Ironic isn't it

[Jersay]

Now it is kind of funny.

Now to some it might appear to them that I could support the terrorists and such. Which I don't. I just try to present my viewpoint on Iraq. But we share something in common.

American and (X number of nations) have Sept 11.

British have London Bombings

Spainish people have Madrid

Aussies have Bali

And people who work for the U.N and support the U.N

have the Iraqi Canal Hotel Bombing that killed the U.N Human Right Commissioner.

The explosion occurred while Benon Sevan, director of the "Oil for food program," was holding a press conference. Sevan was among the wounded. The explosion damaged a spinal cord treatment center hospital nearby and the shockwave was felt a mile away.

The blast was most likely caused by a suicide bomber driving a truck full of explosives. The vehicle has been identified as a large 2002 flatbed Kamaz (manufactured in Eastern Europe; part of the former Iraqi establishment's fleet). Investigators in Iraq suspect the bomb was made from old munitions, including a single 500-pound bomb. The materials may have been from Iraq's prewar arsenal. Investigators comment that such items would not require any "great degree of sophistication" to assemble.

There is speculation that Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, may have been specifically targeted in the blast due to the proximity of the explosion to his office. The UN building may have been chosen due to its limited security.

[edit]
List of victims
Sérgio Vieira de Mello, 55 (Brazil): UN Secretary-general's special Iraqi envoy.
Saad Hermiz Abona, 45 (Iraq): working for UN contracting firm
Renam Al-Farra, 29 (Jordan): an employee of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Raid Shaker Mustafa Al-Mahdawi, 32 (Iraq): United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)
Emaad Ahmed Salman Al-Jobary, 45 (Iraq): Electrician for UNMOVIC
Omar Kahtan Mohamed Al-Orfali, 34(Iraq): Driver
Leen Assad Al-Qadi, 32 (Iraq): UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Iraq (UNOHCI)
Ranillo Buenaventura, 47 (Philippines): UNOHCI
Gillian Clark, 47 (Canada): Christian Children's Fund
Arthur Helton, 54 (United States): director of peace and conflict studies at the US Council on Foreign Relations.
Richard Hooper, 40 (United States): UN Department of Political Affairs.
Reza Hosseini, 43 (Iran): employed by UN Office for the Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq
Ihsan Taha Husein, 26 (Iraq): UN driver for office of project services
Jean-Selim Kanaan, 33 (Egypt): Member of Vieira de Mello's staff.
Chris Klein-Beekman, 32 (Canada): UN Children's Fund's program coordinator.
Manuel Martín-Oar, 56 (Spain): naval captain, assistant to the Spanish special ambassador to Iraq
Khidir Saleem Sahir, (Iraq): Civilian
Alya Souza, 54 (Iraq): worked for the World Bank
Martha Teas, 47 (United States): manager of UN humanitarian coordination office
Basim Mahmoud Utaiwi, 40 (Iraq): Security guard for UNOHCI
Fiona Watson, 35 (Britain): Member of Vieira de Mello's staff
Nadia Younes, 57 (Egypt): Chief of Staff for Vieira de Mello
(Marilyn Manuel, 53 (Philippines), a member of Vieira de Mello's staff originally listed as dead, stunned her family when she called home, not knowing they had been told she was dead. They had been busy arranging her funeral.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_Hotel_Bombing

 

[jimmoyer]

INFORMATION IMBALANCE.

THOUGHTS BY A POLISH FINANCE MINISTER


Listen to Leszek Balcerowicz, who was the Polish finance minister during his country's economic transformation at the beginning of the 1990s.

Ruminating recently on the parallels between post-communism and post-Baathism, Balcerowicz noted that along with inflation and price controls, one of the most serious obstacles to reform in Poland was the information imbalance.



Because there was no free press before 1989, Poles knew little about the real state of their country.


After 1989 there was a lot of free press, and it was all negative. Fed on a diet of "isn't everything terrible," many began to idealize the past and reject the present.




Something similar may be happening in Iraq today. Increasingly, everything that is wrong in Iraq, from the malfunctioning infrastructure to the ethnic tensions, is blamed on the U.S. occupation.



A wider debate about how Iraq got to where it is -- how Hussein mismanaged the country, murdered whole villages and stole the nation's money -- might help persuade Iraqis to invest in the present.

.
.
.

 

[Jersay]

You might be right. But with Poland, I don't think they had a foreign invasion force in 1989.

 

[jimmoyer]

Then you miss his point.

???

 

[Jersay]

Iraq and Poland have too many different circumstances even though there is some similarities, for example some people wish to be back in the days of Saddam because to them life appeared better.

Still too different to see what the outcome of iraq will be.

 

[jimmoyer]

I think you're talking yourself out of understanding
the Polish Minister's point.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ruminating recently on the parallels between post-communism and post-Baathism, Balcerowicz noted that along with inflation and price controls, one of the most serious obstacles to reform in Poland was the information imbalance.

Because there was no free press before 1989, Poles knew little about the real state of their country.

After 1989 there was a lot of free press, and it was all negative. Fed on a diet of "isn't everything terrible," many began to idealize the past and reject the present.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Notice that last sentence ? "...many began to idealize the
past and reject the present" because of information imbalance.

It's human nature.

Compare no news with what is in today's news ?

You will always idealize the past.

 

[Jersay]

True. But I say again, Poland and Iraq have similarities, but they also have differences.

 

[jimmoyer]

When any country goes from a dictatorship
where there is no news....

to a democracy where all the news is bad, because
the very nature of free press is mostly bad news...

It becomes very hard for a new democracy to flower.

That's UNIVERSAL.

Which is why it helps alot to dig up news of the past
for a young democracy to gain perspective.

 

[Jersay]

Then send those clippings of good news to the Iraqi people. They will feel a whole lot better.

 

[jimmoyer]

From NO NEWS OF THEHIDDEN PAST OF SADDAM
to only BAD NEWS OF THE PRESENT hardly annoints
any of us to be a proper judge.

Actually, the Western liberals and conservatives
know very little the complexity of what Iraqis see.

All we know is that the world is little united enough
to roundly and equally condemn the main purpose
of the insurgents: to deny security to its own people.

By the way good news about anything will NOT make the poor in Canada or America feel any better.

But it's a funny thing how if a culture of thinking takes
over, like poor people doing
what they can rather than blaming everybody else, or Iraqis getting smart about who wishes them the worst then and only then ----CHANGE to the better happens.

I am certainly not going to blame my own DOWNSIZING
from the corporate world as the fault of jobs going
overseas to my parents while I waste my time
on this board.

They're going to tell me I'm full of crap.

Nor should anyone else pontificate that the problem
with their lives is because of George Bush OR Harper not caring.

Get over it.

They don't care.

Now what ?

All the bad news infects us with BLAME PSYCHOLOGY.