A Pink Dress in the Rubble

So the US military spent the last week celebrating Bush's re-election by flattening a city and by all accounts, killing indiscriminately.

Here for instance a little news item from Fallujah:

ABC pool video footage showed Marines continuing to search door-to-door, blowing the gates off houses with explosives. A bit of bright colour stood out on one of the city's ubiquitous gray, rubble-strewn streets a pink dress on the body of a small child crumpled next to the curb.

I am not able to mentally digest these few lines.

What makes all of this so much more horrifying is that it is utterly senseless. The US military is not going to stay in Fallujah. They will behave like complete barbarians for another week or two, and then they will leave. Behind them, thousands of people who would have otherwise lived their lives in relative peace, will put up weapons and join the insurgency.

Their houses are destroyed. Their jobs are gone. Their families are dead. Their dreams and hopes have been flushed down the toilet. All they have is an AK-47 and a newfound hate for everything American.

Every twelve-year-old who plays computer strategy games seems to have more knowledge of the history of guerilla warfare than the US military. Have they every heard of Mao's fight against the Japanese? The fight of the Afghans against the Russians? The Algerians against the French? The Vietnamese against the French and then the Americans? Or the Iraqis against the British? Doesn't ring a bell? They all ended in complete and utter defeat for the larger, better equipped occupying forces. This is what they call a hint.

I do not understand this strategy. It's not a secret that I opposed the Iraq war for pretty damn good reasons, but that is another rant. What this is about is that the military planners seem to completely disregard humanity, decency and history. With one word, these people are complete idiots.

For more quotes on this that make your brain explode, check out TomDispatch's latest. And also, check out this great article by Scott Ritter.