Posted on 08/24/2004 6:26:07 AM PDT by M 91 u2 K
Members of the Iraqi Olympic soccer team branded US President George Bush a criminal and called for American troops to pull out of the war-torn country.
Speaking after winning their group stage at the Games in Greece, one player said he would take up arms against US troops in his country.
And the team attacked Mr Bush for running re-election campaign adverts featuring the Iraqi team.
Iraq as a team does not want Mr Bush to use us for the presidential campaign, said midfielder Salih Sadir. He can find another way to advertise himself.
Sadir was angered at Mr Bushs adverts, which show pictures of the Afghan and Iraqi flags with the words: At this Olympics there will be two more free nations and two fewer terrorist regimes.
We dont wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away, said Sadir, aged 21, whose home town of Najaf has been battered by the war.
Another star player, Ahmed Manajid, aged 22, said of Mr Bush: How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes.
Manajid, from Fallujah, said he would be fighting US troops right now if he were not at the Olympics.
I want to defend my home. If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that mean they are terrorists?
Everyone (in Fallujah) has been labelled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq.
In an interview with the US magazine Sports Illustrated, the team coach Adnan Hamad told of the ongoing violence in his homeland.
My problems are not with the American people. 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 stadium and there are shootings on the road?
The team was glad that Iraqs former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein, who was responsible for the serial torture of Iraqi athletes, was no longer in power. He was killed in a firefight with US forces after the invasion.
A spokesman for Mr Bush defended the war on Iraq and the campaign adverts.
The ad simply talks about President Bushs optimism and how democracy has triumphed over terror, the spokesman said.
The Iraqi soccer team has been one of the sensations of the Games, winning its group, despite a 2-1 defeat to Morocco in its latest game.
The team will go on to play Australia in the quarter-finals on Sunday.
Kinda like blacks attacking the party who ended their slavery and most strongly supported their civil rights and the end of segregation.
I'm assuming that these guys are included in those Iraqis who want either a radical Muslim government, or else they are sympathetic to the Baath Party.
Guess we know where his priorities are.
Seriously, I think the Iraqi people will never appreciate their freedom because they never had to fight for it themselves. I wonder how America would have turned out if France had "liberated" the Colonies from the English.
We do need to make our exit out of there soon and let the Iraqi people determine their own fate and I believe we are in the process of doing so. Not that I think the Iraqi war was a mistake. Removing Saddam was a necessary for U.S. security. Maybe after a few years, the Iraqis will come to appreciate a little more what we have done.
If they want Saddam back, he's alive and insane over there now. Try to break him out and see what happens, Soccer Boy.
How about: go Paraguay!
This piece makes my blood boil. Those ungrateful sons of bitches deserve Uday back - then let them say those things. Nearly 1000 American service personnel have given their lives, with thousands maimed, and we have to hear this? The media should be ashamed for printing this, so the parents of our dead and wounded folks read it. I would love to see these soccer fags meet up with a few USMC riflemen and say these things to their faces. Better yet, I'd love to meet up with these raghead bastards to show them what I think. I am pissed.
Not defending them, but put it in context..look at their ages..they were born and raised under Saddam's regime..they're most likely semi-iliterate..they've been brainwashed and conditioned since birth...it'll take time to re-educate the populace..
Yes, well, they're not Mental Olympics medalists, are they?
How can you not read this and keep thinking, "Yeah, right; you did such a fine job ridding yourself of that world-class tyrant, didn't you? And you're glad your torturer Uday is gone -- say, how did that happen? Whose blood did that cost?"
"Ingrates" is too kind a word, IF this is accurate reporting.
Dan
Not one more AMERICAN life for these damn rag heads, pack up and go home we can't bring back the Saddam sons but we sure can release Saddam and he'll make more. On the way out bomb the bastards forward into the stone age. Fuckers.
Heck it will take decades to re-educate most of the Arab world. I guess one step at a time. And Bush has taken the first step. Thank god!
With freedom you can speak your mind. If anyone here in the USA feels they are wronged they are allow to say. We are not a one man march.
I will always find it funny to hear people of other countries say they have a problem with the pres and not the people of the USA. The pres is the peoples choice. They have lots to learn and if you think its fun over there I would not think it will be solved for another 100 years. We as a nation are still gripping with the civil war and vietnam. It will never end. People always want thier view and screw everyone else.
I wonder how many have spoken in this way and how many are on the team.
If gratitude is the overarching goal of our actions in the ME, then we're barking up the wrong tree.
The majority of them will never, ever see things our way no matter how much time, effort, money, and blood we expend on their behalf. They subscribe to a cult which, by its very definition, warps reality, worships death, and seeks to spread into every corner of this planet by any means necessary. You can't reason with that - you can only kill it. Our men and women are, IMHO, over there fighting for the survival of our way of life, not theirs.
Instead of playing soccer, these a$$holes should be at home fighting and dying, if necessary.
Nothing pisses me off more that seeing these jerks playing a frigging game on one channels and then seeing reports of our great men dying on another channel. This is really ^%&@#! up!!!
Where the hell is Uday when you need him...
Making a democracy in Iraq is a joke and it is not going to happen. This people dont understand democracy. The only reason I support the war in Iraq today is because it brings us closer to Iran which is the real source of the whole Islamic Revolution. From our new bases in Iraq we can launch a huge attack on Iran.
Speaking your mind is one thing. Being ungrateful is quite another. Maybe the Iraqis prefer to have Saddam back. I understand he is available.
How will you stand before god and explain the cowardice that allowed Saddam Hussein to remain in power.
Just remember we didn't remove Saddam and Uday and Quasay for the Iraqi people to gain their freedom except as a side effect. We did it because a free Iraq will pose a smaller threat to the United States in terms of collusion with people who want to kill us all. So, whether these idiots like it or not, we did what we had to do FOR OUR SECURITY.
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