Jubilant Iraqis

The Turks would go nuts if we established a separate Kurdish country. And no, the Kurds are not a democracy

 

Good news, hopefully this ends soon. They need to stop that looting of government offices though. Who knows what's on those computers that could be useful. We still need to find all this WMD we've said they have. Plus the POW's and Scott Spiker.

 

And the few million haven't been liberated yet. That's why you haven't seen jubilation all around. Baghdad is the center of Iraq, thus it's a symbol of Iraq. THAT'S why you haven't seen all of the Iraqi's celebrating. All of the cities aren't occupied yet by the coalition. Did you see the Iraqi-Americans, especially the once in Michigan, celebrating? They still have families in Iraq and they were celebrating.

 

I agree, that wasn't a good idea, but when it went up there actually was a huge ovation from the Iraqi crowd. The news outlets even commented how Al-Jazeera and the arab media was going to spin the fact that the crowd cheered about the U.S. putting a flag up on Saddam's statue's face. Then the flag was taken down and the Iraqi people down there took the flag and ran with it and waved it around the town. But people need to remember, the only reason you see hundreds, and not thousands or millions of people celebrating is because all of Baghdad still isn't held down. There are still snipers and resistances fighters. I remember people saying that while there was fierce fighting in one part of Baghdad, 2 miles down the road there was nothing going on. There is still a lot of work to be done.

 

...and if the Iraqi people aren't happy about what we did, then we'll pull a DaDakota, grab our tanks, and go home.

 

That and it's hard to fit millions of people into one camera shot.

 

What's so bad about Iraq being split into three seperate countries? Wouldn't it be similar to Yugoslavia where the country split up along ethnic borders?

I know Turkey isn't in favor of this, I just don't see what is so bad. If they can't be happy under one country then let them seperate. Let's give it a shot under one country and if that don't work then split them up.

 

I keep hearing that the crowd was silent, a little stunned at seeing the American flag go up as well as the part of the Iraqis taking the flag and running and cheering with it.

If anything, I bet the ME news are showing the whole thing in super slow motion to make it seem like it was up for a long time.


Another thing I heard on CNN was that ME anchors were apologizing to their audiences for showing the cheering Iraqis and telling them that the cheering crowds were real, not some made up propoganda.

 

The fact that Turkey and Iran, both with significant Kurdish populations on the border with Iraq, would see an independent Kurdistan as a major threat and that Arabs would chafe at having an Arab state dismantled by outsiders and part of it made into a US client state makes it a non-starter. Separation could also cause massive instability. Recall in Yugoslavia, there was lots of brutality and ethnic cleansing as rival groups fought each other over control of land and to settle ancient scores.

 

Why do you cling to doubt?

 

Anybody see the Iraqi Americans in Dearborn, Michigan parading through the streets?

 

The Iranian media isn't reporting any of the celebrating.....

 

From Al Jazeera


Iraqi government collapses

United States-led forces have snapped the spine of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein government but the war is not yet formally over, the US military has declared.

US Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks told a briefing at Central Command in Qatar: "I think we are at a degree of a tipping point where for the population there is a broader recognition that this regime is coming to an end and will not return in a way that it has been in the past."

With no news yet about the fate of Saddam Hussein or total control of the north, the invading forces desisted from stating that the campaign had ended.

“That's a very important point in the operation. Militarily, however, we proceed on a plan that says there is more to follow. All of the regime is not gone, there's still regime appendages in a variety of places, there's still capability," Brooks said.

"There's still work to be done, without a doubt, and we remain focused on that work. We believe that we will openly achieve a point where hostilities can cease but we're not at that point yet.

"Ceasefire doesn't have to come by way of a surrender. Ceasefire is a decision and the decision will occur when we believe conditions have been set on the battlefield and also when we have political instructions from our leaders," he added.

In Washington, US President George W. Bush was satisfied by the "very good" progress in Iraq, a senior administration official said, but he cautioned the war was not yet over.

