Iraqi Olympians Denounce Bush

My god people.

I can't believe not one person addressed the fact that the Olympics are not meant to be a political platform arena.

Greece is against US foreign policy and are very vocal about that. Yet they stand and clap for our athletes, they stand for our national anthem when it plays and they have been keeping their opinions to the mum. The US athletes have also been very polite and gracious...they arent waving the US flag around as per request of the IOC and Greek officals(meanwhile no other countries were told they couldnt). The Chinese in all their violator glory are welcomed at the games, the Saudis with their oppression and misogyny recieve gracious applause and are treated with respect.

The Olympics are supposed to be a neutral event where EVERYONE leaves their bullshit at the door. When I watch the Olympics...I dont give a shit about the opinions on world issues from ANY olympic athletes whether they be Americans, the French, or Iraqis.

I just wanna watch them jump 30 feet off a trampoline or play some fucking soccer.

To ALL Olympic athletes: Shut the fuck up and play your sports!

 

The Olympics have always been a political platform regardless of the theoretic neutrality issue, you should be well aware of that by now otter.

Frankly your rant seems to overlook the fact that unlike the Chinese or Saudis or any other team present, the Iraqi team hails from a country which we have starved, bombed, irradiated, an then ultimately conquered and occupied all based on lies and sheer corporate greed. More power to the Iraqi athletes for seizing the first truly global media platform to send a clear message of what real Iraqis truly feel about our continued militancy and presence in THEIR country. You cannot truly believe that US athletes would do any different if it were a foreign power occupying OUR soil and installing their preferred puppets all over again whilst proclaiming it as a liberation and freedom to its spindrenched and misinformed populace at home.

Quite surprising that you arent so equally concerned that the Iraqi statements, as ive mentioned above, have had absolutely no mainstream US media coverage.

Guess its okay, however, for the media to wave them before the public as campaign fodder for the shrub.

 

Fuck those iraqi soccer fags...We should of killed em' on the spot.Shit their gonna be back in their country in a few weeks/months killing U.S soilders...

Shit i'm not for the war,but were already there so I gotta support the troops,and when I hear I piece of shit say somethin' about our troops it pisses me off!Fuck those soccer players,I hope they get their asses whooped.

 

Do you think that you actually have a chance of being taken seriously?

You act like the Iraqi's have done something wrong, when they are just defending themselves against their country's invaders. We would be doing the same exact thing!

 

retard!!!!

 

Has anyone made a thread for biggest idiot on the forums?
'cause I would like to officially cast my vote.

 

It's not that I'm not concerned Lickherish.

I just don't give a flying fuck about political opinions or issues during the freakin Olympics.

I don't watch these games to hear anyone from any country make noise on the horrors of the world. To turn a great, positive event into a grandstand.

The Palestinians arent bitching. They didnt bitch in the 2002 winter games either.(their first since the ban on them after the '72 Munich butchery) The Israelis arent bitching. The Albanians arent bitching, the Kosovoans arent bitching. The Irish arent bitching about the North Ireland/England situation. The Sudan isnt bitching, the Liberians arent bitching. The Venezuelans arent bitching. No other country that's in the throws of violence and war/occupation is bringing their shit into the games!! Plain and simple.

The fucking North and South Koreans are competing as a joint team for the second time in modern Olympic history.Something that most poli-sci nerds thought was impossible and unprecedented. They left their shit at the door.

And I'm not getting my info from NBC or FOX news...I get my info from other news sources including the internet just like the rest of you.So I know these people are not bitching.

The only people bitching about America(that arent Iraqis) are the swimmers who are getting their asses kicked by Michael Phelps.

Iraq wants to use a sports event to voice their dismay?? whatever..but I'm not gonna agree with that premise because I dont give a shit about politics when I'm watching tennis, platform diving, and rhythmic gymnastics.

When I wanna hear about the war and all that shit...I'll come on the internet and read the foreign press or independent news sources.

