Propaganda from Iraq
Hmmmm…. what’s wrong with this picture?
Here’s the caption:
An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. At least 175 people were slaughtered on Tuesday and more than 200 wounded when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, officials said.
So how, exactly, did two unfired bullets hit her house? Did an evil coalition soldier walk by and throw them at her? I don’t know if this lady is lying to the reporter, the reporter staged the shot, or they just screwed up the caption, but clearly this kind of thing wouldn’t get through a newsroom without a terrific ignorance of firearms coupled with a bias to make things look as bad as possible in Iraq.
Hat tip Ace of Spades HQ.
You could look at the name of the photograper for a hint.
Posted by dad29 on August 18, 2007 at 0835 hrs
What, you think they are short of old women with bullet holes in their homes that they had to fake one? C’mon.
What I’m more concerned about is the veracity of our own so-called news reporting.
Posted by scott on August 18, 2007 at 0849 hrs
There also isn’t any shortage of old Iraqi women with bullet holes in their heads.
Posted by Michael Mathias on August 18, 2007 at 0918 hrs
So why fake a shot like this? Why are you excusing such shoddy reporting?
Posted by Owen on August 18, 2007 at 0921 hrs
I’m not excusing anything. But I think some people will want to use this as some kind of proof that things in Iraq are ever so much better than we think. Frankly, I think it’s the other way ‘round.
Posted by scott on August 18, 2007 at 0923 hrs
I beg to differ. Neither you or Michael took any time whatsoever to condemn this obviously false report. Instead, you both jumped on the “things are going to hell in Iraq” bandwagon and passively seemed to forgive this lie because it moved public perception toward what you believe the truth to be.
Posted by Owen on August 18, 2007 at 0927 hrs
Excellent catch Owen.
As for the situation in Iraq, kudos to Scott and Michael for keeping up with their blogging during their recent trip there. As for me, since I haven’t been on the ground and have no idea whether things are better or worse there than before the surge, I’ll wait for the Patreus reports later this fall.
Posted by Fraley on August 18, 2007 at 0957 hrs
I’m waiting for you gun nut guys to try and figure out that the bullets she is holding aren’t for standard US issue firearms. Wouldn’t surprise me if that were the case.
As others have said, good catch here…..
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 18, 2007 at 1051 hrs
Owen—That bandwagon’s going to need new wheels soon to accommodate all the Republicans jumping on it.
As to the photo, all we have is a caption which quotes the woman saying the bullets hit her house. Nowhere in the caption does it say how. These bullets could have fallen from out of a box on a helicopter through the sky to hit her house. Or any number of other events. Are you saying that not a single unexpended bullet ends up on the ground or hitting a house during these massive incursions into civilian areas? There are unexploded bombs all over the world.
And, Brian, I suppose I could go to Iraq, surround myself with guards and air support for a quick march through an open air market, come home and pronounce that everything is a-ok, but I would be worried that the market would get bombed the next day. Oh, right. That happened to John McCain. I’m guess I’m fine with my current sources for information.
Posted by Michael Mathias on August 18, 2007 at 1058 hrs
Michael
You need better sources of information, whether or not you are fine with them.
Thank you, though, for proving Owen’s point that those quick to criticize do so on limited and faulty information. Yes there are unexploded bombs all over the world. Bullets, however, do not ‘explode’ on impact with the ground.
Here’s a primer
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/bullets.htmlI was fortunate enough to be around guns at a young age and to learn this as a child, but you’re never to old to learn, right?
Posted by Fraley on August 18, 2007 at 1117 hrs
Magic Bullets….
Someone call Arlen Spector; STAT!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 18, 2007 at 1200 hrs
no steve those are bright and shinny 5.56mm Nato rounds full metal jackets so I am sure they are standard US Military rounds
You do not need to be much of a gun nut to know that.
my only thought is they are pretty clean and shiny for having been dropped from a helo like Mike said(that was very funny helos do not use that type of round) or even being loaded in to a magazine then cycled out due to a jam or something. actually looking at the color of the bullet they do not even look like they are from the same manufacturer but that could just be the lighting.
for the record the little part that is pointy is the bullet the other half is a casing the whole unit is a round.
I am sure there are thousands of unfired rounds(bullets do not explode per say Mike) lying around Iraq it would not be all that hard to find two to hand to this woman. In their current state(not in a gun they are harmless to her unless she put them in her cooking fire)
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 18, 2007 at 1236 hrs
Fraley—I only brought up the numbers of unexploded ordnances around the world as an example of how really dangerous stuff gets dropped, left behind, thrown aside, whatever when a hapless civilian population is caught up in the middle of a brutal conflict. It was a supporting point.
I see nothing in either retort as “proof” that this woman is lying or that this is somehow “propaganda.” It seems entirely reasonable that live ammo is lying all over Iraq as a direct result of all the death and destruction over there. There’s plenty of dead people to use for propaganda purposes anyway.
Posted by Michael Mathias on August 18, 2007 at 1257 hrs
all we have is a caption which quotes the woman saying the bullets hit her house. Nowhere in the caption does it say how. These bullets could have fallen from out of a box on a helicopter through the sky to hit her house. Or any number of other events.
Oh, Michael… you make me laugh. In the general use and technically accurate use of the term, when someone says that “bullets hit their house,” they mean that someone fired the bullets at their house - NOT that the bullets fell on their house. So even if what you say is correct, any half-ass editor would not have used the phrase “bullets… hit her house.”
You are willing to bend over backward to explain away this piss-poor and/or biased reporting, yet you think that the Bush Administration lies with every breath.
Try a little critical thinking. Call a spade a spade and move on. It doesn’t have to shatter your world view if you are being honest with yourself.
Posted by Owen on August 18, 2007 at 1301 hrs
This totally discredits all those Iraqi civilians who claim that bullets have hit their house or their cousins. They just love the terrrists and would say anything to show we aren’t successful in this war. I mean, we’ve paid enough for it, you’d think it would be clear we’re succeeding.
Posted by John Foust on August 18, 2007 at 1303 hrs
My goodness you liberals are showing your true colors. Why is it so hard to say, “yap, that’s some bad reporting, but…”
Did I SAY that this one incident totally discredits “discredits all those Iraqi civilians who claim that bullets have hit their house or their cousins?” Did I SAY that this picture indicates that everything is rosy in Iraq?
No.
What I said is that this picture and its caption “wouldn’t get through a newsroom without a terrific ignorance of firearms coupled with a bias to make things look as bad as possible in Iraq.”
There are so many straw men around here that it’s becoming a fire hazard.
Posted by Owen on August 18, 2007 at 1308 hrs
Gee, if that’s what you really meant, then you could’ve titled it “Bad reporting” instead of “Propaganda from Iraq.”
Because Wikipedia says “propaganda” is a word that means “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.” Who said “coupled with a bias to make things look as bad as possible in Iraq”? You didn’t only say it was bad reporting. You said it was propaganda, it was bias. If our coalition forces have indeed shot into civilian homes, rightly or wrongly, is it “bias” to report it?
Maybe French reporters in Iraq don’t know the difference between an unfired round and a slug pried out of a wall. I’d find that a little hard to believe. Maybe she found the rounds on the ground, maybe they did fire into her home and dropped a few unspent rounds in the process. Who knows. It’s not even clear whether the name attached to these photos belongs to a photographer or to an AFP reporter. It’s not even clear to me, in a few moments googling, whether this picture is even connected to an actual story.
What’s the crack about my “true colors”? It’s un-American to talk like this?
Posted by John Foust on August 18, 2007 at 1419 hrs
And again… you bend over backward to explain this away and to attack me for my choice of nouns instead of mustering an ounce of criticism for an obviously flawed report.
Telling…
Posted by Owen on August 18, 2007 at 1442 hrs
Owen-please. At most this a poorly-worded caption, and hardly an effort to bring down the republic via news media.
Posted by Michael Mathias on August 18, 2007 at 1446 hrs
Again, Michael, did I say any such thing?
But thank you for at least acknowledging that the caption is in error.
Posted by Owen on August 18, 2007 at 1448 hrs
I didn’t comment on the quality of the reporting in my first comment, did I? It’s not even the USA MSM, it’s a French wire service.
One absolutely incorrect caption for a photograph, and the right-wing bloggers get their panties in a bundle and it’s proof, proof, proof I tell you that our failures in Iraq are due to propaganda.
