Amen to that!

Now THAT is a truly great post! Not that it's a surprise coming from you.

Hopefully this is the turning point where people will stop kissing Salam Pax's behind. He's gotten tool much slack for being the "first Iraqi blogger," when his output is filled with the kind of obtuseness, faux sophistication and moral bankruptcy that we've learned to expect from the New York Times editorial page. Basically, I don't need to read Salam Pax to get the same nonsense I can get from the regular media outlets.

WELL SAID!

I agree with (Brevet Colonel) Joshua Chamberlain, above, and add that you very accurately make the distinction between the sadly mistaken conflation 'given someone freedom' and the reality-based 'have given Iraqis a chance to become free!'

Freedom, as one of the branches of responsibility, must be earned. Salam Pox has NOT even BEGUN to earn his, yet.

For shame, Salam. Grow up. Be an adult.

I think most Iraqis, no the world, realizes we never went there for Iraqi freedom and liberation. That reason is just as true as WMDs, Al-Quada, nuclear programs, and all of the other creative "truths" we used to get there. In the end the only reason we went there was to control oil. Saddam had not been on the American payroll for a decade and we need a new stooge running that country that obeys us. The only people who do not realize this are Americans.

Did you know that the Constitution does not give people rights?

People’s rights preexist both the Constitution and the federal government. The Constitution sets barriers to the power of the government in order to prevent it from taking away people’s preexisting rights.

It seems to be the case that some would rather nag and bitch about other citizens in other countries not being grateful about being handed something they themselves did not give nor do they even seem to understand.

We seem to lecture Salam about something that is inherently his. Or are inalienable rights contingent on lonely bLoggers getting their nationalistic egos stroked?

I don't think the Iraqis are impressed with American blowhards, whether they are soldiers or bLoggers. The Iraqi's are going to turn on us like Vietnamese farmers.

You make a good point in that if we wanted to, Tikrit would not exist today, had we decided to. But that applies to the entire middle east region, the source of the terrorist attacks on our country. I think that Salam missed this point.

Which is a shame. What Salam indicates is not a grateful, if impatient populace, but a ungrateful one all too willing to be Saddam's lapdog. He really needs to think about whether this is the impression he wants to convey to the American people, as he, whether intentionally or willingly, or not, represents the Iraqi people on the world stage, especially in the blogosphere.

People might take his attitude as common, and that would be bad for Iraq, for the Middle East, and possibly even Islam itself.

We are in Iraq, because we think the Iraqi people can change their nation, their government and are not immune to freedom's lure. If this is perceived to be mistaken, if too many Americans begin to see the Iraqis as whiny ungrateful brats, willing to live under a tyrant, and vent their anger at those who freed them, there is always Plan B.

We could wipe out Tikrit. And Baghdad, and most of the Middle east in a single night. We could scour the country clean of such vermin. We don't because we think that those "vermin" are not vermin, but decent people who want to be free.

Don't prove us wrong here Salam. Grow up, take responsibility for your own country, and help build it, rather than sitting on your backside and whine because we don't do things exactly the way you want us to. Don't give us a reason to lose faith in you individually or as a people.

In short, stop acting so damn French.