The Olympics are about the athletes and the love of the sports. They are the one thing on this god-forsaken rock that truly unifies the people. They are the very thing to allow the average person and the super athlete to escape from the horrid real life.

Exploiting that and making it negative is inappropriate at best.The Palestinians fucked up in 1972 when they attempted to exploit the games negatively. They got punished for it. It never happened again and now they compete as equals.

You wanna be heard?? find another arena to do it in and leave the Olympics be.

It's disgusting that the American(and British/coalition countries) athletes are being made to feel like shit during something they worked their whole lives to be a part of. It's disgusting that the American athletes arent allowed to wave their flag proudly because it might offend someone else. Fuck those people.

If Saudi Arabia with all it's fucked-up ways/doings and shady ass dealings is allowed to prance their flag around and China with it's genocide-infanticide-forced sterilization-tibetan nun raping-Taiwan occupying ass is allowed to proudly wave their flag then so should the USA.

I realize that some of you fucking live to hate the US no matter who you hurt in your determination, so I'm guessing that what I have said simply fell on deaf ears and blind eyes. Oh well, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

I refuse to be hypocritical and self-righteous with such one-sided hatred.

I just want to watch these 16 days of glory in fucking peace without some person making it into a negative political 3-ring circus.

And I cheered China on during the Gymnastics because the men were awesome.

 

The Iraqi governing council put into power not by the people of Iraq but by. . .who?

Ah! It all makes so much sense now! The council hasn't asked us to leave because the AMERICANS put it up! Do you see the light?!

 

It always comes back to this bogus and jingoistic neocon evasion doesn't it otter? Even when im sure you are perfectly aware that it is not "hatred of the US" (given that I am no less an American than you) but of the prevailing US "POLICY".

So hold your opinion, by all means, but do not go charging those who consider our national actions to be worthy of condemnation as "hating America" or "unAmerican". Bleating in unison with Washington does not give one a monopoly on patriotism.

 

Something tells me that if we HAD left the Iraqis to suffer longer under Hussein, you'd find something wrong with the Republicans doing that too.

The fact is, these ungrateful shitbags have the right to denounce Bush now precisely because Bush secured them that right. As it was, just over a year ago, when Hussein was still the dictator of Iraq, the Iraqi Olympic athletes used to be TORTURED IF THEY DIDN'T WIN. Forced to lie on scorching hot pavement, forced to wear iron masks with spikes that stuck them in the face, etc. So don't tell me that Bush made it so horrible for them. If not for him, they'd still be being tortured just for not winning the fucking Olympics (like anyone expects Iraqis to win the Olympics, anyway, so pretty much being on the team meant you were eventually gonna be tortured.)

But look, I'm realistic. I know that you Bush haters are going to find fault with anything he does, no matter what it is. And if he does what you were saying he ought to do last week, this week you'll say that you changed your mind. Since he can't win, he needs to just fuckin' IGNORE you and do what he knows is right.

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

The "invaders" who got rid of the guy who used to have them tortured for not performing well in the Olympics?

Yeah, we're really horrible to them. It would have been so much kinder of us to leave them under the yoke of a madman who had his sons torture athletes.

You people crack me up.

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

Go visit their families and neighbours and see how many tens of thousands have been annihilated by our hailstorms of bombs, had their doors kicked in in the middle of the night and sons/husbands dragged out by OUR troops and subsequently subjected to humiliation and torture and then come back and talk about "ungrateful".

Stop listening to the inflated PR generated almost daily by our corporate media/press to justify our continued occupation and domination of that country and start considering just how welcoming you would be of a foreign power perpetrating the same in your town/neighbourhood (or god forbid your own home).

The smug and self righteous "manifest destiny" attitudes of those who continue to justify a war based on lies and sheer avarice is astounding.

Lets hear our war loving countrymen call themselves "terrorists" or "ungrateful" when its our turn to be on the receiving end and they duly take up arms in patriotic defence of our soil. Don't think it can't or won't one day happen, history is replete with evidence to the contrary.

