Support for insurgents waning in volatile city
From
Instapundit comes a link to this story in the
Salt Lake Tribune:
bq. FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The explosion Friday rocked the dusty blue bus, sending tattooed tribeswomen to the floor in a swirl of fringed scarves and screams.
bq. They were leaving town for a shopping trip to Baghdad, about 35 miles east, when insurgents apparently bombed a nearby American military checkpoint. None of the women was injured, but the blast destroyed the last vestige of their support for the guerrillas who make Fallujah the most consistently troublesome city for the U.S.-led coalition.
bq. "Now you see how it feels, how we have to jump and duck when we hear explosions," Samia Abdullah, a 45-year-old Fallujah resident, told a Knight Ridder reporter on the bus. "Day and night, we are afraid, and we are tired of it. I can no longer feel proud of the resistance. They have made these bombings our everyday life."
and the money quote:
bq. "I'm against the resistance now,
and I'm not afraid to say it," said Mahmoud Ali, 25, who was tending a roadside soda stand. "I can bring you a dozen friends who say the same thing. I wish the attacks would stop. It's affecting our whole stability, our whole life."
Indeed!
Slowly and slowly, these people are getting the idea that they have control over their destiny - that one dictator has not been replaced by another and that demcracy will be forthcoming.
Posted by DaveH at January 12, 2004 9:16 AM