On Thu, 8 Apr 2004, Shane Taylor wrote:
> Apparently, film clips of Black Hawk Down are widely distributed
> throughout Iraq, and the intent is to emulate the scenes.
They might also be thinking of the history of Iraq. When Qasim took power in the 1958 coup, the royal family and Nuri al-Said were dragged through the streets. In the 1963 Baath coup, the bodies of Qasim and the communists got dragged through the streets. In the 1991 uprising in the South, it happened to Baathists. It's almost a tradition. It's like a theatre of the macabre where people take revenge for having felt so powerless and humiliated by humiliating the powerless bodies of their foes.
Michael