hell bent on war

[Nan]

Dear Vern,

I don't know why Candice posted the article on Jessica Lynch. Maybe she will tell us. But it think its curious that the reaction to her post was exactly the same as the reaction to Elazer's post about the treatment the captured American POW's received from the Iraqi's. Except for David's kind post, callousness from you and resounding silence from everyone else. If the shoe were on the other foot, and hulking Americans were slapping an Iraqi POW with broken legs there would have been no end to the posts screaming about it.

[George.Wright]

I wish everyone could have a little peace on this subject, the blood lust is up and the hyenas are ripping the flesh. Try and keep this forum gentle.
Georges

[margaret]

First of all I would like to join everyone in expressing relief that Jessica is safe after her ordeal.

I will probably regret saying this and be accused of being anti- american, but I think it needs saying. I was very alarmed at pictures of U S soldiers searching Moslem women on the street in Iraq. In their culture this is a dreadful affront to female modesty and shows a terrible lack of sensitivity. Surely a female soldier could have done this job in a more discreet manner. There have also been reports of soldiers distributing girlie magazines. Again, very poor judgement in such a society. It's no wonder that other Arab countries feel so outraged at such behaviour. All of us need to be more sensitive to the views and beliefs of others and show a little more tolerance.

[lizzytysh]

Margaret ~

I'm not sure which of the sects go to which extremes with their cultural beliefs and mores, but I'm not so sure that this [male American soldiers publicly searching the women] couldn't even be considered defiling, to the extent that they could be considered ruined and useless to their own men/families, with repercussions of rejection and ostracization and shame following. For many of the people in these areas, this kind of thing is tantamount to a humiliation that resonates, psychologically, as deeply as torture does physically.

I saw a photograph of a huge, Playboy-style photo of a woman in a bikini on the side of a tank [photograph on one of the major news sites]. In terms of cultural sensitivity, this would be akin to posting a nude picture of a woman from Hustler [the more unsavory of girlie magazines] at a Baptist convention.

As far as Jessica's rescue is concerned, I expressed my own grief at hearing of her capture/death [unknown at the time] and my own joy at her rescue. As someone has already noted, the rumours flew as to what had actually occurred in the midst of all that. I feel horribly that any of these things are occurring to anyone fighting over there. As already noted by Byron and Tom, children will continue to be shredded long after the Allied Forces are gone.

As [and I'm trying to get a copy of the letter that addressed this on NPR] noted in a letter to, I believe, Rumsfeld, his comment to the effect of [paraphrased for now, exact words hopefully to follow], "We had a great day today. We killed lots of people. Too bad that chick was in the way [referring to an Israeli woman who was standing nearby and killed in the process.]." The commentator on NPR was the one who wrote the letter [read on the segment called War Diary or Diary of War] and lamented the callousness and lack of respect for other humans, being disgracefully demonstrated by those supposedly highest in our land. If this is the kind of message coming from "high" above, what is the potential for the behaviour below.

[lizzytysh]

To Everyone:

Knowing how I feel about all this, a dear friend sent this piece to me with the notation:

"All I can keep thinking of is that line from Robert Fripp and King Crimson: 'The fate of all mankind, I fear, is in the hands of fools...' "

The person who wrote the piece knows far many more details than I had ever dreamed to know about this whole situation. The writer is in a position to know these things, however, and has done the research, which appears to not be too difficult to accomplish. It reads easily, but is far too complex to fully grasp with one reading, or two, or three [at least for me]. However, it reenforces what at least several of us here contend. It is not difficult to grasp because of any absurdity of its premises and predictions, but rather because of the historical data and relationships outlined.

As a number of things are projections, in addition to its complexity, it's difficult to debate at this point. I'm not posting it as an inflammatory attempt at anything, or to try to prove anyone right or wrong, or to debate what it says.

