- Jul 25, 2002
- 10,053
- 0
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As Iraq evolves toward Democracy . . .
- Thread starter CaptnKirk
- Start date
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Sounds like a good start actually. 
The people are now fighting for their freedom, did they do so under Saddam?
CkG
The people are now fighting for their freedom, did they do so under Saddam?
CkG
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/magazine/01AFGHAN.html
Same thing has happened in the (now almost forgotten) Afghanistan.
Same thing has happened in the (now almost forgotten) Afghanistan.
Corn
Diamond Member
- Nov 12, 1999
- 6,389
- 29
- 91
I would prefer Khairi strap a bomb to himself and he leave his daughters in the care of their mother, who would hopefully use the eventual suicide of their father as an example of how not to behave and perhaps with luck avoid the fate Darwin has condemned them..........
Regardless of the moral reasons behind this war - I see the US/UK as commencing hostilites and thus starting this war.
Cheers,
Andy
i know . . . we invaded just as just as saddam was being anointed with the blood of jesus and his redemption
had been nearly effected.
but then he sees those ugly american imperialists march into his fiefdom by the thousands, so he shoots the
preacher and steals a billion dollars from his own bank. nice.
I think Iraqis are bunch of bandwagon jumper, just like me, I jump on Spurs bandwagon as soon as they defeated the Lakers, before I am the biggest Lakers fan around
Iraqi Troops, Tribes to U.S.: Leave or Face War
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030602/wl_nm/iraq_army_dc_6
"Leaders of the heavily armed clans also disagreed with a recent U.S. decision to strip Iraqis of heavy weapons.
''We thank the coalition for liberating Iraq ... but are we occupied or liberated? I swear to God, if this is occupation, all our children, women and men, young and old, will die rather than accept occupation,'' Sheikh Fsal al-Kaoud told Horan.
Horan provoked angry outbursts by acknowledging that the U.S. and British forces were occupying Iraq."
Come on everyone knows there were never any WMD in Iraq. So why not just do ourselves a favor and pick up our bags and leave before we really become un-wanted guests there ? Just let the UN take over stuff and pull our boys out and bring them home ! I mean what is keeping us there is just Bush not trying to look like a god damn liar. You know what ! In the end his lie will cost us a lot more American lives down the road as the Iraqi people turn against us just like they did the British.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030602/wl_nm/iraq_army_dc_6
"Leaders of the heavily armed clans also disagreed with a recent U.S. decision to strip Iraqis of heavy weapons.
''We thank the coalition for liberating Iraq ... but are we occupied or liberated? I swear to God, if this is occupation, all our children, women and men, young and old, will die rather than accept occupation,'' Sheikh Fsal al-Kaoud told Horan.
Horan provoked angry outbursts by acknowledging that the U.S. and British forces were occupying Iraq."
Come on everyone knows there were never any WMD in Iraq. So why not just do ourselves a favor and pick up our bags and leave before we really become un-wanted guests there ? Just let the UN take over stuff and pull our boys out and bring them home ! I mean what is keeping us there is just Bush not trying to look like a god damn liar. You know what ! In the end his lie will cost us a lot more American lives down the road as the Iraqi people turn against us just like they did the British.
Originally posted by: cpumaster
I think Iraqis are bunch of bandwagon jumper, just like me, I jump on Spurs bandwagon as soon as they defeated the Lakers, before I am the biggest Lakers fan around
Not just Iraqis, a lot of people do that, people in some countries threw flowers for German invaders during WW2.
I agree. However since the USA decided to "liberate" Iraq we are now responsible under international law for rebuilding everything we destroyed during our invasion.
To drop this in the lap of the UN now after we invaded against the Security Council's vote is unfair to the nations that make up the UN.
Bush started this fiasco and now we are ALL responsible to spend our dwindling tax dollars to fix it. While well connected corportations like Halliburton gain billions in US government contracts. Sound familiar? US taxpayers get stuck with the bill while Bush administration connected corporations make billions. Nice.
I wonder how this will help with our ever burgeoning record Bush budget deficits.
