Recently, a list of Coalition accomplishments were posted to the comments on B2I. Allegedly from "Karl Nielson LT, CHC, USNR 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Chaplain," the the poster said the list was circulating on GI mailing lists.
Now, I've not been able to make out if the list is genuine or not, but it's certainly been picked up by the pro-war Web. I'll reproduce it here, in its entirety, as posted, with a few comments in italics.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1:
The first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty (~60,000 Iraqis providing security to citizens). They will receive weapons by June 2004. How are they are on active duty and providing security with no weapons? Stern warnings?
Nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning and 24 judges have passed the American bar.
The Coalition approved Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
Power generation hit 4,518 megawatts for one day in October exceeding prewar output. According to Riverbend, who I trust more than "Karl Nielson," said electricity was on for 22 hours a day pre-war. Now, they get 10 hours a day -- and she considers herself privileged. But don't take her word for it. The CPA itself estimates that Iraq needs 7,000MW/day, which is 2,600MW/day more than the pre-war level. The CPA itself doesn't project meeting that demand until spring 2005. Infact, it will be summer 2004 before they hit 6,000MW/day, a good 3,600MW below estimated demand. While 4,518MW is indeed higher than the 4,4000MW/day prewar, it is still not enough.
All 22 Universities & 43 technical institutes/colleges are open and most of them have teachers.
Nearly all primary and secondary schools are open for at least ninety minutes a day. Ninety minutes! Wow. The pre-war schedule was 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. for primary kids and 2 p.m. for secondary students. Maybe if more than 30,000 teachers hadn't been purged for Ba'ath membership -- joined to get a job rather than a for true beliefs -- the schools could stay open longer.
Coalition has 'rehabbed' 1,500+ schools (500 ahead of schedule) and many of them have roofs and electricity.
Teachers earn from 12-25 times their former salaries.
All 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open and 10% have running water. Ten percent of the hospitals have running water? This is progress?
Hoosiers has opened its first restaurant in Bagdad. I don't even know what "Hoosiers" is and haven't been able to find a thing on the Web about it. Does this chaplain mean "Hooters"? If so, I find it hard to believe a chaplain would be talking up a restaurant like Hooters in a Muslim country.
Doctors salaries are at least 8 times what they were under Saddam.
Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from almost zero to 12,000 tons and Prozac has been made available for free. This is news to the Iraqis I know, both in the United States and in Iraq. Prozac for free? Does this guy know what unsupervised Prozac subscriptions can do to someone? Again, no news of this on Google or Nexis.
Five Wallmarts are set to go up in the main cities of Iraq. Leaving aside that it's Wal-Mart, and not "Wallmart," a Wal-Mart spokeswoman told me there are no plans to expand to Iraq, as the market just isn't there for the company.
Coalition has cleared 14,000+km of Iraq's 27,000km of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created 100,000+ jobs for Iraqi men & women.
Three golf courses have been built. I actually kinda believe this one.
Coalition has restored over 3/4 of prewar telephone services and 2/3+ of potable water production. This is interesting. According to the CIA world fact book, in 1997, there were 675,000 main telephone lines in use. Two-thirds of that would be 450,000 lines operational. However, note this next "accomplishment:"
4,900+ full-service telephone connections (~50,000 by year-end). OK. Now you see the sloppy thinking here and which leads me to think this whole list is bogus? One one hand, telephones are at 75 percent capacity. In the very next item, it's a tiny fraction of that. And even 50,000 lines will still be a tiny fraction. If you believe that 4,900 working lines is an accomplishment, that's pathetic. UPDATE 1/23/04 This list is bogus and a hoax, but this part about the telephone lines warrants further explanation. See my other post on this for a full explanation on what the hoax list was based on, but the 4,900 lines refers to Internet connections, not telephones as the hoaxster mentioned.
Commerce is expanding rapidly (bicycles, satellite dishes, cars, RV vehicles, etc) in all major cities and towns. Ah, the favorite "life is coming back!" line that pro-war people seem to like. Well, here's news for you. Life goes on, even in war time. People don't curl up into fetal positions and give up on life when they're occupied. They probably do when bombs are falling near them, but that's pretty rare. And hint, hint: Iraq was one of the most prosperous states in the Gulf, pre-1991, and there were a lot of bicycles and cars -- it's a petroleum-producing state, after all.
95% of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily and receiving a free toaster. Free toaster?
Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
Iraq has one of the world's most growth-oriented investment and banking laws. The Bagdad Stock Exchange opened stimulating a blossoming business in speculation. Ah, no. The last mention of the Baghdad Stock Exchange was in a Washington Post article and it says that efforts to get the Exchange open are still ongoing. The article dates from Dec. 27.
Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years. Despite many demands from monetory authorities Vice-President Dick Cheney turned down requests to allow his picture to be used on the currency. You're kidding, right? Dick Cheney?
Satellite TV dishes are legal. true
Foreign journalists are not on '10-day visas' paying mandatory fees to the Ministry of Information for minders. There is no such Ministry. But there is a Ministry of Communication headed by Dr. Haydar al-Abadi. However, this is a welcome change.
There are 170+ newspapers. The first issue of Playboy was published. Yes on the number of papers, nope on Playboy. C'mon guys, this is a conservative society.
Plans have been approved to open 45 McDonalds restaurants. Nope. McDonald's has no plans, according to spokeswoman Anna Rozenich.
Iraqi Chambers of commerce, businesses, schools and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
Over 170,000 credit cards have been issued to qualified individuals.
For the first time in 35 years, in Karbala, thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam. Oy. It's the 3rd Imam -- Imam Husain, the grandson of the prophet. Details, details... (Thanks to Ameer for this catch!)
Bloomingdales has been signed as the anchor store in the new Metro Bagdad Mall. Nope. Kelly Moro, a spokeswoman for Bloomingdale's, wasn't even sure there was a Metro Baghdad Mall, much less one with Bloomingdale's as an anchor store.
The Coalition has completed 13,000+ reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. Sure, I'd buy this.
American businesses are making tremendous profits from the reconstruction to offset the expense and loss the United States suffered in the war. And I'd really buy this. I'm sure all those "tremendous profits" are consolation for the families of the 500+ American soldiers who have died.
Uday and Queasy are dead, and no longer feeding Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics. That's "Qusay," buddy. If you're going to mention horrible crimes, don't dishonor the victims by making a joke out of their torturer's name.
Children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government. Excellent.
Sesame Street and Barney, previously forbidden in Iraq, is now aired daily. They weren't banned before the war.
Political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam. This is true.
Millions of long-suffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror. This is a wash. Perpetual, low-grade terror has been replaced by flashes of manic violence, either at the hands of insurgents, bandits or wildly-shooting U.S. troops. The fact is the Iraqi people are not free from fear, because the security situation is still very bad.
As a side effect, in neighboring countries, (1) Saudis will hold municipal elections, (2) Qatar will allow citizens to use credit cards which were formerly forbidden under Islamic law, (3) Jordan has begun broadcasting American television programming; Friends, Sienfield, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, (4) through Coalition influence the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded (first time) to an Iranian (Muslim woman) who speaks out for human rights/democracy & peace.
(1) Municipal elections have been promised by have not yet happened. (2) According to Financial Times (via Nexis), citizens of Qatar and Lebanon used credit cards for about $500 million in purchases -- in 2002. Saudis alone spent $19 billion with credit cards -- again in 2002. "The total extent of credit card usage in the entire Arab Middle East came to $40 billion." Forbidden? Doesn't sound like it. (3) Jordan has a free-trade agreement with the United States, as of Sept. 28, 2001. It's stupid to think that Jordan wouldn't show some American television shows, since the agreement predates the Iraq war by, oh, 18 months or so. (4) Shirin Ebadi, who won the Peace Prize in 2003, had some choice words for the situation in Iraq:Moreover, a question which millions of citizens in the international civil society have been asking themselves for the past few years, particularly in recent months, and continue to ask, is this: why is it that some decisions and resolutions of the UN Security Council are binding, while some other resolutions of the council have no binding force? Why is it that in the past 35 years, dozens of UN resolutions concerning the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the state of Israel have not been implemented promptly, yet, in the past 12 years, the state and people of Iraq, once on the recommendation of the Security Council, and the second time, in spite of UN Security Council opposition, were subjected to attack, military assault, economic sanctions, and, ultimately, military occupation??Saddam is gone. And in a protected POW status so that he can't spill the beans on the U.S. involvement in his crimes.
Iraq is free. An occupied country is free?
Little or none of this information has been published by the Press Corps that prides itself on bringing you all the news that's important. Iraq, under US lead control, has come further in six months than Germany did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII. Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared. It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let alone attempt to build something else in its place.
