Replies to post #24431 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[hap0206]

Rick -- Is this good news for you, or bad news; from your posts, it appears to be a bad day for you.
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FROM THE FRONT

'Bush Good, Saddam Bad!'
A Marine reports from Iraq, where things are far better than the media let on.

BY JOHN R. GUARDIANO
Tuesday, August 19, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

AL HILLAH, Iraq--There's more to America than New York, Washington and Los Angeles. The same is true for Iraq; there's a vast country outside Baghdad and the "Sunni triangle" that's now the center of a guerrilla campaign. It's understandable that Western press reports are fixated on attacks that kill American soldiers. But that focus is obscuring what's actually happening in the rest of the country--and it misleads the public into thinking that Iraqis are growing angry and impatient with their liberators.

In fact, there is another Iraq that the media virtually ignore. It is guarded by the First Marine Division, and, unlike Baghdad, it has been a model of success. The streets are safe, petty and violent crime are low, water and electrical services are almost universally available (albeit rationed), and ordinary Iraqis are beginning to clean up and rebuild their neighborhoods and communities. Equally important, a deep level of mutual trust and respect has developed between the Marines and the populace here in central and southern Iraq.

I know because I'm one of those Marines. My reserve unit was activated before the war, and in April my team arrived in this small city roughly 60 miles south of Baghdad. The negative media portrait of the situation in Iraq doesn't correspond with what I've seen. Indeed, we were treated as liberating heroes when we arrived four months ago, and we continue to enjoy amicable relations with the local populace.

The "Arab Street" I've meet in Iraq loves--that's not too strong of a word--America and is deeply grateful for our presence. Far from resenting the American military, most Iraqis seem to fear that we will leave too soon and that in our absence the Baath Party tyranny will resume. This sentiment is readily apparent whenever we venture into the city. We don't make it far outside of our camp before throngs of happy, smiling children greet us.

"Good, good!" they yell, as they run into the street, often oblivious to oncoming traffic. They give us a hearty thumbs-up and vigorously wave and pump their hands. They are eager to see us and to talk with us. To them, it is clear, we are heroes who liberated them from Saddam Hussein.

"Bush good, Saddam bad!" many Iraqis tell us emphatically--and repeatedly. I'm not sure how George W. Bush is faring with the American public, but he's got a lock on Al Hillah.

Iraqis routinely ask me to "thank Mr. Bush for freeing us of Saddam" and tell me, "We are very grateful, because you have freed us of our worst nightmare, Saddam Hussein." (A lot of Iraqis speak surprisingly good English because most studied it in primary and secondary school.)
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[Rick Faurot]

Ten Policemen Killed in Worsening Afghan Violence

Tue August 19, 2003 06:26 AM ET

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas have killed 10 policemen, including a provincial police chief, taking the death toll to more than 90 in one of Afghanistan's bloodiest weeks since U.S.-led forces overthrew their strict Islamic regime in 2001.

Abdul Khaliq, police chief of Logar province, and several other senior police officers from the province south of Kabul were among those killed in an ambush on Monday, Logar's military commander Fazlullah Mojadidi told Reuters.

He said the police chief had been returning from a funeral for two family members of a police officer who were killed in a rocket attack blamed on the Taliban.

"They were in their cars when the incident happened," Mojadidi said. "There is no doubt that the Taliban were behind it."

News of the attack came after police said two Afghans working for British aid agency Save the Children Fund were wounded in a Taliban attack west of the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif on Sunday, the second such incident there in two weeks.

And early on Tuesday a group of about 20 armed men raided a base of an Afghan mine clearance agency 22 miles southwest of Kabul, beat up some of its staff and stole an ambulance which they later set fire to.

Patrick Fruchet, external relations officer for the Mine Action Center, told Reuters it was unclear who was responsible.

The violence has increased doubts about the ability of the U.S.-backed government to hold elections on schedule next June.

The bloodshed comes just after NATO took command of 5,000 foreign peacekeepers in Kabul on August 11 and prompted fresh calls for the force's role to be extended into the provinces, where a 12,500-strong U.S.-led coalition has been hunting remnants of the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies.

It also comes ahead of a visit to Kabul on Thursday by Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, foreign minister of Pakistan. Pakistan is an ally in the U.S.-led "war on terror" but Afghan officials say Islamabad has been allowing an increasingly bold Taliban movement to regroup from its territory.

SCARE IN KANDAHAR

In a scare in the volatile southern city of Kandahar, two soldiers were injured, one seriously, in an explosion while shifting munitions at the house of Ahmad Wali Karzai, brother of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai.

But a local government spokesman said the incident was an accident, and the president's brother was not hurt.

Bases of the U.S.-led coalition came under attack again on Monday and Tuesday, but no casualties were reported.

Coalition bases have come under frequent rocket attack since the Taliban fell but the missiles generally miss their targets and have proven more of a nuisance than a threat.

However, at least 65 people were killed last Tuesday and Wednesday in incidents nationwide, including a bomb on a bus, a factional clash, fighting between government and Taliban guerrillas in the southeast and an ambush on a local aid group.

More than a dozen more soldiers and guerrillas were reported killed in clashes in the southeast at the weekend.

Last week, a government official called for a tripling of the size of the NATO-led international peacekeeping force and U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi also repeated a call for the Security Council to expand peacekeeping from the capital.

But Western diplomats in Kabul doubt the proposal is feasible, involving as it would the deployment of thousands more troops into a risky environment as well as high costs.

They instead advocate the coalition's deployment of more civilian-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams, but critics say such teams, some 60-70 strong, will be too weak to make a significant difference to worsening security.