"As things fell apart, anger and opposition to the Iraq venture grew in London.
But Bell didn’t shirk the blame.
“The underlying truth of all criticism is… that we had promised self-governing institutions and not only made no step towards them but were busily setting up something entirely different.”
I find it amusing that the news agency which employs the guy who threw his shoes at Bush is demanding his release and not apologising.
To pretend the Iraqi people are now so happy with what America did. The whole thing is so ridiculous.
For a while the America commanders were calling the insurgents “anti-Iraqi forces” and the Americans and their allies were “pro-Iraqi forces”. The whole thing was so ridiculous and confusing it did not last long but it just goes to show the level of stupidity that governed the whole invasion. General after general as they retire become critics.
Also, remember the “new Iraqi flag” of 2004 which resembled the Israeli flag and which was later quietly abandoned? I mean, WTF were those guys thinking?
I don’t see what this demonstrates. The Anti-American faction wants to kill people who help the Americans, whereas the Pro-American faction wants to work and help Americans. You seem to think that’s somehow significant whereas I see it as being pretty intrinsic to an occupied land.
As the translator says, the Americans will leave and he has to stay. Once the Americans leave there will be no “pro-Americans” in Iraq. None. There will only be degrees of anti-Americanism. The few “pro-Americans” today are just risking their lives in exchange for wages to feed their families. They are a tiny minority.
In other news the shoe thrower has become a national hero.
The proposed flag looked nothing at all like the flag of Israel. Seriously, look at them:
People got all pissy because it lacked the typical green,blacks and reds of the mideast flags, and started grasping at straws in order to rationalize it.
There was as much in common between the flags as the US and the former USSR.
This reminded me that during the civil war it was folly for a Salvadorean to advertise that he or she was working for US military advisers in El Salvador*; however AFAICR it is telling that the few translators and other people that worked for the military US advisers in El Salvador during the civil war did not have to go to the extremes the Iraqis have to.
*The administration has mentioned that they are using an “El Salvador option” in Iraq (yes, that included putting US diplomats in Iraq that “coincidentally” also looked the other way when death squads appeared in El Salvador and now in Iraq).
I think he was referring to Iraqis that continue to show so much hatred for the occupiers that even after 6 years the majority of the people still want you out and a good chunk supports violent methods against us.
After 6 years the Japanese and Germans already knew that it was better to be occupied by the USA, not only because of the capable administration of them after the war by the USA, but because the other choice was to be occupied by the USSR.
And it was the former leadership that got much of the blame for those. The Japanese and the Germans knew that they started the war, not us. As opposed to the Iraqis, who know this is purely a war of aggression; they know that nothing Saddam did or said could have stopped us.
Who’s trying to rationalize here? The fact is that the Iraqis did not like it and that it had to be very quietly abandoned. It was a faux pas of colossal proportions. You can say all you want but the Iraqis hated it.
The whole thing was marked by the huge amounts of ignorance, stupidity and arrogance which have been the mark of the entire fiasco.
*Lt. Col. NAGL: Some very simple dos and don’ts. Don’t make approaches toward Arabic women. Don’t invade mosques or invade the space of mosques. Don’t talk about religion or culture. But also some dos. Do respect the tribal relationships that exist in Iraq. Do respect the qualities of the Arabs, not necessarily as conventional fighters, but as guerilla warfare specialists. And I was struck by how little has changed in the 60 years since this book was written.
NORRIS: In the foreword to the book, you write it’s almost impossible, when reading this guide, not to slap oneself on the forehead in despair, that the Army knew so much of Arabic culture and customs 60 years ago.
Lt. Col. NAGL: One really wishes that we’d have this book in our breast pockets when we arrived in Iraq in September of 2003. We learned on the ground things about Ramadan, for instance, and customs and courtesies during Ramadan the - that this book had, and that were sitting on a library shelf somewhere that I would’ve given my eye and teeth for to have had, well, when I actually really needed it.*
