Untitled Document
You are on the verge of the abyss any time you dare wander the streets as trigger
happy Iraqi guards and U.S. troops rarely miss their targets.
Security forces patrolling the streets and bodyguards traveling in convoys
to protect senior officials have their fingers on the trigger wherever they
are.
As they move, they shout at drivers to park their vehicles on the side of the
road immediately else they will pull the trigger and shoot to kill.
Iraqi officials carefully choose their guards and try to ensure that most of
them are close relatives or at least from the same tribe.
Passing at dizzy speed, they have no intention even to inspect whether the
occupants of the vehicle they shoot at for disobeying their usually unclear
orders are injured or killed.
Nobody knows exactly how may innocent Iraqis have been wounded or murdered
in this way. One thing Iraqis are sure of is that despite the killing no official
or bodyguard has ever been brought to justice.
Iraqi soldiers and guards are not the only ones who are ready to shoot and
kill at random.
Most probably they have learned this lesson from their trainers, U.S. occupation
troops.
The problem with the U.S. troops in the country is that they do not speak our
language; therefore they rely on body language and writing to bring their message
home.
Their tanks and armored personnel carriers – U.S. troops’ only
means of transport in Baghdad and other cities’ congested streets –
bear signs in Arabic and English warning drivers that they risk certain death
if they approached.
As nearly 70% of Iraqis are illiterate, you can imagine how many drivers mistakenly
approach their certain death as U.S. troops’ laser guided guns never miss
their targets.
The problem is exacerbated at night when U.S. troops expect illiterate Iraqis
to be able to read their signs. The only winner, of course, is their lethal
laser-guided guns with the ability to “read” even at night.
Again how many innocent Iraqis have died because they unknowingly came close
to U.S. vehicles nobody knows but the figure must be high and on the rise.
The problem, here, as with Iraqi guards and forces, is that U.S. troops do
not stop to take care of the victims. Iraqi drivers and passengers, who happen
to be nearby, dismount to help them.
Once they gather around the victims, they curse the U.S. and the Iraqi government
which has dismally failed to protect them.
