Rebel Taunts
January 13, 2005 6:44 AM   Subscribe

Iraqi Rebels Taunt
Departing from fiery Islamic slogans, Iraqi guerrillas have launched a propaganda campaign with an English-language video urging U.S. troops to lay down their weapons and seek refuge in mosques and homes. The video, narrated in fluent English by what sounded like an Iraqi educated in the United States or Britain, also mocked the U.S. president's challenge to rebels in the early days of the insurgency to 'bring it on'. "George W. Bush; you have asked us to 'bring it on'. And so help me, (we will) like you never expected. Do you have another challenge?," asked the narrator before the video showed explosions around a U.S. military Humvee vehicle.

I do wish I could find a link to the video and "bring it on."
posted by nofundy (38 comments total)
 
Maybe if you did, this would be FFP-worthy.
posted by Stonewall Jackson at 6:45 AM on January 13, 2005


the video was all over the internets a month ago
posted by mr.marx at 6:55 AM on January 13, 2005


"It is our duty, as well as our right, to fight back the occupying forces, which their nations will be held morally and economically responsible; for what their elected governments have destroyed and stolen from our land."

There! In very simple words even idiots can understand.
posted by acrobat at 7:01 AM on January 13, 2005


If they want the occupying forces to leave why don't they just help them fix all the shit they've blown up so everyone can move on. If the Nazi's had told the French resistance that they were going to rebuild everything and then leave I think they just might have taken them up on the offer. It's almost as though they would rather have us there and be shooting at us than actually have us be able to finish and be gone.
posted by zeoslap at 7:13 AM on January 13, 2005


It's almost as though they would rather have us there and be shooting at us than actually have us be able to finish and be gone.

For some, like Bin Laden, that is most likely true.
posted by caddis at 7:18 AM on January 13, 2005


The video was all over the internets a month ago, including MetaFilter.
posted by NoMich at 7:22 AM on January 13, 2005


Maybe if you did, this would be FFP-worthy.
posted by Stonewall Jackson at 6:45 AM PST on January 13


Heh. Newbie with Dixie problems casts aspersions towards my ability to discern worthiness of a post. Go play while the grownups talk, OK?

Bring it on.
posted by nofundy at 7:22 AM on January 13, 2005


zeoslap: Maybe they just don't trust that the occupying forces will leave? Maybe they think that garrisons will remain or that they will leave behind locals who have reason to support American interests and get financial support from the US to be able to get their way? Do you really think that if the Nazi's had said, "We've decided to leave, if you could just help us with tidying up we'll be off.", the resistance would have gone along with it?
posted by biffa at 7:27 AM on January 13, 2005


Yikes, nofundy, class act there. While I heartily agree with your sentiment, it IS a one-link post (to REUTERS of all places) and as others have pointed out this was all over the Internets a while ago. I personally missed it, but still.

And then bashing someone pointing this out, solely based on their newbie-ness, instead of apologizing like an oldbie ought to do (you know, how a grownup would act)...please! You can do better than this.

14k reprazent!
posted by cyrusdogstar at 7:33 AM on January 13, 2005


zeoslap, you're so remarkably naive
posted by acrobat at 7:33 AM on January 13, 2005


well, i had never seen this before, and i thought it made a great post (one link or not).

thanks nofundy

1k represent!
posted by y0bhgu0d at 7:39 AM on January 13, 2005


~chuckle~
posted by trharlan at 10:35 AM EST on January 13


Someone, help! trharlan's being possessed by foldy!

On preview: hah! I have an extra 13 k's on you, y0bhgu0d! take that!

*cries*
posted by cyrusdogstar at 7:40 AM on January 13, 2005


Don't blame nofundy. Even the Pope is piling on these days.
posted by tizzie at 7:41 AM on January 13, 2005


perhaps acrobat, perhaps. But say they don't trust that we'll leave after we've tidied up, why not wait till after the tidying to start blowing us up again? I'm not sure if the French resistance would have believed it, but I reckon they would have negotiated a truce for a while just on the offchance.
posted by zeoslap at 7:44 AM on January 13, 2005


Point acknowledged.

