Sgrena Lied

[Cyrus]

I truly could not care less if people choose to ignore reality and "rally by the flag" -- and persist in their distorted idea of patriotism. Here's what an otherwise staunch ally of the American side in the Iraq war has to say on the matter of "trigger-happy Americans" :

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"Excessive use by the U.S. forces of overwhelming firepower has also been counterproductive, provoking antagonism toward the coalition among ordinary Iraqis."

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"Antagonism"... Don't you just love British understatement?

That's from the April 2005 Report of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom Parliament. The committee, representing the three major UK parties, also said that the heavy-handed policy has led to the slowdown of reconstruction which had strengthened the Iraqi resistance. It added that the occupation forces had clearly failed to curb the violence and said that the new Iraqi government should try to negotiate with the fighters. The Report "concludes that to date the counter-insurgency strategy has not succeeded."

So, the trigger-happy cowboy attitude of the American armed forces in Iraq is worse than wrong; it's a mistake.