Iraqi soccer players angered by Bush campaign ads

[rokus2595]

PATRAS, Greece -- Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir scored a goal here on Wednesday night, setting off a rousing celebration among the 1,500 Iraqi soccer supporters at Pampeloponnisiako Stadium. Though Iraq -- the surprise team of the Olympics -- would lose to Morocco 2-1, it hardly mattered as the Iraqis won Group D with a 2-1 record and now face Australia in the quarterfinals on Sunday.

Afterward, Sadir had a message for U.S. president George W. Bush, who is using the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign advertisements.

In those spots, the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear as a narrator says, "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes."

"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. "He can find another way to advertise himself."

Ahmed Manajid, who played as a midfielder on Wednesday, had an even stronger response when asked about Bush's TV advertisement. "How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?" Manajid told me. "He has committed so many crimes."

The Bush campaign was contacted about the Iraqi soccer player's statements, but has yet to respond.

To a man, members of the Iraqi Olympic delegation say they are glad that former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein, who was responsible for the serial torture of Iraqi athletes and was killed four months after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, is no longer in power.

But they also find it offensive that Bush is using their team for his own gain when they do not support his administration's actions in Iraq. "My problems are not with the American people," says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad. "They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything. The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?"

At a speech in Beaverton, Ore., last Friday, Bush attached himself to the Iraqi soccer team after its opening-game upset of Portugal. "The image of the Iraqi soccer team playing in this Olympics, it's fantastic, isn't it?" Bush said. "It wouldn't have been free if the United States had not acted."

Sadir, Wednesday's goal-scorer, used to be the star player for the professional soccer team in Najaf. In the city in which 20,000 fans used to fill the stadium and chant Sadir's name, U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled loyalists to rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr for the past two weeks. Najaf lies in ruins.

"I want the violence and the war to go away from the city," says Sadir, 21. "We don't wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away."

Manajid, 22, who nearly scored his own goal with a driven header on Wednesday, hails from the city of Fallujah. He says coalition forces killed Manajid's cousin, Omar Jabbar al-Aziz, who was fighting as an insurgent, and several of his friends. In fact, Manajid says, if he were not playing soccer he would "for sure" be fighting as part of the resistance.

"I want to defend my home. If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that mean they are terrorists?" Manajid says. "Everyone [in Fallujah] has been labeled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq."

Everyone agrees that Iraq's soccer team is one of the Olympics' most remarkable stories. If the Iraqis beat Australia on Saturday -- which is entirely possible, given their performance so far -- they would reach the semifinals. Three of the four semifinalists will earn medals, a prospect that seemed unthinkable for Iraq before this tournament.

When the Games are over, though, Coach Hamad says, they will have to return home to a place where they fear walking the streets. "The war is not secure," says Hamad, 43. "Many people hate America now. The Americans have lost many people around the world--and that is what is happening in America also."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/olympics/2004/writers/08/19/iraq/index.html?cnn=yes

[fantassin]

Quote:

"We don't wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away."

This is turning into a real mantra these days.

[aartamen]

I wonder what would happen to them if they had voiced any kind of negative opinion about Uday.

Yet another bit of proof that athletes by far not the smartest people on average.

[goldman]

The more and more i c this kinda of behaviour by iraqis the more i think we should put Saddam back to power.

[moughoun]

I wonder what would happen to them if they had voiced any kind of negative opinion about Uday.

Yet another bit of proof that athletes by far not the smartest people on average.

But they are "liberated" Iraqi's or doesn't their opinion count because it's different to your's ;)

[Bootneck]

"I'm glad my serial killer neighbor is being arrested but those flashing lights and sirens are waking up the whole neighborhood. I want them out of here."

:slap:

[moughoun]

"I'm glad my serial killer neighbor is being arrested but those flashing lights and sirens are waking up the whole neighborhood. I want them out of here."

:slap:

Yes those ice-cream van's are annoying

[expat007]

Well done to the Iraqi team, I was on the edge of my seat for the game against portugaul and was doin the snoopy dance and siging Ole Ole (etc) at the end.

[moughoun]

Well done to the Iraqi team, I was on the edge of my seat for the game against portugaul and was doin the snoopy dance and siging Ole Ole (etc) at the end.

