http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/i...4d844a2ca8535f&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE Here's a nice little quote: "The only way the Americans will enter this city is entering over our bodies," said Sheik Abu Mahdi al-Rubayee, a commander in Mr. Sadr's private army, estimated to number in the tens of thousands. "If they come for our leader, they will ignite all of Iraq." "10's of thousands??" I remember seeing a video of a compound in the early stages of the Iraq war wherein were around 300 of Saddam's top men making plans. Next thing you see in the video is a laser-guided bomb hitting the structure and a sudden ball of fire flash that went right up to the (inside) walls, but, like, no further. The bomb was, like, perfectly measured for this particular size unit. "There will be no warning," said Dan Senor, a senior spokesman for occupation authorities. Perhaps this is what the forces have in mind to do to this mosque. gsr
On the money Pabst!! And I wonder. All these liberals here who do all the whining and bitching about civilian casualties.....How "liberal" would they be if the terrorists killed a million or so Americans? Rest assured, if the terrorists could achieve such tonight, they would implement the destruction upon this country in a (liberal) heartbeat.....And not give a s#%t about "civilian casualties", our women, children, schools, infrastructure, etc. When we start fighting by the rules they fight by, they'll come up waving the white flag. 'Til then, this chaos and nonsense that we all hear about every day will continue. Fight to win or get to the house.
what's to understand? the west has sliced diced and generally run amok in the middle east for a solid century. brits and americans and germans and french have killed far more muslims than muslims have killed westerners. the british were particularly brutal, having a lovely habit of hanging both arabs and jews at random in palestine. more than one mosque was burnt to the ground - with worshipers locked inside. bringing back the glory days of crusaders burning Constantinople to the ground, i suppose. not blaming anyone, sh*t happens, it was the colonial age. but then, as if pretending it never happened, the west poured trillions of petrodollars into the region and as if that wasn't bad enough tried to get those dollars back by offering weapons. doh. this mess was a looooong time in the making, and it's going to be a looooong time in cleaning up.
Liberal or not, the question is who started this war? Terrorists? This war has nothing to do with fighting terrorism, terrorism was only a very lame pretext to start it. Yet the terrorist threat might again be used to justify anything that will happen in Iraq, just as it was used to start this war, except that we are no longer talking about terrorists but the civillian population that sees Americans as invaders and acts as any other nation would act in such circumstances. Why is it so hard to get something as simple as that? Nazis used to call Slavic guerrillas 'bandits'. Dubya and his followers would love to label anyone that disagrees with their imperialistic policy as 'terrorist' and treat as such... History does repeat itself, particularly when you ignore its lessons.
this is a guy in Iraq. this is what he is really saying in this photo... "THANK you for stripping the skin off my brother Sheikh Al-Johnny's feet! You know, he had the worse callouses! We LOVE you Americans. Come to my house so I can show my appreciation ANY time! Pls bring an American dentist. I'd like my teeth cleaned while we're at it."
here's a little party. they clicked this pic to show the US how much they want to invite them to this party of theirs... a popcorn party! you can see the popcorn popping in the background if you look hard enough. actually these guys all just met each other an hour before this pic was taken so they have nothing to talk about until the US troops show up to kick back, relax, chat and enjoy the hospitality.
of course, now, here's another little view of the great advances in civil reform that have taken place in Iraq in a year since the troops arrived. this one was taken outside of a building that is earmarked to be the next post office - they actually want to name it, The J. Edgar Hoover Post Office. this is a group of US supporters rallying to show their LOVE for the troops. you'll notice the posters of the guys they DO NOT want to have on the new stamps - it is just a suggestion of theirs though. you can tell by the body language how peaceable these people are who have become the IDEAL citizens due to the social reform work the US has done so far.