Ruined Mosques

Mosques all over Iraq have been destroyed in fights between local insurgents and US soldiers. Bombed out, ruined, burnt down, shot through. Symbols for a war where both sides don't care what happens to the country they are fighting in.

The Pentagon regularily uses the insurgent's tactics as an excuse of why they had to blow up another religious site. What kind of argument is that? If there is a bankrobbery, can the police just blow up the bank to stop the crime? Of course not. There is no excuse for the behaviour of the US soldiers in Iraq. None.

The US government likes to call the guerillas the "bad guys". Well, if that's the case, why do the Americans not behave like the good guys? The Geneva Conventions have been called "quaint" by this government, but they are still Federal Law.

This policy and the failure by the Bush regime to even once apologize for such an act has destroyed any hope for friendship, understanding and cooperation with all the countries in this world that have a high percentage of muslims among their population. Even most of Europe and the Canadians have been busy moving as far away as they can from being seen as allies of the US.

America is becoming a pariah.

This kind of behaviour against another culture and the frequent reports of torture in US-run prison camps all over the world will not be forgotten for a long time. It took the Germans fifty years of spotless behavior to overcome the blemish of the Second World War and to finally make peace with the survivors of the Holocaust.

It will take the US another fifty years to regain their status as a beacon of freedom. For now, the image of a progressive superpower and a defender of democracy has been utterly destroyed, ruined like the mosques of Iraq.