Bush was right the Iraqis are dancing in the streets

[Tony_FLADEM]

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[boobooday]

1. Those ungrateful Iraqis

Don't they know LIBERATION when it is rained down upon them?

Don't they know that liberation means wrapping an entire town in barbed wire? (yes, we did that)

What happened to all the happy post-shock and awe Iraqis and all their flower petals?

As much as I knew that Bush was going to make a mess of this, it is still heartbreaking to think of what human beings (on both sides) are suffering because of his pampered, arrogant ass.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[indepat]

2. And after they were liberated and given freedom

[tom_paine]

7. Don't forget "liberation" also meant roundups and bags on heads

inside the barbed wire pens.

[justsam]

3. Yes, dancing on dead

American bodies.

[KurtNilsen]

4. You guys are falling for cheap propaganda.

Good on you!

[thebigidea]

6. as opposed to the Pentagon's PRICEY propaganda, huh?

[KurtNilsen]

13. Exactly.

[tom_paine]

9. Not sure this is propaganda. Average Iraqis HATE us

Thanks to Bunnypants*, they have good reason.

[KurtNilsen]

14. I advice you to go read the BBC survey from Iraq.

Reality is always a bit more complicated than either the doommongers or the neocons want you to believe.

[tom_paine]

21. Got a link, Kurt?

More than happy to oblige you if you'd be so kind as to provide me with one.

[KurtNilsen]

23. Sure.....

It's http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3514504.stm

It doesn't seem to be well known here, so i might just start a thread based on it. It is a good anti-dote to the events in Fallujah

[gottaB]

25. they didn't break down the results by region

Wouldn't you suppose that people in Fallujah and under US occupation generally are angrier than residents under British control or in the Kurdish regions?

[KurtNilsen]

27. You are absolutely right.

ABC focussed on that aspect of the result:

http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:-FjneAFDWRkJ:abcnews.go.com/images/pdf/949a2SunniShia.pdf+oxford+research+iraq+methodology&hl=no&ie=UTF-8

[dpibel]

30. Funny thing about those polls

You can certainly say that a majority of Iraqis express the opinion that they're better off now than they were a year ago. But, y'know, to my addled progressive mind, 56% (the beeb) or 50% of Sunnis/60% of Shias (ABC) hardly represents an overwhelming majority. Majority, yes. Overwhelming, hardly.

If you take the Beeb's figure, that leaves 44% who seem to think their lives are the same as or worse than last year. That gives ya right around 9 million people who might think that the war really wasn't all that dandy. Out of a pool of people that size, you're just bound to have some who are really, really angry.

So it's all well and good that a slim majority of Iraqis think their lives are better now than they were a year ago. But there's a whole slew of 'em that don't agree.

Of at least as much interest is the part of the ABC poll that asks whether the invasion liberated Iraq or humiliated it. As I read the chart, amongst Sunnis the split is 21%/66% in favor of humiliation; Shias are more sanguine, pegging it at 43/37 in favor of liberation (no explanation give for the 13% and 20% missing from each result--people who just couldn't make up their minds, I guess).

Now, check me on this, but I do believe that you just can't get away from the fact that there are some Sunnis who state both that they are better off than they were a year ago, and that their country was humiliated.

The question then becomes: What is likely to be more important to a person--their well-being at this instant, or their feeling of national humiliation? I don't know the answer to that question, but it seems an important one. (We've all heard the stories about how them Ay-rabs live fer nothin' but revenge. Think maybe I heard it from Tom Friedman who is, IMHO, a blowhard propagandist.)

I haven't a clue how a Norwegian might respond to an analogous situation, although I've been told that they are proud people and best not messed with.

I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that, were the US invaded by a liberating army because some two-bit illiterate grandiose thug got a bit too out of hand, you might be able to go around a year later and have people say, "Better off than a year ago? Spoze so--least I can get some gas fer the SUV and some food fer the kids." But there is little doubt in my mind that the very same proud American would be thinking to himself, "And it's gonna be even better when we kick yer murdering asses back to where ya came from."

So Kurt may want to put a great deal of stock in the fact that 56% of Iraqis think they're better off than they were a year ago. You'll excuse me, I trust, if I think there may be a bit more to the story than that.

[gottaB]

34. humiliation correlate

The feeling of humiliation seems to correlate strongly with occupation by US forces. Occupation by British forces or Kurdish forces does not lead to the same sense of humiliation. There are undoubtedly other factors, but that's one that should be looked into, and is being largely ignored in favor of Sunni this and Shia that, and granted all of this is armchair, but some of what passes for news and analysis is stubbornly beside the point.

Ask the question another way. Which military power has killed the most civilians? The Fallujah massacre some 333 days ago, has that been forgotten? Forgiven? No, the US has not asked for forgiveness, but instead has sought vengence. More civilians have died as a result, and the humiliations got even more humiliating.

Here's the Human Rights Watch report on the first Fallujah massacre:

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluja

Instead of following the recommendations of impartial international observers, the US decides to launch retaliatory missions, starting with Operation Desert Scorpion. Here's what one Iraqi fellow said in response to that:

“They killed more than 30 of our sons without any reasons during their manhunt and search campaign of our houses,” said Abu Nizar, a leader of a tribe inhabited down the road between Balad and Baghdad.

“Do they think that Iraqis could bow out to humiliation and lay down on the ground naked and hand-tied before their wives and children,” wondered Abu Nizar, with an apparent expression of challenge.

“It is much better to die, or act in revenge,” he vowed.

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-06/16/article10.shtml

We can stop the vengence, but not by visiting more destruction and humiliation upon these people. That's pretty self-f*ing-evident, I'd say.

[tom_paine]

28. Excellent article. Point well made. BBC reputable and believable

Unlike some Corporate TV Pravdas I know.

