Watching the news reports from the war in Iraq, I (albeit a lily white guy from a lily white part of the world with no experience in matters abroad) have come to this conclusion: The take over has officially begun and in the war for the hearts and minds of Iraqis, we are winning.
While the American led coalition has been in Iraq since March 2003, the take-over really only started this past summer. This might explain why Iraqi ‘insurgents? are stepping up their effort against US forces. They see the writing on the stone tablets — Michael Moore is wrong, the insurgency will fail.
It is my contention, hard-line Iraqis want Americans out because we have brought the scourge of humanity to their country. No, not some whacked out prison guards at Abu Ghraib. Not American tanks. This summer Iraqis started watching ‘Reality TV.? This can only mean the end of their civilization is near.
According to an article from the Christian Science Monitor, ‘Labor and Materials? is the Iraqi answer to America’s ‘Extreme Home Make Over.? In the Iraqi version, a crew spends six weeks rebuilding and refurnishing homes using with donated materials and labor. The homes chosen are ones blasted by US bombs.
Damn the Yankee Dog!
Death to the Great Satan!
How dare they defile sacred Iraqi airspace with their degenerate American broadcasting ways!
And, the show has lots of viewers (which in itself is amazing as reports also say Iraq is depleted of electricity). According to the Monitor, ‘The show is so popular that a host of scam artists now circulate Baghdad pretending to collect ‘donations? for the families on it, now national celebrities.?
How else do you explain why some Iraqis are up in arms against the US? Come on, life under Baathist Saddam Hussein wasn’t exactly the proverbial bed of roses. Many would say it was hell.
UPI (that’s United Press International, to those not in the know) reported this on life in Saddam’s Iraq:
‘The U.S. Agency for International Development reports that since Saddam was ousted, 270 sites of mass graves have been reported. These contain an unknown number of Iraqis, Iranian prisoners of war, Iraqi Kurds and Kuwaiti prisoners among the long list of those Saddam tortured and killed. British Prime Minister Tony Blair puts the remains in mass graves at 400,000 so far.
‘There was no end to the gruesome creativity of Saddam’s secret police. Saddam’s methods included using hammers to break bones, ripping out fingernails, amputating limbs with a chain saw, crucifixion, throwing live victims in acid baths and ovens, cutting loose wild dogs to attack victims, raping women in the presence of their children and husbands, cutting off a penis or a breast, and stripping children naked and forcing their parents to watch as they were stung by hornets and scorpions. The graves contain evidence of these and other sadistic crimes.
‘Some of Saddam’s victims escaped to tell their tales on the day his statue was torn down in Baghdad. The USAID report contains three survivor accounts from mass executions outside Mahawil in the south of Iraq. The survivors all describe being taken into custody without a reason being given. They describe seeing women and children also in custody, all of them haphazardly blindfolded.
‘Once they were herded into holding areas they could see a pile of tires set on fire and were ordered to run past these. Some of the women, children and elderly men were tripped or fell near the fire and were unceremoniously beaten to death with pipes or thrown into the blazing tires to burn alive. All of the survivors who escaped their would-be executioners had been shot and partially buried, crawling away to their homes under cover of dark and living thereafter in hiding.?
If that didn’t make Iraqis mad, I cannot see what the Americans have done, except for the reality TV thing, to incite their anger. And those insurgents best take note: just last Wednesday a new kids? baseball league played their first game in Iraq.
An Associated Press article quoted a 16-year-old Iraqi lad as saying this about a truly American sport: ‘I like this game. It’s better than soccer.?
See, without bombs and bullets, we are creeping in — we are winning and they know it. Next, we introduce hot dogs.
Comments for the over simplistic and lily-white Mr. Don Rush to: dontrushmedon@charter.net