You should have taken pic's, then the psyop's team's could have dropped them over Najaf, that would have ended it right there, crazy dancing Irishmen eeeeek we give in, no more sir p-)

[SeanAshi]

So damn unappreciated these days.... :fork:

[2Sheds_Jackson]

In fact, Manajid says, if he were not playing soccer he would "for sure" be fighting as part of the resistance.

rofl rofl rofl

Yeah, ok. "honest! I really would be fighting those dirty dirty Americans...but you see I have to kick this little ball around this field right now!"

Like most hipocrytes - they want it both ways - freedom to speak out, but they won't fight for it. They want the Americans gone, but won't do anything about it.

They don't give a rat's ass about their precious Najaf. If they did, they'd be home "fighting for it" instead of seeking personal glory.

[Geezah]

I wonder what would happen to them if they had voiced any kind of negative opinion about Uday.

Yet another bit of proof that athletes by far not the smartest people on average.

But they are "liberated" Iraqi's or doesn't their opinion count because it's different to your's ;)

And it is because they are "liberated" Iraqi's that they can now voice their opinion ;)
Didn't see much of that 3yrs ago :cantbeli:

[BadKarma26]

The more and more i c this kinda of behaviour by iraqis the more i think we should put Saddam back to power.

Amen brotha. Lets get him out of his cell and send him back to Eye-Rack.

[Seiyuuki]

An appreciative Iraqi's athlete


Najah Ali: Iraq's little boxing surprise

Ten months ago, light flyweight Najah Ali wasn't on the Iraqi boxing team, because there was no such thing. On Aug. 18, the 4'11" 106-pounder won his first Olympic bout in convincing style, 21-7, over a heavily favored opponent, North Korea's Kwak Hyok Ju, who is 5'4".

In his first major international fight -- he only has about 35 bouts to his name total -- Ali controlled matters from the outset, leading 9-3 after one round. The shortest man in the Olympic boxing tournament danced around the ring agilely and snuck inside his taller opponent's reach to land frequent, powerful shots.

He did it with sharp right jabs, quick feet that kept him out of danger, and a singlet with the words "Iraq Is Back" on it.

He also did it with the support of Maurice "Termite" Watkins, a former American pro fighter, used car salesman, rattlesnake killer and insect exterminator who traveled to Iraq on a contract to exterminate flies plaguing a U.S. Army facility in Baghdad.

Watkins ended up coaching several aspiring Iraqi boxers. Ali was the one who impressed the coach the most and asked what the chances were of making it to the Olympics.

"I said basically it was slim to none," Watkins recalls, according to the Cincinatti Post. "That it was maybe one in a million. He slammed his hand down, pointed his finger at me, and said, 'Great, we don't need the million. All we need is the one. Let's make this happen.'"

Although Ali failed to qualify for the Games directly, he got his wish in the form of one of five IOC exemptions provided to his troubled nation.

The inexperienced boxer received additional help from USA Boxing's head coach Bash Abdullah, who invited him to train with his team. Ali returned the favor by inviting Abdullah to join Watkins in his Athens corner.

And now, like his fellow Olympians on the Iraq soccer team, Ali is surprising the world and giving his nation a reason to rejoice.

[Jack Mehoff]

Now I don't feel sorry for them when Uday cut off their fingers when they lost a game.

[He219]

or these:



An Iraqi Olympic Committee official models a steel mask at Al-Shaab Stadium in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, July 24, 2004. The device is said to have been used by Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, to torture Olympic athletes whose performance failed to meet his expectations.


Iraqi Olympic Committee official Talib Mutan displays a steel chamber with interior spikes at Al-Shaab Stadium in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, July 24, 2004. The device is said to have been used by Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, to torture Olympic athletes whose performance failed to meet his expectations



Iraqi Jamil Mihawi, 32, holds a piece of torture apparatus said to have belonged to the Iraqi Olympic Committee at a Mosque in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday July 22, 2004. The device is believed to have been used to abuse athletes under Saddam's regime


An Iraqi Olympic Committee official points to implements of torture stored at Al-Shaab Stadium in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, July 24, 2004. The devices are said to have been used by Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, to torture Olympic athletes whose performance failed to meet his expectations.

[Ichhabe]

Hmm? Let' see!

Option A: Having a psychopathic despot to run my country?

Option B: Listen to Americans for the atleast next 100 years on how damn greatful I should be because they saved my sorry ass?

Let's see? My lifespan, approxamatly 65 years. I've already lived 38 of them.

