I understand your point. But as we've been occupying Iraq for about a year now with a huge military presence, I doubt that most Iraqis believe much of what we promise. And I suspect they certainly doubt that after this official "turnover" of power to people who we essentially select that we will remove that military presence. Probably reduce it considerably, yes, but totally remove it? Anyway, my point was that things are not so clear cut, and if the situation were reversed we might not trust the benevolence of our invader/occupier. Seriously, while it's impossible to imagine us invaded/occupied by another country, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that scenario by an invading alien power (a la the movie Independence Day), beings from other planets with weapons that dwarf ours. After they had killed tens of thousands of our people, decimated our cities, and took over control of our natural resources I doubt that we would trust their good will.
There is a vast difference in fighting to defend a free, democratic society and fighting to impose a brutal Islamist/fascist dictatorship. Cubano makes a good point. The "insurgents" are not fighting to free Iraq, they are fighting to take control of it.
I understand your point, too, Magna. I have little doubt that much of the reason for the current state of affairs is because Arabs are some of most ignorant and obstinate people on planet earth. I don't like your "alien invaders" analogy because in that case there would be no precedent with which to compare the actions of such invaders in order to determine our best course of action. With America in Iraq, however, there exists ample precedent with which to compare America's actions as a conquering power with the actions of other conquering powers throughout history. I think it's mind-numbingly clear that both the reasoning behind America's actions and the actions themselves bear little resemblance to what the words 'conquest' and 'occupation' have historically meant. And then there are also the examples of America's helping hand during the occupations of its defeated foes in the aftermath of ww2. The Arab insurgents are full of shit or just amazingly, amazingly ignorant (even for Arabs).
Every nation, every individual has different perspective of freedom... Especially if they brainwashed...
...only one problem with this poll and the discussion that followed......Pat Tillman went to Afgahnistan after 9-11, not Iraq....he was killed in Afghanistan.
To respond to some posts in the order posted.... A tricky one again, AAA. For instance, let's think back to the "colonies" before 1776. The British clearly saw our militia as "insurgents" (or whatever word they used in those days). We, of course, saw ourselves as "Freedom Fighters". And as justification for whatever they wanted to do the British could have clearly argued that the insurgents weren't just fighting to free the colonies but to take control of it. And, sure enough, the leaders of our revolution (like General Washington) did take control of the new government. Fortunately for all of us they tried an experiment of creating a Republic which has worked mostly well for about 225 years. As the Iraqis haven't had representative government I suppose in their minds they are fighting for the return of a system that they are familiar with, i.e., where the strongest thug rules. Whether you or I agree with their generally dictatorial systems that's frankly their choice and we are trying to impose our vision of "democracy" on people who realistically don't have the slightest clue what it means or how it would operate. Sorry about the alien invaders analogy but I had no other choice because Americans cannot fathom being invaded/occupied by an existing country. And since most have seen Independence Day I thought it might at least provide a possible scenario as a starting point to what it would be like to be beaten by a superior power and then occupied. Beyond that, whether or not there would be a precedent is not the point, just the simple question of how we would view our Freedom Fighters ("insurgents" to the aliens) and whether we would trust the good will of a group of beings that just invaded us, defeated us, took over our natural resources, and was occupying us. I suggest we wouldn't trust the aliens one little bit, and I'm not surprised that many Iraqis feel the same about us. As to historical precedents of how America acted in the past after being the victor in battles I'm not sure that applies because most Iraqis are probably unaware of such history (since Saddam wrote the history books) and we already just violated much of historical precedent by preemptively invading another country. a. Although the concept of "liberator" was heavily marketed to the American public after the WMD's weren't located I personally don't believe that was the initial impetus for the invasion. It may well turn out that we accomplish just that but I seriously doubt that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Rice sat around and said, "Hey, we can't find Osama so let's liberate the Iraqis. We realize Communist Cuba is run by a brutal dictator, is only 90 miles away and would be a heckuva lot easier but, hey, Saddam is an evil-doer..." b. Absolutely. We invaded a sovereign nation -- whether or not we liked their leader or how they treated their citizens (any more than we liked China or Russia or N. Korea or Cuba or Uganda or many, many other nations throughout the past decades). c. Absolutely. That's what we've been doing for the past year. And, unfortunately, at great cost in young lives, money, and international good will.