I TOLD YOU SO!! shgal bahlool?
Remember my last post titled "NO" which i posted before the results of the voting count were announced? i will remind you of what i said:
"this constitution will pass anyways, i promise you, and i hate to say that but in a day or two, when the results come out i am gonna say: i told you so."
I am defenately not an oracle or a fortune teller, I just live in Iraq, and i know the occupation well enough to risk posting the result of the votes on my blog, before they were published.
on a side boring note, i just turned 23 two days ago, i feel old though.
23 only? i keep wondering.
Have you read the secret poll that the British Army made and leaked to the Telegraph?
hmmm..
one of the first real indicators coming out of the regular people in Iraq to the west, no fake bloggers, no fat polititians, regular Iraqis:
• 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops ( I am sure it's higher though , 82% only? i don't think so )
• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security
• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation
• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened ( i suspect this one, it doesnt say compared to when? last month? cause if compared to before the war it sure would have been much higher)
• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.
The nationwide survey also suggests that the coalition has lost the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, which Tony Blair and George W Bush believed was fundamental to creating a safe and secure country.
what can i say? numbers talk!
Khalid*
"this constitution will pass anyways, i promise you, and i hate to say that but in a day or two, when the results come out i am gonna say: i told you so."
I am defenately not an oracle or a fortune teller, I just live in Iraq, and i know the occupation well enough to risk posting the result of the votes on my blog, before they were published.
on a side boring note, i just turned 23 two days ago, i feel old though.
23 only? i keep wondering.
Have you read the secret poll that the British Army made and leaked to the Telegraph?
hmmm..
one of the first real indicators coming out of the regular people in Iraq to the west, no fake bloggers, no fat polititians, regular Iraqis:
• 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops ( I am sure it's higher though , 82% only? i don't think so )
• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security
• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation
• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened ( i suspect this one, it doesnt say compared to when? last month? cause if compared to before the war it sure would have been much higher)
• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.
The nationwide survey also suggests that the coalition has lost the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, which Tony Blair and George W Bush believed was fundamental to creating a safe and secure country.
what can i say? numbers talk!
Khalid*
posted by Khalid at 9:15 AM
37 Comments:
Happy birthday my friend!
but are you back in IRAQ? or still in Jordan?
How is university?
hope you are doing well-
have a great Eid when it arrives :)
[olivebranch]
I was kind of sure that the constitution would pass anyway. Don't worry though, because I'm sure you, and many like yourself did their best and voted NO.
So you're 23? Remember you've gotten one year closer to death! Kulla 'aamin wa antum bi khayr... (Hope you got that Arabic).
Happy birthday, Khalid... Eid milaad saeed! (I just googled for the Arabic phrase so excuse me if it's for female, little children, or for an elderly person.)
And thanks for telling me about the Telegraph story. I couldn't find it because I believed it was on the Sunday Times.
You know my NO vote was not anything effective with our recent general election. Dude, this is our democracy.
Hey Khalid
Well I did vote for the constitution, but I really wanted to win fare and square. It doesn't feel good now.
About that secret poll, are we really surprised from it. I mean we all knew it from the beginning, this is what the Iraqis feel, is it going to do any good to run around it.
Happy Birthday Khalid :-)
Salaam Khalid
Happy Birthday and good luck for the future.
Happy Birthday, and I must say that I too knew that the fake American-written "constitution" would pass, especially since the puppet government changed the rules at the last minute making an artificial two-thrirds majority in three provinces necessary for it to be voted down. I'm sorry but any "constitution" written while a country is militarily occupied, written by the occupiers, is 100% illegitimate.
Happy Bithday and...
MERRY FITZMAS, MERRY MERRY FITZMAS, MERRY FITZMAS, MERRY, MERRY, MERRY.
I CAN HEAR THE CELL DOORS A CLINGING. ONCE MORE, THIS TIME WITH MORE FEELING, MERRY FITZMAS, MERRY MERRY FITZMAS, MERRY FITZMAS, MERRY, MERRY, MERRY. ME SO HAPPY.
