The erasing of Iraq

[Ecofarm]

The event took place on April 9, 2003 - as the first US tanks entered the heart of Baghdad - three weeks before Bush declared an end to major combat operations.

Saddam statue topples with regime
There have been scenes of jubilation in Baghdad as US tanks rolled into the very heart of the Iraqi capital, confirming that the government of Saddam Hussein has been ousted from power.
In the main square in Baghdad, a group of Iraqi men attempted to pull down a massive statue of Saddam Hussein in an unprecedented show of contempt for the Iraqi leader.

The metal plaque at the base of the statue was torn off and the statue's marble plinth attacked with a sledgehammer.
The men scaled the statue to secure a noose around its neck but were unable to pull it down.
Then US troops joined in, and used an armoured vehicle to gradually pull down the statue.
As the statue fell to the ground at last, the crowd surged forward and jumped on it.
Chanting and jeering, they danced on the fallen effigy, kicking it and hitting it with their shoes in a symbolic gesture of contempt as it was torn to pieces.
They then severed the head, tied chains around it, and dragged it through the streets.
As news of the events in the square spread, more and more Iraqis gathered to watch, with women and children joining the crowds of men.
There were similar scenes across the capital, as the many hundreds of statues and pictures of Saddam Hussein that came to symbolise his regime were attacked and torn down.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/9/newsid_3502000/3502633.stm

Of course, I wouldn't trust the BBC 100%, but I give it more credit than The Guardian. And I certainly give it more credit than any of the BLOGS (used above) that support the idea that the entire event was a sham pulled off by the US government.

I can cite 100 REAL sources for news that depict the event exactly as BBC did above. There are also the words of the sergeant on the scene who described it exactly as the BBC did. So far, we have a couple of blogs that imply otherwise but provide no support for their statement at all (and one un-cited collage with caption).

If I am expected to side with the 2 conspiracy theorist bloggers and the one uncited collage w/caption, well... What can I say? At least the "believers/truthers" can save themselves one robe and some punch.

 

[Stevenpfo]

Just cause i'm curious and like to look some stuff up. I found some links.

...2003_invasion_of_Iraq_media_coverage#Firdus_Square_controversy

References 22-29 are what you want.


Website with links and stuff

Yooouuuuuu Tuuube video.

 

[Ecofarm]

Actually, Steven,

In the 2004 documentary Control Room, this incident is dealt with in depth and the overall impression given by the Al-Jazeera reporters is that it was staged. The Marines present at the time, 3rd Battalion 4th Marines maintain that the scene was not staged other than the assistance they provided.[29]

That's all I need. I believe the Marines before I believe Al Jazeera.

If some guy carried a flag from the Pentagon for just such an occasion, well, that proves nothing. It would have been hoisted wherever the opportunity arose and does not point to a staging of this particular event. That the crowd was made to appear larger is also not evidence of a staging.

I think we can all agree now that my retort of

You are 1000% wrong and every individual in that area was selected by American troops to help bring down the statue and to "celebrate". Not to mention there weren't many Iraqis there anyways.

was justified.

 

[Stevenpfo]

Thanks for reading indepth into my stuff Eco

I wasn't arguing against you by the way

Or for you. Just presenting some better evidence. There are pictures and videos if you'd like to see them.

 

[Ecofarm]

No prob, I generally read your stuff (even if it is a wiki article).

The evidence that the event was staged =

1. Marines helped after a request by Iraqis.
2. Kids were allowed to ride on a tank.
3. Some militia guy was brought to the scene (for whatever reasons).
4. Some media outlets made the crowd appear larger than it was.
5. Someone had a flag from the Pentagon with them.

Sorry, but that does not convince me that the event was staged. As wiki points out, it is debated, but I just do not see any convincing evidence that it was staged. There is ALOT of convincing evidence that it was a spontaneous civilian event (including similar events taking place by the hundreds across Baghdad).

And actually, it was not references 22-29. Only 3 citations pointed to conspiracy theory (24, 25, 26):

The flag was one flown over the Pentagon on September 11 and appeared indicative of a staged event,[24] and one picture from the event was allegedly doctored to make the crowd appear larger.[25] A report by the Los Angeles Times suggested it to be a carefully staged propaganda event for the media. The article stated it was an unnamed Marine colonel, not Iraqi civilians who had decided to topple the statue; and that an Army psychological operations team then used loudspeakers to encourage Iraqi civilians to assist and made it all appear spontaneous and Iraqi-inspired.[26]

And those sources are:

[24] oregonstate.edu/Dept/pol_sci/fac/sahr/ps415/portray.pdf (PDF). Retrieved on 2007-06-10.
[25] www.[B]thememoryhole.org[/B]/media/evening-standard-crowd.htm. Retrieved on 2007-06-10.
[26] www.[B]commondreams.org[/B]/headlines04/0703-02.htm. Retrieved on 2007-06-10.

Except for the .edu (which cites that the flag came from the pentagon) none of those are credible sources. I am, anyway, willing to believe that the flag was from the Pentagon (24) and that some media outlets tried to make the crowd looked larger (25), but if you expect me to believe that it was a massive conspiracy (26: commondreams.org)...

