Free Iraq

You see, Imad, if you want you can post criticizing the Iraqi government too. Before, you could not do that. Well, not for long anyway, before you got picked upi and presented to Uday or Qusay for their daily diet of sadism. Hey, that's funny, Saddam's sadism.

Maybe you don't think that is worth the terrible price that your country is paying, but many do. History will tell if the Iraqi people come to see this. By the way, the ones who are making Iraq continue to pay that terrible price are the ones who want to return to the dark days when they ruled, and everyone else had to abide by their dictates. Let's hope that doesn't happen to you when the Shiites begin to consolidate their control of the power of Iraq. If you were smart, you would be researching and writing about how to restrain the worst of man's impulses by limiting the power of government to brutalize its own citizens.
 

Imad,

As an American I wish to apologize to you. I am sorry for the loss of lives in Iraq and, for what it is worth, will work to change the American government's policies and to get the American military out of Iraq. Many people in America do not agree with the policies of the government, and cringe in pain when looking at the photos you post. Is there any way you would recommend that we can (truly) try to aid the people of Iraq?

-A Friend (If you would like my email address let me know).
 

anonymous at 12:27-if you were smart you wold be researching and writing about how to restrain the worst of man's impulses by limiting the power of government to brutalize its own citizens.(see patriot act I and II)
 

We may not have found your party pooping weapons of mass destruction, but I have located some outrage. I put it here...

http://consilience.typepad.com/teachers_lounge/2005/01/historycurrent_.html
 

As-salamu alaikum.
nice to see yet another muslim blog.
 

I assume you are being facetious.
If you do have a chance to read my book "Iraq's Nuclear Mirage", you would be corrected.
Just to comfort you, I do assure you that I will not be raptured.
 

Sheila wrote ...

Many were convinced that Sadaam had WMDs.
France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UN,
just to name a few.And they were wrong. Every one of them.

Sadaam violated UN ordinance and did not cooperate
with UN inspectors.
And he DID have time to get WMDs out of Iraq and
they are probably in Iran and Syria.Uh-uh. Nope. When you surrender control of something like that to a neighbor, it is gone forever. And you have absolutely no assurance whatsoever that it will not be turned around and used against you at a future date.

You can afford that risk with F-4s. You just plain can't with anthrax.

But we knew the state of Saddam's nuclear program. Namely, it was wreckage. Because we had multiple defectors, with differing agendas, from within Saddam's nuclear program, on these shores. And on this issue, their reports all tallied. Hell, your host here, Mr. Khadduri, was no small one. Even Khidhir Hamza, who was a traitor in Iraqi eyes, could not characterize Saddam's A-bomb program as anything but an unproductive money pit.

We knew the state of his B/W program, too. Because in the 1996-1997 time frame, we sent in UNSCOM teams to wreck it. And wreck it they did. The article is at the CSM site. Google on the exact string "The Inspections Maze". You'll find it, I promise you.

And even if the country had been sunk to a uniform depth of seventeen feet under the weight of massive arsenals of WMDs, who the hell really needed to care? In 1984, the USSR had 30000 deliverable nuclear weapons. By the late 80's, they were cranking out 20 TONS of weapons-ready smallpox every year, and an incredible 4000 TONS of incredibly antibiotic resistant and virulent Strain 836 anthrax. What did it matter? None of it got used. Because they knew with sickening certainty what would have happened in Moscow and Leningrad if it had been.

Saddam was a thousand times more vulnerable to that sort of deterrence than the USSR ever was. He wasn't some dynamite vest fanatic. He was a secular tyrant who wanted to live.

If he had pulled the trigger, in a couple of thousand years, when the radiation had died down, folks would call the place "Lake Iraq". Don't you think he knew that???

The USA would not send troops there for nothing, OK?
Iraq and the world is a better place without Sadaam.
Ask all the people in your country who are voting.Iyad Allawi is Saddam reborn. Look into his character and past sometime. Be prepared to shudder. And gag. And retch.

