"Iraqis fighting for their country"

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Boston Globe, April 2, 2004
Violence indicates extent of resistance
By Thanassis Cambanis and Anne Barnard

BAGHDAD -- US strategists have carefully painted the armed opposition in
Iraq as a constellation of frustrated Ba'athists, former lieutenants of
deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, and Islamic terrorists from outside Iraq.

But the mob violence Wednesday in Fallujah, in the heart of the Sunni
Triangle, underscored how popular -- and indigenous -- Iraqi resistance
has become over the past year.

While organized insurgents might have sprung the ambush that killed the
four US civilian contractors who were driving through Fallujah, it was a
horde that seemed to be mostly teenage boys who doused the bodies with
gasoline, mutilated them, and then hung them as resistance trophies from
the town's major bridge.

Even in other regions of the country, Iraqis seem to have a deep well of
sympathy for those who kill Americans. The attackers are called
mujahideen, or holy warriors, and considered freedom fighters.

L. Paul Bremer III, head of the US-led occupation authority in Iraq,
used his address to a class of graduating Iraqi police cadets yesterday
to condemn the attacks, declaring the mob brutality beyond the pale.

"The acts we have seen were despicable and inexcusable," he said. "They
violate the tenets of all religions, Islam included, as well as the
foundations of civilized society. Their deaths will not go unpunished."
But it is unclear whether the coalition running Iraq knows who its
targets really are.

"These are despicable people. They're a small minority of the Iraqi
people," military spokesman Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said
yesterday. "And I suspect that most Iraqi people were as horrified with
what they saw yesterday because they realized that that is painting the
entire country of Iraq with a very wide brush."

But in Baghdad on Wednesday after the violence in Fallujah, tens of
thousands of supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demonstrated
outside the occupation's headquarters, burning a US flag and pointing at
the soldiers on the perimeter, chanting, "You're next."

Abu Ali, a soda vendor who did not leave his perch outside the Green
Zone gate during Wednesday's protest, said yesterday that the resistance
in Fallujah had provided a compass for occupied Iraq. The most recent
violence, he said, would inspire Iraqis nationwide.

"They are brave. We should do the same," Abu Ali said. "It is OK as long
as it is Iraqis fighting for their country."

full:
<http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/04/02/violence_indicates_extent_of_resistance/>
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