When We Become The Bad Guys by Guy Rundle The Age 1:15pm 27th Mar, 2003   March 27 2003    Now that the first flush of enthusiasm is over, it is clear the Iraq war will not be a walkover for the United States-led coalition. The first days were a race across desert that was largely empty, leading some to the conclusion that this would be a replay of the Gulf War of 1991. But with concerted, if outgunned, resistance meeting all allied forces, and the number of Iraqi soldiers surrendering on the minimal side, some of the war's central myths are coming under pressure.    Chief among these has been that the war is being conducted on behalf of the Iraqi people against an oppressive government, a rationale for the war that only began to be suggested once no clear smoking weapon of mass destruction could be found.    Of course, it is quite possible a majority of the Iraqi people are willing to put up with lethal bombing and bloody combat to be rid of Saddam Hussein and his regime. But it is hard to know what would constitute evidence that this is the case. Mass surrenders might give some indication of that, but there seem to be none on the way. Furthermore, the "shock and awe" bombing campaign is clearly designed to drive the armed forces and civilians half-crazy with fear and panic - any sort of mass surrender on these grounds would scarcely offer any clue to the real support for the invasion.    As the fighting intensifies it seems likely that whatever support there is among Iraqis for the US-led coalition will start to dry up. Many people, including many reservists, may continue to lie low and avoid fighting, hoping the invasion will be quickly concluded. But others may be stirred to resistance, a resistance made not out of any love for Saddam but out of deeper loyalties - to home, to family, to community.    When these things are being torn up by explosives, assurances of the good intentions by the bombers tend to be blown away with the smoke and fire, and the fact that one is ruled by a dictator or a parliament can come to matter less than that there is a fundamental threat from beyond.    It seems likely the effect of this reversal will be felt not only in Iraq but among the publics of the US-led coalition. As the fighting continues and the death tolls of the allies - we don't know the Iraqi casualties - start to ramp up, people in the US, Britain and Australia may begin to see that these deaths are the deaths of an invading army, not a defending one - an army that is being resisted not merely by so-called "elite" Republican Guards but by ordinary Iraqis.    There is no great comfort to be taken in such killings and in such deaths - killings done of people in their own homes, on their own land, deaths suffered as an aggressor invades, for a cause that has shifted from day to day. These are bitter, comfortless deaths, and they will tend to weaken rather than strengthen the commitment to war.    Indeed, if resistance continues and grows, many members of the public may find themselves in a curious situation - they will understand that they would do what the Iraqis are doing if they were under similar attack from outside.    How then does one think about troops from one's own country, sent, ostensibly, in our name? If they are the sort of people whom one would honourably fight against, how can one offer them any support?    And how will we feel about them when the battle comes to Baghdad and the coalition faces an inevitable choice - between bearing the high coalition casualties of extended street fighting or committing a crime against humanity, the bombing of civilian areas? With no sign that the regime will collapse it seems that, one way or another, slaughter is coming.    Before it does, the brief burst of support for our troops may melt away, with the sudden realisation that we have become the bad guys.(Guy Rundle is a co-editor of Arena Magazine).    Missiles Changing Attitudes: Iraqi Civilian Deaths Stirring Up Anti-American Sentiment Among Villagers by Robert Collier (Published on Wednesday, March 26, 2003 by the San Francisco Chronicle).    DIYALA, IRAQ -- Any chance that tribespeople in this rural area south of Baghdad would look kindly on the impending arrival of American troops may have vanished in a cloud of collapsing rubble and twisted steel.    At about 4:30 p.m. Monday afternoon, two planes, which residents believed to be American, flew over the area, and local anti-aircraft batteries opened up at them. According to half a dozen witnesses at the scene, the planes fired several missiles in response, most of which hit empty fields planted with wheat and barley. But one landed squarely on Adjmi Jubouri's two-story house.    