I hope I didn’t muss up yer fancy hairdo with all that whooshing.
No wooshin’ going on. I was well aware of your sarcasm even if you had not used the smiley. In fact, I started my post in the same vein but then it got serious and I deleted the first part because it really looked like a distasteful joking about Iraqis killing each other. That’s why it may have looked like it was totally serious but if you read carefully you might realize I am not seriously proposing the idea that they are discussing the electoral law to see which groups get to exterminate which groups. I think they want to dispense with the legal formalities and want to go directly to the killing part.
Blindingly obvious to you, maybe. But a nuanced view of the situation would suggest otherwise. The flaw in your thinking is that because 60% of the population is Shiite, that means they will all vote with unanimity in one big bloc. That’s a condescending viewpoint to hold against fairly sophisticated people. There are at least three major factions in the Shiite community, including significant populations that want a constitutional democracy with equal rights for all three regions.
Y’know, that big ethnic civil war that was supposed to happen doesn’t look to be anywhere in sight. By all accounts, the various ethnic groups are actually cooperating very well. One of the signs in that rally that never got covered was “Shiite and Sunni - standing together for peace”.
Just like in other modern nations, Iraq is composed of socialists, capitalists, monarchists, federalists, nationalists, and separatists.
And it’s condescending in the extreme to say that the Kurds want to eliminatie the Shia and Sunni, and the Shia the Kurds and Sunni, etc. The fact is, the various groups are more afraid of each other than aggressive towards each other. But the Kurds and Shia have been working together because they shared a common nightmare: Saddam’s oppression.
Sam, you do not need everyone to want to fight for a civil war to break out. With 5% of the population wanting to fight you can have a pretty nice civil war while the rest of the population hide and then, in turn, become radicalized and involved in the fight.
>> Y’know, that big ethnic civil war that was supposed to happen doesn’t look to be anywhere in sight. By all accounts, the various ethnic groups are actually cooperating very well.
I do not know where you get your news but Iraqis are killing each other (as well as Americans) daily and the only thing which limits the killings is American presence. If American forces pulled out tomorrow you would have a full fledged civil war before 2 pm the following day. And the first heads to roll would be those of the American imposed puppet government. Then the Kurds and the Shiites would take on the Sunnis. In that sense you would see some “cooperation”.
The situation in Iraq is very much like Vietnam in that the USA is talking about elections and democracy and other shit that the locals care little about. In the meanwhile the killing goes on. The American occupation is marking certain groups as collaborators and if any day the US leaves Irak those people will not live long. Of course, the USA has a history of abandoning those people to their fates. Thousands and thousands of Vietnamese who had cooperated with the USA were killed by the communists and the USA did not care much. The evacuation of Vietnam was a debacle which left a debacle behind. I have very serious apprehensions that Iraq will follow a similar path. The USA is not helping the Iraqi factions get along, it is occupying the country with the help of some against the others. This is encouraging civil violence, not preventing it. The American-organized police are being attacked just as if they were Americans.
Most of the killings I’ve seen fall into three categories: Ex-Ba’athists killing anyone who helps the Americans, Iraqis killing former regime officials, and general crime - robberies, revenge killings, etc.
I haven’t seen any example of, say, a bunch of Shi’ites hunting down a group of Kurds and killing them. I haven’t even seen large-scale threats going back between the various ethnic groups. In faact, I’ve been surprised by the amount of cooperation occuring between the Shia, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. Perhaps they have a common interest in building a free, Democratic country, and are sophisticated enough to know how much devastation a civil war will bring.
But if you’ve got some cites that suggest there is growing hostility between the various ethnic and religious groups, I’d be seriously interested in reading it.
>> Ex-Ba’athists killing anyone who helps the Americans,
Seems to me the resistance is much more than that and enjoys wide support and sympathy of the general population. every single time you see footage of the aftermath of an attack you see Iraqis celebrating. The last case I saw was of Iraqis kicking the dead bodies of those Spanish agents who were killed. This is the general population and they take a risk when they do these things. It is looking more and more like the Palestinian territories.
>> Iraqis killing former regime officials,
Yup, which increases the spiral of violence.
>> and general crime - robberies, revenge killings, etc
Yup, which has gotten much worse and is getting worse and worse as people have no jobs and have to resort to crime. It seems kidnapping is a growth industry in Iraq these days.
