Every time an American or British soldier is killed, we know his name, his age, whether he was married, and the names of his children. But 500,000-600,000 Iraqis, how many of their names have found their way onto our television programmes, our radio shows, our newspapers? They are just numbers, and we don’t even know the statistics.
And finally when Bush has realised that they are losing (‘we aren’t winning in Iraq,’ Dec. 21, 2006), a get-out clause is being prepared that the Iraqis are unworthy of us Westerners, that they prefer to indulge in old hatreds, confessional violence, ethnic bigotry and a culture of corruption and this is evident from the increased depiction of the sectarian violence by our so-called intelligent media.
This is the way in which we are being prepared for what is to happen. This is the grit, which will be laid on the desert floor to help the US tanks move out.
Now at least nobody can say that there were never predictions about the future of Iraq and the Middle-east. The record of that 1920 insurgency against the British occupation is a fingerprint-perfect copy of the insurgency against the Americans and the British today. Don’t say that no one warned many, many years before here now, before even the World War II, of what was to happen in Palestine.
Safiya Sameena
Vijayawada, A.P.