Just Ask The Iraqis

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18383.htm

Just Ask The Iraqis

By Marie Cocco

09/14/07 "TruthDig.com " -- -- It’s all about us.

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A worsening of attitudes in Baghdad, also a focal point of the surge, is apparent. Sixty-eight percent of Baghdad respondents called local security “very bad,” a proportion that is up since March.

Resentment against Americans is undiminished, and has reached such levels that 57 percent of Iraqis say that violence against U.S. forces is acceptable, up six points from when the survey was last conducted in March. In February 2004, only 17 percent of Iraqis said they condoned violence against the Americans in their midst.

Fear, pessimism and resentment grip the country. Why should it be otherwise? Iraqis do not sense that this war was ever about them. They cannot reconcile their lives of deprivation and destruction with American television reports of administration officials claiming that things are beginning to go much better, thank you. Could there be a more blatant display of indifference to their suffering?

For the implacable Bush administration and for the impatient Congress, a single force drives all discussion about Iraq. It has not much to do with Iraqis. Their concerns are the future of the U.S. military, of U.S. prestige, of U.S. access to oil, of broader U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East. Add to the mix the political imperatives that inspire all of them-Bush’s intent to hand over the messy endgame to the next president; lawmakers’ determination to find a path to re-election that guides them safely through this quagmire-and you have a myopia that is bereft of morality.

Americans always have believed themselves to be exceptional, set apart from the rest of the world in both triumph and sacrifice. The instinct intensified after the 2001 terrorist attacks that have defined our contemporary politics.

It is as though history began, or ended, on that day. The next time that banal question-why do they hate us?-is asked, it would be worth reading this poll of Iraqis, if only to get a glimpse of the answer.