THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Bush keeps 'threatening.'

Bush warns Iran and Syria on Iraq

The US military says the insurgency is getting more effective
US President George W Bush has warned Iran and Syria not to interfere in Iraq in advance of next month's elections.
Mr Bush said he expected all of Iraq's neighbours, including Iran and Syria, to stop what he said was the flow of people and money into Iraq.

The influx was aimed at helping terrorists, he said.

His comments came on the first day of the election campaign, as at least seven people were killed and 30 injured by a bomb in the holy city of Karbala.

We will continue to make it clear, to both Syria and Iran that, as will other nations in our coalition that meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq is not in their interests

George W Bush
The blast at the gate to a major Shia shrine, the Imam Hussein mausoleum, was the first serious attack in the city for several months.

Sheikh Abdul Mehdi Karbalai, an aide to Iraq's most senior Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, was said to be among the wounded.

A spokesman for Ayatollah Sistani told al-Jazeera television station the bomb was probably an attempt to assassinate the cleric.

Yeah, as long as that speech doesn't try to criticise those that criticse the US, eh?

Quote, "This American could not really give 2 bits hoe McTag seea the US. Should we examine the general consensus of the English?" Stupid statement requires a challenge. As a matter of fact, when I see McTag in May, I'm treating him to some drinks.

Besides, your two bits is worth nil in the UK.

Well, the classic argument DOES go something like this: you have the right to criticize someone else's criticism, for whatever grounds you like; nevertheless, that doesn't make you right.

Cycloptichorn

Agreed. I think we've found about as much common ground as we're going to for now. I agree with your ideals and you've conceded my reals.

One thing: Make no mistake; Saddam has suffered a thoroughly humiliating defeat and that has to weigh on the thoughts of other despots of his ilk (self preservation is an instinct we all share). I agree with you that the takeover-then-exit is unprecedented and that we should be on our best behavior. The difference is: I'm not convinced that we're not. Humans are far from perfect (even Americans :razz:) and I expect a certain amout of error… some of it will even be mean-spirited and horrible. How we deal with our own offences and excesses, and to some extent that we bother to at all, sets us apart from our alpha-predecessors (and, IMO the majority of would-be alphas today). I fully expect we'll continue to evolve into an ever more benevolent force and nothing I've seen constitutes proof (in my eyes) to the contrary.

Basically boils down to a difference of opinion over: better enough or not. <shrugs>

Good conversation

It ain't discouraged Osama none.

Here's some freedom of speech fresh from Iraq. It will boost the spirits of those who aren't bashing the U.S. and its allies, president, secretary of defense, and military:



JEFF JACOBY
Iraq through Iraqis' eyes
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | December 16, 2004

A YEAR AFTER Saddam Hussein was captured, how goes the liberation of Iraq?

If a phrase like "the liberation of Iraq" strikes you as ironic, chances are most of what you know about the situation there comes from the mainstream press. After all, a tidal wave of journalism has been portraying Iraq as a chaotic mess more or less from the moment US troops entered the country. The drumbeat of bad news is inescapable: looting, insurgency, terrorists, kidnappings. And, always, the grimly mounting toll of Iraqi and US casualties. This is liberation?

But how would Iraq appear if we saw it through not the reporting of Western journalists, but the candid testimony of Iraqis themselves? American reporters accustomed to freedom and the rule of law experience Iraq today as a place of danger and violence. Iraqis who lived under Saddam were accustomed to tyranny, cruelty, and secret police. What do they make of their country today?

Last spring, three enterprising Americans -- filmmakers Eric Manes and Martin Kunert, both former producers for MTV, and Gulf War veteran Archie Drury, a former Marine -- decided to find out. They distributed 150 digital video recorders to ordinary Iraqis and asked them to film anyone or anything they thought worthwhile -- and then pass the camera on to someone else.

From April to September, the cameras traveled from hand to hand through every region of the country. What eventually came back to the three Americans was 450 hours of raw video recorded by more than 2,000 Iraqis from all walks of life -- and not one frame of it influenced by an outside director or crew. Edited down to a taut 80 minutes, the result -- "Voices of Iraq" -- is a gripping documentary that for the first time shows Iraq as even the most skillful American journalist will never be able to show it: through the eyes and ears of Iraq's people.

"Voices of Iraq" is by turns heartbreaking, exhilarating, and inspiring. The war and its destruction is never far from the surface. One of the opening scenes is of a car bombing in Sadr City, and when a little girl is asked, "What do you want to tell the world about Iraq?" her answer is poignant: "These explosions are hurting everyone." A mother is seen weeping for her son, killed in the crossfire during a fight between US soldiers and looters. There is even footage -- supplied, Drury told NPR, by a sheik from Fallujah -- of insurgents preparing a bomb.

But bad as the war is, the horror it ended -- Saddam's 24-year reign -- was worse.

In the film, a young Kurdish mother tells her daughter, who is wielding the camcorder, how she would burn herself with cigarettes to prepare for the torture she knew was coming. A policeman recalls what it was like to arrest a member of the Ba'ath Party. "You'd be scared," he says. "You'd shake with fear." One man explains that Saddam's son Uday "used to come often to Ravad Street -- every Thursday for the market -- to choose a girl to rape."

A few brief clips are shown from a captured Fedayeen Saddam videotape: A blindfolded victim thrown to his death from a rooftop, a man's hand getting severed, someone's tongue being cut out.

It isn't hard to understand the emotions of the man who answers, when asked how he reacted to the news of Saddam's capture, "I danced like this! I kept dancing. Then I cried."

