WP: Insurgency Leaves U.S. Forces Baffled -(Iraqis steal their own dirt).

[LittleApple81]

Soldiers Share Tales of Hostility and Kindness on a Shifting Battlefield
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 27, 2004; Page A20
KARBALA, Iraq -- During more than a year in Iraq, Sgt. David Taylor saw perhaps as many Iraqis through the primary sight of his M1 Abrams tank as he did face to face. But who exactly he saw still baffles him.

The salty tank commander from the 1st Armored Division worked on the edge of Baghdad's desperately poor Sadr City for much of the past year. Then, in late April, he was rushed to this city 60 miles southwest of Baghdad to help put down an armed uprising in what developed into the most difficult fighting of his time here.

One day a few months ago, his men hauled tons of topsoil into the Baghdad slum to refurbish a rundown soccer field, a children's project in the midst of a grown-up war, and something well outside a tank commander's job description. When they returned the next morning to finish the task, the soil had disappeared.

"They stole dirt, their own dirt," said Taylor, 37, a Persian Gulf War veteran from Copperas Cove, Tex. Shaking his head and staring into his lunch at a post cafeteria here, he added, "I still haven't figured them out."

snip... long but interesting

"We have a big challenge to improve our image," Baker said. "What we are trying to instill in Iraqis is trust and confidence. But it doesn't mean we will win their friendship."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8796-2004Jun26?language=printer

[KittyWampus]

1. Apocalypse Now- Parents Cut Off Children's Arms

because they were innoculated on them.

This might be Iraqi's way of showing they don't want help from the Invaders.

[On the Road]

2. If it Was Topsoil,

maybe they wanted to grow vegetables.

[Jacobin]

3. They may have been worried about depleted uranium

being in the soil.

Who knows?