Posted on 02/05/2005 5:30:16 PM PST by saquin
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Through 22 months of occupation and war here, the word "America" was usually the first word to pass through the lips of an Iraqi with a gripe.
Why can't the Americans produce enough electricity? Why can't the Americans guarantee security? Why can't the Americans find my stolen car?
Last week, as the euphoria of nationwide elections washed over this country, a remarkable thing happened: Iraqis, by and large, stopped talking about the Americans.
With the ballots still being counted here, the Iraqi candidates retired to the back rooms to cut political deals, leaving the Americans, for the first time, standing outside. In Baghdad's tea shops and on its street corners, the talk turned to which of those candidates might form the new government, to their schemes and stratagems, and to Iraqi problems and Iraqi solutions.
And for the United States, the assessments turned unfamiliarly measured.
"We have no electricity here, no water and there's no gasoline in the pumps," said Salim Mohammed Ali, a tire repairman who voted in last Sunday's election. "Who do I blame? The Iraqi government, of course. They can't do anything."
Asked about the American military presence here, Mr. Ali chose his words carefully.
"I think the Americans should stay here until our security forces are able to do the jobs themselves," Mr. Ali said, echoing virtually every senior American officer in Iraq. "We Iraqis have our own government now, and we can invite the Americans to stay."
The Iraqi focus on its own democracy, and the new view of the United States, surfaced in dozens of interviews with Iraqis since last Sunday's election. It is unclear, of course, how widespread the trend is; whole communities, like the Sunni Arabs, remain almost implacably opposed to the presence of American forces. But by many accounts, the elections last week altered Iraqis' relationship with the United States more than any single event since the invasion.
Since April 9, 2003, when Saddam Hussein's rule crumbled, Iraqis have viewed themselves more or less as American subjects. American officials ran their government, American soldiers fought their war, American money paid to rebuild Iraq.
Indeed, the American project to implant democracy in Iraq often seemed to be in danger of falling victim to the country's manifest political passivity, born of a quarter-century of torture centers, mass graves, free food and pennies-a-gallon gasoline. The more the Americans tried to nudge the Iraqis towards self-government, the more the Iraqis expected the Americans to do.
As the insurgents wreaked more and more havoc, and sabotaged more and more of the country's power supply, the Iraqis, not surprisingly, blamed the people in charge. Day by day, many Iraqis' gratitude for the toppling of Saddam Hussein seemed to harden into bitterness and contempt.
After June 28, when American suzerainty here formally ended, not many Iraqis bought the notion that the interim government of Ayad Allawi was anything other than a caretaker regime, hand-picked by the Americans and the United Nations.
All that seemed to change last Sunday, when millions of Iraqis streamed to the polls. Few if any Iraqis had ever voted in anything approaching a free election, yet most seemed to know exactly what the exercise was about: selecting their own representatives to lead their own country.
"Our dilemma is solved," said Rashid Majid, 80, who wore his best jacket to the polls. "We will follow our new leaders, because we have chosen them."
Some Iraqis saw in the election their own liberation, one that many did not feel on April 9, 2003. Mr. Hussein's regime was not toppled by Iraqis but by the American military, a fact that has lingered in Iraqi minds.
Yet after casting ballots in a free election, conducted by more than 100,000 Iraqi poll workers, many Iraqis said they finally felt free - not only from the terrors of the old regime, but also from acute feelings of humiliation about the American occupation.
"The election was a victory of our own making," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser. "The Iraqi people voted with their own blood."
The newfound self-respect that Mr. Rubaie believes the election conferred on ordinary Iraqis seems to have had an immediate impact on their view of the United States. Suddenly empowered with the vote, Iraqis no longer seem to view America as all-powerful, or themselves as unable to affect events. A result has been a suddenly more accepting view of the United States.
The realism among Iraqis was evident on election day itself. Amid the euphoria of voting, America, which had almost always been the first topic of conversation, was suddenly evanescent, unmentioned in a score of interviews unless a reporter raised it first. And when Iraqis did talk of America, it was with a reasonableness and patience that had seemed missing, a willingness to balance good with bad, to give credit where it is due.
This transition seemed all the more striking for the fact that Apache helicopters roared over the polling centers every few minutes with American troops manning checkpoints only a few blocks away.
Hachim Shahir, an 83-year-old bricklayer standing in line for hours to vote, was asked how it had been possible for somebody like him to arrive at such a late stage in life without ever having voted, and now finally to have cast a ballot. He thought for a long while, then answered: "America - it was America that did it."
And how did he feel about that?
"America will be good if it completes what it came here to do, to bring us democracy, and then it goes home," Mr. Shahir said. "The main thing now is that they keep their promises, and leave. Personally, I believe they will do it."
