WTF? Fighting the mightest fighting force the world’s ever seen with rusty rifles and improvised bombs, all the while keeping them, at the very least, at a standstill, is actually corageous as all hell.
Don’t believe me? YOU try it.
I can’t tell you my opinion of you in this forum.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2842.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2838.htm
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0411-Statue.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NYI304A.html
For what should the Iraqis be grateful? Before the invasion, the average Iraqi didn’t have to worry about being shot as he went about his daily business and the electricity worked and all the buildings were intact. As long as he didn’t badmouth Saddam and kept a low profile, he was OK. Now his daily survival is uncertain and his infrastructure has crumbled. Given a choice between pre-invasion life and post-invastion life, why would he choose post-invasion life? I’d like to see the case for how toppling Saddam has helped the average Iraqi.
Educate yourself if you’re going to try to debate people that are already knowledgeable on the matter – otherwise all your arguments show is your enormous ignorance of the matter:
A tale of two photos
Boredom, more likely. Iraq is a colossal clusterfuck, period, end of story, due almost entirely to the incompetence of the Bush Administration as sheltered by hawks like yourself who have let your aggressive ideology blind you into willful ignorance. It’s taken years of making the same arguments over and over and over and over and over until through sheer repetition, and by the screaming reality of facts on the ground, the blinders of most war advocates in these parts have been forcibly torn away. And yet it seems that every month or so we get a new guest or member who thinks they’ll be able to make the same old pro-war arguments stand up where all the previous efforts have failed. It’s vaguely amusing to watch an endless queue of people repeatedly trying to nail this Jell-O to the wall, but it does get old eventually.
BTW, does the following poll make 80% of Americans anti-Americans?
Confidence in Iraq Policies Drops to 20% in U.S.
Because if it does, fact is, America is vastly anti-American :eek:
Yeah, because no other country helps people as much or more than America. :rolleyes: And of course sending aid to some other country magically makes things better in Iraq.
Or for most any other reason, good or bad. Dancing in the streets just isn’t an American habit.
Iranians holding candlelight vigils, sympathy from damned near everyone ? We had all that, and threw it away. We have earned the worlds hatred.
What tagos and Contrapuntal and RedFury said. Crawl out of your right wing fantasy and pay attention to reality.
At least Saddam bothered to bury his victims.
No. We never tried. It’s also their country, not ours, you know.
As already pointed out, it’s worse now than it was before.
But not the people giving them the ( probably ) orders, encouragement and permission to do so.
You did not raise any points. You blustered and ranted in an entirely unoriginal way, which I rebutted with copious facts. If you want to raise some points in something other than your own head then post them with the substantiating cites.
And might I add - relevant. As in pertaining to Iraq. Look - I give to the point of hurting to major relief appeals. Call me Jesus but I don’t think that gives me permission to punch passing strangers in the face, go shit in their houses and torture their pets. Even less do I expect them to thank me for it.
You apparently believe otherwise.
The US been berry berry good to the Kurds, so I suspect the admiration is real. They’ve been living in a more or less autonomous zone since long before the invastion, thanks to the US no-fly zones.
As for the OP, that poll is very disturbing. However, is the OP’s contention that governments should always act in accordance with public opinion polls, or only when those polls agree with his own preferences? I’m all for getting out of Iraq soon, but that decision has to be made by what’s in the best interest of Iraq and the US. Public opinion polls are fickle and not the best way to guide public policy-- unless of course, the poll is the only poll that really matters, ie, and election.
And are the Iraqis going to have a say in what their “best interest” is ? Somehow I think not.
The get to do that thru their government, which has not asked us to leave yet.
Because they’d be killed as collaborators no doubt; it’s not really the Iraqi’s government or the government of Iraq anyway. Besides, we’d just ignore any such request.
Rest assured I will hold my tongue in the future no matter how intense I feel.
Again my apologies
Something you made up, no doubt.
Something else you made up, no doubt.
We’ll probably never find out about that.
Of late. In the not so distant past, the Kurds have been the object of our realpolitik. I have no doubt that they find us useful, whether or not they find us “admirable” is quite another kettle of piranha.
You got me. I am one hundred percent partisan in thought, word and deed. I lack my corresondents persistent…nay, relentless…nay, pitiless…non-partisan even handedness. If “lack” is precisely the word…
It was a simple question, and had nothing to do with being partisan. You need to offer more than just a public opinion poll if you’re advocating a certain action. In particular, it’s important to look depper than just the numbers to find out the reasons behind the numbers. We can never be certain about those reasons, but to the extent that they can be determined, it helps understand how those polls might in fact be usefull in determining policy.
In particular, if you go to the full article, the authors make the point that slight changes in US policy could make big changes in the perception of Iraqis:
So, it’s not so much that they want us out as they want to be reassured that we intent to get out at some point. Which pretty much validates my policy recommendation. Imagine that!
BTW, if I wanted to point out partisanship on your part, I would’ve noted that your OP said the link went to ThinkProgress, when it in fact went to PIPA, but that does tell us where you attention is focused. 
The quotes offered were ThinkProgress’ assessment of the meaning of the polls, just as I said. The ultimate source of the data was also correctly identified, as it should have been. Rather than rephrase the blazingly obvious, I simply used thier take on it, as I found it succinct and factual. If you have reasons to believe otherwise, you are invited to bring it.
There is nothing evasive or slanted in my sourcing.
Your phrasing:
…implies that I hold a view easily dismissed, which implies that my other view are as easily dismissed. This is the very essence of the much-abused phrase “straw man”.
I would have thought I had more of your regard than that. I would have thought I had earned it. I would have bet on it.
It’s called an opinion. You may have heard of the concept. It’s alos common sense; given their admirable enthusiasm for the death of American soldiers, I doubt they will be less entusiastic about killing collaborators.
Can they order us off their own land ? Can they eliminate the “Bremer orders”, regulate their own economy, kick out Haliburton and so forth ? No, therefore they are not sovereign; they are no more Iraq’s government than I am. Do they control what happens in the “nation” of Iraq; can they maintain order; can they get people to do what they want ? No, therefore they are not a functional government. They are a circus we’ve propped up to make Iraq look like something other than an American occupied anarchy.
Of course; it would be suicide on their part.
Same thing, worded differently. They just don’t believe us; only fools would, after all.