again via carrol cox -- israeli viewpoint >------- Start of forwarded message ------- >Uri Avnery >25.3.03 > >Where did they go wrong? > >Some more thoughts about the war > ># Plan and reality. An old truism says: "No war-plan does survive the >first clash with the enemy." That is always true. But something even >worse has happened to the Americans now. > >In order to sell the war to their own public and to the world, Bush & >Co. have painted the picture of a "surgical operation". > >Quite simple: the Americans march on Baghdad in strength. The Iraqi >population wants to get rid of their cruel dictator and greet the >liberators with joy. The Shiites in the south shower them with rice. >Sadam gets killed. The regime collapses like a house of cards. The >Americans enter Baghdad in triumph. THE END. The whole business will >take a week, at most. No dead, no prisoners. > >Bush and his people did not lie. They really believed that this is going >to happen. As always, the spin-doctors succeeded in convincing >themselves. > >After drawing an imaginary map, they based their plans on it. Now they >meet the reality. For example, because of their contempt for the enemy, >the lines of communication were not properly secured, there were no >adequate preparations for the battles in the rear. After a rapid advance >through the desert that was mainly a logistic operation, they reached >the vicinity of Baghdad and thought that everything else will more or >less fall into place by itself. > ># The "Israeli Syndrome". One may call this the "Israeli Syndrome": the >abysmal contempt for the Arabs, the belief that they cannot fight. This >has caused the failures of the Israeli army in the Yom Kippur and >Lebanon wars and in the two intifadas. Every time the Arabs fight >valiantly and sacrifice their lives, it causes painful surprise. (An >Israeli joke: "You really can't rely on the Arabs. They are not >surrendering.") > ># They are afraid. The Iraqi people react as any normal people would. >In the face of a foreign invasion, they unite. Even the opponents of the >regime support the leader in battle. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet >Union, even the prisoners in the Gulag camps cheered Stalin. > >Many Iraqis want, quite likely, to get rid of Saddam. But they do not >want this to be done by foreign invaders. Especially not by the >Americans, whom they suspect of intending to rob them of their oil. (The >participation of the British, their hated former colonial masters, makes >things even worse.) > >And when the population does not come out to welcome the liberators and >the brigades of the regular army do not capitulate en masse, what is the >explanation? The politicians and generals find solace in a blatantly >ridiculous construction: the millions of inhabitants of Basra and the >south are afraid of Saddam's agents who are still in the area. They long >to greet the Americans, but do not dare, poor people. > >Even the Israeli Army Spokesman could not have invented a more pitiful >explanation. > ># The Palestinian example. No Arab - be he Sunni or Shiite - can look >upon the Americans as liberators, because, for two years now, they have >seen every day on their TV screens what the Israeli army, with Bush's >wholehearted support, is doing to the Arab Palestinian people. > >The righteous Americans, who tend to be insensitive to the feelings of >other peoples, cannot even imagine the intensity of the fury and hatred >of the Arab masses. Therefore, they could not draw the lessons from the >September 11 atrocities - one of them being that they must change their >policy in our country. > >Even now, while the war is going on, Saddam's television broadcasts >images of Israeli outrages in the Palestinian territories, in order to >show to the Iraqi people how the heroic Palestinians, including the >children, pit their lives against the huge might of the Israeli army. > ># The moment of shock. In the history of Israel there were several >moment of national shock. > >One of them happened during the Yom Kippur war. The moment is printed in >my memory. We were sitting in front of the TV set in a friend's >apartment, when there appeared on the screen a group of Israeli soldiers >who had been taken prisoners. > >They were sitting on the ground, their heads bent down, their hands tied >on their backs, trembling and frightened, surrounded by jubilant >Syrians. > >Up to that moment, the absolute belief in the superiority of the Israeli >fighter was a cornerstone of Israeli consciousness, nourished by >innumerable true stories and myths. At that moment it came crushing >down. Suddenly we saw our soldiers as normal human beings, frightened in >a frightening situation. > >Now it happens to the Americans. They see their sons in a similar >situation. No wonder the White House tries to hide the pictures, citing >the Geneva convention. Where was that convention when thousands of PoWs >from Afghanistan, soldiers of the Taliban army, where shown like animals >in Guatanamo? > ># Prisoners. Our own army, of course, has always put prisoners-of-war on >display for propaganda purposes. > >I particularly remember a star of Israeli television, the "Arabist" Ehud >Ya'ari, an ex-officer of army intelligence, interrogating captive Syrian >and Egyptian officers on television, as an army intelligence officer >would. No Geneva convention was mentioned. > ># Saladin. One thing is certain even now: Saddam Hussein has already >achieved what he wanted. > >Whatever happens during the next days and weeks, he will enter Arab >history as one of the great heroes, who did not flinch or run away in >face of the superior enemy. Generations of children in all Arab >countries will learn in school that he was the heir of the great Salah >al-Din (Saladin). > >The greatest military machine in history - as its commanders call it - >has attacked a small country, most of whose arms were destroyed >beforehand, and the people resisted valiantly under a shower of bombs >and missiles, even without any air defense. > >This is how it looks even now to all the Arabs in the world. They >compare Saddam to their own rulers, Mubarak, Fahed, Abdallah and Assad. > > From now on, the legend will only expand, growing into a national >myth. > >------------------------------------------- >You are subscribed to engdep-l, the discussion list for the English >Department at Illinois State University. >To join or leave the list: http://www.english.ilstu.edu/join.html >List archives: http://listserv.ilstu.edu/archives/engdep-l.html