Absolute MUST READ: Beyond Fallujah: A Year with the Iraqi Resistance

In the June issue of Harper's, by Patrick Graham. Unfortunately, no cut and paste, but I will give the issue a huge plug here (noting, of course, that I neither work for Harper's nor am I Patrick Graham!): I've learned more about Iraq from this one article than I have from a year of news-junkiness on the Iraq War. Incredible. I'll transcribe a few tidbits here, if only to cajole all DUers into reading this wonderful piece. The premise is simple. Graham was in Baghdad in March and April 2003, and began forming relationships with the tribal leaders in Fallujah. He struck up many friendships with members of the Iraqi resistance. The article basically lays out the way the resistance formed, and provides a great deal of insight into its psychology and operations. While the article could be taken to model Wilfred Burchett's Vietnam: Inside Story of a Guerilla War, it is nowhere near as partisan. How many have heard the term DULEIMI? Few, I am sure, and yet the Duleimi tribal group may have been the initial force behind the resistance in the so-called "Sunni Triangle." If Rumsfeld weren't an autocrat and propagandist at heart, he would have explained the situation with the Duleimi early on, rather than lying about "bitter-enders" and Baathists and foreign fighters.



SNIP 1
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Mohammed's group has stockpiled Russian-made SAM-7 Strela anti-aircraft missiles, which had come from the Habbaniya air base a few kilometers down the bluffs. We could see a tank down there, parked under a guard tower. Before the U.S. forces took over Habbaniya, they had watched as Mohammed and other Iraqis looted the ammunition.

"The Americans are so stupid - they almost gave us the weapons," he said. "They thought we were thieves. They watched us taking the RPGs and other weapons and said 'Are you Ali Baba?'" This was what the GIs called thieves and looters. "We said yes, so they let us in. They thought we were destroying the Iraqi army."

End snip 1: For clarification, Mohammed just finished describing how he would shoot down a Black Hawk from a date plam grove near Fallujah.
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SNIP 2
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"We think of Vietnam and look at the modern history of the United States, which is not very good," he said. "Why do they call us the Third World? Why do they look down on us? Justice is the basis of ruling, and Saddam forgot this. We expect the fall of the American empire, because they do not follow justice in the world."

End snip 2: The two major impressions that one gets from Graham's interaction with Mohammed: Mohammed's intelligence and humanity. One often finds Mohammed's religious dogma stifling and terrifying, yet Graham puts it in context. I think the biggest mistake so far of US Iraq policy is quite simple: Racism. Pure and simple racism. Pure and simple belief that Americans are smarter and more able than the Iraqis. Pure and simple belief - as a kind of atmosphere - that the Iraqis are subhumans, or children, and the Americans must provide civilization.
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SNIP 3
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Abu Ali was relaxed and more friendly than I remembered ever having seen him. He had taken some time off from the resistance to do some contract work for the occupation. He needed some of the money to take care of his son, Ali, but rest was going to run the resistance group - i.e., the American taxpayer was funding both sides of the conflict..."This is nothing like the 1920's rebellion," Abu Ali said before we left. "It is much bigger."

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ABSOLUTELY MUST READ!

... #2, one phrase: "training wheels"

Us Western folk are doing these little sand-people a huge favor by going there and introducing them to civilization like Christianity, Democracy and single-breasted suit jackets and summer frocks. They will adopt these -- even if we have to kill them.

insanity.

It's a great read, every month.

I just sent in my subscription last week - Harper's is a must read, for sure.

Killing nationalists is not as good for poll numbers as killing "bitter-enders," "suiciders," and "Saddam loyalists."

Sounds fascinating. I hear the Strauss article is also a must read.

Although I disagree completely with Shorris' reading of Nietzsche, I do agree that Strauss misunderstands Nietzsche completely (apparently, so does Shorris!).

I wish all the people who say, "But the press never tells any of the GOOD news about Iraq" could read it.

I can now say to them, "The press never tells even half of the BAD news."

Graham's description of the real uprising in and around Fallujah as March 2004 turned into our bloody April debacle is quite striking. "The countryside was now in open revolt..." he says. Compare to the limited vision of a few gunmen holed up in a mosque that served as the main picture of the event in US media. Incredible.

how little the press, and the administration, and the army, and the US public understands the situation on the ground in Iraq.

It's what will ultimately kill America and the American dream"

"I think the biggest mistake so far of US Iraq policy is quite simple: Racism. Pure and simple racism. (quote from the subject article)

The deconstuction of Strauss' neo-platonic obscurantism was
worth the fare by itself, and the Faloojah piece was as good
a piece of journalism as one is likely to see.

n/t

this is the kind of info. I thirst for in our barren media environment...real human stories, real events...not just abstractions and high sounding language about "tersts"

this is what gets me though: "He had taken some time off from the resistance to do some contract work for the occupation."

As long as Americans are occupying the country, the resistance will never end. These people see it as their religious duty to attack whoever is occupying them.

They are far-better informed than most in this country would suspect. They are not ignorant goat-herders. They watch television, they read newspapers. They distrust America's motives for "liberating" them. They know it's about oil and power.

One of the more blackly humorous bits: They are inspired by Mel Gibson's movie "Braveheart".

They don't trust the Shias and consider them allies with Iran (hm, what a shock).

It's tribal and clannish and has been forever and ever and it's not gonna change.

They didn't like Saddam and they are offended that the Americans are calling them terrorists, saddam loyalists, and the like. They find this insulting.

Americans always go into a situation with WAY MORE firepower than the situation warrants.

Every American should read this article.

:kick:

Everybody should read this article. If you don't, you are woefully uniformed. (I didn't realize how uninformed I was until I read it)

nt