Saddam could have just as easily been removed by backing the indeigenous and self determined will of the Shias 12 years ago, but of course the Bush family has shown that fundamentalism is acceptable only in the White House, not in resource rich potential client states.

The hypocrisy has got to end!

 

Lickherish i love how you take one tiny clause out of Otter's 5+ paragraph post and accuse her of being a "neo con", when she clearly, as most people on here, are not. I agree with everything she just said, and we don't agree that often on a lot of issues, but she makes good points. Some people on here do live to hate the US, others blindly follow it as well. But, Americans should be able to wave their tiny flags if they wish if every other nation can, but since you have your undying hatred of the U.S, you don't mind. Furthermore, no other nation is bitching about problems that I know of back at their homes. This is the olympics, not the world court. It is to honor atheltes from around the globe, not bitch to the world about your problems. I am sorry people have problems around the world, but guess what, no where is perfect, every nation has problems.

 

No, Jozak, I chided her for using an all too oft heard neo-con accusation. I suggest once again that you read what is written instead of what you wish to read into my comments.

And I note that you too stoop to such blind and ideologically-laden accusations. I AM an AMerican, and I do not hate my own country. Youre virulent suggestion that i do only highlites how hypocritical your own views on the accountability of elected leaders truly is.

Condemning repeatedly exposed liars and abusers of office is the civic duty of every American, it is not "hatred" for our nation.

Furthermore, other nations don't have the US military occupying, continuing to visit death and destruction on its citizens, and installing a puppet regime of corrupt US business-friendly cohorts as does Iraq. Thats a far cry from simply "having problems". A pity your right wing filters prevent you from comprehending that difference.

 

I'm just curious, if they don't say anything at the Olympics, exactly where are they supposed to say it? Go back to Iraq and say it? Umm and who exactly will hear them there. Oh yeah that is right, the good ol American soldiers that we sent there to invade and occupy their country, those are the only ones who will hear it. What is the point in saying anything if no one can hear you.

 

Absolutely no mainstream coverage except a Sport Illustrated story which CNN also links to - those infamous left wing underground non-corporate media sources.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/olympics/2004/writers/08/19/iraq/index.html

So the question now is whether were you knowingly lying when you said there was no mainstream coverage or did you just make it up because it would be convenient if it were true, although you actually had no idea?

Please be sure to respond with either (A) An answer; or (B) A whole shitload of invective.

 

I searched CNN and found no article reference whatsoever. Please be so kind as to provide a link to the CNN reporting of the Iraqi statements, Id be pleased to be wrong in this case.

None of the US domestic press or media provided air time nor in-house coverage (front page or otherwise) to the report. links to the Ireland Online reporting of the statements do not qualify as "own coverage" as the average American does not go hunting for specific news stories that are not mentioned up front. A call to the rents who are avid news junkies further reinforced this view when i was told that they had neard nothing on CNN, Fox or any other national or local outlet. So much for the supposedly "liberal" media.

For your information I also searched the NY Times, Washington Post and even the much assailed "liberal" LA Times, none of which had any mention online.

 

Sports Illustrated is a mainstream corporate media source.

And CNN and SI are tied websites. That's why my link says sportsillustrated.cnn.com and not sportsillustrated.com.

 

Sports Illustrated hardly qualifies as widely viewed national news. The title alone should tell even a contrarian like yourself how specialised its readership is.

Come back when you can actually show some actual reportage by mainstream US NEWS sources. Thanks.

*note - further CNN.com searches continue to show no online front page reference to the statements which, as my original comment contends, would have indeed been blazoned for all to see if US media were, as routinely charged, truly "liberal".

 

Sports Illustrated is as mainstream as it gets you pathetic weasel, and if the story is hosted by CNN then it is hosted by CNN.

How's this then?

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/224061p-192375c.html

Amazing. 10 pages later you will probably still be pretending it isn't in the media.