Posted on 03/22/2003 2:26:28 PM PST by Cricket24
Yesterday afternoon a truck drove down a side road in the Iraqi town of Safwan, laden with rugs and furniture. Booty or precious possessions? In a day of death, joy and looting, it was hard to know. As the passengers spotted European faces, one boy grinned and put his thumb up. The other nervously waved a white flag. The mixed messages defined the moment: Thank you. We love you. Please don't kill us.
US marines took Safwan at about 8am yesterday. There was no rose-petal welcome, no cheering crowd, no stars and stripes.
Afraid that the US and Britain will abandon them, the people of Safwan did not touch the portraits and murals of Saddam Hussein hanging everywhere. It was left to the marines to tear them down. It did not mean there was not heartfelt gladness at the marines' arrival. Ajami Saadoun Khlis, whose son and brother were executed under the Saddam regime, sobbed like a child on the shoulder of the Guardian's Egyptian translator. He mopped the tears but they kept coming.
"You just arrived," he said. "You're late. What took you so long? God help you become victorious. I want to say hello to Bush, to shake his hand. We came out of the grave."
"For a long time we've been saying: 'Let them come'," his wife, Zahara, said. "Last night we were afraid, but we said: 'Never mind, as long as they get rid of him, as long as they overthrow him, no problem'." Their 29-year-old son was executed in July 2001, accused of harbouring warm feelings for Iran.
"He was a farmer, he had a car, he sold tomatoes, and we had a life that we were satis fied with," said Khlis. "He was in prison for a whole year, and I raised 75m dinars in bribes. It didn't work. The money was gone, and he was gone. They sent me a telegram. They gave me the body."
The marines rolled into the border town after a bombardment which left up to a dozen people dead. Residents gave different figures. A farmer, Haider, who knew one of the men killed, Sharif Badoun, said: "Killing some is worth it, to end the injustice and suffering." The men around him gave a collective hysterical laugh.
The injustice of tyranny was merged in their minds with the effects of sanctions. "Look at the way we're dressed!" said Haider, and scores of men held up their stained, holed clothes. "We are isolated from the rest of the world."
The marines took Safwan without loss, although a tank hit a mine. "They had to clear that route through. They found the way to punch through and about 10 Iraqi soldiers surrendered immediately," said Marine Sergeant Jason Lewis, from Denver, standing at a checkpoint at the entrance to the town where, minutes earlier, a comrade had folded a huge portrait of President Saddam and tucked it into his souvenir box.
The welcome, he admitted, had been cool. "At first they were a little hesitant," he said. "As you know, Saddam's a dictator, so we've got to reassure them we're here to stay _ We tore down the Saddam signs to show them we mean business.
"Hopefully this time we'll do it right, and give these Iraqis a chance of liberty."
But the marines' presence was light. They had not brought food, medicines, or even order. All day hundreds of armoured vehicles poured through the town. But they did not stop, and the looting continued. Every government establishment seemed to be fair game. People covered their faces in shame as they carried books out of a school. Tawfik Mohammed, the headmaster, initially denied his school had been looted, then admitted it. "This is the result of your entering," he said. "Whenever any army enters an area it becomes chaos. We are cautious about the future. We are very afraid."
Safwan yesterday was a place where people were constantly taking you aside to warn in veiled terms that it was necessary to be careful. Everywhere was the lingering fear that the revenge killings that swept the area in 1991 - a product of US encourage ment and then abandonment of the southern Iraqi revolt - could happen again.
"Now, we are afraid [Saddam's] government will come back," said Haider, as the Safwan Farmers' Cooperative was being looted behind him. "We don't trust the Americans any more. People made a revolution, and they didn't help us."
Safwan is a crumbling, dead-end place, full of poor, restless young men, and reliant on the tomato trade for its income. Farmers were panicking yesterday as they asked journalists, in lieu of anyone better, how they were supposed to sell their tomatoes.
A handful of soldiers, mainly US marines but with a few British, are struggling to cope with the chaos and the lack of health care or aid.
At a checkpoint just north of the town two British military policemen with paramedical training and a US doctor rushed to treat two Iraqi men brought in on the back of a beaten-up pick-up truck. Their legs were lacerated by shrapnel. The military policemen did their conscientious best, and may have saved their lives.
What an ironic and nightmarish twist of fate for all the Dimrats - the Iranians are literally, no BS, for real greeting our military as true liberators.
Hopefully several certain "bodies" will be delivered up shortly for the world to view.
Someone write a really catch tune about Americans dancing in the streets at the sight of Saddam and his sons no longer being a "problem."
You'r late - EAT THAT AT YOUR NEXT DNC CONVENTION HILLARY CLINTON!
I was a young petty officer in the Navy when the last war happened. I clearly remember my C.O. openly complaning during a speach to the entire base that we should have gone on into Iraq and further through Iran when hostilities were discontinued. We (the armed forces of America) were ready to finish the job then. Even as a 20 year old punk, I saw that we would regret not finishing what we started when we had them down and were still in the neighborhood. I also blame the loss of Bush 41's reelection on the way we exited the Gulf War; the bad guy still in power and our allies in Iraq hung out to dry. Diplomats should stick to negotiating trade deals and leave warfare to the experts.
Maybe it was the Ghost of Vietnam.
Well said!
Nope, that ghost was pretty well exorcised by then by the vacuum of the fleeing Iraqi Republican Guard.
That is exactly what it is. I saw the video. The American soldier in the picture was tearing down the poster from right to left, and the resident came up and hit Saddam's nose several times with his shoe, then put the shoe back on his foot, a big smile on his face.
Yes. What was the real reason? Russia? I've always thought Russia called the White House and said: enough, go no farther or we will have to come in. That would have been nukes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.