Please accept my apologies Mr. Stonewall Jackson.
posted by nofundy at 7:46 AM on January 13, 2005


From tizzie's link:

" Cardinal Pio Laghi described a conversation with Bush on March 5, 2003: "When I went to Washington as the pope's envoy just before the outbreak of the war, he told me, 'Don't worry, your eminence. We'll be quick and do well in Iraq.' "

So Dubya lies to the Pope too!
posted by nofundy at 7:49 AM on January 13, 2005


IMO, the accent does not sound "like an Iraqi educated in the United States or Britain," but like a Northern European fluent in English. Someone with a better ear could be more specific — Norwegian, Dutch?
posted by Zurishaddai at 7:52 AM on January 13, 2005


The US killed 100,000 Iraqis the first round in 1991, and an excess of over 100,000 since the beginning of the 2003 when Dubya took the plate.

It's like an American tsunami, black with oil.
posted by orange clock at 8:15 AM on January 13, 2005


zeoslap said:
>...but I reckon they would have negotiated a truce for a while just on the offchance.

Yes, they were called the Vichy government.
posted by gsb at 8:18 AM on January 13, 2005


Thank you, cyrusdogstar. I could have been politer about it, but I stand by my snark, n00b or not.
posted by Stonewall Jackson at 8:21 AM on January 13, 2005


zeoslap: Maybe they just don't trust that the occupying forces will leave?

They're not going to leave, at least not for a long time. The upcoming elections will be fragile; chaos or fear of it will be an aspect of daily Iraqi life for a while. After some normalcy sets in there will be a need to solidify it. I predict there will be American soldiers in Iraq 10 years from now.
posted by zorro astor at 8:22 AM on January 13, 2005


Oh, and apology accepted nofundy. We're all friends here. PS - I'm Canadian.
posted by Stonewall Jackson at 8:22 AM on January 13, 2005


Hm. Well, it *IS* a bit of a double post. I should know. I made the first one.

But maybe I should just be glad that it only took Reuters a month to cover the story... beats not covering it at all, I guess.

But if they're now going to tell us about the video, why won't they share it with us on http://tv.reuters.com ? Heaven forbid that we should fall victim to insidious (i.e. annoyingly factually correct) enemy propaganda...
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:25 AM on January 13, 2005


"The upcoming elections will be fragile; chaos or fear of it will be an aspect of daily Iraqi life for a while."

That's a complete joke. The upcoming elections will be a complete joke and quite possibly the start of a civil war. Imagine hundreds of Shi'ites and Kurds dying from snipers and bombs while at the polls. People will want blood... and whose gonna be blamed? The Sunni *AND* the U.S. In the region south of Baghdad, it's already Sunni vs. Shi'ite in a kind of low-level conflict. People are *ALREADY* shooting their fellow Iraqis.

And it will be U.S. troops who find themselves stuck in the middle of this chaos. They will have to be exposed and take the risks necessary to stop fullscale blood vengeance... and when they're exposed, it's quite likely that *BOTH* sides will be gunning for them.

Iraq isn't going to settle down anytime soon. Just take a look at the recent electricity production in Iraq, for instance. It's less than it was over six months ago during the worst fighting in the occupation, when U.S. forces were fighting insurgents in both Najaf and Fallujah.

In other words, the reconstruction is DOA, and we're going backwards. The only thing a new Iraqi government can do to change this state of affairs is try to force U.S. troops to leave, so they can get about to some *REAL* bloodshed once we're gone.
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:37 AM on January 13, 2005


If they want the occupying forces to leave why don't they just help them fix all the shit they've blown up so everyone can move on.

Except Iraqi engineers and the like are being ignored in favour of American contract workers. It's a slap in the face to them. Now it's too late to integrate.

From this site:

"There was also a recent report that although six in ten Iraqis are unemployed, U.S. subcontractors are hiring cheap labor from South Asia to do much of the work of reconstruction, thereby increasing their profit margins."
posted by juiceCake at 8:48 AM on January 13, 2005


" U.S. subcontractors are hiring cheap labor from South Asia to do much of the work of reconstruction"

Indeed. What isn't mentioned is that part of the rationale for this is because of security. Iraqi workers aren't as trusted and are a potential security risk.

