mangekyo
Trusted Member
I agree. But it’s difficult for non Iranians to understand. Let me share some quotes from the Iran-Iraq war:
“We used gas on them. I saw it with my own eyes — the Iranians were crawling, bleeding from their faces, their lungs burning. But they kept coming. Some of our men screamed, they were traumatized. They said these weren’t humans — they were ghosts.”
— Testimony of an Iraqi officer, quoted in interviews compiled by journalist Michael Jansen and in battlefield reports during Operation Karbala-5 (1987)
“The Iranians frightened us in a way the Americans never did. They were not fighting to survive — they were fighting to die.”
— Attributed to an Iraqi general during post-2003 interrogations by U.S. military intelligence
“I now realize that the Iranians are not like other people. If you kill one of them, ten more will take his place. You cannot frighten them. They are not normal.”
— Saddam in private conversation with his generals,
“They come in waves, chanting and carrying nothing but their belief in God. We shoot them down by the hundreds, but they keep coming. It’s as if they want to die.”
— General Maher Abd al-Rashid (Iraqi Army Chief of Staff)
“The Iranians seemed to embrace death in a way that unnerved Iraqi soldiers. Their doctrine was not victory through firepower, but through blood.”
— CIA war analysis, declassified 1990s
“They want to die. They are not normal. They are not afraid. How do you make them retreat?”
— Saddam
“We were terrified of the night attacks. The Iranians would come in silence, in waves. You shoot one, and ten more come.”
— Iraqi soldier, captured and interviewed by Western journalists during Operation Dawn (1983)
