I'm afraid we don't get it. The people of Falluja see us as monsters, based on what they perceive as our murderous, monstrous, behavior. Telling people they didn't see what they think they saw seems to work here in the United States, but won't work in Iraq. It only works with us, because we don't believe that we're monsters, that people like us, from among us, can be monsters.
But wait, it's easy for us to believe strangers, Iraqis, muslims, are monsters; It's easy to believe strangers, Americans, Christians, can be monsters. Monstrous acts, committed by strangers, are indelible. Just as we can't forget the World Trade Center, they can't forget what they've seen. Whether we want to believe it or not is as irrelevent as the fact that some muslims couldn't believe Bin Laden was responsible for 9-11.
This all started in April when the people of Falluja did what people usually do with what they believe to be monsters. They lynched them, set fire to their bodies, and mutilated the corpses.
We've been doing this to "monsters" throughout recorde history, and probably longer. Sometimes they've been called witches as in the Spanish Inquisition. And then there's our wonderful south from the 1890's to the civil rights era. Lest we think it's regional, lynchings occured in Minnesota and Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. Like the people in Falluja, they slew the "monster" and celebrated.
I think this whole thing started when incensed scared american soldiers shot up some "monsters" who were demonstrating. (How dare they attack us and then have a Pro Saddam demonstration?) When you have people actually believing Iraqis were responsible for 9-11, anything is not just possible, but likely. Next the demonstration protesting the first shootings was shot up. Finally, policemen along with a Jordanian hospital security guard were shot at point blank range with all the evidence showing that American troops weren't shot at at all.
So now, we're each others "monsters." That means wounded unarmed "monsters" get killed. It means Margaret Hassan, despite the unlikely plea of al Zarkawi for her freedom, gets killed.
So here we are. If the cold war, in which over forty million people died, can be considerd World War Three, this is World War Four. Einstein, when asked what weapons world war three would be fought with said he didn't know, but ww4 would be fought with sticks and stones. He never imagined precision guided bombs or improvised explosive devices.
For now, I will fight with words.
These are some links to the story of Falluja which, for the most part, remain untold by our press. If a fraction of what was done to the people of Falluja ws done to us, there'd be no end to the killing.
Unfortunately, this may be the future of Iraq
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluja/Iraqfalluja-04.htm#P273_41771
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluja/Iraqfalluja-08.htm#P388_58785
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=site%3Ahrw.org+police+killed+in+falluja
http://conceptual.blogspot.com/2004/11/nytimes-middle-east-on-ground-sides-in.html
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