Third Party & Independents: Archives

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Such a weak comment it had to be posted three times.

LOL. Rusty, I don’t think there is an Iraqi team member who want Udday back or Sadam. But if you read any of their comments you might understand why this was something stupid for the U.S. to become involved in.

Nearly 20,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. I doubt it really makes a difference to their relatives whether it was by Saddam, a daisey cutter or a car bomb. They are just as dead. Is there new hope for Iraq? Maybe. or maybe a continued insurgency for the next few years until Americans grow weary and withdraw and a new dictator emerges or perhpas a wider civil war. Yippe!! Boy howdy, do I want to live there now.

It’s easy for a politician or political commentator to sit in D.C. or and spout Amnerica the Beuatiful. It’s a little harder to sit in Iraq a be shot at daily.

I’d like the Olympics to stay as apolitical as possible. I dont mind Bush referencing the Iraqi Olympic team is a problem, so long as he doesnt indicate that they endorse him. In the same way, Kerry can say he served with honorable soldiers, as long as he doesnt use their pictures or indicate their support without approval.

Bush should simply talk about Iraq’s Olympic team in general manner rather than specific. And the players should then recognize that political statements should not be the matter of course.

When there’s political gain involved, BushCo doesn’t think twice about disgracing the thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians who have been killed. Of course, it’s not the first time, considering Bush did the same thing by using the 9/11 tragedy for political gain.

jbod, can you not put yourself in the Iraqi’s shoes and see why even you would not take your advice if you were them, grew up there, and experienced all that has happened to your country that has happened to theirs? And you want them to recognize that political statements should not be the matter of course? I say let them make poltiical statements, the freedom to express their political views may just be what is needed to keep them from taking up arms against our GI’s.

I think joe’s right on this one David. It would be a very different Iraqi team this year if it wasn’t for Bush, so I have no problem if he mentions it without politicizing it (which shouldn’t distract anyone from the fact that he is politicizing it right now - joe and I wish he would stop). On the other hand, the Iraqi team is free to hate Bush and say whatever they want. It’s a free country, right?

But they also find it offensive that Bush is using Iraq for his own gain when they do not support his administration’s actions. “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?”

Yeah, I don’t blame Bush for being excited by the Iraqi soccer team’s success (I am), though I think it would have went over better as some impromptu statement in a speech than as an ad. And that line “Freedom is spreading throughout the world like a sunrise,” besides being somewhat nauseating, is another sad attempt at copping off of Reagan (the other being the Axis of Evil declaration).

I also completely understand why the Iraqi soccer team might want Bush to stop mentioning them in his campaign. He should abide by their request even if he thinks their attitude misguided or inapplicable.

David:

The Olympics is not the forum for political statements. Its about countries putting aside their differences and coming together in sport. Its incredibly idealistic to think of it in that way, but its also an incredibly wonderful thing to hope for.

I do think its easy for people to forget how bad things have been once they get better. We know of the abuses of Uday Hussein, and I’d wish these players wouldnt simply forget about the horrendous terror he put Olympic teams through. While they can disagree with Bush and America, they hopefully will remember that it wasnt champagne and roses before.

jbod, I remember some proud young black men at the Olympics receiving their medals and raising a helluva baloo by lifting their black gloved fist into the air ! The shock it sent around the world’s media helped advance civil rights in this nation as American’s became embarassed on the world stage by having their civil denial of rights issue raised on TV for a 100’s of millions of people to see around the world.

If you are going maim, kill, torture, and bomb a nation’s people, do not expect that they will contain themselves when offered a public forum to speak up about the horror of it. Half of Americans believe invading and occupying Iraq was the right thing to do. We are the invaders with the force. Don’t expect the invaded to like it, and shut up about it just because some points were scored on some international sports scoreboard.

It is ironic that you would defend a sporting event and so passively condemn the victims of war for speaking up about the deaths and losses of their friends and family. There is something amiss in that priority set in my opinion.

David:

John Carlos and Tommie Smith were not wrong for what they did, but they WERE wrong for where and when they did it.

