This is What “Liberation” Looks Like

The Boston Globe today reports that US Marine commanders in Fallujah are going to take DNA from all returning residents, force people to wear ID badges at all times, and possibly organize Iraqi work brigades to rebuild the city…

Returning Fallujans will face clampdown

By Anne Barnard, Globe Staff | December 5, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq — The US military is drawing up plans to keep insurgents from regaining control of this battle-scarred city, but returning residents may find that the measures make Fallujah look more like a police state than the democracy they have been promised.Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned.

…

One idea that has stirred debate among Marine officers would require all men to work, for pay, in military-style battalions. Depending on their skills, they would be assigned jobs in construction, waterworks, or rubble-clearing platoons.

… [snip]

I think the Marines are missing one nice touch — giant signs on all the roads into the city saying “WORK MAKES YOU FREE.”

And if this “program” works so well in Fallujah, any idea how long before our neoconservative masters decide it would work here too?

The Best of Charles H. Featherstone