Easy! I'd go for option A. :D

[He219]

Step right in, Ichhabe!
p-)

[Ichhabe]

Step right in, Ichhabe!
p-)



Pleasure would be mine... ;)

[Kilgor]

God.. how quickly people forget. :roll:


Option B: Listen to Americans for the atleast next 100 years on how damn greatful I should be because they saved my sorry ass?

Thats the french option p-)

[szr]

Hmm? Let' see!Option B: Listen to Americans for the atleast next 100 years on how damn greatful I should be because they saved my sorry ass?

100 years? I thought the USA was already going the way of the Roman Empire? :| ??

[Ichhabe]

Hmm? Let' see!Option B: Listen to Americans for the atleast next 100 years on how damn greatful I should be because they saved my sorry ass?

100 years? I thought the USA was already going the way of the Roman Empire? :| ??

So when did I become the oracle of this friggin worlsd? Eh?

[Deuterium]

Hmm? Let' see!

Option A: Having a psychopathic despot to run my country?

Option B: Listen to Americans for the atleast next 100 years on how damn greatful I should be because they saved my sorry ass?

Let's see? My lifespan, approxamatly 65 years. I've already lived 38 of them.

Easy! I'd go for option A. :D

No you wouldn't sir.

[usa320]

"How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?" Manajid told me. "He has committed so many crimes."


Ill tell you what, he certainly didnt play in the games back when Uday was around...if he was, his opinion would be MUCH different.

[Seiyuuki]

"How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?" Manajid told me. "He has committed so many crimes."


Ill tell you what, he certainly didnt play in the games back when Uday was around...if he was, his opinion would be MUCH different.

Definitely, considering they lost today to Morocco...I'm sure we all know how much Uday dislike losing.

[Midav]

Hmm? Let' see!

Option A: Having a psychopathic despot to run my country?

Option B: Listen to Americans for the atleast next 100 years on how damn greatful I should be because they saved my sorry ass?

Let's see? My lifespan, approxamatly 65 years. I've already lived 38 of them.

Easy! I'd go for option A. :D

It's always easy to type something that transmits over as pixels on someone elses screen ;)

But, good sarcasm rofl

[Sergei]

I wonder what would happen to them if they had voiced any kind of negative opinion about Uday.

Yet another bit of proof that athletes by far not the smartest people on average.

That's just a proof that you need to shut up your cockholster sometimes, the draft-dodging piece of **** :bash:

[Jack Mehoff]

I wonder what would happen to them if they had voiced any kind of negative opinion about Uday.

Yet another bit of proof that athletes by far not the smartest people on average.

That's just a proof that you need to shut up your cockholster sometimes, the draft-dodging piece of **** :bash:

are ****ing serious or just playing stupid?

[aartamen]

Here's a reply from an Iraqi.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/archives/2004_08_01_iraqthemodel_archive.html#109294843194979384

[aartamen]

He also did it with the support of Maurice "Termite" Watkins, a former American pro fighter, used car salesman, rattlesnake killer and insect exterminator who traveled to Iraq on a contract to exterminate flies plaguing a U.S. Army facility in Baghdad.

I heard "Termite" interviewed on NPR. He's a cool guy. That interview seriously improved NPR's standing in my eyes.

[aartamen]

That's just a proof that you need to shut up your cockholster sometimes, the draft-dodging piece of **** :bash:

Oh, this whole topic is about me. I did not notice. Thank you very much, for pointing that out. In any civilized forum an explosion of verbal ****barrell like this would earn the author some serious spanking on his silly rump. However, for your personal reference (apparently you are assembling a scrapbook of my life, how pleasing) I dodged nothing.

[aartamen]

Hmm? Let' see!

Option A: Having a psychopathic despot to run my country?

Option B: Listen to Americans for the atleast next 100 years on how damn greatful I should be because they saved my sorry ass?


There are other options. Like the one Norway chose - becoming a quiet but a steadfast ally of the victor, who does not need to be reminded who saved whom from what.
Actually the Norvegians were the ones responsible for the whole gulf of Tonkin incident. But we forgive you.

[Ichhabe]

[quote=Ichhabe]Hmm? Let' see!

Option A: Having a psychopathic despot to run my country?

Option B: Listen to Americans for the atleast next 100 years on how damn greatful I should be because they saved my sorry ass?



There are other options. Like the one Norway chose - becoming a quiet but a steadfast ally of the victor, who does not need to be reminded who saved whom from what. quote]

rofl

[Adri]

There are other options. Like the one Norway chose - becoming a quiet but a steadfast ally of the victor, who does not need to be reminded who saved whom from what.
from what ?



