Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris
and Euphrates
How many children, in how many classrooms, over how many centuries, have
hang-glided through the past, transported on the wings of these words?
And now the bombs are falling, incinerating and humiliating that ancient
civilisation
by Arundhati Roy
On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers
scrawl colourful messages in childish handwriting: For Saddam, from the
Fat Boy Posse. A building goes down. A marketplace. A home. A girl who
loves a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older
brother's marbles.
On March 21, the day after American and British troops began their
illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, an "embedded" CNN
correspondent interviewed an American soldier. "I wanna get in there
and get my nose dirty," Private AJ said. "I wanna take revenge
for 9/11."
To be fair to the correspondent, even though he was "embedded"
he did sort of weakly suggest that so far there was no real evidence that
linked the Iraqi government to the September 11 attacks. Private AJ stuck
his teenage tongue out all the way down to the end of his chin.
"Yeah, well that stuff's way over my head," he said.
According to a New York Times/CBS News survey, 42 per cent of the
American public believes that Saddam Hussein is directly responsible for
the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. And
an ABC news poll says that 55 per cent of Americans believe that Saddam
Hussein directly supports al-Qaida. What percentage of America's armed
forces believe these fabrications is anybody's guess.
It is unlikely that British and American troops fighting in Iraq are
aware that their governments supported Saddam Hussein both politically
and financially through his worst excesses.
But why should poor AJ and his fellow soldiers be burdened with these
details? It does not matter any more, does it? Hundreds of thousands of
men, tanks, ships, choppers, bombs, ammunition, gas masks, high-protein
food, whole aircrafts ferrying toilet paper, insect repellent, vitamins
and bottled mineral water, are on the move. The phenomenal logistics of
Operation Iraqi Freedom make it a universe unto itself. It doesn't need
to justify its existence any more. It exists. It is.
Full story...
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