BBC report about 'poll' in Iraq...

[Sam Slater]

I agree, opinion polls during such times are pretty stupid. Opinions can change on an hourly basis.

Facts though are another matter. Trouble is we can't really compare pre and post invasion facts as the previous Iraq government wasn't very transparent and trustworthy.

More reports equals more footage and reports of carnage, giving the illusion of a higher death toll (for instance). It's a well known fact that what you do not know, doesn't hurt you. If the news stopped reporting burglary, people would assume burglaries weren't as common regardless of facts in their local area. The more we know, the worse it seems.

My point is we may never really know how bad life under Saddam was. Well......life for free thinkers anyway.

Just like the BBC polls, take your assumptions with a pinch of salt and consider the transparency of Iraq pre and post 2003.

[Pervert]

It's worth considering how little attention is paid by newspapers and the media to the plight of the ordinary Iraqi. Fact: markets seen as easy targets by bombers with lots of bloodshed. Fact: criminal gangs infiltrating the police and doing little to help the general population. Fact: Shia and Sunni groups (and Kurds) picking on opponents, torturing and brutally murdering rivals (we are talking use of power tools here as tools of torment; not something any of us would like to think about). School pupils, particularly girls, seen as viable targets for the bombers---to the extent that many Iraqis are keeping their children away from school.

Those sort of events being reported day after day in the UK or US would result in a huge backlash against the war, which is why it doesn't happen.

[Sam Slater]

Blame Bush and Blair for the war (and it's casualties) but you cannot blame them for the civil war in Iraq right now. You can blame them for it's timing, but not the hatred and internal conflicts themselves. That was always there. Saddam kept a lid on it -through genocidal means at times- but he wouldn't have lived forever.

Democracy took hundreds of years to work throughout Europe, so we can't expect Iraq people to become tree hugging hippies within 6 months. We live in a Pot Noodle society. We get the car 100 yards to the local store, we wait more than 40 seconds for our PC's to boot up and we swear at it. The London underground tells us clearly when the next tube arrives, even if it's going to be within 60 seconds. We want instant fixes for complicated matters such as regime changes and we demand results yesterday.

I've said it once, twice and thrice. We'll not know if the Iraq war was a success until 20-50 years or so. The populace knows nothing of free speech and debate, nor human rights, racial or sexual equality. The nations mindset needs to altar totally.......and I'm talking about education from 2-3 years old.

Iraq was always fucked up, it just looked rosy because everyone was scared of a mass murderer who happened to be in charge. That's not a future for those people, and we see their frustration coming out now they have a nanogram of freedom.

We could probably set up schools where there's no truancy or behaviour issues if we draft in teachers who torture cheekiness and back-chat. The exam results may even soar..........but it wouldn't be right.

Iraq is a fuck up, but the tension has always been simmering under the surface. Now is a time to sort out the problems, not threaten every soul with death for speaking out like Saddam did.

[Flat_Eric]

Keith Rasputin wrote:

>>

Fair point Keith, but a few nasty Islamic judicial punishments aside and despite its lack of democracy as we know it, I don't think that you can even begin to compare Saudi Arabia with Saddam's Iraq - which let's face it was a country run by gangsters for gangsters, and where genocide and mass killings were the order of the day.

[Sam Slater]

Such atrocities are just as common -if not more common- in countries where we aren't occupying.

Hate and intolerance from Iraqi's is causing the death we see on a daily basis, not the occupying forces.