OK. First of all, little or none of this information is accurate or even true. And the rest is spin. That's why you've not seen it published. As for military deaths in the thousands after WWII, that's an out and out lie. The only military deaths in post-WWII Germany and Japan came from things like auto accidents and illness. Don't believe me? The post-war German resistance was mostly a hoax.Tom Schlesinger, a retired Army major and professor at Plymouth State University who served in Army intelligence in occupied Germany, described the werewolves as "almost a deliberate urban myth."In Japan, it was the same. In fact, the RAND Corporation showed that the post-World War II combat deaths in occupied Germany and Japan were zero. Car bombs were not being exploded at the gates of the occupation's HQ nine months after "major combat operations are over.""I was in Germany all through the surrender and, although at lower rank, had access to all classified intelligence distribution as part of the occupation security force," Schlesinger said. "The werewolf story turned out to be mostly a hoax, perhaps some wishful thinking of a few SS officers, though it caused us a few inconveniences due to the phony alerts."
It's possible, Biddiscombe said, that some isolated werewolf cells or officers may have continued to operate for a few months after the war. Guerrilla-style attacks did take place against U.S. soldiers - stringing wires across roads to decapitate soldiers or pouring sand in gas tanks were two examples - and there were several suspicious deaths of U.S.-appointed mayors. In some towns, leaflets and posters threatened Germans who cooperated with the U.S. occupiers. But none of that activity can be directly attributed to the werewolves, historians say.
"The Army put bars on jeeps to prevent decapitation by wires, but that was the only action taken by the Army," said Farrell of Fort Leavenworth. "There's very little evidence of the werewolves offering effective resistance."
Moreover, historians say, the comparison between postwar Germany and postwar Iraq is questionable because of the scale of events taking place now in Iraq. In particular, the rate of attacks against U.S. occupation forces in Germany was lower than is the case in Iraq.
There were about 1 million U.S. troops in occupied Germany - a territory slightly smaller than Iraq - compared with nearly 150,000 U.S. troops in occupied Iraq. For the first month or two after the Nazis' surrender, there were about the same number of sabotage and sniper attacks in Germany as have taken place in postwar Iraq. But in Germany, such attacks dropped off after June 1945, a month after the surrender, and for the rest of that year deaths of U.S. troops subsided to "tens."
"Certainly, there weren't American troops dying at the rate that they are in Iraq," Biddiscombe said.
Now, take into account that many people in our government and media continue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this conflict has been a failure. Taking everything into consideration, even the unfortunate loss of our sons and daughters in this conflict, do you think any other country in the world could have accomplished as much as the United States and its coalition partners have in so short a period of time?
Go team. When you take into account that you have to resort to clumsy propaganda to buck up morale, yeah, things aren't going well. But honestly, this thing is probably a hoax and has never been sent out.The reason I spent so much time on this is that the right-wing sites like NewsMax and FreeRepublic have been trumpeting it and it will eventually make its way into the mainstream media, once Fox picks it up. Think of this post as a pre-buttal. Want to get some truth out of Iraq? Send me back. I'll report whatever I see as best I can.
I only read the first few items, but I had to chime in. Re: the Iraqi Army, that figure is probably somewhat inflated. In press conferences they toss around all kinds of optimistic numbers of Iraqis “providing security to citizens” which may include ICDC, IP, Army, or FPS, and they often include training numbers in that total as well. Just FYI.
Re: electricity, don’t forget that Saddam kept Baghdad powered up at the expense of the rest of the country. So yes, Riverbend is right, Baghdad didn’t used to have these problems, but meanwhile the Shia south was penalized with spotty electricity. The coalition decided to distribute the power more evenly around the country. Baghdadis, understandably, think their city should take precedence. “Still not enough, buddy” I wouldn’t be so hard on the coalition on this point, this is not the kind of thing that lends itself to a fast solution. Unreliable electricity is complicating security, and the CPA knows it.
Re: number of phone lines, “full service” probably refers to international lines.
The stuff about Dick Cheney on the currency is pretty over the top, and I don’t believe the bit about credit cards. Visa wants to expand in Iraq (a few merchants do accept it in Baghdad) but the Islamic ban on charging interest is a problem.
To leonsparx: even if any of these “accomplishments” were truly amazing given the awful mess the U.S. made of Iraq, would folks in your neighborhood be impressed by these living conditions? Mine wouldn’t.
Good to see a thorough analysis of this bunk. When I first read the totally screwed up list of so-called accomplishments I first thought it was another Goofus Preacherboy who thinks he’s both a man-o-god and authority on everything. Then I thought the facts trotted out were so suspect and completely at odds with proven true facts that some acne-faced 14-yr-old internet geek in his pajamas must have trumped it up to see who would swallow it. Who spells Bagdad with no “h” anymore, after we’ve so loudly incorporated Iraq into the Bush Empire??