I find it a bit amusing that you say “It is ironic that you would defend a sporting event and so passively condemn the victims of war…”

I condemned no one for their viewpoints, nor would I restrict their freedom of speech. But there is a time and a place for political statements. By your logic, you would have to accept the Iranian judokan who refused to fight an Israeli for political reasons. agency.“Although I have trained for months and was in good shape I refused to fight my Israeli opponent to sympathize with the suffering of the people of Palestine and I do not feel upset at all,” Miresmaeili told the IRNA news

Both the US and Russia were wrong to use the Olympics for political purposes. So is Miresmaeili…and so is the Iraqi soccer team.

You apparently dont understand what the ideal of the Olympics truly is. Its not a platform for politics, rather it should be apolitical. There are plenty of other platforms available for politics.

Sadir said,

We want them to go away

Well that’s good enough for me. Load up the C-5s there, boys, we’re bringin’ everybody HOME!

joe, the Iraqis weren’t the ones using the Olympics as a platform for politics. They were chastizing Bush for politicizing the event, and rightly so.

Joe,
If some stuck a microphone in your face and asked you for your opinion, would you refuse to answer because this is the Olympics and we shouldn’t make political statements?

AP:

The follwing statement from Salih Sadir of the Iraqi soccer team sounds suspiciously like a political statement to me. “We don’t wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away.” It doesnt sound like the simple request for Bush to not politicize the Olympics.

Rocky:

I’m sure I’d be tempted to make a political statement in that situation. But if I DID make a political statement, I’d still be wrong. I understand that the soccer players might want to make a statement, but as I’ve said, the Olympics is the wrong venue for a political statement.

Joe,
The Olympics have always been about politics, from Hitler to Carter.
Iraq is a country that has been ravaged for better or worse, by the United States, and our President tried to make political hay from their achivement. These young athletes will likely never get another chance to state their opinion on a world stage. For them the Olympics are the “only” venue for a political statement that anyone will hear.

And when Kerry refuses to bring the troops home, they’ll hate Kerry, too. So even the “politicization” everybody’s screeching about, is moot.

All right people, consider that the GDP of a country tends to determine the success (read: number of medals) achieved by said country in the Olympic tournaments and you can’t even begin to pretend that any sort of grand, global athletic event will not be a political event as well. As nauseating as it is, Bush can “leverage” the success of Iraq at football all he wants. Then again, as Rocky said, this is the one chance these players will probably ever have to address a global audience, and it is their right to do so, whether their lives really were better or worse before the US police action. (personally, I’d think they know that better than us newswire junkies.) The upshot being, neither side is out-of-line in a representatively democratic nation/world.

Rocky:

Perhaps you would do better to actually read the posts that have been presented before you state an opinion on them.

I’ll repeat my statement for your benefit. The Olympics is NOT a venue for political statements. That it has been used in the past in that regard does not make it right. It simply makes it historical. I discussed Carter’s use of the Olympics in a political way—-it was wrong then and its wrong now.

The fact of the matter is that were it not for American intervention, the Iraqi Olympic team would look far different right now. And even more importantly, they would look differently after their return home. Who knows how much torture they would endure under the despotic eye of Uday Hussein. This much is not even up for argument or discussion—-its simply documented fact.

Joe,
Perhaps, then, you should actually read what I posted.
I neither approved nor disapproved the use of the Olympics as a platform for political statements.
I also simply made a statement of fact.
Do we in America belive in free speech, but only in the “proper venue”?
Wake up and smell the pavement pal.
Bush’s use of the Iraqi’s achievement’s for political gain is wrong. It shows that any politician will stoop to anything to gain victory.
The Iraqi’s disagreed with this use.
I belive that is the point of this discussion

Yeah, I agree Rocky. The whole interview would probably never have happened if the Iraqis weren’t ticked off about Bush using them as pawns in his election campaign.

I’m coming to this argument late but I am disqusted that the Iraqis went to Olympics at all. Americans died during the two weeks of the Games in Athens and I don’t think any families that lost loved ones would feel good about the Iraqi soccer team. Those men should have stayed in Iraq, joined the Iraqi Police Force or done something to aid their country. It is unconscionable that those men came to play games while Americans died trying to help their country.

Oh, yes, Mary, and those Americans who went to Athens to play games instead of enlisting in the American military to protect and defend us from terrorists are just awful people aren’t they.