[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Shiites. So that's how they spell it these days.

[Free ThinkerNY]

It seems that whenever we come to the rescue of Muslims (Bosnia and Afganistan vs. Soviets), they show their appreciation by stabbing us in the back. Will Iraq be any different?

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

IMO this is being orchestrated by Iran. The last thing they want to see is a representative secular government in Iraq. Would leave too many in Iran asking for the same. They want the liberalization of Iraq to fail so they can install an Islamic theocratic government there. Left unchecked, there is a good chance that they could succeed. We can't let this happen.

[Hugin]

I wouldn't get too pesimistic. Thousands (how many?) marched. Hundreds of thousands didn't. Just like here, those with a gripe go into the streets and complain, and the media covers it. Those who are happy stay home and are ignored. If you listened only to the media you would have thought the Hate America Firsters were the majority here.

[Mike Darancette]

Thousands of Shiite Muslims staged the largest protest against America's presence in Iraq since the war's end with a noisy but peaceful rally.

I guess they havne't been paying attention to the mass graves that have been uncovered, graves that resulted from US troops pulling out in 1991.

It seems that the slave mentality is alive and well in Iraq.

[DoctorMichael]

We didn't kill enough of them during the liberation.

[ladtx]

I'm beginning to think we need to forget about "nation building". Clean out these cesspools of any Al-Queda, Hamas, etc. operatives, deplete their armies of weapons and leave them to their own devices. They don't understand democracy, don't want it and can't handle it if we gave it to them on a silver platter. If they want to remain in the dark-ages that's their problem.

[Chewbacca]

I think the US Government should print up copies of the Federalist Papers in Arabic and pass them out the Iraqis.

Maybe that will give them something to think about.

[VOA]

the crowd, which swelled at one point to 10,000,

How about "the rest of the story">

My understanding is that the promoters of this event promised, in our terms,
"a million man march".

About the same thing happened with the observances at the holy city of Karbala.

Lots of problems need to be worked out in Iraq...and plenty could still go wrong.

But we don't need New York Times/Pravda-style reporting to give us
a false sense of the situation.