The Arab News Uncovers the Truth
James Taranto dug up these fascinating passages from the Arab News, "Saudi Arabia's First English Daily"--whose reporter Essam Al-Ghalib is in southern Iraq:Arab News asked several of the refugees waiting to enter Basra what they thought of regime change. Accompanying Arab News were several international TV crews. What the refugees said on and off camera were very different things. On camera, the general feeling among the crowd was sorrow at losing Saddam. Off camera, the citizens of Umm Qasr and Basra appeared genuinely exhilarated at the prospect of a brighter future, after Saddam had been removed. [Arab News, 3/28/03]Taranto notes:
When we finally made it to Safwan, Iraq, what we saw was utter chaos. Iraqi men, women and children were playing it up for the TV cameras, chanting: "With our blood, with our souls, we will die for you Saddam." I took a young Iraqi man, 19, away from the cameras and asked him why they were all chanting that particular slogan, especially when humanitarian aid trucks marked with the insignia of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society, were distributing some much-needed food....He said: "There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. There are cameras here recording our faces. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before, we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow as Baath go house to house killing anyone who voiced opposition to Saddam. In public, we always pledge our allegiance to Saddam, but in our hearts we feel something else." Different versions of that very quote, but with a common theme, I would come to hear several times over the next three days I spent in Iraq. The people of Iraq are terrified of Saddam Hussein. [Arab News, 3/30/03]
I asked several what they thought of the US/UK plan to remove Saddam. They told me: "Now that they have started to remove him, they cannot stop. If they do, then we are all as good as dead. He still has informants in Umm Qasr and he knows who is against him and who isn't." When asked about what they think of this war, most Iraqis said that they were against the loss of innocent life and the destruction of their cities, but they seemed adamant about the removal of Saddam. They were happy about the "liberation" of Umm Qasr but were disappointed in the US/UK for not keeping their promises to provide humanitarian aid. [Arab News, 3/31/03]
An Arab News editorial, however, seems to come from an alternate universe: Iraqis are being subjected the "wrath of invading forces" by a "power that has come to occupy and conquer" and aims for the "wholesale destruction" of Iraqi society, "criminal enterprise--unjustified, unprovoked, illegitimate, catastrophic." Iraqis "do not believe for one moment a word of the marauders' promises." Do the Arab News editorialists read their own newspaper? ["Best of the Web Today," 3/31/03]
Iraqis Feed US Soldiers
Sergeant Kenneth Wilson said Arabic-speaking US troops made contact with two busloads of Iraqis fleeing south along Route Seven towards Rafit, one of the first friendly meetings with local people for the marines around here. "They had slaughtered lambs and chickens and boiled eggs and potatoes for their journey out of the frontlines," Wilson said. At one camp, the buses stopped and women passed out food to the troops...Khairi Ilrekibi, 35, a passenger on one of the buses, which broke down near the marine position, said he could speak for the 20 others on board. In broken English he told a correspondent travelling with the marines: "We like Americans," adding that no one liked Saddam Hussein because "he was not kind." He said Iraqi civilians living near him were opposed to Saddam Hussein and that most were hiding in their homes and were extremely tired. Lance Corporal David Polikowsky... said he had been moved by comments from local civilians. He said they told him: "We welcome you. What is your name? We will pray for you." [Agence France Presse, 3/31/03]
Brits Welcomed In Basra–Mostly
Men, women and children rushed to greet paratroopers as they advanced into the oldest part of Basra, completing the capture of Saddam Hussein's second city....[T]he British troops found themselves having to fight off not enemy attacks but swarms of smiling children asking for water and trying to practise their English. There was a succession of thumbs-up gestures, waves and salutes, while women wearing chadors appeared in doorways smiling and waving as the demise of Saddam's regime in Basra became apparent....English-speaking Iraqis came up to reporters to express their own delight. Among them was Saad Ahmed, a 54-year-old retired English teacher. "We have been waiting for you for a long time," he said. "We are now happier than you. You are victorious as far as the war is concerned, but we are victorious in life. We have been living, not as human beings, for more than 30 years." [Daily Telegraph, 4/8/03]
[But some angry residents are unhappy over the anarchy taking place...]
This is the mentality our "humanitarian assistance" is designed to appease and to cultivate: Those who stamp their feet at reality and demand that their wishes be enacted regardless of cause or context: "You started this war; this is your fault. Now satisfy us." To which the proper response would be: "We don't owe you a damned thing. This war is the fault of your government. We're not here for you; we're here for us." But no, such a response is too scary for those who worry about what the unthinking might think. There is no reason to care what they think. We don't need them."We are caught between two enemies, Saddam and the British," said Osama Ijam, a 24-year-old medical student in the grounds of the rundown Basra General Hospital. "Is this what they call a liberation? We want our own government. We want our own security and our own law." The hospital, like many government buildings, stores and offices has been looted in recent days..."When I see my college looted and destroyed in front of my eyes I wonder why they (British troops) allow this to happen," said Ijam. "Are they here to help us or just to help themselves?" [Reuters, 4/8/03]
Another Greenspan Coffin-Nail
Bruce Bartlett of the National Center for Policy Analysis sends along this paper published by the International Monetary Fund. Bruce says, "This paper says that the odds of a stock market bubble ending in a bust on its own are low, suggesting that the Fed's effort to prick the bubble was ill considered. That's classic Bruce: tactful and circumspect. I would have said: "This paper shows that Alan Greenspan's jihad against so-called 'irrational exuberance' trashed the American economy on a personal whim, without theoretical foundation and for no good reason -- and to add insult to injury, now Greenspan claims he didn't do it!" I guess I just don't have the high-level approach.Airhead Conservative Award: Steve Forbes
It's been a long time since I looked at an issue of Forbes, a magazine I used to like. Now after spending most of my time with the New York Sun and James Taranto, I had a look at the latest issue yesterday. What struck me most was the overall tone--about as much backbone and principle as a plate of overcooked spaghetti. Here's Steve Forbes on the UN:The comforting notion that the UN is somehow the legitimizer, the ultimate arbiter of international affairs, despite its sorry record, has been blasted away....Now it's unfortunate that our president appears to think the same thing, but pundits don't have to worry about political constraints. And the idea that we would leave the primary protector of dictators in place just in order to run "humanitarian" programs is completely reprehensible. Now that the evil of the UN has been exposed for all Americans to see, this bozo still wants to compromise with it! And for what? For some important interest of America's? No, for reasons of inane altruism! It's so easy to see why the conservatives in this country have been so ineffective against the left, when they will bow and scrape and sign on behind injustice if it's justified in the name of altruism. It's disgusting. Thank God Steve Forbes never got close to being president.
The UN won't cease to exist. It will still run refugee and health care programs. It will hold conferences around the world to pontificate on various global ills, real or imagined. It may play useful roles in building up civil institutions in war-torn areas, although it has exhibited little competence in that endeavor in Bosnia. The UN could even play the role of peacekeeper in parts of the globe that have no real strategic importance, such as it could have done--and murderously did not--in ethnically divided Rwanda in the mid-1990s. [Forbes, 3/14/03]