They can be (and often are) threatened for helping the coalition, and can be forced to quit or give inside information to the insurgents. They can also be threatened to do certain things, on pain of death for them or their relatives. Lastly, they can also be infiltrated.

Remember that human bomb that went off at the U.S. base in Mosul, which killed over 18 soldiers? You may not, but trust me... the other soldiers do. That was an Iraqi working on base.
posted by insomnia_lj at 9:04 AM on January 13, 2005


Remember that human bomb that went off at the U.S. base in Mosul, which killed over 18 soldiers? You may not, but trust me... the other soldiers do. That was an Iraqi working on base.
posted by insomnia_lj at 9:04 AM PST on January 13


First, sorry to double your post insomnia_lj, I missed reading that post for some reason.

Secondly, if you are referring to the mess hall suicide bombing, the reason it isn't talked about anymore is because the bomber was from a prominent Saudi family, not an Iraqi. And just ask Dubya (or ParisP), the Saudis are our friends, those damn Iranians and Syrians are the ones puttting the fly in his pudding.
posted by nofundy at 9:12 AM on January 13, 2005


The strange thing about the insurgency is how many factions there are. The only reason there is not an all out Civil War is because they're all busy fighting us. Still, it's nice to know they take pot-shots at each other in their spare time.

It appears the Fallujah offensive has gotten us out of the pot and into the frying pan. Up until then, it was the Al Qaeda/Zarqawi group and other religious fanatics that were causing the trouble. Now it's the Baathists and Sadaam loyalists.

juicecake: The hiring of South Asians instead of Iraqis sucks, but if you were an Iraqi, would you want to work for a US subcontractor? Didn't think so. They're being threatened if they even vote. Forget being employed by whitey.

on preview: Indian labor is hated everywhere.
posted by b_thinky at 9:13 AM on January 13, 2005


Point acknowledged.

Please accept my apologies Mr. Stonewall Jackson.


Too bad we don't see more contrition such as this around here. Then maybe Matt wouldn't feel compelled to close MeTa threads and the like. Anyway, kudos to you nofundy.
posted by caddis at 9:35 AM on January 13, 2005


Ah yes this explains why they want to round up and slaughter Iraqi policemen. It's all their moral duty and they have no other choice.
posted by fleacircus at 9:43 AM on January 13, 2005


One link posts are fine. Newswire posts are not.
posted by Hildago at 10:00 AM on January 13, 2005


If the Nazi's had told the French resistance that they were going to rebuild everything and then leave I think they just might have taken them up on the offer.

Nobody has taken issue with this statement yet, but I find it incredibly insulting. Are you implying that the French resistance (a resistance to the Nazi occupation) or any resistance for that matter, would have ceased fighting, and indeed collaborated with the Nazis if the Nazis had promised to rebuild everything and leave? I think that the case in World War Two France was that the Nazi invasion and occupation was viewed by many French as unjust, which is probably an issue in modern Iraq.
posted by crazy finger at 11:35 AM on January 13, 2005


My point was that it seems that continuing to attack the American troops is counterproductive to the insurgents goal of having the Americans leave as quickly as possible. The only way the troops are ever going to leave is if they can do it without completely losing face, and if the insurgents could play to that then this could end sooner rather than later. My intent wasn't to insult the French resistance.
posted by zeoslap at 12:13 PM on January 13, 2005


They can be (and often are) threatened for helping the coalition, and can be forced to quit or give inside information to the insurgents. They can also be threatened to do certain things, on pain of death for them or their relatives. Lastly, they can also be infiltrated.

