Thursday, December 04, 2003
[posted by jaed at 5:12 PM]Listening to Iraqis
John Burns's reports from Iraq are becoming indispensable. I am starting to wonder what we'd be seeing if every Western reporter in Iraq 1) got out of the hotel once in a while 2) got out of Baghdad once in a while 3) got edgy and risk-taking enough to use translators who didn't used to work for the Mukhbarat.
Today's article in the NYT recounts a conversation with four Iraqi men in Amariya (the quote below is heavily elided to give a flavor of the direction of the conversation, but you should read it al):
"...Saddam is still there, and we count on him, every last man among us."(via the permalinkless Dignified Rant, via He Who Must Be Linked)
[...]
"Well, O.K., we didn't love Saddam, we have to be honest about it."
[...]
"O.K., let us be honest here. Whatever we may say to foreigners like you, the truth is that we were never really with Saddam; in our hearts, we were always against him. But he is gone; what we are against now is America."
[...]
"The Americans should go home, but not right now, not until they have ended all this trouble."
[...]
"Look, we really don't have anything against the Americans."
[...]
"But it would make things worse now if they were just to go away."
