Pandagon

I know I'm reposting this, but it's relevant this time!!!

This story references a nutty military policy which offers free breast implants to soldiers and their families so that military doctors can practice their skills:

http://tinyurl.com/4l74k

This is just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Do you think this is partly a morale tool? "Sorry, soldier - the bad news is that your leg was blown clean off, but the good news is, when you get back to the states your wife will have a fantastic rack!"

I would guess the plastic surgery skills that a military doctor needs honing are largely facial reconstruction. Is breast implant surgery, which to my limited knowledge involves a fairly small and specific set of skills (based entirely on my viewing that Extreme Makeover show), really the best training?

Here's a crazy idea for the Pentagon. Spend a little more money to go to Iraq and find the hundreds (thousands?) of Iraqi children that we've maimed and disfigured with our bombs, fly them back to the US, and help in some small way restore the faces, bodies, and lives that we've destroyed. Of course, that would require acknowledging the grisly consequences of this war, and we know that such things are irrelevant to the Bush administration.

Opportunism at its finest. Disgusting. Dollars to doughnuts that W. wouldn't know how to pronouce Fallujah if he saw it in text. Extra kicker if you think he's literate. Vote Kerry.

I haven't looked, but what do you suppose the chance is that this story appears in Little Green Footballs under some header like, "Iraqi soccer jihadis prove Muslims hate America"...

Gary Hart has an article in Salon about how Bush had to obscure the true motives for the Iraq war because it is an act of empire and empire is distasteful to the citizens of a republic. This is why is Iraq is doomed to quagmire. We want to keep our sense of self as liberators and an inspirational model to the world, but the goals we have stated are unachievable without subjugating a whole country with massive violence. To achieve a stable Iraq we would have to bring the tactics of Abu Gharib to every citizen. We would have to grind the Iraqis under our boot in Soviets/Nazi/Chinese manner. However, this is so contrary to our tradition that Americans wouldn't stand for this. Our military probably wouldn't either. The fantasies of the neoconservatives encompass both the emergence of Arab Democratic beacon a la Wolfowitz and the new White Man's Burden of an American Empire upon which the sun would never set a la Kagan and Max Boot. Since they are both fantasies, noone has to worry about the fact that they are mutually exclusive. Also since they are both fantasies the Arabs don't get to affect the outcome.
I hope we hear more of this from Gary Hart and other Democrats: Bush's vision is contrary to the American Ideal and doesn't understand how to use American Power.

Anyone out there wanna have fun by posting this on the LGF web boards? Or the Freepers?

Well stated. Bravo.

Why do the Iraqis hate America?

Oh. Yeah. The whole "conquering their country under false pretenses" thing. Well, geez, if you want to hold one little mistake like that against us ...

(On a more serious note, this is why Kerry MUST win in November. Right now, the world isn't really holding Bush's actions against the people of the United States. Believe me, they were following the whole Florida fiasco just as closely as we were. But if we (re-)elect Bush, the American people will be a lost cause in the eyes of the world and we'll REALLY be fucked then.)

You know, ordinarily I would, but I got so skeezed out the last time I went to LGF that I haven't been able to go back.

You know that thing they do when you're winning a debate -- where someone writes 'GAZE,' and everyone suddenly starts posting on something stupid like macrame or cartoons?

It's supposed to confuse and frustrate trolls, but it's really like being in a playground full of demented toddlers. As soon as you pin them down on a point of fact, they abandon rationality altogether.

Now I'm going to say this one time and slowly. THIS. IS. HOW. THEY. VIEW US.

Must be nice to be able to read hearts and minds from this distance. I wish I could.

We would have to grind the Iraqis under our boot in Soviets/Nazi/Chinese manner. However, this is so contrary to our tradition that Americans wouldn't stand for this.

Nitpick... we Americans have both a tradition of toleration and liberty and, unfortunately, another of rank oppression (slavery, treatment of Native Americans, and Michelle Malkin's Daycamp, er, the internment). I'm not really confident drawing a bright line around what we wouldn't stand for. But by and large, I think the statement is accurate, and that Americans prefer to be on the side of justice.

