004). It is not possible to govern, let alone transform fundamentally, a nation of 26 million people by employing just 150,000 foreign soldiers. Eric Shinseki lost his job by saying that the Iraq War would take several hundred thousand troops, but I think that his is a conservative estimate. At the minimum, the occupier would need as many soldiers and civilian workers -- preferably most of them Iraqis -- as the Ba'ath Party had at its disposal when it was in power. Then, probably, Washington could upgrade the security of Iraq to what Palestinians enjoy under the Israeli occupation or the Vietnamese enjoyed under the South Vietnamese government that Washington installed. Even then, Washington will not win -- it can only kill more and postpone its defeat.
Leigh Meyers leigh_m at sbcglobal.net, Tue Dec 21 12:47:11 PST 2004:
><paraphrase?>
>"...they believe in "Islam and Ba'athism," but when he asked what
>that meant, they couldn't say much more."
>
>Plug "Christianity" and "The American Way" into this quote, and you
>can see how it absolutely lacks anything resembling unique vision or
>insight into the mind of an Iraqi resistance fighter.
Christian Parenti understands one crucial point -- Iraqis' self respect -- much better than Doug makes him sound like:
<blockquote><http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0920-02.htm> Published in the October 6, 2003 issue of The Nation Stretched Thin, Lied to & Mistreated On the ground with US troops in Iraq by Christian Parenti
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Then it begins: The ammunition in the burning Humvee starts to explode and the troops in the street start firing. Armored personnel carriers arrive and disgorge dozens of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne to join the fight. The target is a three-story office building just across from the engulfed Humvee. Occasionally we hear a few rounds of return fire pass by like hot razors slashing straight lines through the air. The really close rounds just sound like loud cracks.
"That's Kalashnikov. I know the voice," says Ahmed, our friend and translator. There is a distinct note of national pride in his voice--his countrymen are fighting back--never mind the fact that we are now mixed in with the most forward US troops and getting shot at.</blockquote>
It is self respect -- or "national pride," as Parenti puts it -- that motivates Iraqis to resist the foreign occupation and makes it impossible for Washington to win this war. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * "Proud of Britain": <http://www.proudofbritain.net/ > and <http://www.proud-of-britain.org.uk/>