The images they choose, and choose to ignore
And no doubt the vast majority of Iraqis are glad to be rid of Hussein, even if they remember that it was US support for Saddam Hussein throughout the 1980s that allowed his regime to consolidate power despite a disastrous invasion of Iran.
But that does not mean all Iraqis will be happy about the ongoing presence of US troops. Perhaps they are aware of how little the US government has cared about democracy or the welfare of Iraqis in the past.
Perhaps they watch Afghanistan and see how quickly US policymakers abandoned the commitment to "not walk away" from the suffering of the Afghan people.
Perhaps we should be cautious about what we infer from the pictures of celebration that we are seeing; joy over the removal of Hussein does not mean joy over an American occupation.
There is no simple way to get dramatic video of these complex political realities. But they remain realities, whether or not US viewers find a full discussion of them on television
Robert Jensen via the resurrected Al Jazeera website. Seems now that killing their journalists is preferable to killing their website.
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