Forget Vietnam--Iraqi soccer star says he'd be an insurgent...

[A_Possum]

if he didn't play soccer.

Let's focus on NOW for a minute. Drop the smearvets and LOOK AT WHAT THESE GUYS ARE SAYING...

"My problems are not with the American people," says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad. "They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything. The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?"

Sadir, Wednesday's goal-scorer, used to be the star player for the professional soccer team in Najaf..."I want the violence and the war to go away from the city," says Sadir, 21. "We don't wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away."

Manajid, 22, who nearly scored his own goal with a driven header on Wednesday, hails from the city of Fallujah. He says coalition forces killed Manajid's cousin, Omar Jabbar al-Aziz, who was fighting as an insurgent, and several of his friends. In fact, Manajid says, if he were not playing soccer he would "for sure" be fighting as part of the resistance.

"I want to defend my home. If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that mean they are terrorists?" Manajid says. "Everyone has been labeled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq."

When the Games are over, though, Coach Hamad says, they will have to return home to a place where they fear walking the streets. "The war is not secure," says Hamad, 43. "Many people hate America now. The Americans have lost many people around the world--and that is what is happening in America also."

*******

Why are we letting this be relegated to Sports Illustrated, for heaven's sake, while the Smearboats cover the headlines? These guys are the big stars of the moment, and the headline is just this stuff about Bush using them in an ad.

Well, who cares about that--the news here is that the DARLINGS of the Iraqi population are saying they want Americans gone because of the destruction they've caused, and they SUPPORT the insurgency, while Bush is warbling, "The image of the Iraqi soccer team playing in this Olympics, it's fantastic, isn't it? It wouldn't have been free if the United States had not acted."

If this isn't evidence of a complete reality break for Bush and the U.S., I don't know what is. Bush has mismanaged the whole thing so horribly that the guys who've been "freed" want to be freed from us. In so many words.

What can Kerry do with this?

[LeftistGorilla]

1. these puppets...

aren't dancing right....

[Mizmoon]

2. Actually, they are angry about money

I saw the Iraqi soccer team interviewed a few weeks ago. They were talking about the horrible abuse Saddam's demon spawn sons inflicted on them.

After they were done, they talked about how these same demon spawn used to pay them big bucks if they won a game. Then they said they were angry the US didn't give them a fat bonus for their last win.

This bitterness probably has much to do with that.

[A_Possum]

3. Well frankly...

As a practical matter, maybe we should have. Big sports winners get big money here, don't they? That would probably go miles farther to "win hearts and minds" away from guys like Sadr in Iraq than attacking mosques with tanks.

I can see why we don't want the Iran-style theocracy that Sadr represents, but we're going about fighting it in a really stupid (macho) way. Which seems like a good line of attack against Bush's fiasco--he's got NO imagination for anything but violent suppression.

If we're gonna get out of this mess, we need some fresh ideas, and I can see how big bonuses for soccer stars could be one of them. A graphic example of the hope of success.

On edit:

And I'd rather my tax dollars went to an Iraqi soccer star's luxe lifestyle than to Halliburton.

[JSJ]

4. yeeah, right...

...and the deaths of over 150,000 Iraqi citizens at the hands of US troops in a nation where nearly half the population are children under the age of 17 shouldn't matter to another Iraqi whether he's a sports star or not.

[CalebHayes]

5. kick

http://anti-bush.blogspot.com

[realFedUp]

6. I'll bite back

although I don't really care about this one...

[A_Possum]

7. Guess nobody does...:(

Seems like quite an indictment of the entire, massive failure of the "liberation" of Iraq when their top sports stars publicly state they'd like to join the insurgency.

We ain't much at winning hearts and minds, are we? Sports stars are really kind of the beating heart of international popular culture, and certainly one the best ways to connect "us" to "them."

I'll bet the Bushies are just sitting there with all their fingers crossed that this doesn't get out of Sports Illustrated.

[realFedUp]

8. It's a good sidebar story actually

Someone at the LA Times should do this one
for the sidebar on the front page.