# Tens of Thousands March in Baghdad **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 11, 2003, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262 "2003-12-11T03:48:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/121 "2003-12-14T16:51:34Z")
**stratocaster** , if you can offer a different motivation for the essentially-content-free OP other than simple liberal-media-bashing, let’s have it. The OP poster himself has offered only that it could be a sign of media incompetence or laziness, not bias. You both need to read more from people who actually travel outside the Green Zone. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/122 "2003-12-14T17:31:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\ ***Sam’s** quotes, offered above and cited by you, as much as states that the “reason” the demonstration was not widely covered by “the media” was “Maybe because it was a march against Terrorism and in support of Reconstruction and the United States.” Perhaps there is another interpretation of that remark, one that does not imply that the lack of coverage was politically motivated. What the might be eludes me. \*\* I agree that the cites provided did not necessarily amount to a consensus endorsement of U.S. policy. But what I understood you to say was that Sam implied a liberal bias by virtue of asserting that the story was ignored because it involved “a march against Terrorism and in support of Reconstruction and the United States.” In fact, using that quote, you rhetorically asked if there was any other reasonable inference one could draw. So, if those words imply a liberal bias, mustn’t we likewise assume that liberals support terrorism and that they oppose a successful reconstruction effort and the U.S. in general? If that’s not a given, then those words don’t imply a liberal bias. That’s a logical syllogism, ain’t it? BTW, none of _my_ liberal friends hold those beliefs, and I think they’d be offended that those specific words = liberal bias. Or did I misunderstand what you intended to convey? Sincerely, Still Bob (but now with a cool new user name). ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/123 "2003-12-14T17:38:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves \* > \*\ ***stratocaster** , if you can offer a different motivation for the essentially-content-free OP other than simple liberal-media-bashing, let’s have it. The OP poster himself has offered only that it could be a sign of media incompetence or laziness, not bias. You both need to read more from people who actually travel outside the Green Zone. \*\* Sorry Elvis, but unlike you, I generally try not to assign any sort of motive to someone making an argument; that would be called a _logical fallacy_. I believe their assertions stand or fall on the merit of how they are argued (and you’ll note I did not offer an opinion on the specific argument, but only on the conclusion that Sam _must_ have been implying a liberal bias). You, on the other hand, can’t seem to avoid it. In this very post you seem quite certain what my political position is and how that position forces my conclusions. For what it’s worth, I have no fucking idea what the “Green Zone” is. You may infer whatever malicious motive you’d like from this confession. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/124 "2003-12-14T18:03:02Z")
> [@](#): > > I agree that the cites provided did not necessarily amount to a consensus endorsement of U.S. policy. “Not neccesarily”. Well, I think you’re on pretty safe ground there. Hard to fault. Indeed, it may be worthy of nomination for the SDMB 2003 Thundering Understatement Award. I regret that I cannot comment with any insight on the rest of your post, as I’m not at all sure what it is you are saying. I suggested that **Sam** was returning to a major theme of his ilk (got ilk?), to the effect that there was simply tons and tons of good news pouring out of Iraq on a daily basis, but that the liberal media was witholding such in service to thier defeatist agenda. To my mind, given the quotes provided, a glaringly obvious interpretation. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/125 "2003-12-14T18:18:42Z")
> [@](#): > > …Sorry Elvis, but unlike you, I generally try not to assign any sort of motive to someone making an argument; that would be called a logical fallacy… Steady up, there. It is entirely respectable to assign motive to an argument, the motive is to win the argument. And if the poster has an unblemished record as a palladin of the Bushivik cause, it is equally reasonable to presume that he percieves his argument as furtherance of a larger goal. All well and good. After all, that’s why we’re here. The OP posits a familiar theme: a pro-American demonstration is another example of Simply Splendid News that goes unnoticed by the press. If he is not intent on alerting us to the calumny of the liberal media, what _is_ he suggesting? An alarming and sudden rise in drug use at the editorial boards? