...and now, a message from your state-run television..

 

"The infidel forces of the great satan are lying to you! What you are seeing is fake, like their moon landing! Our mighty republican guard is slaughtering the US troops this very moment! Saddam himself is fighting a whole division of these beasts!! Hail Saddam! They are killing themselves to avoid our wrath!! I will show you later, after we get the place cleaned up.

 

(does this guy crack anyone else up?)

 

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+ 1

Great, it would have to be the British soldier giving out flowers to random people in the streets.

 

At least he’s not being beaten to death by a whole bunch of flowers, like the American guy!

I think the kid is handing him the flower, according to the original picture caption. Could be the other way around though, can't tell from the picture.

If no one has noticed they took down a statue of Saddam in Baghdad. And then they tore the head of, and dragged it around while someone sitting on it.

And people were beating it with their shoe... apparently this is one of the worst insults in that part of the world.

People are now rioting in the streets since there is no goverenement in power.

And if we try to stop the rioting, people like Matzi will scream about us using the military against the civilians.

Did I do so? No. You're definitely wrong, faf.

 

However, there is something I have to criticize: Wasn't obvious right from the beginning on that the Iraqi people would react in that manner? So why didn't the coalition forces get prepared for a situation like this? Of course, these masses of people are certainly enormous, but I still think that at least some of the Iraqi would react differently and stop rioting if their is a greater presence of military forces. I mean, they probably do not even have to kill some of the people if they are just present.

On the other hand: The coalition forces wanted to free the Iraqi people in order to let them live a better life. But why are only so few of Bagdad's hospitals under observation of these forces? These hospitals are certainly of great importance in this situation.

the coalition forces are still being shot at. but to some degree I agree that they should have had more there as a back up. The problem that has been expressed though is one where the military are not trained for policing... they tend to be a little more heavy handed and in some ways brutal, so a military police force would not go down well at all, at least not for long. Still though, as you say, there should hev been extra forces available to guard key facilities, perhaps there would have still been looting, but it would have been "tolerable" as opposed to ransacked hospitals and water treatment works.

Originally posted by fafalone

And if we try to stop the rioting, people like Matzi will scream about us using the military against the civilians.

Maybe we should stop bunging each other into arbitrary groups that are based on a single unifying opinion.

 

I mean, Matzi is offended by this war but for all we know might be an ardent supporter of martial law. We don't know.

Originally posted by blike

I think the kid is handing him the flower, according to the original picture caption. Could be the other way around though, can't tell from the picture.

I agree. The squaddie is being given the flower by the kid. You can see in the next picture down, the same squaddie giving the same flower to the baby.

 

That's about as political as I want to get.