how do you feel about the looting and disorder in Iraq?

[Defiance]

Hiya's,

Vote = Disapprove

But, Put yourself in their shoes....

Most have had nothing and i mean nothing from their suppressors/leadership/government

They have pent-up frustrations/anger/hatred for the regime that's just collapsing around them
They mainly have watched their surroundings being builtup with official residencies for saddams henchmen/cronies with no money spared for luxuries etc

The police (if you can cat them as we call "police") have left the room (jibe)

No comeback eg: pain/torture/fear of death/fear of retribution on their families....

Now you are expecting these poor souls to mildly sit by and wait for another police force to be appointed and keep law and order

Dream on, What would you do having nothing from a hated regime and mainly around you you see houses/palaces built for saddams elite ??

Well i think i would be inline for a quick plunder and general nosey around for anything i could find

Sheesh imagine this, Nothing/nada/zip/zilch then all of a sudden no saddam repressive forces to stop you taking what you want

Gimme a break anyone with a braincell would be after what they could use

I am against it, But get real guys it's inevitable in the (their) circumstances

One image sticks in my mind watching the looters or whatever you wanna call em, A young kid with a smile a mile wide waving a 3 fanned air wafter (light fitting with fan for cooling) he seemed so happy with a small common household appliance
This to me put the perspective into this, Imagine seeing around you with so much poverty/lack of government $$$ and a party official has all the mod-conns and being a young kid he sees this chance at a slice of LUXURY

Bad but try and put yourself in their shoes

[Dowding]

Defiance - they are stealing from hospitals and attacking staff when they try and stop them.

I can understand attacking party buildings and goverment buildings - but looting private shops, homes and hospitals is disgusting. And guess who'll have to clear up the mess?

[Shuckins]

Don't get your knickers in a wad just yet.  Some of this was to be expected after the fall of a repressive regime.  Security and police forces will be in place in short order.  The only people who resent their presence are the thieves and the ne'er-do-wells.

Regards, Shuckins

[eddiek]

What saddens me further is the knowledge that if coalition troops HAD taken steps to prevent the looting, some all-knowing idiot would have remarked that the troops were being heavy handed and had taken on the role of occupiers of Iraq, that the troops were making sure nothing was looted that might be of use to the coalition in the future, not that the troops were preserving things that would be needed to help the future and forthcoming Iraqi government establish rule.
Being in the medical field myself, I wonder if the looting of the hospitals was a kind of "in your face" display aimed at the former Hussein regime members.  I don't know what the medical care system was like under that regime.  One would get the impression from expatriate Iraqis that if you weren't in favor with the regime that you were screwed and that your quality of life suffered.  I wonder if that applied to their healthcare also?
Make no mistake though........the Iraqi people will get their act together.  There are malcontents in any and every group of people.  You see them at every level, from individual groups of friends, villages, towns, cities, states/districts, etc......multiply that  to the national level and I can see why there is so much looting and pillaging going on.  
Coalition forces CAN do some of the police work to help curb the looting, but it is going to be up to the Iraqi citizenship to establish some sense of law and order.
Biggest problem I see in that area is the differences in their religious sects and the resulting rivalries that always seem to result.
I don't get it........in the USA, there are various religions, many of which call themselves Christian.  There are Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, etc.........if we let our religious differences lead to bloodshed like I see and hear about in the Middle East, this country would have torn itself to pieces long long ago.
Hate to quote him, but Rodney King's "Why can't we all just get along?" seems to be something that part of the world should consider in their day to day lives.

[Defiance]

Hiya's,
Dowding i answered against looting

But as i say try and put yourself in their shoes

Imagine a kid let loose in a sweet shop with no comeback from a parent/s

No doubt where they are stealing from (hospitals and alike) is dispicable (but remember the iraq regime allowed this same thing in kuwait) so you have to kind of accept that these people will steal/loot anything that aint bolted down (hmm guess they carry spanners anyways)

Peace is always harder than war in most ways and this looting etc is an example

In my mind (imo) this will

A: be let to fizzle out til nowts left to loot
B: After the initial/sudden/overwhelming feeling of release is spent by the iraq general populus they will come to their sense (see A)
C: Being sorted i guess at this moment in time is some form of a police force

Now ...