The new mood appears to have continued since election day. The calls by candidates for a timetable for American military withdrawal have died away. Even a group of Sunni politicians decided last week that they would take part in the drafting of Iraq's new constitution without insisting on a timetable.
Getting Iraqis to take charge of their own affairs, whether by fighting insurgents or taking over government ministries, has been the goal of American leaders here since the fall of Saddam Hussein. After 22 months of trying to persuade the Iraqis to stand on their own, while doing everything for them, the Americans may be finding that Iraqis, now fully sovereign, don't want them to go home so soon after all.
Quick, somebody send the police to the NYT building, some sane person is impersonating a New York Times writer.
Typical projection: "Rightwingers are fascists" is rabidly asserted by fascistic-behaving ill-liberals who have psychotic episodes whenever they hear the word "GOD" or the concept "moral values".
According to Professor Churchill (a pariah in the news) aren't all working Americans "little Eichmanns"? Now, there's an example of *allegedly superior* liberal thinking.
The only active fascism I am aware of is fanatical ACLU activism. "Out damn Christian logos in public places!" Little bitty crosses are so very offensive to neurotic atheists!
You are correct despite the objections. This article is a masterful piece of the propaganda of omission. They learned their wordcraft quite well.
I don't believe the NYT wrote this.Where did you find it?
:)
Excellent point. Those who forget the war with the MSM are doomed to defeat. We must remember that those effing arsewoles get PAID for a 40+ hour week, undermining Western Civilization and p*ssing on our troops.
One of the major causes of World War Two was the vengeance taken by France after World War One. IMO the vengeance taken by Russia after World War Two might have precipitated a third World War if it had not been for the tempering influence of the United States, which helped its enemies up off their backs rather than kicking them in the face while they were down - the self-indulgence of a true bully.
Most countries that are not the United States are bullies at heart.
The most well known example of fascism was that of the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party in WWII Germany. Under an environmentalist, feminist, pagan, neo-Roman dictator who was in favor of animal "rights" and "free love," the media and business were controlled by his centralized government.
I do agree, though, that many capital letters for emphasis of anger are unbecoming.
See what you started?
This whole magilla went "off the rails".
Turns out we are just a buncha right wing lunatics with mis-placed hopes,expectations and over-developed notions about pert near everything...and we don't know jack about HISTORY!
That we tolerate folks with hidden agendas, demented ideas, anti-social scores to settle and some just needing a big hug will be held against us.
As much as we would like it to be, IT is nowhere close to being over,,,over there,over here or anywhere else.
Your spark of care seems to be what counts...without which a flame of Vigilence might not etc., etc.
Now! Let's all march around the breakfast table!
ADD: That was yesterday anyway. Just wait till you hear what the dear old MSM has been doing with the Eason Jordan mess.
We remove our hand from the back of the bike.
And I'll go back to the first part of my question - "Where in this article?" - where in this case was at the very end, typical of the Slimes. Downplay at the beginning, belittle in the middle, and if you must praise, praise at the end.
"Quite frankly, we are at war with the the MSM. This country lost Vietnam because the left ended up winning the battle of images and impressions. We cannot let that happen again in Iraq. And a key part of the left agenda is to downplay the triumphs so that the bad days don't seem worth the trouble."
You just said it ALL in about 50 words!!
I would like to chisel these words on the door at the NYT!!
" a willingness to balance good with bad"
Yes. Water down the truth so the Americans are rendered neutral, or "tolerable". I would like to punch this sinister propagandist in the teeth!!
"Those who forget the war with the MSM are doomed to defeat. We must remember that those effing arsewoles get PAID for a 40+ hour week, undermining Western Civilization and p*ssing on our troops."
All true..it IS a war! But what can we expect when the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Harvard, and most of the other brand name journalism schools spit out left wing America haters like a General Motors assembly line!!
If there were any truth seekers in the MSM, Kerry would have been taken out months before the election, and exposed as a mentally unbalanced coward, and a pathological
liar. Instead, they covered for him, and he almost pulled off the unthinkable!!
The evil of the MSM has been present for half a century or more. I am 50, and I seem to recall Walter Kronkite as being the first really powerful subversive. He lied to the American people every night for over 20 years
It was still in the article. Your argument may be two part. Mine isn't. I only want it on record there was acknowledgment of American effort. Your post did not make that clear.
uh... not quite.
After the Spanish American War we colonized (in no particular order):
Then there's the "US Protectorites"
And as I recall we sort of 'colonized' California.
However I do believe we should give THAT ONE back. I also recall that with some of our 'colonies' we blew them to HELL with the Atomic and Hydrogen bomb testing, like Bikini Atoll for instance.
So saying the USA doesn't, nor never did 'colonize', just isn't factually correct.
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