Almost everyday the newspapers are filled with accounts of violent activity in Iraq: a. car bomb here, a suicide bomb there, gunfire at a checkpoint, and an outbreak of outright hostilities on occasion. We know the victims of these attacks are usually either Iraqi or American personnel serving in either the armed forces or security services.

The newspapers say it is the work of faceless creatures called insurgents - or even worse, radical fundamentalist Muslims. They never offer any explanation as to possible reasons for these people to be fighting against the American forces that occupy their country except to say that they are insurgents or fundamentalist Muslims - or even scarier, both.

In other words, the only reason they pick up weapons against the Americans is because of who they are, not because of anything that's been done to them. It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that for the ten years prior to the invasion, the country got steadily poorer as the embargo and the Oil For Food programs steadily stripped the country of any means of generating income to pay for infrastructure, health care, education, and other things we take for granted.

It doesn't have anything to do with hospitals being bombed, museums being looted, and Iraq's natural resources (mainly oil) being sold into private American hands - the money from the sales mysteriously disappearing. The idea had been to sell off Iraq's assets at bargain prices to American interests and use that money to rebuild the country.

If there had been any sign of hope, or progress towards rebuilding, things might be different, but what are people supposed to believe when they read reports of hundreds of millions of dollars going missing that was earmarked for rebuilding? An initial audit from one city showed this happening, and who knows how widespread it's become in the interim.

What would you think if the people who were behind the violence weren't doing it out of some fanatical Muslim belief? What would you think if they were people who were reacting to the treatment they've received at the hands of people they believe don't give a damn for them or their lives?

Put yourself in the shoes of the average twenty-something Iraqi for a few moments. Now add in that you're treated with absolute disdain in your own country by people who can't speak your language, who don't understand or respect your traditions, who constantly yell at you in a language you don't speak, and who tell you what to do and how to behave.