Once more, US forces are embattled with Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army. The U.S. and Multinational Forces in Iraq (MNF-I) appear to be winning this round, but in doing so, may lose the trust and loyalty of the Iraqi people and Muslims around the world.

Though many Iraqis already see the Interim Government as little more than a US front and extension of the occupation, they feel the need to give it a chance. Do they betray their people and support the siege of the Shia holy shrine in Najaf and the killing of their fellow Iraqis? Or do they refuse to cooperate and risk being left out of shaping the new Iraq? Some government officials have resigned in protest. Many Iraqi police and soldiers in the MNF-I have left their posts and refused to fight.

The methods the MNF-I are using to deal with the Mehdi soldiers in Sadr City and Najaf are disturbingly familiar to those of us in CPT, who have worked in Iraq throughout the occupation. Once more, military forces are handling acts of resistance with excessive force, in order to overpower the opposition and maintain enough security for determining Iraq’s economic and political future.

This seems consistent with US soldiers patrolling city streets, pointing their guns at people along the way. It is consistent with the violent house raids US troops continue to make in the middle of the night, with 25seconds of “absolute fury,”beating, binding and hooding the men, breaking furniture, and taking the family’s life savings and gold jewelry. It is in the same spirit as the collective punishment we witnessed, when we saw buildings bombed and whole neighborhoods or villages punished for the violent acts of a few. These are similar tactics to what U.S. forces used when bombing buildings and spraying bullets in large population centers in Fallujah to deal with a small group’s horrible crimes.

It is more than U.S. troops just taking the quicker, “easier,” or the more secure approach. Their operations have stemmed from the underlying goals of the occupation. If building democracy and addressing the needs of the people had been the real goal, they would have put more effort into supporting local political and social movements that are addressing problems of injustice. Instead, they marginalized leaders or organizations that have publicly criticized the occupation and did little to encourage real dialogue among divergent Iraqi voices. Immediately after the invasion, U.S. officials instituted a system that continued feeding the pockets of the rich international corporations, rather than granting jobs and contracts to the Iraqi skilled and professional working force.

I wonder how many more villages and neighborhoods the MNF-I will encircle and bomb to bring security in Iraq? How many other countries will the US government invade to maintain control around the world? The problems with excessive violence, injustice, and political and economic control of other countries is that they don’t really solve the underlying problems and lead toward peace and democracy, but elicit more violence from those occupied.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical violence-reduction program with roots in the historic peace churches. Teams of trained peace workers live in areas of lethal conflict around the world. CPT has been present in Iraq since October, 2002. To learn more about CPT, please visit www.cpt.org.
Photos of our projects may be viewed at www.cpt.org/gallery