(U.S. News) Fouad Ajami - We shouldn't have been surprised that the desecration of the dead occurred in Fallujah. The practice has a long and searing history in Iraq. We can kill the men who did the grim work of mutilation and thrilled to it all. But what are we to make of, and do with, the shopkeepers and the prayer leaders and that man on the street proclaiming Fallujah, with pride, as the "cemetery of the Americans"? We interposed American power between the Sunnis and Shiites. Had it not been for our war, those pitiless towns of Tikrit and Fallujah and Ramadi would still have the run of a big country to terrorize and plunder at will. Their war against us is, by their lights, a righteous campaign to retrieve a lost dominion.
2004-04-09 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive