THE US, UN AND IRAQ V

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Until we "liberated" Iraq and established bases there, there was a need for bases on the Arabian Penninsula but from a strategic military requirement only----not an imperial one.

And what is the difference?

Congratulations Steve-----did you finally look at a map?
There are signs that Syria and Iran have suddenly had the "light bulb" snap on just as you did.

Since September 11, the United States has set up military bases housing sixty thousand troops in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, along with Kuwait, Qatar, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Also crucial in the operation is the major U.S. naval base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

[Since 1990] new military bases in the Middle East were established, most notably in Saudi Arabia, where thousands of U.S. troops have been stationed for more than a decade.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

What a mealy-mouthed hornswoggling cricker-crucker.

To misquote the old guy in Blazing Saddles.

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Congratulations Steve-----did you finally look at a map?
There are signs that Syria and Iran have suddenly had the "light bulb" snap on just as you did.

Is this an admisson that either of these countries is next? I'm looking at a globe not a map, the USA is a long way from both. Why the interest if not strategic/imperialist ambition?

The promises of a paradisiacal reward for martyrdom is an incitement ot attack. It is not a reason for attack, perception.

You and bin Laden do agree on at least one thing; the Saud monarchy is corrupt.

Quote:

Congratulations Steve-----did you finally look at a map?
There are signs that Syria and Iran have suddenly had the "light bulb" snap on just as you did.

Is this an admisson that either of these countries is next? I'm looking at a globe not a map, the USA is a long way from both. Why the interest if not strategic/imperialist ambition?

There is a tendency in the west to play down - or ignore - the extent of Bin Laden's success. The US and UK governments regard mentioning it as disloyal or heretical.

Looking at the next 10 years, the Foreign Office said the battle of ideologies between market economics and Marxism that dominated 20th-century Europe appears to be giving way to battles over religion.

Bin Laden's September 11 attacks are mainly to blame for this polarisation. But the responses of George Bush have exacerbated this, with his two wars and the failure to tackle the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Perhaps the war on Afghanistan was necessary - but the war on Iraq was not. There was no link between Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden.

Instead of the war on Iraq, Bush would have been better, as Blair continually advised him, to deal first with Israel-Palestine... Bush has dropped any pretence of a US that acts as an independent arbitrator in the conflict. He has placed himself alongside Sharon. He has said he supports the creation of a Palestinian state, but shows no desire...to try to bring it about.

Dec. 8, 2003. 01:00 AM
Life and hope stirs in City of Dead

MITCH POTTER
MIDDLE EAST BUREAU

NAJAF, Iraq?-Slowly but surely, the City of the Dead is creeping back to life.

The holy city of Najaf, 150 kilometres south of Baghdad, was but a slum of dusty destitution eight months ago, when U.S.-led coalition forces pried away Saddam Hussein's iron grip on its long-suffering Shiite Muslim residents.

Amid chronic shortages of electricity, potable water and daily sustenance, residents stumbled into the light after 35 years of religious persecution, begging arriving journalists to help them track friends and relatives abducted by Iraqi intelligence operatives in waves of sweeps through the town.

The missing are still missing. But today, unmistakably, Najaf is beginning to stir with the first signs of a cultural, political and economic renaissance not seen in generations.

The springboard to life, in part at least, is death ?- a veritable industry in Najaf, where Shiites from Iraq, Iran and beyond will themselves to be buried.

Their final resting place is the breathtakingly massive A Salaam Cemetery.

It is said that more than 2 million graves can be counted in the vast adobe brick graveyard that dominates the city's northern side. Pocked with blue-domed mausoleums marking the tombs of the more affluent, A Salaam is far and away the world's largest cemetery.

The centrepiece of the city is the Shrine of Imam Ali, whose burial at Najaf more than 1,300 years ago established a site of pilgrimage that is to Shiites what Rome is to Catholics. And with Saddam gone, the city is open once again to the global Shiite population, prompting many to believe Najaf will soon emerge as one of the world's foremost religious destinations.

All of which explains the building boom now under way, with ground being broken for additions to the city's sold-out inventory of 80 hotels, most of which presently house pilgrims from Iran.

