[$tinkle]

steven vincent's point of view from his visit in the sunni triangle, depicting the desperate situation there. More than just a little eye-opening. Even after reading this, i stand strong that we must stay the course, at least until the promised date of 30 june.

The pictures are horrific, immolated flesh strung from bridge girders like charred meat in a butcher shop. No less horrifying, however, are the faces of the Iraqi lynch mob, grinning with imbecilic triumph over the murder of four Americans. By now, most of the world has seen these images and wondered--what kind of people are these? Even in the Middle East, where standards of brutality are lower and hatred for America higher, the Fallujahns’ deeds were shocking. What could motivate such frenzy? What, exactly, has the United States done to earn such hatred? How can anything explain this barbarism?

This winter, I made several trips into the so-called “Sunni Triangle,” that anti-American tranche of Iraq located north and west of Baghdad. Posing as a Yugoslavian journalist, I asked local residents in towns like Tikrit, Samarra, Fallujah and Ramadi for their opinion of the U.S—receiving, in return, a litany of complaints. American soldiers kill Iraqi civilians. They imprison Iraqis for no reason. They steal money and gold from Iraqi homes. They touch Iraqi women. They are foreigners, unbelievers, infidels. “There are 135 mosques in this city, this is Muslim territory. That is why the American Zionists are not wanted here—that is why we kill them,” remarked one Fallujahn. And he was a policeman.

I heard a lot of pro-Saddam comments, too--not surprising, considering that Saddam, a Sunni himself, showered the area with money, power and influential jobs. But with the tyrant’s overthrow, the Sunnis experienced a reversal of fortune they have so far refused to accept. “We want Saddam back, life was better when he was president,” a Ramadi shopkeeper said. “When Saddam was in power, we lived like kings—now we are poor,” the Fallujahn constable noted. “Bush is not worth Saddam’s shoes.”

The common wisdom is that these grievances have helped drive ex-Baathists and unemployed soldiers into an insurrection against America. But is that true? Under this rationale, one would expect the “insurgents” to outline their goals and objectives, or present a set of demands that the Coalition might use as a basis for political negotiations. No such demands—no such leaders—have yet emerged. When I asked people what kind of government they wanted, they commonly answered “Saddam Hussein,” as some magic of history would return him to power. More thoughtful Iraqis expressed a desire for a order-maintaining strongman like Saddam, “only more democratic.” Given the world’s shortage of enlightened despots these days, this fantasy is unlikely to be realized either. No leaders, no goals, no future—what do Sunnis hope to gain from the violence?

Honor. Forget political or social objectives—or even attempts to “drive out” the Coalition. By killing GIs and Iraqi civilians, Sunni terrorists feel they are reclaiming the pride they lost when the U.S. military juggernaut crushed their miserable fiefdom. This explains the sense of desperation one detects in their complaints about the U.S., as well as their lack of interest in ideology, propaganda, leadership or anything that normally characterizes a true “resistance movement.” The goal of these criminals is simply to kill: a non-negotiable position that allow an enemy no chance for accommodation or truce—only withdrawal or death.

Unable to grasp such irrationality, the press insists on bestowing a more acceptable motive to the death squads stalking the Sunni Triangle. They are “guerrillas,” we read, waging a war of “resistance” against Coalition “occupiers”—as if they were an Arab version of the French maquis or the Viet Cong. The gunmen are happy to have an obliging media grant them legitimacy and offer justification for their atrocities. As the Israelis discovered with the PLO—another humiliated bandit-gang transformed into a national liberation movement by the media—even a democracy can lose the moral high ground to corrupt insurgents posing as the representatives of an oppressed people..

The real resistance in Iraq are the countless individuals attempting to build democratic institutions in their nation. They are true revolutionaries, bringing unprecedented change to the Arab world. With their bellicose religion, feeble political structures and government-controlled press, Arab peoples have all too often used violence to signal their needs, desires and grievances: terrorism, rather than peaceful protest, cultural achievement or economic competition has become the means they assert their cultural identity. And the more violence, the truer, more authentic they feel in their deepest selves—leading to that pure form of nihilistic self-expression, the suicide bomber.

