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Sun 4 Apr, 2004 09:43 am
Published on Friday, April 2, 2004 by the Guardian/UK
Driven by National Pride
by Jonathan Steele
The architecture of the Iraqi town of Falluja bears little resemblance to the narrow alleys of Gaza's impoverished refugee camps. Detached two-story homes with palm trees and small shaded gardens behind their sand-colored front walls stand along wide streets, looking as comfortable as suburbs anywhere.
But as residents ushered reporters into their homes a few days ago, shortly before this week's attack on four American security guards (though mercenaries might be a better term), it was clear that deep communal anger was lurking here, and had reached boiling point. They wanted to show the results of several US incursions over four days and nights last week.
Rockets from helicopter gunships had punctured bedroom walls. Patio floors and front gates were pockmarked by shrapnel. Car doors looked like sieves. In the mayhem 18 Iraqis lay dead. On the American side two marines were killed. It was the worst period of violence Falluja has seen during a year of occupation.
So this week's retaliation comes as no surprise.The cycle of violence that US troops unleashed looks and feels increasingly like Palestinian rage in the face of excessive force by an occupying power.
In Falluja there are tactical differences. Few Iraqis see a need to resort to suicide, nor do they primarily choose to target civilians. The US base three miles from town produces a ready flow of potential military victims, supplemented this week by private contractors working closely with the occupation authorities. Military convoys trundle through or near Falluja every day. The usual tactic is to ambush them with homemade bombs, followed by grenades and small arms fire when the survivors jump out of their vehicles. Then the resistance runs off into the suburban side-streets.
The American response is heavy-handed and indiscriminate. "The US is indirectly supporting the resistance by targeting innocent people. It makes us more sympathetic to the resistance," Shaban Rajab, 45, a taxi-driver, told me.
For Tha'ir Turki and his family the Americans piled insult on injury. They were attending the wake for their father, who had been killed on Thursday, when more grim news arrived. "Don't go home," a group of neighbors warned them. "The Americans are there." The grieving family had to sleep with friends.
"Even if there was some resistance among people here, what have we done? Our women and girls are not part of it," said Tha'ir Turki, as he showed the chaos the marines left after sleeping in his house. Cupboards were ransacked, a computer had gone, and empty brown bags which once contained army rations littered every room. He was particularly upset at finding them in his teenage sisters' bedroom. Little jewelry boxes were scattered across the dresser, their lids off. Women's clothes had been pulled out of drawers.
Not many of Falluja's people are former Ba'athist loyalists, as the Americans say, nor have the Americans produced evidence of large numbers of foreign "jihadis". They are ordinary families, driven by nationalist pride, and increasingly by a desire to retaliate when their homes and neighborhoods are violated and their relatives and friends killed.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
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