“True colors”. “Telling…” Is this propaganda, too, or just right-wing innuendo and personality smear? That’s a grand old tradition, too.
So are there any bloggers, anywhere, on any side, who dug into this story? Is it a caption - written by who, the photog? - or is it a story? Or is the meaning and true core of this post to be found just in the surface, and in the chuckles and affirmation that any bad news must certainly be just like this picture’s caption?
Posted by John Foust on August 18, 2007 at 1513 hrs
Actually, they are not current issue, as they show no color coding. They are either older military surplus or commercial civilian ammunition. Thus, the photo was staged by someone with access to a prop not commonly available in Iraq. Kindly reconfigure your strawman accordingly and comment further for our amusement.
Posted by triticale on August 18, 2007 at 1741 hrs
Ye olde ‘fake but accurate’ defense.
Obviously, the woman dug the slugs out of her own body and used the reloaders that she had lying around to defend herself in case the Americans attacked again.
I have no doubt that Bush, Cheney, or Rove fired those rounds with two specific intentions; To kill innocent civilians as well as increase the level of global warming to exacerbate the hurricane season to displace more minorities here in the U.S.
Sheesh!
Posted by Steve on August 18, 2007 at 1747 hrs
I don’t know if the caption is in error or not, but you did call it propaganda and I doubt that it is. I also doubt that anyone here is going to be qualified to know every single bullet type floating around in Iraq.
But let’s look at the caption:
An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. At least 175 people were slaughtered on Tuesday and more than 200 wounded when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, officials said.
Where does it say that the bullets are coalition bullets? It just says “bullets” hit her house following the event. Isn’t possible that the bullets could be from insurgents, neighbors, the baby-sitter? Everyone’s armed over there.
Posted by Michael Mathias on August 18, 2007 at 1834 hrs
That’s just it. THOSE AREN’T BULLETS. They are unused rounds.
Posted by Owen on August 18, 2007 at 1837 hrs
Let’s just get back to the volume of water this thimbleful of an example is supposed to hold.
Quibbling over the veracity of one picture is not going change that this numbskulled invasion turned out the way Dick Cheney not only predicted in the 1990’s, but as late as 2000—a mess.
If this picture shows anything, it’s the desperation of those of you who think this was is a nifty idea. Might have been if we had a president who knew what he was doing.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 18, 2007 at 2006 hrs
Michael Mathisa, I love how you say, ” At most this a poorly-worded caption, and hardly an effort to bring down the republic via news media.” I think it is more like, “At the LEAST, this is a poorly-worded caption. I would hate to think that portions of the media try to influence events rather than portray them accurately, but this unfortunately appears as if this could be the case,”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 18, 2007 at 2046 hrs
Nobody in the media have exactly covered themselves with glory the last several years. Was this a case of sloppy reporting? You bet, and even sloppier editing allowed it to get through to the viewing public.
Maybe the media are trying to make up for their unabashed cheerleading in favor of the war in the months leading up to it. That would be completely stupid, but hey, you never know.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 18, 2007 at 2058 hrs
Wow, what a surprise… Scott, John Foust, Mike Mathias,and KR, with nothing more to say than what their “Bleeding heart liberal handguide” tells them to say.
Should say something about their blind support for Socialized Healthcare in Wisconsin as well, shouldn’t it?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 18, 2007 at 2101 hrs
175 people are dead and you’re worried about whether an editor was spreading propaganda because the word bullets crept through a copy desk instead of UNUSED ROUNDS?
Posted by Michael Mathias on August 18, 2007 at 2258 hrs
Boy, that’s a bullshit emotional argument. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by Owen on August 18, 2007 at 2311 hrs
Heaven knows we should be unemotional about civilian casualties in a war over oil. It’ll show them we’re tough and that we mean business. Never mind that it’s not hard to find photos of Iraq grannies holding actual mangled slugs they’ve pried from walls. It’s all propaganda meant to discourage the USA citizens who are gladly paying for this war.
So Owen - which side am I “for”, and why? Let’s see some non-bullshit, non-emotional argument.
Posted by John Foust on August 18, 2007 at 2322 hrs
175 people are dead and you’re worried about whether an editor was spreading propaganda because the word bullets crept through a copy desk instead of UNUSED ROUNDS?
