Saddam Who?
Meanwhile, all the hoopla several months ago about how the capture of Saddam Hussein would diminish the resistance and move Iraq closer to “democracy” has been long forgotten by the American press but not by Iraqis. After a brief lull following his capture, two suicide bombers blew up several Kurdish leaders and over a hundred of their followers.
Virtually every week there’s another bombing taking out dozens and wounding scores. The death rate of American soldiers keeps rising. A few a day are killed, several seriously wounded, sometimes more, sometimes less but the carnage and the crippling is constant. The U.S. death toll in April alone exceeded the total number of soldiers lost during the invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein last year.
Commenting on the Kurdish bloodbath, L. Paul Bremer III, America’s colonial administrator, responded to the bombings predictably, typically and simplistically, stating that they “constituted a cowardly attack on human beings as well as on the very principle of democratic pluralism in Iraq.”
“Cowardly?” Is Mr. L. Paul Bremer III “cowardly” enough to strap pounds of explosives around his body, pass through security, work his way up to the top guy, extend one hand to give the big boss a hearty handshake while his other hand is detonating the explosives? Acts of desperation, patriotism, fanaticism or lunacy? No doubt. Hardly “cowardly.”
And, yes, it was an “attack on human beings.” Presumably, to L. Paul Bremer III, dropping bombs on people from airplanes, lobbing depleted uranium shells into civilian homes, or blowing up the locals with rockets fired form helicopters to promote “freedom and democracy” does not constitute an attack on human beings.
TRENDPOST: ”Principles of democratic pluralism” in Iraq is foolish fantasy that makes for a good sound byte but holds no credence. Just as the country itself never existed until British imperialists carved it up in 1920, Iraq never was, and most likely never will be, a Western model democracy. Iraq will not be united and terror will reign for decades as tribal leaders, ethnic factions, religious sects and nationalistic separatists fight it out for their piece of the pie and control of its oil.