Property values in central Najaf have tripled since before the war, and wages are up eightfold. Yesterday, a paving crew was laying the first new asphalt in nearly a decade.

The ingathering of Shiites from around the world has only just begun; among the recent arrivals is Radwan al-Killidar, 40, who six months ago returned from exile in London to reclaim his hereditary role as Custodian of the Shrine of Ali, a position his family has held for more than two centuries.

Under Saddam, no Shiite would donate money to the shrine, fearing the money would be confiscated by the regime to finance the making of weapons that would in turn be used against the donors. Now, says Killidar, the shrine is averaging 12 million dinars a month ?-?- money that will be used to finance an expansion that calls for developing the complex to more than seven times its present size to accommodate the expected influx of pilgrims.

"I hope Najaf will be ready to receive people from all over the world," said Killidar. "We are planning for the reception of millions."

Killidar, who shares a predilection for e-mail and satellite phones, presently the only means of communication with the outside world, said he barely recognized Najaf upon his return in June. He left at age 17 to study in the U.K., but remained abroad after his brother was murdered by the previous regime.

"In the 1970s Najaf was a beautiful little city, almost unchanged for 1,000 years. It was cosmopolitan with many nationalities and a university city, one of the oldest in the world," he said.

Upon his return, Killidar was unprepared for the depth of decrepitude. The city's infrastructure was in tatters, starved of all investment, squeezed dry by lack of contact with the pilgrims for which it is famous.

Najaf's dawning renaissance coincides with the political intrigue among the four major ayatollahs here who together hold sway over Shiites the world over. With their sect of Islam comprising as much as two-thirds of the Iraqi population, the Shiite religious leaders have been increasingly outspoken about the speed of sovereignty transfer by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Whoever may prevail among them, this much is clear: whatever the new Iraq will be is almost certain to be determined by the leaders of this city.[/i]

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, 73, the most influential of the clerics, declined repeated requests for interviews yesterday, choosing to remain in seclusion at his humble two-storey tenement along a narrow alley one block south of the shrine.

Said Rael al-Nouri, a spokesman for firebrand Ayatollah Muqtata al-Sadr, who is widely regarded as too young to speak for a majority of Shiites, dismissed the outside world's growing preoccupation with sectarian politics as Western suspicion "born of ignorance."

After two failed attempts at laying the groundwork for transfer of political power to Iraq, Washington's point man in the country, Paul Bremer, is banking now on the Nov. 15 agreement calling for caucus-style elections for an eventual handover in June. Sistani last week proved the spanner in the works, demanding instead full elections.

The unspoken tension centres on Coalition fears that snap elections, in the face of continuing instability and growing Iraqi resentment toward the speed and style of reconstruction efforts, could hand the clerics what they say they don't want ?- a popular mandate for Islamic theocracy.[/i]

Many in Najaf doubt such an outcome, noting that after so much suffering ?- the Iran-Iraq War, two Gulf Wars and crippling United Nations trade sanctions between the two ?-?- few have the stomach for a government that almost certainly would be a recipe for continuing strife. Instead, the clerics of Najaf may simply be testing the American resolve.

Killidar, after 23 years in London, said the only adequate answer is to let democracy provide the outcome.

"Being the majority of the Iraqi people, the Shi'a don't need to flex muscles. The only mode to follow is democracy. Let democracy be the judge."

But there is another logic. I don't believe Bush or his coterie of neocons are as dumb as their actions lead one to believe

But there is another logic. I don't believe Bush or his coterie of neocons are as dumb as their actions lead one to believe. I think they know exactly what they are doing. This was never a War on Terror as such. The W on T was only a reaction, a by product if you will, of a much grander strategy now embarked upon, to re-order the world as America sees fit. America seeks to consolidate its dominance and thwart any threat, especially to its vulnerable supplies of oil and gas. The war programme will go ahead not to eliminate terrorism, but despite the risk of exacerbating it, as MacAskill states above.

Now I know this is fairly standard neocon PNAC stuff, and to their credit they have been quite open about their aims, but for me its the only context in which the attack on Iraq makes any sense. I didn't want to believe it, but it's happening. It's a reality. Neither am I passing moral judgement here, I leave that to others. I'm just trying to make sense of it all, for my benefit if no-one else's.