Please find below a brilliant piece by the most
perceptive commentator on Iraq available on the web, Professor Juan Cole of the
University of Michigan.
Juan's blog is at <http://www.juancole.com/>
'If
America were Iraq, What would it be Like?'
Wednesday, September 22,
2004
President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the
pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.
What
would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population
of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be
multiplied by that number.
Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week,
the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had
died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial
bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on
September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or
monthly toll.
And what if those deaths occurred all over the country,
including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon
line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?
What if
the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were
constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at
Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their
buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or
Alexandria?
What if all the reporters for all the major television and
print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York,
unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know
what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they
ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National
Guard units?
There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq
engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies
totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!),
rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban
areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled
Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha,
such that local police and Federal troops could not go into those
cities?
What if, during the past year, the Secretary of State (Aqilah
Hashemi), the President (Izzedine Salim), and the Attorney General (Muhammad
Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated?
What if all the cities in the
US were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings,
burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year?
What if the
Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint,
Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and
other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs", but
inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?
What if, from
time to time, the US Army besieged Virginia Beach, killing hundreds of armed
members of the Christian Soldiers? What if entire platoons of the Christian
Soldiers militia holed up in Arlington National Cemetery, and were bombarded by
US Air Force warplanes daily, destroying thousands of graves and even
pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial over on the Mall? What if the National Council
of Churches had to call for a popular march of thousands of believers to
converge on the National Cathedral to stop the US Army from demolishing it to
get at a rogue band of the Timothy McVeigh Memorial Brigades?
What if
there were virtually no commercial air traffic in the country? What if many
roads were highly dangerous, especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to
Washington, DC, and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95 anywhere
along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk being carjacked, kidnapped, or
having your car sprayed with machine gun fire.
What if no one had
electricity for much more than 10 hours a day, and often less? What if it went
off at unpredictable times, causing factories to grind to a halt and air
conditioning to fail in the middle of the summer in Houston and Miami? What if
the Alaska pipeline were bombed and disabled at least monthly? What if
unemployment hovered around 40%?
What if veterans of militia actions at
Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing were brought in to run the government
on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis?
What if
municipal elections were cancelled and cliques close to the new "president"
quietly installed in the statehouses as "governors?" What if several of these
governors (especially of Montana and Wyoming) were assassinated soon after
taking office or resigned when their children were taken hostage by
guerrillas?
What if the leader of the European Union
maintained that the citizens of the United States are, under these conditions,
refuting pessimism and that freedom and democracy are just around the
corner?