’just jihad?’

Some juggler was trying to sell us slaughter and occupations under the "Liberation" designer label. He insisted on telling us how Eyerakis loved MNF troops. (never knew USA had now changed it's Trade Mark to MNF!)

Iraqis Put Contempt For Troops On Display

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 12, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 11 -- A pair of AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships thumped back and forth overhead, scouring residential streets for insurgents. Dun-colored Bradley Fighting Vehicles snorted and wheeled around, their tracks gouging holes in the tarmac. A dozen Humvees stood sentry, closing off the four-lane avenue to Iraqi cars, while nervous American soldiers with M-16 automatic rifles forbade local residents from approaching.

"Look at this," said Ghassan Abu Ahmed, raising his hand in a sweeping gesture toward the tableau of military might. "This is freedom? It is crazy."

A car bomb had just hit a U.S. military convoy passing down the main avenue Friday afternoon in southwest Baghdad's Sayediyeh neighborhood, one of the near-daily attacks on occupation troops across Iraq. By the standards of Iraqi violence over the past two months, it was not particularly bloody. The U.S. military reported no serious casualties. But for what it told about Iraqis' attitudes toward the 13-month-old U.S. occupation, the attack was devastating.

"What Saddam did was awful, but what the Americans are doing is worse," said Abu Ahmed, a laborer who lives with his wife and four sons in a government-built apartment house flanking the road. "They say they are bringing us freedom. But this is what they bring."

Since U.S. forces drove to Baghdad and overthrew President Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the 138,000 American soldiers stationed here have lost their status as liberators in the eyes of most Iraqis. Polling by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority has chronicled a steady souring of opinion, with the most recent surveys showing about 80 percent of Iraqis with an unfavorable opinion of U.S. troops.

They have been encouraged in their views by Muslim preachers, who, judging by their sermons, have concluded that the U.S. occupation should end immediately if peace is to be restored to Iraq. To buttress their arguments, they repeatedly have cited the abuse of Iraqi captives at Abu Ghraib prison, which has helped crystallize opinion against the presence of U.S. soldiers.

"It was discovered that the freedom in this land is not ours. It is the freedom of the occupying soldiers in doing what they like, such as arresting, carrying out raids, killing at random or stealing money," Sheik Mohammed Bashir declared in his sermon Friday at Um al-Oura, a Sunni Muslim mosque in the middle-class Ghazaliya neighborhood.

"No one can ask them what they are doing, because they are protected by their freedom," he continued. "No one can punish them, whether in our country or their country. The worst thing is what was discovered in the course of time: abusing women, children, men, and the old men and women whom they arrested randomly and without any guilt. They expressed the freedom of rape, the freedom of nudity and the freedom of humiliation."

Sheik Bagir Saad at the Hikma Mosque in Sadr City, a stronghold of Shiite Muslim militiamen who have confronted the occupation militarily, denounced U.S. and U.N. plans that he said call for increased involvement by the international body and an increased emphasis on military forces from a variety of countries.

"The new U.N. resolution calls for multinational forces, but we want to inform all the countries that we don't want their armies, whether Arab, Islamic or foreign armies, because we will look at any army coming to Iraq as an occupation, and they should not send their children into this trap," he said.

The Baghdad residents who lined up to watch as U.S. soldiers clustered around their wrecked Humvees on Friday were clearly among the majority who have heeded the call of their sheiks. No one was heard expressing concern for the soldiers who were bombed. Judging by their comments, the neighbors of Sayediyeh's middle-class apartments looked at the avenue and saw enemies in desert camouflage.

Mohammed Ali Ahmed, 24, a worker who lives nearby, complained that the wounded U.S. soldiers were picked up and driven away for medical care by an Iraqi civilian ambulance that happened by. Iraqi ambulances are not for occupying troops, he declared.

"They shouldn't have taken them in the ambulance. They should have left them there, left them to die," Ahmed said to a neighbor.

"That's not right," objected Aqil Kitab, 28, another worker who was standing next to him. "Have you ever been in the army? Even your enemy, when he is wounded, you have to treat him. Then you can interrogate him or put him in a prisoner-of-war camp. The ambulance driver did his job. It was the right thing to do."

Interesting Sasha, that your article is from over a year ago - summer 2004!  Why don't we try to keep up with things...this was well before 8.5 million people voted in Jan. 2005, even before the handover of power in 2004...this is just absurd to be quoting this now without context.. wow, Sasha, what's up with that?

Good luck to you with such oft over repeated ouster of Saddam!

Right this moment we are talking just how the poor Eyerakis feel about your troops, specially, since those elections.

The elections were steged only:

1)      because Ayatallah Sistani forced the Americans to hold elections

      � CPA was only interested in keeping the CIA operative, Ayad Allawi in power.

2)      Iraqis voted because they were told that this would bring an end to the occupation. (No one said it was osme Liberation)

Things have really gone worse since they don't see an end of this occupation.

What handover of POWER?

It's a universal truth:

POWER only ever lies with the chap who holds the GUN.

Edited by Whisper

Whisper wrote: Yes, it's from over a year ago. Things may have become better in your very kind imagination. On the ground they have gone worse, since.

If you write in larger and larger type you will be heard more clearly...
Sasha, the clear point I am making is that the statistics you quoted from your article are before the handover of power, before the elections, etc...The violence is a horrible thing - but who and what is the cause of this violence?  Of course, that seems to be the point of our whole debate...

I will simply continue to posit that you cannot blame the defender of liberty for tyranny.  You must blame the tryants - OBL, Saddam, the Iranian mullahs, the Saudi Wahabi extremists - including those in the House of Saud, the Taliban and extremists all throughout the ME - DO NOT WANT DEMOCRACY and many others either sympathize with that view or somehow are indifferent toward democracy as it overlays into Islamic culture - thinking somehow the two are inconsistent.

Is Islam inconsistent with democracy and freedom?  I think that is a great test of Islamic veracity as a 'great Faith.'  Will it be a great Faith or will it be a "faith" and culture based on coercion or tradition vs. freedom and free will?


Edited by b95000

Whisper wrote: Stay this point instead of running away into some far off sunset of your convenience. B: I never run away - despite your opining... Those statistics and the hatred of the Iraqis have gone worse. B: If Iraq has issues, it's certainly in large case because the ME has issues.  I don't see you addressing the terrorism and its antecedents in the area and in the ME.  No, all is the 'fault' of the EVIL US.  What utter simplism and true 'running away' (I know, ironic, isn't it?) This is not the fault of Americans, per se, or even Americans solely.  Sure America has her part in the ills of the world, to be sure.  But so does every other nation and every other person, including our self deluded, somehow purer than the rest, Sasha Whisper.  Sasha, you can labor under and harbor illusions or you can deal with facts and reality and try to be helpful to the future and to future generations.  That truly is your choice Sasha. Ultimate and immutable support for my argument lies in the reality of human nature...and support for yours?