Charles Roten
croten@serv.net
Living in Metro Seattle, and curst proud to live in a blue state.

BTW, Mr. Khadduri. I can understand why you do not post your email address. But I would like the opportunity to thank you for your book, and this blog. Maybe we can turn some of these knuckleheads around.
 

Hello, blessings to you, your family and friends

As an american citizen i'm ashamed at the way our current administration has lied to try to gain control of your resources and to establish the bases being built to enable attempts to control the middle east. We blog daily at http://www.majorityreportradio.com/weblog/ and post Bahgdad Burning as often as she posts. River is well loved and a admired for her courage as a journalist. Prior to this illegal war there were the biggest global protests ever held. It's becoming more obvious to all that look, that our media is controlled to keep us from seeing the truth. please join us if you will and feel free to post updates articles or just chat. The 'bloggie' is kept wide open so expect trolls and flamers, but be assured the majority are aware that this is a criminal 'scam' that violates everything we hold precious about our country.
 

there is something rather paternalistic about american commentators lecturing an iraqi about what is "really" important in iraq and how the war we have foisted upon him is somehow for his own good.

if we really believe in democracy in iraq, maybe we should let iraqis speak for themselves without insisting that we know better.

اعجبني بالاخذ هذا بلوغ

(sorry for any errors, i'm just a beginner)
 

Well said, upyernoz.
 

Here are some links to Iraqi Bloggers:

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com
http://iraqidoctor.blogspot.com
http://kurdistanyouth.blogspot.com
http://saleemtheiraqi.blogspot.com
http://roadofanation.blogspot.com
http://iraq-iraqis.blogspot.com
http://messopotamian.blogspot.com
http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com
 

The above sample of chosen Iraqi bloggers' sites
(there are many more: http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com)
are not that straight forward and innocently promoted.
Tom V apparently "solicits donations for Iraqi bloggers".
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Tom_Villars
for the reconstruction of Iraq, I am sure.
 

Perhaps I should have added the following:
Do take a look at the first listed Comment above, also by Tom V.
Perhaps "it is music to my ears" does sound like "it is dollars in my pocket".
 

Tom V,

Thank you for your comments, but you seem to have missed the point of what I had written.
Here is what you missed: at least you can count the dead from Saddam's wars.
 

"Perhaps 'it is music to my ears' does sound like 'it is dollars in my pocket.'"

Actually all the money (minus wire transfer fees) goes into the pockets of the Iraqi bloggers. Here is a link to the public accounting records that includes all donations, charges, disbursements, and outstanding balances:
http://donations.iraqdemparty.org/IraqiBloggerTechnicalSupport_Donations.htm

I am sure any of the Iraqi bloggers mentioned will be happy to discuss the money transfers.
 

"Here is what you missed: at least you can count the dead from Saddam's wars."

You accuse Bush of "multiply by so many" the deaths of Iraqis, but when confronted with the fact that far fewer Iraqis have died on a daily basis since Saddam was removed from power, you try to change the math by saying it is unknowable. Don't you feel any need to atone for supporting the evil that Saddam inflicted on the Iraqi people?

But you do service a useful purpose. So long as the Saddam apologist are whining and complaining I know the true citizens of Iraq are winning and soon all the old Saddam followers will be nothing but a bad memory.
 

To Tom V: Far fewer Iraqis have died since America took power? Where did you get that? By your own American statistics over 100,000 Iraqis have died in the last year and a half. Saddam, again by your statistics, killed around 300,000- in over thirty years. So if the U.S. is given another five years in Iraq, we can be sure the number will multiply.

Good Job Nofa. Don't listen to Tom V.
 

yeah tom, even the lowest estimate of iraqi deaths during this war exceeds the number killed by saddam if you average it over his 30 years in power.

the thing about saddam, is his murders largely came in spurts (the kurds in the 1980s, the shia' in the early 1990s). over the last 10 years of his reign, when he was largely contained by the international community, iraqis were simply not subject to violence in the numbers you are citing. the average iraqi has a much higher chance of violent death or serious injury now than he or she did in 2000

that's not to say that saddam wasn't horrible. there's plenty to criticize him for. so much, in fact, that there's no need to make up statistics to imply atrocities that are not there.

