Posted on 07/30/2007 5:53:43 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
It wasn't on Ice, but it was a Miracle. Iraq 1- Saudi Arabia 0.
So just how important is athletic competition? I think it’s obvious that it’s more than just a game. On the surface, no one in Baghdad or Tikrit will suddenly have a better life this morning than they did yesterday. However, I doubt any intelligent individual would argue they won’t have a nicer day.
Athletic competition, especially between national teams, matters more than most people would readily admit. People in Iraq are genuinely proud that their soccer team just defeated Saudi Arabia’s 1-0 in the title game of International Soccer’s Asia Cup. Not because they have any reason to dislike the Saudis more than they dislike Iran or Israel for example, but rather because this is the first time since the downfall of Saddam Hussein, they’ve had a reason to collectively high-five as a nation.
Anyone who doesn’t understand the reason Iraqis celebrate this victory wasn’t glued to the front of a television, watching the Lake Placid Olympics, during the dreary winter of 1980. That was the year when our boys in Red, White and Blue beat the Soviet Union’s national team in hockey. I was only eleven at the time, but that mob-scene celebration after we won is a memory that will last a lifetime.
One of my aunts, about the most liberal partisan you’d ever want to meet, still occasionally complains to this day that Team USA scored the go-ahead goal while she was using the rest room. Even with Democrat Jimmy Carter in the White House, she believes it was a Republican conspiracy. In fairness to my aunt, she is a rather rabid hockey fan.
So this is a day on which Iraqis celebrate more than just a well-played soccer game against a deeply-financed and talented opponent. The new Iraq may have just come of age. International Soccer probably didn’t quite make the list of eighteen benchmarks we wanted the Iraqis to work on, but who can argue that this particular collective enterprise of the Iraqi nation didn’t just deliver the mail?
Realists would stipulate that Iraq still has enough problems to give God a migraine. They have to figure out how to work together off a soccer pitch as well. However, the process of truly becoming a new nation may have started last night. People from every region and religious background in Iraq put it together and seriously kicked some butt.
That can’t be the sort of thing that Osama Bin Ladin or Harry Reid wants to see happening on a regular basis. No one can claim the US just handed them this one. The Iraqis reached out and took it as theirs. Those of us who want the Iraqis to build a new nation in the face of both Al Qaeda and the anti-war movement in the United States greet the conquering Iraqi Soccer Team with one word.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No matter what, the Russians (the Soviets, rather) always had incredible National ice hockey teams, btw, built of erstwhile rivals, Dynamo, TsSKA, Spartak, etc. I particularly liked the Red Army Club Troika - Mikhailov, Petrov, Kharlamov. Kharlamov was amazing.
bump 36
This win proves Iraq is not in shambles...it’s coming along beautifully...that’s what this actually means. The MSM can spin it...and their probably gritting their teeth over this outstanding victory for the Iraqi People.
The Dems must be very saddened
Yeah!
Not like Baseball or American Football, where you wade through three hours of game just to get to 10 minutes of actual play, right?
Not like Baseball or American Football where you have to break for commercial after every three outs/downs, right?
Got forbid we get over the collective ADD and watch 90 minutes of actual playing, right?
(rolls eyes)
“Shouldn’t we all be concerned for the lives and well being of American military personnel?
You missed the point about who should be volunteering didn’t you.”
I think you missed the point. We are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. We have athletes and we have military personnel. What makes you think that Iraq is not capable of both also.
One other thing, they have lost more innocent blood to the terrorists in Iraq than we have.
Give them their moment.
You’re obviously compensating for something...
“Futbal is a boring game.”
1-0 after an hour of play is way beyond boring. It’s more like sleep enhancing. Those stadiums should never use artificial turf so spectators can at least watch the grass grow.
Thanks for post #36.
Horray for me! :-)
Naah..I’m comfortable enough in my masculinity that I am comfortable watching my son excel in a sport that I have grown to love, and support him unconditionally playing.
And I didn’t feel the need to name myself after a fictional character, just to create the illusion of masculinity - dude.
Wipe the Doritos off your belly, and go back to watching snoozeball and NASCAR. Some of us are intelligent enough to realize there’s an entire world out there outside of the limited WWF mentality that you and your ilk share.
You too, you closet-dwelling redneck.
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