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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (238324)	7/30/2007 4:10:34 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

I remember their narrative. And obviously they want to be in an Arab country at the end of the day. But they really haven't sent that many people, they have caused havoc, probably more Americans have been killed and certainly more Americans have been killed and wounded than have gone there from other countries. That's unclear. Of course the Americans have died chiefly from the IEDs that are the tool of the native Iraqi insurgency, so this is a three or four sided comparison. But thousands of AQ affiliated foreign fighters have poured in, and they have very high casulaty rates - the splodeydopes, because they are used in suicide bombings, and the AQ officers, because they are targeted when they hide and killed by American troops when they fight. They will lose in Iraq--there is no question in my mind that they will lose. But, unhappily, that doesn't mean the US wins. Or that Iraq wins. No one is going to "win" this thing, with the possible exception of Iran (and even there, they seem to be in process of pulling defeat from the jaws of plausible victory by overreaching and not speaking softly enough). Perceptions, theres the question, particularly when the Arab world believes so many ridiculously untrue things. Al Qaeda is suffering in the Muslim world due to the growing perception of how many Muslim AQ has killed. And the idea the Iraqis originally had, that the US is omnipotent, so that any disorder in Iraq must be the wish of the US, seems to have finally gone away. Iraqis now blame AQI suicide bombings on AQI. Al Jazeera is still talking them up as "martyrdom operations", so the Iraqis are plenty pissed at Al Jazeera.

To: Sam who wrote (238324)	7/30/2007 4:17:05 PM
From: SARMAN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Did the Bush administration made another miscalculation? Did the west think that the Iraqis had no feelings? If every one thinks like Nazine, studies should be done to see if the Iraqis were humans. OTH, Bush and his cronies might dismiss the finding. Study: Iraqis May Experience Sadness When Friends, Relatives Die theonion.com July 25, 2007 \| Issue 43•30 CHAPEL HILL, NC—A field study released Monday by the University of North Carolina School of Public Health suggests that Iraqi citizens experience sadness and a sense of loss when relatives, spouses, and even friends perish, emotions that have until recently been identified almost exclusively with Westerners. Enlarge Image Study Iraqis An Iraqi study group reacts to a car bombing. Researchers (not pictured) gathered data from a fortified observation booth. "We were struck by how an Iraqi reacts to the sight of the bloody or decapitated corpse of a family member in a not unlike an American, or at the very least a Canadian, would," said Dr. Jonathan Pryztal, chief author of the study. "In addition to the rage, bloodlust, and hatred we already know to dominate the Iraqi emotional spectrum, it appears that they may have some capacity, however limited, for sadness." Though Pryztal was quick to add that more detailed analysis is needed, he said the findings cast some doubt on long-held assumptions about human nature in that region. "Contrary to conventional wisdom, it seems that Iraqis do indeed experience at least minor feelings of grief when a best friend or a grandparent is ripped apart by a car bomb or shot execution style and later unearthed in a shallow mass grave," Prytzal said. "Last December's suicide-bomb killing of 71 Shiites in Baghdad, for example, produced unexpected reactions ranging from crumpled, sobbing despair to silent, dazed shock." Iraqis have often been observed weeping and wailing in apparent anguish, but the study offers evidence indicating this may not be exclusively an outward expression of anger or a desire for revenge. It also provocatively suggests that this grief can possess an American-like personal quality, and is not simply a tribal lamentation ritual. Study Iraqis jump An Iraqi mother expressing American-like grief at the loss of her son. Said Pryztal: "When trying to understand the psychology of the Iraqi citizenry after four years of war, think of a small American town roiled by the death of a well-known high school football player." According to Pryztal, the intensity of the grief does not diminish if the mourner experiences multiple bereavements over time. "If a woman has already lost one child, the subsequent killings of other children will evoke similar responses," he said. "In the majority of cases we studied, it appeared as though those who lost multiple kids never actually got used to it." Though Pryztal expects the results of the study may be of some interest to students of Arab psychology, he did concede that the data may not be entirely accurate because it was gathered directly from Iraqis themselves. "Almost all the Iraqis we interviewed said the war had ruined their lives because of the incalculable loss of friends and family," Pryztal said. "But to be totally honest, these types of studies can be skewed rather easily by participant exaggeration." Psychologists and anthropologists have thus far largely discounted the study, claiming it has the same bias as a 1971 Stanford University study that concluded that many Vietnamese showed signs of psychological trauma from nearly a quarter century of continuous war in southeast Asia. "We are, in truth, still a long way from determining if Iraqis are exhibiting actual, U.S.-grade sadness," Mayo Clinic neuropsychologist Norman Blum said. "At present, we see no reason for the popular press to report on Iraqi emotions as if they are real." Pryztal said that his research group would next examine whether children in Sudan prefer playing with toys or serving as guerrilla fighters and killing innocent civilians.