Shocking images of war - and a "cowardly act of terrorism"

(This is just one of citizen of Mosul's shocking pictures. Dead children; killed during the "hunting down of a terrorist" )

The Iraqi blogger "a citizen of Mosul" often brings some of the most shocking pictures of the war.

I am sorry to publish those pictures.But I think all American citizens should see how their brave soldiers defeated the terrorists Iraqi children, he says.

This should make the Danes think as well. A few days ago the media in Denmark reported the death of yet another Danish soldier. That is sad and deplorable. The official Danish response is also deplorable. The Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen calls it a "cowardly terrorist act".

It is wrong to call it that. Denmark is at war; those fighting against the Danish troops should more appropriately be regarded as freedom fighters than as terrorists, but it probably alleviates guilt or removes blame from the PM that he can call them terrorists. It turns the war into a "war on terror", and this - according to the likes of Bush and Fogh Rasmussen - gives justification for any kind of retaliation. And retaliation there is. It is a known fact that the Americans are getting increasingly sophisticated at counterstriking the roadside bombs (Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs). They put snipers on rooftops, and they put jammers on the vehicles that counteract the remote controls of the IEDs.

The coalitions forces' snipers are probably not called "cowardly" by Mr. Rasmussen. They're on the "right" side of history's great divide between good and bad. So the kind of adjective being used on combat behaviour depends on which side uses it.

A lot of the comments on the Mosul citizen's blog are from angry Americans who won't accept responsibility. They won't even regard the pictures as authentic. They have been manipulated by conservative American media. This is part of war; the heavy propaganda that fill the population with lies and militaristic and nationalistic propaganda.

In World War II there were Danish freedom fighters fighting aganist German occupation. They were regarded as dangerous terrorists by the Germans when they blew up the railway line that transported agricultural goods from Denmark towards the south and products from Norway through Jutland. The Danish people have forgotten they were in a situation very similar to the one the Iraqis are in. Prime Minister Rasmussen even uses it in a reverse story telling as part of his despicable spin: Saddam Husein is like Hitler, he has said, and the "Coalition of the Willing" are, together with cooperative Iraqis, the freedom fighters.
How low can you get? Saddam Husein was a cynical dictator, but apart from that the two historical situations do not compare. Germany was an emerging and strong industrial power that could easily dominate half the world. Germany was permeated with a totalitarian ideology that affected all sectors and segments of society. Iraq was in comparison a poor country weakened by the UN sanctions. As a backward Third country it could not develop totalitarianism of the German kind, as this requires efficient mass organisations and a modern society.

The Baath party propagated a kind of pan-Arab development ideology. The country could hardly be a threat to anyone. The neo-cons in Washington, however, succeeded in conjuring up a non-existent threat because it served American geopolitical interests. And Rasmussen swallowed the rotten porridge raw!

- And talking of children: How many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children lost their lives due to the UN sanctions?

The British clown Jo Wilding toured Iraq entertaining Iraqi children. She participated in rescue operation the first time Fallujah was cleansed of insurgents. Here is an excerpt from one of her reports from the war stricken city. But of course, snipers are not "cowardly":

“Come,” says Maki and ushers me alone into a room where an old woman has just had an abdominal bullet wound stitched up. Another in her leg is being dressed, the bed under her foot soaked with blood, a white flag still clutched in her hand and the same story: I was leaving my home to go to Baghdad when I was hit by a US sniper. Some of the town is held by US marines, other parts by the local fighters. Their homes are in the US controlled area and they are adamant that the snipers were US marines. Snipers are causing not just carnage but also the paralysis of the ambulance and evacuation services. The biggest hospital after the main one was bombed is in US territory and cut off from the clinic by snipers. The ambulance has been repaired four times after bullet damage. Bodies are lying in the streets because no one can go to collect them without being shot.Some said we were mad to come to Iraq; quite a few said we were completely insane to come to Falluja and now there are people telling me that getting in the back of the pick up to go past the snipers and get sick and injured people is the craziest thing they’ve ever seen. I know, though, that if we don’t, no one will.He’s holding a white flag with a red crescent on; I don’t know his name. The men we pass wave us on when the driver explains where we’re going. The silence is ferocious in the no man’s land between the pick up at the edge of the Mujahedin territory, which has just gone from our sight around the last corner and the marines’ line beyond the next wall; no birds, no music, no indication that anyone is still living until a gate opens opposite and a woman comes out, points.We edge along to the hole in the wall where we can see the car, spent mortar shells around it. The feet are visible, crossed, in the gutter. I think he’s dead already. The snipers are visible too, two of them on the corner of the building. . (wildfirejo.org.uk. No longer available)

This kind of warfare produces more "terrorists" than it removes. That is why the situation in Iraq continues deteriorating. By even the most conservative estimates by coalition forces American troops have killed over 250 innocent people at vehicle check-points alone.