| Posted by run n gun ® , Oct 06,2003,12:17 | MetroBlab |
From the very beginning, the anti-war lobby has refused to listen to those Iraqis who supported war over continued tyranny. Banners saying 'Freedom for Iraq' were confiscated at anti-war rallies and photographs of Halabja, where Saddam gassed 5,000 Kurdish civilians, were seized. No voice was given to people such as Freshta Raper, who lost 21 relatives in Halabja and wanted to ask: 'How many of you have asked an Iraqi mother how she felt when forced to watch her son being executed? How many know that these mothers had to applaud as their sons died? What is more moral: freeing an oppressed, brutalised people from a vicious tyrant or allowing millions to continue suffering indefinitely?'
In the summer I spent more than a month in Iraq. What I found did not correspond to what was being reported - most crucially, that the liberators were already widely denounced as occupiers. As a rule, that simply wasn't true. In Baghdad, where US forces had permitted looting (although not as much as reported) and where security and services were virtually non-existent, attitudes towards the Americans were mixed. But even in Baghdad, even with Saddam and his sons still at large, the sense of relief at the toppling of the regime was palpable.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1056138,00.html
| Posted by fluffy ® , Oct 06,2003,12:50 | MetroBlab |
if im to take her word that everything is hunky-dory, what to make of this, from a writer in Qatar, reporting from badhdad, on october 2;
"News gathered from fresh Iraqi travelers draws the following picture: Unemployment rates that have never been seen in the history of Iraq, kidnapping of women, girls, and children, child trafficking, typhoid, cholera, lack of electricity and clean water, inflation, the Iraqi dinar continues to devalue, people getting killed by mobs, ethnic fighting, daylight robberies, devastating bombings, tough soldiers that smash doors and break into houses any minute -� such as what happened to the Iraqi novelist Mohamed Ahmed al Ali, curfew, men taken into custody without clear charges and released after weeks or months with the word "sorry" -- just like what the deposed regime used to do, and last but not least Iraqi resistance fire that targets the U.S. military everyday and everywhere in Iraq, and anyone could be killed or injured because of being around when a sudden exchange of fire erupts."-(Ahmed Janabi)
-how about this weekend's story about the clash our troops had with hundreds of ex-soldiers from saddam's army, because they have no jobs now(http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_5333.shtml)? some have put the protestors numbers at anywhere between 1000 and 2000 strong at its largest point. and that was just over JOBS!
-or how about the Fallujah mayor's office that came under fire recently(http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2003/10/02/news/news04.txt)?
-or the attack of the fule tanker(same article) in a US convoy?
-or that "U.S. forces removed the police chief of Beiji from office Monday after a weekend of fighting and riots between pro-Saddam Hussein demonstrators, Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers in this important oil refining city north of Baghdad."(http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3233558,00.html)
your writer really just made some sweeping generalizations about the situation. not exactly the greatest of journalistic integrity, especially for someone that spent one month there. if thats all she saw, thats fine. but her op-ed(and yes, she IS editorializing, in case you dont know the difference) is a tad naive, especially given the daily reports from MANY other news sources(aside from your Boortz and Frontline Voices sites).
| Posted by gypsyfrocksbedlam ® , Oct 06,2003,14:11 | MetroBlab |
I opposed this invasion in the way we did it because it was demonstrably NOT undertaken for humanitarian reasons (which is why the "humanitarian" angle only surfaced once the weapons charade was exposed), and it was undertaken by a group of people either hindered by a blinkered and dangerously violent view of the world (the neocons) and/or intrigued by the profit to be made (the Halliburton/Bechtel hyenas and the oil companies) and/or looking for domestic political advantage (Karl Rove) and/or aiming to assert American military dominance and refight the Vietnam War (Rumsfeld). And they lied to do it. And they didn't even do it well. And they're still not doing it well. No, we shouldn't pull out of Iraq -- we can't, it would be a disaster -- but we need to be there to help, not dictate or control. And we shouldn't be profiteering, either; our money should be going to Iraqis, not American corporations.
| Posted by fluffy ® , Oct 06,2003,15:28 | MetroBlab |
all this, and i havent even touched on the effect the Iraq war has had on the US economy or on american families. of course, RnG hasnt addressed these either, so why should I?
| Posted by Hank IV ® , Oct 06,2003,16:47 | MetroBlab |