Can Iraq Ever Be Pro-USA?

Along with the myth of ready-to-launch WMDs, a more subtle myth was propogated - between the lines - by the Bush administration in the leadup to its invasion of Iraq. With anti-war demontrators focussed on stopping the violence, there was little attention given to the implicit but widespread assumption that Iraqis would welcome their saviours with open arms and joyous celebration.

The photo of US troops toppling Saddam's statue had been repeatedly broadcast on televisions around the world. But eyewitnesses have reported that the Iraqis involved were a hand-picked crowd of registered "opposition" members (probably ex-Unocal workers) and that US tanks around the square kept locals at a distance until the media stunt was finished. If you are questioning that version of events, how about this - the flag that a US soldier tried to drape over the statue came straight from the World Trade Centre in New York! If that is not a stage-managed media event, what is?

The fact is that Arabs around the world have learned to despise Americans, the prime supporters of repressive Israeli policies - for half a century or more (of course, the Jewish-Arab problem itself is centuries old). With Saddam gone, that hatred remains. What the Iraqis want now is what the American politicians always talk about but seldom deliver - real freedom.

In Iraq today, Iraqi children welcome US soldiers as they drive into a new town. They run alongside the Humvees and tanks, holding out their hands or trying to sell small items. When the US soldiers continue on their way, the kids pelt them with rocks! Such is the nature of the US-Iraq relationship.

Westerners need to understand that Iraqis are a proud people with a magnificent cultural history. From their point of view, 500 years of US "civilisation" pales by comparison. Not so long ago, they enjoyed prosperity and high standards of education. And, as Bush-buddie Wolfowitz pointed out, "the whole country is swimming on a sea of oil". The oil belongs to the Iraqis and they know it is the key to their future.

Of course, people around the world prefer to dismiss "boring politics". Many people prefer to focus on just getting along with their lives as best they can. So it must have been for many weary citizens in Iraq. Life under Saddam must have been hard, but the US-led sanctions made it a lot harder still, and the government-run media no doubt drummed this home day after day: "Don't blame Saddam, blame the Americans!"

Couple that with repeated images of anti-Palestinian atrocities committed by Israel, which would have been prime-time media fodder in all Arab states. Add further stories about the inevitable US veto of any UN criticism in the following weeks. Such was the average Iraqi's government-media-driven image of the US for many years. You start to get an idea of the basic mentality of Iraqis on the streets of Baghdad and beyond.

So can it be true that the only people still opposing the US soldiers are really just the "remnants of Saddam's Ba'athist party"? Or is the growing US death rate more likely linked to the deaths of ten or twenty thousand Iraqis during the invasion, and the ongoing deaths of innocent Iraqi bystanders day after day after day? Other well-armed Iraqis spent years as part of an underground resistance to an oppresive regime - the them the Americans are just a new enemy on the doorstep. Consider this tragic story of an Iraqi who was accused of assisting the US soldiers: his father and brother were forced to shoot him dead, otherwise the rest of the family would have been killed as well.

The US forces are losing a soldier a day or more. It's time to go home and let the Iraqis sort out their mess.