Iraqi Olympic football team speaks out against Bush

[ThatGuy]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/olympics/2004/writers/08/19/iraq/index.html?cnn=yes

PATRAS, Greece -- Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir scored a goal here on Wednesday night, setting off a rousing celebration among the 1,500 Iraqi soccer supporters at Pampeloponnisiako Stadium. Though Iraq -- the surprise team of the Olympics -- would lose to Morocco 2-1, it hardly mattered as the Iraqis won Group D with a 2-1 record and now face Australia in the quarterfinals on Sunday.

Afterward, Sadir had a message for U.S. president George W. Bush, who is using the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign advertisements.

In those spots, the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear as a narrator says, "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes."

"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. "He can find another way to advertise himself."

Ahmed Manajid, who played as a midfielder on Wednesday, had an even stronger response when asked about Bush's TV advertisement. "How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?" Manajid told me. "He has committed so many crimes."

The Bush campaign was contacted about the Iraqi soccer player's statements, but has yet to respond.

To a man, members of the Iraqi Olympic delegation say they are glad that former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein, who was responsible for the serial torture of Iraqi athletes and was killed four months after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, is no longer in power.

But they also find it offensive that Bush is using their team for his own gain when they do not support his administration's actions in Iraq. "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 [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?"

At a speech in Beaverton, Ore., last Friday, Bush attached himself to the Iraqi soccer team after its opening-game upset of Portugal. "The image of the Iraqi soccer team playing in this Olympics, it's fantastic, isn't it?" Bush said. "It wouldn't have been free if the United States had not acted."

Sadir, Wednesday's goal-scorer, used to be the star player for the professional soccer team in Najaf. In the city in which 20,000 fans used to fill the stadium and chant Sadir's name, U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled loyalists to rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr for the past two weeks. Najaf lies in ruins.

"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 [in Fallujah] has been labeled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq."

Everyone agrees that Iraq's soccer team is one of the Olympics' most remarkable stories. If the Iraqis beat Australia on Saturday -- which is entirely possible, given their performance so far -- they would reach the semifinals. Three of the four semifinalists will earn medals, a prospect that seemed unthinkable for Iraq before this tournament.

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."

 

[A_Wanderer]

Omar over at Iraq The Model had this to say.

I read this story and I felt very upset and then I got many mails asking for my comment on it.

I really think that the Iraqi Football Federation should give the 2nd player (Ahmed Manajid) at least some advice on to how much he can express his own opinions in public, as he is representing Iraq right now.

However I have great doubts about the article. Looking at the address of the article and reading through it, it seems to me that the reporter was looking for a particular answer rather than just reporting. What would you expect as an answer for asking athlets about a politician, any politician using their achievements for advertising his campaign. Also we have no idea how this question was presented!

Another point is that when someone wants to draw a conclusion from several comments he tend to pick the ones that lead to his conclusion in a strong way, yet all the reporter could come up with were comments from 2 players and the coach out of 22 players and several trainers, medical staff...etc So if those were the 'best' comments he could get, I'm interested to know what were the comments of the others since the comment from the 1st player (Sadir) was actually not that bad!

I believe if he found a worse comment other than that he would've post it, don't you think so? Finally I'd like to put this report about 3 athletes together with this picture that you all had probably seen but some of you seem to have forgot about. Maybe we can get closer to the truth by taking two sides of the story?

 

[ThatGuy]

"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 [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?"

"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 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 [in Fallujah] has been labeled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq."

"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."

Nice picture, though.

 

[verte76]

Doesn't freedom for Iraq mean these guys have freedom of speech? I think so. I don't like the use of the Olympics in any political campaign. If Kerry were doing it would also piss me off, but he's not. The Olympics aren't really supposed to be political.

 

[nbcrusader]

Perhaps he would like Saddam's sons in charge of the program....

 

[verte76]

The Iraqis did mention that they were glad the Hussein brothers were no longer running their program, and I doubt if they miss him.

 

[Harper]

It's a weak argument to state that they shouldn't forget about their newly found free speech, or that they could have Saddam in power instead. It makes the assumption that nobody was happy in Iraq before last year, and forgets about the millions of people now living in the middle of a war that they really could have done without. Even the Iraqis that should be glad of the US invasion are turning against the forces left in the country.