Actually the Norvegians were the ones responsible for the whole gulf of Tonkin incident. But we forgive you.
hysj ! thats secret !

[Durandal]

Ummm...yeah...

[Gatling]

Man it's funny how the diehard Bush supporters , can't stand any remarks from Iraqis that want them out of their country.It ain't only the soccer team , but , the majority of the Iraqis people{and that in all the different polls} PLUS,"Don't use our sportive acheivements to boost your political campaign Mr Bush" seems pretty fair to me. :)

[Deuterium]

Drudge is reporting that Bush is planning on going to Greece to watch the Iraqis play soccer... Hmmmm.. This is getting interesting.

[GAFES]

I dont want americans to be ofended with my comment. But I think Bush did his ''job'', he liberated the Iraki people, now they are happy ! Its time to go home !

[MetalBoy]

Drudge is reporting that Bush is planning on going to Greece to watch the Iraqis play soccer... Hmmmm.. This is getting interesting.

I don't think he should if the Iraqis feel uncomfortable with him being there. I'm sure his motivations are pretty genuine in that he wants to show support for them but on the other hand it could be misinterpreted by the Iraqis as gloating.

[Seiyuuki]

I dont want americans to be ofended with my comment. But I think Bush did his ''job'', he liberated the Iraki people, now they are happy ! Its time to go home !

If only it was that simple.

[rokus2595]

DEFIANT FIGHTERS: The 15 Shaaban movement, led by Hussein Hamza (right), sent a team led by Salman Sharif (left) to assassinate Uday Hussein.

First inside account of a 1996 ambush that signaled active Iraqi resistance.

By Peter Ford

SHATRA, IRAQ - As Salman Sharif gave the order to open fire, he was certain he was going to die himself. You did not try to assassinate Uday Hussein, the former Iraqi president's elder son and heir-apparent, at point blank range and expect to get away with it.

"We knew we had a 1 percent chance of returning alive," Mr. Sharif says today, sitting crosslegged on a carpet-strewn floor as, for the first time, he recounts to a foreign newspaper the daring attack he led. "Strict security made this kind of operation almost impossible."

But after months of careful planning, the four man hit squad drawn from a shadowy resistance group was determined to go ahead. As Uday Hussein drove his golden Porsche slowly up a busy street in one of Baghdad's smartest districts, just after dark on Dec. 12 1996, two gunmen responded to Sharif's command with a hail of bullets from their AK-47 rifles.

"We were sure we had killed him," Sharif recalls. "We fired 50 rounds into that car."

In fact, he discovered later, Uday had been hit 17 times but survived. He was crippled for the rest of his life, and - according to popular belief - rendered impotent (a special kind of justice, Sharif said, because of the elder Hussein son's reputation for brutal womanizing), but he lived.

Still, the unprecedented assassination attempt on a member of the ruling Baath Party's inner circle sent an important message. "We showed that the Islamic resistance could reach any target at any time," Sharif says. "And we refuted before the whole world the regime's claim that there was no resistance inside Iraq."

Mr. Sharif, who was 27 at the time he mounted the operation that sent shockwaves through the Iraqi leadership, looks an unlikely freedom fighter. Studious and methodical, peering intently through a large pair of spectacles, he resembled a provincial primary school teacher more than a guerrilla hit-man. But Sharif's tale offers a rare window into how the Iraqi resistance movement operated during Hussein's reign.

as a religious Shiite Muslim he hated the government which repressed his coreligionists so fiercely and assented readily when a student friend in his scruffy home town of Shatra, in Southern Iraq, recruited him into an armed resistance group.

For two years he kept up his studies at a technical college and spent his spare time organizing clandestine cells. Then, when a Shiite revolt broke out in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, he and his comrades joined the fighting, seizing their hometown and holding off Iraqi troops for three weeks.

Eventually they were overwhelmed and Sharif was arrested in a mass sweep of detentions. But he was released after 18 days for lack of evidence, he says, and fled to the safety of the marshes near Basra, where some of his fellow resistance fighters had formed the "15 Shaaban" movement, named for the day in the Muslim calendar that the Shiite uprising had begun.

Constantly harassed by Iraqi Army assaults, moving by canoe through the thick reeds from one hut to another, Sharif lived in what he calls "sub-human conditions" for the next five years, running one of his movement's secret base camps built of dry reeds.

