If you were an Iraqi?

If you were a citizen of Iraq, and your country had been occupied for so long, would you support the U.S. or consider violent action? I don't know what I would do personally. I would want change and democracy, but would sure be getting livid about the number of civilian deaths. We all know what would happen to a nation that tried to invade the U.S., but let us consider being in another set of shoes. A horrible dictator of your country was removed, but people you know and love are dying. Could you justify supporting the U.S.? I am a VERY new member, but the level of intellectual reflection amongst the ATS readership really impresses me. I hope I get to hear some different points of view. If this has been done before I am sorry, I tried to search.

reply to post by Raustin


If a foreign military stormed my neighborhood, I'd be out there fighting back just like the Iraqi citizens (I mean terrorists..)

If they sent bombs into your city killing family and friends, and destroying businesses for the sake of some "terrorist threat"... wouldn't you be upset?

I'd be considered an insurgent

What about the foreign Islamic fighters fighting for your freedom? Blowing up markets, mosques and terrorising those who cooperate with the foreign military forces what would you do?

What are the Sunni Arabs doing right now with the military? They target American troops and now they are working for them. If I was Islamic fighter I deemed them traitors and kill their families to teach others a lesson.

I think I would welcome the U.S. for a while as long as I knew it was temporary and I would be grateful to the USA. Iraq has a huge surplus of money now and also new infrastructure. In addition, this is what we were told:

For over 20 years, the greatest threat to Iraqis has been Saddam Hussein's regime -- he has killed, tortured, raped and terrorized the Iraqi people and his neighbors for over two decades

Under Saddam's regime many hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of his actions - the vast majority of them Muslims.

According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, "victims of torture in Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks... some victims have died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage."

Saddam has had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered.

Allegations of prostitution used to intimidate opponents of the regime, have been used by the regime to justify the barbaric beheading of women.

Documented chemical attacks by the regime, from 1983 to 1988, resulted in some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths.

Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam's 1987-1988 campaign of terror against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds. o The Iraqi regime used chemical agents to include mustard gas and nerve agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages between 1987-1988. The largest was the attack on Halabja which resulted in approximately 5,000 deaths. o 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of terror.

Iraq's 13 million Shi'a Muslims, the majority of Iraq's population of approximately 22 million, face severe restrictions on their religious practice, including a ban on communal Friday prayer, and restriction on funeral processions.

According to Human Rights Watch, "senior Arab diplomats told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October [1991] that Iraqi leaders were privately acknowledging that 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings, with most of the casualties in the south." Refugees International reports that the "Oppressive government policies have led to the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis, primarily Kurds who have fled to the north to escape Saddam Hussein's Arabization campaigns (which involve forcing Kurds to renounce their Kurdish identity or lose their property) and Marsh Arabs, who fled the government's campaign to dry up the southern marshes for agricultural use. More than 200,000 Iraqis continue to live as refugees in Iran."

The U.S. Committee for Refugees, in 2002, estimated that nearly 100,000 Kurds, Assyrians and Turkomans had previously been expelled, by the regime, from the "central-government-controlled Kirkuk and surrounding districts in the oil-rich region bordering the Kurdish controlled north."

"Over the past five years, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died of malnutrition and disease, preventively, but died because of the nature of the regime under which they are living." (Prime Minister Tony Blair, March 27, 2003) o Under the oil-for-food program, the international community sought to make available to the Iraqi people adequate supplies of food and medicine, but the regime blocked sufficient access for international workers to ensure proper distribution of these supplies. o Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces have discovered military warehouses filled with food supplies meant for the Iraqi people that had been diverted by Iraqi military forces.

The Iraqi regime has repeatedly refused visits by human rights monitors. From 1992 until 2002, Saddam prevented the UN Special Rapporteur from visiting Iraq.

The UN Special Rapporteur's September 2001, report criticized the regime for "the sheer number of executions," the number of "extrajudicial executions on political grounds," and "the absence of a due process of the law."

Executions: Saddam Hussein's regime has carried out frequent summary executions, including: o 4,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 1984 o 3,000 prisoners at the Mahjar prison from 1993-1998 o 2,500 prisoners were executed between 1997-1999 in a "prison cleansing campaign" o 122 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in February/March 2000 o 23 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2001 o At least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001

I wish we could be true liberators, but I think we crossed the line along time ago. I hear people blaming soldiers for the deaths, but I blame a higher power. We messed up on the intelligence, we messed up on the execution, and we messed up on the targets. I made up my mind, I would be an insurgent too. Just the thought of a foreign power making decisions about what the acceptable loss of life would be to capture terrorist leaders makes me shudder. I hope I can hear some more opinions and I appreciate what I have heard so far.

reply to post by SailorinAZ


WOW, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe the info supplied is accurate. I am too tired to research right now. After writing I would be an insurgent, I think I just changed my mind. How can these things still be happening? I wish the worse atrocity nowadays could be someone calling me an idiot on my blog! Thank you for these thoughts. What an evil govt., I hope we made it better. It's so hard to know what is actually going on, but I have faith in my countrymen. I hope we can show them a better way.

Yep, I'd have been an insurgent... a damn fine one.

reply to post by Raustin


Well I would chose the presence of US troops over Islamic nut jobs whose only interest is killing there fellow country man . The bogus claims about the insurgency in Iraq being freedom fighters either come from ignorant people who would swollow such a line just to oppose the war or people who openly support terrorists . I would also hope to high hell that the quality of training and screening of the Iraqi army and local security forces improves vastly .

Cheers xpert11.

First,allow me to reframe your questaion this way.
Our president GW.Bush approval rate is about 22 % ,which means we have
over 75% of the American people don't like him as a president.
Would you allow another countries to bring their troops & take control of our country in order to remove our president to make us happy ?
I don't know about you but I'LL NOT ALLOW ANY FOREIGN TROOPS TO
ATTACK MY COUNTRY 4 ANY REASON.
Here's a better answer from a former American soldier

:www.youtube.com...