Which brings us back to Fallujah. Are the four American deaths worse than the hundreds of Iraqis killed by homicidal martyrs? No—the Blackwater men were security guards, after all, not innocent civilians. What’s different, though, is the graphicness of the glee those Iraqis expressed in the murders. What the mastermind of a suicide bombing feels when he hears the detonation of his latest handiwork, Fallujahns paraded on the streets: a primitive cruelty, a blood-lust that temporarily eases shame, alienation and self-loathing before demanding more lives, additional blood. We are on the edge of an endless cycle of violence here. Worse, if recent reports are accurate, and the Iraqi paramilitaries are inspiring their followers through a mixture of nationalism and Islamic extremism, more Fallujahs will almost certainly occur across Iraq—and beyond. The shame and resentment of the powerless are a major force of evil in this world. The blackened carcasses hung over the Euphrates River—once the birthplace of civilization—reminds us of this dreary fact.

 

[golgiaparatus]

the US is trying to help completely uneducated people who have ben taught from day 1 by their parents and their leaders that the US is an evil and sacreligeous place. They dont see help, they see, evil.

IMHOE We just need to let them establish some kind of government and then evacuate that hell hole and then LEAVE IT ALONE. The thing is, violence will prevail in that fuhking place so its likely that any established government will eventually be overthrown by someone with more muscle.

Bush is an idiot, as I have said before Saddam was less of a threat than that place is as a whole, the muslim world despises the US and terrorism will continue to come from it. We have changed nothing in the long term.

[edit: in addition, that place is the fertile crescent, and has been at war off and on (mostly on) since biblical times... no gung-ho texan redneck ar anyone else for that matter will ever change that]

 

[BurlyShirley]

Originally posted by golgiaparatus

[edit: in addition, that place is the fertile crescent, and has been at war off and on (mostly on) since biblical times... no gung-ho texan redneck ar anyone else for that matter will ever change that]

So has all of Europe in some capacity, and its relatively nice today in most places. There's always hope of getting everyone on the same page. Saddam surely wasnt going to help that.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Liberals crack me up....

We are going to be in Iraq for years not a few months. Hell, we are still in Keora some 50 years later and the area is better off for it.

How come no Lib calls Clinton's Kosov excursion (we still have troops deployed there) a quagmire...????

 

[Tenchiro]

I think no matter what we do or how long we stay, Iraq is going to be plagued by Israel style violence for years to come. Either against us or whatever government is installed there.

 

[BurlyShirley]

Originally posted by Tenchiro
I think no matter what we do or how long we stay, Iraq is going to be plagued by Israel style violence for years to come. Either against us or whatever government is installed there.

This is true. But to me a life is a life, be it Iraqi or American, and Im convinced that our presence will preserve life, more than take it.

 

[Westy]

Originally posted by N8
Liberals crack me up....

We are going to be in Iraq for years not a few months. Hell, we are still in Keora some 50 years later and the area is better off for it.

How come no Lib calls Clinton's Kosov excursion (we still have troops deployed there) a quagmire...????

Yeah, I don't think the question is should we stay until June but how many more years/decades will we have to stay. If the military marches out of there at the end of June the whole freaking place will implode in violence. It would certainly be a 3-way civil war with a possibility of other countries like Turkey and Iran getting involved. Further escalation could perhaps start WWIII.

Edit:

There is no way to keep Iraq peaceful without an extremely strong government. The British formed the country after WWI and arbitrarily created its border. The country contains 3 competing group that also have ethnic and historical ties in other countries. Despite being very heavy handed Saddam even had to deal with several uprizing from the Kurds and Shiites. Ever wonder why the Sunni's never rebeled, Saddam was Sunni and therefor his people were in control. Now these people who resent each other are supposed to unite and form a democratic government. If you thought partisan politics between the Dems and Reps in the US was bad, this is going to be a nightmare. I personally see no way that Iraq can stay a single democratic country without a strong authoritarian presence.

