Why, the ungrateful wretches!

How dare they!

Patras, Greece - Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir scored a goal here on Wednesday night, setting off a rousing celebration among the 1,500 Iraqi soccer supporters at Pampeloponnisiako Stadium. Though Iraq - the surprise team of the Olympics - would lose to Morocco 2-1, it hardly mattered as the Iraqis won Group D with a 2-1 record and now face Australia in the quarterfinals on Sunday.

Afterward, Sadir had a message for U.S. president George W. Bush, who is using the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign advertisements.

In those spots, the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear as a narrator says, "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations - and two fewer terrorist regimes."

"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. "He can find another way to advertise himself."

That from a report by Grant Wahl in Sports Illustrated. Others have amply commented on the fact that, as one put it, "this is how they see us" (emphasis in original). But there's something else here which I find notable: the location of the article. Sports talk tends to be assiduously apolitical, but when it's not, it's usually conspicuously conservative. So the fact that an article containing such explicit complaints about George Bush and US policy appeared in SI may be a sign that at least some segment of the so-called NASCAR dads are waking up. (I know, a lot of caveats.)

Everyone agrees that Iraq's soccer team is one of the Olympics' most remarkable stories. If the Iraqis beat Australia on Saturday - which is entirely possible, given their performance so far - they would reach the semifinals. Three of the four semifinalists will earn medals, a prospect that seemed unthinkable for Iraq before this tournament.

When the Games are over, though, Coach Hamad says, they will have to return home to a place where they fear walking the streets. "The war is not secure," says Hamad, 43. "Many people hate America now. The Americans have lost many people around the world - and that is what is happening in America also."

Gee, I thought freedom from fear was one of Roosevelt's "four freedoms." Maybe Iraq isn't quite as free as we've been lead to believe....