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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (491309)	11/12/2003 6:46:53 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

This will make surely make the Iraqis love us.... occupationwatch.org Leveled Trees Sprout Animosity - U.S. cites dangers; Iraqis see livelihood lost by Mohamad Bazzi, Newsday November 5th, 2003 Dhuluiya, Iraq - The bulldozers worked for 10 days, methodically clearing the date palms and citrus groves as 200 U.S. soldiers sealed off the area. Townspeople looked on helplessly, while jazz music blared from speakers mounted atop the soldiers' trucks. U.S. commanders told the farmers that insurgents were hiding in the thick orchards and ambushing soldiers as they drove along the main road leading into town - so the trees had to be cut down in late September. To Americans, clearing the five-acre field was necessary to protect troops' lives. To Iraqis, it was a form of collective punishment, especially after they failed to provide information about the guerrillas attacking U.S. forces. "They told us to bring them the people who are responsible for the attacks. But we don't know who they are," said Hussein Khazraji, 71, the patriarch of an extended family that owns a portion of the uprooted field. He stood next to a stone house that was once shaded by 60-year-old palm trees. "Is this how the Americans want to help the Iraqi people - by cutting down our trees and destroying our livelihood?" In this town on the winding banks of the Tigris River, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, Sunni Muslim tribes for generations have eked a modest living out of date palms and orange and lemon groves. Under Saddam Hussein's regime, the area prospered because of its Sunni roots and because its large tribes contributed men to Hussein's elite Republican Guard and intelligence services. The people of Dhuluiya did not want Hussein removed from power, and they did not welcome American troops. The town is part of the so-called "Sunni Triangle," an area north and west of Baghdad where U.S. forces have faced the stiffest opposition. After the fields were cleared, the tenuous relationship between Dhuluiya's residents and the American occupiers deteriorated even further. Everyone in town talks about collective punishment; some even describe U.S. actions as a "war crime." Iraqis are quick to make a comparison with Israel's actions in the Palestinian territories, where Israeli forces regularly clear fields as a security measure - and as a form of communal punishment. "The Americans are treating us the same way the Israelis treat the Palestinians," said Abdel-Hakim Khazraji, 30, who worked on the uprooted land. Continues........