One of the Bush administration's talking points on the occupation of Iraq is to compare this effort with the rebuilding of Japan and Germany in the years following World War II.
I'm not sure this is a comparison they really want to be making, since it sets a very high standard for the eventual outcome of the occupation — Germany and Japan became prosperous, democratic allies of the U.S. The comparison also highlights the excessive cost of the Iraqi occupation, both in terms of American lives (there were no combat fatalities during the yearslong occupations of Japan and Germany) and treasure (the entire cost of the Marshall Plan was only around $100 billion in today's dollars).
In any case, for the past seven months or so, I've argued that the closest analogue to this occupation is really the Israeli occupation of the West Bank — a situation that underscores the limits of massive military superiority.
It's not surprising therefore — although it is deeply dismaying — to read that U.S. forces occupying Iraq have stooped to some of the least honorable, most counterproductive and indefensibly immoral tactics employed out of desperation by Israeli troops in the West Bank. Patrick Cockburn reports for the British newspaper The Independent:
US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops. …
Nusayef Jassim, one of 32 farmers who saw their fruit trees destroyed, said: "They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms, but this is not true. They didn't capture anything. They didn't find any weapons."
Other farmers said that US troops had told them, over a loudspeaker in Arabic, that the fruit groves were being bulldozed to punish the farmers for not informing on the resistance which is very active in this Sunni Muslim district.
There is no practical, moral or legal defense for such an action. It erodes any efforts to bring civil, military or economic security to Iraq. It represents a cruelty to the people and the land from which even Saddam Hussein refrained. And it is a violation of international law.
One more heartbreaking detail from this story: "Eyewitnesses … said that one American soldier broke down and cried during the operation."
Thank God for that soldier and others like him. And may God have mercy on those who ordered good men to commit such atrocities in America's name.
Those of us who opposed this war found our protests countered by (smaller) demonstrations called "Support the Troops" rallies. Our argument then was that the best way to support our troops was not to send them to kill and die in an unjust war of choice. Since then, more than 300 American service members have lost their lives, thousands more have been severely injured, and brave and good men and women have been reduced to tears over the things they have been ordered to do. Thanks for your support.
I found the Independent article via Electrolite, where Patrick also points to the response of others to this story.
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