I'll try to put partisanship aside for a moment and assume that the only reason for us to go to Iraq was to liberate Iraqis from Saddam's regime.
The question is, if the regime was so bad, why Iraqis are so unappreciative?

According to Financial Times,



The poll was conducted even before Abu Ghraib scandal broke, so I would guess that we didn't win any hearts and minds since then.

So why is it that nothing positive that we do is being noticed (and I believe that we probably do rebuild schools, infrastructure, etc.) - and what is the reason that our standings there are so low?

There is little question that the people of Iraq are, on the whole, quite pleased to see Saddam gone. He was not as unpopular as people think, to the common Iraqi he gave them the highest standard of living in the Middle east for a long time, so his reign was not without many advantages. But by the end, people knew him for his tyranny and his secret police, and his inability (or unwillingness) to rebiuild the country properly following the first gulf war. The vast majority of the Iraqi people were thrilled to see him deposed.

However, a lot of Americans seem to assume that just because the Iraqi people were happy to see Hussein gone, they will automatically be Happy with whatever alternative the US puts into place. This is illogical and unrealistic.

Put yourself in the eyes of the average Iraqi citizen: Hussein is gone, so you have freedoms now you never did before, and the apparatus of terror is gone. However in ts place you have a government headed by an American, comprised of council members chosen by the Americans for their pro-US stance. The US army (and the UK in portions) occupies the country and is involved in increasingly bloody fighting with Bathists, religious leaders and increasingly, international terrorists like Al Qaeda. Infratructure has returned to the level it was at before the second gulf war, but it was not great then. It is still far from where it was before the first gulf war.

The US has done good things, and they are noticed, which is why there has been no large scale uprising against the US. But imagine for a moment the situation was reversed, and it were a foreign country occupying and buying up the United States. Even if they had public works projects galore and acted generally well, the average American would not care, he would just want his country back. Why can americans not understand the Iraqis are no different?

US companies are in charge of major reconstruction works. US subsidiaries are showing up in major cities. To the regular Iraqi, it looks like a combination of military and cultural imperialism.

They are STILL grateful that Hussein is gone, but to them, they look to the future and see a US occupied state for the forseeable future. The US attracts violence in the form of international terrorism, which is now active in Iraq whereas it was not before. Law and order are spotty, and as opposed to being governed by a tyrannical Iraqi, they are now being governed by an unsympathetic American.


Imagine for the moment people living in east Prussia in 1945. They were sick of Hitler and were thrilled when he killed himself, and were grateful to the USSR for liberating them. But that gratitude did not mean that they welcomed the Soviet occupation of the country, nor the heavy handed way they dealt with dissent and protest and dragger some of their people away to uncertain fates in military prisons. Sound familiar?

Obviously in most ways the Soviet occupation cannot be compared with the US occupation of Iraq, but the parabole is just. Like it or not the US ARE occupiers. Like it or not violence IS common in Iraq right now. US corporations have moved in, the government is a combination of Americans and carefully selected US sympathisers. It has been a year since the war 'ended' and the violence is worse now then it was then. Prison abuse scandals and the like cover the news, 43 people are killed when US helicopters fire into a wedding party. The government is still US controlled, and self-rule is nowhere in sight.


Why on earth would the everyday Iraqi be happy?

The problem with polls is that they try to place opinions in neatly labled boxes, but opinions, particurly in a situation like this, are not neat and precise. An Iraqi who views the US as an occupier might also support US presence if they feel that we are the lesser of two evils.

Look at this poll that I found at CNN:



Change the way that the question is worded, and the results change even if it's generally trying to convey the same information.

If all the US did was win the war in Iraq, i.e kick out Hussein and attempt to find those tricksy WMDs, then I believe that the hearts and minds of Iraqis would be much more favorably minded towards the US. However, the US also wants to win the peace. Winning the peace is not even remotely the same as winning the war. And this is where the US has run into trouble.

Not to be tautological here but: peace = peace. What I mean is: peace means no war, no daily bloodshed, no evidence of fighting...you know, peace. While Hussein was an evil, bad, <insert superlative here> dictator who ordered terrible atrocities to be committed, he also lorded over a relatively stable (oppressed) society. Iraqis had a level of stability and peace. This, they do not have now. More importantly, the evidence of instability cannot be ignored. While the US military is there, the war continues. It doesn't matter whether it's for their own good (or our own good). For the Iraqis, war and US military are synonyms.

So, it's no wonder the polls show what they do.

"Can't they be grateful that Hussein is gone?", some may ask. The answer is yes. However, that isn't enough to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. And it will never happen while there is war.

Exactly. Survey questions are famous for soliciting the results that the surveyor wanted to extract because of the wording of the question. Also in Iraq there is a generational gap. The younger Iraqis are far more supportive of the US. Many poor Iraqis are influenced by their leaders usually in a negative way regarding the US.

