Let's trade Canadians for Kurds. I think they'd be great neighbors.

We'd have been much more likely to hear a thank you had we not already betrayed them to Saddam. I'm not sure how much I disagree with them either. They lost a lot of people after GWI.

Elected Shiite politicians have been quite clear about the fact that they appreciate our help removing Saddam.

But in general, it seems to me that Iraqi Shiites tend to not have the same high opinion of us that the Kurds do. They tend to assume that we're in Iraq for our own reasons. (Which is true, to a large degree. Not that there's anything wrong with that.) So, they don't dislike us, but they're not ecstatic about us, either. And I'm with Enrak; I don't really blame 'em.

When it comes to the middle east, cautious good relations is such a huge step forward, I'm not complaining. And it will only improve as Iraq stabilizes and prospers. Someday, there will be a street or a park or a monument or something named after Dubya in Baghdad, I'm sure of it. (I know this idea must simply horrify my friend Tubino.)

Hasn't the mayor of Baghdad already dedicated something to President Bush?

Would be awfully nice to hear a thank-you from the Shi'ites.

I wouldn't hold my breath. We really fucked them over after Gulf War I. Bush pere didn't have the rocks that Bush fils does; he basically abandoned them to Saddam's wrath after we declared victory and went home. The Shi'ites caught it worse than the Kurds did in many ways because they didn't have the resources or ifrastructure to fall back on that the Kurds did.

In many ways I've considered Gulf War II our apology to the Kurds and Shi'a for fucking them over so badly after Gulf War I, and to show them that we're not cowardly pussies who will run at the first hint of adversity.

Still, it's nice to hear a "thank you" from someone, and the Kurds will probably end up being good friends to have in that region of the world. In fact, I remain in favor of giving them their own federal state -- if the Arab Iraqis try to disenfranchise them in the future, they should be able to say "up yours" and declare independance. (And I agree with Ace wholeheartedly here: fuck Turkey. The legacy of Kemal Ataturk is being torn down, and more's the pity.)

Rove is such a genius.

Lets make CINDY SHEEHAN and MICHEAL MOORE watch these ads

Hasn't the mayor of Baghdad already dedicated something to President Bush?

Lies from the jew controlled, right-wing mainstream media! You should read DU if you want the truth!!!!!!

(Did I get enough exclamation marks? Oops, I forgot the capitals, must be the Rove mind-control rays taking over.....)

I have seen the commercial; it's good. Very heartwarming. Saw it on FSN, of course. I wonder how much it will be played on the MSM channels?

I don't think it's just ass-kissing -- we should give the Kurds credit for some integrity. They owe us, and they're willing to say that they are grateful.

I'll bet that if the Kurds hosted a bad poetry contest, they would announce a winner.

There are 4 to 5 million Iraqi Kurds, and Saddam's intention was to exterminate them. America and Britain prevented a holocaust.

I saw the url and thought....who is Theo? Theo the Iraq? Missed the R.

We prefer to call them "turkey lovers"...

If for nothing else he should be exterminated for the Halabja massacre or should we say "fact finding experiment".
I collected a few links together in a snippet I wrote. Warning the first link is not for those who are affected by images of dead children/babies or I'd link directly.

Take my word for it it's pretty sad.

Sometimes you have to say "you're welcome" even when you don't hear a "thank you." The Iraqi Shiites will be very grateful once they see what happens to the Iranian Shiites when that nuclear program of theirs is complete.

Monty, Enrak:
Not for noth'n, but the Kurds in the north rebelled, and were 'betrayed' in the same manner as the Shia in the south. They rose up simultaneously, and both groups were savagely put down by Saddam in the aftermath of Gulf War 1. And we had 'no fly zones' to keep Saddam from finishing the job, in both the north and the south. So the Shia and the Kurds have both tasted 'betrayal' and received 10 years of air cover from us.
Yet the Kurds are going to the American people directly, with this very gracious Thank You campaign. Considering that the goal of the "other Iraq" is an independent country, it also seems like a very sharp move. And I'll bet it will also work a heck of a lot better than killing Olympic athletes, hijacking planes, and blowing up buses, like certain other stateless people I might mention.

Now, I put the word 'betrayal' in quote marks, because although the Kurds and the Shia certainly feel betrayed, I don't think they actually were. The rebelling Iraqis misread Bush 41 entirely. What he said, outright, was that it was up to the Iraqis themselves to get rid of Saddam. You can read this as a call to rebellion, but there was no promise of aid to do so. If that's what they were counting on, they had no conception of the geopolitical constraints the United States was under, and they were fooling themselves (not that they would likely know this, being cut off from the world and all).
Once the rebellion started, and was put down, the best we could do for them was the 'no fly zones'. And for ten years, we maintained these, and for what? To protect our oil interests? For Haliburton? NO. The sole reason was to protect these defenseless people from a genocidal tyrant. And every day of those ten years, Saddam would fire at our planes and we'd blow up the occasional radar station or headquarters in response.
We were in real war with Saddam for a long time before we drove to Baghdad for Operation Iraqi Freedom. The recent liberation and current occupation is only the endgame in a war that started in 1990, with Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.

The rebelling Iraqis misread Bush 41 entirely.

And I blame Bush 41 for that. Lives were on the line. Technically, he didn't literally promise them anything. But he gave them an impression that wasn't true. People died because of that. But it's to be expected from a realpolitik CIA guy with no "vision thing".

My personal opinion (and I hope I don't step on too many toes here) is that Bush 41 was a crappy president who squandered Reagan's legacy. Dubya is a far greater president and man than his father was.

As to the difference between the Shias and the Kurds, it's true that they both had no-fly zones. But Saddam's agents on the ground controlled the Shiite regions, whereas the Kurds were able to govern themselves autonomously. (At first, they foolishly fought a civil war amongst themselves, but they resolved it.) So they're coming from a much better situation than the Shiites. I hope and expect that the Shiites will come around in the years to come.