Just a little remembering of what we have done in Iraq. This article just brought tears in 2003 when I read it. There were just two tiny pictures with it. The story was not long, but it tells a portion of our sad legacy there in that country of Iraq.
To Avenge Their Trees, Iraqi Farmers Threaten Resistance
Claiming his lush date and orange groves provide camouflage for resistance fighters, the U.S. occupation forces leveled Khalil’s plantations.
But he feels skeptical, wondering “what kind of civilized people are those who are destroying my plants”.
“They say resistance fighters could hide in the fields, but I tell you these are my fields and nobody goes into them. There are no attacks around here,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP), as a mob of angry men in traditional Arab white robes nod in support.
Khalil is sitting on the side of a dusty road leading to his native Duluiyah, a large village where Sunni Muslim tribes farm a modest living out of the banks of the Tigris river. But the plantation fields are barren resembling the aftermath of a hurricane after U.S. troops last week razed the paddocks of fruit trees. Now a handful of residents are scavenging the trunks and debris to make charcoal.
“We cannot benefit from the fruits anymore, so we will try to earn some money from charcoal,” explained Mohammad Saleh amid the stone houses which were once shaded by the plantation.
These two pictures speak louder than any words could speak. This is part of our legacy there. We won’t be forgotten.
This is nothing new for conquerors to do, even American conquerors. Where I live, was once occupied by Iroquois (upstate/western NY) and there was a notorious military operation during the Revolution, the Sullivan Expedition, which came up here to clear out the Seneca homeland in 1779. Ostensibly a military operation, since the Senecas were fighting on the side of the British, but it was also done in mind with clearing the way for future settlement by Americans. One of the things the expedition did which has been vividly recalled to this day, was the wholesale destruction of the Senecas’ beautiful apple and peach orchards.
There’s just something particularly barbaric about the destruction of fruit-bearing trees, it creates a powerful and negative image. Perhaps it has to do with our affinity for trees, perhaps it has to do with a Judeo-Christian background in our culture in which trees bearing fruit are a sign of spirituality.
Thanks for posting this report.
What do you expect? His plants obviously weren’t grown from Monsato-approved seeds. What a horrible and immoral thing to do! He should count himself lucky that he wasn’t shot for being so perverse.
</snark>