 

[$tinkle]

Originally posted by Westy
Yeah, I don't think the question is should we stay until June but how many more years/decades will we have to stay. If the military marches out of there at the end of June the whole freaking place will implode in violence. It would certainly be a 3-way civil war with a possibility of other countries like Turkey and Iran getting involved. Further escalation could perhaps start WWIII.

i s'pose containment is no longer an option(?)




(U.S. walks away whistling w/ hands in pockets...)

 

[N8 v2.0]

Where's the "Man with a Blue Turban"...???

 

[ummbikes]

Originally posted by N8


We are going to be in Iraq for years not a few months. Hell, we are still in Keora some 50 years later and the area is better off for it.

How come no Lib calls Clinton's Kosov excursion (we still have troops deployed there) a quagmire...????

You accidently raised a lucid point, we are still in Germany and Japan too.

In-fact I'm hard pressed to think of any lands we have ever occupied that we still don't have bases at.

It would be insanity to think the Iraqi government would be able run on it's own by June.

Let's be real we are never leaving Iraq.

This "liberation" is nothing more than a oil/land grab.

So why am I paying so much at the pump these days...

 

[$tinkle]

Originally posted by ummbikes
This "liberation" is nothing more than a oil/land grab.

So why am I paying so much at the pump these days...

b/c opec is corrupt. If there were oil in afghanistan & we weren't in iraq, they'd leverage that as well. Just wait for someone in the royal family to get off'd & you'll see another $1/gal hike in gas.


....and you'll like it!

 

[Spud]

US isn't leaving Iraq soon. The summer deadline for placing an interim goverment will hold because of political concerns in the US regardless of the situation in Iraq.

For better or worse, our financial and military commitment to Iraq was sealed with the invasion.

 

[fluff]

Originally posted by N8
Liberals crack me up....

How come no Lib calls Clinton's Kosov excursion (we still have troops deployed there) a quagmire...????

I think you see me as one of your 'liberals' and I have objected to Kosovo in previous threads.

Just for the record...

 

[valve bouncer]

I see another 12 Marines died there today. Pretty soon a threshold is gonna be reached like in Somalia especially with elections in the US. Bush can sell the illusion of stability in Iraq far better than the reality of US soldiers returning in body bags. June 30 is still looking....ummmm....good?

 

[Silver]

"The pictures are horrific, immolated flesh strung from bridge girders like charred meat in a butcher shop. No less horrifying, however, are the faces of the Iraqi lynch mob, grinning with imbecilic triumph over the murder of four Americans. By now, most of the world has seen these images and wondered--what kind of people are these? Even in the Middle East, where standards of brutality are lower and hatred for America higher, the Fallujahns’ deeds were shocking. What could motivate such frenzy? What, exactly, has the United States done to earn such hatred? How can anything explain this barbarism?"

Oh, I don't know. It seems less barbarous to me than this, for example:

 

[Silver]

Another thing:

When did mercenaries turn into "contractors" or "security guards?"

 

[valve bouncer]

Originally posted by Silver
"The pictures are horrific, immolated flesh strung from bridge girders like charred meat in a butcher shop. No less horrifying, however, are the faces of the Iraqi lynch mob, grinning with imbecilic triumph over the murder of four Americans. By now, most of the world has seen these images and wondered--what kind of people are these? Even in the Middle East, where standards of brutality are lower and hatred for America higher, the FallujahnsEdeeds were shocking. What could motivate such frenzy? What, exactly, has the United States done to earn such hatred? How can anything explain this barbarism?"

Oh, I don't know. It seems less barbarous to me than this, for example:

Or the practice of American soldiers collecting body parts from Japanese dead in WW 2. See the May 22 1943 issue of Life Magazine for a picture of the woman with a Japanese skull sent to her by her fiance.

