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On the horizon is a military offensive, not a political solution, to the twin uprisings in Sunni Falluja and eight Shiite cities.
More brute force is to be applied. Already, about 800 Iraqis are dead, mostly women and children, in the last 15 days. The fatalities began well before the macabre mutilation of four dead Americans, following the decision of the recently arrived Marines to subdue Falluja.
Yet Bush, after the barest of nod to the plight of "innocent civilians," announced: "I have directed our military commanders to make every preparation to use decisive force, if necessary, to maintain order and protect our troops ... Our commanders have got the authority necessary to deal with violence, and will, in firm fashion."
More Iraqis may die, to add to the gruesome total of between 8,865 and 10,715 civilian dead so far (http://www.iraqbodycount.net).
Why are the liberators killing the liberated?
Gen. Tommy Franks said famously last year, "we don't do body counts" of Iraqis. This casual approach to the suffering of Iraqis is not rationalized either by the need to see the enemy as less than human or by the natural inclination to care more for one's own soldiers.
One explanation is offered in the Telegraph, the conservative British daily. Defense Correspondent Sean Rayment writes that senior British commanders in Iraq are appalled by the heavy-handedness and racism of the U.S. forces.
He quoted a British officer as saying Americans view Iraqis as "untermenschen," the term used by Adolf Hitler for Jews and gypsies.
One hopes that American troops are amassed outside Falluja and the holy city of Najaf only as a show of force to get negotiations going.
Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- "a rattlesnake," an American commander called him -- is to be captured or killed and his "illegal militia" dismantled. While no tears need be shed for al-Sadr, he has become a hero to some by standing up to aggressive American tactics and providing security and services to the poorest of the poor. Besides, his militia is no more illegal than those belonging to Iraqi factions backed by the U.S.
Inconsistency, lack of credibility, unilateralism and undue reliance on force. That's been Bush's formula all along and may be becoming more so.
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