Children freed from prison

[Undertoad]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...n_030408163048

Around 150 children spilled out of the jail after the gates were opened as a US military Humvee vehicle approached, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla told an AFP correspondent travelling with the Marines 5th Regiment.

"Hundreds of kids were swarming us and kissing us," Padilla said.

"There were parents running up, so happy to have their kids back."

"The children had been imprisoned because they had not joined the youth branch of the Baath party," he alleged. "Some of these kids had been in there for five years."

The children, who were wearing threadbare clothes and looked under-nourished, walked on the streets crossing their hands as if to mimic handcuffs, before giving the thumbs up sign and shouting their thanks.

htey are ovbiously makign htis stuff up. Propagadna!

[elSicomoro]

Hmmm...not sure if it's propagadna, but I would say it's propaganda to a degree.

Nevertheless, it's always good to hear these type of stories. Who says news can't be positive?

[Undertoad]

Propaganda? Mais non, c'est impossible, this one is a wire story from the AFP... or "l'Agence France-Presse", by its full name.

[Griff]

Propaganda?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

... is what we get out of Baghdad Bob if he comes down with a really bad stuffy nose.

[Petyr]

But of corse people saw propaganda coming (This was posted before the war began). Cynical, yes, but eerie now that some of it is coming to pass.

-Petyr

[Elspode]

Well, now that I've read this article you linked to, I realize that everything is a lie and we are oppressing the innocent and noble Iraqi people, forcing our imperialist power and goals of world domination upon a peaceful and bucolic land in the midst of the noble desert. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Wait! No! I just reread the article about Iraqi torture and saw the pictures on the news of thousands of Iraqis celebrating like they'd won the World Cup or something important like that! We must be good guys!

But then...what about Peter Arnett's comments? He *must* know the real truth about our forces and the problems we're having, right?! Our government must have silenced him!

I'll bet there are pictures out there somewhere of American soldiers with wriggling baby Iraqis on their bayonets, we're just not being allowed to see them.

But then what about all those happy Iraqis embracing our troops?

I'm so confused. Someone please tell me the truth..??

[juju]

Usually, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I'm willing to bet that the anti-war protesters have good reasons for mistrusting the U.S. government and war in general. However, it IS an evil, Stalinesque regime. So I think in this case, the U.S. is accidentally doing a good thing.

[Petyr]

Don't get me wrong. Its not that I'm anti-war. I just feel that its a damned if you do and damned if you don't thing. I can understand that its probably going to be a good thing that we get him out of there, but ultimately a lot of good people on both sides will die because of it.

Because, lets face it, its not like the Iraqi army had much of a choice in whether to serve or not. And we've given the Iraqi people good reason to not believe that Saddam is gone until they see it. Ultimately thats why the whole "shock and awe" thing didn't work. Whether they were shocked or awe'd isn't the point. They'd get beaten/killed if they said anything out of line.

But, then again, why aren't we going to help out the people in Congo? Millions have died there too, and conditions are worse there....

-Petyr

[Elspode]

I think that's where we hit the line of "how much threat are they to us?"

You could make a fair case for the madman in Iraq spilling over and allowing things to occur in his country which could threaten the US. I'm not sure you can make that connection with The Congo just yet...but give it time.

[jaguar]

I think that's where we hit the line of "how much threat are they to us?"

So why aren't troops knocking down statues of Kim Il Jung?
Its hard to oppose this war, the lieration of the Iraqi people is after all a good thing. What makes me ill is not the war itself but the philosophy behind it, this stupid, niave, imperialist neo-con bullshit about spreading democracy by stomping all over the middle east, i mean Time is talking about discussion of rollingon to Syria and Iran for crying out loud, that something could even be suggested by *anyone* in power suggests an utterly insane point of view. Every time the west has weighed into the middle east they've fucked things up even further, this (sadly) will be no different, I have a horrible feeling that Egyptian diplomat's comment about this creating 100 Osamas is going to be right.

Originally posted by jaguar
So why aren't troops knocking down statues of Kim Il Jung?

Will this question go away? I've already pointed out to you exactly why troops are not in North Korea. It must have been two months now since I've written that and I've seen this question five or six times. The United States <b>does not have a military option in DPRK.</b>

[jaguar]

I was reponding to:

I think that's where we hit the line of "how much threat are they to us?"

What threat *does* Saddam pose, i mean really they've cornered the guy and *still* no sign of a single chemical or biological weapon, clearly he's a massive threat..... The point is if you're talking threats Saddam was far from number one, irrispective of military possabilities. All it does is prove that this war is the brainchild of morons like wolferwitz who ahve had an axe to grind for a decade or more and little to do with realpolitik.

But it hardly proves that, though. Your question was, and I'm quoting here, "So why aren't troops knocking down statues of Kim Il Jung?", and I'm saying that it's irrelevant, because it is not a possibility. Yes, of course DPRK is a serious threat, and perhaps a bigger one than Saddam (we simply will <b>never know</b>), but it's one that cannot be dealt with via military options right now. Why ask the question if it's an impossibility?