Flags Unfurl’d
Idiot Jingoists damage America
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
04/11/03
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/unfurled.htm
Someone doubtlessly thought it would make for a great Moment, similar to the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. What better to capture the spirit of the "liberation of the Iraqi people" from their cruel oppressor than to show jubilant mobs tearing down the great statue of Saddam Hussein in one of the central merry-go-rounds of downtown Baghdad?
It descended instead into bathetic political farce. The "jubilant crowd", which consisted of perhaps 100 people, watched with token approval while the rope-and-pulley apparatus was set up by US troops, and when the crowd was unable to pull the statue down, they hooked the US-set pull ropes to a US transport vehicle, and used that to pull the statue down.
By itself, it was pretty pathetic. Even the Germans didn’t try to stage cheering crowds for propaganda purposes. But this administration is used to having the most outrageous and silly lies swallowed whole by a docile press and public, and is merely maintaining the same tradition that they’ve used right along.
But while U.S. soldiers were obligingly putting ropes and pulleys on the statue so the crowd could pull it down for the cameras, one of them hit on the notion of draping an American flag over the head of Saddam.
Widely broadcast around the world, this image did nothing to allay suspicions that the Americans were there to stay, and now regarded Iraq as their territory.
Someone among the soldiers figured that out, and told the troops to replace the flag with an Iraqi flag. That might have been a pallative measure, except that, whether by accident or design, they choose a pre-1991 Iraqi flag, one that differed from the current one in one important detail: the older flag lacked the green Arabic script that reads, "Allahu akbar" ("God is Great"). It was the wrong message to send to the hundreds of millions of Moslems who are convinced that this war by America wasn’t against Saddam Hussein, but against Islam itself.
The Army hurriedly issued orders that American flags not be displayed in Iraq. It seemed like a sensible idea, but when I heard it, it sounded familiar. I recalled vaguely that here had been an incident where some yahoo soldier had put up a flag when Americans took Umm Qasr, the port city on the Kuwait border in the al Basrah region. So I did a websearch.
Sure enough, the incident was reported in the New York Times back on the 26th of March, and the army, at that time, issued a direct order not to display American flags in that manner.
But what I found even more interesting was an earlier news article, also in the Times, dating from the 20th, before a single American trooper had gone into Iraq, that said that the Pentagon had given direct orders that no regimental, state or national flags were to be flown or displayed in Iraq because that would send the wrong message.
Anyone watching the footage from the In Bed With reporters knows that our well-trained, well-disciplined troops blew off this direct order on a wide scale. Nearly every tank, Hummer and supply vehicle had a big old flag flying above it. It looked like the John Birch Society idea of a war movie. It was a jingoist’s jubilee, a red white and blue wet dream by the nutty hyperpatriots who show up at sporting events wearing flags painted on bare bellies to belch beer-sodden "USA! USA!" and shout insults at teams from other countries.
If the Pentagon can’t even control their own troops on such a politically sensitive matter, how are they doing about winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis?
Not very well. In addition to waving alien flags all over the place, the soldiers are showing that when it comes to public relations, they aren’t exactly geniuses. They are under orders not to give candy to the children, and the idea of giving out cigarettes is right out. And of course, checkpoints are jumpy and have itchy trigger figures, the result of a couple of suicide bomber attacks. There have been some incidents where a car didn’t stop, or didn’t stop quickly enough, and the soldiers promptly opened fire, only to discover that they had just shot up a bunch of unarmed women and kids. That it’s exactly the reaction the suicide bombers were striving for doesn’t help the troops in the eyes of the Iraqi citizenry.
But that’s relatively minor compared to the immense blunder the military is committing in the occupied cities. With the authority structure demolished, every city is in complete chaos, with widespread looting, retaliation killings, and utter anarchy. In some cities such as Umm Qasr and al Basrah, the situation is made worse by the American war tactic of deliberately destroying the water supply of the cities.
The Geneva convention stipulates that invading armies are to enforce and restore order as quickly as possible, and provide succor to the inhabitants.
However, the American army isn’t interested in doing this. "We don’t do police work" one commander told NPR.
Yeah. Just let the criminals destroy the hospitals and mosques and murder and rape and steal and burn. The army doesn’t feel any responsibility. They aren’t tasked for that.
It didn’t help that the Pentagon felt obliged to issue orders for MARINES to stop looting. While the looting was more of the souvenir-hunter variety rather than the vicious stripping of hospitals and homes of everything, it was just one more appearance of shabbiness.
But remember, we did it all for the Iraqi people. Right wingers here are even now still sobbing convulsively about how cruel Saddam was to "his own people" (they WEREN’T "his own people"; that was a big part of the problem) and how we had a "moral duty" to save them.
It takes a special kind of mind to believe that Putsch really felt a deep concern for the welfare of the people of Iraq when he evinces no such emotion even for his fellow Americans, and those same special minds are still prattling on about "those poor Iraqis" even after we killed thousands of them in the war and seem prepared to stand by while thousands more die in the bloody aftermath and pretend that none of it is our responsibility.
The role of the Pentagon in this is nothing short of cowardly. It is a war crime to refuse to try to establish order.
British, UN and Red Cross/Red Crescent are working to get food and water and above all medical supplies into the American held areas while the Americans stand by, dumbly watching.
We don’t do police work, you see.
Before the coup, America would never have disgraced itself in such a manner.
Americans can’t even sneer at Iraq for descending into chaos following the fall of their government. America, after all, is also decompensating following the fall of its own government.
It’s just a bit slower, is all.