Sunday
29Jul2007
Iraq Wins Asian Cup, 3 Car Bombs Averted
Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 09:14PM Bottom Line Up Front: Iraq’s soccer victory unifies the country.
Iraq won the Asian Cup soccer final Sun., July 29, 2007, defeating 3 time champ Saudi Arabia 1-0. Meanwhile, Iraqi police thwarted 3 car bomb attacks aimed at civilians celebrating the victory. But no progress here….
GO IRAQ!!
Others blogging: Iraq the Model Wake Up America Gateway Pundit Hot Air
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Update on Monday, July 30, 2007 at 10:56PM by
Amy Proctor
Amy Proctor
CNN Correspondent Beside Herself with Happiness for Iraqis
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Reader Comments (11)
While unlike many of your readers, I do appreciate what a national football team success can mean to the morale of a country (see again Norther Ireland) the mountain the US has to climb is sorting out the Iraqi infrastructure.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6921623.stm
I am not accusing you - but I am heartily sick of Americans bleating on about Iraqis "getting off their ass" and "taking responsibility".
How in the hell are the Iraqis meant to "take responsibility" if they don't even have a reliable electricity or water supply?!
kris, I'm with you. I believe things like sports, the arts, and other areas that carry national pride really help the morale of a nation. There's no doubt this is true.
I also am disgusted with Americans blaming Iraqis for their plight. However, I also cannot blame the U.S. Our goal is to improve it and we have done just that.
Under Saddam electricity and services were stable... in Baghdad and Tikrit. The rest of the country bore the brunt of neglect. Now we're trying to equally distribute the services. Iraqis sometimes complain about the inconsistency of their services but there are two things to remember:
1) it is a tactic of insurgents and al-Qaeda to target electrical, water and oil lines to disrupt service and cause citizen unrest and dissatisfaction.
2) electricity is frequently unstable in some areas becuase Iraqis are using more electricity than ever before. The fact is that electronic devices are abundant whereas under Saddam they were not. Cell phones, DVD and CD players, TVs, everything is now available and used to the point that it causes outages. It's actually a better problem to have than the ones they had under Saddam. When my husband was in Iraq for a year, Saddam was literally called "papa Saddam" because nary a refrigerator could be purchased without the permission of the Baath Party.
All that said, things have improved dramatically. The water supplies are finally clean, which was not the case under Saddam. Hospitals and schools are rebuild and flourishing.
One of the most important underlying parts of this soccer/football story is that it was the IRAQI POLICE who thwarted those car bombing threats and in at least one of the cases the suicide bomber was shot and killed by police. No matter what blind politicians in Washington say, the Iraqi security and police forces are indeed stepping up to the plate and becoming more and more competent.
The security and stability of Iraq shouldn't be a political issue, it should be a moral one. If people in the United States who have no stake in the struggle of Iraq (non-military for example), it's unconscienable that they would express a desire to rescue our troops from a mission they WANT to complete. It's a matter of humanity.
The Iraqi people are rufusing to surrender to terrorism. They want to see an end to terrorism. In difficut conditions, against odds that would cause lesser people to run away, these people push on, slowly building a new and better nation; meanwhile some Americans, whose lives have been distored by fast-food, instant messages and movies-on-demand expect instant gratification even in Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6922347.stm
Where we disagree is that this administration couldn't apparantly run a piss up in a brewery.
If you get off on the wrong foot, it really is hard to recover. Thanks Donald.
Roxie
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not looking for instant gratification.
I'd be grateful for basic competence.
Kris, a great myth under Sadamn was there were institutions’ of reliable data gathering, such as seen in the west. The media which report such data, supposedly correctly collected during Iraqi’s Sadamn era, are unreliable. Currently huge waterworks, for Baghdad and other large cities, are being constructed right now – and fear that Al Qaeda, or other radical and regional anti-constructivism Iraq militants will sabotage them. It is hard to build and construct a decent electrical grid in cities when these radical groups are out in the streets themselves planting roadside bombs. If the US leaves, right now, the only way Iraq will get a reliable infrastructure is form Saudi Arabia, Syria or Iran – but first it will have too become one of those state’s provinces. Iraqis, I would take, would rather die then be under control from one of those states.
kris, it isn't the administration's fault that the enemy is so evil and unconventional. That's really the center point of our problem in Iraq. Kidnapping children, murdering women.... that isn't the Bush administration's fault. A war like this has never been fought before.