We went to war to make the world safer from Saddam's HUGE and READY-TO-GO STOCKPILE of BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS; without that threat there was no way the US would have got the support it did from the international community.

Forget all the other altruistic reasons that sounded good when they were thrown in with the WMD claim. They were all secondary arguments and wouldn't have stood on their own.

 

[STING2]

It's a weak argument to state that they shouldn't forget about their newly found free speech, or that they could have Saddam in power instead. It makes the assumption that nobody was happy in Iraq before last year, and forgets about the millions of people now living in the middle of a war that they really could have done without. Even the Iraqis that should be glad of the US invasion are turning against the forces left in the country.

We went to war to make the world safer from Saddam's HUGE and READY-TO-GO STOCKPILE of BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS; without that threat there was no way the US would have got the support it did from the international community.

Forget all the other altruistic reasons that sounded good when they were thrown in with the WMD claim. They were all secondary arguments and wouldn't have stood on their own.

As of today, the reasons for the war, "insuring the verifiable disarmament of Saddam's WMD capability" was still the legal, moral and necessary thing to do.

People forget that Saddam: invaded and attacked unprovoked four different countries, used WMD more times than any leader in history, failed to account for thousands of stocks of WMD that he was required to verifiably disarm of per the UN 1991 Gulf WAR ceacefire agreement, threatened the planets energy supplies with siezure and sabotage, as well as murdering 1.7 million Iraqi's and foreigners through his actions.

In Saddam's Iraq, various Sunni tribes representing a tiny percentage of Iraq's total population were well cared for. The rest were subjected to some of the worst brutality in human history over a period of 25 years.

Recent opinion polls in Iraq have shown that the majority of Iraqi's feel their life is better now than before war and want to the coalition forces to remain in Iraq.

Are there Iraqi's that disagree with these things, of course. But there were Germans at the end of World War II that would have prefered Hitler over Allied occupation as well.

 

[verte76]

Yeah, and now many of these Sunnis are angry that they no longer have this privileged position. Iraq could become a Shi'ite state, which would make it only the second Shi'ite nation in the world, after Iran, of course. I wonder if there have been any polls of whether or not Iraqis want a Shi'ite state or a secular state? It might strike some as ironic that Saddam wanted a secular state, but he wanted to be another Ataturk. He failed miserably at this attempt.

 

[ThatGuy]

Hey, freedom is untidy.

 

[ThatGuy]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25547-2004Aug23.html

Soccer: We're No Symbol of Freedom, Iraq Coach Says

Reuters
Monday, August 23, 2004; 7:32 AM

By Ellie Tzortzi

THESSALONIKI, Greece (Reuters) - Iraq's Olympic soccer coach said Monday his side should not be seen as a symbol of freedom, taking issue with a campaign commercial for President Bush.

The flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear in a commercial as part of Bush's drive for re-election in November. A narrator says: "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes."
But coach Adnan Hamad said Iraq, still plagued by violence daily, remained a country under occupation.

"You cannot speak about a team that represents freedom. We do not have freedom in Iraq, we have an occupying force. This is one of our most miserable times," he said.

"Freedom is just a word for the media. We are living in hard times, under occupation."

The Iraqi men's soccer side has been one of the surprises of the Olympics, reaching the semifinals of the competition. They play Paraguay Tuesday for a place in the final.

But their success has been overshadowed in the past few days by rows over the commercial for Bush, who went to war and ousted Iraq's Saddam Hussein last year.

Although Washington has officially handed power to an Iraqi interim government, more than 130,000 American soldiers remain in the country, battling with insurgents from various factions. Western officials also hold key positions behind the scenes.

"We want to give our people a cause to celebrate, to forget their problems," Hamad told reporters in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, the venue for Tuesday's match.

After Sports Illustrated magazine quoted Iraqi team members expressing outrage at the Bush ad, a British adviser to the Iraqi Olympic committee accused journalists of taking advantage of players' naivete and said sport should not be politicized.

But Hamad said: "One cannot separate politics and sport because of the situation in the country right now."

He said the violence which continues to afflict Iraq, more than a year after Bush declared major combat there was over, meant the team could not fully enjoy its success.