Yet for all they have been through, Iraqis come across as incredibly optimistic, hopeful, and enthusiastic. And above all, normal. In "Voices of Iraq" they film themselves flying on rides in an amusement park, dancing the night away at a graduation party, taking their kids to a playground, shopping for cellphones. A police officer mugs for the camera. Shoppers throng the streets of Suleimaniyah. A scrawny kid pumps iron with a makeshift barbell -- and gives a shout out to Arnold Schwarzenegger. ("I like your movies. You're a good actor. Can you please send me some real weights?")

Iraqis haven't had much experience with democracy, but we see the delight they take in the new opportunities Saddam's defeat is making possible. Two women celebrate the freedom to get a passport. An artist talks proudly about work for which he went to prison. A young woman says her dream is to be a lawyer. One rough-looking fellow says simply, "I wish for a government elected by the Iraqi people."

Yes, it's a liberation. And the men and women we liberated, it turns out, are people just like us. The headlines dwell on the bad news, and the bad news is certainly real. But things are looking up in Iraq, as the Iraqis themselves will be happy to tell you. All someone had to do was ask. Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is [email protected].

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

That article is being discussed here: http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=41051

Osama is a terrorist, not a despot. He has no shot at legitimacy and no country to lose. Khadafi is a better example

I don't disagree with you, and I think in the vast majority of cases our troops are doing the absolute best job that could be expected of us. My true beef is with the Administration of Iraq (how they are rebuilding, social progams (or lack thereof) and the things that LEAD to the insurgency) and not with the army, who for the most part has fought the cleanest war in history in many ways.

But; the army is the face that the vast majority of Iraqis see as the US gov't, and we have to be extra careful...

I'm not angry, or anti-American; but I'm so worried that this is going to go wrong. The reprecussions of a failed democracy in Iraq could destabilize the whole region. I hate to be pessimistic all the time, but it's like I keep waiting for just one piece of really good news, and it keeps not coming....

Oh well, enough for today. Plus, I just noticed we're on page #420, so I think a little celebration is in order.

Cycloptichorn

You're all right as long as you get smacked upside the head once in while. Hanging out with McTag and C.I., absent opposition for too long is no good for you though, You start spewing that anti-American crap too freely. Probably just need some supervision. From now on, if the liberal circle-jerk goes too long uninterrupted, send Timber, Ican or McG a PM. :wink: Trust me. It's for your own good.

I'm chiming in here on Cyclops' side. Anti-American?? What utter nonsense. Those who bring their minds to bear on the problems of this country, ponder the state of the US in the world, look at where we are and what we are doing with an open but disinterested outlook are only doing their job of bearing the responsibilities as a citizen of a democracy (well, a republic.) We must inform ourselves, and not by soundbites or the evening news. I see Cyclops not as a wimp to be brought in line by a Master of the Universe type (you know who you are...) but as a questioner and thinker, not slave-like follower of some party line.

Kara, Didn't you know? We're all anti-American communists.

and, of course, one anarchist.

ican,
You make a lot of conjectures on the extremist Kurds that the 9/11 commission refers to. Where's the evidence you're basing them on? What are your sources? What is your evidence that the main Kurdish forces didn't attack Ansar al Islam after 2001? What is your evidence that Saddam had negotiations with the Kurds enough to "ask them to attack Ansar," thereby "responding to US demands?" What is your evidence that Saddam could have attacked and removed Ansar with his own forces?

I refuse to follow your red herring asking for "evidence that the Kurd's changed their minds and decided in 2001-2003 to control and protect and not defeat the 2001s." That is not my argument.

I quoted the Council On Foreign Affairs as a reference to what I had written about Ansar al-Islam being Kurdish Islamist separatists, and in that capacity, that for which I specifically quoted the COF, it is relevant and not a red herring, ican.

I post the information on Ansar al-Islam because you've claimed here, and here that this information is merely my opinion. It is not. Also, by quoting authorities on the subject of Ansar al-Islam I am presenting evidence that discredits the already weak allegations made by the 9/11 commission, and Powell's propaganda at the UN. Ansar was committed to the establishment of an Islamist Kurdish state separate from Iraq. What is the likelyhood that Saddam would have anything to do with this group of individuals?

Anarchy.

No, perhaps C is studying reality. Maybe give some seminars about it down in foggy bottom come the graduation, meanwhile we'll all have to suffice with a jab or two of it oncet in awhile. It don't hurt it just stays with you no matter how many made up facts you throw at it. What's real and what's being fed to you, that's the difference.

Wipe your mouth.

Joe (mmmph, brlmmph) Nation

A few comments on your reading of the Chapter 2.4 paragraph of the 9/11 Commission Report:

The Kurdish forces to which the commission was referring did not destroy the group of extremists operating in Iraqi Kurdistan. They delt them major defeats; they did not destroy them.

Where are you getting this information from that "the intolerance that the Kurd's expressed and acted on toward the predecessors of AaI obviously did not materialize when AaI was established"?

What occurred prior to 2001 is relevant to Ansar al-Islam because Ansar al-Islam was formed from a merger between Jund al Islam (Soldiers of Islam), and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement, both of which existed prior to 2001. Both were Kurdish groups. They, being Kurds, originating, living and operating in Iraqi Kurdistan, controlled their own harboring. Their main source of support came from factions in Iran, some of Saddam's favorite peoples. Your conclusion that it had to be Saddam that harbored Ansar in Iraqi Kurdistan is a logical leap that is unsupported by the evidence save the 9/11 commission's conjecture that he "may even have helped" Ansar al Islam. It is also merely your conjecture supported by nothing that "Otherwise, the Kurd's would probably have again at least attempted to destroy AaI." How do you know they didn't at least attempt it?

Caught in the crossfire, as it were, Joe.