Certainly the Iraqis want us to end the occupation but the vast majority know and appreciate the fact that they would not be free today if not for the US. Certainly the UN seemed to have NO plan to ever deal with Saddam.

I believe we American civilians have no say in this topic. Only the Iraqis have a voice on whether or not we can win thier "Hearts and Minds", and the vast majority of Iraqis wish they had Sadaam back as compared to US occupation.

Winning hearts and minds isn't what this war is about. This war is about subjegating anyone who opposes the agenda of Washington, period.

Could I win your "Hearts and Minds" if I occupied your city with thousands of troops and butchered anyone who dared stand up to my rules?

Hearts and Minds...HA! thats a sad, ironic, joke.

Wow Vermillion you said it perfectly there is only one thing I could add to your great post.

To win the hearts and minds of anyone you have to know more then generalizations about them. That is one of the many of things I believe our adminstration forgot to study on. In order to win the hearts and minds of them you have to know what will win their hearts and minds. Remove Saddam was only part of the equation to winning the hearts and minds the other part was never looked into in my opinion they just hoped it would happen.

The joke really is that you believe this tripe.

Gave me a good laugh it did.

It's a shame for you that it's only your viewpoint and not that of the Iraqis, even according to all the recent polls, most do not want Saddam back.

Alright.

I just find it abit rediculous that people believe that the Iraqis wanted someone who murdered hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen back...

There are some who do, I am sure. Those who benefitted from his rule, but the vast majority lived under brutal oppression and while they bemoan the CPA, polls consistently have shown a vast majority would not want Saddam back.

As to winning hearts and minds, I had high hopes for awhile. Yet, the constant media focus, the constant brainwashing done by the likes of Al-Jazeera and it's ilk is steadily turning the tide against us. Reports that come out of Iraq, especially from Al-Jazeera, make the whole country seem as if it is in an uprising when 90% of the country is by and large pacified. Never have I seen Al-Jazeera report on the good that the US does for the Iraqis, it's constant focus is upon the carnage and then it spins that carnage to make it seem as if American military are killing Iraqis for sport. If it wasn't one of the top, if not number one, station watched by Arabs it be a different story....

Just look at the wedding party story for an example, Arab media is still claiming it's a wedding party while downplaying if not even mentioning the finds made by the US military there.

As much as i would love to think otherwise, i don't think we can win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. And it's not because of our soldiers and what, in the way of violence, is going, but because of the MEDIA. Yes...the media. My reasons are just like keric's:

Tell that to the people buried in the soccer field in Falluja...the dead know no difference.

What poll are you referring to? Who took the poll and when?

The bits I have heard from actual Iraqis from actual reporters (not imbedded reporters
who trade the truth for access and never venture far from the troops) is that there are quite alot of Iraqis that, since the pictures of the abuse scandal has surfaced, believe that Saddam was a far gentler that the US occupation.

This goes doubly true for the Suni minority that enjoyed privileges in Iraq before the invasion.

That is not my opinion, that is the opinion of many Iraqis. You can choose to ignore it, but to do so is very dangerous. Saddam murdered Kurds, Shiites, and Suni rivals. The US is destroying the entire country of Iraq. The people of Iraq are wondering when this rebuilding will begin that we keep talking about, and how can you rebuild when you continue to bomb everything?

When Stalin died in 1953, the outpouring of grief in Soviet Union was such that several people commited suicides and several more were trampled to death during the funeral procession.
Even after the "perestroika", thousands of retirees gather each November 7th on the Red Square in Moscow with Lenin and Stalin's portraits in their hands to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution.
Most of these people were nowhere near high government positions and they didn't benefit from the regime... Why do they lament the tyrant who is gone?
Not everything is so simple as you are trying to present.

P.S. Here's a BBC article about Stalin's heritage and how it is viewed by ordinary Russians. You would think that given millions of people killed in GULAGs, there won't be thousands gathering to celebrate an anniversary of his death. I, personally, found the following quote surprizing:


I am writing that so we don't assume that some Iraqis don't want Saddam back.

This is just plain rubbish. Al-Jazeera is used by every major US news network continuously for their coverage in the Arab world. Al-Jazeera is no more slanted than Fox is. I read both daily.

As for Al-Jazeera covering the good we are doing in Iraq. No one covers that, because there is no good to cover sir. What do you think US troops are doing in Iraq? Handing out candy to babies and helping old ladies across the street? What good can possibly come out of 130,000 soldiers in a country that does not want them there?

130,000 or so troops in a land thats been devastated by almost 15 years of crushing economic sanctions, ruled under the iron fist of a two bit CIA dictator. A country of proud, educated, people with a history that goes back to the dawn of civilization that is being crushed by a foreign army hell bent on taking all of its natural resources.

They call this war Operation: Enduring Freedom, and thats exactly whats happening. The Iraqis are having to endure our freedom.