A challenge for all Bush-Haters

[Scytano]

Well today was certainly a good day for the Iraqi people and the Bush administration. Hopefully things will continue to improve over there, and at a faster pace. The election is a great first step.

[agent compassion]

That depends on which Iraqis you're asking.

[East Coast Hustle]

hmm...looks like someone didn't eat their spinach today, cuz that shit was WEAK.

you're not really trying, are you?

I hope not...I really thought you'd be a more formidable opponent, and i was so looking forward to a challenge...why don't you go over to the LibertyUnites forums and brush up a bit? I'd hate for you to get in over your head....



besides, everyone knows that latinos aren't really my type.

1.  Mockery will not help you.

2.  LibertyUnites???!!!11111   Link?

Oh, happy day.  Give us a link, and be absolved.

here's a link for ya...

www.google.com

if you can figure out how to use it, it can get you anywhere...

[Malaul]

you  = smart ass

[IAmNotAnonymous]

Going back to the Iran situation that someone mentioned when I wasn't paying attention this is quite a good article about what might happen.

Everybody's asking me what'll happen if we attack Iran. To get a quick preview, just do what this guy in my eighth-grade class did: put a firecracker in your mouth, hold it between your front teeth, and light the fuse.

[DJRubberducky]

Hi,

Just snagging post #500 on this thread.

Carry on.

[Cain]

Going back to the Iran situation that someone mentioned when I wasn't paying attention this is quite a good article about what might happen.

Everybody's asking me what'll happen if we attack Iran. To get a quick preview, just do what this guy in my eighth-grade class did: put a firecracker in your mouth, hold it between your front teeth, and light the fuse.

Good article.  Im glad they raised the point about "rallying to the cause of freedom" as I always suspected that would be the case.

The kids in Iran are pissed off at the way the old Mullahs won't let 'em rock and roll, but the idea that they'll support an American invasion because they're bored is totally insane. It's like imagining that the kids in Footloose would've backed a Soviet invasion of Nebraska because John Lithgow wouldn't let them hold school dances.

The argument between Mullahs and kids in Iran is a classic family fight. And you know what happens when some intruder crashes in on the middle of one of those: the whole family unites in about a millisecond and tears him apart.

The Iranians already hate us. They have since 1953, when the CIA staged a coup to get rid of a popular Lefty Prime Minister, Mossadeq. Way back in the 70s, when most of the world still kinda liked us, crowds in Tehran chanted "Marg bar Amrika," "Death to America."

Comparing Iraq to Iran is like comparing Ireland to the UK (sorry to any Irish readers, but the IRA are more active than your military).  Cultarally  and demographically they are so different to iraq, that anyone who uses the Iraq template for an invasion is going to get roughed up big style.  Espescialy if the Iranian top brass have read this, although of course they now have the land option.

[gnimbley]

Well, shut my mouth. Where is VoT to gloat?

Slate

today's papers
Iraq, the Vote
By Sam Schechner
Posted Monday, Jan. 31, 2005, at 4:16 AM PT

Everyone leads (online, at least) with Election Day in Iraq, where the turnout was unexpectedly high and the mood jubilant. As many as 8 million people, or almost 60 percent of eligible voters, cast ballots, sometimes within earshot of insurgents' repeated mortar, rocket, machine gun, and suicide attacks, which proved less deadly than feared but still killed 44. "The election was a victory of our own making," Iraq's national security chief told the New York Times. "Today, the Iraqi people voted with their own blood."

Or, put another way: "It's like a wedding. I swear to God, it's a wedding for all of Iraq," the director of a polling station in a Sunni area of Baghdad told the Washington Post. "No one has ever witnessed this before. For a half-century, no one has seen anything like it. And we did it ourselves."

