(no subject)

[novapsyche]

Contrary to the mythology spun over the past year, the wave of violence is not primarily being conducted by disgruntled Ba'ath party officials, but is driven by a growing anger and disillusionment about the occupying force and its intentions. Villagers in some parts of the Ukraine welcomed German troops with salt, bread and flowers in 1941 for freeing them from the yoke of Stalinism, yet a year later thousands of them were in the Soviet partisan movement, hounding the very forces that "liberated" them. In Iraq the photographs of happy crowds greeting coalition soldiers have given way to exultant crowds celebrating the macabre death of American servicemen. The spreading guerrilla war is a new war of liberation by Iraqis who have no trust in the good faith of the occupiers; the more the record of occupation is scarred by random atrocities, the more difficult it will be to restore that trust.

Like the Wehrmacht, we've descended into barbarity