"It was very tough in the marshes," he remembers. "Most opposition groups fled abroad, but we wanted to feel what the people felt, to be close to their suffering."

Then, in 1996, the 15 Shaaban movement upped the ante. Instead of trying to kill only regional Baath party leaders and local officials in occasional sorties from their hidden camps, the group decided to aim at the heart of the regime, targeting its highest leaders.

The idea, explains Hussein Hamza, leader of the former resistance movement that has transformed itself into an Islamic political party, was "to weaken the regime, to undermine its foundations and to create a state of chaos. And we wanted to encourage people to rise up against the government."

Sharif was tapped for a key role. Mr. Hamza asked him to take control of the group's Baghdad cells, and he moved to the capital in mid-1996 to take over operations there.

It was not long, Sharif says, before he heard of Uday's regular Thursday night trawls for pretty girls in Mansour, an upscale part of town where he was notorious for forcing young women to accompany him back to one of his palaces.

The news intrigued him. "It seemed like a golden opportunity," he says, so for the next two months Sharif strolled the crowded streets of Mansour each Thursday evening, the night before the Muslim weekend, to see what he could see.

Sure enough, every Thursday round about seven, Uday would curb crawl along Mansour's main drag, sometimes with bodyguards in a motorcade, sometimes not.

Keeping his eyes open and making friends with some of the neighborhood shopkeepers, Sharif figured out which of the street peddlers were regime informers, which traffic policemen were really secret-police officers, which buildings housed government offices, and which of the regular passers-by wandering up and down the sidewalk were actually security men.

"I didn't tell anyone about my plan until I was 100 percent sure it was possible," he says. "I had to be absolutely right about all the details so as to be credible in the eyes of my leaders."

Eventually he was sure enough to travel south, slip into the marshes, and present his findings to the movement's leadership. They were convinced. He had the go-ahead.

The next steps, he says, were to select the three men who would make up the hit-squad under his leadership ("they had to be especially competent"), rent a safe-house in Baghdad, buy a getaway car, and smuggle guns and grenades up from the marshes into the capital for the assassination attempt.

Persuading his recruits to take part in the operation was not hard, according to Sharif, despite the fact that they knew it was suicidal.

"Everybody in Iraq hated Uday," he says. "The team members were very happy: they said they felt lucky to have been chosen for such an operation."

One, known by his code name Abu Zahrar, would drive the getaway car.

Sharif, who went by the name Abu Ahmed, would cover the gunmen. Abu Sadeq and Abu Sajad would do the actual shooting.

A member of another cell rented an apartment in one of Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods, another bought a car, and men from the marshes came up with the weapons. "We know our country well," says Mr. Hamza. "We knew which dirt roads led around the checkpoints on the highway."

On the appointed day, seven o'clock found the hit-men eating ice cream on the sidewalk outside one of Mansour's best known ice-cream parlors, keeping their eyes skinned for their target. Half an hour passed. Another half hour.

No Uday. After waiting a little longer, the adrenaline draining from their veins, the would-be assassins went home.

The following Thursday, the same thing happened. And the next Thursday. And the next. Sharif began to suspect that his plan had been uncovered, but nobody came to arrest them. Perhaps, he concluded, Uday was busy in his capacity as Iraq's sports czar with an international soccer competition in which the Iraqi team was competing.

After five weeks of waiting impatiently at his marshy headquarters for news, Hamza sent an envoy to Baghdad with a coded message calling off the operation. Such a long delay carried with it the risk of exposure. Sharif begged for one more chance. His request was granted.

And so were his wishes. Just after 7 p.m. on the following Thursday, Sharif spotted "a very unusual car" that could only belong to the flamboyant Uday, cruising towards him under the streetlamps. He had no apparent escort vehicles.

"He had so many security people on the streets, I think he felt safe," Sharif suggests.

Abu Sadeq leaned into the team's car and pulled out the sports bag in which he had concealed two AK-47s, two spare magazines, and six grenades. Abu Zahrar jumped into the car and drove it a few yards into the shadows. Sharif, armed with a hidden pistol, accompanied the two shooters to the spot he had chosen.

As Uday drove by slowly they were shocked to realize he was alone: his bodyguard must have got out to search for women up the street. Abu Sadeq and Abu Sajad pulled their weapons from the bag and opened up from just a few yards away.

The windshield and passenger window shattered. Uday slumped to his right.