What I am hoping [as it will move down the line of posts on this thread with time, and as the months and years go by, will be forgotten] is that you will do as I have done, and that is print it out [perhaps copy and paste it into an e-mail, or into WordPerfect, so you can get a copy of it without anything else ~ like the whole of this thread, or at least of this page]. Then, read through it several times, and note the key names and how they are a common theme throughout it and in what ways. Perhaps highlight the names of the various countries and people, and keep it somewhere handy as a reference, as time does go on [as I sincerely hope it will] and see for yourself how this all plays out. Few here will be happier than me if I and others are wrong.

Thank you for your consideration in doing this.

"The War to Remake the World

Just the Beginning

Is Iraq the opening salvo in a war to remake the world?

By Robert Dreyfuss

The American Prospect, Issue Date:4.1.03



For months Americans have been told that the United States is going to war against

Iraq in order to disarm Saddam Hussein, remove him from power, eliminate Iraq's

alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and prevent Baghdad from

blackmailing its neighbors or aiding terrorist groups. But the Bush administration's

hawks, especially the neoconservatives who provide the driving force for war, see the

conflict with Iraq as much more than that. It is a signal event, designed to create

cataclysmic shock waves throughout the region and around the world, ushering in a

new era of American imperial power. It is also likely to bring the United States into

conflict with several states in the Middle East. Those who think that U.S. armed forces

can complete a tidy war in Iraq, without the battle spreading beyond Iraq's borders, are

likely to be mistaken.



"I think we're going to be obliged to fight a regional war, whether we want to or not,"

says Michael Ledeen, a former U.S. national_security official and a key strategist among

the ascendant flock of neoconservative hawks, many of whom have taken up perches

inside the U.S. government. Asserting that the war against Iraq can't be contained,

Ledeen says that the very logic of the global war on terrorism will drive the United

States to confront an expanding network of enemies in the region. "As soon as we land

in Iraq, we're going to face the whole terrorist network," he says, including the Palestine

Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a collection of

militant splinter groups backed by nations___Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia___that he calls

"the terror masters."



"It may turn out to be a war to remake the world," says Ledeen.



In the Middle East, impending "regime change" in Iraq is just the first step in a

wholesale reordering of the entire region, according to neoconservatives___who've

begun almost gleefully referring to themselves as a "cabal." Like dominoes, the regimes

in the region___first Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, then Lebanon and the PLO, and finally

Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia___are slated to capitulate, collapse or face U.S.

military action. To those states, says cabal ringleader Richard Perle, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an influential Pentagon advisory committee, "We could deliver a short message, a two_word message: 'You're next.'" In the aftermath, several of those states, including Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, may end up as dismantled, unstable shards in the form of mini_ states that resemble Yugoslavia's piecemeal wreckage. And despite the Wilsonian rhetoric from the president and his advisers about bringing democracy to the Middle East, at bottom it's clear that their version of democracy might have to be imposed by force of arms.

And not just in the Middle East. Three_thousand U.S. soldiers are slated to arrive in the

Philippines, opening yet another new front in the war on terrorism, and North Korea is

finally in the administration's sights. On the horizon could be Latin America, where the

Bush administration endorsed a failed regime change in Venezuela last year, and

where new left_leaning challenges are emerging in Brazil, Ecuador and elsewhere. Like

the bombing of Hiroshima, which stunned the Japanese into surrender in 1945 and

served notice to the rest of the world that the United States possessed unparalleled

power it would not hesitate to use, the war against Iraq has a similar purpose.

"It's like the bully in a playground," says Ian Lustick, a University of Pennsylvania

professor of political science and author of Unsettled States, Disputed Lands. "You beat

up somebody, and everybody else behaves."



Over and over again, in speeches, articles and white papers, the neoconservatives

have made it plain that the war against Iraq is intended to demonstrate Washington's

resolve to implement President Bush's new national security strategy, announced last

fall___even if doing so means overthrowing the entire post_World War II structure of

treaties and alliances, including NATO and the United Nations. In their book, The War

Over Iraq, William Kristol of The Weekly Standard and Lawrence F. Kaplan of The New

Republic write, "The mission begins in Baghdad, but it does not end there. We stand at

the cusp of a new historical era. This is a decisive moment. It is so clearly about more

than Iraq. It is about more even than the future of the Middle East and the war on terror.