 

[Silver]

Originally posted by $tinkle
b/c opec is corrupt. If there were oil in afghanistan & we weren't in iraq, they'd leverage that as well. Just wait for someone in the royal family to get off'd & you'll see another $1/gal hike in gas.


....and you'll like it!

Of course OPEC is corrupt, they are by definition a cartel. The sole reason they exist is to keep prices up.

I've also seen reports that the US is buying oil to top of the SPR. If that's true, you can bet that is contributing upwards pressure on oil prices.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

Originally posted by Silver
Of course OPEC is corrupt, they are by definition a cartel. The sole reason they exist is to keep prices up.

that is my friend, the definition of a free market.

they have the oil. and they decide who they want to sell it to, and for how much.

is it corruption?
if is corrupt, then viceversa, when ford or GM sell cars for whatever price they want, or the US embargoes whoever they want?????

i dont seem anything evil in opec trying to keep their profits, just like the rest of the world, and specially the US does.

are they evil because you are not in the i-have-the-sword-by-handle position??

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

Originally posted by golgiaparatus
the US is trying to help completely uneducated people who have ben taught from day 1 by their parents and their leaders that the US is an evil and sacreligeous place. They dont see help, they see, evil.

IMHOE We just need to let them establish some kind of government and then evacuate that hell hole and then LEAVE IT ALONE. The thing is, violence will prevail in that fuhking place so its likely that any established government will eventually be overthrown by someone with more muscle.

Bush is an idiot, as I have said before Saddam was less of a threat than that place is as a whole, the muslim world despises the US and terrorism will continue to come from it. We have changed nothing in the long term.

[edit: in addition, that place is the fertile crescent, and has been at war off and on (mostly on) since biblical times... no gung-ho texan redneck ar anyone else for that matter will ever change that]

I see it this way.

am sleeping in my house when some bombs start falling. for 365 days after that, bombs keep falling, i've lost my mom, a sister and probably an uncle, along with 10 000 other fellow countrymen.

suddenly, my costumes, eating with a fork, eating mcdonalds and going to a sinagogue are illegal and looked bad upon.

there are foreign soldiers in my neighborhood shooting everything that poses the littlest threat.

i dont have water, food or electricity for days, and am subject to embarrasing searches and stuff.

i see 4 guys of the invader side in a truck and i have a molotov. and with me, hundreds of other who lost as much as i did.

what would you do???? what did the french did with the germans they could capture? what did the americans did with the japanese they capture??

i try to be a pacific person, and to understand the reasons by not isolating the problem.

but i think this question should be answered by those hard NRA guys, who claim they are here to defend themselves and the US, and because of their guns, they have never been invaded.

i bet, those are the guys that are the most enraged when they saw those images.

 

[Silver]

Originally posted by ALEXIS_DH
that is my friend, the definition of a free market.

Nope. It's a cartel. A distortion to a free market.

By definition, the players in a free market (speaking in economic terms) must be of a size that is insufficient to lend one party (or in this case, a group of parties) control over the price of whatever commodity or service we happen to be talking about.

Anytime you have a cartel, you don't have a free market.

Now, what economists and politicians term a "free market" are two entirely different things.

Whether OPEC is evil is a different question. I tend to not like them due to the fact that the oil money they receive goes to propping up some pretty nasty people. That's not to say the I don't sympathize with your point.

 

[boostindoubles]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Silver
Of course OPEC is corrupt, they are by definition a cartel. The sole reason they exist is to keep prices up.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ALEXIS DH:


"that is my friend, the definition of a free market.

they have the oil. and they decide who they want to sell it to, and for how much."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think that opec's sole purpose it exists is to regulate oil prices, which would make it a cartel. But with that said, when opes was formed in the 1950's up until about 1970 it dint function as one. The world oil price was unaffected by The working of opec.

