CAIRO, 13 April 2004 � Why are the Iraqi people being so obstructionist? What can they be thinking of ruining the plot like that? A year after they gained their freedom from that romance-story-reading cross between Attila the Hun, Hitler and Genghis Khan � famous for his mass graves and rape rooms, those Bush will never let us forget � they should be throwing a grand countrywide party. After all, they have so much for which to be thankful, including...Er!...um! Must have slipped my mind but it will come to me.

Ah! Yes. For the first time they�ve the right to gather and speak out. Those who are proficient in dodging coalition bullets and tank shells that is.

Now, I�ve got it: Freedom of the media. Perhaps that should be rephrased to freedom of the coalition media. Arab media, such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya risk getting their offices bombed, their reporters shot at or jailed, while the present incumbent of Saddam�s main palace shut down Iraq�s pro-Sadr paper for inciting violence. Since Bremer did that, of course, Iraq has become a veritable sanctuary for meditation.

Nevertheless, Iraqis should be looking forward to getting their country back at the end of June, courtesy of the affable Americans who swept in on their metal chargers to save them. After all, those nice members of the Iraqi Governing Council, including Rumsfeld�s buddy the embezzler and his nephew Nouri Badran, who is the brother-in-law of Iyad Allawi, the cousin of Ali Allawi, the newly-appointed interim defense minister � all council members. This is called �keeping it in the family� which as everyone knows is one of the main principles of democracies since time immemorial. Or am I getting my democracies confused with oligarchies?

And why are those ungrateful Iraqis complaining because coalition troops will remain on their soil after the handover? Don�t they understand that they will stay there for their own protection in the same way they did a year ago when their hospitals, schools, ministries (except for the Ministry of Oil) were looted? Without the American and British presence, Iraq will descend into turmoil and chaos. We all know that. What�s that you say? It already has?

You don�t understand. Iraqis love their foreign saviors. You obviously haven�t seen those jolly pictures put out by the Pentagon showing US troops dispensing candy to kids and waving to the occupied hurrying with jerry cans to find running water. It�s those darned Saddam remnants who are causing all the trouble, don�t you know. They�ve been deprived of their cigars and torturing sessions for far too long, and now they�ve gone on the rampage, along with gangs of Shiite fundamentalists, who ridiculously resent having their leaders threatened, and a ragtag of troglodyte Al-Qaeda wallahs eager to experience the afterlife. That motley crew of terrorists are jealous of America�s freedoms and bent on destroying Iraq�s.

Without those few human vermin, foreign mercenaries could get on with protecting compassionate American soldiers as they deliver foodstuffs and medicines to the population. Without insurgents� rocket-propelled grenades and mortars US-appointed reconstruction companies could get on with the job of building the biggest � and most fortified � American Embassy in the world and continue with repairing the oil pipelines, so that it can flow to Haifa. If they would hand in their weapons, and fly over to Guantanamo like all good repentant terrorists, America�s 120 odd thousand troops can retire behind high walls when at least Iraq would give the impression of being freed. George Bush�s portrait can then tower over Baghdad Firdous Square, where Moqtada Sadr�s now is, and where Saddam�s statue once held pride of place. All would be right in the best of all possible worlds.

But all is not lost. Bush�s �man of peace� aka the �Butcher of Beirut� has sent his advisors to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, so as to advise US Special Forces how to pacify the natives. After all Vietnam is long past and memories fade. They�ve already received lessons in sealing off errant towns with razor wire and house demolitions, and apparently, some of their brightest and best � termed as hunter-killer teams � are on Iraq�s border with Syria poised to neutralize foreign terrorists. As Bush himself said, he is tired of �swatting flies�. Terrorists are, indeed, bigger and badder than your average bluebottle and so much more satisfying for America�s macho leader and his testosterone-filled armies.

My advice to the Iraqi people is this: Listen to your British friend Tony Blair putting his own reputation on the line from a beach in the West Indies where he was vacationing. �We are locked in an historic struggle in Iraq�, he said. �Were we to fail, which we will not, it is more than the �power of America� that would be defeated. The hope of freedom and religious tolerance would be snuffed out�. The families of those killed by a US missile while praying in a Fallujah mosque on April 7 will just have to agree to differ as will Shiite pilgrims attacked on the road to the holy city of Najaf.

One day the Iraqis will no doubt see the light, understand the errors of their ways; little Ali�s arms will grow back, Iraq�s WMD will be found, and the moon really will be green cheese.

� Linda S. Heard welcomes feedback at morgandewales@yahoo.co.uk .

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=43026&d=13&m=4&y=2004