Why sports can do what Military Action fails??

[heyhey]

Just as Prime Minister Maliki is calling for the replacement of US top military man in Iraq Gen. Petraeus (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/28/ap3963274.html) and as the Iraqi parliament begins their vacation with little accomplished in meeting it's goals...it seems Iraqis have found a new-found sense of Nationalism that transcends tribal conflicts.. Celebratory gunfire could be heard on the streets of Bagdhad this afternoon with cries of : Shi'a, Sunni, Kurd, Christian, we are all Iraqi!!! .. after the Iraqi soccer team took the Asia Cup today (http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSGRA95759920070729).

What is it that sports get but the Iraqi Leaders and the US adminstration and pentagon miss?

What can all involved learn from this phenemenom?

[mbossman2]

http://football.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-6804455,00.html

[heyhey]

http://football.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-6804455,00.html

Very short lasting sense of Nationalism.

[Rapier]

http://football.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-6804455,00.html


Car bomb kills 10 Iraqis celebrating soccer win
BAGHDAD, July 25 (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded near a group of soccer fans celebrating Iraq's Asian Cup victory over South Korea on Wednesday, killing 10 people and wounding 20, police in Baghdad said.
Police said the blast took place in the capital's western Mansour district. One police source said the bomb was placed in a parked car.
A second source said the blast was caused by a suicide bomber.


Hopefully this incident will awaken all of Iraq to who the enemy is.

If there ever was a time to drop leaflets all over Iraq, it's now.

[heyhey]

It's quite sad actually.

I don't think our presence over there is going to change things..

but I was hopeful for a second there that the Iraqi people themselves found some middle ground.

Fact is that they weren't the ones who divided the geographical lines that created Iraq and I'm just not sure if anyone can keep those divided lines together into one idea of a "nation". Saddam did it under dictaorship and brutality.. and now there's chaos.. and a civil society with a collective identity of one nation seems bleak...

maybe a soccer team could pull it off for a fleeting moment.. but IMO thinking anything is going to last.. for now much longer then that is naive..

I'm sad over this whole day today ... the Iraqi people did seem to have a glimmer of hope there for a second.. :(

[eagle]

I heard 4 people died from celebratory gunfire after the game. How can people be so stupid, don't they realize that what goes up must come down. Don't they understand the concept of gravity?

[David M]

You will never get 4 desert tribes who have hated each other for centuries to agree on anything.

Additionally, people who are that religious are shills to their religious leaders. Anything the religious leaders say are believed to be the word of Allah. Fatwas are believed to originate from Allah.

You cannot reason with religious zealots and they cannot even reason with each another.

And we are arrogant enough to think they are going to accept this Western idea of a Democracy (a republic actually)?...get real! It's ironic that Greece (origin of Plato's Republic) is not all that far from the Middle East.

Forget it...it's hopeless. Those religious zealots will never change. Let them have their tribal wars from here to eternity and do what we can to seal them off from attacking the Western world. If permanently stationing a carrier battle group loaded with cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf is what it takes then so be it.

[eagle]

You will never get 4 desert tribes who have hated each other for centuries to agree on anything.

Additionally, people who are that religious are shills to their religious leaders. Anything the religious leaders say are believed to be the word of Allah. Fatwas are believed to originate from Allah.

You cannot reason with religious zealots and they cannot even reason with each another.

And we are arrogant enough to think they are going to accept this Western idea of a Democracy (a republic actually)?...get real! It's ironic that Greece (origin of Plato's Republic) is not all that far from the Middle East.

Forget it...it's hopeless. Those religious zealots will never change. Let them have their tribal wars from here to eternity and do what we can to seal them off from attacking the Western world. If permanently stationing a carrier battle group loaded with cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf is what it takes then so be it.

I agree. These people been fighting for thousands of years and they will be fighting for thousands of more years if human kind lasts that long. They have been taught since childhood to be hateful and violent to anyone who doesn't believe in their religion as they do.