The Iraq Thread 2

[WhoCares 0]

Things are getting a little hot in here. May I suggest before the next post some people direct some aggression at this?!

[FSPilot 0]

You lied because you tried to pass off a story as true that you knew was already disproven.

[denoir 0]

You lied because you tried to pass off a story as true that you knew was already disproven.

FFS you can at least bother to make a simple search on google or any news site. Collins has not been cleared. His case is still under full investigation.

[FSPilot 0]

Not according to ralph

Quote[/b] ]Ralph:

old news Bals, and IIRC, he was cleared of charges.

[denoir 0]

IIRC stands for "If I Recall Correctly" which he clearly does not. Note that he did said "IIRC, he was cleared of charges" and not "he was clear of charges".

So your whole case of calling Bals a liar is what another member recollects of the event.

Beautiful. You have outdone yourself FSPilot.

[bn880 5]

We can all be mislead by what the media reports... it's not that we are lying knowingly, it's just that the media can twist facts and misinfrom people.

[FSPilot 0]

Did you read the rest of it?

Quote[/b] ]Ralph:

old news Bals, and IIRC, he was cleared of charges.

Balschoiw:

I know

[bn880 5]

I'm afraid the pressure on you FSPilot is leading you to make desperate accusations. Take a deep breath and relax.

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]Did you read the rest of it?

So?   What difference does it make? He made very clear that he posted the story as an illustration of what is happening. If he was cleared by an biased Army inquiry (which he will be anyhow for certain) is quite irrelevant.

Anyhow, I'll leave you to continue your flame baiting. I want no part of it.

In other news, the pictures of Saddam's boys have been released. I must say that I am a bit surprised that they decided to show them (although I think it is good that they did). Do you rememeber the official outrage when Al-Jazeera showed the pictures of the dead US troops? Do you remember how Al-Jazeera got bocotted for showing the pictures?

I don't see how this is any different.

[Balschoiw 0]

FS if you are up to it ok.

If you quote me, quote me in context.

Quote[/b] ]I know but I didnt find a better one in the hurry

If you want to make a case of it go for it. If you call me a liar again I will contact mods. It´s that easy.

You´re not right and you´re not calling me a liar on this forum.

[FSPilot 0]

bn880

Quote[/b] ]I'm afraid the pressure on you FSPilot is leading you to make desperate accusations.

Take a deep breath and relax.

TERRORIST!!!  

[FSPilot 0]

FS if you are up to it ok.

If you quote me, quote me in context.

Quote[/b] ]I know but I didnt find a better one in the hurry  

If you want to make a case of it go for it. If you call me a liar again I will contact mods. It´s that easy.

You´re not right and you´re not calling me a liar on this forum.

First off, I never called you a "liar". Second, the rest of what you said doesn't change the context of it. It's just some excuse you came up with.

[Tovarish 0]

First off, I never called you a "liar".  Second, the rest of what you said doesn't change the context of it.  It's just some excuse you came up with.

Wow man, that's classic, a denial and a defense of the same accusation back to back  

P.S. Now you're the liar:

Quote[/b] ]Balschoiw, if you didn't want to be called a liar you shouldn't of lied to me.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

FS if you are up to it ok.

If you quote me, quote me in context.

Quote[/b] ]I know but I didnt find a better one in the hurry  

If you want to make a case of it go for it. If you call me a liar again I will contact mods. It´s that easy.

You´re not right and you´re not calling me a liar on this forum.

First off, I never called you a "liar".  Second, the rest of what you said doesn't change the context of it.  It's just some excuse you came up with.

Now it is you lying, and there is prove all over the last two pages. An example:

Quote[/b] ]Balschoiw, if you didn't want to be called a liar you shouldn't of lied to me.

Another quote towards the bottom of the previous page.

I want you, FSPilot, to back out of this discussion for one day and think about what just happened. I do not wish to see another post of yours in this thread for 24 hrs.

