THE US, UN AND IRAQ V

Eh bien mon petit dormez bien.

..anus-faced?

Jay did I miss something?

Annan warns of tensions between West and Islam
Fri 12 December, 2003 12:00

TUEBINGEN, Germany (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that tensions are mounting between Westerners and Muslims and has urged people to seek out common ground between their traditions.

It was right to condemn attacks such as those by al Qaeda on the United States on September 11, 2001, but people must beware of polarising the West and Islam, Annan said, according to the text of a lecture to Tuebingen University in southern Germany.

It is wrong to behave "as if Islamic and Western values were incompatible," he said. "They are not, as millions of devout Muslims living here in Germany, and elsewhere in the West, would be the first to tell you."

"Yet many of those Muslims now find themselves the objects of suspicion, harassment and discrimination, while in parts of the Islamic world anyone associated with the West or Western values is exposed to hostility and even violence," he said.

Last week, Annan urged the United States to take a more multilateral approach to combating the threat of militants and to be more patient in building alliances if it wanted more support for activities in Iraq and elsewhere.

"Misunderstandings" have arisen between the Islamic world and the West and amid such acrimony the relevance and importance of the United Nations have been called into question, he said.

By targeting Islamist militants around the world, U.S. President George W. Bush's war on terror has created tension with some Muslim countries despite assertions by Bush and his allies that the war is not directed against the religion of Islam.

Since September 11, attacks on Muslim targets have included arson at an Islamic school in the Netherlands, assaults on Afghan men in Britain and the removal of Muslim women's veils in Belgium, and Muslims across Europe have said they feel unsafe.

Many of the United States' seven million Muslims said they felt discrimination against them increased after the September 11 attacks. A poll taken after September 2001 showed three quarters of U.S. Muslims had experienced some form of bias or knew a Muslim who had.

A British survey last year showed that 69 percent of the country's 1.8 million Muslims felt excluded from mainstream life, while almost two-thirds said relations with non-Muslims had deteriorated since September 11.

Members of Germany's three-million strong Muslim community said they felt increased suspicion of them, their schools and mosques after it emerged that Germany had been a haven for the al Qaeda plotters, several of whom had lived in Hamburg for years.

A major survey published this week showed that more than one-quarter of Germans thought Muslims should not be allowed to move to Germany.

UN says it might have to pull out of Afghanistan

FOREIGN STAFF


FORCED out of Iraq by suicide bombers, the United Nations might have to abandon its two-year effort to stabilise Afghanistan because of rising violence blamed on the Taleban, its top official in the country has warned.

Lakhdar Brahimi said his team could not continue its work in the war-ravaged nation unless security improves. He called for more foreign troops to halt attacks that have killed at least 11 aid workers across the south and east since March.

"Countries that are committed to supporting Afghanistan cannot kid themselves and cannot go on expecting us to work in unacceptable security conditions," Mr Brahimi said.

"They seem to think that our presence is important here. Well, if they do, they have got to make sure that the conditions for us to be here are there," he said. "If not, we will go away."

The world body pulled its foreign staff out of vast areas of the country in October after the death of Bettina Goislard, 29, a French refugee worker assassinated in the eastern city of Ghazni. It also suspended some operations in regions bordering Pakistan, where Taleban militants and their allies have been most active.

The pullback followed a similar draw down in Iraq, where a lorry bomb that killed 23 people at the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August sparked the withdrawal of international UN staff.

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, said on Wednesday that Iraq is still too dangerous. Most UN functions in Iraq are to operate from a new base in Nicosia, Cyprus, with local staff trying to fill the gap.

NATO, which commands a 5,500-strong peacekeeping force in the capital, Kabul, has agreed in principle to expand into the provinces. But nations have been slow to come forward with pledges of troops.

Quote:

That is----until Bush II came along-----now his ass is bouncing over the hills on a donkey

This conjures up a variety of permutations.

Has no one here EVEN READ Apeulius?! I say we deconstruct our meta-narrative and posit the mule seducing the President. Perhaps a sly wink...a graceful turn of leg...whatever. And then...somehow, it just clicks."

....Civil War in Iraq is most likely more than not likely.....

Demand met, Iraqi protesters want more
Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post

Published December 13, 2003

ELEC13



HILLA, IRAQ -- The demonstrators converged on the provincial governor's office Sunday with banners, sleeping mats, cooking pots and a simple demand: that Iskander Jawad Witwit quit.

After three days and nights of continuous protests, Witwit did just that. But the demonstrators have refused to budge.

As soon as Witwit resigned, the local representative of the U.S. occupation authority appointed a former Iraqi air force officer as acting governor. To the protesters, that was unacceptable. The new governor, they insisted, should be chosen not by an American, but by Iraqis -- through an election.

"Yes, yes for elections!" shouted the protesters, a collection of students, clerics and middle-aged professionals whose ranks swelled to more than 1,000 on Thursday. "No, no to appointment!"

The protesters have pledged to continue their sit-in outside the governor's office -- they have erected tents and dug latrines -- until their demand is met. Leaders of Hilla's largest labor unions have vowed to hold a general strike starting today in support of elections.

Local leaders described the passionate but peaceful demonstration in the predominantly Shiite Muslim city as a preview of what U.S. occupiers will face if they follow through with a plan to select a provisional Iraqi government through regional caucuses instead of general elections. Although elections have become an increasingly popular rallying cry in Shiite-dominated central and southern Iraq, the protest in Hilla is the first indication that mainstream Shiites are willing to take to the streets to press the issue, adding a volatile element to the country's impending political transition.

"It's been peaceful in Hilla until now, but if the coalition forces keep refusing what the people want, it will become a big problem that they will not be able to control," said Muhammad Kiflawi Abboud, chairman of the council that governs Hilla province. "Everyone will oppose the Americans."

Protest leaders said they have been energized by recent statements from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite leader, calling for the provisional government to be elected. Sistani has rejected the U.S. plan to select a national assembly through caucuses in each of the country's 18 provinces, saying it does not give Iraqis enough of a role in the transition.

While Sistani does not appear to have weighed in on the subject of Witwit's replacement, his pronouncements on the overall political transition have been interpreted in Hilla as a license to engage in civil disobedience.