March 24, 2003
AN ARMY OF LIBERATION:
'All the peasants were cheering us, even the soldiers' (National Post, 3/24/2003)
DEEP INSIDE SOUTHERN IRAQ - The triumphant road to Baghdad is littered with discarded combat boots and army uniforms, even hand grenades, as men from the Iraqi military throw away anything that could identify them as combatants....For many kilometres, civilians and soldiers were lined up, waving and blowing kisses at the passing vehicles holding U.S. Marines. Many begged for food. Each U.S. vehicle had been given two boxes of ready-to-eat rations suitable for Muslims. Some people came back for seconds, hiding the food they had already collected.
For their part, the U.S. troops were amazed at the Iraqi soldiers' behaviour.
"Canteens, grenades, abandoned positions -- they even left the Iraqi flag in place before they retreated," said 1st Sergeant Miguel Pares, a New Yorker from Spanish Harlem and the top enlisted man in Bravo company, 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division.
"I wanted that flag so bad but we had to continue moving along.
"All the peasants were cheering us, even the soldiers. They gave us the thumbs-up, they blew us kisses. I couldn't believe all the boots that were lying on the road. The soldiers just left them there."...
We have seen no resistance to speak of and no hostility -- simply, ordinary people standing by the road and, as we drove, increasing numbers of Iraqi soldiers.
"Praise be to Allah," many of them shouted, relieved at being finally delivered from more than two decades of Saddam Hussein's tyranny.
"I wasn't surprised at the reception we got," Sgt. Pares said.
"It is what I expected here. Whatever the world thinks of what we are doing, the Iraqi people view us as a force that is freeing them.
"I saw a lot of kids and I started to think of my own kids back at home. God Bless America for giving our children a chance. These kids were so thin. They sure didn't get their share of Iraq's oil money."
As past generations remembered the liberation of Paris, ours may remember the liberation of Iraq. God bless America, and God bless our troops.
MORE:
LIBERATION (Jonathan Foreman, New York Post, 3/24/2003)
[N]othing could bring home the rightness of this campaign in Iraq - and the deluded wrongness of the peace movement - like the sight that greeted the 54th Engineer Battalion (and this writer) yesterday morning in a string of small towns on Route 8 near the city of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq.In village after dusty village, the people - most presumably Shiites - rushed out to greet the troops. They lined the highway: portly older men, teenage boys, little girls in brightly colored pajamas, waving, giving the thumbs-up sign and smiling.
Bravo Company's Sgt. Roy Lee Brown III (32) of Hackensack, N.J., said, "This gives me a real good feeling. It's the first time I've ever been deployed that I've seen people so happy that we're here."
I want to see the Iraqi people on TV.
MORE:
Best of the Web Today has good liberation stories.
I think the belief that the Iraqis will cheer Coalition forces all the way through the invasion is a tad optimistic.
For most of them Hussein's rule has all they've ever known and they're probably used to his abominable tyranny.
Most Iraqis will probably be hoping they won't be caught in the crossfire more than anything else.
As a sidepoint why do people keep referring to Hussein by his first name?
Because we're provincial nitwits?
Posted by: oj at March 24, 2003 5:00 PMSpeaking of first names, am I right to address you as "Ali," as opposed to, say, Mr. Choudhury or Mr. M?
Posted by: Paul Jaminet at March 24, 2003 6:35 PMAli's fine, pj.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at March 25, 2003 3:07 AMM Choudhury;
Because there are many Husseins but few Saddams. Aren't the Hashemites in Jordan Husseins as well?
I read, but mostly forgot, a discussion of this. If I got it right, Hussein is not a family or surname in the English sense, while Saddam indicates (to a Tikriti, anyway) which gang he comes from.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 25, 2003 7:24 PM