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/126 "2003-12-14T18:25:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*“Not neccesarily”. Well, I think you’re on pretty safe ground there. Hard to fault. Indeed, it may be worthy of nomination for the SDMB 2003 Thundering Understatement Award. \*\*Please be fair. Neither did Sam’s cite amount to an unequivocal Iraqi denouncement of U.S. policy. > [@](#): > > \*\*I suggested that **Sam** was returning to a major theme of his ilk (got ilk?), to the effect that there was simply tons and tons of good news pouring out of Iraq on a daily basis, but that the liberal media was witholding such in service to thier defeatist agenda. To my mind, given the quotes provided, a glaringly obvious interpretation. \*\* Hmm. I don’t know how else to explain it. You used this quote from Sam… > [@](#): > > \*\*That’s right - a huge demonstration against the insurgents and in favor of the U.S. led reconstruction efforts. \*\*…as support that clearly he implied a liberal media filter that prevented the reporting of such items. If the tons and tons of good news being withheld by that lousy liberal press were all related to Iraqi anti-terrorism, support of a successful reconstruction and establishing a viable democracy, then those liberal louses have a very specific agenda. If the liberal filter opposes any story that shows Iraqi opposition to terrorism and support of a successful reconstruction, then it’s logical to assume that liberals must be pro-terrorism, pro-insurgents and against a successful reconstruction (which, of course, I do NOT believe). If liberals are NOT of those beliefs, then the quote from Sam does not imply a liberal bias, not without any further qualification. If this still doesn’t make sense, I’m not sure how else to say it. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/127 "2003-12-14T18:33:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*Steady up, there. It is entirely respectable to assign motive to an argument, the motive is to win the argument. And if the poster has an unblemished record as a palladin of the Bushivik cause, it is equally reasonable to presume that he percieves his argument as furtherance of a larger goal. All well and good. After all, that’s why we’re here. \*\*It may be practical to assign a motive in real life. I don’t assume a salesman has my welfare as his sole concern, and I behave appropriately. But in a forum called “Great Debates,” it’s still accurate to point out that this is, indeed, a logical fallacy. > [@](#): > > \*\*The OP posits a familiar theme: a pro-American demonstration is another example of Simply Splendid News that goes unnoticed by the press. If he is not intent on alerting us to the calumny of the liberal media, what _is_ he suggesting? An alarming and sudden rise in drug use at the editorial boards? \*\* elucidator, again I’ll point out that I, for one, do not for a moment equate ignoring a “pro-American demonstration” story as a liberal tendency. I believe that most liberals, like most conservatives, are pro-American themselves. Don’t you? 😉 So if Sam asserts that pro-American stories are being ignored, why would that imply a liberal bias? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/128 "2003-12-14T23:59:16Z")
So **Sam** were there any pro-US or anti-terror demonstrations today? What with the capture of Saddam and all, I’d expect a huge upsurge in this sort of activity. As a nattering nabob of negativity, I find it a little disturbing that we didn’t see pictures of a million Baghdadis converging on the site of last week’s demonstration. Prudence, as usual, demands that we give the story a little more time to unfold. Perhaps they’ll be there tomorrow, or perhaps the whole anti-terror rally thing is a flash in the pan. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/129 "2003-12-15T05:45:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SimonX \* > \*\*Are you positing that one side of the debate is enagaged in disingenuos posting practices? \*\* The debate, as I understand is two-fold: does the media fail to cover certain developments in Iraq? and if so, is it because the media is politically biased? My take: it does fail, but mostly not from political reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/130 "2003-12-15T06:20:12Z")
> [@](#): > > So Sam were there any pro-US or anti-terror demonstrations today? What with the capture of Saddam and all, I’d expect a huge upsurge in this sort of activity. I take it you never turned on a TV today? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/131 "2003-12-15T06:34:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*I take it you never turned on a TV today? \*\* Sure did, and I we didn’t see pictures of a million Baghdadis converging on the site of last week’s demonstration. They kept running that little demo in front of the communist party headquarters over and over. Sometime during the afternoon they came out with a version where the hammer and sickle on the commie flags had been edited out. I was inspired by this journalistic integrity, but never saw anything approaching the size of the antiwar demonstrations in NY or London last winter. Are you claiming there was such an event? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/132 "2003-12-15T06:58:07Z")
