Opinion

Bringing democracy to Fallujah

By Douglas Lummis

The U.S. Military, the newspapers tell us, has conquered Fallujah. But here you must read the news carefully. It seems that the U.S. Military is in control of (most of) the area of Fallujah, and of (what is left of) its buildings, but not of its people. The people, some 300,000 of them, are outside the city, waiting to go home.

So the U.S. Military is facing a dilemma. The point of the Fallujah operation was to make it possible to hold elections in January. To carry out elections in Fallujah, the U.S. Military will have to let Fallujah's residents return home. But what if, after they return home, they start fighting against the U.S. occupation, as they did before?

According to a Dec. 5 article in the Boston Globe, the U.S. Military has devised a plan to solve this dilemma. They are going to "funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen-processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans." Then they will give each person a nametag, which they will be required to wear at all times. Presumably people not wearing nametags will be in danger of being seen as guerrilla fighters, and shot.

The U.S. Military also wants to organize all Fallujan men into "military-style battalions," and force them to work, cleaning up and rebuilding the destroyed city.

It seems the U.S. Military is still under the illusion that in Fallujah there are two types of people, "terrorists" and "ordinary residents." So if you can distinguish which is which, and allow only the "ordinary residents," clearly marked, back into the city, peace will be achieved. But when the "ordinary residents" return to the city, some of them will surely resume guerrilla operations - especially after they see what has been done to their homes. To prevent this, they will be organized into work battalions, probably under U.S. or Iraqi military commanders.

So this is the point to which these American Bringers-Of-Democracy have been driven to? Where can we find a parallel for the kind of social organization they are planning? In German history, the concentration camp. In U.S. history, the relocation centers of World War II. In Russian history, the gulag.

But is it possible to transform an entire city of angry people into a prison? This "plan" sounds less like a plan than a mad fantasy dreamed up by a group of people frustrated and driven to the wall. The U.S. assault on Fallujah was a military success. If the city of Fallujah is its land and buildings, they have won it. But if the city is its people, they have not won it. When they let the people back in, they will be just about back to where they started. They won and yet they lost.

Shukan ST: Jan. 7, 2005

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