D: You get police armed of course, Also die-hard looters etc
and try to restore law n order (seems to me let em release whatevers pent up then try and force a police force on em (i mean force as a nice needed way) after they chilled a bit of course or all it will end up in is a a worse state than just looting etc

If the "after-war" has not been thought of (which i can't imagine it hasn't been) no doubt it's in the process

Looking at it i guess the downfall was the easiest if i can dare say it compared to winning/earning the peace

No doubt with some well placed authority (like exiles) things will calmdown but it will like most things take time and patience

[Defiance]

Back   lol

eddi "What saddens me further is the knowledge that if coalition troops HAD taken steps to prevent the looting, some all-knowing idiot would have remarked that the troops were being heavy handed and had taken on the role of occupiers of Iraq"

Correct eddi i 100% agree

Someone would always pick that up and given the region i can guess which nations too

Give it time guys

[Nash]

I thought this was kind of.... something....

My brother is a writer for the Los Angeles Times, and has been covering the war from Iraq (and Kuwait & Qatar) since... well, just before the war started. Here's a bit of an article he wrote (I had to retype this, pls excuse any spelling errors):


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"Keeping Clash from Culture"
By David Wharton, Times Staff Writer, April 6 2003

KUWAIT CITY - It was an odd comment for a military briefing, the lieutenant colonel in his camouflage uniform complaining that Iraqi soldiers were attempting to "take advantage of our cultural sensitivity."

Yet such is the fine line U.S. and British forces say they have negotiated in the war against Iraq.

More than two weeks into the fighting, commanders say their troops have succeeded in rolling over the enemy while preserving historical sites in a land often referred to as the cradle of Western civilization.



Everyone from pilots to artillery commanders to tank drivers, they say, is advised about historical sites during briefings. A few days ago in Najaf, troops came under attack from Iraqis hiding in a revered mosque and did not return fire.



Although officials didn't address that question, Kuttas quickly pointed out that the city's most cherished landmark, the Iraq National Museum, had not been damaged as of Saturday afternoon. The museum ranks near the top of a military list that includes thousands of historical and cultural locations in Iraq. Before the war began, Pentagon officials met with academics and archeologists who drew a list of 4,000 "do not bomb" landmarks.

No one would say how many of those have been hit, if any, but Kuttas and others took pains to show that they are concerned about the possibility of what one University of Chicago archeologist called "cultural genocide."


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Then I read this on Reuters today:


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Looters Ransack Baghdad's Antiquities Museum
Sat Apr 12, 9:03 AM ET  - By Hassan Hafidh

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Looters have sacked Baghdad's antiquities museum, plundering treasures dating back thousands of years to the dawn of civilization in Mesopotamia, museum staff said on Saturday.
 


Surveying the littered glass wreckage of display cases and pottery shards at the Iraqi National Museum on Saturday, deputy director Nabhal Amin wept and told Reuters: "They have looted or destroyed 170,000 items of antiquity dating back thousands of years...They were worth billions of dollars."


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Man......

[Dowding]

Compare and contrast the preparations made by NATO for the peace following the Kosovan intervention with those made for the post-war Iraq.

In Kosovo they had administrators, Military Police etc good to go. I've yet to see anything like that with this particular conflict.

I just think the whole thing has been mis-handled. Troops should have been deployed to the key municipal buildings - hospitals, power stations, de-salination plants and the museum housing 5000 years of ancient history now destroyed by vandals. Forget about the palaces etc - but the key infrastructure should have been protected.

They dropped the ball on this one, I'm afraid.

[Dowding]

Yeah, Nash - it makes me really sad to see all that history gone. There's some real birth of civilisation stuff gone from the records.

[Kanth]

I agree.

Originally posted by Dowding
Compare and contrast the preparations made by NATO for the peace following the Kosovan intervention with those made for the post-war Iraq.

In Kosovo they had administrators, Military Police etc good to go. I've yet to see anything like that with this particular conflict.

I just think the whole thing has been mis-handled. Troops should have been deployed to the key municipal buildings - hospitals, power stations, de-salination plants and the museum housing 5000 years of ancient history now destroyed by vandals. Forget about the palaces etc - but the key infrastructure should have been protected.

They dropped the ball on this one, I'm afraid.