General Mark Kimmitt refers to Iraqis as "Ali Baba"

http://www.buzzflash.com/mailbag/04/05/mai04147.html

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Subject: General Mark Kimmitt refers to Iraqis as "Ali Baba"

This is the same fool I heard on a news program say, "If it was a wedding it was unlike any wedding I've ever seen." Wonder how many Iraqi weddings General Kimmitt has been invited to lately?
U.S. shows photo evidence in deadly Iraq attack (The Chicago Tribune--from wire reports)

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military displayed more photographs yesterday to bolster its contention that American aircraft attacked a safe house for foreign fighters near the Syrian border - not a wedding party, as claimed by Iraqi survivors and police and suggested by video footage from the scene.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the coalition deputy chief of staff for operations in Iraq, again showed pictures of items the military said it found at the attack site, including machine guns, ammunition, a Sudan Airways plane ticket, medical gear, a Sudanese passport and battery packs associated with improvised explosive devices.
" These are pictures that are somewhat inconsistent in my mind with a wedding party," Kimmitt said. "One could say, yes, it is true that out in the desert you need to have a rifle to protect yourself against Ali Baba, but the necessity for rocket-propelled launchers, rocket launchers in the bottom, special machine guns may be a little much for Ali Baba out there."

Laura Wilkerson
Spencer, Indiana
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racist

but very stupid

the chief commanding officer in Iraq makes a god awful recial slur against those he's supposed to be liberating after blowing up a wedding and lying about it.

Winning the hearts and minds. . .AGAIN. . .Ughhhhhh

to the necessity of isolated folks needing weapons to portect themselves from bandits. Unfortunate choice of words, nontheless.

classify all individuals as a single archtype... certainly easy to not view as humans that way - just a cutout archtype. Makes his other comments certainly fall into context.

If you aren't insurgents why do you have these guns? Because of Ali Baba. But this is too many guns just for Ali Baba, and so on...

Using local terminology is a good thing, from a hearts and minds perspective. An Iraqi audience probably would understand what he was saying pretty well.

This isn't a comment on the veracity of what he's saying--just the language.

arrogant fuck`n asshole..but look who his boss is. god are we going to pay for these assholes

The British papers said that US troops went around shooting wounded women and children survivors and stealing the jewelry from their bodies. Just who is the Ali Baba?

I remember jars of oil and the thieves hiding in them. Memory failing...help...Spock...

Kimmit has lied so many times that it really is insane to even consider that he might be telling the truth. He makes Bagdad Bob look like George Washington after the cherry tree fell over.
Here is how US troops are seen. Nothing but a bunch of thieves is how the Iraqis view them.

"Baghdad - Iraqis accuse United States troops of stealing money and other property during what they say are aggressive and even destructive American raids on homes that can devastate families socially and financially.

"It's a huge problem. Almost everyone has something to say about gold, money and other valuables going missing and they don't believe they'll ever get them back," said Adel Alami, a lawyer with Iraq's Human Rights Organisation."



http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1085506560413B262&set_id=1

he has earned the dubious honor, reserved for only one other person, of being turned off the moment I hear his arrogant asshole voice on the radio. Oh, and guess who the other "person" is?

Zell Miller?

but it's unwise for a non-Muslim to use it for two reasons

1) Muslims don't use the term to mean "Arabic thieves"

2) For the same reason it's unwise for a white person to use the term "nigger" even though blacks use the term

That's what Iraqis call them. Kimmit's talking about criminals, not ordinary Iraqis when he says that.

If he only uses that phrase tp identify Arab or Iraqi theives, then he is being racist (or something-ist)

It's ok for Iraqis to call Iraqi thieves "Ali Baba" but not ok for white people to do it?

I didn't know you had your finger on the pulse of Iraqi racial sensitivities.

What I said was "If he only uses that phrase to identify Arab or Iraqi theives, then he is being racist (or something-ist)"

Please note the use of the conditional "if"

>Muslims don't use the term to mean "Arabic thieves"

Yes they do, just as in Compton 'gang-bangers' means 'black gang-bangers' That's the default. If you're referring to a Mexican or Asian gang you would modify the term... Mexican gang-bangers, etc.

If gangs of Chinese looters had flocked into Iraq the locals would call the Chinese Ali Babas.

> For the same reason it's unwise for a white person to use the term "nigger" even though blacks use the term

That's crazy. The Iraqis see no racial offense in the term, so why should you? Unlike 'nigger', ali baba has no history as a racial weapon. It's like describing a traitor as a Benedict Arnold... that's not a comment on white people or British people.

Plus, in a war where our inability to speak Arabic is a constant cause of bad results for Iraqis I think the idea of both groups using the same terminology is a damn good idea.

>>Muslims don't use the term to mean "Arabic thieves"

>Yes they do, just as in Compton 'gang-bangers' means 'black gang-bangers' That's the default. If you're referring to a Mexican or Asian gang you would modify the term... Mexican gang-bangers, etc.

No, they don't. They refer to ALL thieves, including white ones, as "Ali Baba's".

The Iraqis see no racial offense in the term, so why should you?

And you know this...how?

I know that they DO see a racial offense in a white person's use of the term because I know Arabs.

the true measure of success in this war you would think that there would be a huge emphasis on what to say and do from the highest general to the lowest private.

You would be wrong though.

When street crime arose after the invasion (something most Iraqis had never experienced before) the looters and petty criminals were dubbed 'ali babas' by the locals--Ali Baba being the most famous thief in middle eastern folklore. We never imposed that term on them. We (the occupiers) adopted the terminology from the Iraqis, and that's now how both sides refer to thieves. It's usage has expanded to include carjackers, kidnappers for profit, and just about any other kind of money motivated criminal.

(As for the question of whether it's racist to only use the term to describe Iraqis, that depends on whether one wants language to be part of a political parlour game or whether one thinks language should be communicative. When or GIs steal from people at checkpoints I'm sure they are cursed as 'ali babas,' but as a general term it's presumed to refer to middle easterners. That's the default. An Iraqi telling a buddy about being ripped off at a checkpoint wouldn't say "I was robbed by some Ali Babas" because his buddy would assume he meant a gang of Iraqis. He would first identify the theives as American soldiers and then curse them as ali babas.)

but I don't think it would be wise for a white person to use that term in Harlem.

This is really arguing from the specific to the general.

The Iraqis see no racial offense in the term, so why should anyone else? Unlike 'nigger', ali baba has no history as a racial weapon. It's like describing a traitor as a Benedict Arnold... that's not a comment on white people or British people.

when used only to refer to Arabs. The Arabs I know use the term Ali Baba to refer to theives of any race or ethnicity.

we stripped them naked and wrote it with magic markers on their bodies after which we paraded them around town.

Wonder how many Merican thieves we've done that to over there in EYEraq?

RC

I'm sure the Iraqis weren't offended by that. After all, Saddam used to do it to them, and Saddam was an Iraqi.

After all we're there to show them just how much like Sadam we can. I'm sure it made them feel right at home! Sort of like blowing up weddings, torturing prisoners, raping their women and killing their children! Now that's what I call liberation! I sure wouldn't feel the need to arm myself to the teeth in an evironment like that and I'm sure most Americans wouldn't either.

RC

I'm sure that when an American soldier talks about "Ali Babas" it isn't with the utmost of respect.