I’m claiming there was an event that was very significant. The numbers bandied about for the size of it range from somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 people to 1 million. I don’t for a second believe the larger number. I believe 10,000 might be a reasonable figure. I believe that was significant and newsworthy. Why haven’t you seen it on TV? Well, that’s the whole point of this thread, isn’t it? To answer that question? But it’s kind of a moot point. Today, everything changed. Let’s wait and see what the reaction is in the next few months. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/133 "2003-12-15T07:02:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > But it’s kind of a moot point. Today, everything changed. Let’s wait and see what the reaction is in the next few months. Time _will_ be the telling factor here. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/134 "2003-12-15T07:03:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Squink \* > \*\*Sure did, and I we didn’t see pictures of a million Baghdadis converging on the site of last week’s demonstration. > They kept running that little demo in front of the communist party headquarters over and over. Sometime during the afternoon they came out with a version where the hammer and sickle on the commie flags had been edited out. I was inspired by this journalistic integrity, but never saw anything approaching the size of the antiwar demonstrations in NY or London last winter. Are you claiming there was such an event? \*\* Now hold that thought, I can also report that I saw this article in the New York Times. > **[In Baghdad, Celebration and Mockery of a Captured Leader (Published 2003)](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/international/middleeast/in-baghdad-celebration-and-mockery-of-a-captured.html)** > > As the news spread and gained credibility, Iraqis poured into the streets in many neighborhoods to show their support. Change the text in the photograph from “people celebrating in front of (and implied that they were members of) Iraq’s communist party HQ” to the, less puzzling to American citizens, text in the current one. I found a different article that showed I was not imagining things: [http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/14iraq\_celebrate.html](http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/14iraq_celebrate.html) > [@](#): > > Members of the Iraqi Communist Party, which was banned and persecuted under Saddam’s rule, passed around bags of candy and raised red flags outside their party headquarters. Well, I do remember that historically the Communist party in Japan was allowed to develop after WW2, (it remains a force in Japanese politics). Seems that a similar model is being allowed in Iraq, of course for the tender ears of the right in America, historical precedents will not do, I assume they would have looked at that and said, WTF! We sacrificed for the freedom of those people also?!? The alteration of those images is somehow worrisome, you will be the judge, if it was a liberal or conservative move for the mainstream media to do. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/135 "2003-12-15T15:23:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stratocaster \* > \*\*I believe their assertions stand or fall on the merit of how they are argued (and you’ll note I did not offer an opinion on the specific argument, but only on the conclusion that Sam _must_ have been implying a liberal bias). Given that the “argument” totally fails on a logical basis, and given the poster’s strong predilection toward a particular side of any argument, there isn’t much left, is there? Perhaps you ought to read some back issues of this board. > [@](#): > > For what it’s worth, I have no fucking idea what the “Green Zone” is. You may infer whatever malicious motive you’d like from this confession. There’s not necessarily malice in simple broad ignorance, such as you have admitted here. It’s a very familiar term and concept to anyone who is seriously interested in finding the facts about what’s happening on the ground, and how it’s being reported. You have now shown yourself not to be such, and the factual basis of your arguments can fairly be assessed on that basis, don’tcha think? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/136 "2004-04-05T01:45:53Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > I’m claiming there was an event that was very significant. > > Why haven’t you seen it on TV? Well, that’s the whole point of this thread, isn’t it? To answer that question? > > But it’s kind of a moot point. Today, everything changed. Let’s wait and see what the reaction is in the next few months. Well, we’ve waited a few months, and this is what we see: [10 U.S. Troops Killed in Iraqi Violence](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040405/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq) [Shias ‘kill US troops in Baghdad’](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3599381.stm) December’s demonstrations against Terrorism and in support of reconstruction and the United States now look quite insignificant. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/137 "2004-04-05T18:55:25Z")