And sad. For all my fellow Humans that have been murdered, maimed, tortured and sent to kill others all based on a big fat bloody lie.
Happy Birthday Khalid!
Just wondering about the "secret poll" that everyone is talking about...I read it when it first got leaked and now everyone is talking about it like it's big news, but really I don't think we needed a poll to know what it concluded. Do you really think it's significant and will have any impact? I just find it really bizarre that the "big news" out of Iraq in all the headlines was that Iraqis don't want to be occupied...well duh!
As Bush said, we are entering another phase. The phase where he will be unfaced...
- RobinH
Jeffry,
Oh yes our Khalid has been alive for another year. IN YOUR FACE.. Maybe creating another anti-Jarrars blog would help increase his reputation...
Happy birthday Khalid.I have followed your (family) blogs for quite a time. I will be 53 in a couple of weeks. Life is a gift. I enjoy that fact more and more. Hope you will find 53 more peaceful than 23. By the way .. my youngest son is 23 also. Norwegian mum.
Happy Belated Birthday Khalid!
I spent some time reading your blog for the first time today. It's a great read and I've put in my favorites.
Thanks for the entertainment!
Regards
IncognitoJoe
Writing a book?
Hi Khalid.
I've been reading your blogs since i saw the doc u made for cbc, which was great, I think everyone should see. I just wanted to wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! and many more.
Keep the post coming,
LAla.
Hey Khalid,
Happy belated birthday, and I wish you many more! I enjoyed talking with you last week. I hope you and your family have an enjoyable Eid al-Fitr later this week.
Congratulations, Khalid! May this coming year be better than the last!
On the referendum:
It was pretty obvious that this result would occur, but hey, if you don't roll the dice you can't win, am I right?
thank you Guys very much, you are all very very kind :))))
i had a nice small birthday pary with family and tara ( the CBC producer i worked on the films with, which happened to be in Amman ), oh yes, there defenately was choclate cake!
wanna have a good laugh?
:)
http://madcanuck.blogspot.com/2005/10/messing-with-metaphors-foot-in-mouth.html
take care everyone:)
khalid*
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KHALID!!! May all your dreams and plans come true!!!!
Peace/ Nadia
There's some toxic waste above.
Khalid,
Nevermind about that challenge I made here.
After reading this article by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, I think I finally understand what you mean when you say you hated Saddam, even though your family accepted special benefits from his regime as Palestians that were not available to other Iraqis and even though you have been critical of him being deposed and have been critical of every step in the process of Iraq becoming free and democratic.
You must have surely hated Saddam...hated him just like the guy in Ghaith's article hated him:
As a young man, Abu Theeb...joined the Institute of National Security, an elite academy reserved chiefly for Sunni Arabs slated for the secret services of President Saddam Hussein.
Abu Theeb had strong pride in his country, but it was broken in 1991 by the Persian Gulf War. "I hated the government," he said. "I realized that all what they were telling us about the nation and the leader was false. They had neither pride nor honor."
Abu Theeb took a four-year leave from the secret services and joined an Islamic religious school...and graduated as a cleric. When his leave was up, he went back to his job at General Security, one of Hussein's feared security agencies.
It is all so clear...so clearly screwed up and creepy.
Khalid,
One more question. Personally, I would have preferred for the Constitution to have been voted down and the process to start again. However, I'm curious, why were the insurgents and rejectionist (like yourself) so adamant that the constitution be voted down? I mean vote YES or vote NO, you are still participating in the so-called puppet theater, right?
So why did the insurgents (jihadists and Saddam Orphans) engage in fraud to try to vote the constitution down?:
By midday, as the flow of voters slowed, Abu Theeb's men decided to chuck the formalities as well.
Setting a ginger-bearded man at his own table, they assigned him the task of checking "no" boxes on all the ballots they could find. As they exhausted the ballots of the village's 1,500 registered voters, they telephoned Baghdad for 20,000 more ballots. Government officials sent over about 5,000.
Why was a NO vote preferable to these Fathers of Chaos? I figure you will have more insight into their thinking than me.