Then you have Iraqis using the situation for their own ends. Accusing personal enemies of crimes and sending US forces on their pursuit. people have their homes ransacked because the Americans got an anonymous tip. many of the tips turn out to be false and are probably just Iraqis settling their own scores or setting trps for the Americans. Let’s face it, the ameicans live in a state of siege in thier HQ and even there they have been attacked. They are not safe anywhere else. The roads are not safe for anyone but much less for foreigners.
The demonstration got little coverage because it is not representative of Iraq today. Imagine an anti-government demonstration in Beijing where people risk their freedom to demonstrate against their government. That is news. Now imagine a similar demonstration in support of some government policy and organized by the government itself. That is much less newsworthy. Same thing in Iraq. The fact that Iraqis risk their freedom and their lives in opposing the American occupation is news. The fact that a few people deonstrated generically “against terrorism” (not even pro USA) is not really so much news. AFAIK there have been plenty of antiAmerican demonstrations in spite of the fact that many Iraqis ended up jailed or dead. That is much more representative of Iraq today than this smal demonstration which has to be twisted to be interpreted as supporting the USA.
**Seems to me the resistance is much more than that and enjoys wide support and sympathy of the general population. every single time you see footage of the aftermath of an attack you see Iraqis celebrating. **
A few, yes. Zeyad from healingiraq doesn’t even think they are really supporters of the resistance, just people who want to be on TV and know that celebrations get media attention.
**Yup, which has gotten much worse and is getting worse and worse as people have no jobs and have to resort to crime. It seems kidnapping is a growth industry in Iraq these days.
**
Crime is going down, not up. Curfews have been lifted in many areas due to the drop in crime from having more Iraqi police.
The demonstration got little coverage because it is not representative of Iraq today
In your opinion.
You’re still at this I see. You post a bunch of unsubstantiated crap, then have the cheek to accuse sailor of posting opinion.
I freely acknowledge it when I post an opinion. Sailor is making assertions and presenting them as facts. Something which you support provided they are assertions you agree with.
From someone who was actually there:
When we were marching on Dec 10 I told Omar that maybe we didn’t need to cover the protests after all since it looked like reporters from all the major media agencies were doing so. As you can see in my pictures there were scores of reporters and cameras all over the place. And since the rallies ended in front of the Palestine hotel we thought that it would be impossible for the media to ignore this event. I felt a bit awkward walking along reporters carrying just a little digital camera while they had all the equipment.
The last thing we expected was to be the first to publish anything about the protests. It felt both good and awful at the same time. Good for scooping Reuters, AFP, AP, and other wire services and media stations. And awful for the people that depended on these services for their news. I’m telling you there were reporters from every station in the world at the demos that day and yet only a few mentioned them at all.
Al-Jazeera described the demonstrations as protests against “what is called terrorism” and estimated the number of protestors as 10,000. AFP estimated the number as 200 at first (which made us furious) then later they gave the count as 4,000. While it was very obvious that the protestors were much more than 10,000. The Anti-terrorism Popular Committee stated that there were more than 20,000 demonstrators marching. You can get an idea by this Reuters streaming clip
Imagine if half or even a quarter of that number were demonstrating against the war or against the occupation. What do you think would have happened? Would the media ignore it?
The voice of that old Iraqi Communist shouting to the Arab reporter “For once speak the truth” keeps resounding in my head.
What the media also didn’t mention was that there were other similar protests all over Iraq in Najaf, Karbala, Nassiriya, Irbil, Suleimaniya, and even in Sunni cities such as Ramadi, Ba’quba, and Balad on the same day. And these won’t be the last. There are many more larger protests planned for the near future.
If the exact date and location of the protests were not so shrouded in secrecy I believe they would have been even larger. But look at it this way, the first demonstration on Nov 28 was attended by several hundred people, on Dec 5 more than a thousand, this time they were between 10,000 to 20,000. Iraqis are getting bolder. And despite the risk of being targetted we felt more safe than ever marching with the others. The IP did a great job of providing protection, and the Americans had two helicopters circling the area.
