Lazy Iraqi Police get motivational speech

[zeos3]

Run time: 05:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1GrdTakvl8   Posted on YouTube: January 28, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 12, 2009 By DU Member: zeos3 Views on DU: 1431

 
I got this link in my email. To be honest, I don't even know what to make of it but the right wing bloggers absolutely love it.

[KansDem]

1. I'm sure "fucking pussies" translates well into Arabic...(nt)

[zeos3]

2. Right

I guess I understand if that soldier was venting. As far as motivating the troops, that guy's no William Wallace ala Braveheart

[happyslug]

3. I broke out laughing at that officer (Or NCO, I did not look that close)

Fight for Iraq NOT the Mahdi Militia? This officer has NO understanding of the Arab mind. A Arabs first loyalty is to his tribe (i.e. his extended family). This may extend over many borders, but it is clearly first (And the Mahdi militia is based on this more then any other factor, their may be Shiites but they are also tribal related).

These Police Officers second loyalty is to the Arab nation as a whole, not Iraq, not Yemen, not Saudi Arabia but everything between Turkey, Iran and the Black populations of Africa (and Ethiopia to the south of Egypt). This is the area of the world where Arabic is the major language and it or a related language has been spoken since biblical days (Hebrew is one of many dialects of this common pre-Islamic arabic language, which with Islam came to have a common book in the form of the Koran which tended to make these dialects slowly become one over the last 1300 years). This merger of the dialect has even influenced Christians living in these regions. Many Christian groups use as their version of the Bible a version written of the Bible in one of the ancient dialects of pre-Islamic arabic that the Christian group spoke at one time. These Christian Groups also have slowly converted to the standard Arabic, as set forth in the Koran, do to having to deal with so many Moslem Arab speakers, who speaks the standard Arabic, as set forth in the Koran. Thus standard Arabic (And it varies from area to area so I am using the term "standard" very broadly) has slowly become the dominate version of Arabic even among NON-Islamic speakers in Arabic speaking lands. Even Egypt, the single largest country that speaks (and spoke in Ancient times) a dialect of Arabic, has seen its language slowly become more like the Arabic written in the Koran then in the "Coptic" language of Ancient Egypt.

More on the Egyptian Language:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_language

More on Afro-Asia Language (Which includes Egyptian, Hebrew and Arabic).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Asiatic_languages

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is to say these police should FIGHT for Iraq, is like asking an American to fight for their home state AGAINST their Family AND the United States as a whole. Iraq is NOT a country in the Western sense of the world, it is that part of Arabia along the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers AND one day flying distance in a 1920 biplane (Which is HOW Britain ruled was its border, a little shorter to the Iran side, do to the large Iranian population at that point but to the south a straight line draw in the sand for that was how far a plane could fly to and fro in 1920). It should be noted that except for some brief periods of History, what is now Southeastern Iraq, was part of Iran. The Capital of Iran, when it was fighting Rome was in Southeastern Iraq. The Arabs took the area and built the city of Basra during the Arab Conquest, but every so often after that date it would return to Iranian hands. The Turks, when they ruled it till 1918, treated it as a separated province from the rest of modern Iraq, do to its ties with Iran (And this is when the Ottoman Empire viewed Baghdad as its Eastern Capital). The Arabs of Arabia fought the Turks, but that was more a tribal fight against the Turks (to determine their position within the Turkish/Moslem Empire) then a fight for Independence (Through Western propaganda portrayed it as a war for Independence, it is was more a tribal fight for control within the larger Moslem world NOT a war to be independent of it).

Iraq does NOT view itself as truly Independent of the rest of Arabia. Arabia includes (But not restricted to) the following:
(On the Arabian Peninsula):
Bahrain, an island nation off the east coast of the peninsula.
Kuwait
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Yemen,
Aden (Use to be an independent country now part of Yemen)
Syria,
Jordan,
Lebanon,
(In Africa):
Egypt,
Sudan,
Libya,
Tunisia,
Morocco and
Algeria.

To this list you can add traditional Moslem lands that are NOT Arabic, including but not limited to the following:
(In the Mideast):
Turkey,
Iran,
In Central and Southeast Asia:
Pakistan,
Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan,
Afghanistan,
(In Africa):
Niger (And Northern Nigeria)
and other parts of Africa where Arabs have been doing business since the middle ages (i.e. the "Gold Coast" or "Slave Coats" (Both names were used for this coast) of Nigeria, Liberia and the rest of the coast SOUTH of the Sahara but north of the West Coast of Africa where the Congo is AND the Whole East Coast of Africa down to Zanzibar and even further south. This also includes parts of India with large Moslem Population AND what use to be called the East Indies and its areas of High Moslem population (Including parts of Thailand) in addition to Malaysia and Indonesia (This extends to the Moros of the Philippines).

Thus to say to these police officer to fight for Iraq, is like telling an american to fight for their state, even while the US as a whole OPPOSE you fighting (And your family oppose you fighting, lets NOT forget these Police Officer FIRST choice of loyalty). I am sorry, this officer knows nothing about who he is training and where their loyalty lies, or I should say he DOES KNOW, but refuses to accept it.

Sorry about going into these details, but I have to explain why I laughed at this Officer. He has no idea what he is facing, and NOT knowing your enemy is the quickest why to be defeated by them.

[zeos3]

4. No need to apologize for the details

That's why I had a problem with this video. I understand the soldier's frustrations at watching his brothers in arms risking their lives for the Iraqis and trying to convey this to them. I don't think he persuaded any of them to help with his speech there. He was trying to "motivate" them in the realm of his own western mindset without any thought as to how the Iraqi's absorb or interpret his talk.

You'd think that part of the soldiers' training would include at least a cursory knowledge of the Iraqi mindset or the ties that bind them together as a people. We are after their hearts and minds after all, aren't we?

I guess the RWers like this clip because it fits into their black and white, my way or the highway, one size fits all solutions. In conflict, preparation is key and part of being prepared is knowing your opponent's (or those you wish to make allies) motivation.

The cynic in me wants to say that those in charge have no need to train our soldiers in this way. Just as the Republicans appoint the least qualified people to head specific agencies to cripple the government from within (for example: if you made a career of trying to abolish the SEC, congratulations, you get to head the SEC under W's administration) to "prove" the government doesn't do things right and only the private sector can save us. If the soldiers aren't trained in how to deal with the people and culture in this region, you guarantee anything but a smooth transition and exit from the region for our military and force us to remain there indefinitely.

PS Sorry about the ridiculous run on sentence and bad grammar at the end there.

[Azooz]

5. Lazy Death Squads. n/t