War by other means: the "reconstruction" of Iraq

On Face the Nation, the one Sunday talk show run by a sane person, Bob Schieffer, he showed the picture of the US soldiers holding off Iraqi soldiers with bayonets and it disturbed him. John McLaughlin, who's been opposed to the war from the start, also commented on the picture.

This seems to have caught a lot of pundits unaware. While some seek to continually justify the war effort, a lot more are wondering exactly what the hell is going on in Iraq.

Let's take a short tour of today's US and UK newspapers.

[Many good links to Iraq articles.]

I could go on, but these articles, all running today, give a picture of absolute ineptitude now taking place in Iraq. While there was some effort to depict the war as a three week affair, the reality is that the enemy has changed shape and form and is still more than willing to engage Americans.

In the meanwhile, civil life is turning into a nightmare for the average Iraqi. No electricity, no secruity, random, violent encounters with Americans. Saddam may be gone and the police may not take you for a beating, but the environment of instabity and growing rage poses an ongoing danger to American troops.

The American viceroy, Paul Bremer, why mince words, was told directly at a World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan that the US needs to form an Iraqi government, not a hand selected council to advise on running the country.

But it's the picture of the US soldiers holding the bayonets to fend off the former Iraqi soldiers which has left people wondering about our policies in Iraq.
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Smashed US memorial points to deepening Iraqi anger

With tears in his eyes, US Army paratrooper Richard Bohr knelt down in the Iraqi dust and kissed a handmade memorial stone, bidding farewell to a brother in the US Marine Corps who was killed in action on the spot April 10, the day after Baghdad fell to invading American troops.

Draped with a necklace and pendant imploring, "St. Michael Protect Us," the concrete memorial put in place by a US unit Friday morning measured two-by-three feet, and had been painted with a bright American flag, the Marine Corps shield, and the words "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

But within 30 minutes of the American troops leaving, this tribute to a brother was no more - a casualty of the deepening resentment toward US troops here, at the hands of Iraqis who increasingly see those troops not as liberating friends, but as an occupying enemy.
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  thanks to BookNotes