To begin with, from The Guardian: > [@](#): > > [\*\*AP: Bush Loyalists Pack Iraq Press Office](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3939534,00.html) > > Inside the marble-floored palace hall that serves as the press office of the U.S.-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq. > > Dan Senor, a former press secretary for Spencer Abraham, the Michigan Republican who’s now Energy Secretary, heads the office packed with former Bush campaign workers, political appointees and ex-Capitol Hill staffers. > > One-third of the U.S. civilian workers in the press office have GOP ties, running an enterprise that critics see as an outpost of Bush’s re-election effort with Iraq a top concern. Senor and others inside the coalition say they follow strict guidelines that steer clear of politics. > > _One of the main goals of the Office of Strategic Communications - known as stratcom - is to ensure Americans see the positive side of the Bush administration’s invasion, occupation and reconstruction of Iraq_, where 600 U.S. soldiers have died and a deadly insurgency thrives. > > `Beautification Plan for Baghdad Ready to Begin,'' one press release in late March said in its headline. Another statement last month cautioned, `The Reality is Nothing Like What You See on Television.’’ > > …`Iraq is in danger of costing George W. Bush his presidency and the CPA's media staff are determined to see that does not happen,'' Robison said. `I had the impression in dealing with the civilians in the Green Room that they viewed their job as essentially political, promoting what the Coalition Provisional Authority is doing in Iraq as a political arm of the Bush administration,’’ he added. > > …One CPA staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the press office had sent targeted ``good news’’ releases to American television, radio and newspaper outlets that were timed to deflect criticism of Bush during the Democratic primaries.\*\* In other words, a propaganda unit dedicated to spreading disinformation about the true state of affairs in Iraq. We can see the results of their work in the way the CPA selects the information it publishes, and the context (or, more correctly, lack of context) with which it frames that information. Consider, for example, one of the CPA’s (and **Sam’s** ) favorite examples: painting schools. As [Mark Levin](http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0405/p09s02-coop.html) notes: > [@](#): > > **The CPA budgets only $10,000 to “rehabilitate” schools that then receive little more than a paint job by CPA-hired contractors; Iraqi principals complain that they could do the job for $1,000, and wonder where the other $9,000 is going.** And while touting this wonderful social project, the CPA studiously avoid publishing health statistics – even though “_hospital officials continue to collect data that reveal woeful rates of mortality and sickness, as well as acute shortages of drugs and equipment._” In the words of [Juan Cole](http://www.juancole.com/): > [@](#): > > \*\* I have for some time been wondering why the US press reporting about Iraq was so much sunnier and optimistic than what one hears from Iraqis or from freelance reporters on the ground in the country. To any extent that the mainstream Western press takes its cues from Dan Senor and Rich Galen, that would help explain it.\*\* Let’s compare **Sam’s** criticism of the media and their coverage of events in Iraq, found in post # 111, above, with the observations of free-lance journalist Nir Rosen. In [**”It’s all bad news: Chaos in liberated Iraq,”**](http://www.reason.com/hod/nr032604.shtml) Rosen relates how he was witness to an execution one evening on a Baghdad street. Returning to his hotel, > [@](#): > > \*\*… I told a photographer about what I had seen. He asked me if I had heard about the explosion in Fallujah. I asked him if he had heard about the deputy chief of police in Mosul getting assassinated. > > “It’s all small news, so you never hear of it,” he said. “It’s all small news but its all bad news.” > > … You never hear about most of it because _the press never hears about most of it_. And if the press wasn’t there, it never happened. Baghdad is a huge sprawling city with poor communication, and it is impossible for the press or the occupying army to know what is happening everywhere. We only hear the distant thunder of the explosions or feel the silent change in air pressure. > > … The violence is relentless. Explosions from bombs, rocket propelled grenades and artillery as well as guns firing can be heard all day and night, but their locations are usually impossible to determine, even if you are foolish enough to search for them after dark, when gangs and wild dogs own the streets. There are systematic