What a sad commentary on the U.S.’s trashing of a country: that something as ridiculous as this mish-mash of certified bologna should be not only taken seriously but perpetuated by the war banshees. Go and figger. [Heavy sigh.]
Oh yes, of course, I’m sure things were much better when Saddam was in control. Torture? Mass murder So what, as long as the power is on!
ABU AL KHASIB, Iraq (CNN) — A torture chamber equipped with hooks hanging from ceilings and an on-site electrocution room has been found in the basement of an Iraqi police station, an embedded reporter with the BBC reports.
The reporter said the British Royal Marines from Alpha Company 40 Commando entered the facility — home to Saddam Hussein’s dreaded internal security police — looking for clues about local militia groups.
Weapons, maps and other documents were found in the raid in the town of Abu Al Khasib, the BBC reporter said Wednesday. But it was downstairs where they found the torture chamber.
One room was completely bare, except for two tires and an electric cable, the BBC reporter said.
He said he was told that an interrogator would use the tires to stand on, while water was poured into the room and the prisoner electrocuted.
Other rooms had hooks hanging from the ceiling, while another 1.2 meter by 2.4 meter (4 foot by 8 foot) cell was equipped with just a pillow and mattress.
The reporter said he interviewed one man, who did not want to be identified, who said prisoners were blindfolded, tied up, hung on the hooks and then beaten.
The man also said a citizen who committed a crime could avoid being tortured by putting up cash — about $1,600 for stealing, and almost twice that for murder, according to the BBC reporter.
jan, are you really suggesting that until Baghdad has all the comforts of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, our efforts to improve infrastructure there will have amounted to nothing? So if we don’t fix everything perfectly immediately, then we’ve failed? I’d hate to be your dry cleaner.
what really amazes me here is what this guy obviously thinks are desirable achievements for Iraq
-McDonald’s
-WalMart
-Satellite TV
-Playboy
-Bloomingdales
-Credit Cards
This is exemplary for how many Americans seem to misunderstand the idea of liberating Iraq as remaking Iraq in their own image. Do Iraqis really desire any of the above, first and foremost? Of course not. A majority muslim society with a very old culture of their own wants nothing more than Playboy and McDonald’s? Give me abreak.
Was it Malcolm X who first said that the ends justify the means? I doubt he saw this debate coming. The advances, great or small since the “end” of the hostilities or the real change in quality of life “post-Saddam” might seem kind of exilerating to us, at times, in a comic book hero kind of way. But keep your heads up. The “means” was not the war, the “ends” not the establishment of democratic rule.
I believe (and a belief is all it is) that any pursuit of democracy by the US has had as it’s ultimate goal the establishment of free market economy with a wide open door to US corprate capital (and thus economic hegemony). Will these “ends” justify the “means” we are witnessing?
We’ve already had the War to end all Wars.
Now we’re confronted by the Evil to end all Evils.
Pity thoughs who forget the past.
It was Machievelli who first wrote about ends justifying means, in 1513. Many of his autocratic political ideas have since fallen out of favor.
I don’t know terribly much about Malcolm X, but I understand that he developed some problems with those ideas, as well.
Ninly: Yes, thank you and no. Machievelli’s princely principles may have been handed down from autocrat to oligarch but I’m still waitng for the day when his outline for mood and opinion manipultion and his advice to resort to brutal force to maintain authority truly does fall out of favour.
Sorry, BtI, for drifting so far.
I can’t belive you were duped by this. I got an early version of this list and it’s funny how someone got a hold of it and changed it. I simply can’t belive that you were taken by some of the zingers like the one about Dick Cheney. Here are most of the changes I recognized:
and 24 judges have passed the American bar.
and most of them have teachers.
for at least ninety minutes a day.
and many of them have roofs and electricity.
and 10% have running water.
Hoosiers has opened its first restaurant in Bagdad.
Five Wallmarts are set to go up in the main cities of Iraq.
Three golf courses have been built.
and receiving a free toaster.
Despite many demands from monetory authorities Vice-President Dick Cheney turned down requests to allow his picture to be used on the currency.
The first issue of Playboy was published.
Plans have been approved to open 45 McDonalds restaurants.
Over 170,000 credit cards have been issued to qualified individuals.
Bloomingdales has been signed as the anchor store in the new Metro Bagdad Mall.
