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14-06-04, 04:32 PM | #1 | ||||
my name is Ranking Fullstop
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Promontorium Tremendum
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June 30th
16 days till the handover to Iraqi authorities...any predictions?
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i think it's a matter of education...while the Western-educated Iraqi intellectual elite is preparing for democracy, the average Iraqi is having difficulty grasping the concept and the promise it holds. i'd bet good money few in that crowd could tell you much about Thomas Jefferson. Quote:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._re_mi_ea/iraq |
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14-06-04, 05:18 PM | #2 |
Earthbound misfit
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Moses Lake, Washington
Posts: 2,563
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Sounds like they just want the Big Bad Americans leave; we'll humor them. Of course a crowd of locals caught up in a short moment of mob madness is not an accurate statistical sampling of the whole nation, so I wouldn't go crying 'Anarchy! Anarchy!' just yet.
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14-06-04, 07:36 PM | #3 | |
my name is Ranking Fullstop
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Promontorium Tremendum
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but i try to imagine myself in their position...i've been living under a brutally repressive regime for as long as i can remember....and now, my country is on the threshold of self-determination. it would be monumental in the course of life as i know it and i should be completely stoked, no? or is the daily grind such a struggle that i simply can't relate to the future and the promise it holds? i have to wonder if some of the Iraqi people are not unlike those who have spent much of their life in prison...who have been so institutionalized that they are afraid of an unregimented life, and prefer the order and structure of repression. |
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14-06-04, 10:08 PM | #4 |
Earthbound misfit
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Moses Lake, Washington
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The opposite may in fact be true: they've been forced to face an unregimented life for over a year, in the abcence of public services, police protection, and the fear of arrests by the occupying force, and soon they will return to the daily grind. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say these protesters are unemployed people with a lot of time on their hands. The rest of the nation is busy working daily to put food on the table, and nothing is going to change for them in two weeks. This violent minority however has little to gain and nothing to loose, so they'll protest the transition and cheer any attack on the US troops and the new Iraqi government. They're not the real problem, though. The new government will be attacked constantly by terrorists, mostly foreign, who will use the mob to their advantage. A single car bomb isn't going to make world wide headlines unless it appears to have popular support, and these looters and rioters will happliy act as the terrorists pawns in that regard.
If disruptions continue due to acts of terroism then the mob will not shrink, not for a long time anyway. I'd still like to think that the majority of Iraqis are intelligent, educated citizens of an industialized nation who understand the benefits of democracy, but they face severe pressure from foreign threats that surround their borders, something that most democracies don't have to put up with. So despite all the progress that Iraq is likely to make over the next decade, it's not going to go smoothly and the nay sayers are going to keep saying nay. My solution, take away the terrorists' megaphone by ignoring the popular media, and then arrest the rioters and punish them; they're criminals, they should be treated as such. The rest of the nation can go about its business, secure in the knowledge that by obeying their own laws they are strengthing their nation far more than anti-American ballyhoo ever will. |
15-06-04, 07:41 AM | #5 | |
flippin 'em off
Join Date: Dec 2001
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Public demonstrations have been a tool of political organizations long enough for you to have gotten a clue already. Just because you see a crowd in front of a camera you seem to automatically think: "why that's everybody in Iraq there, all expressing their unanimous opinion." Get some unbiased, scientific poll results if you want to get an idea of what people think. |
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15-06-04, 05:14 PM | #6 | ||
my name is Ranking Fullstop
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Promontorium Tremendum
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15-06-04, 06:29 PM | #7 |
flippin 'em off
Join Date: Dec 2001
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I was in a hurry, but I see now what you seem to think. for the moment
I wanted to relate a short BBC news bit where they put a camerman behind a camerman and showed, truthfully for once, how those demonstrations really were. While the first camera showed a street crowded with arabs yelling the usual death to Israel, US, etc., the second, zoomed out, showed a tight wedge of people in front of the first camera while the rest of the street was 90% empty and other people were carrying their groceries home not giving a damn about, and probably accustomed to the commotion. I noticed other "demonstrations" where CNN started its footage a little early during the intro and you see empty street for a second and then people rushing into the camera's view for the standard "mass protest" of a dozen or so people. It's all completely worthless for an accurate portrayal of the reality over there, but the media is seldom concerned with the unbiased truth. |
15-06-04, 07:27 PM | #8 | |
my name is Ranking Fullstop
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Promontorium Tremendum
Posts: 4,391
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ok, maybe this is better data:
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15-06-04, 10:22 PM | #9 |
flippin 'em off
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: the real world
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Yeah. More thorough results: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5217874/site/newsweek/
"Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed also expressed no confidence in the United Nations." "61 percent said they either strongly oppose or somewhat oppose Allawi,(the newly designated Iraqi prime minister)." They don't seem to like much of anything over there, though the poll does seem to be oriented toward negative questions. |
19-06-04, 10:21 PM | #10 |
One half won't do
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Florida
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I think they'll go straight to martial law with the US as permanent police presence. All the bad-ass warlords will be bought off with the stolen oil profits and in 25 years they will be broke, sick, decimated and more pissed off than ever.
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