Oh come off it Amy!
Underestimating your enemy is not an attractive excuse for this utter shower of incompetence.
Wars this dirty have never been fought before?! Give me a bona fide break! Amy, I know you are brighter than that comment! Do you think Al Qaeda dreamt this up? Kidnappings, beheadings, civillian hostage taking, murdering women- it's all par for the course and runs like a thread throughout the history of the ME.
The trouble for Donald Rumsfeld (and now all of our problems) is that he was so supremely smug that he thought firepower would trump history and culture. As you've said yourself previously on this very forum, Gen Petraeus is the man that finally recognised that winning the battle of hearts and minds requires a bit more than brute force and will take time.
My objection is that it took the Joint chiefs four years plus to work that one out. My fear is that there is too much water under the bridge and that it is too little, too late.
Cal Patriot
You're absolutely right: it is extremely difficult to build an infrastructure and fight a war at the same time. Certainly, that is what the links I have provided indicate.
My objection, yet again, is that the administration was too smug to bother to factor obvious difficulties into their analysis.
Could someone tell me exactly what it was that Paul Bremner was meant to be doing?
The ond, "we've learned lessons" is stright out of the British abour government spin handbook.
All I have to say to the "we're learning lessons" dingbats is that we aren't running a school for dumbkopfs.
Sorry George, but that was the last time I'll vote for someone on the basis that the presidential candidate looked like someone I's like to drink with, My bad!
kris, sorry, I blame the enemy for the trouble in the war. That's where the blame must be placed primarily. This warfare is totally unique; even in Vietnam we weren't fighting a religious war, which is essentially what this is; a war of bad theology and apostacy. I'd refer you to the Army's world religion officers/chaplains for that.
In retrospect, in light of the successful strategy of GEN Petraeus, it's easier for me to see the mistakes of the past. Rumsfeld was not the right man for the job, I think there's probably little doubt of that. Casey and Abizaid are great commanders, but of heavy armored brigades, not light infantry like Petraeus, which makes a difference when planning strategy. If Petraeus had been commander years ago I suspect Iraq would be in a far different position than today...
The administration has never been smug. Bush placed his confidence in military commanders like Casey and Abizaid which is what he ought to have done. 2003-2006 was far from being stagnet or a failure in Iraq. While we didn't make the sorts of progress we should have, the government was established, lots of reconstruction continued, the quality of life continued, and the strength of Iraqi resolve continued as well.
Gotta go to work. Hope this clarifies my position.
Just a couple of points Amy.
To be fair, the term “under Saddam” has two very different phases, before sanctions and after sanctions.
Before sanctions the nation’s infrastructure and essential services were maintained to modern ME standards. After sanctions as you would expect the blockade severely affected maintenance of these services and prevented authorities from providing adequate supplies but overall supplies were a lot better than they are today. Parts of Baghdad have on average 2 hours of power a day.
there are more things to remember:
1) It is a tactic of insurgents and al-Qaeda and was the US forces tactic to target electrical, water and roads during the invasion while the oil pipelines were spared from damage.
“Electricity is frequently unstable in some areas because Iraqis are using more electricity than ever before”.
2b) This is true but then aren’t we all?
The fact is that electronic devices are abundant whereas under Saddam before his capture they were not due to sanctions causing poverty. However after the invasion wide scale looting permitted many people to have technology. Once the occupation began $12 billion in Iraqi funds released by US command flooded the blackmarket economy and led to the import of Guns bombs and electrical and other luxury goods . Cell phones, DVD and CD players, TVs, everything is now available and used to the point that it causes outages.
Is this actually a better problem to have than the ones they had under Saddam Or is it incompetence?
Amy ponders the question
“When my husband was in Iraq for a year, Saddam was literally called "papa Saddam" because a refrigerator could not be purchased without the permission of the Baath Party”
Of course rationing had to be administered by the Baath party under Saddam so that restricted power supplies did not overload. We should not expect a responsible authority during war to act any differently. Restricting the purchase of appliances is still the only way current authorities might supply demand but as these authorities lack any real national power at a time when there is no government outside the Green Zone people do whatever they can to make their own lives bearable..
According to Charities, 1 in four people have access to fresh water and millions of children are suffering malnutrition under US occupation which is a great deal worse than under Saddam before or during this 16 year war.