nope but there were reporters on site. The On site Sky News reporter at the scene of the celebrations reported seeing Iraqis who said they were upset at the loss of their city.
Uh Yes I do… You see while that was reported an embedded reporter who was less than 2 miles away from that scene was under fire.
There were still people resisting.
There were hundreds on the streets not thousands… Now this may grow over the next few days but stop pretending one location is all of Baghdad. I mean I never suspected all of New york was against the war because I saw a few hundred protesters
Believe it or not there are going to be Iraqis who don’t see this as a day of liberation, but of being conquered. Yes you have to reach out to them. You can’tshoot or arrest them all so if you want a succesfull transition you have to win them over… At least the Army seems to know this.
Okay, I Know Lots is going a bit overboard, but there is enough room for a little gloating (the rest of the gloating can come later). Our troops were not gassed, and thousands (or millions, depending on who was doing the doom-saying) of Iraqi civilians were not killed. There was no huge uprising of Iraqis eager to fight for Saddam. The storming of Baghdad was not a nightmarish guerrilla battle incurring a rush of casualties on both sides. There was no “quagmire”. We have, for the most part, been greeted with cheer and goodwill.
Is the battle over? Nope, far from it. One could argue, in fact, that the hard part is yet to come (and they’d be right). However, the fact remains that the first round of naysayers’ predictions have turned out to be wrong, and I think that all of us - hawks and doves alike - can be thankful for that.
Let me celebrate the hospitals full of casualties!
Let me celebrate the soldiers who will come home and weep in their families arms because they had to shoot a ten year old boy, or they saw their friends get killed!
Let me celebrate with the families of the dead and wounded. All of them, on both sides. Let me join in their party.
Yup, there sure is a lot for me to say “hip hip hooray” about, I Know Lots.
Maybe this is better than it would have been otherwise. Hell, I don’t know. We can’t go back now, can we? So go ahead, rub it in my face, if it makes you feel like it will make me feel worse about this situation. I mean, that’s what you’re after, isn’t it? All the Anti-War folks were anti-war just because WE HATE YOU, and Bush, and Blair, and England, and Apple Pie, Motherhood, Baby Kittens and Hot Buttered Toast. So by rubbing in our “victory”, you win the “should we have a war” argument. Yay! Congratulations. You win, I lose, what a great end to a spectacular year.
Nice to know that the naysayer’s belief that the Hawks true understanding of the gravity of the situation has also been proved marvellously wrong. With such delightful, poignant insights like that, I don’t know how we could have doubted you.
I take it from your post that you believe more Iraqi civilians are going to die now, with Saddam removed from power, than would have died if he was left there? Because unless that’s your belief, I think there’s at least a little room for some happiness. Unless you consider saving lives, you know, a bad thing.
The US gov. has declared the UN irrelevant.
The US gov. has declared public opinion “doesn’t count”
The US gov. considers loss of human lives “colateral damage”
The US props up dictators, gives’em weapons, then overthows them killing thousands in the process. HIP HIP HURRAY!
I was against the war but am thankful that it is nearly over with as relatively few casualties as there were. No sane person believes Saddam was anything but evil, but I would have preferred that the Iraqi people overthrew their despot in the same way as the Poles and East Germans have.
That being said, the harder part will be winning the peace. Will the post-war Iraq have a better government? Will other Arab states be more or less friendly to US interests? Is the Arab-Israeli peace nearer or farther away as a result? Will occupation and nation-building take months or years? Time will tell.
I’m just curious how many of the Iraqis who are condemning Saddam and thanking George W. Bush would do so if the American soldiers (and their guns and bombs) weren’t within earshot. I think it’s pretty obvious to every Iraqi in Baghdad today that anyone who acts anti-American near the U.S. forces, you risk getting arrested or worse.
A degree of happiness that it has gone better than the worst case scenario, yes, I have that.
I don’t for a second see how “neener neener” is anything other than a grotesque sentiment in this situation, though. “Congratulations, we’ve killed a whole bunch of people! Great!” Whether we had to do it or not, there is no way on earth I can stomach gloating over those who opposed the war because, for some strange, sick, perverse reason they hate the idea of legalised murder.