*EDIT*
Just like to add an article I read in the Op-Ed section of today's NY Times. I'll provide the link and past the full article (you must subscribe to the NY Times online to read the link). See what you think. I think Krugman hits the nail right on the head.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/03/opinion/03KRUG.html
Standard Operating Procedure
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The mystery of Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction has become a lot less mysterious. Recent reports in major British newspapers and three major American news magazines, based on leaks from angry intelligence officials, back up the sources who told my colleague Nicholas Kristof that the Bush administration "grossly manipulated intelligence" about W.M.D.'s.
And anyone who talks about an "intelligence failure" is missing the point. The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but with the Bush and Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they demanded reports supporting their case, while dismissing contrary evidence.
In Britain, the news media have not been shy about drawing the obvious implications, and the outrage has not been limited to war opponents. The Times of London was ardently pro-war; nonetheless, it ran an analysis under the headline "Lie Another Day." The paper drew parallels between the selling of the war and other misleading claims: "The government is seen as having `spun' the threat from Saddam's weapons just as it spins everything else."
Yet few have made the same argument in this country, even though "spin" is far too mild a word for what the Bush administration does, all the time. Suggestions that the public was manipulated into supporting an Iraq war gain credibility from the fact that misrepresentation and deception are standard operating procedure for this administration, which ? to an extent never before seen in U.S. history ? systematically and brazenly distorts the facts.
Am I exaggerating? Even as George Bush stunned reporters by declaring that we have "found the weapons of mass destruction," the Republican National Committee declared that the latest tax cut benefits "everyone who pays taxes." That is simply a lie. You've heard about those eight million children denied any tax break by a last-minute switcheroo. In total, 50 million American households ? including a majority of those with members over 65 ? get nothing; another 20 million receive less than $100 each. And a great majority of those left behind do pay taxes.
And the bald-faced misrepresentation of an elitist tax cut offering little or nothing to most Americans is only the latest in a long string of blatant misstatements. Misleading the public has been a consistent strategy for the Bush team on issues ranging from tax policy and Social Security reform to energy and the environment. So why should we give the administration the benefit of the doubt on foreign policy?
It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters ? a group that includes a large segment of the news media ? obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the lies.
If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent ? who supported Britain's participation in the war ? writes that "the prime minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks."
It's no answer to say that Saddam was a murderous tyrant. I could point out that many of the neoconservatives who fomented this war were nonchalant, or worse, about mass murders by Central American death squads in the 1980's. But the important point is that this isn't about Saddam: it's about us. The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history ? worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra. Indeed, the idea that we were deceived into war makes many commentators so uncomfortable that they refuse to admit the possibility.
But here's the thought that should make those commentators really uncomfortable. Suppose that this administration did con us into war. And suppose that it is not held accountable for its deceptions, so Mr. Bush can fight what Mr. Hastings calls a "khaki election" next year. In that case, our political system has become utterly, and perhaps irrevocably, corrupted.
- Jul 25, 2002
- 10,053
- 0
- 71
Moon - Dosen't that make him the poster boy for 'Stupid is as Stupid does' ?
OP/ED Piece by Ted Rall - about how Iraq is splintering :
We warned the Bush Administration that invading Iraq (news - web sites) would destabilize the Middle East and spread radical anti-American Islamism. We told the American people that taking out Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) without a viable government to replace him would open a vacuum for anarchy, civil war and a power grab by radical Iranian-backed Shiite clerics. Now the antiwar movement's doomsday scenarios have been fulfilled so completely that military history scarcely mentions a more thoroughly botched endeavor--and we'll be living with the fallout for years.
When we argued that Donald Rumsfeld's low-budget occupation of Iraq would turn out as disastrously as it had in Afghanistan (news - web sites), right-wing Republicans called us stupid and un-American. Now that we've been proven correct on every count, is it too much to expect an apology? Maybe so. Given George W. Bush's performance on the economy and the war on terrorism (where's Osama? Saddam? the WMDs? the surplus?), betting against him hardly makes one a prophet. And no one is less pleased with the speed and totality of the Iraqi catastrophe than those of us who called it in advance.
As I predicted last July, the war has meant the end of a unified Iraq and the beginning of chaos throughout the Middle East.
The former northern "no-fly zone" is already openly referred to by Kurdish officials as the incipient Islamic Republic of Kurdistan. "It's etiquette, like a game," says Farhad Pirbal of Erbil University. "[Kurdish] politicians say what the Americans want to hear"--that they want to remain part of Iraq. But, he continues, "more than 80 percent of the people are for independence."
