Last year, recognizing my complete ignorance of the Mideast, I read several books on Iraq, the Mideast and Saddam, but I am certainly willing to admit having only a shallow knowledge.
But, actually, that proves my point. We can only understand what we know and experience; we don't move too easily into new frameworks. So if murderous thugs are what Fallujah knows and they were a stronghold for Saddam, as I understand it, so certain allegiances are what they they hold. Why should they (or we) expect anything else - especially when we are an occupation force, who have been portrayed as the enemy for so long?
I went and reread that article more closely thinking I had missed something, and while it seems to be written intentionally focusing on the negative, I saw nothing about "massive atrocities" from the reporter himself. She was careful to use quotes, as in "a US assault left 600 dead last week. The victims include hundreds of women and children, according to hospital and clinic records. (my bold) Well, this is true, though plenty has been written about the reliability about those records.
He states that there is a great deal of chaos and that numbers aren't confirmed.
Fudella told her story from a crowded, dank, bomb shelter in Baghdad, alongside some 60 other Fallujan women and children. With tattooed hands and black veils wrapped around their faces, the women shouted out accusations of reckless killings by the US forces the say they witnessed: a neighbor's house bombed, killing all 19 people inside; a 5-year-old gunned down by a sniper on a minaret; an old man mowed down by helicopter fire.
Gosh, wstera, I guess we just read things very differently. I don't read the above as the facts of what happened, but the facts of what is perceived as having happened. I read it as the perceptions of terrified, grieving and very angry people striking out. I see it as a window into the psyches of the people we say we are trying to "win the hearts of". It is a warning to us that what we are doing is fraught with pitfalls, regardless of our excellent intentions. Negative reporting is going to follow us throughout this war. It was a given, once we chose to go it alone.
I can sure sympathize with your feelings about not reading these kinds of articles; they are depressing and disheartening, but I don't think they should be dismissed as dishonest or total fabrications. They are written from a different POV, one it seems some of us have trouble accepting is part of this whole reality. |
