ABCNEWS.com : Fast Track to New Iraq: Rebuilding Sports Teams: U.S. forces in Baghdad are hoping that good old-fashioned athletic competition -- the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat -- will help smooth the transition to democracy in Iraq. Army civil-affairs units are helping to reorganize some 20 sports clubs throughout the war-torn nation with an eye toward eventually revitalizing Iraq's Olympic sports program. The Olympic program had been headed by Saddam Hussein's elder son, Odai, who has a reputation for ruthlessness. He is said to have punished and even ordered beatings of Iraqi soccer players because they did not play well or lost key games. Although it is unlikely the U.S.-backed effort will catapult athletes into gold-medal contention at the 2004 Games, military officials hope it will help build national pride in the new Iraq.
Not that this may not be a worthwhile project eventually ... but you know, perhaps the whole "food-water-social order" thing really ought to take precedence at the moment.
"This is a high-impact, low-cost, high-result project," says Col. Vincent Foulk of the 308th Civil Affairs Brigade, an Army Reserve unit from Chicago. "The payback is just huge. It gets people back to work, and seeing sports is an indication of normality," he says. "Once you have an Iraqi team competing internationally, you have a sovereign nation and not an occupied territory."
You know ... I'm pretty sure that many Palestinians and a few of the more radical Puerto Ricans would disagree strongly with that last statement. A touring sports team is a nice symbol, I suppose, but all the soldiers wandering around the capital, occasionally shooting a few apparently rioting people in other towns, all that would seem to be a pointed, "Yes, we really ARE an occupied nation" reminder.
The soccer field is located nearly equidistant between two important buildings in downtown Baghdad. To the northeast is the charred remains of Odai's headquarters, a major power center under Saddam Hussein. The blackened and gutted structure is surrounded by a high wall adorned with the Olympic rings. To the southwest of the soccer field is the Ministry of Oil, which includes several large, modern buildings. In sharp contrast to the ruins of Odai's building, the Oil Ministry was apparently untouched by U.S. bombs or missiles. And it appears that even looters were kept away from it. U.S. officials hope the Iraqi people draw lessons from such selective targeting. Among those lessons, they say, is that America stands ready to help Iraq rebuild institutions that will assist in the liberation of Iraqis rather than in their further enslavement.
Of all the lessons one might draw from the sparing of the Oil Ministry from bombing and looters ... that it was spared to assist in the liberation of Iraqis would not be up there on the list, really.
Continuing in the sports vein, the IOC has decided to acknowledge that Iraq's previous olympic committee tortured its athletes. Big of them at this late date, isn't it? (Mind, the concept of an IOC Ethics Committee is worth a snicker in and of itself, since the word "ethics" just doesn't come to mind when you think of the IOC, now does it? At least, not in the sense of them actually having any.) In any event it's clear that the IOC just wanted to stay away from a political situation that they felt they couldn't affect. That said, stripping Iraq of its IOC recognition would have probably produced a domino effect, with various federations suspending Iraq. Granted, the athletes wouldn't have had any chance to compete internationally, but perhaps without any chance for international competition, many of them wouldn't have been tortured for not performing to Uday's expectations.
Posted by iain at May 07, 2003 03:26 PMComments