"To be honest with you, even our happiness at winning is not happiness because we are worried about the problems in Iraq, all the daily problems that our people face back home, so to tell you the truth, we are not really happy," he said.

The International Olympic Committee said it had not been in touch with the Bush campaign about its use of the Games in the commercial. National Olympic committees own the rights to the Olympic name and symbols in their countries, a spokeswoman said.

 

[nbcrusader]

I'm sure Adnan Hamad will miss the Uday treatment if his team loses....

 

[Klaus]

Every time someone criticizes something the US does down in iraq we can hear that Mr. Hussein was more evil than Mr. Bush. Is this all we can say now to defend the coalition of the willing and what they did down there?
They said allready that they were glad the Hussein brothers were no longer in charge and they also said they don't live in a free country (obviousely they don't), what's the problem with their statement??

 

[nbcrusader]

Fair enough.


I guess it is frustrating when all the efforts at creating a true democracy in Iraq are characterized as "living under occupation" (which is technically not true anymore).

 

[ThatGuy]

How many US troops are still in Iraq? How were the current leaders of Iraq chosen? How much is the US still involved?

I know it's frustrating, but is it really surprising that some Iraqis feel that they're living under occupation? As much as the administration would like to say, "It's all in the Iraqis' hands now," that's clearly not the case.

 

[STING2]

How many US troops are still in Iraq? How were the current leaders of Iraq chosen? How much is the US still involved?

I know it's frustrating, but is it really surprising that some Iraqis feel that they're living under occupation? As much as the administration would like to say, "It's all in the Iraqis' hands now," that's clearly not the case.

Iraq will be having its first free election in January. Something that would not be happening if the Anti-War Crowd had their way.

 

[BVS]

Iraq will be having its first free election in January. Something that would not be happening if the Anti-War Crowd had their way.

And I know people who'd still be alive if they had. This comment is getting old and really has nothing to do with the issue. The means are what were in question.

 

[nbcrusader]

Are the means really in question? Even Kerry agrees the war was appropriate (even though he would have conducted it more "effectively").

 

[STING2]

And I know people who'd still be alive if they had. This comment is getting old and really has nothing to do with the issue. The means are what were in question.

And based on Saddam's reign the past 25 years, there would be far more people dead as well.

The only way to have free and democratic elections in Iraq was through the removal of Saddam's regime. The only way to remove Saddam's regime (which included 12 extensive security services, and a 400,000 man military led by an elite 100,000 man Republican Guard) was through military force.

If you know another way based on the history and capabilities of Saddam's regime, please explain in detail.

 

[BVS]

And based on Saddam's reign the past 25 years, there would be far more people dead as well.

The only way to have free and democratic elections in Iraq was through the removal of Saddam's regime. The only way to remove Saddam's regime (which included 12 extensive security services, and a 400,000 man military led by an elite 100,000 man Republican Guard) was through military force.

If you know another way based on the history and capabilities of Saddam's regime, please explain in detail.

The question of was war the only means is not the point, actually it's mute. How the war was handled may be even more appropriate, but it still doesn't answer the original point of this thread stating that some Iraqis don't like Bush or how their country is being handled. So really the bashing of the "anti-war" crowd is just pointless.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I think that some 50,000 people would be alive if the war had not taken place, this includes civilian and millitary casualties on both sides. Having said that the cost of inaction would been around 100,000 civilian casualties and the persistent risk of a large scale terrorist attack with WMD. The anti-war crowd has to accept that there are concequinces for both action and inaction, believing that nonviolence at massive cost of life is more virtuous than war is a fundamentally flawed and dangerous concept.

Now with that out of the way, I think that many Iraqis hate the United States being in their country, they hate the way the US has treated the Arabs, they hate the sanctions imposed on their country for a decade and they loath loosing the power and position they enjoyed under Saddam. The majority of Iraqis however understand that having the coalition maintaining peace until the Iraqi government can do it with a security force is a neccisary evil, this is reflected in polls (oddly enough only the polls that show some fluke swing against the US are ever reported). I have no doubt that these Iraqis genuinely dont like the US, many of them may like having Saddam being removed but dont like living under an occupation - the important thing is however to reciognize that these players do not represent the opinions of every Iraqi.

