Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Berg execution - another angle

SF Gate quotes Juan Cole:

One motive, said Juan Cole, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Michigan, is to frighten Americans, especially the nongovernmental groups and the population of some 25,000 civilian contractors -- mainly security personnel -- working in Iraq who provide a sizable armed "auxiliary" to the U.S. military and the Coalition Provisional Authority.

"The reason this video was made was an attempt to destroy that auxiliary, " Cole said. "It's not going to scare the U.S. troops out of the country, and it's not going to get rid of the CPA. But there are a lot of (nongovernmental organizations) and contractors that are going to decide this is not the time to be doing business in Iraq."