[Deja Q]

15. Not to forget Bunnypants' father, Mr. Poopypants... (do read...)

Mr. Poopypants made a deal with Hussein that allowed Hussein to, amognst other things, allow Hussein's troops to carry machine guns in their helicopters. Hussein's men slaughtered scores of dissidents in a neat and efficient manner.

All thanks to Mr. Poopypants. x(

Not to forget, Kuwait was slant-drilling into Iraq's fields; and it was Hussein's invasion that prompted the first Gulf War. (for this point I must be missing something, unless the slant drilling thing was kept secret at the time... I know that, on human terms, Hussein is pretty vile - but from my own personal viewpoint, I know very few who really are into human rights...)

It's no fucking wonder the Iraqis hate us.

[tom_paine]

5. Not to defend this, but what would YOU do

if Commie China said they were going to liberate us, beat down the Armed Forces and seized our country, then began stealing it blind and appointing all the Lickspittle Amerikan Comrades to lord it over us and giving the the power to "make us behave".

If the ChiComs and their AmerCom soldiers broke into our homes without warrants, cuffed us our wives and our children, routinely murdered innocents (even if unintentional "collateral damage")

You might want to dance a little if you and some of your Wolverines Resistance Chums took down a dozen ChiCom Ocuppiers and their AmerCom Helpers.

Think about it. I am as horrified at this as anyone else. I was an USAF Airman and it hurts like hell to see my fellow servicemen killed and humiliated like this, just like it hurt like hell when 220 airmen were killed when Saddam's SCUD hit the DAFB Chow Hall back in '91.

Even still. Put that aside for a moment (I know it's hard) and think about what I've said.

[justsam]

8. you are 100% correct

[RebelOne]

33. I agree 100% also.

He has expressed my exact thoughts.

[aquart]

12. It's hard for me to feel sad that mercenaries were killed.

Gunmen accountable to no one but a CEO and a board of directors? I have no idea what they've been doing or what they've been allowed to do.

Just the thought of them makes me queasy. And that's alive and well.

Can anyone be faulted for killing a mercenary?

[tom_paine]

22. Gonna have to inform me on the mercenary bit

Please provide a link.

Or are you just being cute and calling our servicemen that (in which case I am most definitely NOT on board).

[lostnfound]

35. Please don't say that..

1) By 'mercenary' they likely include people who thought they were being sent to 'help stabilize' the counry and 'bring it peace' -- like a security force.
2) By 'mercenary' they may mean any contractors over there getting paid a salary by a corporation -- including low-level paper-pushers.
3) Some of us know actual human beings that fall in the above definitions..and we are still wondering if they are okay.

I understand what you are saying -- the original definition of mercenary makes for an atrocious murderer-for-hire -- but I think the word is often used much more loosely now.

[readmylips]

10. Rumbutt was Right...Iraq has better targets...

Mr. Rumbutt, too bad those targets are not any of your children nor small man's bushe's. Not criminal Cheney's children either. May you all burn in hell, you damn bush cruminals.

[alcuno]

11. Did anyone see ABC News tonight?

I have to give them credit for showing the gruesome video of what was done to those Americans. The shot of the two burned corpses hanging from a bridge is haunting.

[countmyvote4real]

18. That was the first I heard of it. Oh man.

And the Army's response was that "schools were opened" all across Iraq today. How come those kids following the corpses weren't in school?

But you know as sickening as it was to watch that, I can still puke that we went there in the first place.

[pinniped]

20. Local news channel (ABC affiliate) didn't show it at 11:00am.

They said it was too gruesome to air.

[chelsea0011]

16. Am I wrong????

But are there more people celebrating and desecrating the dead than there were at the staged downing of the Sadaam statue?

What a horrid site this was today. But Condo said it during 60 Minutes..."Our victory in Iraq".

[agincourt]

17. Iraqis behaving bad, bad , bad

Bush's approval rating will probably go up real high now. I know that sounds sarcastic but that's how american brains work anymore. They didn't kiss shrubs ass hard enough so now the iraqis are getting out of control.

[pinniped]

19. POS pres. said "democracy is right around the corner".

must be a pretty distant corner.

[cliss]

24. Yes, you are right. The Iraqis are dancing in

the streets. Not exactly the lovely picture Mr. Cheney painted for us before we marched into Iraq. A close look at their faces reveals anger, frustration and a thirst for revenge.

Now visualize 22 million (we lost some) Iraqis, enraged toward the US for its actions. They get up every morning cursing us. They go to bed plotting some hideous revenge that will make their day. They share their fury with their spouses and their kids & grandparents.

Multiply this by the entire muslim world. Include the 1 billion muslims in Indonesia. Visualize their thoughts of hatred rising up through the atmosphere, merging into a giant thought wave like a jet stream. Watch it move due west, landing laser-like on the US in the form of horrific storms, natural disasters, freak occurrences and of course terrorist activity.

Thanks, George for all you've done for us.

[tedzbear]

26. But that's exactly what the chimp wants!

A Christian-Muslim mother of all battles that will result in the bible prophesied "end of the world," and most of all: his re-election!

ugh!

[VOX]

29. Where are the cheers and flowers for "the liberators?"

The White House promised those things. :evilfrown:

Does anyone in their right mind actually think that Americans are welcome in the Middle East while they're waging war there?

[Guava Jelly]

31. wheres the candy and flowers

werent we supposed to be welcomed

[Robin Hood]

32. I can't see through the smoke,

Are those flowers that they are throwing at us? It must be flowers O'Reilley and Bush wouldn't lie to me. Would they?

[imax2268]

36. Did anyone hear...

that nimrod spokesman in Iraq yesterday bring up the "torture chambers and rape rooms" again yesterday...I believe he was commenting on this incident...