How about: 175 people are dead and an editor was more intent on inferring that coalition forces were recklessly endangering civilians than with the fact that suicide truck bombers are actually targeting and killing civilians.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 18, 2007 at 2356 hrs
Except none of this was going on five years ago before we upset the apple cart with this badly botched invasion. It has all happened just like Dick Chaney said in 1994—http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/16/daily-show-1994-dick-cheney-vs-post-911-dick-cheney/ .
Of course that was then, what is now is an endless war which can be used to whip up wingnuts and drain the US Treasury. Just take a peak at that screaming shrew Jessica McBride’s site.
There has been more than enough reporting about the suffering in Iraq, all of it true, all of it accurate about the situation in the country. It is an insult to these people that you act like things are peachy rosy. No wonder they want us the hell out.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 19, 2007 at 0014 hrs
Yeah, Iraqi civilians had it just peachy before we were over there. No unused rounds. The rounds were used and the bullets entered the heads of dissidents.
As for this war for Oil. I wish it were. Then gasoline prices wouldn’t be $3 a gallon over here.
If this is a war for oil where the hell is it?
The sheer denial exhibited by those who can not say one bad thing about our enemies or the biased press reporting is mind numbing.
Posted by Fraley on August 19, 2007 at 1128 hrs
Fraley, of course Saddam was an evil bastard. There’s dozens of them out there, each leading their small and large countries to ruin. It’s about control of oil, not reducing the price you pay at the pump in the short term. It’s easy to see how the war itself would cause enough fear in the market to drive prices up. Do I need to lecture about how free markets work? Sheer denial? Enemies? “Our enemies”? Why was Saddam the enemy worth fighting? Ah, but the Bush family has been buddies with the Saudis for decades. Can’t complain about their abuses.
I have no doubt that biased reporting exists - even here, I can turn to Fox News for that. I’m positive there are European press who don’t like what the USA has done, and their reports are similarly dismal. So what? Perhaps, like Fox, it’s what their market likes to read.
Denial? How about those US officials who say, gee, we shipped over a plane-full of cash, billions of dollars, and we don’t know where it went. Where’s the indignation about that? The no-bid contracts? The mind-numbing “shipping costs”? The hundreds of thousands of lost weapons? The faithful get whipped up about a $100 increase on their state property taxes, but think nothing of these losses.
As for this picture caption, has anyone shown that it is actually connected to a news story? Or is it just a biased caption? From a French wire service? Perhaps originally written by a Middle Eastern photographer? Translated between who knows how many languages? Which language was his native language? To French, then to English, and you’re getting your panties in a bundle because someone confused “round” and “bullet”? It lightens your heart to think of all the ready-to-go rounds left on the streets of Iraq?
I’d like a buck for every time I’ve heard someone confuse “upload”, “download” and “install”.
Posted by John Foust on August 19, 2007 at 1148 hrs
Yeah John, you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s a translation issue, not bias.
Rationalization is a powerful force in the Foust world apparently.
Posted by Fraley on August 19, 2007 at 1151 hrs
It’s a propaganda trick, promulgated by little old ladies on the streets of Iraq. They don’t know the difference between the English words “bullet” and “round”? But they were sneaky enough to suggest that stray rounds do hit civilian homes, and we all know that can’t be true! So let’s pounce on this detail instead.
Posted by John Foust on August 19, 2007 at 1213 hrs
John,
The caption did not quote the lady. It paraphrased her. There is no translation issue. There’s just an irresponsible editor would should not have allowed an incorrect caption to be published.
Posted by Owen on August 19, 2007 at 1217 hrs
Captions, like headlines, are considered display copy and are generally written by copy editors as the final step in getting a story ready for print (or, these days, to post online). It’s rare that a reporter himself writes a caption, because he doesn’t know which photos will be chosen to illustrate his story.
The caption above was likely written by a junior editor at 4 a.m. based on a rough translation of information from the French. That does NOT absolve Agence France-Presse of responsibility for the error, but it does suggest that it’s an error rather than a propaganda move. Had this sentence been in an actual article it would have been fact checked and, more than likely, a research editor would have caught the disconnect between the words and the photo.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 19, 2007 at 1229 hrs
Fraley, no one can make the accussation that Hussein wasn’t a tyrannt and that people suffered under his rule. Just about everyone agrees, liberals included. But what is going on far exceedes what he did under the 12 years of no-fly zone rule. This is where the fantasy takes the off ramp from reality.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 19, 2007 at 1341 hrs
First, the caption was propaganda now it’s just inaccurate. It’s neither.
