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General Geiger · 9 Apr 2003, 19:28

I wouldn't call the scenes I – and no doubt you – have watched, joyous. That guy’s face; the one they fix the camera on. The chubby-cheeked fellow who's chanting his head off. He looks at the camera, and from a close look at his face you can see what he's thinking: That b*stard won't be able to kill any more of my friends.

So I wouldn't call them joyous. What I saw filled me with a shadow of the emotion they must be feeling - a kind of burning, purifying fury, an afterimage of the vivifying mob rage that rose to a crescendo like elation as that statue came crashing down in what looked to me like a final bow; a bronze flourish, signifying the passing of an era. A bad era, maybe, but an era nevertheless. Saddam bowed to his people - one thing they thought they'd never see him do - before they swarmed over him and smashed him to pieces, tore off his head and dragged it through the streets of their pulverised and impoverished capital, one man riding it like some strange steed, beating it with his shoe.

It strikes me how very symbolic of Saddam’s final fall that moment was. It signified the last twelve years in under an hour, to me. Saddam first cracked on his foundations - the First Gulf War; then he slowly tipped to one side – a decade and more of sanctions, inspections and airstrikes; then he hung in midair, bizarrely tilted on his stone platform – his position at the start of the Second Gulf War, needing a good final heave to topple him. And finally, his sudden and precipitous crash to the ground, the statue’s raised arm sweeping down through the air like a last bowing out, and hundreds of his own people swarming over him and beating him with their shoes. That last, five second fall was to the previous half-hour as the last three weeks have been to the preceding twelve years. He fell, and his people were, finally, in their own eyes, liberated.

What finally brought a trickle of liquid from my right eye was when a British Lance-Corporal was being interviewed by the BBC. He talked about how he knew some Arabic, and what the people in the crowds were chanting, and how he was proud to be a part of this, and how the raising of the US flag over the statue shortly before it toppled was probably excusable. Then – and this is the subtle touch that brought tears to my eyes – after he finished, I was looking at his lips, as I’ve become rather fixated with doing recently. I distinctly lipread, on those two mobile red lines in his face, Have I said the right thing? And somehow that brought liquid out my tear ducts. I got up and went into the kitchen, laughing and saying, ‘Yes mate. You’ve said the right thing. You said exactly the right thing. You’ve done brilliantly. Well done.’

All those anti-war demonstrators, you can just f*ck off home with your thumbs up your a*ses. This was worth tens of thousands of lives to see. To see a quarter of a century of repressed hatred detonating in a human roar of liberated gratitude made my heart surge; I wept with joy, in the privacy of my living room. We were a part of this. I'm proud to be British.

I think of this as the antithesis of September 11th. How could those who perpetrated that crowning act of barbarism (I visited those buildings, for God’s sake) have known that they would spur into motion a call to arms that would free two nations – many millions of people - from the yolk of repression? How could they have been aware that the snuffing out of three thousand lives would have set rolling a ball that would free populations, and save hundreds of thousands from early, brutal graves? Without Osama Bin Laden, none of this would have been possible. Three cheers for him, wherever the hell he is, the unwitting saviour of twenty million Iraqis.

And that’s my initial surge of feeling on this matter. Now – in the words of Jack Ryan, at the end of Tom Clancy’s novel Executive Orders: “Let’s get to work.”

Marilyn Manson · 9 Apr 2003, 19:32

That's worthy of The Sun, that is.

*Me jumps in my car, shoots a few shots into the air and shouts "Death to The Commies! Death to Saddam!" before driving off into the sunset.*

Kal_Zakath · 9 Apr 2003, 19:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
"Death to The Commies! Death to Saddam!"

Marilyn Manson · 9 Apr 2003, 19:40

I was sarcastically imitating the general loss of all higher cognitive functions, and the reduction of the whole event to unbridled emotion and pathos, y'know.

Snurx · 9 Apr 2003, 19:42

The nice thing, is that all the nice medias does not portray the what the rest of bagdadh does. Come on, there were no more then a thousand or so in that crowd. In a city whit 4.5 million, if my memory serves me correctly.

(Props to CNN, who actually mentioned that)

General Geiger · 9 Apr 2003, 19:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
I was sarcastically imitating the general loss of all higher cognitive functions, and the reduction of the whole event to unbridled emotion and pathos, y'know.

