June 19, 2003

They Should Know

This is an excellent article that appeared in Reuters this morning. I have pasted a couple of excerpts, but the entire article is worth a read.

"The Americans are just using the Baath as an excuse to stay in the country...They don't want an Iraqi government. So they just talk about the Baath," said Ali Jassem, a unemployed Shiite Iraqi who lives in a slum.

"We will rise up and fight the Americans. We have just moved from one dictatorship to another."
...
The U.S. military said some of the millions of dollars also seized in a raid had probably been set aside by members of Saddam's outlawed Baath party to pay supporters of the missing president to kill American troops.

Few Iraqis are likely to be impressed by that claim.

They say many Baathists have fled and some have been killed in apparent reprisal shootings, suggesting that anti-American sentiment, fueled by unpaid salaries, insecurity and failing services is to blame for the violence, not Saddam's henchmen.

"If the Americans really want to know what we are concerned about, it is not the Baathists. It is the lack of electricity and lack of basic services such as garbage collection," said Akram Hussein, an assistant in a compact disc shop.
...
"The Baath is gone and the Americans know it," said Sheikh Kassem Sudani, a Shi'ite cleric, standing over old Baath documents scattered outside a former party office.

"They remind me of the Baath. Every time there is an attack on their troops they say it was terrorists or the Baath. That's what the Baath did. They always blamed someone else."

This situation does not look like it's getting any better. Only uglier and sadder and more difficult for those who were supposedly meant to benefit...

Can you imagine if someone came in and did this to our country, for whatever reason? If we had no electricity or garbage collection or our paychecks just weren't ever arriving? I know that when Mayor Bloomberg tried to cut garbage collection and ferry service in NYC people were outraged. Is it right that these people, who we are allegedly "helping and liberating" are being forced to suffer in this way after all the suffering they've already done?

From my point of view, things are way out of control in Iraq and something needs to be done. We need to help those people back on their feet and then give them their fucking country back by getting the hell out.

Posted by Maria at June 19, 2003 10:45 AM | TrackBack
Comments

It took the Allies 5 years to rebuild Germany, and there are US forces still there to this day.

Not a lot, but some.

All I see in this is the usual AP/Reuter bias.

And most of the Iraqi's don't want us to leave;, they know if we do either the Baathists (Nazi's) or the fundementalist Muslim extremists will take control or start fighting each other. Either option is bad.

If all someone can bitch about is 'the garbage needs collecting and the powers out', then they need to travel outside Baghdad and remind themselves what the rest of the country had to live thru. Compared to what went on there, not having 'utilities' is a joke. Those people live without power, running water, etc.

Then again, city residents tend to be afraid of the rural citizens...the rurals might just shoot them as collaborators.

Funny thing about AP/Reuters...you never, ever, see them 'interview' rural Iraqi's.

Posted by: evilmike at June 19, 2003 10:57 PM

So true mike; AP/Reuters is notorious for going straight to the protestors and ignoring the common man who isn't making a scene. If you base your opinion solely on one news source you're going to have a skewed view of reality. Watching or reading AP/Reuters will make you think all hell's broke loose while Foxnews shows everything's peaches and cream. The truth is probably somewhere in between, and I know several people who were or still are there, and the feeling I get is the same as mike's. The majority are happy to have us there and glad that Saddam is gone. Rebuilding takes time and we haven't been there long, but from watching the news sources (all varieties) seems to indicate we are making good progress and the majority of Iraqis' standard of living is already much better than it was before the war. Of course we're not counting poor Saddam's daughters :)

Plus let's not forget who actually took down the power and other utilities in Baghdad. We weren't even attacking when the power went out; I saw it happen live on tv and there were no bombs exploding and we weren't in Baghdad yet. Saddam's people did that, not us.

Posted by: lee at June 20, 2003 09:52 AM