When you come back you will post no more of this lying rubbish. Similarly, I do not with anyone else to bring this issue up.

I thought this is a mature forum for mature readers, instead we have members going "You're a liar, ner ner" and "No, but you are, ner ner" as if you were in kindergarten.

I suggest this thread stays on topic, or it will be closed. A warning has been added to this topic.

[Die Alive 0]

Uday Hussein looks lot fatter when he's dead than his living photos

-=Die Alive=-

[Akira 0]

In other news, the pictures of Saddam's boys have been released. I must say that I am a bit surprised that they decided to show them (although I think it is good that they did). Do you rememeber the official outrage when Al-Jazeera showed the pictures of the dead US troops? Do you remember how Al-Jazeera got bocotted for showing the pictures?

I don't see how this is any different.

From the interviews of the Iraqi citizens that I've seen on numerous and seperate broadcasts, they all said they wanted to see the pictures. They expressly said, I want to see them for proof. For my own eyes.

From what I gathered that is why the US did it. Also saw a news story (one) that said U may have shot himself. I haven't seen it anywhere else so we will see.

[ralphwiggum 6]

Quote[/b] ]In other news, the pictures of Saddam's boys have been released. I must say that I am a bit surprised that they decided to show them (although I think it is good that they did). Do you rememeber the official outrage when Al-Jazeera showed the pictures of the dead US troops? Do you remember how Al-Jazeera got bocotted for showing the pictures?

As Akira said, Iraqis wanted to see the picture. This is classic catch-22 situation. If you don't give undestandable proof, they will assume unproven. but only way to tell the truth is the hard way.

edit: DO NOT POST THE IMAGE HERE!

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

What I would like to know is, why are they showing them on Fox and Sky etc.? The average Iraqi will most likely have no TV that is working...

Plus, the pictures are for the Iraqi's benefit, not for ours

[Balschoiw 0]

White house hopes that the fuss about saddams sons will

distract form the questions the president still has to answer.

That´s a big part why, I guess.

EDIT: They have a feed on cnn.com about that, but it is for subscribers only.

[theavonlady 2]

edit: DO NOT POST THE IMAGE HERE!

Not even for Iraqi forum members?

[Longinius 1]

What really confuses me is, if it matters.

How many common people can say if thats Saddams sons or not? I mean, really be sure of it? I sure can't. So it doesnt matter to me one bit, I just cant say for sure if that is them or not.

[denoir 0]

From the interviews of the Iraqi citizens that I've seen on numerous and seperate broadcasts, they all said they wanted to see the pictures. They expressly said, I want to see them for proof. For my own eyes.

From what I gathered that is why the US did it.

Absolutely, I fully understand why they did it. I also understand why the Iraqis showed the dead US soldiers. I was just pointing out the similarity of the two situations.

Anyhow, I doubt that the photographs will convince many Iraqis. I looked at the pictures and they are irrecognizable, at least to me. With some imagination you could possibly recognize Qusey. Uday looks completely different. It could be because his face seems to have been damaged.

Normally I would have said that there is no way anybody would be so stupid to lie about their deaths, but considering the other gross and obvious lies we have been fed before, I'll remain neutral in this. I'd still like to see some DNA tests.

Then again the fundamental question of who and what you can trust is still there. TBA has shown that they are willing to go to exceptional lengths to distort the truth. How can we, considering their prior record trust anything that has them as a single source?  

Anyway, here's an interesting AFP article about how conspiracy theories are popular in Iraq:

Quote[/b] ]Saddam Hussein is tanning in Tel Aviv; his wife Sajida and three daughters are sipping tea in their mansion in Leeds, England; and his sons Uday and Qusay are gambling in Monte Carlo.

Such wild conspiracy theories, widely believed by ordinary Iraqis, are why Washington released what it said were photographs of Saddam's slain sons amid great fanfare on Thursday.