It is about what sort of role the United States intends to play in the twenty_first century."

Invading Iraq, occupying its capital and its oil fields, and seizing control of its Shia

Islamic holy places can only have a devastating and highly destabilizing impact on the

entire region, from Egypt to central Asia and Pakistan. "We are all targeted," Syrian

President Bashar Assad told an Arab summit meeting, called to discuss Iraq, on March

1. "We are all in danger."



"They want to foment revolution in Iran and use that to isolate and possibly attack Syria

in [Lebanon's] Bekaa Valley, and force Syria out," says former Assistant Secretary of

State for Near East Affairs Edward S.Walker, now president of the Middle East Institute.

"They want to pressure [Muammar] Quaddafi in Libya and they want to destabilize

Saudi Arabia, because they believe instability there is better than continuing with the

current situation. And out of this, they think, comes Pax Americana."



The more immediate impact of war against Iraq will occur in Iran, say many analysts,

including both neoconservative and more impartial experts on the Middle East. As the

next station along the "axis of evil," Iran holds power that's felt far and wide in the

region. Oil_ rich and occupying a large tract of geopolitical real estate, Iran is arguably

the most strategically important country in its neighborhood. With its large Kurdish

population, Iran has a stake in the future of Iraqi Kurdistan. As a Shia power, Iran has

vast influence among the Shia majority in Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain, with the large

Shia population in Saudi Arabia's oil_rich eastern province and among the warlords of

western Afghanistan. And Iran's ties to the violent Hezbollah guerrillas, whose anti_

American zeal can only be inflamed by the occupation of Iraq, will give the Bush

administration all the reason it needs to expand the war on terrorism to Tehran.



The first step, neoconservatives say, will be for the United States to lend its support to

opposition groups of Iranian exiles willing to enlist in the war on terrorism, much as the

Iraqi National Congress served as the spearhead for American intervention in Iraq. And,

just as the doddering ex_king of Afghanistan served as a rallying point for America's

conquest of that landlocked, central Asian nation, the remnants of the late former shah

of Iran's royal family could be rallied to the cause. "Nostalgia for the last shah's son,

Reza Pahlavi has again risen," says Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer who, like

Ledeen and Perle, is ensconced at the AEI. "We must be prepared, however, to take

the battle more directly to the mullahs," says Gerecht, adding that the United States

must consider strikes at both Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and allies in Lebanon.

"In fact, we have only two meaningful options: Confront clerical Iran and its proxies

militarily or ring it with an oil embargo."



Iran is not the only country where restoration of monarchy is being considered.

Neoconservative strategists have also supported returning to power the Iraqi monarchy,

which was toppled in 1958 by a combination of military officers and Iraqi communists.

When the Ottoman Empire crumbled after World War I, British intelligence sponsored

the rise of a little_known family called the Hashemites, whose origins lay in the Saudi

region around Mecca and Medina. Two Hashemite brothers were installed on the

thrones of Jordan and Iraq.



For nearly a year, the neocons have suggested that Jordan's Prince Hassan, the

brother of the late King Hussein of Jordan and a blood relative of the Iraqi Hashemite

family, might re_establish the Hashemites in Baghdad were Saddam Hussein to be

removed. Among the neocons are Michael Rubin, a former AEI fellow, and David

Wurmser, a Perle acolyte. Rubin in 2002 wrote an article for London's Daily Telegraph

headlined, If Iraqis want a king, Hassan of Jordan could be their man. Wurmser in 1999

wrote Tyranny's Ally, an AEI_published book devoted largely to the idea of restoring the

Hashemite dynasty in Iraq. Today Rubin is a key Department of Defense official

overseeing U.S. policy toward Iraq, and Wurmser is a high_ranking official working for

Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton,

himself a leading neoconservative ideologue.