Sorry, wiki did not "add" any evidence of conspiracy (unless you believe commondreams.org is a credible source). Note, commondreams.org motto: "Breaking News and Views for the Progressive Community" (anti-war site, anyone?). By the way, on commondreams.org, the link to the LA Times does not work (surprised?). Further, there is no citation within that website for the "report" they claim to get their information from. Again - no link, no report name, no individuals involved in the report named, no source for the report named, nothing.

How come everytime I try to track down the source for this conspiracy theory, all I get is a link to the the LA times that does not work, and talk about a mythical "internal army report" that, as far as I can tell, does not exist...

Obviously, the LA Times has retracted the article and the mystical "internal study" was misconstrued. Conspiracy over, nothing to see here, move along... I'm sure everyone can find a new conspiracy theory about evil US deception. Don't fret. Just remain calm and continue google searching for "unknown blogger claims Bush/US conspiracy". If you do this enough, you earn the right to claim that these unsubstanciated conspiracies are "common knowledge".

 

[innonimatu]

From your link. Sounds like a spontaneous civilian event to me. The decision by the US military to assist in the toppling of the statue CLEARY occured after civilians were attempting to do so.

Really, I quoted the most favorable testimony possible for your side of the story, from a military psyop team... and you still need to do selective quoting from my original quote to try to shore up your false claims?

First they decided the statue was a target of opportunity...

The Marine Corps colonel in the area saw the Saddam statue as a target of opportunity and decided that the statue must come down. Since we were right there, we chimed in with some loudspeaker support to let the Iraqis know what it was we were attempting to do.

...and it immediately became a "mission"... really, I thought a quick decision in the filed would be described as a "task", "mission" usually means more...

They were starting to really inhibit our ability to conduct our mission.

We were no longer in crowd control, as there was just no controlling this crowd at this time. [...] We actually had to have our interpreter record an ad-hoc broadcast message, informing the Iraqi people that if they did not stand back from the statue, American forces would not bring the statue down.

The uncontrollable crown can clearly be seen in the photos I linked to, and the one posted directly here. People can judge for themselves.
The series of photos I linked to clearly show the military arriving before even the hundred or so people in the "crowd" showed up.

The correct order of events, putting together the many photos available and the contents of this report, is:
1) Marine Corps colonel saw the Saddam statue as a target of opportunity
2) "Crown" shows up - and they just happen to be carrying sledgehammers, too (oh, and a big rope), even as the battle for the control of Baghdad continued (according to the report). Whether one of them can be linked to Chalaby or not is a bit irrelevant anyway, it's pretty obvious there are too many coincidences here.
3) "Crowd" tries to topple statue and fails. The military must move in, too bad, that's not as good for media coverage. Do notice that the sargeant admitted their job there was inciting iraqis to topple the statue: "we chimed in with some loudspeaker support to let the Iraqis know what it was we were attempting to do" immediately after arriving and deciding on the "target of opportunity" - before the "crowd" attacked the statue.

Sometime during this events an american flag materialized in the statue, covering the head - a place not easily accessible. Now the good sergeant is careful not to admit the military placed it there, but says that the iraqi were displeased. So who could have placed it there?
Photos confirm a soldier placed it there. He might be making things up when he stated to the reporters that it came from the pentagon, but that was widely repeated in the news and never denied. Another amazing coincidence.


You have to thing people are very dumb, to keep hoping they'll believe your claims about who the toppling of the statue was "spontaneous".

"Marines helped after a request by Iraqis." = Bulls**t. Read the report, watch the photos.

"I believe the marines" - you spread propaganda pieces fed to the media then, and pretend that real evidence such as reports published by the military (they knew better that to tell any outright lie about an event with so many witnesses) and photos of the events don't exist, or rearrange them and lie (quite a lot) attempting to support your propaganda.

And, most pathetic of all, you really didn't need to do any of this. You could admit the toppling was staged, and say that despite that most iraqis did hate Saddam and destroyed many other icons of him. But you're so committed to the use of propaganda that this option never even crossed your mind. Never admit you were wrong, that's rule number one for the propagandist.
Congratulations, you'd make good material for the Bush administration.

 

[skadistic]

As long as sunnis and shia are killing each other Iraq culture will be just fine.

 

[Ecofarm]

@innon:

I believe that you completely misconstrue the words of the report that you cite.

I read the same report, and see no conspiracy. The marine who decided it was a target of opportunity, decided so after he saw the Iraqis attacking the statue. Etc, etc, etc... (Your own BBC citation shows that the Iraqis were attacking the statue before the US got involved). There was no use of a megaphone to incite them. The use of the megaphone was to tell them to chill out and we would help them topple it.

"The mission" was to secure the area. They became involved with the civilians as an aside, and it began to impede their primary mission - the invasion.

You read too much into it. I'm going to keep on believing the major media sources on this one - you can keep believing your re-constructionist blogs. There is not one major media source that supports your view. Just the one article that started all this (by misconstrueing the report) which was published in the LA Times and retracted. Every source that agrees it was a conspiracy - is a blog that quotes the retracted LA Times story (and gives a link to the LA Times story that does not work).


Congratulations, you'd make good material for moveon.org

 

[innonimatu]

I really don't care about media support. The media's only useful purpose is to provide facts, and nowadays it mostly provides opinions.
As for whether the facts support my view or yours... well they're posted and people are free to draw their own conclusions. I'm finished here.