RE: The Olympics (again) and the Iraq soccer team

Jon Kofas writes: "The emotional story out of the Athens Olympics seems to be Iraq's soccer team, which has made it to the quarter finals, and it may even make it to the semi-finals with a lot of luck given its lack of experience in European soccer competitions. Most of the players were playing for the sadistic son of Saddam Hussein, who used brutal methods to discipline them. But they seem to have been reborn at these games. Among other Bush administration officials, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told Jim Lehrer on PBS NEWSHOUR that Iraq's soccer team was another indication of the good things unfolding in that country under the magnificent U.S. leadership! That's as opposed to all the negative coverage that the press has been reporting, like the continued prison scandals involving doctors, lack of infrastructure and medical facilities, hyper-unemployment, crime and lack of security, and above all the fact that Iraq is in on the brink of civil war; the persistent anti-neo-colonial insurgency movement is gaining popularity. In a press conference in Athens, Iraq's  players asked the Bush administration to stop using them to promote the U.S. occupation agenda. Though Paul Bremer's occupation regime had provided $10 million for the team, the players saw none of that money. They had to buy their shoes, uniforms, they had to work and borrow money to keep going to practice, and they were not even protected by U.S. troops when attending practice sessions. Regardless of what happened to the $10 million, Iraq's soccer team is hardly a success story for the U.S. occupation regime. Bush can actually get more mileage out of Kerry's Vietnam adventures than out of Iraq's soccer team, which is anti-American".