Really? I thought I was the only one!

I still want to know what's happened to the Iraqi Minister of Information, though. He was cool.

Cmdr_Cyrax · 9 Apr 2003, 19:56

'Quick, look happy or those christian bastards will kill us too.'

:eek:

Marilyn Manson · 9 Apr 2003, 19:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Cmdr_Cyrax
'Quick, look happy or those christian bastards will kill us too.'
:eek:

*Me beats you up a bit for 'spoiling' the occasion.*

Also.

Did you write a letter to Bizare, or was it some other Cmdr_Cyrax?

Cmdr_Cyrax · 9 Apr 2003, 20:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
*Me beats you up a bit for 'spoiling' the occasion.*

Also.

Did you write a letter to Bizare, or was it some other Cmdr_Cyrax?

fk!
they published it!

what did they say?
I'm having problems getting hold of the mag (I live in wiltshire)
fking puritans.

General Geiger · 9 Apr 2003, 20:08

It was worth it.

Marilyn Manson · 9 Apr 2003, 20:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Cmdr_Cyrax
fk!
they published it!

what did they say?
I'm having problems getting hold of the mag (I live in wiltshire)
fking puritans.

I bet it wasn't you. I bet you're just saying it.

Also: I can't remember. I sure it was something profound and memorable.

Marilyn Manson · 9 Apr 2003, 20:10

Quote:

Originally posted by General Geiger
It was worth it.

Not if you're fatty Joe, Saddam's rubber pot plant, it wasn't.

Think of good 'ole fatty joe!

Cmdr_Cyrax · 9 Apr 2003, 20:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
I bet it wasn't you. I bet you're just saying it.

Also: I can't remember. I sure it was something profound and memorable.

Well it was ages ago.
Wasn't it something about a free pen?

p.s. Does this now rate me as '

'?

Marilyn Manson · 9 Apr 2003, 20:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Cmdr_Cyrax
Well it was ages ago.
Wasn't it something about a free pen?

I believe so, as far as I remember. *Strains his memory*

Quote:

Originally posted by Cmdr_Cyrax
p.s. Does this now rate me as ' '?

Oh, absolutely. You are the man. You are the **** of the roost.

Nodrog · 9 Apr 2003, 20:15

Quote:

Originally posted by General Geiger
It was worth it.

How can you possibly say it was worth it, until the medium/long term consequences (both positive and negative) come to light?

Marilyn Manson · 9 Apr 2003, 20:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Nodrog
How can you possibly say it was worth it, until the medium/long term consequences (both positive and negative) come to light?

It was worth it to see the tear in that child's face, to see the toppling of Saddam's statue by the irate masses, to see the smoke drift over Baghdad, to see the glint in the old woman's eye by moonlight on her first evening as a free human.

Nod. We're not working with rational calculations here. Get with the program.

Liberalism is so 1870's.

Emperorn · 9 Apr 2003, 20:22

If Soviet had invaded USA, I bet there would have been 200 american commies cheering the toppling of the statue of liberty.

After all, New York is full of hard-core leftists and whiny liberals who hate America and what it stands for, is it not?

Cmdr_Cyrax · 9 Apr 2003, 20:22

Quote:

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
Oh, absolutely. You are the man. You are the **** of the roost.

i'm still waiting for saddam to launch those two missiles into isreal.
Damn inaccurate flash movies

General Geiger · 10 Apr 2003, 13:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Nodrog
How can you possibly say it was worth it, until the medium/long term consequences (both positive and negative) come to light?

I speak in a selfish emotional context. The last three weeks of grim battle and death was all made up for, in my heart, by the welling gush of feeling that flooded me as that statue crashed down, and those hundreds of liberated, furious young men unleashed a lifetimes worth of rage and hatred on an image of their ex-dictator. It felt worth it. Whether that means it was worth it is a different matter entirely, and not a question I pretent to know the answer of.

Sub · 10 Apr 2003, 14:32

Appealing to emotion makes an arguement better.

Marilyn Manson · 10 Apr 2003, 14:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Sub
Appealing to emotion makes an arguement better.

It's makes it more effective in the minds of most people, which is to say, stupid people.