Freedom Can Be Fought For, Peace Can Be Won and Iraq Will Be Free!

 

[ThatGuy]

I think that trotting out Iraq as some sort of achievement at this point is incredibly premature when we still have soldiers fighting and dying over there. True, Iraq is supposed to have elections this January, but that weren't they originally supposed to be held this year? Yes, the US has deposed Saddam, but there's still such a long way to go. Hopefully it works out okay.

If the Iraq war (and the way it was managed) turns out to be a good idea then ten years from now when we pull out the last of our troops you can come back to this thread and say, "I told you so."

 

[ThatGuy]

On topic:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/olympics/2004/writers/08/24/iraq.reax/index.html

Setting the record straight
There was no misinterpreting Iraqi players' anger at Bush's campaign
Posted: Tuesday August 24, 2004 4:24PM; Updated: Tuesday August 24, 2004 4:24PM

ATHENS, Greece -- I had a feeling SI.com might ruffle some feathers in Washington with my story last week about Iraqi soccer players' displeasure with President Bush after he used the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign ad.

(To see the ad, click here.)

But I can't say I expected former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) officials to publicly question the accuracy of the story, so let's set the record straight.

When asked about the SI.com piece on Monday's ESPN2 broadcast of Cold Pizza, former senior CPA official Don Eberly reiterated a quote from a Reuters interview of Mark Clark, a British consultant for the Iraqi Olympic Committee and himself a former CPA official.

Clark's statement, which was passed along by Eberly, was this: "It seems the story was engineered."

I don't know about you, but I take "engineered" to mean anything from "not on the level" (at best) to "fabricated" (at worst). Curious about Mark Clark's definition of the word, I called him on Monday.

Clark told me two interesting things: 1) When he commented on the SI.com story to Reuters he hadn't yet read it, and 2) he "didn't recall" using the word "engineered" in the Reuters interview. When I asked Reuters reporter Alastair Himmer, who quoted Clark, Himmer said, "He [Clark] told me straight up, mate. I'm not in the business of making up quotes."

If Clark did use the term engineered, then he's simply wrong. The two Iraqi players I interviewed, Salih Sadir and Ahmed Manajid, were asked simple questions. (The interview is on audio tape.) One of them was: "President Bush has included the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest campaign advertisements. How do you feel about that?"

The players answered the question -- no more, no less.

Clark also told Reuters, "it is possible something was lost in translation" in the SI.com story.

Well, no it isn't. On Tuesday, I played the tape of my original interviews (and the accompanying translations) for Chawki Rayess, an Arabic/English interpreter working for Olympic organizers in Athens. Rayess, a member of the respected International Association of Conference Interpreters, confirmed as accurate the following:

From Sadir: "Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise himself."

And from Manajid: "How will [Bush] meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes."

Then again, I already knew that the original translations were made in precise language, hardly a sign of confusion. If Clark and Eberly wish, I would be happy to provide them a copy of the tape. Until then, let's keep following the Iraqi soccer team's march to a possible bronze medal -- in my mind the best story of these Olympics.

 

[STING2]

I think that trotting out Iraq as some sort of achievement at this point is incredibly premature when we still have soldiers fighting and dying over there. True, Iraq is supposed to have elections this January, but that weren't they originally supposed to be held this year? Yes, the US has deposed Saddam, but there's still such a long way to go. Hopefully it works out okay.

If the Iraq war (and the way it was managed) turns out to be a good idea then ten years from now when we pull out the last of our troops you can come back to this thread and say, "I told you so."

The soldiers will be the first people to tell you that they have achieved a lot and it does not get mentioned in the mainstream press. The benefits from the removal of Saddam's regime and large military structure as well has insuring he was disarmed of all WMD have enormous benefits for the entire Persian Gulf Region and the safety and security of the planets energy supply.

 

[ThatGuy]

I thought Saddam shipped all of his WMD to Syria.

And STING there's a lot on both sides that doesn't get coverage in the mainstream press. Neither you nor I are going to give a truly balanced picture of Iraq.

 

[STING2]

I thought Saddam shipped all of his WMD to Syria.