For it to be inaccurate means we must endow bullets with special properties distinct from all other objects that forbids their description of having hit something unless it has been fired from a gun. If a ball lands on my house, is it only an unexploded rubber sphere until it’s shot from something, flattened, and stuck in a wall? No, it only hit my house—nothing else special had to happen.
For it to be propaganda, means that the news agency has so little regard for its readers that it thinks can pass an actual photo of live ammo and that people will assume it was fired from a gun despite what their sense of sight tells them.
Live ammo is all over the place in Iraq. During an event in which 175 people killed, it’s probably falling everywhere. Go back and read the caption. There is no there there. This is only a photo of a woman who feels lucky to be alive.
Posted by Michael Mathias on August 19, 2007 at 1429 hrs
Fraley, no one can make the accussation (sic) that Hussein wasn’t a tyrannt (sic) and that people suffered under his rule. Just about everyone agrees, liberals included. But what is going on far exceedes (sic) what he did under the 12 years of no-fly zone rule. This is where the fantasy takes the off ramp from reality.
kr,
First, tell that to the Kurds.
Second, what you fail to acknowledge is that the homicide bombers who are killing Iraqis by the hundreds are NOT US FORCES sent there by George Bush, but rather Islamic fundamentalist tied to al Qaeda who are intent on inciting a civil war in Iraq. Yes, our operation drew many of them there from Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and elsewhere, but these radical extremists do exist, and are hell bent on destroying western civilization. Their hatred of America and the West existed long before coalition forces entered Iraq. And their efforts to hit America here and abroad pre-date the current US Administration.
The fact remains, not only was the caption crap, so was the picture. While Michael seems to believe the rounds hit her house and she simply picked them up and showed them to a photographer saying “How weird that these two unspent rounds fell from the sky as the US Forces were repelling al Qaeda,” I agree with Owen. This was an attempt (by the reporter? photographer? editor? news agency?) to blame the despair of this woman and others in Iraq squarely on the United States’.
Propaganda and shoddy editing, right there for the world to see.
Of course, the left’s hatred for Bush, Fox News and everything considered even remotely conservative blinds many of them. As evidenced by many comments to Owen’s original insightful post.
Posted by Fraley on August 19, 2007 at 1710 hrs
Ah, yes, Fraley, such insight. The USA isn’t to blame for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq. We have never interfered in the Middle East, they have no reason to be angry with us. They brought it on themselves, by hiding our oil under their sands. They brought it on themselves many hundreds of years ago, when Sunni and Shia split over religious differences. Our invasion had nothing to do with these deaths. They’ll do anything to blame it all on us, including taking pictures of live ammo they found on the ground. They’ll overlook all those empty spent cartridge shells and focus on the live ones, just to make us look bad.
And only the Left could say these things. No Republicans or conservatives would ever think these things. The Right is never blind to the facts, they never engage in propaganda, they never spin the truth.
Lastly, tell it to Pat Tillman’s family.
Posted by John Foust on August 19, 2007 at 1737 hrs
tell that to the Kurds.
you mean the ones who were self-governing under our no-fly zone for years before we invaded? Listen, I’ve had this argument before. If you’re going to sit there and say that life in Iraq over the last four years - or even just this year - is better than it was the year before we invaded, I’m going to tell you that you’re a flipping idiot. A million people a year are being displaced from their homes in Iraq. On just about everything you can name - water, power, oil sales, jobs - I bet Iraq is worse today than it was before we invaded. So stop trying to play like we’ve done them some huge favor. We fucking destroyed their country. And awful though it was to begin with, we’ve made it worse with no end in sight.
the homicide bombers who are killing Iraqis by the hundreds are [...] Islamic fundamentalist tied to al Qaeda ...
Are you aware that the majority of people shooting in Iraq are Iraqis who have nothing to do with al Qaeda or anyone who attacked us on 9/11? Please tell me you know that. I’d like to suggest that if the various factions in Iraq were to put down their guns we could begin leaving immediately. Al Qaeda wouldn’t be that big of a threat by themselves. Iraqi security forces could handle them. Plus they probably wouldn’t even be so intent on being there if we weren’t there.
these radical extremists do exist, and are hell bent on destroying western civilization.