It was wonderful watching Iraqis from different backgrounds, ethnicities, age groups, and political beliefs all marching for the same cause. Seeing Muslim clerics walking along Communists shouting “No to terrorism, Yes to peace and democracy” was priceless. And no one expected that political parties from the opposition would show up as well.
I’m glad that everyone liked the pictures I took. If my memory card was larger I could have taken many more. I tried hard to get an overhead view of the protestors but the IP didn’t allow reporters to take photos from buildings for security considerations. Omar and I contemplated climbing a tree then we decided against it because we would look foolish like shuwadi (monkeys). A truck driver noticed our predicament and offered for us to climb over his truck where Omar took these pictures.
As a result of the exclusive coverage of the demonstrations I have been inundated with emails again, so please understand if I can’t reply to all. I also got emails from people who were surprised that Baghdad looked so very much like Los Angeles or Miami. I tell them that you haven’t seen anything yet, there are neighbourhoods in Baghdad that look even better than Beverly Hills. I will be publishing more pictures soon. And the reason the pics were so large was because I didn’t have any time to compress them since power was out most of that day, so I had to upload them directly from the camera.
I also got a terrible flu and I can’t write more now though I have a lot to write about.
One more thing, feel free to distribute, share, and print these pictures as long as you credit me and give a link back to the blog. There is no copyright.
That was good. It shows that you actually know how to link to blogs.
Now where’s your source for this:
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7425777%5E1702,00.html
I also notice that you didn’t ask for a cite from sailor to prove that crime was getting worse.
Sam: “I haven’t seen any example of, say, a bunch of Shi’ites hunting down a group of Kurds and killing them…Y’know, that big ethnic civil war that was supposed to happen doesn’t look to be anywhere in sight. By all accounts, the various ethnic groups are actually cooperating very well.” Just like Yugoslavia before Tito died. You do know, I hope, that the Kurds and Shiites are each dominant in different parts of Iraq, NOT mixed as they were in the parts of Yugoslavia that the fighting went on in. No, you didn’t see large organized invasions of Croatia by Serbs, etc. (yet you think it’s an argument for you that it hasn’t happened in Iraq either), it was neighbor on neighbor. And yes, there have been a number of stories about fierce tensions and local “ethnic cleansing” along the patrolled line, ever since GW1. But you wouldn’t know that from limiting your reading to RW blogs, of course.
If you were being honest about what those who disagree with you think, you’d acknowledge that the predictions have been about what happens after US troops leave, anyway. That still holds.
adaher: Cite for that nameless blogger actually being there, as you stated as fact?
sailor: “Seems to me the resistance is much more than that and enjoys wide support and sympathy of the general population. every single time you see footage of the aftermath of an attack you see Iraqis celebrating. The last case I saw was of Iraqis kicking the dead bodies of those Spanish agents who were killed.” I was thinking more of the US soldiers who were shot in traffic in “safe” Mosul, after which a crowd dragged them out and assaulted their bodies with knives.
http://www.pentagon.gov/news/Dec2003/n12112003_200312115.html
So the CPA’s upper estimate on the number of demonstrators in the entire country barely rises to the level of “tens of thousands” claimed in Sam’s thread title.
Granted, the demonstrations may be the start of something big, but at this point they’re small potatoes.
So how come the demonstrations are still getting better play than the desertion of a third of our new Iraqi army? Could there be a media bias towards warm and fuzzy fantasies?
The kind that comes from having worked at a newspaper and being friends w/ news editors. In other words, actual first hand experience in the news industry. As well as common sense. The world may not be as simple as you perceive it.
This is an egregious, blatant, and outright falsehood.
This doesn’t really advance your case.
Assuming, FTSA that you’re right, if there’re more than one thing that meets these criteria in a newsday, there’re still decisions to be made choosing among them. There’re still many variables that determine what news gets what coverage.
So Sam Stone I would like to hear your opinion on what kind of Iraqis were marching in that protest and how representative they are ? Are these marches good for Iraq or political theatre ?
So… Now estimates have risen to as high as 100,000 to 1 million, according to the Iraqi police. The CPA says 15,000 to 20,000.
It’s looking like my OP was exactly right, in spite of the fact that the response it got from the usual suspects was a bunch of snotty condescension.