According to the Post's ambitious lead--which wraps together reporting from several staffers and 12 Iraqi stringers in eight cities--the battle-weary country "took on the veneer of a festival, as crowds danced, chanted and played soccer in streets secured by thousands of Iraqi and American forces." Everyone notes that many voters ventured to the polls in their best clothes, often accompanied by their children, and returned proudly brandishing their indigo-stained fingers. In a Baghdad scene piece, the NYT's John Burns writes, "Foreigners who have been visiting Iraq for 15 years and knew the tension that crackled under Mr. Hussein could remember no other day when the city, in wide areas, seemed so much at ease."

And so it was a rare day in which, according to USA Today and the NYT, both Al Jazeera and Fox News broadcasted much of the same upbeat news. The newspapers, for their part, all post moving photo galleries.

Most of the papers say up high that voting in some Sunni areas exceeded the meager expectations. In one Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad, election officials told the WP that 1,500 of 2,500 residents made it to the polls. The Post implies that turnout in Sunni areas increased throughout the day as attacks turned out to be less deadly and widespread than advertised.

But the more you read, especially in the regional dispatches in the Los Angeles Times and WP, the more the Sunni story becomes mixed. While some small Sunni towns reportedly ran out of ballots because of unexpected demand, the LAT says only 1,700 votes were cast in the entire insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, a city of 400,000. (Apparently, insurgents telephoned some potential voters, warning them to stay home.) In Baji, the NYT's lead says election workers didn't bother to show up.

Meanwhile, in Sunni-majority melting pot Mosul, which has seen fierce fighting in recent months, the NYT and LAT say voters were lined up outside many polling stations, but a WP reporter who visited all of the poll sites in the city's ravaged southeast quadrant saw only saw four voters over the course of the day. "Of course I want to vote; we all want to vote," said one resident there, who was visited at home. "We waited 50 years for this. But everyone is afraid." On a wall across the street, graffiti offered a warning: "Anyone who votes will be beheaded."

By contrast, Kurds and Shiites voted in droves: In Irbil, two Kurdish women spent more than nine hours attempting to vote, after being turned away from several polling stations where the ballot boxes were full. And the NYT, WP, and LAT all file reports from the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where some 85 percent of eligible voters turned up at the polls.

The Wall Street Journal's front-page story (subscription required) is, bizarrely, alone (as far as TP can see) in putting the casualty count in perspective by mentioning the total number of insurgent attacks yesterday: 175, well more than the recent average of 50 to 60, not that the U.S. makes these numbers public any more. Inside, the Journal also highlights the role of homegrown militias (sub. req.), such as the "Defenders of Baghdad Brigade," in securing polling sites across the country. Many such groups began spontaneously springing up over the last month and U.S. forces decided to back them, outfitting some with weaponry and body armor. The NYT, for its part, fronts a story on the massive security effort that helped keep the deaths from mounting.

The WP has a separate, must-read story on the aftermath of a morning suicide bombing in an affluent section of Baghdad. Although the polling station initially closed, voters refused to go home. Some even volunteered to man an additional security perimeter, even "though this duty meant standing amid flecks of the flesh of the last officer who had the job."

Everyone flags the downing of a British C-130 transport plane in Iraq, killing about 10 soldiers.

And all the editorial pages--boldly--come out in favor of democracy, while attempting to weave yesterday's events into their respective master narratives. The WSJ clucks at liberals who it says opposed the election. The NYT rejoices in Iraqis' courage, but reserves "grave doubts about the overall direction of American strategy." Meanwhile the WP distills a welcome moral to the story:

Yesterday, however, Americans finally got a good look at who they are fighting for: millions of average people who have suffered for years under dictatorship and who now desperately want to live in a free and peaceful country. Their votes were an act of courage and faith--and an answer to the question of whether the mission in Iraq remains a just cause.

http://slate.bfi0.com/W0RH040D9543376E3F5763F29C48C0

Them Iraqis seem to have risen up and taken this election thing
seriously. And if we let them actually make their own decisions,
this could be the start of something unique and wonderous in the
Middle East.

Of course, it is still to soon to tell whether this euphoria is the
prelude to freedom or just the false glow of the seduction before
midnight falls.

