FAILURE IN FALLUJA

Iraq: Failure in Falluja [PA ARCHIVES]
By Thomas Riggins

It is impossible to read the daily press reports coming out of Iraq without feeling that the Bush/Cheney war for oil is going nowhere. Here is an update on what is going on in one city, courtesy of the New York Times of 7-15-05 (“8 Months After U.S.-Led Siege, Insurgents Rise Again in Falluja” by Edward Wong.”)

Wong begins his article by saying since the US has turned Falluja into a “police state” it should be the “safest city” in Iraq. After all we killed over a thousand people, mostly civilians, to bring “freedom” to the Fallujans, so what does it mean to say the insurgency is back? How could this be? Don’t the Iraqis appreciate Bush’s bombing and machine gunning them into “democracy”?

It would appear not. One of the rules of guerrilla warfare is that it cannot succeed without the support of the people. The guerrillas mix with the civilian population like fish in the sea. This seems to be what is happening in Falluja, as Wong reports, the insurgency is back in operation – car bombs are going off again, American and Iraqi troops are being killed and innocent civilians are being killed by both sides.

What is most telling is the attitude of the people that originally were supportive of the US – that is, people who did not support the insurgency. Wong quotes as widespread the following attitude expressed by a typical Fallujan, “after the unfairness and injustice with which the city’s residents have been treated by the American and Iraqi [puppet] forces, they now prefer the resistance, just so they won’t be humiliated.” In other words, Falluja is more like Paris under the German occupation than under the allied liberation. Once you lose the people the game is up.

Falluja is in many ways symbolic of the Bush/Cheney war against the Iraqi people. They can’t even control one city let alone the country. They have created a true quagmire exposing everyone, including their own troops, to a meaningless bloody slaughter since you cannot, in the world of today, impose your will on other nations by force of arms and expect to get away with it (unless you pick a tiny little country like Grenada or Panama).

As Wong points out, anti-American