But if the neocons are toying with the idea of restoring monarchies in Iraq and Iran, they

are also eyeing the destruction of the region's wealthiest and most important royal

family of all: the Saudis. Since September 11, the hawks have launched an all_out

verbal assault on the Saudi monarchy, accusing Riyadh of supporting Osama bin Laden's al_Qaeda organization and charging that the Saudis are masterminding a worldwide network of mosques, schools and charity organizations that promote terrorism. It's a charge so breathtaking that those most familiar with Saudi Arabia are at a loss for words when asked about it. "The idea that the House of Saud is cooperating with al_Qaeda is absurd," says James Akins, who served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the mid_1970s and frequently travels to the Saudi capital as a consultant. "It's too dumb to be talked about."

That doesn't stop the neoconservatives from doing so, however. In The War Against the

Terror Masters, Ledeen cites Wurmser in charging that, just before 9_11, "Saudi

intelligence had become difficult to distinguish from Al Qaeda." Countless other, similar

accusations have been flung at the Saudis by neocons. Max Singer, co_founder of the

Hudson Institute, has repeatedly suggested that the United States seek to dismantle the

Saudi kingdom by encouraging breakaway republics in the oil_rich eastern province

(which is heavily Shia) and in the western Hijaz. "After [Hussein] is removed, there will

be an earthquake throughout the region," says Singer. "If this means the fall of the

[Saudi] regime, so be it." And when Hussein goes, Ledeen says, it could lead to the

collapse of the Saudi regime, perhaps to pro_al_Qaeda radicals. "In that event, we

would have to extend the war to the Arabian peninsula, at the very least to the oil_

producing regions."



"I've stopped saying that Saudi Arabia will be taken over by Osama bin Laden or by a

bin Laden clone if we go into Iraq," says Akins. "I'm now convinced that's exactly what

[the neoconservatives] want. And then we take it over."



Iraq, too, could shatter into at least three pieces, which would be based on the three

erstwhile Ottoman Empire provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra that were cobbled

together to compose the state eight decades ago. That could conceivably leave a

Hashemite kingdom in control of largely Sunni central Iraq, a Shia state in the south

(possibly linked to Iran, informally) and some sort of Kurdish entity in the north___either

independent or, as is more likely, under the control of the Turkish army. Turkey, a

reluctant player in George W. Bush's crusade, fears an independent Kurdistan and

would love to get its hands on Iraq's northern oil fields around the city of Kirkuk.



The final key component for these map_redrawing, would_be Lawrences of Arabia is the

toppling of Assad's regime and the breakup of Syria. Perle himself proposed exactly

that in a 1996 document prepared for the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political

Studies (IASPS), an Israeli think tank. The plan, titled, A Clean Break: A New Strategy

for Securing the Realm, was originally prepared as a working paper to advise then_

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. It called on Israel to work with Turkey and

Jordan to "contain, destabilize and roll_back" various states in the region, overthrow

Saddam Hussein in Iraq, press Jordan to restore a scion of its Hashemite dynasty to

the Iraqi throne and, above all, launch military assaults against Lebanon and Syria as a

"prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East [to] threaten Syria's territorial

integrity." Joining Perle in writing the IASPS paper were Douglas Feith and Wurmser,

now senior officials in Bush's national_security apparatus.



Gary Schmitt, executive director of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC),

worries only that the Bush administration, including Secretary of Defense Donald

Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, might not have the guts to see its plan all

the way through once Hussein is toppled. "It's going to be no small thing for the United

States to follow through on its stated strategic policy in the region," he says. But Schmitt

believes that President Bush is fully committed, having been deeply affected by the

events of September 11. Schmitt roundly endorses the vision put forward by Kaplan

and Kristol in The War Over Iraq, which was sponsored by the PNAC. "It's really our

book," says Schmitt.



Six years ago, in its founding statement of principles, PNAC called for a radical change

in U.S. foreign and defense policy, with a beefed_up military budget and a more

muscular stance abroad, challenging hostile regimes and assuming "American global

leadership." Signers of that statement included Cheney; Rumsfeld; Deputy Secretary of

Defense Paul Wolfowitz; Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security

Affairs Peter W. Rodman; Elliott Abrams, the Near East and North African affairs

director at the National Security Council; Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House liaison to

the Iraqi opposition; I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff; and Gov. Jeb Bush (R_Fla.),

the president's brother. The PNAC statement foreshadowed the outline of the

president's 2002 national_security strategy.



