A Dose of Reality

Authored by Michael Pate on March 22nd, 2004 at 10:37 AM

Dave wants to wants to “add a requirement that the interviews happen only in the place they’re talking about.”

When Vice-president Cheney says in a speech that if Kerry had had his way there would still be death squads in Iraq, if the subject came up in Reality Mode, he’d have to explain exactly why that’s our problem, and what the hell are we supposed to do about it anyway. Remember when people used to complain about the cost of going to the moon. They’d say let’s solve our problems at home first. Exactly. And by the way, Cheney didn’t say things are better in Iraq, only that Hussein is gone and his death squads are too. The void they’ve created is (remember we’re in Reality Mode) certainly as bad as he was, probably much worse. - Dave Winer

I’ve seen first hand what work is being doen in Iraq by the dutch troops, and although a different and much less hostile region than near Bagdad, I spoke to enough iraqi citizens in the province of Al Mutana to know that there is a great appreciation for the coalition ending Saddam’s regime and for facilitating the rebuilding of their country. Assuming there is indeed a void that has been created, folks certainly are happier. Not necessarily worse off. - Adam Curry

Adam has been there, and think things are better than Dave who has not. Dave did provide a wonderful example to make his own point. I wonder what the people who actually live there think?

A large scale opinion survey in Iraq, sponsored by several foreign media networks, found that 70 percent of Iraqis thought they were doing well, and 56 percent believed life was better than before the war. Some 70 percent were optimistic about the future. - James Dunnigan

Of course, Dave has a ready answer to this.

$100+ billion can go a long way to making people happy, even if some of their friends and relatives are dead, injured or homeless, and their country is occupied. - Dave Winer

I was really struck by the protests this weekend. Reports of the number of people murdered by the regime of Saddam Hussein vary from 300,000 to 8,000,000. Yet some argue that they were better off a year ago. And Dave thinks that the people of Iraq are happy because some money is being spent on them.

It must be nice to live in a fantasy world. Maybe some Iraqis are now going to get the chance.