American businesses are making tremendous profits from the reconstruction to offset the expense and loss the United States suffered in the war.
Sesame Street and Barney, previously forbidden in Iraq, is now aired daily.
As a side effect, in neighboring countries, ….etc.
And in protected POW status so that he can’t spill the beans on the US involvement of his crimes.
I wasn’t “duped” by it. NewsMax and FreeRepublic were. I said I didn’t think it was real and even posted today the differences between the original and Bremer’s speech on Oct. 9. I deconstructed so others who might not know it’s fake will see the problems with it.
T: Yes. I was (narrowly) thinking in terms of the left-bent sectors of the academic establishment that study ‘The Prince,’ rather than the institutions and individuals who enact its principles. With respect to a change in that outlook and method, I heartily agree, and also apologize.
I actually think it was a hoax created by an anti-war trickster. 5 Wallmarts? Free Prozac? Playboy? Where can I get some?
My crap detector is going way off for this one. Toasters? Wal-Mart? Prozac? Somebody send this to Snopes.com. Better yet, I’m going to send this to some friends of mine at the large multisided building by the Potomac and we’ll have a good laugh.
This is NOT the real letter, but a forged copy with some “extra” crap added to discredit it.
For the un-bastardized version, visit my site..
http://www.artiefishill.com/mtblogs/thoughts/archives/001172.html#001172
One of these was going around about a month ago, and I did a lot of research on it. It was from a Lt. Col. Seitz, and was a little more factually reasonable than this one (it passed the initial, ‘laugh test’ in other words) It occured to me that the average soldier on the ground, in his ‘on the ground, in the heat of it’ wisdom, still wouldn’t be able to tell 4,518 megawatts from 2,000 or even the power supplied by a hamster attached to a 9-volt battery.
I ended up locating the source of the information- the CPA website. The fair and balanced source for news on Iraq.
No, you idiot, it was certainly NOT Malcolm X. who first said that “the ends justify the means”. That is some Richard Nixon/Henry Kissenger - type of BS.
According to Military.com’s Buddy Finder, the only “Karl Neilson” in the entire US Military is a USMC gunnery sergeant. Not exactly a chaplain…
Hey Artifish, nice refering to the original list, whilst ignoring all those on the pro-war side who have been suckered by the more sarcastic version. And well done on ignoring all the criticism above that refers to the facts that are also in the original, and are still pathetic. And finally, well done for not even bothering to check Snopes for where the original list came from, and that the view from Iraq even at the time it was first made was that “some of the information presented is true, but much of it is inaccurate or misleading. “
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/combatend.asp
But feel free to continue claiming the anti-war side were wrong about WMD, were wrong at how badly the US had planned post war Iraq, and that demanding the US stop pissing about is somehow the same as wanting Saddam back in power. You lied. You fucked up. Now at least fix it, you tossers. Enough with the “feel good” bullshit.
What the hell is a MW/day?
Tom —
We knew Saddam was a homicidal tyrant years ago and we still supported him. We knew about the mass graves and the gassing of his own people as the murders were happening and we did nothing. If these outrages weren’t enough to prompt an invasion then, how do they justify an invasion ten or fifteen years later?
MW/day = megawatts/day
Tom,
Send me your Amnesty International member number. I’ll put in a request you get a medal for your stoic and untempered stand on human rights.
Nice work. Very good digging. Thanks.
Now that it’s clear this was an altered version of a more “toned down” version, I’d like to see you (or somebody) tear down the original as well as you tore down this one. You touched on some of them, like the telephone lines thing, but too many of them were hoaxes, like the Wal-Mart thing, and too easy to discredit. I’d also like to see another parallel list of all of the disastrous results since our end to “major combat”. Then you’d see how fucking laughable it is to think there could ever be any such thing as a war waged for “humanitarian” reasons.
Artiefishill, I wish you and your kind would stop justifying this war on humanitarian grounds. Would you have us go to war with North Korea for the same reason? China? The list goes on…
MW/day = megawatts/day
Posted by: Christopher Allbritton on January 27, 2004 12:46 PM
Except that what power plants produce is Megawatts, not Megawatts/day.
Typing Megawatts/day is a display of ignorance.
