This reads straight up to me. Thanks for posting it Max. I think there’s still hope that things can turn out well there. I feel like it’s been sitting on a knife edge for months now though. It sure gets frustrating. I guess there are two questions here. The political one is whether the US had the right to roll the dice with Iraq this way, especially under what seem now to be clearly false pretences. This could still go very badly, as your speaker reported, and I just don’t see how the US had the right to force these risks and casualties on the Iraqi people. My Christian Iraqi prof. doesn’t think they did. He’s very glad that Hussein is gone, but he’s not sure that on sum all this is going to end in a better situation for the Iraqi people, and he thinks the US had no right to intervene like this and force this situation on the Iraqi people. The more important issue is the plight of the Iraqi people themselves. If they still have hope and haven’t become radicalized then there is still a chance for this to end for the better. This is a long way from over though. Al Queada and every anti-American group in the area will be trying to make this fail, because with the US going in essentially unilaterally, this became a war about the US, not the Iraqi people. Where there is hope there is a chance though. Maybe the Iraqi people can unite and galvanize to throw out the terrorists. With so many competing interests (Kurds wanting their own state, Sunni/Shiite split) that’s going to be tough, though. Even some of those leaders may want things to fall apart so they can try to create separate states out of the wreckage. Anyway, I’m glad to hear that there is still some hope there. That gives me more hope.
Got to this thread late. Haven't been reading D&D too much lately. Great read, Max. Thanks. I've always thought there were some good things happening in Iraq. How could there not be? Certainly the simple fact of Saddam's removal will have a good net effect for Iraqis and of course there are Americans and others there trying to do good things. The whole media debate reminds me of an arts grants panel that once reviewed my theater. It's an accepted fact that there's a problem with getting young people to attend theater. Older people attend in far greater numbers. One of the things our theater prided itself on was the fact that our audience was evenly divided between all age groups (according to audience surveys) and that we were more successful than most in drawing young people. On hearing our grant presented to the panel one of the reviewers said, "Well, what about older audiences though? What are they doing to grow older audiences?" Even if we hadn't been equally successful in drawing older audiences, the lesson I took from this was that devil's advocacy is possible in any situation. We take older audiences for granted in a way because we expect them to come and they do. We focused on younger ones because there was a problem there that needed solving. Same with Iraq. When we talk about 9/11, few people say, "Yeah, but what about all the people who didn't die that day? Why doesn't the media report that?" Long diversion. That's not why I posted in this thread. I really wanted to share my recent encounter with a military guy I recently met and drank with. He's Army -- a spotter for the snipers in Iraq -- was on relief for seven days or so. I saw him on his first night back and also the night before he went back to Iraq. We talked for about an hour the first time and I bought him a beer to thank him for his service. The last time he bought me one to thank me for our talk. Main things that came from the conversation: I asked him how things were really going in Iraq. He told me to read the English papers. I said that there was a feeling here that even the American papers might be biased towards telling us the bad news and that the English ones had a reputation for being even more biased that way. He repeated, "If you want to know what's going on in Iraq, read the English papers. They don't tell you the whole truth, but they're a hell of a lot closer than the American press." He told me anyone in the Army knew that to be true. I asked him who he was voting for. He said Bush. I asked why, given that he seemed to think things were going badly there. He said he'd received a raise under Bush and it allowed him to send money home. Said he cared more about the money (for his family? his wife? can't remember) than what happened in Iraq. Asked him how morale was. He said it wasn't great now but that they'd killed a bunch of Iraqis a little while back and morale was very high after that. He referred to the reserves and extra-military people there as pogues. He used the term disdainfully and said they had no business being over there. When I asked him what was meant by the term "pogue," he just repeated, "You know... Pogues..." and called them p*****s. When we parted ways the last time I told him to be safe. He said, "Don't worry about me. They won't get me. Worry about my babies. That's what I'm worried about." By babies, he meant the men under him. Guy's name was Early. Good guy. I didn't care for his attitude toward Iraqis in general, but I understand the us against them mentality. Wish I remembered more of our talk, but it was a late one after several drinks. I'd meant to share it sooner, but I haven't been around the forum much.