But I sincerely hope that something grand is in the making. Wouldn't
that be nice for a change?

The downside is that, at least for the moment, GWB feels like he
is totally vindicated, so why not go into Iran? What's a few hundred
more thousand dead if we can get them dancing in the streets
to the tune of American style democracy.

Got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Got to kill a few thousand
to have an election.

Damn I hope this holds in Iraq.

[Cain]

It hasnt changed anything though.  There is still terrorism, the insurgency continues to rip through the Iraqi forces like it wasnt there.  Yes, it is good that they have voted.  But will the winner live long enough to compete in the next elections?

[Voice of Truth]

Well I won't gloat, but I'm glad things went far better than many thought they would.  Also, Agent Compassion said "It depends on which Iraqis you ask."  Well unless you asked some displaced Sunnis who have oppressed the majority for 30 years, everyone is happy.  I heard a guy on NPR today say that it would be like saying an election in South Africa lacked credibility because the whites decided to boycott it.  I thought that was a good analogy.  So who fucking cares if the Sunnis are upset that their 30 year hold on illigitimate power has come to an end and who fucking cares if they're upset about it.  If they're smart, they'll get with it and create political groups that will at least establish them a proportionate share of power.  As of now, all others in Iraq like what's going down, and that can only be a good thing.

That being said, again, I won't gloat because I am still in agreement with the gnome that it's not over.  This was one of the most difficult parts of the process, but the training of Iraqi security forces is the other component and it's not over yet.  But, Scribe said:

"It hasnt changed anything though. There is still terrorism, the insurgency continues to rip through the Iraqi forces like it wasnt there. Yes, it is good that they have voted. But will the winner live long enough to compete in the next elections?"

Actually there are increasing reports that this is changing.  Our forces that have been working in coordination with Iraqi forces, who openly admitted that they were not holding their own in combat, have started saying otherwise.  In about the last month or so, I guess as the election grew nearer, they began to show much greater efforts and successes in fighting the insurgency, especially the Iraqi army as opposed to the police.  This is still an effort that is far from over, but it continues to be headed in the right direction and this was another huge step that way.  Yes, all revolutions see innocents lose their lives.  It's a shitty thing, but inevitable.

I also saw some analysis talking about how many on the left have really positioned themselves, whether intentionally or not, where bad news out of Iraq is good news for them politically and good news out of Iraq, such as this, presents them with a dilemma where they don't want to ever give any praise to the administration so they have to delicately commend the Iraqis and condemn Bush all in the same breathe.  Ted Kennedy is at the front of this group.  His best days are the ones in which lots of Americans get killed.  Whether you agree with this war and administratoin or not, that's a shitty place to be.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well I won't gloat, but I'm glad things went far better than many thought they would.  

Really?  What, in concrete terms, was accomplished?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Ted Kennedy is at the front of this group.  His best days are the ones in which lots of Americans get killed.  Whether you agree with this war and administratoin or not, that's a shitty place to be.

DITTO, RUSH!
\

[East Coast Hustle]

are we still talking about Iraq?

that's so 2004...

all the real warmongers have moved on to Iran.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

are we still talking about Iraq?

that's so 2004...

all the real warmongers have moved on to Iran.

Hi, I'm an AMERICAN!

Hi, I just shoved my arm in a hornets nest, and I'm about to do the same with my dick!  I'm an AMERICAN!

[agent compassion]

It's the software inside people's heads that wins wars nowadays. You hardware freaks are going to have to face that fact one of these days. And it's this brain-software that we're hopeless at programming. Iraq has proved pretty clearly we don't have a clue how to use the Middle-Eastern brain OS. In fact, we've actually done the impossible: reprogrammed the miserable, cowardly Iraqis into fierce warriors.

Remember Gulf War I? Remember those pitiful fags crawling up to our soldiers to surrender on their hands and knees, sobbing like babies? Two years of occupation by Bush's morons has turned those cowards into fearless kamikazes in Oldsmobiles.

Man, that article was really interesting! Thanks for sharing, Scribe.