That Saddam did it too, that it might have been the only way left, does not make this war a good thing. There is nothing to gloat about in victory, because you’re the one who can see what the battlefield looks like.
Jeff, are you convinced that no more American lives will be lost in the future as a result of terrorist acts by radicalized Arabs than would be the case otherwise? If not, there is no cause for celebration.
The OP of this thread and a couple of its subsequent responses represent the lowest-common-denominator of pro-war attitudes out there. This is the type of person who calls into radio talk shows to rant about the subject of their choice and play sycophant to the talk-show host. This is the type of person who sticks their fingers in their ears and sticks out their tongue at those they disagree with, when the reality of it is that people have died in this war, men and women on both sides of the conflict.
So, yeah… rub it in some more. I hope it makes you feel good, all that blood. Well done.
Fortunately, the OP does not represent reasonable pro-war attitudes. Most of the people on the SDMB, as well as others I know, even if they were for the war, recognize that victory (if this is victory) came with a price and will not gloat about it. That is an honorable attitude, and I hope that most will espouse it.
For my part, I share MSU 1978’s feelings on the subject. I’m glad that the war appears to be almost over. I never had much doubt that the U.S. would win the military conflict. Quite frankly, that was the “easy” part. The more difficult part, in which the U.S. will truly show the world its mettle, will be in rebuilding Iraq with fairness and justice, and subsequently re-establishing good relations with the international community. Up to now our leader have not impressed me that they will be able to do this competently, but I hope that they can. It will be the true test of this nation to rise to the challenges that still face us.
The gamble is on what happens after the war, not the war itself.
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I think it’s pretty obvious to every Iraqi in Baghdad today that anyone who acts anti-American near the U.S. forces, you risk getting arrested or worse.[/qutoe] The ROE–based on hearing embedded reporters with our combat units–are to shoot anyone holding a weapon. I seriously doubt anyone in the military gives a shit what they say.
Most of our guys don’t even speak Arabic, ferchrisakes. It’s the Iraqis that might kill anyone speaking out in favor of the old regime right now. All those families with torture victims, the Shia* and Kurds, haven’t forgotten what happened.
*Shiite, Shi’ite, Shiah- whatever floats your boat. The ‘other’ Muslims that aren’t Sunni. Oh crap, I spelled another one.
Avalonian, we might not agree about this war, but I’m damn pleased you’ve reaffirmed my faith in the Pro-War side a little bit. I agree with what you’ve said there. I’m still sickened at the vultures.
You’re right, that is additional cause to celebrate. As for your other points, unless you didn’t notice (or chose to ignore it), the majority of people in the US supported the war. Thus “public opinion” was followed. Or do you just mean your opinion, and that of the minority of war opponents, was declared irrelelevant? And “collateral damage” has been the military terms for unintentional loss of life during war for quite some time. Bush didn’t invent the term to soft-sell civilian casualties.
McDuff:
I believe you’re missing the point here. It’s not “Congratulations, we’ve killed a whole bunch of people”, it’s “Congratulations, we’ve saved a whole bunch of people from a megalomaniacal whacko who is so f’ed up he sticks 10-yr-old dissidents in the Kiddie Gulag.” It is my belief that whether what we did was right or wrong from a legal standpoint (I am, of course, a big supporter of this war), one of the results of it is the freeing of a lot of people, and the end of a lot of death. Is it unfortunate that people died? Of course. But I maintain that we have saved many more lives than were lost, and for that, I feel cause to celebrate. I see nothing morbid about that, anymore than I would think it morbid for the Allies to be jubilant about the fall of Berlin in 1945.
And if, in my celebration, I let loose a stray “neener neener”, well, I apologize, but I’m in a pretty good mood, for the aforementioned reasons.
Jeff
We actually do agree about the war… I just know that a lot of pro-war people won’t engage in the “vulture” behavior we’ve seen in some. I personally was against the war, for the most part, but since it happened anyway, I guess I still have hope for a positive outcome.
I don’t agree – that’s not at all likely. Iraqis are certainly free to mill around without prasing the U.S. Coalition soldiers are not arresting unarmed civilians under any pretext. Why would you think that?
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Would you prefer that they consider it tactical damage? What’s wrong with considering loss of human live collateral damage?