"The president continues to get good reports from the field from the military point of view," the official said. "He is heartened by the progress we're making .... As well as things have gone, this is still a military mission and therefore lives are still at stake, but obviously the progress has been very good."

But the British were more forthcoming with a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair saying that the Iraqi "command and control" of Baghdad "appears to have disintegrated."

Coalition forces were pushing into central Baghdad from all directions amidst indications of little resistance from forces loyal to Saddam Hussein.

Jubilant Iraqis welcomed advancing US forces in Baghdad while rampaging looters attacked symbols of Saddam Hussein’s power.

Residents threw flowers at the armoured column as it swept past, just three kilometres east of the central Jumhuriyya Bridge over the Tigris river. Joy at the apparent removal of Saddam Hussein was tangible, with one man beating a canvas portrait of him with his slipper.

Crowds threw flowers at the Marines as they drove past the Martyrs' Monument, just three km (two miles) east of the central Jumhuriya Bridge over the river Tigris.

Young and middle-aged men, many wearing soccer shirts of leading Western clubs like Manchester United, shouted "Hello, hello" as Marines advanced through the rundown sprawl of the mainly Shia Saddam City and then more prosperous suburbs with villas and trim lawns.

"No more Saddam Hussein," chanted one group, waving to troops as they passed. "We love you, we love you." One young man ran alongside a Marine armoured personnel carrier trying to hand over a heavy belt of ammunition. An older man made a wild kicking gesture with his foot, saying "Goodbye Saddam".

Women waved from balconies, girls threw flower petals at young Marines leaning across gun turrets. One woman held her baby aloft. Tank crews picked the flowers from the tops of their fighting machines, smelt them and grinned. Crowds of Shia men beat their chests in the streets.

Other signs of a breakdown were also apparent. Journalists at the Palestine Hotel confirmed that their minders had disappeared.

Uniformed soldiers and police have completely disappeared from some areas of Baghdad leading to an outbreak of looting, as US forces continue their advance into the city.

Journalists watched young men and boys sack the United Nations headquarters in the Canal Hotel to the east of the city centre. TV images showed looters ransacking sports shops around the bombed Iraqi Olympic Committee building, formerly the headquarters of Saddam's elder son, Uday.

Al-Jazeera correspondent Maher Abdallah said he could hear tank fire from his location in the city centre but that it appeared to be intermittent and much less intense than Tuesday.

US troops said they had wound up fighting in Baghdad's eastern zone though Iraqi snipers are still active. "We're still seeing some snipers around a lot. They are well hidden, well-armed and very good marksmen," said Parrington, of Regimental Combat Team 1 with the First Marine Expeditionary Force. "There's going to be a lot of that going on even if this thing wraps up in the short term," he added.

In other advances for the invading forces in northern Iraq, the US and Kurdish troops dislodged Iraqis from a mountain used to defend the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday.

“That area was heavily defended by Iraqis throughout the campaign. From our perspective this is the most important gain of the northern front so far," said Hoshiyar Zebari, political adviser to Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani.

But the US-led forces were keeping the Kurds at bay and not allowing them to move on their own into captured territory with a view to avoiding clashes with Iraqis who may resent the entry of the Kurds. Al-Jazeera correspondent in the northern town of Arbil Waddah Khanfar said the US special forces are in control and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are advancing in coordination with them.

Waddah pointed out that the US troops were not in a hurry to enter Mosul and Kirkuk as they did not want the Kurds to fill the gap after the fall of these two cities.

 

This reminds me that they mentioned on CNN that there were sad Iraqis. Not because of Saddam being gone, but because they are embarrassed at how easily Iraqis were defeated. Iraqis are very nationalistic and this was a big hit to their pride.


Is anybody watching the video of fighting that was occuring at the same time as the celebration? They are tearing up some pickup trucks with mounted machineguns. They are also showing the fighting that occured at the University.

 

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It smells like.....victory.

 

It smells like.....victory. [/B][/QUOTE]

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