Francisco
"The Fahers of Chaos"...I suppose you would apply such ambiguous notion to those who are the primordial forces who set chaos in motion, wouldn't you think so? You know who I'm talking about, don't you?
You know, I couldn't figure out who you were talking about, and then it suddently hit me: "Oh yeah! Francisco thinks everything was just peachy in Iraq until Bush got there."
Nice way to change an uncomfortable subject.
cmar2, prior to 2003, Saddam was primarily responsible for the mess Iraq was in and for the abuses that had occurred.
Now, YOU are. Since you 'took' the country. How hard is that to understand?
Oh, and as for challenges, you are famous for running from them. Crap, it must be SOME TIME since Mykeru challenged you to prove Riverbend was a Baathist, and you were completely unable to.
Check the log in thine eye ... ?
Happy Belated Birthday Khalid!
and many many more....
and lots more chocolate cake too...
Hi Khalid,
Do you mean that there was a referendum taking place here in Baghdad??,
I live in the centre and didn't see any one approaching the two, nearby
voting stations.
Bassim
"prior to 2003, Saddam was primarily responsible for the mess Iraq was in and for the abuses that had occurred. Now, YOU are. Since you 'took' the country. How hard is that to understand?"
Err...because Saddam's Orphans are still in Iraq organizing mayhem? How is that so hard to understand?
Because Saddam dismantled the utility system servicing Iraqi Kurdistan...and let the rest of it go to hell except in the hometowns of his cronies? Because Saddam organized Iraq in a totally unworkable socialist economic system (that is the primary root of Baghdad and Basra's power shortages) that it will take the government years ween the country from? Because a statistically tiny but numerically significant number of the Iraqi population who received largess on the backs of their fellow citizens (like Palestians in Iraq) think the new Iraq compares unfavorably to the old Iraq, and consequently undermine Iraq's move to normalcy in anyway they can?
The US didn't do that. The Coaltion didn't do that. Saddam did that. His orphans are doing that. And people outside Iraq who relish seeing it in chaos because they think if Iraq succeeds, then Bush succeeds...their support--in ever so small ways--does that too.
Saddam this, Saddam that
"Truck hit him this, truck hit him that. Don't you think it is a pretty sad comment on a doctor's competence when every mention of his patient's progress is qualified by an incidental event two and a half years ago?"
"Now [Iraq is] barely surviving as a nation under a foreign tyranny...where is the progress? Should this argument be construed as an apology of Saddam? Of course not."
Stopping licking that Chomsky frog, and join the real world. Iraq is fledgling DEMOCRACY dealing the criminals of its old regime organizing mayhem, new monsters with the same mind as the 9-11 bombers implementing mayhem, tyrannies surrounding it tolerating and breeding those monsters and (in some cases) harboring and funding them and the criminals, and foreigners with a separate political agenda apologizing for the monsters and criminals.
Your twisted framing of the situation in Iraq could be construed as nothing BUT an apology for Saddam.
"...another day older, and deeper, and death..." Know the song?
Err..yeah. It's "deeper in debt" which describes the US, but due primarily to its entitlement policies, not Iraq.
francisco,
And that is so different from Germany and Japan today in what way exactly?
I can't tell the difference between Germany and Japan because they are so very much the same now, with their new twentieth century cities that had to be rebuilt from scratch after their other ones were flattened.
But I can tell the difference between Germany and Iraq.
Germany: A contestably elected politician in Germany last century rewrote national security laws into Germany's constitution and then declared pre-emptive war on a fair few other lands etc etc... till the whole world got involved.
Oh gee, I can't bring myself to write the rest. It's TOO OBVIOUS. And that might be construed tactless.
robyn,
1) I think the point was that Germany and Japan cannot stop the US troops stationed there from invading wherever they want...yet no one is suggesting they aren't free democracies. Nice attempt at a diversion, though.
2) The hope of "the whole world" getting militarily invested in anything these days is a pipe dream. Unless the US does it, no one does anything (except look for slice of the economic pie) whether it be Bosnia, Serbia, the Levant, the Taliban, Liberia, or Iraq. Yes, World, the US will continue to bear your load. You don't need to thank them (fat chance of that anyway).
