The New York Times | Raising the Pressure in Iraq

"On Monday, the scene repeated itself in another corner of Baghdad. When three insurgents opened fire on an American sport utility vehicle, American soldiers sprayed the area with gunfire, destroying three cars and killing at least one Iraqi civilian and wounding three others.
'When the Americans fire back, they don't hit the people who are attacking them, only the civilians,' said Osama Ali, a 24-year-old Iraqi who witnessed the attack. 'This is why Iraqis hate the Americans so much. This is why we love the mujahedeen.'"

I happen to believe that any sane person in Iraq would come to the same conclusion.

Look at our most cherished American moment: the American revolution. The US was being taxed by an overseas power and the landed gentry didn't like that. This was oppression!

Can we imagine for even a moment that the British would have been so bloodthirsty as to fire at civilians in order to "tame" the American insurgents?

Yet, take the US approach in Iraq. A foreign power "saves" the country from a "brutal" dictator and then goes about trying to "squash" or "quell" the insurgents. How does the Army do this? By dropping bombs on heavily-populated residential areas. By incarcerating thousands without charges other than "insurgency". By "abusing" (a.k.a. torturing) Iraqi prisoners. By firing upon unarmed civilians without provocation.

These things are usually called "war crimes" when they are committed by others, such as Serbs. But when Bubbas do it, that changes everything: now it's for peace. And gee, what are all of these Iraqis getting on about, anyway?

In conclusion of the article:

"Seated in his Baghdad office, Mr. Dhari, the Sunni cleric, said that efforts to persuade Iraqis with the gun would ultimately fail, as they did for the British after the World War I.

"When you push the Iraqi people, and you harm the Iraqi people, you will just cause them to fight back harder," Mr. Dhari said. "The idea that force will be enough to calm the Iraqis is a false dream."