In the meantime, people against the war can utter all kinds of outright BS without having to back it up, and these ‘sophisticated’ critics can say things like, “The Sunnis want to eliminate the Kurds and the Shiites but the Shiites want to eliminate the Kurds and the Sunnis”. No cite required, of course. Or you can claim it’s all about oil, or Haliburton. No cites required, of course.
But if you’re on the other side, you’re asked for asinine proofs like this:
A: The blogger isn’t nameless. He posts his full name on his blog, which takes some courage when you’ve got a bunch of ex-regime thugs running around shooting anyone who looks like they support reconstruction.
B: It takes a lot of chutzpah to demand ‘proof’ that a blogger was at the demonstration when the blog itself has three albums of photos of the demonstration.
I must assume from this demand that either you never bothered to read the blog in question, or you are being willfully obstructive.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently trying to learn about the Iraqis. There are a dozen blogs out there, including some hostile to the U.S. There are a number of Iraqi newspapers publishing on the web. There are even some decent Iranian papers on the web that have good information. You critics should start doing a little reading about what’s going on there, rather than spewing your canned notions, lest you make yourselves look foolish by saying things like, “All Iraqis want to do is kill each other”.
Iraq is not Afghanistan. It is a modern country with a well educated populace. They drive cars and watch satellite TV. They use the internet. Certainly the culture is different, but it’s not just a bunch of warlords and hotheads who want to run around and kill each other. The average Iraqi is much like the average American - they have children who go to school, they play sports, they watch the Olympics, they have hobbies, and they are sick and tired of being controlled by despots and of living in fear. They are naturally wary of the U.S., partly because they have been kicked in the ass so long it’s second nature to be wary, and partly because they’ve been living in a cultural sea of propaganda about the west from the Ba’athists and the Arab media.
But Iraq is waking up. You may think that tens of thousands of Iraqis marching in the streets for Democracy and reconstruction is no big deal and not newsworthy, but I happen to think it’s a huge deal. It’s a tilting point. These demonstrations were poorly organized. The word was hard to get out. A lot of the people who wanted to march didn’t even know it was happening. And yet, thousands took to the streets. And they were willing to do so even under the threat of violence. That’s a big deal. And it’s big NEWS. The deafening silence from the media may not be a sign of bias, but if not, it’s sure as hell a sign of gross incompetence.
Rashak Mani asks,
I posted a list of the organizations involved at the top of this thread. I’ll post it again:
:: Parties that marched on the demo.:
-Iraqi communist party.
-INC.
-SCIRI.
-KDP.
-PUK.
-INA.
-Al-Da’wa party.
-Iraqi Islamic party.
-Independent democrats’ congregation.
-Iraqi democratic trend.
-The Iraqi Turkomen front.
-Iraqi Assyrian democratic movement.
-Iraqi medical association.
-Iraqi dental association.
-Iraqi workers union.
-Iraqi women association.
-Iraqi human rights organization.
-Iraqi farmers union.
-Iraqi independence party.
Plus a lot of unaffiliated people (like the bloggers who posted the news of the rallies) who simply showed up in support.
The marches are EXCELLENT for Iraq. They show backbone against Saddam’s thugs. They make it harder for Saddam to recruit people. They show the U.S. that reconstruction can work, and help build political support. They help the Iraqis cope as well.
And of course it’s political theater. That’s the whole point to a rally. To gain recognition for a cause, to take a stand for a viewpoint, and to use sheer numbers to make a political point.
Look again at that list of participants. It’s a very wide spectrum. Unlike most of the anti-war marches, which are organized by hard leftists and are pretty much politically homogenous. If you ever see a march in the U.S. where Libertarians and Republicans march with Communists and Democrats, you have to know that the underlying issue is something that cuts a wide swath through partisan divisions, and is something the marches care about very deeply. So the wide spectrum of groups participating in this march gives it that much more gravitas.
People ask for cites proving what is in conflict with the information they already have. It seems his information and mine match and it is yours which is at odds and needs confirmation.
Sam, let’s get real, there are no photos of any demonstration with tens of thousands. It is hype. A few hundreds at the most. Organized and encouraged by the government in charge. And that is the best they could do. In the meanwhile larger numbers of Irais risk their lives every single day in their attacks against the occupation forces. Give me a break. Please. You and I know the puppet government would not last hours after the Americans left just like the southern Vietnamese government. It is merely an extension of the US forces.