Islamic Pimpernel
They seek him here, they seek him there, they seek Zarqawi everywhere…
It seems to me as the search for “Zarqawi” has become a convenient cover for the current low-level civil war being waged in Iraq by the US-supported Baghdad government against some of the regional separatist insurrections. Here’s what one of the Fallujah negotiators. Hatem Maddab, had to say on the subject:
We want to know what proof there is that Zarqawi is in Fallujah … Zarqawi is like the weapons of mass destruction that America invaded Iraq for … We hear about that name (Zarqawi), but he is not here. More than 20 or 30 homes have been bombarded because of this Zarqawi and his followers but only women, children and the elderly have been affected.
Hmmmm. Sounds like Fallujah has some articulate people with definite opinions. What would be the best way to move forward? Why, arrest them of course, then continue to bombard the densely populated city’s slum housing from the air because, as you know, this has always worked before.
U.S. forces have arrested a Sunni Muslim cleric who was acting as the chief negotiator in talks to end an impasse between the Iraqi government and militants controlling Fallujah.
Having now detained all the possible peacemakers, what to do next? Why, deny that you have detained them under martial law, naturally.
The US military vehemently denied Friday that it had arrested a senior member of a delegation from the rebel Iraqi city of Fallujah that had been mediating a truce with the government. “We have not detained this gentleman,” a marine statement said, referring to Sheikh Khaled Hamoud.
So that’s settled. The peacemakers have been disappeared and the bombings can continue until morale improves. But wait, what if these slippery customers can actually convince people they are sincere? Time for the disappeared to reappear!
U.S. forces released the negotiator representing Fallujah on Monday after detaining him for three days … Khalid Hamoud Jumaili, said he had denied US accusations during questioning that he represents the insurgents. He described his detention as a setback, but said an agreement was still possible if U.S. forces “are sincere with us.”
Just another demonstration of half-arsed bad policy making in Iraq. The intelligence of the current US strategy strikes me as classic desperate colonial racism. To take an analogy, what if the British response to PIRA terrorism in the 1980s and 1980s had been not to do good policework and cell penetration but, instead, to casually and repeatedly bomb Derry and Belfast from the air based on hunches and semi-random spurious tips from individuals with axes to grind. Of course they could state that their aim was to extra-judicially kill the PIRA Chief of Staff but, you know, cities are a big target and cautious people are very small and probably not actually where you expect them to be. So they would probably have used massive bombs, just as the Pentagon does today, that annihilate several hundred square metres in one blast. Of course, some civlians would probably die as well, but they were in areas full of known “sympathisers” with terrorism so they were probably guilty of something.
Of course the British did not actually do this and neither Derry nor Belfast were subjected to weeks and months of random bombing. And neither, for that matter, were New York, Boston, or Washington, where pseudo-religious Irish-American “charities” and terrorist sympathisers channelled funding and support to the Irish terrorists.
No, the reason why the people in Derry and Belfast were spared collective punishment, and the reason why the people in Fallujah must constantly live in fear of being instantly vapourised or crushed by masonry comes down to race. The Irish, whatever their terrorist proclivities, were white, and thus due some consideration, respect, and negotiation. The people in Fallujah are, well, you know, duskier of skin and a little swarthy and, well, you know, fundamentally Arab. So they are all probably a little guilty of something. So obviously, that’s why it’s okay to randomly bomb them from the air.
