Winning their hearts and minds Pt.II

[RHooks]

The military's efforts to make the Iraqis love us continues to go along swimmingly. Maybe they should simply try leaflets that say "get onboard.... or we'll kill you."

Wedding party attacked. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5013551/)

:rolleyes:

[Mara]

Since the US is denying the reports, I hope that's true. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be us liberating the Iraqis and turning over a peaceful and free country seems to have gone awry. I wish I knew how this could be turned around, but it just seems to be getting worse and worse with each passing day.

:(:

Also, the abuse scandal seems to be getting worse as well.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5012911/

I almost hate to read the news web sites anymore.

[Torsion]

Of course its not working. The Iraqi people dont want a democracy. In fact, they could care less about who is governing them, international relations, or their representation in government. These are people who fight to survive on a day to day basis. All they care about is if they can get some food on the table and maybe a blanket. The promises of the USA making the country better is something that they percieve as having no relavancy to them. After all, this is what Sadam has told them the entire time he was in power.

Basically, the Iraqis do not want a change, they just want to continue to survive. They only see the USA as a road block in that continuation so they are naturally indifferent or resentful of the USA. Our government really needs to get a clue about what they are doing. Not only is this, in my opinion, wholely empirialistic, but a waste of time and money. It probably has something to do with control of the oil business more than anything.

[Quantum Ninja]

Of course its not working. The Iraqi people dont want a democracy. In fact, they could care less about who is governing them, international relations, or their representation in government. These are people who fight to survive on a day to day basis. All they care about is if they can get some food on the table and maybe a blanket. The promises of the USA making the country better is something that they percieve as having no relavancy to them. After all, this is what Sadam has told them the entire time he was in power.

Basically, the Iraqis do not want a change, they just want to continue to survive. They only see the USA as a road block in that continuation so they are naturally indifferent or resentful of the USA. Our government really needs to get a clue about what they are doing. Not only is this, in my opinion, wholely empirialistic, but a waste of time and money. It probably has something to do with control of the oil business more than anything.

The thing is, it's a little hard for the U.S. to maintain its image of the "bringers of peace and democracy" to the Iraqi people when approximately ten thousand Iraqi civilians have died as a result of our military's presence in their country. Look at it from an Iraqi's perspective. A foreign country invades your own, claiming it's bringing freedom, but thousands of civilians die as result. Tell me that doesn't seem threatening.

Even if most of these civilian death's fall under the euphemistic category of "collateral damage," it doesn't make much of a difference through an Iraqi's eyes. Is there no point at which "collateral damage" doesn't become too excessive and approaches "gross negiligence?" I mean, if you look at the 9/11 terrorists and say that their main objective was to strike fear in the American public by targetting a major commercial center and a major military center, does it make you feel less threatened or less sympathetic if we sugarcoat the label given to the victims as "collateral damage?" I should hope not. Those were real people with families, with friends, with ambitions and desires, just like each and every one of us. The same holds true for the "collateral damage" represented by the civilian deaths in Iraq, even if they died because of different reasons than terrorism.

I think a lot of people have a hard time really, truly realizing and coming to grips with this fact because it is easy to dismiss or ignore the reality of a place so far removed from own, both geographically and culturally. Killing is killing, whether it's terrorists hijacking a plane and flying it into the WTC or "collateral damage" from a bomb strike, and the name in which it is carried out (terrorism, freedom, democracy, or whatever) isn't going to seem like a fair justification to the families and friends of the victims. It really isn't a surprise why the Iraqi people are still reluctant to embrace our offers of reconstruction and freedom, or whatever it is we're claiming to be doing over there. Ten thousand lives are not easily forgotten. Even if we have genuinely good motives in occupying Iraq, to the majority of Iraqis we probably appear as monsters.

A veterinarian trying to help a sick, cornered animal shouldn't expect it to willingly and passively comply, especially if, say, the vet just accidentally killed its offspring in an attempt to help them (please excuse the animal analogy; no offense was intended). The U.S. has Iraq cornered and they're not going to easily comply either, whether our motives are for the better or for the worse.

[Terry Penrod]

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As a follow-up to the original news story about U.S. military forces firing on an alleged wedding party, here is an article that disputes it and offers new evidence that this was a terrorist camp for foreign agents sneaking in from the Syrian border.

I suggest that everyone read it and then follow this story closely, as it may shed more light on the very active anti-American propoganda campaign that is also being waged against the allies in Iraq and around the world. It may also serve as proof that Syria is indeed acting as a clearing house for outside terrorists who we already know are within Iraq and carrying out a bloody campaign to disrupt the peaceful transition to a new, independent Iraqi government.

Syria has long been suspected of aiding and abetting terrorists, and is one of the most likely places that deadly weapons and Saddam loyaists may have fled to leading up to the war.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=5&u=/ap/20040522/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_attack_1

Cheers, Terry

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[Terry Penrod]

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Of course its not working. The Iraqi people dont want a democracy. In fact, they could care less about who is governing them, international relations, or their representation in government. These are people who fight to survive on a day to day basis. All they care about is if they can get some food on the table and maybe a blanket. The promises of the USA making the country better is something that they percieve as having no relavancy to them. After all, this is what Sadam has told them the entire time he was in power.

