Editor's note: Truthdig contributor Nir Rosen, an American reporter who has lived for the last three years in Iraq and who can pass as Middle Eastern, describes what it's like to live under the boot of a culturally callous - and sometimes criminal - occupying force in Iraq. "The occupation has been one vast extended crime against the Iraqi people, and most of it has occurred unnoticed by the American people and the media."
That's the first paragraph. Here's the last:
Imagine. The American occupation of Iraq has lasted over three years. The above stories are based on my two weeks with one unit in a small part of the country. Imagine how many Iraqi homes have been destroyed. How many families have been traumatized. How many men have disappeared into American military vehicles in the night. How many crimes have been committed against the Iraqi people every single day in the course of the normal operations of the occupation, when soldiers were merely doing their duty, when they were not angry or vengeful as in Haditha. Imagine what we have done to the Iraqi people, tortured by Saddam for years, then released from three decades of his bloody rule only to find their hope stolen from them and a new terror unleashed.
I can't really blame the troops. They've been put in a situation most of 'em haven't been trained for. They're exhausted, and more scared than they would ever admit, never knowing when or where an attack or explosion may come. They do what they've been trained to do, which is use overwhelming force. They want to come home alive, and I want them to as well. It's too bad this kind of shit happens, but the predictions that it would were ignored.
Bush and his handlers may have lost Iraq for us forever.
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