Poetic And Psychotic - Iraq As Disneyland

By Brian Cloughley
CounterPunch.org
1-26-5


I've just had an email from a friend in the Green Zone. He has not set foot outside the compound since he's been there, and probably never will. Helicopter to and from the airport only. Welcome to free Iraq, and especially to liberated Falluja.

The New York Times reported that "Residents trickling back to Falluja . . . enter a desolate world of skeletal buildings, tank-blasted homes, weeping power lines and severed palm trees. Sullen and anxious, tens of thousands of residents have passed through stringent checkpoints to find out . . . whether their homes and shops were reduced to rubble or merely ransacked . . . people have to file through huge coils of razor wire and a gantlet of armed marines to pick up their supplies. On the road . . . Lt. Col Patrick Malay . . . watched the scene with satisfaction. "This is how I like it, just like Disneyland," he said. "Orderly lines and people leave with a smile on their face"."

They are not happy, you unfeeling, ignorant trog. They are utterly miserable and they hate you for destroying and looting their city and especially their family homes. They loathe the US and the Western world - and it is you and your ilk who are responsible for their hatred. It will take centuries before Fallujans come to terms with the fact that Christian barbarians smashed and obliterated their dwellings and shops. Iraq and the entire Middle East will never recover from your president's illegal war and his chaotic military occupation of a country that presented not the remotest threat to America.

The Director of Falluja hospital told the BBC that "about 60% to 70% of the homes and buildings are completely crushed and damaged . . . Of the 30% still left standing, I don't think there is a single one that has not been exposed to some damage." Maybe Disneyland should create a Falluja display to include real dogs eating real human corpses and happy Iraqis wandering round the rubble with Goofy to fill dirty cans with even filthier water. Perhaps LtCol Malay could act as technical advisor to Disney on how to present slaughter and destruction attractively. He could be joined by the carefree LtCol Tim Ryan who (blogger Billmon points out) had a piece in the Tacoma News Tribune on January 18 describing his happy life : "From where I sit in Iraq, things are not all bad right now. In fact, they are going quite well . . . In the distance, I can hear the repeated impacts of heavy artillery and five-hundred-pound bombs hitting their targets. The occasional tank main gun report and the staccato rhythm of a Marine Corps LAV or Army Bradley Fighting Vehicle's 25-millimeter cannon provide the bass line for a symphony of destruction."

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http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley01252005.html

Far worse.