Gazpacho
Did you have a look at the death toll? I am afraid it was not an even fight... What is your idea of "fair play"?
The Irakis had no planes, no navy, hardly any missile, no biological war equipment, no night-vision glasses, and hardly any of their outdated war tanks survived the bombings to meet the American tanks (which smashed them).
Sort of surprising, since we had been told that Irak was a threat to world peace.
Maybe the civilians simply didn`t want to start a rebellion. Or well, the security forces just needed machine guns and a bit of discipline to keep people under control...
Powell and Co. Have been telling us that they had EVIDENCE that Irakis were keeping mass destruction weapons. But apparently the Irakis were reluctant to use those almighty weapons even to prevent an invasion. And if the Americans knew where the Irakis had hidden the weapons...then why can`t they find them? So far, all they have uncovered is worth only to kill grasshoppers.
The Iraki army has fought courageously to stop an invasion under an overwhelming inferiority. Some units have fought, in these days, TO THE LAST MAN. If a western country, if any American unit had ever given such an admirable example of patriotism, how many movies would have been filmed on the matter? Instead, the news (like in Spanish Antena 3) labelled Iraki resistance to be "ferocious", like if talking about beasts. Not "stubborn", let alone "courageous"; just "ferocious". That is sheer racism, in my opinion.
All this matter reminds me of French invasion in 1808. The French claimed to be "liberating" us from a tyrant. And indeed nothing good can be said about Ferdinand the VII, maybe the worst king EVER. But yet, people noticed that the reasons of the invaders were not totally innocent...

Cristobo,

Of course you're right. We tore them up. But as the saying goes "don't bring a knife to a gun fight". True enough they didn't have the military might of the U.S. and coalition forces but I for one am happy about that. I know they're not heavily armed, but I can't accept that they are unarmed. Do you really think I would feel better if equal amounts of Americans were killed. Oh boy! When the U.S. goes to war, I don't want a fair fight, I want victory.

I think the lesson here is that after the Kuwaiti war instead of making a peace treaty between the U.S. and the Iraqis, we went through the morally bankrupt U.N. I strongly wish we would tend to our own business and not try and drag the rest of the world along with us like a dead albatross around our neck.
This war is being fought for U.S. security. I don't even believe we are doing this for the sake of the Iraqis. If these sorry bunch of people couldn't overthrow that straw tiger of a dictator I see on the news, they aren't very courageous. I don't know or care if they ever find the dreaded weapons of mass destruction. Is good enough for me that there are Al Queda training camps in the north.
Yes I've read about the humiliating scene between Napolean, Carlos IV?, and Ferdinand VII. This brought the 100,000 sons of St. Louis into Spain. A very bad time for your noble country. I enjoy the history of your country very much, and the politics from the 1930's is an essential study for anyone who enjoys politics as much as myself.

Hi, Gazpacho --

Again, where is the evidence that the U.S. was in danger from Iraq?

I hope you never become a district attorney. "Let's execute the suspect now. We can investigate later. Wait... never mind the investigation. I just know he's guilty."

I've been following a good chunk of the war coverage in both liberal and conservative media, and I somehow missed this report, though folks on this board keep alluding to it. Can anyone point me to an article about this in any reputable news source?

Booklady wrote:
What happened was, as always, a combination of reactions. Some Iraqis -- a lot of them -- were jubilant. Certainly the Kurds have much to celebrate. Some Iraqis -- a lot of them -- fought to the death (and continue to do so) to get the U.S. out. These are the much-vaunted "pockets of resistance," a term which even the pro-Bush journalists on Fox News Network assure us is a gross understatement.

Some of the Iraqis you've seen celebrating on your TV screen are cheering for the defeat of Saddam Hussein, whom they considered hopelessly secular and westernized. Don't mistake their actions for pro-American or pro-democratic jubilation.

So let's not overstate the situation either way. There are, IIRC, millions of people in Iraq, and any reductive statement that "the Iraqis are thrilled" or "the Iraqis want Saddam back" is misleadingly simplistic.

The New York Times , April 11, 2003 has an Op/editorial by Eason Jordan, who is chief news executive at CNN.

Eason Jordan admits that he knew of the horrors occurring in Bagdhad,yet did not report these. He recounts one of these: This is very disturbing for a variety of reasons.
Isn't the press supposed to report the facts?
I wonder, had CNN, which is the bastion of news for the American Left, reported these news stories, would they have been so vehement in their response against the war in Iraq?
Just how prevalent is this type of media self-censorship? I suspect more of this goes on than we would like. Critical thinkers must search all over to arrive at facts.

This selectivity of reporting that Eason Jordandescribes has certainly lost CNN its moral high ground as being the bastion for presenting unbiased reporting. The "business" of being in Iraq was more important than reporting what was truly going on. No wonder there are so many confused people about the media coverage, as we have heard voiced on this thread.

El Viajero,
I think that whatever their motivations, after what Eason Jordan describes, I believe the jubilation we saw was genuine. But I guess that the majority is probably hiding out for a couple of weeks before they share their true feelings. Although, after living through the HELL of Saddam, I doubt that these folks will say much for a long time.

