Joyce To The World

Want to know what a journalist's life is like in a war zone? Well, here's your chance because this week's 10 plus 1 features CBS London producer and sometimes "acting" Baghdad Bureau chief Randall Joyce.

(CBS)

If you've ever wanted to question a wartime reporter, your wait is over. Aside from having spent large amounts of time in Iraq before, during and after the U.S. invasion, Joyce covered the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan prior to the fall of the Taliban, has covered wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, elections and coup attempts in Russia and much, much more.

As you know, each week we ask 10 questions of our weekly subject, then throw open the floor for your submissions. We'll sort through them and pick one for Randall to answer, so cast your eyes overseas and send him your questions.

[fizard]

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[hamreza1]

ondofmanyusa - Myanmar and Sudan should be the next stop. But western reactionary-leftists like yourself have totally hampered the project of spreading liberalism and democracy to these places that have struggled for it for so long. And then you have the gall to claim that \"why did the US not go to Sudan first\"? The US is far more active than the Europeans and Muslim nations in taking the Sudanese Islamist fascist dictators to task, BTW. No you wouldn\'t give a hoot for democracy in Sudan or Myanmar or Iran or Iraq. You just want America to be defeated at somebody else\'s cost. That is all. 90% of Iraqis including Sunni seculars have embraced democracy. The holdouts are the Sadr and Zarqawi Islamists. If it were not for the support the Islamists receive from the western reactionary-left, please rest assured that no Islamist in Iraq would dare to challenge the Coalition, the UN and the civilized world, and demand that Iraqi women, children, seculars and minorities consisting of 80% of Iraq be subjugated and oppressed under misogynic and enslaving Islamic laws and government.

[hamreza1]

oneofmanyusa - For somebody advocating directly or indirectly a civil war and ensuing ethnic and religious cleansing and slaughter, and saying that we should sit back and watch it take its course, just so that the US fails in its democracy project - I find that to be utterly unethical and beneath contempt. Name calling would be quite a restraint on the part of any decent and liberal human being that is offered such a course of action. 25% of the globe consisting of 49 countries are bloody dictatorships accroding to freedomhouse.org. Which one shall the US start first, may I ask? If US pays attention to Myanmar, then what stops the selective outrage crowds from coming out and crying - why Myanmar? Why not Iraq? Besides Iraq has a special place in the Middle East. 55% of all dictatorships are Muslim. Democracy in Iraq will have a positive influence on the other 25 Islamic dictatorships, some of which commit genocide (e.g. Sudan). Was it not Libya and Lebanon that have stopped sponsoring terrorism, as a result of the Iraqi invasion? ... continued

[ikez78]

oneofmany, you argument is well intentioned but hollow. why don\'t we help burma, darfur? Same reason we don\'t help the people of north korea, china, pakistan, numerous african nations. 1. people on the left like you will complain that we arent the worlds police 2. bringing democracy to a country that has a more immediate and greater need(iraq had used weapons and attacked neighbors and its own people in the past) than burma and the african countries, In theory I agree in removing all thug dictators. Another thing, your argument is just so weak though. The equivalent of what you are saying is getting mad at the police department who managed to capture two pedophiles but some are at large. Is the anger at the department for capturing the two pedophiles make any sense? No, and neither does yours.

[oneofmanyusa]

More school boy bullying? Here is a question for you, if you can respond without labeling and name calling, (sticks and stones, etc.) Why have we done nothing to aid Burma, (not Myanmar, as the dictator\'s call it?) Are we not supporting genocide there by just sitting back? Oddly enough, Burma (Which has no natural resources rich folks here can make money on,) actually has a populution that elected a democracy, but were crushed by grown up school yard bullies, with actual bullets, not rhetoric. Before you go calling another American (I am assuming you are an American, please correct me if I am mistaken)a supporter of genocide, why not devote some time to Burma, Sudan, etc. I am an American who has a world view that supports democracy where folks actually embrace it, rather than one who naively assumes religious states embrace it, simply because we do. Final response to you, unless you grow up and put your sling shot away.

[hamreza1]

oneofmanyusa - to claim that there will be civil war in Iraq and that the world should sit back and let it take its course - is the same as endorsing ethnic and religious cleansing. Obviously you do not have a method to prevent that from happening, and clearly you know that only American occupation can stop a civil war. But you reveal your western fascist-left ideology by advocating civil war, lest the alternative would mean American military occupation of Iraq. And since when is liberal democracy an \"ideology\". This sort of rubbish post modernism and post-structuralism is the mantra of the reactionary-left, so soundly answered by C. Hitchens. As Orwell said - a leftist is a power worshipper who is out of power. Your beef is with powerlessness and your source of knowledge is mindless outrage. So if in this process Iraqis can be robbed from freedom and democracy, and a theocracy be installed - so be it. It suits well the immoral and power hungry project of western reactionaries masquerading as bleeding hearts. And oh by the way, Iraqi Marxists and leftists all support the American backed constitutional process in Iraq.

[oneofmanyusa]

Hamreza, I\'m not \"suggesting\" anything, and I reject your spin on my comment. I never stated that democracy was \"too good\" for the Iraqi people, I stated that the concept is an ideology that is western in origin, and not likely to be embraced by a culture that puts religious ideology first. If you can\'t see that, from the political wrangling in Iraq , perhaps you should get ANY room in Iraq before calling other people racist,(or imply that the journalist is an elite leftist) like a school yard bully.

[hamreza1]

To the other poster that claims Randall Joyce who sits in his airconditioned room in the Baghdad Hilton knows more - on the contrary, bloggers that receive first hand reports from the people IN THE FIELD and on the ground and have developed expertise, and Iraqi bloggers like IRAQ THE MODEL who live there and are exposed to the daily dangers - have been more credible and less prejudiced than some if not most of our major media paid people. To suggest that Iraqis should enter into a civil war and accompanied ethnic and religious cleansing, and that democracy is too good for them, is not only a racist attitude but a reactionary one to boot.

[caper21]

Thanks but I am reading the dispatches from Michael Yon. At least I don\'t have to wonder what side he is on. Ours.

[oneofmanyusa]

I, for one, am greatly interested in this journalist\'s opinions. His credentials beat any blogger\'s on this site, to offer an insightful commentary, as he has actually been there. As for the other commentary, what in the world makes you think that a religious state has any interest or understanding of democracy? There will be a civil war whether we are in or out of Iraq, and it won\'t be about the principles of democracy.