Letters to the Editor
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Who knew Saddam was so benevolent.....
Iraq is so culturally, religiously, tribally and ethnically diverse that it makes Lebanon look like Japan by comparison. Iraq is not a natural nation, it is an unnatural, artificially designed and maintained construct.-- Aycharaych
Excuse me. Is that sufficient reason to wish a return to ruthless dictatorship? There's no better alternative? Well I guess then that those Iraqis really are backward barbarians who require a killer to keep them in line. Sorry, my bad. I thought the Iraqis were supposed to be real live, intelligent, progressive, types.
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Another video testimony from an Iraqi
Hassan Jumaa, President of Iraqi Federation of the Oil Union tells his view on why the US invaded Iraq and the consequence of that invasion. It's long, but enlightening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcZx9S-TJn4
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You deserve a pat on the head, shooter242
Well I guess then that those Iraqis really are backward barbarians who require a killer to keep them in line. Sorry, my bad.
Now you begin to understand the fundamental paradox of both the region and its people.
And if you can understand that, why can't you get it through that diseased skull of yours that invading and destroying a country like that doesn't help anyone?
That's a rhetorical question, btw. We already know you're genetically incapable of understanding a simple concept like that.
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Apparently, that was Saddam.
Sorry, my bad. I thought the Iraqis were supposed to be real live, intelligent, progressive, types.
-- shooter242
He wasn't Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, but when he came to power in the 50's in Iran we toppled his government as well, and that was a free and democratically elected government. Take a walk. Get curb stomped.
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shooter
I must confess to not reading through 20+ pages of comments-but judging from the past(your comments)I felt the need to jump in.
For over 6 mos. at least (since I've been reading)-your defense of the Bush policy in Iraq has been "well wasn't Saddam worse".
well let me lay it out for ya-you narrowminded jerk.
Saddam has been dead how many years now? How many more GOP stupid, McCain mantras of "100 more YEARS" are you gonna subscribe to?
When is the reality of the cost of the war and our economic predicament now gonna resonate with you?
Don't think it's related??
REAAALLLY???
I suspect the family of an American soldier killed senselessly in Iraq since Saddam was executed--may feel that brunt a little more forcefully than you...
But rather than thinking about your glory days--about how war makes you think you are the studs on the block---how 'bout thinking about the reality of a human life being taken-and what that impact of human life COULD HAVE BEEN.
Easy to say when you are alive and playing armchair QB huh???
Easy to disassociate those empathetic feelings if you're generally an uncaring person who views war as a video game through the tunnel-vision of firepower over human thinking, feeling lives..
Such stupidity breeds stupidity.
More likely they were never there to begin with..
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The American media's script
I've heard this anecdote in various forms over the years, most recently in this version by John Pilger:
One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. "I have to tell you," said the spokesman, "that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don't have to do any of that. What is the secret?"
Whether that's authentic or apocryphal, it illustrates beautifully the reality of our mainstream media.
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The Highway of Death
Excellent short video on the slaughter of Iraqi troops and civilians fleeing Kuwait. 60 miles of highway, filled with thousands of vehicles, awash with death and blood and dishonor.
They were running away, they were not a threat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ljXnV4Ibpk
The "script" was in place even then. I remember how they played it like it was some huge military battle. The attacking airplanes did not even have enough room to attack at the same time, and had to be stacked in holding patterns, waiting for their turn.
From the script:
Q: What do we know about how many Iraqis soldiers were actually killed? What's the best estimate?
Trainor: They've been all sorts of estimates of Iraqis casualties run by a lower ranked D.I.A. officer that put it at something like 100,000. But it was nothing like that. We don't know the exact number but I think you have to distinguish between the Iraqis in Iraq and those were mostly civilians and there I think they were relatively few killed in Iraq. Saddam Hussein puts the figure at about 3,000. That may be correct, although I think that that's probably a little high, given the type of targets we were going after and the accuracy. Within the theater, I don't think anybody really has a feel for that. The air campaign was not going after the Iraqi soldiers. The air campaign that preceded the ground attack was going after equipment and stores and supplies and the soldiers were pretty much smart enough to stay away from their equipment and supplies so that they weren't killed and then the ground attack went in so very, very quickly that the the casualty rate had to be low. We had all sorts of medical facilities there to take care of of the wounded and they received very few wounded, either American or Iraqi. So, while I can't put a figure on on the number of casualties, it certainly --for the size of the war and the size of the numbers of troops on both sides involved--probably broke the Guinness Book of Records on minor casualties.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/appendix/tdeath.html
Not from the script:
Photojournalist Peter Turnley published photographs of mass burials at the scene;[4] it has been asserted that this constituted a violation of the Geneva Conventions.[5]
Peter Turnley also wrote an essay to Dirck Halstead, the editor and publisher of The Digital Journalist stating:
I flew from my home in Paris to Riyadh when the ground war began and arrived at the “mile of death” very early in the morning on the day the war stopped. Few other journalists were there when I arrived at this incredible scene, with carnage that was strewn all over. On this mile stretch were cars and trucks with wheels still turning and radios still playing. Bodies were scattered along the road. Many have asked how many people died during the war with Iraq, and the question has never been well answered. That first morning, I saw and photographed a U.S. military “graves detail” burying many bodies in large graves. I don’t recall seeing many television images of these human consequences. Nor do I remember many photographs of these casualties being published.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death