(and i'm embarassed to notice that in my above attempt to write in arabic i forgot to put the definite article in front of "blog." d'oh!)
 

Refreshing to read a plain speaking teen addressing the prime source like that.

Such passionate fearlessness! Perhaps the future has a little hope in it afterall.
 

It's just sad to see so many try to justify Bush's crimes in Iraq by citing Saddam's, since Saddam was America's employee. The only thing that changed with the invasion of Iraq is that we cut out the middle man and passed on the suffering to you, so all the manufactured and phony numbers in the world can't save you.

Too many Americans live in blissful ignorance of their country's involvement in Iraq, which is why they are easy to use.

What have such people to teach anyone about democracy?
 

So long as the Saddam apologist are whining and complaining I know the true citizens of Iraq are winning and soon all the old Saddam followers will be nothing but a bad memory. And, for his next trick, Tom V will predict the weather using rabbit entrails!

I know that as long as America is infested with useful idiots like Tom V., the powers that be will continue inflicting misery wherever they feel like it. As long as the world's most powerful nation had its democracy crippled by ignorance, there is no end in sight.

But at least they have stories of Ronald Reagan's former employee in Baghdad to distract them...
 

I read your blog and a few others. It's amazing to see some of my fellow compatriots talk to you like you're an idiot. Apparently the horrors of war that we have inflicted upon your nation are supposed to improve your lifestyle. Apparently it's supposed to be an improvement for my soldiers to kill and torture and rape you folks than for Hussein to perform these illustrious tasks. And for you to complain about such atrocities is whining and apologizing for Hussein's actions according to one of my illustrious compatriots. I suppose depleted uranium being dumped all over your country is supposed to make things so much better for you. If this carnage and devastation is indeed Mr. Bush's vision of global democracy and freedom, then that makes me very afraid. Of course if Mr. Bush actually embraced the true spirit of these two principles then he wouldn't even dream of inflicting such horrors on his fellow human beings. I've never known democracy and freedom to flourish death and destruction. I have a lot to learn about your life and you get to experience the callous attitudes of people who really don't give a damn. Who cheer this war on from the safety of their living rooms as they scream about how "safer" the world is now that hundreds of thousands of human beings are dead and gone. Men, women, and children who weren't a threat to me to begin with. But now I am "safer". Indeed?
 

I'm with that last post and would really like to apologize for the immence ignorance emanating from my country onto your blog. As you can probably tell many of us are ill-informed, and, frankly, not-to-smart.

(That's right Americans I said it - and I am ashamed of most of the comments that are posted here!)

For what it's worth I really enjoyed your blog - especially the cartoons which I find amazingly cut through a lot of cultural boundaries. Your blog is very enlightening. And I especially love experiencing points of view that are not filtered through the media.

I would very much appreciate if you would check out my blog: www.realpolitiking.blogspot.com. Mine is not the garden variety American point of view. It's funny, I haven't been one to check out other people's blogs, but in just the last two days I have added two (yours and Baghdad Is Burning) to my favorites list.

And that goes for all you ugly American responders, too: www.realpolitiking.blogspot.com. And I'm from Louisiana - so what!
 

Americans are nasty brutal and violent. This is not isolated to Bush they want nothing more than to steal the wealth of Iraq and whats amaizing is how many Iraqi politicians have been able to weasel this thievery into a way to leverage power for themselves...

I can't wait for the day the Americans suffer the humiliation and consequences of their governments greed. Oh wait they are starting to feel it aren't they as they are rapes economically by their own representatives in government!

Nothing makes me happier than to thank to hear about the floundering economy and the thousands upon thousands of jobless, hopeless idiots that wave love War more than human dignity!

The world is a just place and Justice will be served at the end of this conflict.
 

As an American I wish to apologize to you. I am sorry for the loss of lives in Iraq and.