Iraqi soccer players angered by Bush campaign ads

[Epitome22]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...x.html?cnn=yes


Unwilling participants
Iraqi soccer players angered by Bush campaign ads



PATRAS, Greece -- Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir scored a goal here on Wednesday night, setting off a rousing celebration among the 1,500 Iraqi soccer supporters at Pampeloponnisiako Stadium. Though Iraq -- the surprise team of the Olympics -- would lose to Morocco 2-1, it hardly mattered as the Iraqis won Group D with a 2-1 record and now face Australia in the quarterfinals on Sunday.

Afterward, Sadir had a message for U.S. president George W. Bush, who is using the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign advertisements.

In those spots, the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear as a narrator says, "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes."

(To see the ad, click here.)

"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. "He can find another way to advertise himself."

Ahmed Manajid, who played as a midfielder on Wednesday, had an even stronger response when asked about Bush's TV advertisement. "How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?" Manajid told me. "He has committed so many crimes."

"The ad simply talks about President Bush's optimism and how democracy has triumphed over terror," said Scott Stanzel, a spokesperson for Bush's campaign. "Twenty-five million people in Iraq are free as a result of the actions of the coalition."

To a man, members of the Iraqi Olympic delegation say they are glad that former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein, who was responsible for the serial torture of Iraqi athletes and was killed four months after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, is no longer in power.

But they also find it offensive that Bush is using Iraq for his own gain when they do not support his administration's actions. "My problems are not with the American people," says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad. "They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything. The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?"

At a speech in Beaverton, Ore., last Friday, Bush attached himself to the Iraqi soccer team after its opening-game upset of Portugal. "The image of the Iraqi soccer team playing in this Olympics, it's fantastic, isn't it?" Bush said. "It wouldn't have been free if the United States had not acted."

Sadir, Wednesday's goal-scorer, used to be the star player for the professional soccer team in Najaf. In the city in which 20,000 fans used to fill the stadium and chant Sadir's name, U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled loyalists to rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr for the past two weeks. Najaf lies in ruins.

"I want the violence and the war to go away from the city," says Sadir, 21. "We don't wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away."

Manajid, 22, who nearly scored his own goal with a driven header on Wednesday, hails from the city of Fallujah. He says coalition forces killed Manajid's cousin, Omar Jabbar al-Aziz, who was fighting as an insurgent, and several of his friends. In fact, Manajid says, if he were not playing soccer he would "for sure" be fighting as part of the resistance.

"I want to defend my home. If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that mean they are terrorists?" Manajid says. "Everyone [in Fallujah] has been labeled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq."

Everyone agrees that Iraq's soccer team is one of the Olympics' most remarkable stories. If the Iraqis beat Australia on Saturday -- which is entirely possible, given their performance so far -- they would reach the semifinals. Three of the four semifinalists will earn medals, a prospect that seemed unthinkable for Iraq before this tournament.

When the Games are over, though, Coach Hamad says, they will have to return home to a place where they fear walking the streets. "The war is not secure," says Hamad, 43. "Many people hate America now. The Americans have lost many people around the world--and that is what is happening in America also."

[DwD]

Here is another "Iraqi's response to the story" -

I received many e mails and read some comments regarding the Iraqi Soccer Olympic Team, some readers are upset because of few words of some players and the coach..
Well..at first you have to remember that the players are a part of the Iraqi people! And you can find the same criticism among ordinary Iraqis, some of them are happy with the liberation others have no comments others are angry, you can’t say that ALL Iraqis are happy..there are Bathists, Saddam’s relatives, ordinary people, oppressed and others…so you don’t have to be upset because of someone said ‘America destroyed my country’! I think you are wiser than that!
I remember many players shown on the TV many months ago talking about what Uday Saddam was doing and the types of torture they endured and that they are free now and not afraid of anyone…and can represent their country.
The reporters did not meet those players…so you did not hear or read what you were looking for…..that’s it!
‘You don’t deserve what we’ve done for you’
‘Why we are there if you hate us’….and many other nonsense…
One or two guys DO NOT represent the whole country…keep this in your mind.

[LRB]

I question whether the reporters even sought opinions from players who they thought were grateful or maybe just didn't print those responses. Of course it's possible that all of the Iraqi Olympic team hates Bush, but hardly probably. Any group of any size with freedom to express opinion will almost assuredly express a variety of opinions on a subject. Especially about a man who liberated them from their torturer. We know that most media, but certainly not all, have a anti-Bush bias. It would be interested to see what the reporters politics are.

[FishForLunch]

I am sure that he loved playing for Uday when he was slaughtering the Shites.

[Mavdog]

yeah, those reporters at Sports Illustrated are known for their "anti-Bush bias". [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]