Scenarios for sweeping changes in the Middle East, imposed by U.S armed forces,

were once thought fanciful___even ridiculous___but they are now taken seriously given

the incalculable impact of an invasion of Iraq. Charles Freeman, who served as U.S.

ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, worries about everything that could

go wrong. "It's a war to turn the kaleidoscope, by people who know nothing about the

Middle East," he says. "And there's no way to know how the pieces will fall." Perle and

Co., says Freeman, are seeking a Middle East dominated by an alliance between the

United States and Israel, backed by overwhelming military force. "It's machtpolitik,

might makes right," he says. Asked about the comparison between Iraq and Hiroshima,

Freeman adds, "There is no question that the Richard Perles of the world see shock

and awe as a means to establish a position of supremacy that others fear to challenge."

But Freeman, who is now president of the Middle East Policy Council, thinks it will be a

disaster. "This outdoes anything in the march of folly catalog," he says. "It's the

lemmings going over the cliff."



Copyright (c) 2003 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: Robert

Dreyfuss, "Just the Beginning," The American Prospect vol. 14 no. 4, April

1, 2003 . This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for

compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. Direct

questions about permissions to permissions@p... ##"


Thanks for possibly listening and paying attention as the future unfolds.

~ Elizabeth

[lizzytysh]

I like this:

"Our arms will never be used to strike the first blow
in any attack. This is
not a confession of weakness, but a statement of
strength. It is our
national tradition."

~ John F. Kennedy 1961 Cuban Missile Crisis


I say that this is most relevant, as some I know are saying it's not, one of our disagreements being based on our diverse opinions as to the alleged terrorist/Al Qaeda link with Iraq.

[lizzytysh]

In keeping with Byron's and Tom's poems, I want to offer this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt:

"We have to remember that in the future we will want to keep before our children what this war [World War Two] was really like. It is so easy to forget; and then, for the younger generation, the heroism and the glamour remain, while the dirt, the hardships, the horror of death and the sorrow fade somewhat from their consciousness."

[lizzytysh]

I have no idea if anyone else has seen the Newsweek [I'm hoping to find it in the actual magazine] flow-chart type "graph" of photographs with blurbs. I think it was on the MSNBC site where I came across it today. Printed it, but it still comes out smaller than normal and more difficult to read.

However, its title is: "America and the Saudis: Ties That Bind" ~ the first blurb reads, "More than 60 years fo back-scratching has linked the United States and the House of Saud since oil was discovered in the desert kingdom in 1938. An overview of the deep ties between the two countries--and how the bin Laden family has fit into the picture over the years. Any misspellings of names are due to the smaller, blurred print.

There are three columns, entitled from left to right "The Americans"/"The Royals"/"The Bin Ladens."

The photographs [with the respective year and person's name] beneath The Americans are: 1933~Franklin Delano Roosevelt; 1974 ~ Richard Nixon; 1981 ~ Ronald Reagan; 1991 ~ George H.W. Bush; 2001 ~ George W. Bush.

The photographs beneath The Royals are: 1932 ~ Abdul Aziz ibn Saud; 1957 ~ King Saud; 1973 ~ King Faysal; 1980 ~ King Khalid; 2001 ~ King Fahd.

The photographs beneath The Bin Ladens are: 1931 ~ Mohammed bin Laden; 1968 ~ Mecca [location, not person]; 1979 ~ Osama bin Laden [shows men atop a tank and blurb reads, "Osama bin Laden leaves Saudi Arabia to fight against Soviets in Afghanistan. He funnels money and arms to the rebels and lays the groundwork for Al Qaeda network"]; 1994 ~ Binladen Group [an insignia, with the blurb reading, "Osama's family disowns him. Later, their Binladen Group (family name officially changed) invests with the Washington-based Carlyle Group, which employs Bush Sr.]; and 2001 ~ Osama bin Laden [with his photograph].

