[Reader-list] Dutch news on Iraq

[Menso Heus]

Some items from Dutch news programs:


NOVA -Images from Bagdhad turned into anarchy:

Brief interview with US soldiers who were asked why they were not preventing
the massive looting that is taking place in the city. 
The soldiers replied stating that they aren't allowed to 
interfere because then they will be playing the role of police officers 
and that's tricky because people then might not respect the local police 
anymore. Meanwhile, the local police is nowhere to be seen and the Iraqi's
are looting shops, offices, hospitals and the Iraqi TV headquarters, most
of them taking stuff they obviously don't even know what to do with.

People in the street stamping their feet on an iraqi money bill which has
the portrait of Saddam Hussein on it. One man in the crowd explains why 
Saddam was so bad: he turned brothers against brothers, children against 
their parents, he tore up entire families, thus he said. The crowd around
him confirms.
One man in the crowd however, steps forward when the other man is done talking.
'They are all hypocrits,' he says. He explains that all the people that the 
camera crew is filming now were all in favor of Saddam before the war started
and that they are all members of the Bhaat party. 'These same people that are
saying this now went into Kuwait and plundered there, and they are now plundering
here!'


NOVA - Images on board of a US aircraft carrier:

A 20 year old kid, err, sorry, soldier, is being interviewed as he opens a
package his family back home sent him. The box contains a lot of chewing 
gum. 'You can't that on board the ship,' he explains, 'so it's a rather hot
item.' He also says that he can't wait to get back home. He expects people
will treat him like a hero. The interviewer asks if he thinks having been in
the war gives him a special status back home. 'Ofcourse, they're gonna love 
it. How many people can say they've been to war?'

Shots of Americans watching the media spectacle of the breaking down of 
the Saddam statue. 'I feel happy' one soldier explains. 'This proves that
the people were really oppressed.'
Another soldier is looking puzzled at the images of the Iraqi's hitting 
the fallen statue with their shoes: 'What is up with these people and shoes?'
he asks.


RTL 4 NEWS - Images of Bagdhad turned into anarchy:

Demonstrations of Iraqi's in front of the temporary US headquarters in the
city. With fear on their faces the US soldiers are trying to keep control
of a crowd of demonstrators that gathered in front of their headquaters.
'We want peace!' the crowd yells. One woman is screaming 'Murderers!' right
into a soldiers face.


What struck me most is the huge contrast between the 20 year old on the 
aircraft carrier thinking himself a hero and the Iraqi woman yelling
'murderers!' to the US soldiers down in Bagdhad... footage I strongly 
doubt will ever be broadcasted in the home of the free.

Menso
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And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a
 paradise in this life--we went soft, we lost our edge. 
          - "Muad'Dib: Conversations" by the Princess Irulan
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