Isn't it wonderful to see Iraqi soccer players and coaches saying what they think freely and of their own accord!!

"THIS. IS. HOW. THEY. VIEW US."

Um, no. This is how they view us:

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/
http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com/ who writes today about the comments of the soccer players, "I remember many players shown on the TV many months ago talking about what Uday Saddam was doing and the types of torture they endured and that they are free now and not afraid of anyone…and can represent their country. One or two guys DO NOT represent the whole country…keep this in your mind.

http://www.roadofanation.com
http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/
http://fayrouz.blogspot.com/
http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/

And there are many many others.

"And just because you hate the liberal media for reporting their anti-American sentiments rather than our pro-American infrastructure triumphs, it does not change the fact that we're caught in an unholy mess because they hate us..."

No doubt some do. They also have the FREEDOM to do so. But to claim they all hate us is utter nonsense!

I recall reading on Iraqthemodel about a month ago, where one of the 3 brothers wrote (I'm paraphrasing here): It is an INSULT to Iraqis when ppl call this an illegal war. It insinuates that we are not entitled to freedom, democracy and the pursuit of happiness.

Also, check out the BBC's Arabic views/comments section sometime. Although the responses are mixed (50/50), in no way do all Arabs or Iraqis hate Americans.

VRWC-
Oh yes, a bunch of well-educated people with access to modems (and, for that matter, electricity) represent the vast majority of Iraqis. Kerrrrrrrrrr-ist...

IB Bill, no need to be a mind reader. All you need is ears and the willingness to listen to what the Iraqis are telling us. Even our friends want us gone, except insofar as they can use the blood of our soldiers rather than the blood of their own supporters in order to kill their political enemies.

- Badtux the Listening Penguin

IB Bill:

It isn't necessary to be psychic when the Olympic soccer players (of all people) are coming out and saying such things.

This current of opinion among Iraqis has been showing up in the foreign press since the invasion began. Here, we get occasional polls saying that 78% (or some such number) of Iraqis 'wish the Americans would leave,' but without any sense of continuity, of context.

The context begins with the fact that the country's infrastructure was pounded by a foreign power, and a lot of people were killed. It continues through Fallujah and Abu Ghraib and a number of other striking moments, and ends (in the present) with Iraq in a lawless, damaged condition, occupied by foreign troops with no plan to either restore order or leave.

We'd be pissed too. And with those of us who have pored over the foreign press (and military newsletters, and political blogs) since the start of the war, there's a definite, frustrated temptation to point fingers and say, 'I told you so all along.'

Which is a bad rhetorical technique. Still, I myself, am going to say this one more time and slowly. THIS. IS. HOW. THEY. VIEW US.

Because anything else is pretending, frankly. Glenn Reynolds, for instance, is pretending that reality is something other than what it is. The Administration, and to an extent the Kerry campaign, are pretending.

We're all entitled to own own opinions (someone once said), but not our own facts.

It is an INSULT to Iraqis when ppl call this an illegal war. It insinuates that we are not entitled to freedom, democracy and the pursuit of happiness.

WTF? "Illegal war" has to do with international law. Freedom, democracy, etc. are from a completely different set of terms and standards. The one has nothing to do with the other.

VRWC:

I'm sorry to be direct, but I'll be more inclined to pay attention to the few pro-war, perhaps Astroturf, Iraqi blogs when the shooting, bombing, and kidnapping dies down a bit.

And what's with the link pointing to the Swift Boat Vets page? I don't get it.

Hey, VRWC (or can we call you 'Jerome'?): one of the soccer players says that he'd be fighting in the Fallujah resistance if he weren't on the team. Does that make him a terrorist? Should he be shipped off to Gitmo? Get an Abu Ghraibing?

I love that Iraqis have the freedom... to tell George Bush to go fuck himself. What a triumph for the forces of liberation.

"ONE of the soccer players says that he'd be fighting in the Fallujah resistance if he weren't on the team."

Easy to talk shit. Might be a little different when you got to face some ass-kicking Marines. But ppl like you, the Michael Moore-ons of the world, can never figure that out.

Automovil: What part of the link is confusing you?

