It is interesting to juxtapose the rantings of the bush administration, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the accompanying chorus of Foxistas who want us all to believe that we’ve “turned the corner” in Iraq, or that Iraq is stable, democratic and being rebuilt even as we speak with the words of Iraqis living under the guns of an American occupation force. Voices like Riverbend and of the Iraqi citizens who are now posting in the NeverGiveUp forums in TheWar forum.

To truly understand just how much of a threat American forces are to the average Iraqi we need to much better understand the situation there, and think about it, in ways the nightly (or endless) news never does.

Yes, American troops are under threat in Iraq. Of course they are. We invaded the country and destroyed much of its infrastructure, we failed to secure the environment there by allowing massive quantities of weapons and explosives to fall into the hands of anyone with a truck and a few friends to help him load it. We haven’t secured the borders, we fired all the government employees and their military leaving no local source of security or governance. We put into place a puppet government made up of Iraqi exiles who have been as guilty of looting their own country to line their pockets as Saddam ever was, and few of whom have the support of the Iraqi people.

Combine that with a military completely unprepared to act as an occupying force, in which the average soldier has little if any understanding of the culture, the language or what life in the country is like, and you have a recipe for the very disaster we see playing out every day.

The troops are getting shot at, bombed and harassed regularly which makes them trigger-happy, scared and unpredictable. They are basically left in a position where their basic job is not getting killed, rather than stabilizing the country, and because of this their reactions are predicated on protecting each other rather than the Iraqi people. So if Iraqi civilians get killed by overreacting US forces, or in the middle of a firefight, or just because some troop doesn’t like the way they walk, drive, talk or look, all we get from the Pentagon is “gee, we’re sorry that happened but that’s war” response.

So life for Iraqis is one of daily fear, fear that the US soldier they see walking down the street will mistake them for a threat and shoot first, or that just driving to the store for food might be enough justification for some US tank or Bradley to view them as potential suicide bombers and blow them and their car to bits “just to be safe”.

Their front door can be kicked down at any hour of the day and be invaded by heavily armed troops who don’t speak their language, don’t know who they are (and don’t care) and who might just shoot their mother if she runs into the room wanting to know what is happening. their home will be ransacked, the destroyed front door an open invitation to thieves, and they’ll be lucky if they aren’t shipped off to jail in plastic bracelets after getting a rifle butt to the head.

And if none of this ever happens to you as an Iraqi it doesn’t matter, because it could happen, at any time, anywhere and you know it and it infects your every actions every day.

So next time you get in the car to drive down to 7/11 imagine what that trip would be like if you were in the same position as our “liberated” and “free” Iraqi “friends”.

And it is all brought to you compliments of Uncle Sam.

[edited to add] Let me be clear about this. If anything this is further indication that it isn’t the troops fault for reacting as most humans would react in their position. They’ve been put there by an administraton that cares little for their welfare and has so little respect for the sacrifice they are willing to make that it uses them heartlessly and then tries to hide its responsibility behind their dedication and sacrifice. The crimes being committed are crimes of this adminstration, the troops are just their instruments and when the horror of it becomes public this adminstration immediately points the finger of blame at the troops.

So our soldiers aren’t doing the job we say they are doing, they’re just trying to stay alive, and because of that the Iraqis are under even more threat than they were under Saddam. It may be nice that Saddam is gone but replacing him with an army in a different uniform that is just as likely to shoot civilians isn’t much of an improvement. And putting our troops into an impossible situation they are not equipped to handle is an utter and complete waste of their sacrifice and takes resources away from address the reality of terrorism in the world today and makes the world less safe, not more.