The columns, however, connect and interconnect, left to right, and over and down the columns. There's clearly more that we don't know than what we do.

[tom.d.stiller]

Dear NEHOC

I really love the way you try to find splinters your neighbor's eyes. And it's most exciting to witness how you never react to anything that might touch your own log...

Dear tom,

Stop crying. There is no need for a display of grief. David willl be back.

Count on it.

If I cry, there are many possible reasons for it. I cry for dead children, I cry for tortured bodies and minds. Yes, I might cry for the loss of good people. (Try a tear sometimes, it might help uncover your "inner sweetness".)

Where there is grief, why shouldn't it be displayed? And there are more reasons to grieve than just your barking David away.

David will be back? Let's all hope, but you ain't got no part in that.

I count on it. Yes I do. I always count the blessings instead of sheep. (Maybe that's a lack of inner sweetness, but you don't have to grieve, or tear your clothes. Just let it go right on by, okay?)


tom

[vern.silver]

Nan,

Perhaps my responses to their posts do come across as callous. Though it was not my intent I will accept the criticism.

My point in both cases was that we should not too quickly accept such reports as truth until they can be confirmed. The media print/show what they know will have impact - and wait for the truth to sort itself out later.

We can be riled up by these images/reports and we can begin to hate. Those that do participate in torture do deserve our disgust and must be held to the crimes they commit. But we must be careful that we don't let that hate boil over to include a whole people - or all Iraqi/Coalition soldiers.

As we watch the TV war that is presented to us minute by minute, we can see how the information presented in different parts of the world by the media with varying agendas is stirring up discord and hate.

Every page has two side; every colour has its opposite; every story has its point of view.

Vern

[Candice]

Thanks to our brave men from Windsor...

Finally, British troops begin to feel like an army of liberation

Audrey Gillan
Tuesday April 8, 2003
The Guardian

The British soldiers pulled down the picture of Saddam Hussein from the memorial building in the centre of town and the locals trampled all over it. As 16 Air Assault Brigade rolled into the strategic town of Ad Dayr, west of Basra in southern Iraq, they stood by the side of the road with their thumbs up and grins on their faces.
The sheikhs of Ad Dayr had come to the outlying village of Qaryat Nas to greet Brigadier Jacko Page in their best clothes, their grubby galabayyas covered with black robes trimmed with gold, their headresses immaculate. They patted the small, bespectacled commander on the back, shouting "salaam, salaam".

They said that just days before, soldiers from the Iraqi 6th Armoured Brigade had hightailed it out of town, along with members of the Ba'ath party, after they burned the headquarters of their stronghold in the south-east. Troops from the Household Cavalry and members of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment had found abandoned artillery positions, anti-aircraft guns and trenches all round the town, but not a shot was fired.

As they fingered their prayer beads, the head men asked for help in securing the town, finding missing family members and providing food and water.

Crowded by people, the brigadier told them: "The first priority is security. What we don't want to see is people carrying weapons, or it will cause trouble."

The oldest man, who had been told on the telephone that the British had arrived and had left his home in the the town and come to the village to meet them, said: "Just give us a chance and we will clean up. We need checkpoints to regulate the traffic and make it more secure."

Through his translator, Brig Page said: "The army will provide the security but, as we say, we don't want to find people carrying weapons."

The sheikh bowed and said: "We are on your side. This will take time. There are some family feuds and we still think we need these weapons but they will not be pointed at any of your soldiers."

"We want peace and security here," the brigadier said. They shouted "salaam".

"I think they recognise that over the last 24 hours, the regime has gone from the area. They are now obviously keen to know those who are replacing the regime, albeit for a short time. Their concerns are the ones we would expect - water, food, electricity - about which we will make a survey as soon as we have peace and security," said the brigadier, who said he was sorry he was in "such shabby field conditions" since the townspeople had turned out in their best clothes.

