Residents shower 'Mujahiddeen’ with flowers

Azzaman, November 15, 2006

Women ululate. Children clap. Men raise fists in the air and shout 'Allah Akbar.’ And two young men approach and hand the masked 'mujahideen’ a bouquet of flowers.

The festive mood was supposed to be reserved to the U.S. 'liberation’ troops whose leaders believed before sending them to Iraqi hell that Iraqis would go out into the streets and welcome them with flowers and ululation.

Conditions are totally the opposite of what the current Whitehouse and its leaders had in mind before embarking on their Iraq mission for the sale of which they used every trick and lie in the book.

And look at their troops. U.S. occupation forces and their leaders and their lackeys are now the most despised in Iraq. U.S. 'liberation’ of Iraq is now seen as a deliberate U.S. attempt to destroy Iraq.

No sane Iraq would today even mention the word 'liberation.’ No sane Iraq would look at U.S. occupation troops as 'liberators.’ They are in most Iraqi eyes, and it is really unfortunate to say, viewed as thieves, gangsters and thugs who have come to rape and molest women and girls, abuse prisoners, and destroy cities and residential districts one after the other.

And U.S. tormentors in Iraq are now the 'heroes of liberation,’ the resistance fighters who are held with highest esteem and respect in Iraqi eyes.

Stories abound of how residents in many Iraqi cities currently bearing the brunt of fighting the occupation provide shelter to anti-U.S. rebels.

Following successful operations, residents get out of their homes celebrating the rebels and pouring scorn on Americans.

Why did this happen? The answer lies with the Whitehouse and its occupants.

Look at them and the way they are trying to get themselves out of the quagmire they have created.

Their only aim is how to 'prevail,’ how to minimize their losses and loss of face. There is little talk of the country they have imploded and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis their disastrous polices have killed, maimed and uprooted.

More than a hundred innocent Iraqis are being killed everyday in Baghdad alone and they are not moved. The only thing that moves them is their strategic interests. To hell with Iraq and its 26 million people.

Any solution to the current crisis which is devouring lives like fire in a forest is rejected if it does not meet their strategic interests.

They refuse to conduct serious talks with the resistance because its demands contradict their interests. And let Iraqis die in droves.

They have antagonized and marginalized two of the regions states with frontiers running for nearly 2,000 kilometers with Iraq. They openly say their policies aim at destabilizing both Syria and Iran and at the same ask them not to disturb their presence in Iraq.

And they want Iraqis to believe them that they have come as 'liberators’ and not invaders.