Everyone is afraid of peace returning to Iraq. Violence has apparently lessened. Still the Washington Post is unsure whether it is the calm before a fresh storm of violence or the return of peace to the beleaguered nation. The number of attacks against U.S. soldiers has fallen to levels not seen since before the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samara.
The death toll for American troops in October fell to 39, the lowest level since March 2006. The U.S. military has found that civilian deaths fell from a high this year of about 2,800 in January to about 800 in October. But statistics are invariably deceptive. They hide more than what they reveal. For example, these figures are mute about the pervasive fear which has gripped the ordinary Iraqi citizen.
A Sunni businessman had boasted of his status protecting him from violence. The next day he was abducted and threatened by unnamed gunmen. Though they released him, he no longer dares to leave home. And the Shiites detest the Sunnis. They blame the Sunni Iraqi al-Qaeda for their woes.
These insurgents did our country in, they say. But wonder of wonders, many Iraqis are all praise for the Bush administration. They fear that with the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, violence will re-start. Iraqis feel that US presence in small numbers around Baghdad has helped. Nobody seems to notice that it was President Bush who first started the fight.
It was Bush’s policy of divisive-rule which widened the rift between the two Muslim sects. It is Bush who is constantly pressuring the Iraqi Kurds. The subtle supremacy of white colonialism lies in its ability to make the victims love their colonial masters. The Americans are not going anywhere right now or in the near future. Only recently Condoleezza Rice has invited US citizens of standing to come and go to Iraq to restore peace there. Iraqis are not good enough for their own country.
Lord Ashdown, the new super-envoy of US and UK to Afghanistan has given up hope for that country, even after prolonged US presence there. That is what happens when the US rules any country. We should be scared for Iraq. The US military provides one kind of statistics but Health Ministry figures are showing heightened deaths this time of the year. The US will ensure that such discrepancies do not occur in the future. Without disquiet in Iraq, the US cannot remain there. Without being there, The US cannot have oil. And oil is the whole point for the US presence there.
This idea of lull and less-deaths is the result of fudging. Violence will break out any day. It is age old colonial policy that colonizers never reveal their sordid deeds to their own countrymen. That way the ordinary US citizen really thinks what a good job their soldiers are doing in Iraq. It is Bush who wants to lull America in dreams of Iraqi peace.
Via: Washington Post
Image: Geocities
