Pacific Views

I hadn't read Riverbend in a while. That stuff is very hard to read sitting here in my living room with no real concern about water or electricity. Yeah, Saddam sucked---big time, but things were bad in a fairly consistent way. Usually, ( and I have no right trying to put myself in an Iraqi's position, or assume to have some deep understanding of a people I knew very little about just a couple of years ago. These are just some thoughts.) the average Iraqi knew what to do and what not to do, under Saddam. Right now it's just chaos. I know I'd have a tough time living like that.

"Iraqis are finally expressing themselves. It is a victory for all the dead that Saddam Hussein killed," said Falastin Saheb, 25, an Iraqi who has been living in Syria for two years and is running a polling center there, in Rukn el-Din, a Kurdish (search) neighborhood.

(source here)

You guys are on the wrong side of history.

Again.

I'm sure you would have jumped at the chance to live in Saddam's Iraq. What good is electricity if you could be dragged off the street, raped and tortured at any time? That was the reality. Deal with it.

excuse me, but iraqis can *still* be dragged off the street, raped ande tortured at any time. and, unfortunately, the torture may happen at the hands of US troops.

that's the reality. deal with it. you're not only on the wrong side of history, you don't know your history. especially the recent stuff.

I know my history very well, thank you very much. One Abu Ghraib does not equal the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (bare minimum) murdered under the Hussein regime.

I'm going to revisit you a year from now when the Iraqis are a free people. And then you can tell me how much better things were for them under Saddam. How about it?

Personally, I prefer the simple and elegant Hussein regime far over the American imperialistic, Christmas celebrating, burger eating, Hummer driving, cigar smoking, brown-skinned people killing, high-tech Terminatoring, female hating, oil sucking, tsunami making, hurricane generating, election stealing,nucular bombing, bioterrorizing,natural resource stealing, Frankenfood producing, capitalist jihad shoving democracy and "free" elections down the throats of a sovereign nation at the barrel of a gun.

wow. i didn't expect you to make my point for me. as you'd know if you paid attention, abu ghraib is far from the only place where US troops abused and tortured prisoners in iraq. not to mention the activities of some UK troops with their prisoners.

and, to remind you of more history, the US didn't invade iraq because saddam hussein was such an evil guy. the US invaded because of the threat to the world from saddam's (nonexistent) WMDs.

and, since you seem to like putting words in my mouth, i haven't said that iraqis were better off under saddam. i just posed the question, which is far from an irrelevant one. given the rise in violence and the decline of basic human services after the war, i'm sure it's one a lot of iraqis are asking ...

Deleted again. Ouch! To think that I've been blogging for two years now and still haven't deleted anyone. Just ain't fair!

yep. deleted again. and if you keep trying to make this thread a discussion about how i manage discussions of my posts, you'll continue to be deleted. if you have complaints about how i deal with comment threads, email me. my address is in the right-hand column of the blog. but don't waste other peoples' time by continuing to complain in the comments. any further posts of that sort in this or any other comment threads for one of my posts *will* be deleted.

and you'll notice that i gave you the courtesy of leaving your last comment in, *and* answering you publicly. maybe you could give pacific views' readers the courtesy of engaging in discussion, rather than thoughtlessly parroting right-wing talking points?

Well, if everything I say is going to be labeled a "right-wing talking point" (love them buzzwords), spank me with a spoon. I guess I'll just have to become a leftist!

i was going to delete that one, too, but it was funny. i'll go look for my spoon now.

Who knows? This could be fun!

Alois, I find it difficult to believe that you still think that abu ghraib was simply a few 'bad apples'. Don't ya think its kinda funny that the style of torture that has happened at Gitmo, a couple of other prisons in Iraq, and is happening in Afghanistan, is all very similar? The Iraqis have no idea when they are going to be snatched up for whatever slight---or possibly major---violation and sent to places like abu ghraib to be tortured and god knows what else. And for what? It obviously isn't helping. If it was don't you think, maybe, the Iraqis would trust us more. Anyway, the point is that life is not better for the average Iraqi today and these very strange elections are not going to change that. We screwed up BIG TIME. Yeah, people like you believe this whole Iraq debacle was necessary---OK Fine, but don't ya think it would have been a better strategy if we had employed Iraqis to do the work of the contractors---like truck drivers and construction contracting, etc? Instead of hiring Americans to do these things? Isn't it funny that only Hallibuton and Bechtel, etc. had to recieve these no bid contracts because they are the only companies capable of work like this? Who the hell do you think built the Iraqi infrastructure in the first place? Yeah, Saddam underfunded a lot of it for his own gain, but the talent was still there. I could go on and on about how effed up this whole thing is but you probably still wouldn't get it.

I only hope this works out well. I don't have high hopes for this election, but perhaps good can come of it. Certainly now that it's in the books so to speak the best I can do is prey that there is more good than bad born of this first vote.

Babba--

I still think Abu Ghraib is the work of a few bad apples... and that a lot of our prisoners are really the worst of the worst.

Now: Ultimately, you either are going to believe that this war will be a good thing for Iraqis in the end, or you don't believe it. I believe it. As I mentioned to magpie earlier (but I think she deleted it), I want to come back here in a year and compare notes with y'all. I think you might be in for a surprise... a good surprise, if you're up for that.

This about says it all. Badmouth it if you're bound to.

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/kmc/?adate=1/29/2005#1309924