Basically, the Iraqis do not want a change, they just want to continue to survive. They only see the USA as a road block in that continuation so they are naturally indifferent or resentful of the USA. Our government really needs to get a clue about what they are doing. Not only is this, in my opinion, wholely empirialistic, but a waste of time and money. It probably has something to do with control of the oil business more than anything.


I think that you are selling the majority of present day Iraqi citizens short Torsion. They are not all ill-well educated and they are well aware of how bad things were under Hussein's violently oppressive regime. They are also capable of discerning between a ruthless dictator whose hand-chosen forces (along with his own sons) kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered many of their families, friends and neighbors for three decades and an occupying force that is actively aiding them with food, medicine, job opportunities and billions in rebuilding funds while trying to help them establish a free and independent new nation with a self-chosen government.

However, they also have a very long tradition of deeply held religious beliefs and a generally divisive system of contradictory clerics that many Iraqis revere. There are foreign terrorists and former Baath Party military leaders still actively seeking to disupt the peace and to create suspicion too. Our own soldiers have done some terrible things as well that have further eroded confidence in the peace process. But please keep in mind that despite all that and despite the unfortunate killing of innocent people during allied combat missions and as the result of outside terrorist / domestic insurgent attacks, they are still reasonably well informed and anything but a bunch of dumb sheepherders.

There are many astute, well educated people in Iraq and many of them are much more progressive than we give them credit for. They drive cars not camels. They watch TV and are even (finally) gainng access to cell phones and the Internet. Many are bilingual too and they have relatively modern cities with a cosmpolitan lifestyle compared to many Middle Eastern countries. But yes, they also still have tribes living out in the desert and in ways are a throw-back to centuries past. But that does not mean they are incapable of understanding the not-so-subtle difference between Saddam's regime and a mixed governing council that is attempting to set-up the first free elections most of them will ever have seen by early next year.

Cheers, Terry

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[Torsion]

There are many astute, well educated people in Iraq and many of them are much more progressive than we give them credit for. They drive cars not camels. They watch TV and are even (finally) gainng access to cell phones and the Internet. Many are bilingual too and they have relatively modern cities with a cosmpolitan lifestyle compared to many Middle Eastern countries. But yes, they also also still have tribes living out in the desert and in ways are a throw-back to centuries past. But that does not mean they are incapable of understanding the not-so-subtle difference between Saddam's regime and a mixed governing council that is attempting to set-up the first free elections most of them will ever have seen by early next year.


Terry, I certaintly agree with you in that context. However, its not the well educated and urban people that are the problem. Its the people who live out in the desert who are the ones planting bombs and shooting rpgs at humvees. As of right now, I do not believe our current deployment in Iraq is capable of reaching out to these people. Unless we find a way, I think they will continue to be a detriment to our reformation of Iraq. It is those tribes who do not understand the difference between Sadams regime and the new government. Unless we can make them understand, they will always percieve us as the enemy.

[Terry Penrod]

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I agree too Torsion. But it may simply not be possible for ANY outside entity to ever reach them via diplomacy, direct aid, education or the media. They must be taught through their individual, most trusted clerics, closest family members and clan elders - who we need to support through a well-balanced new government that truly represents the interests of ALL the factions in Iraq - including traditional Muslims of both main belief systems, the Kurdish tribes, more progressive secular proponents and in practical matters like the national infrastructure, employment, schools and the economy. If we fail to do that, then the dometstically bred insurgents and former Hussein supporters will never stop. Neither will the general population ever rise up to quash any remaining, outside terrorist groups currently active within their borders.

If however we can manage to create a fair and independent new government along with a new constitution and legal system, plus a non-combative / normalized foreign relations core with a strong domestic Iraqi military and proper law enforcement agencies, etc., then the people of Iraq will soon see that the persons in charge are NOT mere puppets of we "evil infidels" and will be much more receptive to tragically needed change, essential growth and critically important, internal compromise.

Cheers, Terry

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[Terry Penrod]

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Just to help put the current situation in perspective from an Iraqi's point of view, here is a link to a news article that cites varying numbers for the recent domestic death toll since the main battle stopped and Saddam was deposed. There is a a particularly relevant passage in the middle that I will also quote below.

Cheers, Terry


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040523/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_violent_deaths_2

The AP's survey was not a comprehensive compilation of the nationwide death toll, but was a sampling intended to assess the levels of violence. Figures for violent deaths in the months before the war showed a far lower rate.

That doesn't mean Iraq is a more dangerous place than during Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime. At least 300,000 people were murdered by security forces and buried in mass graves during the dictator's 23-year rule, U.S. officials say, and human rights workers put the number closer to 500,000.

"We cannot compare the situation now with how it was before," Nouri Jaber al-Nouri, inspector general of the Interior Ministry, said recently. "Iraqis used to fear everything. ... But now, despite all that is happening, we feel safe."

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[Terry Penrod]

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And in yet another of what seems an endless series of conflicting reports from Iraq, the link below is to a late breaking story that claims there is a videotape of the wedding party allegedly attacked by U.S. military forces near the Syrian border last week. Our people claim that they suspected the site was a terrorist training camp where weapons, gas masks and other incriminating evidence was found after the incident.

Who the heck knows at this point what happened. But there is an investigation ongoing and I hope we learn what the truth is (good or bad) before too long.

Cheers, Terry

http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=World&cat=Iraq

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