Some things are black and white...

Note: this is not a political blog...although I couldn't let this one pass without comment.

The Iraqi soccer team has had their first opportunity in a long time to participate in the Olympics. More than just 'participate', though, they have in fact exceeded expectations by winning their group with a 2-1 record and earning a spot in the quarterfinals on Sunday.

How do they feel about President Bush and the US invasion, though? Not very happy, that's for sure... (Read the article here)

"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," midfielder Salih Sadir said, referring to recent campaign commercials featuring the Iraqi soccer team playing in the Olympics.

That's okay...nothing wrong with that opinion (although the commercials don't imply that the members of Iraqi soccer team would vote for Bush if given a chance, only that they wouldn't be competing at the Olympics if Saddam was still in power. Is that not a true statement?)

That's not all, though:

"My problems are not with the American people," says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad. "They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything."

"How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?" midfielder Ahmed Manajid said, apparently without irony, "He has committed so many crimes." ('He' meaning President Bush, not Saddam Hussein.)

So...do they wish Hussein and his sons were still ruling Iraq, then?

"To a man, members of the Iraqi Olympic delegation say they are glad that former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein, who was responsible for the serial torture of Iraqi athletes and was killed four months after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, is no longer in power."

And yet...

"...they also find it offensive that Bush is using their team for his own gain when they do not support his administration's actions in Iraq....'We don't wish for the presence of Americans in our country.' [says Sadir] 'We want them to go away.'"

Am I the only one that finds this attitude incomprehensible? Does the Iraqi soccer team not realize that there is a direct causal relationship between A and B? Let me state it very simply:

Saddam and his sons are not in power in Iraq anymore BECAUSE George W. Bush and the U.S. invaded.

Let me state that again:

If the U.S. had not invaded, Saddam and his sons would still be ruling Iraq right now, and for many decades in the future as well.

Is this so hard to understand?

Yet, many Iraqis (not to mention Michael Moore and most of the Democrats in America) don't appear to make this connection. They talk about how it's great it is that Saddam and Uday and Qusay aren't in charge anymore in Iraq, yet say the U.S. invasion was a mistake from the beginning and shouldn't have happened--as if those two things are totally independant events. As if there were a variety of other ways Saddam could have been removed from power and President Bush chose the worst one.

Oppose the Iraq invasion? That's fine...but that means you have to accept that this is an either/or situation. There are no other choices.

Either: The U.S. invades Iraq and removes the Hussein family from power

Or: The U.S. does not and the Husseins are still ruling Iraq today
-and-
The U.N. sanctions are still in force, crippling the economy and impoverishing the Iraqi people.
-and-
Saddam continues to sell oil in spite of the sanctions with the help of corrupt members of the U.N. enriching himself while his people starve.

Saying you disapprove of one option means you prefer the other. There's no way around it. Ask yourself this: if, starting today, you and your family had to live in Iraq for the next ten years, which Iraq would you want to live in?