And STING there's a lot on both sides that doesn't get coverage in the mainstream press. Neither you nor I are going to give a truly balanced picture of Iraq.

No one knows what Saddam has done with his WMD that he was required to verifiably disarm of, which is why military action in Iraq became a necessity.

#1 You have the exstensive poll results that show Iraqi's feel that life now is better than it was under Saddam.

#2 The vast majority of reports from Soldiers and Marines often talk about the positive achievments they are making but complain about the fact that it is often never covered.

#3 The Media typically only reports bad news.

#4 Large area's of Iraq have seen little or no violence. The vast Majority of attacks against coalition forces only occur in the Sunni Triangle, even with the addition of Sadr and the Madi Army attacks which are more in the south.

#5 The soldiers and Marines collective statements do form a balanced picture of what is going on in Iraq and more people should take note.

 

[BVS]

#5 The soldiers and Marines collective statements do form a balanced picture of what is going on in Iraq and more people should take note.

WTF? So we should only listen to the soldiers? I have the upmost respect for the majority of the soldiers, but come on, they're the ones with the balanced view? That's like saying the employee always has the balanced view of a it's corporation or that a parent always has the balanced view of their own child. Sorry, I don't think so.

 

[ThatGuy]

No, STING's right. Let's listen to the soldiers.

Here's a few.

http://cbftw.blogspot.com/
http://daggerjag.blogspot.com/
http://www.missick.com/warblog.htm
http://livefromiraq.blogspot.com/
http://www.thequestingcat.com/blog/index.shtml

Why doesn't the military want us to listen to the soldiers?

Admitting bias isn't a bad thing. I don't think I have all the answers and neither should anyone else. Just because you think your side is right doesn't mean that you have a complete view of the situation in Iraq.

 

[STING2]

From one of the blogs above about one of the liberals Gods Michael Moore:

Moore Mistakes
By now, most internet users who peruse blogs have seen the ?58 Lies of Michael Moore.? I know I browsed it a while back, but with his new book being compiled and edited, it seems he is about to enter the spotlight again. One of the stories I hadn?t yet read until yesterday, appeard in the Army Times this week. According to the Gannett News Service and journalist Gina Cavallaro, Sgt. Peter Damon has a cameo in Moore?s film Fahrenheit 9/11 and is extremely angry about it.

According to the article:

"What really makes me mad is that people get the impression that I agree with it,'' said Damon, 31, a helicopter mechanic who lost both arms in an accident in Iraq last year. "People started coming up to me and telling me they had seen me in the movie. At first I thought it was a mistake. Some even said congratulations for taking a stand against the war,'' Damon said. "I volunteered to go, I wanted to go. I believe we should be in Iraq,'' he said. "I was really embarrassed and ashamed to be in a theater where people were laughing and clapping about Moore making fun of President Bush.''
The article continues to explain the story of Sgt. Damon, why he enlisted, what caused his accident, his upbrining and his attitude about Moore and the film. On this he Ms. Cavallaro notes:

Still, Damon is angry. "Just the whole thought of being in this piece of propaganda. It's like a documentary Hitler would have made." "You know when you join the military that there's an inherent risk,'' Damon said."
And yet Moore pushes forward and plans to release his book in October. One can't help but wonder in what context the letters written to him will appear. To have used Sgt. Damon in the way he did, there is not a question of political ideology at stake, but an issue of integrity, honesty and chracter. What you see with Moore, may not exactly be what you get.

 

[STING2]

WTF? So we should only listen to the soldiers? I have the upmost respect for the majority of the soldiers, but come on, they're the ones with the balanced view? That's like saying the employee always has the balanced view of a it's corporation or that a parent always has the balanced view of their own child. Sorry, I don't think so.

No one said that we should only listen to the soldiers. My point is that their positive views on the work they are doing in Iraq are being ignored by most media organizations especially liberal ones. There are 160,000 coalitions troops in Iraq and in addition to that, thousands of civilians and civil affairs personal, Diplomatic Corp personal, doing a wide range of jobs in securing and rebuilding Iraq. Their views are certainly not the only views, but I dare you to find a more professional and experienced group of people currently on the ground in Iraq then this group which has people from over 50 different countries around the world.