I’m back in the US until the end of the month spending time with family.
I was sitting in the airport in Houston, Texas (at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport no less) yesterday and getting my first taste of American media in a long time via airpot CNN. On the debate program “Crossfire” a CNN correspondent describes how he drove across Iraq to get to Baghdad. On the way, his team stop for gas, where there are 4 miles of gas lines.
He describes how his group of American ex-special forces CNN mercenaries pull in front of the line of Iraqis waiting to get gas, commandeer the gas station and keep everyone else away as they fill up with gas and drive on to Baghdad.
The fiery democrat debater (I don’t know his name) asks the correspondent the exact question that was on my mind when I heard this: Isn’t this exactly the kind of behavior that is stirring anti-American sentiment in Iraq?
Yes, he answered, but as a Westerner in a dangerous country, there was no other option…
What right does a bunch of American reporters and armed mercenaries have to cut in front of miles of waiting Iraqis and, by force of arms, commandeer an Iraqi gas station?
The answer is not, I believe, that this was some blatant act meant as an insult to the Iraqi people or that anyone there necessarily believed they were more important than anyone else in line.
It is the law of the jungle. In the absence of security provided by a state with a monopoly on organized violence, all parties, including but especially prone foreigners who are most likely to be targeted for attack, will act in such a way to protect themselves and achieve their goals.
However, let there be no illusion that the United States of America gives a damn about the Iraqi people, their rights, or their future. Also, let there be no surprise as to why we are despised by the people of Iraq as self-serving hypocrites.