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Americans and Iraqis alike die lor unclear reasons
Taleisha Bowen
News Editor
Americans were shocked and
horrified to learn that on March
31, four U.S. civilians were ambushed
and killed in Fallujah, Iraq. Their bod
ies, burned from their automobiles
exploding, were dragged through the
streets of Fallujah, and two were then
hanged from a bridge across the
Euphrates River.
Religious leaders in Iraq quickly
denounced the actions of the mob, but
the damage was already done at that
point. The families of Jerry Zovko,
Michael Teague, Scott Helvenston and
Wesley John Kealoha Batalona will
never see these men alive again.
These men weren't soldiers, though
all of them were veterans of the Army
or Navy They worked for a North
Carolina security company charged
with storing and keeping track of mili
tary food rations in that area of Iraq.
But they were Americans, and that
was more than good enough for the
The Last Hope for Democracy: the Iraqis themselves
Adam Waxman
Guest Writer
Sitting outside the cafeteria,
tabling for the March 20 march in
Fayetteville, North Carolina, it seemed
everyone wanted to talk high geopolit
ical analysis.
"Bring the troops home?" people
asked, seeing some of our flyers from
International ANSWER. "I opposed
the war, but we can't bring the troops
home - we've got to stay the course in
Iraq, we broke it, we have to fix it ..."
It used to be, I would be right there
wirh them. I couldn't understand the
logic of withdrawal - after all, the
United States couldn't just say to the
Iraqis, "well, we killed a bunch of your
citizens, bombed your bridges and
roads, and took out anyone with any
governmental experience in your soci
ety see ya!" We surely needed to
stay in Iraq, and help to rebuild the
country and transition the society to a
democracy. Maybe it wouldn't be a
Western democracy, but it would be at
least pluralistic.
mob that killed them.
It is doubtful, however, that the mob
realized the effect their actions would
have.
In the two weeks since the four
deaths, the violence has escalated.
Six hundred Iraqis have died in hospi
tals in the Fallujah region, after a lock
down on the town turned into a siege
on April 5. The death count becomes
much higher when one realizes that
more are dying before reaching care
facilities.
"I could see many bodies in the
streets. Hundreds were lying in the
street. Relatives were too scared to
get them," Samir Rabee, told The New
York Times. Rabee is a Fallujah resi
dent who managed to flee the city dur
ing a lull in the fighting.
Bodies of the dead are being buried
wherever there is space, including
soccer fields. Fallujah residents have
dubbed one such field "Graveyard of
the Martyrs."
For surely that's the title deserved by
Now, after all the death and carnage
of the last few weeks, the uprising
sponsored in large part by radical
Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, I see that
the United States must leave Iraq. We
must leave because we cannot rebuild
Iraq - only the Iraqis themselves can
do this. Make no mistake -1 don't sup
port International ANSWER'S position
that the international community as a
whole should just pick up stakes and
run. However, the United States can
not be part of the process, except pos
sibly as a donor to the reconstruction
efforts.
What made me switch positions? It
had to be Bush and the CPA's utter
inability to face the situation in Iraq
and what seems to be their utter indif
ference. Bush simply responds to the
violence by saying we'll "stay the
course," whatever the hell that means.
In reality, Bush wants to turn power
over to the Iraqis by June 30 to show
progress in the war for his domestic
political campaign. Who he's turning
sovereignty over to is another ques
tion, one he hasn't really answered. In
FORUM
anyone brave enough to take on the
Mighty American Military?
"What I think you will find is 95 per
cent of those (bodies) were military
age males that were killed in the fight
ing," Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne
told The New York Times.
But how many of those "military age
males" are inexperienced 16-year-old
boys, or grizzled 50-year-old men?
How many were extremists simply
wanting their town back from the
invading American troops?
How is that an extreme view?
Martyrs, indeed.
Now, I'm a military brat. My father
and two uncles currently serve in the
Air Force, and I have two more uncles
in the Army. About a third of my high
school class went directly into the mil
itary upon - or even before - gradua
tion.
My sympathies lie firmly with every
American soldier - and civilian - who
is risking their life at the say-so of the
current administration.
my view, Bush has two options to
avoid a "Vietnamization" of Iraq.
First, he could simply withdraw and
allow Sadr's (along with other Shiite)
forces to take control. Along with pro
viding political leadership, the
mosques of Iraq have shown they
have the capacity to serve as a social
structure - in the last few days, Iraq's
mosques have coordinated sending
food and other supplies to the U.S.-
besieged city of Fallujah, as U.S. sol
diers looked on. Now, this strategy
probably would be the worst from a
U.S. P.R.'s perspective - it's almost
certain that Sadr, in an alliance with
more moderate Ayatollah Al-Sistani,
would set up some kind of Iran-style
theocracy in Iraq. Sistani's been a bit
coy about his views of democracy
he's been critical of Sadr's tactics, but
also launched a massive protest
against the newly proposed constitu
tion. Furthermore, though Sadr has
been able thus far to unite warring eth
nic factions in Iraq, allowing him (and
by extension, radical Shiites) to take
control might well lead to civil war.
APRIL 16, 2004
GREENSBORO, NC
But I also believe that enough is too
much.
Iraqi militants, with demands that
U.S. and other forces withdraw from
their country, have taken hostage
nationals from Russia, China, Japan,
and America in Iraq - for whatever
reason. Can you really blame them?
The guerillas have threatened to
burn the hostages alive if their
demands are not met.
So, of course, our government will
formulate another rescue a la Jessica
Lynch, and the Graveyard of Martyrs
will have a few new residents.
Martyrs indeed.
A death toll of 600-plus Iraqis in
Fallujah in the past two weeks, among
countless other Iraqi deaths since the
U.S. occupation began. Death from
bullets and explosions and fire and
God only knows what else.
A death toll of more than 600
Americans in Iraq over the past year.
A minimum of 1,200 souls sacrificed.
How many more must die?
The second option is to allow the
U.N. to fully take control of the recon
struction process. There are several
reasons why this would be tough to
pull off, mostly involving the current
bunch living in the White House. The
international community has almost no
respect for Bush and Co., and would
be unlikely to support more U.N.
troops going to Iraq, given all the
recent violence. Therefore, some kind
of dual arrangement might need to be
found - the various
Shiite/Sunni/Kurdish militias could be
united into a national force, with over
sight, funding, advice, and involve
ment from the U.N. Other questions
like relationships with Kuwait, Iran,
and the Kurdish north could be figured
out once there was more political sta
bility. Whatever the solution, one thing
remains clear: We must withdraw from
Iraq, and withdraw now. If we do not,
we will fail. If we do not, we will be
doing a disservice not just to memo
ries of the thousands of people killed,
but also to the future generations that
will have to live with our mistake.