assassinations of policemen, translators, local officials, and anybody associated with the occupiers. The pace of the violence is normal and mundane, so nobody cares. Unless an explosion is perceptibly close, it is just an echo, and nobody pauses in mid-conversation or stops chewing his kabob. Nobody in the US (and certainly nobody in Iraq) even cares much about the American soldiers dying daily, as long as the numbers on any given day are low. In the Sunni neighborhood of Aadhamiya in Baghdad there are nightly RPG and mortar attacks on the US base, and the men on the street erupt in cheers and whistles at the sounds. > > …Shi’ite mosques sell CDs of the riot in Kadhim, when thousands of Shi’ite men attacked American military medical vehicles that came to help, and then chased them to the base, throwing shoes, stones and epithets, waving flags and taunting the reviled occupiers. The American retreat into the base was a great victory for the shocked Shi’ites. > > …But Sunni Arabs don’t scare Shi’ites anymore. The threat is America now. Only America can thwart the long-suppressed Shi’ite hope to control Iraq and establish a theocracy. Their expectations are high. Now is their time to inherit Iraq and only America stands in the way. Leading Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani has not left his house for nearly a decade but pronounces judgments on everything from elections to whether or not women should wear high heel shoes. (They cannot because it makes their asses shake too much.) Other, more radical clerics such as Muqtada Sadr speak of a jihad against the infidel Americans who have come to kill the Mahdi (Shi’ite messiah). Radical Sunnis and members of the resistance hate the compromising Sistani but respect Muqtada for his defiance. _In every mosque and religious center in the country one can purchase the DVDs, CDs, tapes and literature of the Islamic revolution that rejects “American democracy” and “American freedom.”_ In Shi’ite stores you can buy books about Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, and in Sunni stores you can buy radical Sunni magazines published in Saudi Arabia. > > …In the beginning of the occupation I entered a taxi and asked the driver what he thought of the events in Iraq. He looked away and started crying. I asked him if somebody in his family had died. “We all died,” he told me. Now taxi drivers talk only of the latest explosion and how much they hate the Americans and want to kill them. One taxi driver drove by a mosque and saw Americans in the courtyard. “Look what they’re doing!” he shouted hysterically. "They even enter inside mosques! They are dirty Jews, I swear if I had an RPG now I would shoot them!\*\* Enough. To those who supported the war: best of luck with your plans for the “democratization of Iraq.” You’re going to need it. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/138 "2004-04-05T19:21:32Z")
_sings God Bless America_ I think that was right. We didn’t win the Cold War. We just didn’t lose it as quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/139 "2004-04-05T19:35:58Z")
Well, as long as this stupid thread popped back up, I will ignore the usual garbage in favor of this. > [@Apos](#): > > A play in two acts, by **Shodan**. > > Part 1: Damn you for saying that this thread was about accusing the mainstream media of bias. > > Part 2: It’s obvious that the media is biased. > > —Bows, applause— Since this is the first time I posted in this thread, allow me to request that if you are going to make up shit and attribute it to others, at least try to keep it straight who you are lying about. **Sam Stone** started the thread. Since no one had any easy way to respond to it, they chose the path of putting words in his mouth, and then dismissing them. Intellectually dishonest, but nothing new. But at least make the minimal effort of remembering who you are smearing. I suppose I should be honored by being lumped together with a respected poster like **Sam** , but as Abraham Lincoln (another Republican) once said about being tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail: > [@](#): > > [If it weren’t for the honor of the thing, I would much rather walk.](http://www.bartleby.com/73/1498.html) Back to your regularly scheduled circle jerk. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262/140 "2004-04-05T19:46:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > **Sam Stone** started the thread. Since no one had any easy way to respond to it, they chose the path of putting words in his mouth, and then dismissing them. Intellectually dishonest, but nothing new. I believe the conclusion that was reached by all parties was, as Sam put it, “let’s see how it turns out in a few months.” I don’t see 10,000 people marching to support the American puppet government O\_o > [@](#): > > but as Abraham Lincoln (another Republican) You really think that the Republican Party of 1860 is the same Republican Party of 2004? Quaint. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tens-of-thousands-march-in-baghdad/218262.md?page=8)