The gunmen emptied their magazines, dropped their weapons, and ran for their getaway car. Sharif followed. The three men leaped in, roared off, and disappeared. The whole incident had taken less than a minute. Nobody had shot back at them. Nobody followed them.

Elated, they reached their safe house, where they slept the night. The next morning they took the bus to Nasariyah, and a connecting bus to Suq-ash-Shuyukh, on the edge of the marshes. By nightfall they were back in the safety of their base. Sharif did not leave the marshes until the US-led invasion last March.

"We never imagined it would be so easy," Sharif says with a smile. "We thought we had been sent to our deaths."

In the marshes over the next few days, Hamza, the leader of 15 Shaaban, listened to Voice of America radio and other international stations and chuckled as Iraq pundits speculated about an attempted coup. "Lots of other parties claimed the attack, but we didn't," he recalls. "We wanted the regime to think it came from its own ranks."

Eventually, however, Saddam found out the truth. A member of 15 Shaaban who knew about the plot was arrested in Jordan in connection with another affair and handed over to the Iraqi secret police, Hamza says. Under torture, he broke. By August 1998, 18 months after the assassination attempt, Saddam's security men had arrested Abu Sajad and published details of the other members of the team.

The government's revenge was vicious. Sharif's seven brothers and his father were rounded up: his mother was told later to collect their bodies from the Baghdad morgue. Abu Sadeq's father and three of his brothers were executed. Abu Sajad and his father suffered the same fate. Security men bulldozed all of the families' houses and confiscated all their property.

Last December, an Iraqi hit-squad tracked down Abu Sadeq, in exile in Iran, and killed him.

Hamza's wife was arrested: she gave birth to a son in jail, and it was six years before the two were released to house arrest. None of the families evicted from their houses have been given new homes, none have yet been offered any compensation by the new authorities, Sharif says bitterly.

Still, he insists, the operation was worth the price his comrades and their families paid. "When you weigh up the pros and cons, the advantages are bigger," he argues. "It is not easy for a man to sacrifice his family: nobody would do it unless it was for a noble cause. But I think my family was ready for that sacrifice. I inherited my sense of sacrifice from them. It was the way I was brought up."

Hamza agrees. "The sacrifices we made and the blood our members spilled made people demand the end of the regime," he says. "Maybe it will be because of those sacrifices that in future people will demand that our Governing Council stays on the right path. It's because we made sacrifices that we can demand elections." Hamza adds that he is bitter about what he says is an over-representation of former exiles on the Governing Council.

Sharif says he was satisfied when he heard the news that US troops had killed Uday, along with his younger brother Qusay, in a July 22 shootout in Mosul.

"Anyone would prefer to finish a job if it is the right job to do," he reflects. "I wish it had been me who had done it. But no matter who killed him, such a vicious man did not deserve to live."






http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0926/p01s02-woiq.html

[Hawkeye]

And it is because they are "liberated" Iraqi's that they can now voice their opinion ;)
Didn't see much of that 3yrs ago :cantbeli:

Well, now the're excercising the right to say what they want and that is 'We want the Americans out', and i believe that we definitly have to listen to that

[fokket]

or these:




=======WARNING: GRAPHIC WORDS. DO NOT READ IF YOURE SENSITIVE=====

The top mask actually comes from the Medieval times when the Christians torture the heretics. what you do with it is you put that thing on a person's head RED HOT. What happens is that your skin sticks to it, when you take the mask off, the skins will peel off, and the person will also have his tongue cut with red hot tongues and his eyeballs will be put out too. Not sure if Uday used it for same way.

[aartamen]

hysj ! thats secret !

It's only a secret for the illiterate, since it's been published.

[wiking]

Iraqi's utilizing their newly given freedom of speech, wasnt that what the whole bloody war was about. And "thouh ought not give a man a pen, if thouh fear what he may write" (and you can qoute me on that:))

And still, i'll agree with ichhabe and say id prefer a dictator than listenong to americans telling me about how much i owe them for saving my arse. infact, i allso say i'd fight any occupation of my country nomather the reason.


And we are alllready listening to yanks bitching about how much we owe them for saving us in ww2. thats no 60 years ago, 40 years left mate, lets pray nothing happens. Dont think i can stand another 100 years.

[Durandal]

And we are alllready listening to yanks bitching about how much we owe them for saving us in ww2. thats no 60 years ago, 40 years left mate, lets pray nothing happens. Dont think i can stand another 100 years.