Since Turkish reticence prompted the Pentagon (news - web sites) to invade Iraq from the south, only small numbers of American forces entered the Kurdish zone, which has since remained under control of <I>peshmerga</I> guerillas. On May 23 U.S. and British occupation authorities formally endorsed the permanent partition of Iraq, setting the stage for Kurdish statehood. Even as U.S. civilian administrator Paul Bremer officially dissolved Iraq's armed forces, allied commander Lt. Gen. David McKiernan announced that the <I>peshmerga</I> would be allowed to keep its automatic weapons and heavy artillery--becoming Kurdistan's de facto army. A few days later, Kurdish leaders announced plans to continue expanding their territory. "Now we are back in Mosul," regional governor Nechirvan Barzani told <I>The New York Times</I>. "We control Senjar and Mosul provinces. We want to add the other parts of Kurdistan."
The most significant "other part" lies across the Iraqi-Turkish border. If Turkish Kurds armed by their Iraqi counterparts fight to attach southeastern Turkey to Iraqi Kurdistan, bloody civil wars and ethnic cleansing could sweep across Turkey to Eastern Europe and the Caucasus--potentially claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.
But why dwell on the negative: It's two liberations for the price of one! Regrettably, free Kurdistan looks a lot like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan: women under wraps, blood feuds, medieval Islamism. "Kurdish political parties today are not that different from the tribes of the 18<SUP>th</SUP> century," notes David McDowall, author of "A Modern History of the Kurds." "You don't get democracy as an end product." And what's left of Iraq looks even worse.
The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) is angry that the U.S. has endorsed a Kurdish, but not a Shiite, army. "We will not accept that other militias will be allowed to stay there with their weapons while we will not be there with ours," says a spokesman for Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, the leader of SCIRI who recently returned from exile in Iran.
SCIRI and other Shiite groups are already using their weapons and demographics--60 percent of Iraqis are Shia Muslims--to transform Saddam Hussein's modern secular dictatorship into a fundamentalist Islamic state melding Iranian Shiaism to Taliban-style Sharia law. Incredibly, American occupation forces are working with, and even financing, these anti-American zealots.
On May 2 influential Mullah Murtada Sadr, son of an ayatollah famously murdered under Saddam, called for Sharia law in Iraq. "The banning of alcohol and the wearing of the veil should be spread to all and not only to Muslims," Sadr told followers in Kufa, near Najaf. "Alcohol and the display of a woman's body are forbidden for us Muslims, as they are for Christians, upon whom I call to give up these banned things." In Baghdad Imam Mohammed al-Fartussi upped the ante on May 16, threatening those who show "indecent films" and "sinful women" who consort with foreigners, especially Americans. "If in a week from now they do not change their attitude, the murder of these women is sanctioned (by Islam)," Fartussi raged. "This warning also goes out to sellers of alcohol, radios and televisions. The torching of cinemas would be permitted."
Shiite militias that control Baghdad's vast Sadr City slum are already enforcing the mullahs' diktats. Sheik Kadhem al-Fartusi, who asserts that "Islam and all religions forbid alcohol," runs a local gang that beats liquor vendors and men who refuse to grow beards. "He's the primary shaker and mover here," U.S. Special Operations Maj. Arthur P. Vidal told <I>The Times. </I>Special ops troops pay Fartusi's religious police with "bricks of Iraqi dinars."
Presidents Reagan and Bush I armed and funded similar men with identical religious and political beliefs in Afghanistan during the 1980s and 1990s. The result was Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), September 11, 2001. So why the hell are we doing it again?
OP/ED Piece by Ted Rall - about how Iraq is splintering :
We warned the Bush Administration that invading Iraq (news - web sites) would destabilize the Middle East and spread radical anti-American Islamism. We told the American people that taking out Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) without a viable government to replace him would open a vacuum for anarchy, civil war and a power grab by radical Iranian-backed Shiite clerics. Now the antiwar movement's doomsday scenarios have been fulfilled so completely that military history scarcely mentions a more thoroughly botched endeavor--and we'll be living with the fallout for years.