"Oh yes, a bunch of well-educated people with access to modems (and, for that matter, electricity) represent the vast majority of Iraqis. Kerrrrrrrrrr-ist..."

As opposed to illiterate nomads. Kerrrrrrrrrrrrrr-ist.

Gotta go. Got a meeting.

VRWC:

Ah. I thought it was the other, political Swift Vets site, not the Swift Boat Registry.

That other site has been in the news a lot lately.

Those ungrateful Iraqis! What do we have to do, kill the other 24 million, level a few more towns, and shoot down some Abu Ghraib prisoners in order to get their respect?

Oh, wait...

By "meeting", I'm sure VRWC meant "tea party with stuffed animals".

Ez? Jesse? Can we please ban this mendacious troll fucktard? He's about as worthless as that VOT troll over at Digby's site. He contributes nothing of substance. Ban the motherfucker.

Illiterate nomads?

VRWC sure had a short meeting, cuz he posted back here less than twenty minutes later.

Oh, come on. If we ban him, how can we justify our own search-and-annoy missions over at LGF and Freep?

...Besides that we're right on the issues, that is.

VWRC:
Take a look at this Coalition Provisional Authority poll, taken towards the end of April.

92% of Iraqis surveyed see us as occupiers, 2% as liberators. Now, this is obviously skewed from the country as a whole, as the Kurdish regions (which tend to be very pro-American) were not surveyed. Even so, it paints a very damning picture of Iraqi opinion of American forces. More data:
-55% said that if Coalition Forces left immediately, they'd feel more safe. 32% said less safe.
-79% agree or somewhat agree that violent attacks have increased around the country because "people have lost faith in the Coalition Forces."
-47% agree or somewhat agree think attacks around the country are an "effort to liberate Iraq from the U.S. and the Coalition forces." 42% disagree or somewhat disagree.
-54% think that the abuse at Abu Ghraib happened because "all Americans are like this."

So let's get right to it: the Iraqi bloggers that wingers just love to trot out in the face of bad news are certainly do *not* represent the majority of people in the country and are, frankly, not all that trustworthy.

"And just because you hate the liberal media for reporting their anti-American sentiments rather than our pro-American infrastructure triumphs..."

It sure would have been nice if the liberal media reported the anti-terrorism demonstrations in Iraq. I believe the only news station who reported them was Fox News.

Heh. Mentioning Fox News to a leftist makes them go batshit. HOw dare there be a news station out there that leans to the right!! It's just not fair!!

Even Al Jazeera, reluctantly I'm sure, reported the anti-terrorism demonstrations in Iraq - crowds estimated to be 10,000 (Al Jazeera number) to 20,000 (Zeyad's estimate). I doubt if you will want to look, but on the off hand that you do...

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/10dec.html
http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/10dec2.html
http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/10dec3.html

"Ez? Jesse? Can we please ban this mendacious troll fucktard?"

Bill Hicks. The typical fascist leftist who wants to crush ALL opposing views that he doesn't like...kinda like Kerry siccing his lawyers on the TV stations to crush the SBVT ad. Go to the DU with all your backslapping LLLs.

Pathetic.

Anti-terror demonstrations do not equate pro-American. And even if they did, having 20,000 anti-terror demonstrators is rather meaningless in the face of 20,000+ Sunni insurgents. Not to mention Sadr's militia... and the foreign fighters... and all the other little bands of militias that Iraqis depend on for security...

VRWC,

As others have pointed out, basing your views on Iraqi public opinion on the writings of Iraqi bloggers is either dumb or dishonest. First of all, everyone of the bloggers you list (at least one of whom isn't actually in Iraq) blogs in english. Do you really think that the opinions of that subset of the Iraqi population which speaks more or less fluent english are representative of Iraqis as a whole? Or are those people exactly the ones you would expect to be the most favorably disposed towards us, and thus represent not an "average Iraqi"'s opinion, but rather a best case scenario, a US pointing tail on the distribution curve of public opinion? I think the available polling shows pretty clearly that the average Iraqi feels a lot more like the soccer players than you'd like to admit. Unless you think that polling is done by that dastardly liberal media?

Smokey- don't you mean "that dastardly liberal Coaltional Provisional Authority"? ;-)