Even Iraqi athletes dont appreciate our "Liberation"

Unwilling participants

Iraqi soccer players angered by Bush campaign ads

Posted: Thursday August 19, 2004 12:50PM; Updated: Thursday August 19, 2004 4:50PM





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 ad simply talks about President Bush's optimism and how democracy has triumphed over terror," said Scott Stanzel, a spokesperson for Bush's campaign. "Twenty-five million people in Iraq are free as a result of the actions of the coalition."

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 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?"

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."

 

At least he doesn't have to worry about Saddam's boy locking him up and torturing him when they lose.

 

i have a solution for this guy. stop fighting. problem solved. go to najaf, and quit shooting. the end. keep fighting, and fighting continues. A is A. be rational. dont whine about fighting while claiming you want to fight. americans do not want to kill you. they want you to stop fighting. i have no sympathy for people who fight and die when they could just not fight. if iraqis were smart, they would chill out and get rich off their oil, like so many of their neighbors.

by the way smax, this is your first copy and paste that i have read. you are improving. try to keep it short and not from liberal propaganda sites.

 

The problem isn't the common Iraqi.

It is the Iraqis that are supported by Syria and Iran.
Those countries would love nothing better than to see America fail in Iraq because
there very existance is at stake.

Smax,
It seems to me you might have a problem with the liberation of Iraq, from the title of your thread.
Do you?

If you don't do you want to see us win or lose there?

John Kerry said the other day that he would've voted for the war without the
WMD's, what do you say to that?

 

The question is what did we accomplish. Pres. Bush said we made Iraq a better place to live. It almost seems from the players comments, they rather Saddam. If they did, should we have put up 1000 american lives. Just a question, not an opinion.

 

it doesnt seem like that to me. it sounds like this guy wants the americans to leave. however that definitely doesnt mean he prefers saddam.

in fact, it would pretty stupid to think that, given that the article specifically mentions the torture of athletes under saddam's regime.

"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"

how can you read that and think the prefer saddam? they are glad his son was killed and no longer tortures them.

i actually know the answer, you are reading your personal politics into the article and are relatively dishonest.

 

I never quoted that I believed that Iraq citizens would rather Saddam. I should have worded it differently. Testy, aren't we.

 

yes, you should have worded it differently. i am starting to be convinced that, like you claim, you should be held to lower standards.

i am sure you tried your best.