Hi Mika,

Here we go again :-) BTW, did I read somewhere that you are on your way to
Oz soon ? Stopping in Singapore on your way or on your return ?

>Because Fox News says so, no doubt. Any other reason to believe this? Ok,
>so I blame an Aussie, sorry, MT.

First of all, we all get/form our picture of events through some sort of
media filter. Or have you been to Iraq yourself recently ?

Secondly, my answer was "yes", too, and I never watch Fox News :-) Simply
put, there is too much bad news out there for me to believe that we are
seeing the whole picture. I can't conceive of many Iraqis who would, if
given the choice, prefer a regime that made wholesale slaughter a science,
over one that lets them be free to say and do what they want (within reason,
of course, just like in your country). And once in a while, when a
journalist has dared to venture outside of the "if it bleeds, it leads"
mantra of the industry, a rather different picture has indeed emerged.

Time Magazine, for instance, recently toured Iraq and found a healthy mix of
opinions, quite dissimilar to the uniform hatred for the foreign troops that
the media usually conveys. Baghdad University last week released a poll
showing that 71.5% of those asked prefer the Americans to stay until peace
is restored.

>Lessee, many real life Iraquis are now out of a job, their security is
>threatened by armed gangs when they go shopping for groceries, and friendly
>liberators kick their doors in in the middle of the night. But they are
>free.

Surely you meant to write, "Many Iraqis are now earning 10 times more than
they were (and there are no relief agency reports of starvation), their
security is no longer threatened by regime thugs who cut off their tongues
and ears if they look at them funny on their way to the grocery shop, and
unfriendly secret policemen no longer kick in their doors in the middle of
the night and take them away to the mass graves." ?

>The country was supposed to be handed over to Halliburton, Bechtel & Co.
>on a silver platter.

On what do you base that statement ?

>Their first job is to make
>sure that not a thread gets imported from anywhere but the US.

And that statement ?

>And then
>making damn sure that  local businesses cannot compete with the imported
stuff.

And that ?

Bjorn