"It's a show," laughs sculptor Mohammed Ghani Hikmat about Uday and Qusay's deaths, announced by the US military on Tuesday.

"Everyone is talking. Some people say the family is in England. Some people say Morocco. Some people say they're in America."

The deaths of Uday and Qusay, whose names became bywords for the cruelty of the ousted regime, was, to many, the ultimate proof of a secret pact between the United States and Saddam.

Welcome to the tired and feverish minds of Baghdadis, humiliated by war and occupation, hateful of their old ruler and distrustful of the new.

In an atmosphere redolent of post-World War One Berlin, where Germans believed their country had been sold out by Jews and foreigners, Baghdad today is rife with conspiracy theories as people ooze a palpable sense of defeat.

Ali Abdul Hassan Haidar, 52, and Nasser Hindi, 50, chainsmoke and play backgammon in the Umm Khathoum coffee shop. Both men hail from Iraq's Shiite majority, long oppressed under Saddam. They have many reasons to be happy about the strongman's overthrow.

But they are sceptical about the four-hour battle in Mosul between 200 US forces and Uday and Qusay, that ended with tank shells and a dozen heat-seeking missiles pulverising the luxurious mansion where they were hidden away.

To them, the last stand of Uday and Qusay has the whiff of a sell-out, just like Baghdad's swift fall to the Americans on April 9.

"There are a lot of possibilities," says Haidar.

"Maybe the Americans pretended to kill them to get them out of the country in order to reduce the resistance," he said.

Haidar suggests the Americans are paying Saddam to sabotage the country's electricity and oil pipelines to slow down the pace of rebuilding, allowing them to entrench themselves deeper into Iraq.

"Maybe it's part of the deal," he says.

To hammer home his point, Hindi show off the front page of the Islamist newspaper, Iraqi Life, which carries a story about an alleged phone conversation between US President George W. Bush and Saddam just hours before US air strikes rang in the war on March 20.

Bush tells Saddam: "You are to obey what our agent in Baghdad tells you. Keep holding military meetings and appearing on TV. You must not worry, our agent in Baghdad will get you out safe. Have all your belongings packed."

On a busy shopping street in Baghdad's Karrada district, Fallahan Hassan, 33, has just finished selling two refrigerators and a water cooler to US soldiers. They smile and exchange handshakes.

But as soon as they leave, Hassan says: "I don't want anything to do with them."

He hates Saddam -- 10 of his relatives disappeared in the 1980s -- but he suspects the Americans are here for oil, to control Islam and protect Israel.

"Why did Iraq fall in 20 days and three months later, they still haven't arrested the president?" he asks.

"Saddam is their secret agent."

One of his customers, Iyad Al-Mussawi, chimes in: "Maybe he's in Tel Aviv. He's been their agent since 1980."

Inside a cramped studio, plastics artist Fuad Haman, 41, guesses the two-day delay in showing pictures of Uday and Qusay comes from the elaborate preparations to fake their corpses.

"In a photo, you would never notice the difference," says Haman, an expert at making near-life plaster replicas of people.

[FallenPaladin 0]

"The degree of mistrust and paranoia in Iraq is unbelievable." - Paul Wolfowitz

[theavonlady 2]

One of his customers, Iyad Al-Mussawi, chimes in: "Maybe he's in Tel Aviv. He's been their agent since 1980."

Sure! We had him over for lemon meringue pie and milk just last week. The kids just love to tweek his mustache but tweek too hard and he goes loco!

[Harnu 0]

Quote[/b] ]Anyhow, I doubt that the photographs will convince many Iraqis. I looked at the pictures and they are irrecognizable, at least to me. With some imagination you could possibly recognize Qusey. Uday looks completely different. It could be because his face seems to have been damaged.

Uday (He's the semi bald one right? Or am I getting them confused again ) I was able to recognize right away. The only thing that really seemed different was that he now had a beard. Or am I just nuts?