Sub · 10 Apr 2003, 14:40

I start fires.

Radical Edward · 10 Apr 2003, 15:10

MM, thanks for your contributions to this thread, you should be a writer for Have I Got News For You or something..... the quality of your posting has gone up a hundredfold since your stopped being a Mod... it was the best decision you ever made

fkin hilarious, ace, cool... you are it all

Snurx · 10 Apr 2003, 15:16

Whoohooh! Thousand of bagdadh's 4.5 million people are celebrating!

Radical Edward · 10 Apr 2003, 15:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Snurx
Whoohooh! Thousand of bagdadh's 4.5 million people are celebrating!

I thought it was 1.5 ....

or is that 4.5 a pre conflict number?

Dead_Meat · 10 Apr 2003, 15:30

I thought it highly amusing that one of the men jumping on Saddam's statue was beating it with his shoe.

Man With Shoe: 'Take that, and that, and this, and that.......'
Bystander One: 'Ooooh, he got him right on the nose with his heel, that's got to hurt'
Man With Shoe: '........and that, and this, and that.......'
Bystander Two: 'I need to get me one of those shoes, I feel the terrible weight of repression lifted with each blow of his Hush Puppies'

It wasn't until later I found out it's some sort of insult, almost as saying 'you're a fag' on the Intraweb, in Islamic countries.

Who'd have thought it eh? Someone go find that loony Muslim cleric that's been deported and slap him outside the nose with a size twelve Doc Marten boot. I'm sure he'll be distraught, plus have a broken nose/face to think about on the way back to WHEREVER YOU CAME FROM YOU FAT SHEIT.

Marilyn Manson · 10 Apr 2003, 15:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Dead_Meat
I thought it highly amusing that one of the men jumping on Saddam's statue was beating it with his shoe.

Man With Shoe: 'Take that, and that, and this, and that.......'
Bystander One: 'Ooooh, he got him right on the nose with his heel, that's got to hurt'
Man With Shoe: '........and that, and this, and that.......'
Bystander Two: 'I need to get me one of those shoes, I feel the terrible weight of repression lifted with each blow of his Hush Puppies'

Nikita Kruschev sighted in Baghdad; everyone baffled.

Snurx · 10 Apr 2003, 15:38

Quote:

Originally posted by WorkMonkey
1) Government area, not many civvies there.
2) News still hasnt probably reached all areas of Baghdad that he's actually out of power, Iraq TV offline, and even then not everyone has TV
3) BBC reporter said that thousands of people in cars were trying to get there but the Americans had blocked off the square, and I guess they didnt want to leave their cars.

That was NOT what i heard, on CNN, just as it happened. Of course, they said so earlier, but not at the presise moment when it was live.

It's in the hotel area, where many poor people work. The square whit the statue lies just beside the Palestine hotel, the hotel that the most jounralists stay at. (If my memory serves me right) The most people that demonstrated where of the poorest in bagdadh, the muslims that goes the other way then Saddam. (And to my utter horror, i do not know which way the respective people go!

)
Of course, im not saying Saddam is a folk-hero, but the American's are not either. Most Iraqis i know (And that is, in fact, many) despise Saddam, but despse Bush more, and therefore, the "American way", the words of a friend.
Of course, when they win, they're gonna get cheered. But not for long. The american hate grows every day, in the arab world. And if they put in the muppets they have put forward as candidates (for president/prime minister) theyre gonna get trouble.
Besides, the Iraqis are leared up to cheer at the winner's, or get shot...do you think they can (as a mass group) change that way of thinking in a day? Or, maybe they are demonstrating in fear for getting killed, if they dont, as they would under Saddam.

(Understand this: Im not for Saddam, not at all, but im more against the US)

Radical Edward · 10 Apr 2003, 15:44

snurx - I think your suggestions regarding why the people there were cheering is a bit far off the mark. These people are, more than likely, genuinely pleased to see Saddam go - but it is that that they are cheering, rather than the fact that they have been "liberated" by the US. There will be some element of thankfulness about it I suspect, but the general attitude would probably be more along the lines of "thanks for getting rid of saddam, now you can go home" since that seems to be the one I hear the most.

I sincerely hope that the US does good for Iraq in this post-liberation era, otherwise people are REALLY going to hate them.