Since 1970 though, as you can see above, expecially in the late 1990's the world price of oil has shifted in ways unexplainable by a normal competitve market.

the price of oil in 1999 dropped way low, presumably due to an increased supply. The price increase from 1999-2001 of 10$ to over 30$ also reflects a change in supply. So another sign opec is a cartel.

but i tend to think that opec doesnt qualify as a cartel by definision, although they are trying to be one. the reason i say this is because opec cant control non opec members from producing as much oil as they want at a certain price. So canada could set a price of 25$ a barrel versus opecs 33$ per barrel and make a killing; opec cant do a thing.

A successful cartel is one that controls new producers from entering the market, which opec cant do. also opec cant really discipline its members if they break from the set price and produce what they want. And a successful cartel would.

So if opec is a cartel, they sure arent a very good example of one. They do make alot of money, but it is thru the sheer volume of oil produced. so are they rich? yes. Are they a cartel? not really.

 

[$tinkle]

Originally posted by Silver
Another thing:

When did mercenaries turn into "contractors" or "security guards?"

what, you never heard of "contract killing"?

nice posting of the lynching, you troll-whore. The sick difference is, slaves were viewed as property, while the americans are viewed as infidels, genuflecting to a lesser god.

see the difference?

 

[valve bouncer]

Originally posted by $tinkle
The sick difference is, slaves were viewed as property, while the americans are viewed as infidels, genuflecting to a lesser god.

see the difference?

Slaves? That photo looks early 20th century to me. I dunno maybe your point was to esoteric for me to see.

 

[ummbikes]

Originally posted by $tinkle
you troll-whore

Your vitriolic outburst has inspired a new signature!

 

[$tinkle]

Originally posted by ummbikes
Your vitriolic outburst has inspired a new signature!

i was thinking "troll-trollop", but that doesn't roll off the tongue as easy (my lips move when i read).

 

[Silver]

Originally posted by $tinkle
what, you never heard of "contract killing"?

nice posting of the lynching, you troll-whore. The sick difference is, slaves were viewed as property, while the americans are viewed as infidels, genuflecting to a lesser god.

see the difference?

Slavery in 1916? I was merely pointing out that contrary to the author's (Steven Vincent) naive assertion that the Iraqis are a savage and hostile people, it wasn't that long ago that taking the kids out to a lynching was a fun family activity. (And not because the person being lynched was occupying their country, no it was because their skin was a different color. Which is why I happen to think that Iraq has no monopoly on barbarity. For a more recent example, James Byrd suffices.)

The photo, by the way, is from a remarkable book called "Without Sanctuary."

http://www.musarium.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html

Anyways, here is the background info on that particular photo, but it could be any other, it is in no way unique.

"Early in the cold morning of January 12, 1916, a masked mob of some two hundred dragged John Richards from his jail cell in Wayne County, North Carolina. He was accused of the murder of a local farmer named Anderson Gurley. According to local newspaper accounts, he was taken to the scene of Gurley's murder and hanged. This photo puts that account in doubt. Richards is suspended from a deciduous tree by a rope secured under his arms. His pants are lowered, and a cloth is draped over the front of his body. It is more likely that he was castrated and died from the gunfire that "almost cut his body to pieces."

The Calvaryesque cloud formation hovering over Richards is most likely the product of a light-leak in the camera lens. "l

 

[llkoolkeg]

Originally posted by ALEXIS_DH
but i think this question should be answered by those hard NRA guys, who claim they are here to defend themselves and the US, and because of their guns, they have never been invaded.

i bet, those are the guys that are the most enraged when they saw those images.

We have not been succesfully invaded for many reasons, of which an armed citizenry is but one. Perhaps you don't recall what happened during the War of 1812. Anyhow, it is a far stretch indeed to compare subduing Fallujah to subduing the US of A.

I was highly enraged...so do you think such disgusting brutality should not engender that reaction? I would be ashamed to be so callous and emotionless that it didn't enrage me.

 

[Spud]

Originally posted by Silver
Another thing:

When did mercenaries turn into "contractors" or "security guards?"

That's just the Liberal Media bias

Despite the candy-coating - They were mercs. Regardless it was still disgusting and an outrage. Plenty of historical precident for this as others have pointed out.