There are million s of people in the world that would LOVE to be able to bitch like you.

Except they have other worries. Food, crazy gun wielding militias, ethnic and religious cleansing, potable water, disease.

You live a free life filled with luxuries and little worry and you have the nerve to say you would rather live in an oppressed dictatorship than possibly living freely and enjoying the same things you do right this moment!?

You spoiled child.

[Sergei]

or these:




=======WARNING: GRAPHIC WORDS. DO NOT READ IF YOURE SENSITIVE=====

The top mask actually comes from the Medieval times when the Christians torture the heretics. what you do with it is you put that thing on a person's head RED HOT. What happens is that your skin sticks to it, when you take the mask off, the skins will peel off, and the person will also have his tongue cut with red hot tongues and his eyeballs will be put out too. Not sure if Uday used it for same way.

Somehow you have omitted what US soldier do at Abu Ghraib and other death camps and what interrogation technique they use with that. What is it? A memory hole? Or is a chemical flashlight up your rectum feels better?
Nothing personal.

[Seiyuuki]

Since the soccer team failed to get a medal at Athens, they're going to be sent Abu Ghraib or other "death camps" where the fame "interrogation techniques" will be apply to them...carrying on the proud tradition of Uday, they better learn their lesson and get a medal in Beijing!!!

[Secret Squirrel]

anyone ever stop and think that maybe part of the logic behind their comments is after the olympics they have to return to Iraq? Wouldnt it make sense, if for nothing else than their own safety (and their family's safety), to publically distance themselves from Bush? Or is this just another one of my crazy thoughts? woot

[usa320]

Somehow you have omitted what US soldier do at Abu Ghraib and other death camps and what interrogation technique they use with that. What is it? A memory hole? Or is a chemical flashlight up your rectum feels better?
Nothing personal.

wtf?

Only 1 or 2 people died at Abu Gharib from questionable causes... far from being a death camp.

Shut the **** up you idiot...dumbass.

[fokket]

or these:




=======WARNING: GRAPHIC WORDS. DO NOT READ IF YOURE SENSITIVE=====

The top mask actually comes from the Medieval times when the Christians torture the heretics. what you do with it is you put that thing on a person's head RED HOT. What happens is that your skin sticks to it, when you take the mask off, the skins will peel off, and the person will also have his tongue cut with red hot tongues and his eyeballs will be put out too. Not sure if Uday used it for same way.

Somehow you have omitted what US soldier do at Abu Ghraib and other death camps and what interrogation technique they use with that. What is it? A memory hole? Or is a chemical flashlight up your rectum feels better?
Nothing personal.

I'm just pointing out the origin of it, nothing more, nothing less. Don't be confused.

[von_Moo142]

PATRAS, Greece -- Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir scored a goal here on Wednesday night, setting off a rousing celebration among the 1,500 Iraqi soccer supporters at Pampeloponnisiako Stadium. Though Iraq -- the surprise team of the Olympics -- would lose to Morocco 2-1, it hardly mattered as the Iraqis won Group D with a 2-1 record and now face Australia in the quarterfinals on Sunday.

Afterward, Sadir had a message for U.S. president George W. Bush, who is using the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign advertisements.

In those spots, the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear as a narrator says, "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes."

"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. "He can find another way to advertise himself."

Isn't his point fair enough?

Considering the situation in Iraq, shouldn't Bush and his people be a little more subtle?

Lots of people (Iraqis, Americans, British, etc.) are still dying in Iraq even now. Yes, Saddam has gone, and I'm sure 99% of Iraqis appreciate that (and the sacrifices made by coalition forces), but there is lots more to be done in Iraq before it is a terror free nation.

If I was an Iraqi in a cynical mood, couldn't you all forgive me for thinking that it is convenient for the focus of AQ and the like to have been moved away from the US, for example?

And couldn't you understand why I might be feeling cynical?

The comment made by the Bush campaign is a gross simplification of a nasty situation. It comes across as triumphant, but there is nothing to be triumphant about when people are dying every week in bombings. IMO its fairly insensitive.

Now I'm sure that most of you from the US would agree that things get pretty sleazy around election time (not that we do things any better :-( ). I can't stand any of it, and I only have to put up with the small fraction that wafts across the pond. Why would anyone want the suffering of their nation to be involved with all that?

[Deuterium]

Much to do about nothing.

[Porta_jon]

yeah f*ck this ****.
dont let them have freedom unless they say somthing nice!