---
Did anyone out there notice the lack of women in the crowd? I am curious as to why? In the West, women are usually in the forefront, I wonder if it is cultural. Does anyone know?

El Viajero:
I think the report about training camps for Al-Qaeda in the North were shown by Colin Powell in his UN speech. Am I wrong?
In any case, the next day it was widely known that the north was out of Saddam´s control since 1992: that part of the country was constantly watched and bombed by American planes, and the Kurds were mostly independent there.
Gazpacho: definitively I like you, I like your being so sincere and your lack of self-righteousness in a thread where each one wants to show "how pure my feelings on this matter are". However I still don`t agree you. And yes, Carlos IV and Fernando VII are fascinating fellows. I wonder how is it possible that such a stupid, evil and coward man ever existed!!! That`s the mistery over Fernando VII.
Booklady: yeah, it is an entangled matter to find out what can you believe, or when are you being fooled. As to those horrible stories about Saddam`s tortures...do you think the situation will improve now, as long as human rights are concerned, in Irak and the Middle East? Some have pointed at the risk of an Islamic revolution in Irak. That`s bad news, I think.

Booklady wrote:

It's a basic principle of television that whenever you point the cameras at something, you're pointing them away from something else. You can't cover everything. Certainly, CNN has reported on atrocities carried out by the Hussein regime, if not the specific incidents you mention.

Probably. The president and his press secretary were going on TV on a regular basis saying things that didn't ring true, and changing their justifications for this invasion on a weekly basis. It's hard not to at least question what's going on.

Besides, I don't consider CNN particularly leftist. When I think of lefty television, I think of things like Free Speech TV and certain independent viewer-supported stations with a strong socialist bent. If anything, CNN speaks to the liberal part of American centrism, just as Fox News represents the conservative part of American centrism. There's an awful lot to the left of CNN and to the right of Fox News.

I watched that entire presentation and a repeat of it, and I don't remember him saying that. Here's the problem: the existence of those training camps is common knowledge, and yet no one seems to know how they know it. The self-defense argument for the invasion rests on a lot of common knowledge that no one seems able or willing to corroborate.

When Wolf (I think it was Wolf) first mentioned this, I searched every major news site I could think of on the word "Qaeda" and found nothing about such training sites. Then Wolf obliged me by posting a link to a report from Human Rights Watch that he said showed evidence of links between Hussein and Al Qaeda. That's all well and good, except that if you read the report, it says the exact opposite: that as far as they can tell, there is no convincing evidence to support that allegation. So all I'm asking for here is attribution. We just mounted the largest non-nuclear air assault in history with the claim that it was done to protect America from an armed threat. From the start, I've been asking where the evidence is. And consistently, people point me to things that don't prove what they claim they do.

Yes, I'm glad to see Saddam Hussein out of power, but -- again -- a country founded on the rule of law must not use an ends-justifies-the-means vigilante approach to world politics. For one thing, making other countries hate us is bad for national security. For another thing, it's just plain arrogant and wrong.

Besides, will the Iraqi people be better off under their next ruler? When the U.S. engages in foreign government-building, we have an annoying tendency to put into power people like -- well, like Saddam Hussein, for instance.

There are many things the U.S. does extremely well, and of which we can be justifiably proud. Stabilizing foreign governments is not one of them. We have a long history of backing leaders not because they will be good for the people over whom we place them, but because they hate our military enemies or will grant favorable terms to American corporations. That's not a matter of propaganda: our record speaks for itself. Granted, the mistakes of past administrations are not George W.'s fault, but our track record on this sort of thing is appalling. I'd like to believe that this time will be different.

el viajero,

My apologies. I thought people have been following the links between al-Qaeda, Hussein, and the group in northern Iraq. Apparently not, or they would have known this.

Here's a link that will show the ties as they exist. Members of the group are actually the ones who have tied them all together, after being arrested.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/3/18/74151.shtml

I hope this resolves any questions you may have on the issue. Apparently your investigation failed to uncover this. There's dozens of sites out there that show the link. In fact, there are Jordanian and Iranian linked sites that indicate the ties as well.

Wolf

El Viajero writes:
But, this was not a cameraman,or a reporter, this was a CNN policy maker. He decides what is told, how it is told, and who is told the news. He was a witness to the particular savagery that he recounts in the New York Times article. News agencies are not political entities, we, the public expect different standards from them.

El Viajero writes:
I disagree. They are fairly ensconced in the flaming liberal left. At least my "flaming liberal" friends in academia are always quoting CNN as the bastion of unbiased truth. There are definitely more leftist and more rightist news agencies than CNN and Fox, respectively.

Booklady,

And to think... just 24 hours ago left wing people were telling everyone how CNN was right on the money, or even a little "too conservative."

As you and I both knew, from our past experiences, the truth is never broadcast from a dictatorial state, even by what should be considered unbiased journalists. The only stories that leave their domain are those that don't tell the truth about what's happening behind the cameras.

Now... let's talk about Al Jazeera, and the rest of the broadcast teams that have been in Baghdad over the last few weeks. A show of hands please! How many of you believe you've been getting the whole truth from that side?

Wolf