dlowan wrote:That site will not load for me, Bill.
Perhaps you can explain or copy?
Somehow the site shuts down my cut and paste feature completely while it is open. I just checked the link and it still works for me, and apparently it worked for nimh. Anyway, I did manually type these two quotes for my response on the other thread.
OCCOM BILL wrote:This is a good example of how to twist a story. I remember this incident, and will forever actually; because when I saw that cheering crowd working on that statue it brought tears to my eyes. Naturally, some leftwing idiot has to try to spoil the image. Not this time. Here's what the book actually said:
Quote:"The people had already tied a noose around the neck of the statue with some rope. They were trying to just tug on it and bring it down and were hitting it with sledgehammers; it was clearly getting crazy in the square. We were no longer in crowd control, as there was just no controlling this crowd at this time. We decided to just ride along with the crowd, and we started just kind of celebrating with the Iraqi people."
The Marines pulled it down with a chain, not a rope. You can read the actual story instead of this hyper-partisan crap (that only includes a small, misleading portion of the story) by clicking
here. Like I said; the Iraqi's were already hard at work when the Marines got involved.
Looks like a good book btw. Not quite the message you guys want to believe though. Here, I'll quote some more of it from before the toppling:
Quote:"Crowds of Iraqi citizens started coming out and cheering the American convoy. We started to do some PSYOP broadcasts about bringing about a free Iraq, but knowing that we were to continue some clearing operations; we were telling them to stay away from our military vehicles for their own safety. We eventually dismounted from our vehicle and continued to inform the civilians to stay back from the military vehicles. The Iraqi civilians were very receptive to us, and [we] continued to engage them with our interpreter."
Again, you can read the truth by clicking
here.
My eyes were glued to the TV watching this unfold live. The Iraqi's were indeed dancing in the street, and the Soldiers appeared somewhat shocked at how happy these people were to be rid of Hussein. I bet it was a good 30 minutes of coverage between the time that they started filming the Iraqis wailing away with sledgehammers, shoes and whatever they could find... and the time the US Military got decided to help. At the same time they were just swamping the soldiers, apparently with thankyou's. Iraqi's were climbing all over our military equipment as if it were they were posing for pictures after a victorious football game. At first the soldiers tried to keep them back, but soon it became obvious that these people were gathered to celebrate Saddam's overthrow and were showering the soldiers in love, not hate. It brought tears to my eyes, Deb, to see these people celebrate with reckless abandon for the first time in their lives. It was one of those moments that just couldn't have gone any better. This liar, David Zucchino, took what was probably the most beautiful moment of the war and spoiled it with his straight lies.
Okay, back to the book.
PSYOP was there basically to announce our intentions as we moved through the city for the first time clearing out any resistance. The book says we were just amazed at the near utter lack of resistance this team encountered. Once there, they were caught up in celebration. It made it clear that the Iraqi's had been working on that statue before the US Military got involved. The only decision PSYOP may have made was to help the people accomplish bringing down the statue. And it may have been a PSYOP officer that ordered the overzealous American who had draped an American Flag over the head of the statue with an Iraqi flag. This would have been corrected anyway. Everyone there as well as the reporters and those of us glued to our TVs knew that it was a mistake to put our flag there. I assure you that it was an honest mistake and as soon as it was corrected the Iraqis resumed celebration with reckless abandon. For this jerk to have claimed this was staged is an outrageous lie that is not supported by anything in the book he sources (boy I'd like to pop him in the mouth for trying to spread hate out of a beautiful piece of history
).
At this same time I remember the reporters explaining that some of the seemingly pro-Saddam cheering that was going on was at odds with the behavior of the clearly overjoyed people. It seems that chanting good things about Saddam was the only way they knew how to publicly celebrate, as it was they only way they had ever been allowed to celebrate in their entire lives. I assure you; our PSYOP people could never engineer anything this beautiful.
I sure wish there was some footage available of the 30 minutes or so before and after the toppling of that statue. I'd push it 20 times as hard as the audio file referred to in my sig line. Whether you approve of the war or not, you can at least be happy for these people. They were truly overjoyed.
Does that mean I didn't have to type that out by hand? Typing sucks!
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