3) Nothing reveals the vacuousness of the anti-Liberation argument than their penchant to compare GWB to Hitler and their inability to discern such a comparison to Saddam.
heh heh heh
Run! Run little francisco! Run from evil US imperialists menacing the world with democracies!
heh heh heh
Run! Run little francisco! Run from evil US imperialists menacing the world with democracies!
Happy birthday (a little late), Khalid. Your birthday is very close to that of my oldest son; in your 23 years, however, I think you have experienced much more than he in his 28. Dare I hope for you some mild and boring years sometime in the future--no wars, no arrests--just time to read great books and be with wonderful friends...
As you said numbers talk .. but who listen ?
Another heartbreak .. !!
Happy birthday and happy Eid
OMG! It's the Quran poster from Raed's Comments! Khalid, it won't be long until your blog has the high-quality comments that Raed used to claim!
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*********************************
Citizens for Fair Legislation
For Immediate Release
November 9, 2005
********************************
CFL ALERT: US USED WHITE PHOSPHORUS AND A FIREBOMB SIMILAR TO NAPALM
AGAINST IRAQI CIVILIANS IN FALLUJAH.
Italian state sponsored television broadcaster, RAI released a report
on 11/8/05 stating that the United States used white phosphorus and a
substance similar to napalm against Iraqis in Fallujah in November of
2004. This report included interviews with two American soldiers who
also acknowledged use of these chemical weapons against civilians in
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http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/default_02112005.asp (the
middle link is in English.)
TALKING POINTS, TAKE ACTION NOW.
*Tell your representatives in Congress and the Senate that you are
appalled that chemical weapons were used against civilians in Iraq and
demand that they begin an inquiry immediately into what happened in
Fallujah last year. Tell your representatives that the RAI
documentary showed images of bodies recovered in Fallujah of men,
women and children who were burned to the bone. A former soldier in
the US 1st Infantry Division in Iraq has gone on record as saying, "I
do know that white phosphorus was used." He also said he saw, "burned
bodies, burned children and burned women." RAI also reported that the
US used the Mark 77 firebomb, a weapon similar to napalm, in Iraq. A
former soldier in the Iraq war told RAI news correspondent Sigfrido
Ranucci this, "I received the order to use caution because we had used
white phosphorus on Fallujah." White phosphorus burns the human body
on contact, to the bone. Medics and humanitarian workers who entered
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wounds-their bodies burned but their clothes intact."
*The RAI report shows that contrary to US State Department statements,
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*Tell your representatives that you are deeply disturbed by the use of
chemical weapons against Iraqis. Ask that they immediately hold the
government accountable for the lies leading up to the war in Iraq and
for the indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians. Ask your
representatives what it will take for them to speak out against the
atrocities occurring in Iraq. The RAI report includes footage of these
chemical weapons being dropped on Fallujah, it includes footage of the
burned corpses of men, women and children, and it includes interviews
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your representatives how long they will remain silent about the war
crimes occurring in Iraq.
*Remind your representatives that many pointed to Saddam's use of
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condemn the use of these chemicals and hold the current administration
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From the Iraqi journalist blogger 24 Steps To Democracy:
"I put a bet with an American friend that the constitution draft would be failed and taken down. I told him that the Sunnis would be able to urge two thirds of three provinces to vote against the draft. Given the high Sunni population in Mosul, Anbar, Tikrit, and Diyala. My friend said 'there is no way the Sunnis can do it.' I insisted that the can, unless there is a powerful Sunni party to urge them to accept the draft.
"Do you know what happened few days before the referendum? The Iraqi Islamic Party [IIP] urged the Sunnis to vote in favor of the constitution. do you know how much support the IIP has in Mosul? I have a stringer in Mosul. The banners that read “No, No constitution” in Mosul disappeared in one night. People changed. I got reports from Mosul saying “We wanted to say yes anyway, but feared to say it loud. Now we will say it in the street because the IIP urged us.” so you know what that means> it means the Iraqis were free to choose!"
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