William Langewiesche has a hair-raising piece in this very aspect of the whole debacle in this month's Atlantic (subscription req'd):

In any case, the war has degenerated to the extent that the construction sites have become nothing more than symbols of the despised American presence. For the resistance they also serve as convenient collection points for identifiable collaborators—usually laborers—who can easily be hunted down and killed as a lesson for others. There is a lot of that sort of teaching going on these days. At just one sewage project in Baghdad, for example, as many as thirty Iraqi workers were shot in only three months late last year. It is an unusual record only because someone kept count. The assassination campaign is systematic. It is decimating American projects throughout central Iraq, and has taken a particularly heavy toll among Green Zone workers. So pervasive is the threat that Iraqis still working with the occupation do not dare speak English on the phone, even at home in front of only their children, lest word leak out. When I call the Iraqis who work for me, a driver and a guard, my first question is whether they can talk. As often as not they answer by hanging up. This is new. It has gotten to the point where collaborators feel lucky if they are not killed at once but instead given a chance to mend their ways. That chance comes in the form of one of several standard letters.


WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
To the brothers of the monkey and pig. Show your regret, or your destiny will be like that of your brother spies. You shall follow your brothers. You will not succeed before God's anger, and our own. You are the enemy of God and Country.
Signed,
Self-Sacrificers

Or

BY GOD MOST GRACIOUS, MOST MERCIFUL.
You, the Afterbirth, DO NOT sell your soul to the enemy. Because you are our brother in religion, we give you this one last warning before death.

Whichever note he receives, a collaborator generally has forty-eight hours to stop working with the occupation, and somehow to make this very clear. If he does not stop, he will certainly die. As a result, almost everyone hastens to comply.

posted by kgasmart at 12:19 PM on January 13, 2005


insomnia_lj : Yes the security risk is large, and larger still as more time passes and yet. Yet another point to be considered in zeoslaps proposal. A proposal which I don't think is viable. The fact that the Americans supposedly came as liberators and then refused to integrate a viable Iraqi workforce speaks volumes.

b_thinky: I didn't say anything about what I feel about the hiring of South Asians or anyone else other than Iraqis. zeoslap proposed that the Iraqi's help rebuild the country. Perhaps you simply missed that this was a response to that proposal. For various reasons, first of which would be profit, and then security made worse by refusing to display any sort of trust from the beginning, I don't think that will happen. Far too late now. My post has nothing to do with race or a "whitey" connotation. Money and trust, yes. Race. No.
posted by juiceCake at 1:33 PM on January 13, 2005


The only way the troops are ever going to leave is if they can do it without completely losing face, and if the insurgents could play to that then this could end sooner rather than later.

That's like a rapist saying "keep quiet and this will be easier for both of us."

I think one problem many have when considering issues is that people aren't always very good at putting themselves in others' shoes. In the Iraq situation, the arguments you are making may not make sense to an Iraqi at all. The Iraqi people are living under a frightening and dangerous occupation with an incomplete understanding of the situation in their own cities, let alone the regional situation or US motives.

I'm reminded of something that my mother once told me about living in (basically Soviet occupied) Poland in '68 when the Czech revolution happened. A large Soviet force passed through the small village where my mom lived and to her it seemed as though the entire Soviet army was going West. Nobody knew what was going on, since the Soviets controlled the media, and many people were afraid that WW3 was starting up. The incident scared her so much that she left Poland the next year.

The feeling of an occupied person is still very foreign to somebody (like me) who has never experienced it, but you can try to imagine what it must be like to be living under the so-called protection of a military power that recently invaded your country and has killed family and friends of yours. Do you trust their claimed intentions when it seems that their entire rationale for the war was possibly a lie to their own people? It's a difficult situation.
posted by crazy finger at 1:53 PM on January 13, 2005


If they want the occupying forces to leave why don't they just help them fix all the shit they've blown up so everyone can move on.

in other words: UNCLE!!
posted by telstar at 6:22 PM on January 13, 2005


Just to be clear, I don't think that my lovely little plan will happen. I reckon it will just drag on for another four years and then the next administration will say this just aint working and pull out leaving a complete mess behind. But I do think that if it did happen then everyone would be much better off.
posted by zeoslap at 7:18 AM on January 14, 2005


« Older And then you die   |   The 5th Dentist :: A Photoblog Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments