I remember in Herodotus, after Cyrus captures Croesus and the latter escapes being burned at the stake by his poigniant retelling of his encounter with Solon, Croesus looks at the city he ruled and asks Cyrus, "What do you see?" and Cyrus replies, "My soldiers are looting your city." And Croesus replies, "No--your soldiers are looting YOUR city." The relevant point for today being that Iraqis aren't celebrating Saddam's fall but going hogwild in the absence of any legtimate authority--and hell, I would too. Question is, how will they be feeling when the US imposes whatever authority they decide upon?
Curtiss
>
>
> Scene witnessed on TV: "Freed" Iraqis looting stores, hauling off TVs and
> computer equipment in wheelbarrows, beating suspected fedayeen
> members. Stoic US soldiers nod and look on. One Iraqi man with a
> wheelbarrow full of goods passed the camera and shouted, "I love America!"
>
> Can anyone doubt that if, somehow, Saddam's forces had won, the same
> Iraqis would be waving Iraqi flags, cheering, presenting flowers for
> the Ba'ath Loyalist troops, etc.? What sentiment is "real," and what is
> simply the result of a people so demoralized and oppressed that they have
> simply become slavishly worshipful of power?
>
>
> Brian
>
> --
>
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