Carnage in Iraq
By the Editor

WITH swelling digit of causalities on the onset of every sunup, yet another 15 persons were put to death in Baghdad alone on Monday, which marked the first anniversary of setting in cage, the expelled-President Saddam Hussein.

Trouble again erupted in Fallujah, which Americans believed they had conquered and seven US marines were killed in western Iraq. There is no let-up in daily killings in Iraq where occupation forces, in their attempt to wipe out all signs of resistance, are mercilessly butchering people, day-in and day-out.

Atrocities by American and British forces against Iraqi people have increased enormously, most specifically as an upshot of the electoral victory of President Bush, who took the mandate for the second term—manifestly not as a license to slay a nation sans any guilt on its part.

It seems that the world has left the poor Iraqis at the mercy of the United States as there are only feeble voices against what is happening with them. Countries like France and Germany that showed a significant amount of sympathy for the cause of Iraqi people before and during the active war are also preferring to keep mum, obviously because of their own peculiar political and economic interests.

The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, who was widely criticized by the world public opinion for demonstrating lack of the required level of concern over the plight of the Iraqi people and bypassing of the world body by the United States is now facing an onslaught of accusations in the wake of his remarks that no elections were possible because of the deteriorating situation in Iraq. It is quite evident that Americans are using all kinds of devices and strategies at their disposal to silence the international community.

If analyzed with a pragmatic approach, Iraqis, who were having an elevated standard of living before the invasion of their homeland by US-led coalition’s marines, are now forced to live not only under constant perils to their life and property but they are also experiencing constant dilemmas subsequent to breakdown of administrative machinery, law and order, destruction of infrastructure, suspension of power, gas and water supplies, shortage of food and even medicines.

In a country where oil was cheaper than water, people have to stand in long queues for hours and pay much higher than elsewhere in the world. Crime rate has assumed alarming proportions due to unemployment and job seekers are not sure to return to their homes alive at the end of the day. Virtually, despite all these odds, all sections of Iraqi society are united in their demand for end to foreign occupation of their country.

It is, thus apt rather best time for the US to admit the follies of the past and relinquish Iraq at-once instead of a linger, whereby they may face a Vietnam like discomfiture, which shall, in no way be a service even to the Americans, in any style—whatsoever.●