The Snopes.com presentation, which shows that this probably originated from a presentation by Paul Bremer, links to a rebuttal by an Iraqi, dated Jan. 4, 2004. That rebuttal, which is quite interesting, concludes:
http://vitw.us/weblog/archives/000485.html#more
“Till this moment, we are not even close to pre-war situation. Yes we can have satellite dishes, and we have many newspapers, but put all such stuff in on one side of a balance, and absence of electricity, security, and fuel on the other, and you tell me which side will go down.The Coalition did a very lousy job. We are not asking them to admit it, but at least let them keep quite and not go bragging about it.”
That sounds like good advice.
Eh, I thought you could measure electrical consumption over time, measured in MWh and kWh (megawatt-hours and kilowatt-hours respectively), but yeah, you’re right. MW/day is kind of loopy!
Maybe it’s just restating the fact that it produced at a capacity of 4500MW (electrical power being measured sort of like air pressure, you don’t have “4500 psi/day”)… for one day.
Eh, I thought you could measure electrical consumption over time, measured in MWh and kWh (megawatt-hours and kilowatt-hours respectively), but yeah, you’re right. MW/day is kind of loopy!
Maybe it’s just restating the fact that it produced at a capacity of 4500MW (electrical power being measured sort of like air pressure, you don’t have “4500 psi/day”)… for one day.
Well alrite then!! I guess we’re about done over there and my 46 yr old brother won’t have to go afterall! Whewww!
I saw this list almost two months ago, on a site that I frequent. Thought it was a hoax then.
Funny thing is, another of the right-nutter’s on the site recently reposted it (apparently missed his compatriot’s first posting) and there were some slight additions to it. Your quoted version list has been embellished even more.
Just think…at this rate, in another thousand years, this apocryphal list may grow to form the basis of some new religion’s “Bible”…scary
In the beginning was the word, and the word was Bush…;^)
This is my favorite part:
“American businesses are making tremendous profits from the reconstruction to offset the expense and loss the United States suffered in the war.”
Um, yeah, I’m sure glad that my tax dollars are being reimbursed in the form of deposits into Dick Cheney’s bank account.
What the hell is a MW/day?
81,828,255 BTUs
20,620,426,633 Calories
863,999,999,999,999,200 Ergs
63,725,369,760 Ft. Lbs
86,400,000,000 Joules
Help any?
No, leonsparx and Tom, I was not suggesting nor insinuating the ideas in either of you gentlemen’s wild-eyed retorts. I said what I meant, that even if Bremer’s list of similar items are “accomplishments” we brag of, in return for dead American soldiers and some $300-billion, then I am not impressed nor are many thinking, taxpaying persons.
Too bad you guys fly off your handles like a pair o’ blind frisbees after read B2I posts with your eyes shut; too bad also (but predictable) that you do not sign with a true, working email address. Tsk, boyz.
I am glad that Sadaam Hussein is gone, That is good progress for me. My family escaped from our home to escape that life.
I have many freinds in Iraq still be patient, they are happy too. My father was a good man in Iraq, He was very well loved. My family are going to back to Iraq in the autumn of 2005 to start our life there again good, or bad. We belong in Iraq, now we can return. I have been in the United States for 10 years and I am thankful that I was able to learn of a free culture. I can take this knowledge home with me. The hard thing of living in the United States was to learn English. And the hard thing of leaving here is the friends I will not see.
Get a life, troublemakers. In the old days the bearer of bad news was beheaded, but now I see by your commentary drivel you already lost yours.
I am glad as an africa to hear from iraqis the good tiding and relief america has done to uproot injustice and atrocity committed by Arab leaders.
I wonder why all the arab world appreciate voilence more than peace in west africa arab influence has only end people there up as corrupt volience and terrorist.
I don’t want to blame the ordinary man because bad leadership in aspect of life is a disease that when a head bear it will effect all bodies,in their holy book of koran i did know why they should believe that ordinary man should fight for God alimghty which His wisdom supercede everything created and yet created,in sudan they like killing more than any other thing.
America has done it to bin laden and saddam and awaiting there response to Africa.
Thanks God bless you all there in iraq and gives you courage to pursue humanity and look inward to world order rather than opposing global rules on peace.
Mr.David.
Africa for true liberation.
oh dear
stupid stories about uday electrocuting the football team because they kept losing… and after this threat they kept winning .. sounds a good idea.. they should try it on the england team…
its rubbish .. a myth .. even the iraqi coach admitted this
stupid americans see things as black and white .. come on… bush didnt even know waht a shiite was until 2003 .. he’s a buffoon in charge of millions of buffoons
at least saddam has the last laugh .. america is doomed .. its financial system is in chaos .. and the end is near .. nothing lasts forever georgie boy .. up your fannie mae