I'm disgusted that our media hasn't had the stones to show the gory detail. of the abuse of the corpses. Everything is quite filtered to protect our sensibilities.

 

[Silver]

Originally posted by Spud
I'm disgusted that our media hasn't had the stones to show the gory detail. of the abuse of the corpses. Everything is quite filtered to protect our sensibilities.

I don't know if it's filtered to protect sensibilities or to keep dissent to a minimum. A lot more people would be making a lot more noise if they saw those photos (or the one of the Iraqi girl with her foot blown off.)

War is much more clinical and easy if you never have to see the results.

 

[llkoolkeg]

Originally posted by Silver
War is much more clinical and easy if you never have to see the results.

Similarly, the active and joyful participation in the degradation and abuse of corpses is easy if you have grown accustomed to attending such events regularly hosted by your civic leaders, be they a Hussein or a Grand Dragon.

 

[boostindoubles]

what, noone to negate or agree with my opec findings?

 

[valve bouncer]

Originally posted by boostindoubles
what, noone to negate or agree with my opec findings?

Mate you put that baby to bed with one of the most conclusive posts seen on this forum. What's to argue? Your post said it all.

 

[BurlyShirley]

Originally posted by valve bouncer
Or the practice of American soldiers collecting body parts from Japanese dead in WW 2. See the May 22 1943 issue of Life Magazine for a picture of the woman with a Japanese skull sent to her by her fiance.

I think we can pretty much say that any time people get killed in war, it's never a pretty site. Its only a matter of whether the media gets a picture of it. A dude getting torched by a flame thrower isnt any prettier than a guy hanging from a bridge.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Yep... war is ugly, brutal and its what humans do best.

 

[valve bouncer]

Originally posted by BurlySurly
I think we can pretty much say that any time people get killed in war, it's never a pretty site. Its only a matter of whether the media gets a picture of it. A dude getting torched by a flame thrower isnt any prettier than a guy hanging from a bridge.

Shirley, that's stating the bleedin' obvious and I'm sure we all agree on that but that wasn't my point (well Silver's point actually I was just agreeing with it). The writer of the original article questioned the humanity of the Iraqis in Fallujah (sp?) the sub-text being that we Americans/Westerners are generally above that when it's not the case at all as the examples provided by Silver and myself show.
P.S- You out of the army yet?

 

[boostindoubles]

Originally posted by valve bouncer
Mate you put that baby to bed with one of the most conclusive posts seen on this forum. What's to argue? Your post said it all.

thanks for agreeing with my post, but i figure since its just my opinion i probably missed some fact/ or mis represented some facts.


peace

 

[BurlyShirley]

Originally posted by valve bouncer
Shirley, that's stating the bleedin' obvious and I'm sure we all agree on that but that wasn't my point (well Silver's point actually I was just agreeing with it). The writer of the original article questioned the humanity of the Iraqis in Fallujah (sp?) the sub-text being that we Americans/Westerners are generally above that when it's not the case at all as the examples provided by Silver and myself show.
P.S- You out of the army yet?

I was agreeing with you tools. Mainly I was getting at that it only seemed more inhumane, but wasnt actually, because there were cameras to see it.

Im almost done with the green machine.

 

[Silver]

Originally posted by BurlySurly
I was agreeing with you tools. Mainly I was getting at that it only seemed more inhumane, but wasnt actually, because there were cameras to see it.

Im almost done with the green machine.

You're going all soft on us...wait and see what a couple years of good bud in college does to you.

You'll be spending hours in a pot induced haze, bedding women with more hair under their arms than you have...

 

[BurlyShirley]

Originally posted by Silver
You're going all soft on us...wait and see what a couple years of good bud in college does to you.

You'll be spending hours in a pot induced haze, bedding women with more hair under their arms than you have...

Please hippy

Soft I will never be. Real? Always. Hippy chicks? Maybe hate****, but not even that if they smell.
Pot? No.