"What the Americans and the Iraqi Governing Council can't understand is that this is a revolution," said Sheik Anwar Hamed, a Shi'ite from Sadr City, but who is not a follower of Muqtada, in an interview. "Everyone is involved. Those who can't fight will give money. Those who can't give money will give medicine. Those who can't give medicine will give food. Those who can't give food will give blood," he explained, adding that this is not just about Muqtada now. The resistance, he says, has no chain of command, has no organizational structure, and has no recruitment process because everyone can join just by fighting back.
"We are on a war footing now," conceded a senior military official in Baghdad. Indeed, the US is now confronting the most serious challenge yet to the occupation. This, says the Los Angeles Times, could well be the second war on Iraq - the only way to hang on for a day longer, in order to stay as long as is necessary. The first war, against Saddam, was a war of choice, an easy one because the former dictator had no popular support. Now, it is a war of necessity, and it could prove to be more difficult because, this time, it is a war against the Iraqi people. For Iraqis, it also seems like this could well be the war of liberation which the United States had always promised them.
atimes.com |