Jubouri's 22-year-old daughter, Hana, was killed, along with two other relatives, and eight were injured, said relatives and doctors at a Baghdad hospital where the wounded were taken. When the missile hit, the upper floor pancaked down into the living room, where the extended Jubouri clan had huddled to wait out the air attacks that have shaken the area.    On Tuesday, a visit to the site by a Chronicle reporter and an Iraqi government "minder" quickly turned into a raucous rally full of seemingly raw emotions, as more than a dozen neighbors and local tribespeople gathered at the site, strewn with small pieces of shrapnel.    PINPOINT BOMBING CLAIMED    The U.S. military insists it is carrying out pinpoint bombing attacks and going to great lengths to avoid harming civilians. Independent observers have suggested that some civilian casualties may have been caused by anti-aircraft fire and by Iraqi SA-2 anti-aircraft missiles that have gone astray. But that was not the view on the ground, especially among those on the receiving end of the missiles in Diyala.    "The Americans are targeting civilians, and this gives us more courage to defend our country," said Abdul Ahmed Adjmi, Jubouri's brother-in-law, his gray mustache quivering as he spoke.    Other tribesmen, their heads covered with red-and-white checked kaffiyehs, shouted their approval and waved revolvers and old hunting rifles.    The Diyala region, a sparsely populated area scattered with mud-brick houses and irrigated fields, is near a strategic bridge over the Diyala River, on one of the two highways approaching Baghdad from the south. The area has come under heavy attack from U.S. missiles fired to soften up the Iraqi military and Republican Guard before a march on the capital.    HOSTILE ATTITUDES    The population is made up of Sunni and Shiite tribes that U.S. war planners had hoped would abandon the urban-oriented Hussein regime. But the reactions of Diyala residents encountered here indicate that U.S. forces may face more hostile attitudes than they anticipated in their long march northward.    A similar turn in sentiment appears to be occurring in Baghdad. Earlier this month, residents repeatedly approached foreign reporters on the street to express their whispered hopes that the allied troops would overthrow the regime.    But since the U.S. missile barrage began, nationalist sentiment has become more pronounced. While residents still seem more than willing to have the dictator plucked from their midst, they have become steadily more alienated by the realization that his removal involves some messy, intrusive military force.    According to government officials, civilian losses are mounting. On Monday alone, 62 civilian deaths and 176 injuries were reported around the country.    As missile strikes thunder across the city throughout the day and night, the "shock and awe" campaign appears to have produced something closer to shock and anger.    Driving through the area around Diyala, 20 miles southeast of downtown Baghdad, there are other indications of missile strikes. A mile from the remains of the Jubouri house, buildings were reduced to rubble and a factory lay flattened and ripped to shreds, spewing thousands of aluminum panels across neighboring fields.    Local military forces, however, seem to have been unaffected by the blasts in Diyala. Hundreds of soldiers were dispersed across fields and along irrigation canals, huddling in their little tents against the fierce dust storms that swept the region Tuesday. Armored personnel carriers were hidden under overpasses, fuel tanks were covered with dirt berms, and anti-aircraft batteries were nestled under trees.    MOURNING HIS LOSS    Meanwhile, Adjmi Jubouri, who suffered cuts on his arm and head in Monday's attack, lies in a hospital in Baghdad, cursing the Americans and mourning his loss. "Hana was a good girl," he says. "Bush is an evil man."    In the same hospital ward as Jubouri is his son-in-law, Khalid Abdullah. Khalid and Hana were married March 18, only six days before the attack. Khalid spends much of his time mute, sitting on the floor, sobbing by himself.    Twenty miles away, scattered in the ruins of the family house, are dozens of left-over wedding invitations. The low-budget design features a stereotypical image of a tall groom and his blond bride.    Along with the invitations and the other detritus of wrecked lives are innumerable scraps of twisted steel -- the remnants of a missile -- cold and hard.    Copyright 2003 San Francisco Chronicle Visit the related web page
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