US should have dropped footballs (instead of bombs) on Iraq: Stange

[sabra]

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http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=21518&name=US+should+have+dropped+footballs+on+Iraq%3A+Stange

US should have dropped footballs on Iraq: Stange

29 June 2005

HAMBURG - Former Iraq football coach Bernd Stange said in an interview the United States could have done a lot of good in the war-torn country - if they had dropped footballs instead of bombs.

"I thought the Americans would perhaps send a plane with footballs and football shirts instead of bombs, but that never happened," the German Stange told Stern magazine in an interview made available ahead of Thursday's publication.

Stange said that football was the "only sport that unites all Iraqis. The national team consisted of Sunnites, Shiites, a Christian and a Turkmene but that was not important at all," he said.

Stange quit the Iraq job in July 2004 fearing for his personal safety in the unstable country.

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[htuttle]

1. Special note to Americans

They are talking about soccer balls.

[dubyaD40web]

4. Yeah,

A real U.S. football is made from pig-skin. I don't think our Mideast friends would like that very much.

[Minstrel Boy]

2. Instead of dropping toys, they dropped

cluster bombs that looked like toys.

[unhappycamper]

3. One of these thingies:

http://www.cadcourse.com.nyud.net:8090/winston/Images/SoccerBall.jpg

[TahitiNut]

5. Isn't that a Bucky-ball?

:dunce:

[madrchsod]

7. yes it is

that is one of the reasons soccer/football is a far more advanced game than "american football"

[Gregorian]

6. OMG! If you only knew my dad.

As a child, my dad used to say that instead of building bombs, and ruining the world, if we just dropped refrigerators and appliances.

You see, the bottom line is, we all want to live at a minimum standard. But we bomb people, to keep our standard, when ultimately we will end up rebuilding those places we bomb. And the end result is the same. Minus the bombs, and deaths.

My dad was forty years ahead of his time. I grew up with these thoughts.