melonman's Journal: Iraqis angry with America in streets, Rumsfeld confused

A few days after the 'we saved a country in three weeks and everyone loves us for it' euphoria, reality is starting to set in. See here for example:

Hundreds of Iraqis have been demonstrating in the centre of Baghdad demanding urgent action to combat the wave of lawlessness that has swept the city.

British academics are arguing that the UK and the US are in breach of the Geneva Convention by not assuring the maintenance of law and order (you may remember that the US administration was very concerned about this convention a week ago).

And it is patently obvious that Rumsfeld just doesn't get it:

"Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," he told reporters.

"I don't think there is anyone in those pictures or any human being who does not prefer to be free and recognise that you have passed through a transition period like this and accept it as part of the price of getting from a repressed regime to freedom."

There is more to freedom than regime change. Death or major mutilation because you happen to be eating in a restaurant where Saddam Hussein wasn't is not freedom. Watching your baby die because the incubator has been looted from the hospital is not freedom. Yes, most Iraqis are pleased that Saddam's regime has gone, but unless the coalition can deliver law and order, food and water, electricity and infrastructure in the next few days, that joy will turn to bitterness, and they will conclude that the Bush Party is no more to be trusted than the Baath Party.

And the Rumsfeld-Bush line of "it's your country, have fun running it, goodbye and see you at the superbowl" is guaranteed to create the worst case scenario. You can't remove the entire civil service from a country, along with a lot of the infrastructure, and then walk away. That's why it's against the Geneva Convention.

Out of interest, is Fox showing any of this in the States, or is it still Marines crossing bridges and those few no-longer celebrating Iraqis of a week ago?