The Iraqi Resistance Packs it in - It's Official!! posted by Richard Seymour

According to USA Today , that bastion of serious news coverage, attacks on US troops are down 22% since Saddam Hussein's capture. What we are supposed to infer from this is that the Iraqi resistance was a concoction of Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athists. They don't represent the Iraqi people, (even when polls show they do), and they obviously don't have the usual rights that occupied citizens have to resist their occupiers.

There is an obvious flaw with such statistical measures. The selection of the starting date for such a decline in attacks reflects the result desired much more than it does the reality on the ground. Take, for instance, the following, written as Saddam was captured:

"Attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq have gone down since the No-More-Mr.-Niceguy approach was adopted, from an average of 30-35 a day in October to about 22 daily in November and 20 a day so far in December. But insurgent ambushes have been more effective, including downing helicopters loaded with troops."

That's right. The number and level of attacks had been declining for some time before the capture of Saddam Hussein. Furthermore, if the attacks declined from 30-35 a day in October to 20 a day in December, that adds up to a more than 30% decline. Much more significant than the decline recorded since Saddam's capture.

And what is more, the decline is attributed to "the No-More-Mr-Niceguy approach", which basically involves shooting up more Iraqi homes, fencing off towns and bombing towns. This prompted one Iraqi villager to say, "I don't see any difference between us and the Palestinians". This is not surprising at all, since the tactics used owe themselves directly to Israel. These tactics, as it happens, are now officially war crimes .

Furthermore, as Patrick Cockburn notes:

"Overall, the capture of Saddam Hussein seems to have made little difference to the level of resistance. This is not immediately obvious, because the number of attacks on US forces is down to about 17 a day now, compared with twice that two months ago. But this is in large part because, eager to cut their casualties, US commanders cut the number of patrols they carry out by two thirds from 1,500 a day in November to 500 a day in December." Patrick Cockburn: "In Iraq it is still easy to become accidentally dead" - Independent 13th Jan 2004.

So, warniks heartily celebrating the decline in American casualties over the last few months would do well to remind themselves that this is bought at the price of an increase in the casualty rate for Iraqi citizens, whose welfare they claim to be devoted to. Iraqis continue to spill their blood for the preservation of American hegemony. Never mind. All the glorious talk of reducing attacks on coalition forces serves to distract us from the larger picture, which is that violence is spreading beyond the notorious Sunni Triangle , thus overthrowing the odd mythology that only "Saddam loyalists" could have anything bad to say about occupying forces. Rejoice, rejoice.