[Jaysun]

Success yes. Astounding success? Let me think about that.

Fair enough. It's a lot to swallow. It's certainly nothing like what they report it to be.

[Justa]

Imo some people sincerely miss the absense of tyranny. It's like turning off the television, it forces them to think. Add to that the fact the media sincerely fawns over the likes of Castro, Mandela and other communists and you have a method for spreading communism and tyranny throughout the world. Fine and dandy if they want to do it in their own lives but to do apply their bigotry to other people, in other countries is sickening. Facts mean nothing to people whose minds are captivated by ignorance and corrupted by desire.

The conditions in Iraq are far enough away from Westerners that the situation here can easily be distorted to fit leftist paradigms and ideology. I live in Shiite Iraq and travel quite often. The reactions of people vary greatly but for the most part the Shiites of south central Iraq are friendly and welcome us wherever we go. In areas where there are hostile elements, usually foreign, we are warned well in advance by.... the Iraqis.

The Iraqis are tribalists. There is actually 3 Iraqs: Kurd, Sunni and Shiite. This makes some events over here hard to understand, particularly when most Western journalists are holed up in Baghdad hotels. Comparing the Sunnis of Fallujah to the Shiites in places like Karbala, Najaf and Hillah is like comparing post-WWII German Nazis to Poles. When the media uses the selected opinions of Sunnis up around Baghdad to represent "what the Iraqis think" it is absurd and insulting to everyone but the Sunnis. They are Saddam's people, a minority yet the ones who comprised the Ba'athists and enforced Saddam's Iraq. I suppose it makes sense the media would consider them the essence of Iraq as tyranny is the only legitimate form of government they respect.