The invasion of Iraq put an end to Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, which was symbolized by the dreaded “four a.m. knock on the door.” Why, then, are Iraqis — the supposed beneficiaries of liberation — still facing that proverbial police state calling-card, now delivered by coalition troops, rather than Ba’athist thugs?

The June 15th New York Times described a U.S. military raid on a gas station in Fallujah, an Iraqi city seen as a stronghold for anti-American guerrillas. The raid involved an Abrams battle tank, four Bradley fighting vehicles, and a small infantry unit. The U.S. troops rousted a group of truck drivers sleeping near the gas station. “We are searching for weapons,” one soldier explained. “We have nothing but potatoes,” replied one of the drivers.

In Ramadi, a small town roughly 60 miles west of Baghdad, “the families were still asleep when the [U.S.] armored column rumbled into their village at 5:15 a.m.,” recorded an AP dispatch from Iraq. “These are coalition forces,” announced an Arabic-language warning broadcast from loudspeakers. “Please stay in your homes and open your doors. Thank you for your cooperation.” Men and women were led out of their homes, bound with plastic handcuffs, and detained in a nearby home while troops searched the village. This weapons sweep netted a single rifle. Commented local resident Abdul Qader Fahd: “The resistance is going to increase. Dealing with civilians like this is terrorism.”

According to Fallujah resident Jassim Mohammed, whose two adult sons were arrested by troops during a weekend raid: “We got rid of one problem and now we have a bigger one.... Even Saddam never did this to us.”

“The U.S. army has changed from being a liberator to an offensive occupier,” insisted Iraqi Fawzi Shafi, editor of the new weekly newspaper Sot il-Hurriye (Voice of Freedom). “Last Friday [June 13] they came into my house with about 25 troops,” complained Shafi to the Christian Science Monitor. “They searched during breakfast and scared the children. They insulted us by putting us [face-down] on the floor in front of our women.”

Certainly American troops are not brutal, sadistic thugs like Saddam’s secret police. But as the war to oust Saddam morphed into an occupation of indefinite duration, our troops found themselves caught in a familiar predicament. Ambushes by Iraqi guerrillas and imported foreign Mujahadin have made more aggressive security measures necessary; imposing such measures exacerbates the resentment of Iraqi civilians, generating further attacks. It’s a familiar, if tragic, dynamic.

Terrorism’s purpose, as Marxist theoretician Carlos Marighella pointed out in his notorious Mini-Manual for Urban Guerrillas, is to provoke a crackdown to create optimum conditions for a political revolution. “First the urban guerrilla must use revolutionary violence to identify with popular causes and so win a popular base,” explained Marighella. “Then, the government has no alternative except to intensify repression. The police roundups, house searches, arrests of innocent people make life in the city unbearable.”

This revolutionary prescription has led to nearly unending bloodshed in Northern Ireland and Palestine. It threatens to do so as well in Iraq.

Echoes of Vietnam?

The official rhetoric emanating from the administration has also taken on a familiar Vietnam-era cadence: To pacify resistance and ensure the protection of occupation troops, efforts are being made to win the “hearts and minds” of the Iraqis. Reported the June 16th New York Times: “American troops pressed forward today in a new campaign combining military raids against suspected supporters of Saddam Hussein with high-visibility relief projects for Iraqi civilians. Commanders said they hoped that the two-sided approach would help eradicate armed resistance against American forces.”

Accordingly, only hours after U.S. troops conducted armed raids in Baghdad to search for weapons, “military engineers set out to build soccer fields for children there.... In other parts of town, soldiers were giving out free gasoline....” As Army reserve engineer Carleigh McCroy observes, “It’s kind of contradictory for them. You bomb them, and three roads over you’re fixing the school.”

While many Iraqis are doubtless grateful for such amenities, others have suffered inconsolable losses and are eager for revenge. Thuluya, a relatively prosperous village 40 miles northwest of Baghdad, “has been transformed” by the death of three civilians accidentally killed during a coalition military operation, reported the June 15th Washington Post. The once-supportive Sunni Muslim population there “speaks of revenge.”

During an arms sweep, U.S. troops arrested about 400 Thuluya residents, releasing all but 50 of them several days later. One of those temporarily detained was taxi driver Hashim Ibrahim Mohammed, who — like many others under Saddam’s rule — joined the Ba’ath Party hoping to improve his children’s career prospects. According to his account, U.S. troops “entered his house after midnight … put him on the ground, a boot on his back, and tied his hands with plastic handcuffs,” reported the Post. “Tape was placed over his mouth and he was blindfolded. Fourteen of Hashim’s relatives were arrested. Hashim’s 15-year-old nephew, also named Hashim, was among the three civilians killed during the raid. “I think the future’s going to be very dark,” warned Rahim Hamid Hammoud, a local judge. “We’re seeing each day become worse than the last.”

The purpose of President Bush’s photo-op aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln was supposedly to place the president before throngs of cheering sailors as he announced the end of “major combat operations” in Iraq. The propaganda backdrop behind him declared: “Mission Accomplished.” Six weeks later, thousands of U.S. troops are still engaged in deadly combat missions against irregular forces, including Saddam loyalists and imported foreign Mujahadin. On June 15th, the amnesty period for Iraqis to turn in their firearms expired — which will almost certainly mean a significant escalation in fighting as U.S. troops ramp up efforts to seize proscribed weapons.

But at least the Iraqis are freer now than they were under Saddam’s late, unlamented regime, correct? To adapt one of Bill Clinton’s notorious formulations, that would depend on what the meaning of “free” is. Jacob Hornberger, president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, points out: “The Iraqi people are now living under direct military rule, with foreign military commanders ruling by decree. Democratic elections are prohibited, and political rulers are being selected by military commanders. Iraqi citizens are being required to turn in their weapons to the military authorities. There is a mandatory 11 p.m. curfew, enforced by soldiers. There are warrantless searches of homes and warrantless seizures of criminal suspects; these are conducted not by the police but by army troops. Occupation troops are killing demonstrators and suspected criminals without a trial or due process of law.”

Bring Them Home!

That this state of affairs is intolerable for long-suffering Iraqis is obvious. But it’s nearly as bad for the American troops who carry out the occupation. Twenty-one-year-old Sergeant Jaime Betancourt, who lost four of his buddies in a Baghdad car bombing in March, has been called on to enforce the curfew and patrol Baghdad’s streets. “I think … the most scary thing [was] trusting civilians, especially after the car bomb,” Betancourt told the June 15th New York Times. After serving in the invasion force and enduring the car-bomb attack, he observes, “We didn’t want nothing to do with these people anymore.”

Private First Class Matthew C. O’Dell, an infantryman in Betancourt’s platoon, offered an even more pointed observation: “You call Donald Rumsfeld and tell him our sorry a**es are ready to go home. Tell him to come spend a night in our building.” Similar sentiments could probably be expressed by many other U.S. troops described in the Times story, who had served as UN peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo before being deployed in the Iraq occupation.

Danger, tragedy, and death are inevitable features of war, and confronting them is unavoidably part of a soldier’s life. Our nation’s independence and our personal liberties exist, in large measure, because brave, capable, honorable men enlist in our military and endure what most of us cannot even imagine. This is why it is a crime against our nation to waste our fighting men’s lives in conflicts that have nothing to do with protecting our freedom and independence.

Saddam, despicable as he was, never posed a serious threat to our nation. Under U.S. occupation, with American troops being used to carry out a mission that will create anti-American hatred, Iraq is becoming an even more dangerous incubator of terrorism.

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