And, while dangerous, they have absolutely no ability to do it. Please don’t tell me bin Laden has the power to over throw a major western government and waltz into its capital and take over. Please don’t tell me that American women are in some meaningful danger of having to live under Sharia law. If you believe these things to be true you need to have your head examined.
In fact, I think the biggest threat to American freedom is the creeping authoritarianism that many on the far-right have been only to happy to embrace.
This was an attempt (by the reporter? photographer? editor? news agency?) to ...
Yes, yes. Probably it’s propaganda. Bias. or at least shoddy reporting. But what disturbs me even more is the fact that American right-wing nutjobs are waiving it around as an example of something-or-other. I guess the unstated undercurrent here is: things in Iraq are much better than you think - see how biased the reporting can be? Which is of course bullshit.
Posted by scott on August 19, 2007 at 1749 hrs
I ask the military-trained readers here to conduct a simple thought experiment: If there are indeed terrrist cells within the United States, why haven’t they struck? What could they do to foment terror here? Where’s the car bombs driven into the middle of a shopping mall at Christmas? The machine-gunning of the crowd at a high school football game? The poisoned water supplies? Why haven’t they struck? What are they waiting for?
Posted by John Foust on August 19, 2007 at 1805 hrs
The signal from Howard Dean, of course!
Posted by scott on August 19, 2007 at 1810 hrs
Nice dissection in #45 Scott.
There is so much the conservatives take us Gospel, including nothing could be worse than life under Saddam.
Well, guess what, it is. Everything from people having two hours of electricity to the 24 wait for gasoline (while being sitting ducks for terrorists), to some of our troops, yes our troops, committing atrocities—http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article696422.ece The m.iddle class, upper class and medical people streaming out of Iraq could have left when Hussein was in power. There were no travel restrictions back then.
Let me curl your hair a bit more Fraley. The insurgents who are fighting us in Iraq are very much akin to the American colonialist who rose up against the British 230 years ago. If you don’t think having your doors kicked in routinely doesn’t get people upsst, you’d better snap out of fantasy.
The historic irony of having two King George’s, both mad.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 19, 2007 at 1922 hrs
I am loathe to lump all liberals together. So, I’ll stick to specifics. Scott, you’re putting words into my mouth that I never uttered. I didn’t say Iraqis as a whole were better off. I said the kurds are. Why do I say this? Because THEY SAY SO.
To those who have at last made it possible for this generation of Kurds to emerge from the shadows of history and create a place where the wounds of war are being healed, and newly elected leaders are working together to build a democratic, pluralistic and prosperous country.
The Kurds and their friends bore witness to the fruits of Kurdistan’s struggle against tyranny when in the summer of 2005, Masoud Barzani, a Peshmerga and a modern Statesman, became the first President of the Kurdistan Region.
In his inauguration speech President Barzani said, “This is a golden opportunity to benefit from the mistakes and the futile attempts of former regimes and bring about a brighter future in this country on the basis of fraternity and equality.
At his side was another Kurdish survivor of Saddam’s tyranny, Iraq’s new President, Jalal Talabani. Both presidents signify the pivotal role of the Kurds in the new Iraq.
Today the people of Kurdistan welcome the world to the ‘other’ Iraq, a region where disputes are solved with dialogue, not disorder…
kr, you wrote:
The insurgents who are fighting us in Iraq are very much akin to the American colonialist who rose up against the British 230 years ago.
I’m speechless. The TERRORISTS in Iraq, who are tied to al Qaeda, are akin to the colonialists? These are not freedom fighters. They loathe freedom. They suppress it. Be it religious freedom, freedom for women, minorities, etc.
My God, how do you get up every morning and function in society with all that self loathing? That’s downright certifiable.
Posted by Fraley on August 19, 2007 at 2059 hrs
BS Fraley. A minority of insurgents are Al Qaeda.
The rest just want us the hell out.
I’d do not loathe myself. Only clueless idiots like you who support bringing misery into the lives of millions in Iraq to prop up a miserable excuse for a president.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 19, 2007 at 2149 hrs
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