When we argued that Donald Rumsfeld's low-budget occupation of Iraq would turn out as disastrously as it had in Afghanistan (news - web sites), right-wing Republicans called us stupid and un-American. Now that we've been proven correct on every count, is it too much to expect an apology? Maybe so. Given George W. Bush's performance on the economy and the war on terrorism (where's Osama? Saddam? the WMDs? the surplus?), betting against him hardly makes one a prophet. And no one is less pleased with the speed and totality of the Iraqi catastrophe than those of us who called it in advance.
As I predicted last July, the war has meant the end of a unified Iraq and the beginning of chaos throughout the Middle East.
The former northern "no-fly zone" is already openly referred to by Kurdish officials as the incipient Islamic Republic of Kurdistan. "It's etiquette, like a game," says Farhad Pirbal of Erbil University. "[Kurdish] politicians say what the Americans want to hear"--that they want to remain part of Iraq. But, he continues, "more than 80 percent of the people are for independence."
Since Turkish reticence prompted the Pentagon (news - web sites) to invade Iraq from the south, only small numbers of American forces entered the Kurdish zone, which has since remained under control of <I>peshmerga</I> guerillas. On May 23 U.S. and British occupation authorities formally endorsed the permanent partition of Iraq, setting the stage for Kurdish statehood. Even as U.S. civilian administrator Paul Bremer officially dissolved Iraq's armed forces, allied commander Lt. Gen. David McKiernan announced that the <I>peshmerga</I> would be allowed to keep its automatic weapons and heavy artillery--becoming Kurdistan's de facto army. A few days later, Kurdish leaders announced plans to continue expanding their territory. "Now we are back in Mosul," regional governor Nechirvan Barzani told <I>The New York Times</I>. "We control Senjar and Mosul provinces. We want to add the other parts of Kurdistan."
The most significant "other part" lies across the Iraqi-Turkish border. If Turkish Kurds armed by their Iraqi counterparts fight to attach southeastern Turkey to Iraqi Kurdistan, bloody civil wars and ethnic cleansing could sweep across Turkey to Eastern Europe and the Caucasus--potentially claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.
But why dwell on the negative: It's two liberations for the price of one! Regrettably, free Kurdistan looks a lot like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan: women under wraps, blood feuds, medieval Islamism. "Kurdish political parties today are not that different from the tribes of the 18<SUP>th</SUP> century," notes David McDowall, author of "A Modern History of the Kurds." "You don't get democracy as an end product." And what's left of Iraq looks even worse.
The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) is angry that the U.S. has endorsed a Kurdish, but not a Shiite, army. "We will not accept that other militias will be allowed to stay there with their weapons while we will not be there with ours," says a spokesman for Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, the leader of SCIRI who recently returned from exile in Iran.
SCIRI and other Shiite groups are already using their weapons and demographics--60 percent of Iraqis are Shia Muslims--to transform Saddam Hussein's modern secular dictatorship into a fundamentalist Islamic state melding Iranian Shiaism to Taliban-style Sharia law. Incredibly, American occupation forces are working with, and even financing, these anti-American zealots.
On May 2 influential Mullah Murtada Sadr, son of an ayatollah famously murdered under Saddam, called for Sharia law in Iraq. "The banning of alcohol and the wearing of the veil should be spread to all and not only to Muslims," Sadr told followers in Kufa, near Najaf. "Alcohol and the display of a woman's body are forbidden for us Muslims, as they are for Christians, upon whom I call to give up these banned things." In Baghdad Imam Mohammed al-Fartussi upped the ante on May 16, threatening those who show "indecent films" and "sinful women" who consort with foreigners, especially Americans. "If in a week from now they do not change their attitude, the murder of these women is sanctioned (by Islam)," Fartussi raged. "This warning also goes out to sellers of alcohol, radios and televisions. The torching of cinemas would be permitted."
Shiite militias that control Baghdad's vast Sadr City slum are already enforcing the mullahs' diktats. Sheik Kadhem al-Fartusi, who asserts that "Islam and all religions forbid alcohol," runs a local gang that beats liquor vendors and men who refuse to grow beards. "He's the primary shaker and mover here," U.S. Special Operations Maj. Arthur P. Vidal told <I>The Times. </I>Special ops troops pay Fartusi's religious police with "bricks of Iraqi dinars."
Presidents Reagan and Bush I armed and funded similar men with identical religious and political beliefs in Afghanistan during the 1980s and 1990s. The result was Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), September 11, 2001. So why the hell are we doing it again?
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