As they watched this unfold from their vehicles, you could sense the change in the soldiers' mood. After three weeks of living either on the desert floor or in the middle of a dried-up marsh, contact with welcoming civilians was a rare delight for the Household Cavalry. The night before some acknowledged that fear had crept back in because they again faced the frontline after two days downtime following the deaths of two of their colleagues.

They had become so used to coming under heavy artillery fire that they had expected more of the same. When Major Dai Rees had called out to them "right boys, we are all off to...", they had shouted "Windsor", where the regiment is based. "No boys," he laughed. "We are just going up the road." But up the road there was no artillery.

As the soldiers passed barefoot women carrying pallet beds, hunks of wood and sheets of corrugated iron on their heads, along with anything else they could loot from an abandoned military headquarters, Corporal Danny Abbott said: "Those women must have necks like Tyson. They carry more on their heads than the lads do in their Bergens. Just look at that balance."

Pick-up trucks flying white flags followed the convoy into Ad Dayr - probably some of the same vehicles that had been taking potshots with rocket-propelled grenades just a few days before. Army interpreters said they suspected that a number of the men were deserters.

As loudspeakers provided by a Psychological Operations team told the people to go home, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Beckett, the commander of 1 Para, stood in the middle of the town's main junction and tried to get the message across but the people were too excited and too nosy to walk away just yet.

One man, a student, said life with Saddam Hussein for this town of farmers "was like life with nothing". He explained: "Most people here don't have anything, only suffering and pain."

Another told the soldiers: "We have been waiting a long time for you. We are afraid you will leave us again like you did in 1991. If you are going to leave, you have to tell us now because if we say something wrong about Saddam and the Ba'ath party they will come back and kill us."

But they were given assurances and as confidence grew, the pictures of Saddam were torn down. Outside, in another village, Corporal Mick Flynn had found his armoured vehicle mobbed. Asked over the radio if he needed assistance, he laughed: "We are with the kind of lord mayor of this village. He says he welcomes us and the Americans and he says he wants the head of the British army to come and speak to him." For the time being, he would have to make do with Corporal Flynn.

[George.Wright]

As the war appears to be coming to a rapid end and the people of Iraq are being freed, we on the forum should now be looking at constructive ways to ensure the country is now ruled with democracy. The bickering at our stances should stop and urgency be given to more peacefull thoughts.
Georges

[lizzytysh]

Georges ~

I understand your sentiments; however, allow me to offer you another slice of reality. Perhaps the greatest dangers lie ahead as anarchy remains a deadly and bloody potential amongst the Iraqis. The "war" is nowhere near at an end. The looting of government and office buildings is only one symptom. The unexploded cluster bombs are another. Physical threats to these people's welfare remain. Someone likened the massive loss of Iraqi lives to date as no better, no more justifiable than the bombing of the Twin Towers. A commentator this morning made the clear distinction between wars and battles. At the present time, we are engaged in the battle aspect. The battles are fought by the soldiers sent to war. The war is a much bigger frame. The wars are waged by those in position of power, who have the agendas. Who will be next in that regard? To what extent will the "next"s create an ex-post-facto, ad hoc line?

I am truly heartened by every account of lives spared and gratitude heaped on the tanks and uniforms of the soldiers ~ the flowers, every word of thanks, every thumbs up, every act of gratitude heartfelt by the Iraqis who thank the Allied troops. The bigger concern for their welfare [though spared at the moment, those who have not fallen for "collateral" reasons] is with what lies ahead. This is not a historically-unprecedented concern. Will anarchy be their demise? Will their "freedom" be usurped by the military control of the United States? There remain many questions, as this is not a simplistic war.

I almost get the sense that some may be feeling, "Okay, "we" won the war. Let's go home [read that, let's get on with "democracy." It's such an oversimplified view of what's going on over there.] I remain in favour of civilized discussion here, though restricting it to the implementation of democracy seems quite skewed.

~Elizabeth

[Linda]

Ditto George

[Paula]

George(s) and Linda

Ditto with knobs on Time to look to the future - because apparently there is one