U.S. forces are provided with "immunity" from prosecution, making it very easy for them to kill Iraqis with institutionalized impunity, as if Iraqis were not even human beings. The criminal practice emanates from the Pentagon; it is created by the U.S. government to encourage U.S. recruits into more wars of aggression.

All Iraqis, including the Resistance leaders and leaders of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), and others have rejected the attacks against civilians and has blamed U.S. forces and their allies for orchestrating the violence. Mr. Harith Al-Dhari, the head of the AMS, publicly blamed the Badr Brigades for the recent spate of killings of Sunni Muslim clerics in the country. "The parties that are behind the campaign of killings of preachers of mosques and worshippers are...the Badr Brigades. [They] are responsible for the escalating tensions", Mr. Al-Dhari told Al-jazeera. "Which religion allows anyone to kill more than 100 Iraqis, destroy 100 families and destroy 100 houses?" ...."Who are those people who do this? Where did they come from?...[This] is a conspiracy to defame the reputation of the Iraqi [R]esistance by wearing its dress and using its name falsely", Cleric Ahmed Abdul Ghafour Samarrae told Edward Cody of The Washington Post in 2004. "Any action targeting civilians is forbidden under any circumstances", Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr told AFP. "The occupiers are trying to sow division among the Iraqi people, but there are no Sunnis and Shiites. Iraqis are one. It is not acceptable to direct to the Sunnis the allegations of ugly acts committed by the occupier against the Shiites", said Al-Sadr.

As I wrote previously, the Resistance is a homegrown movement of several Iraqi groups taking directions from members of their respective communities. Whatever the religious and political affiliation of the Resistance, the main aim is the liberation of Iraq from U.S. forces. "[The Resistance] intellectual tendencies are usually described as a mixture of Islamic and pan-Arab ideas that agree on the need to put an end to the US presence in Iraq", wrote Samir Haddad and Mazin Ghazi of the Baghdad weekly Al-Zawra. "These groups have common denominators, the most important of which perhaps are focusing on killing US soldiers, rejecting the abductions and the killing of hostages, rejecting the attacks on Iraqi policemen, and respecting the beliefs of other religions", added Haddad and Ghazi.

According to Molly Bingham writing in the Boston Globe, a journalist and a fellow at Harvard University, who spent some time with a group of Resistance fighters in Iraq: "I met Shia [sic] and Sunnis fighting together, women and men, young and old. I met people from all economic, social, and educational backgrounds...The original impetus for almost all of the individuals I spoke to was a nationalistic one".

Embedded journalism

Only when Western journalists observe the Occupation from an Iraqi perspective and set themselves and their Western perspectives aside, they can feel credited. Unfortunately, impartiality in reporting is lacking:

“Embedded journalism is an obvious source of disinformation. It fosters false optimism regarding the US military presence. It means reporters are only present where American troops are active, though US forces seldom venture into much of Iraq. Embedded correspondents bravely covered the storming of Fallujah by US marines last November and portrayed it as a US military success.” (CounterPunch, 16 May 2005).

Other proponents of the Occupation are those who "opposed" the war, but are in favour of America's imperial vision of "democracy". The deceptive argument pushed by the Western media is that the Occupation will lead to "democracy" and help Iraqis. This line of reasoning is also advocated by several alternative media sources. In recent article in AlterNet which claims to "provide readers with crucial facts and passionate opinions", senior editor of AlterNet, Lakshmi Chaudhry wrote:

“We can't simply turn our backs on the million of Iraqis - who lack basic necessities like, water electricity food or medical care.... It is immoral for us to leave them to die in the cross fire of a violent civil war fuelled by extremists that we created...We must take the president at his word and force him to deliver on the promise of freedom.” (AlterNet, 06 January 2005).

In other words, should "Progressives" trust George Bush's "messianic mission" and "stay the course" in Iraq to "promote democracy" and "prevent" civil war; anything short of this, would be "immoral". This lie is from George Bush's own pack of lies. It is not only supported by rightwing pundits and pro-war advocates but also by part of the U.S. Liberal "anti-war" movement, which points to the Resistance as the primary source of violence in Iraq. The reality is that the so-called U.S. "democratic occupation", is a euphemism for imperialist occupation and oppression.

Concluding remarks

The people of Iraq have rejected to live under U.S. Occupation and voted against the U.S. presence in their country. The Western media distorts what is happening in Iraq in order to provide legitimacy to the US government's agenda. The majority of Iraqis (nearly 98 per cent) want the U.S. forces to leave their country, and 92 percent of Iraqis see the Americans as imperial occupiers rather than "liberators".

Clearly, Western journalists and pundits have shown that they lack an accurate understanding of Iraq's history and Iraqi society. Most reports out of Iraq have been always from a Western perspective, but rarely from an Iraqi perspective.

It would take Westerners a long time to understand the situation in Iraq today, including the general relationship between Islam and politics. Historically, Islam and politics in Iraq and many other Muslim countries have been inseparable. "Thus, the demand for the separation of religion and state in Muslim countries is more than secularist; it is openly [anti-Islam]", wrote the French academic Gilbert Achcar. Even Saddam Hussein, identified with Islam as part of the battle against imperialism. Today's Islam, however, is largely secular and concerned more with political and social issues rather than religious.

Unfortunately, the common line among Western media, pundits and politicians alike is always the same: a consistent miscomprehension of Iraqi society and politics. There is also no mention of the roles of the Occupation forces, the CIA and Israeli Mossad agents in orchestrating the current violence against the Iraqi people.

U.S. forces and their allies have needlessly killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Iraqi men, women and children are routinely imprisoned, abused and tortured, by U.S. forces in daily house-to-house searches, humiliation being conducted by U.S. forces.

The ceaseless attacks and aerial bombings by U.S. forces have destroyed Iraq's infrastructure and people's property. Iraq's education system have been destroyed, the health care services are on the brink of total collapse as a result of U.S. war and Occupation.