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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan B. who wrote (283630)	4/10/2004 9:32:48 AM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 436258

Yet I know that if you've offered a blog about a story of one anecdotal woe-begotton family, and others like it which it surely represents statistically, this is in contrast to the overall reality by all accounts for SO long now, i.e the Iraqi people are mostly in favor of what we've done, hoping we leave them to run the place on their own, feeling either better off already and/or soon to be if we follow through, and still believe we will follow through for them which we can and should, as candidate J. Kerry has recently told us in no uncertain terms, mind you. Tis you, IMO, who's recognized but a fraction of the reality in forming your opinion. But maybe Kerry is all wrong in this too, just like Bush? Do you think? ??? You KNOW? How? Because of what you're read in the US press? The press of the occupier? The press increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer multinational corporate hands, hands that are firmly stuck in the Iraqi cookie jar, hoping to get more oily cookies than the other corporate multinationals? Thought so. If you go and search out what non US press reports, you just may realize you've been had. Most of the Iraqi people may have been in favor of removing Saddam, but the actions of the "coalition of the willing" has changed all that. If you seek out press from outside the US you'll find this to be the fact. As for Kerry, we'll have to see about him if/when he holds the power strings. Right now, if he gets elected, given what I've heard from him, I don't have high hopes for drastic change for the better. An improvement, maybe, but not a fundamental one. I realize perfectly well that it is highly unlikely for me to change your mind. Likewise, obviously you will not change mine. Ergo, let's end our exchange right here. Enjoy the holidays and please do give a thought or two to the dead and dying on all sides, paid for by your and my tax dollars. Peace be with you.

To: Dan B. who wrote (283630)	4/10/2004 9:36:38 AM
From: broadstbull	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 436258

You know what dude? You can keep spewing the party line or........you can start reading things like this. I keep hearing that "the majority of Iraqi's support us". Should we assume that's a fact? When we were fighting the Sunnis it may have been true. Now that the Shias are jumping in all bets are off. This is turning into a freakin disaster and I doubt Rummy and Cheney are going to be flexible enough to ride this tide. How about getting your news from something other than FOX. The only way you're gonna get fair and balanced news is to read all sides. Here is a typical quote that is growing more common each day.... “America is the big devil and Britain and Blair are the lesser devils,” a preacher at Baghdad’s Umm Al-Qura Mosque told an angry congregation. Reflecting a growing hostility to outsiders, one worshiper said: “When we get the order for jihad, no foreigner will be safe in Iraq.” arabnews.com All Hell Breaks Loose in Iraq Naseer Al-Nahr, Arab News Marines carry the body of a dead comrade in Ramadi. (EPA) BAGHDAD, 10 April 2004 — On the first anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s fall, all hell broke loose in Iraq, with Sunni and Shiite resistance fighters battling US-led forces while continuing to hold three Japanese and several other foreign hostages. Fierce fighting that has convulsed the Sunni cities of Fallujah and Ramadi reached the western fringe of Baghdad, where Iraqis killed nine in an attack on a US fuel convoy, and said they had seized four Italians and two Americans. A Reuters journalist saw two captive foreigners in a mosque in a village in the Abu Gharib district. At the scene of the convoy attack, a dead foreigner lay on the road bleeding from the head as an Iraqi beat him. Teenage fighters with rocket-propelled grenades and rifles lurked on bridges or in derelict lots near the main highway leading west toward the embattled town of Fallujah. Iraq’s US administrator Paul Bremer said US forces had unilaterally suspended operations in Fallujah at midday after a crackdown on resistance fighters to allow aid in and hold unprecedented talks with resistance fighters. This week’s bloodshed has shown how far the United States is from securing the country whose dictator it toppled on April 9, 2003. Iraqis traumatized by 35 years of Baathist rule then hoped Saddam Hussein’s removal would bring them freedom and a better life. Today they face an uncertain future after 12 months of violence that is sapping a reconstruction drive, hampering oil exports to pay for it and frightening off foreign investors. In the past week, hundreds of Iraqis and at least 51 US and allied soldiers have been killed. A British civilian was also killed, the Foreign Office in London said on Thursday. He was working for a US security firm. Baghdad streets were quiet yesterday as many residents feared more violence. “America is the big devil and Britain and Blair are the lesser devils,” a preacher at Baghdad’s Umm Al-Qura Mosque told an angry congregation. Reflecting a growing hostility to outsiders, one worshiper said: “When we get the order for jihad, no foreigner will be safe in Iraq.” US-led troops retook the eastern town of Kut two days after Ukrainian soldiers withdrew after clashes with Shiite fighters loyal to cleric Moqtada Sadr, who launched an uprising across southern Iraq this week. Bremer announced the Fallujah cease-fire after five days of street fighting. The director of the main hospital said 450 Iraqis had been killed and 1,000 wounded in the city this week. Marines launched “Operation Iron Resolve” in Fallujah after last week’s killing and mutilation of four US security guards. The ferocity of the crackdown has angered Iraqi politicians working with Bremer’s administration. “We are seeing the liquidation of a whole city,” Governing Council member Ghazi Ajil Al-Yawar told Al-Jazeera television, saying he might resign in protest over the treatment of Fallujah. “These operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah,” Adnan Pachachi, one of the most pro-American members of the US-picked Governing Council, told Al-Arabiya TV. “It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal.” After Friday prayers, clashes erupted in the mixed Sunni-Shiite town of Baqubah, north of Baghdad, as resistance fighters fought US troops and attacked buildings. Shooting also broke out after a demonstration in the northern city of Mosul, witnesses said. They said at least three Iraqis were killed in fighting around Mosul city hall and a dawn-to-dusk curfew had been imposed. Clashes in Karbala between Shiite fighters and Polish and Bulgarian troops killed 15 Iraqis. Shiite militiamen still control the center of Najaf, where Sadr is thought to be holed up. The violence erupted as Shiite pilgrims thronged Karbala for Arbaeen, a religious occasion that climaxes this weekend. Sunnis and Shiites prayed together in the southern city of Basra, in one of many shows of solidarity seen across Iraq. A major international oil conference due to take place in the city later this month was canceled due to security fears. In Baghdad, new razor wire barriers blocked streets around Paradise Square where US Marines and Iraqis dragged down Saddam’s statue a year ago. Loudspeaker messages warned the public to stay away. The measures appeared designed to foil possible anniversary protests against the US-led occupation. Posters of Sadr fluttered on a green sculpture symbolizing a new Iraq erected on the plinth where Saddam’s statue once stood. A US soldier later climbed a ladder to pull down the Sadr pictures in an eerie echo of last year’s iconic images. — Additional input from agencies