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

The moment lasts only a few seconds, yet from Kanan Makiya's balcony above
the sunlit Tigris, Baghdad seems at peace. Then comes the roar of an Apache
helicopter gunship passing overhead. A warning to get off the balcony, lest
a visitor draw fire from the opposite bank of the river, ends the illusion
for good. But it won't end so easily for Makiya, the Iraqi human rights
activist whose 1989 book, "Republic of Fear," alerted the West to the scope
of Saddam Hussein's depredations. The liberal exile has come home, and
nothing can budge him from the vision of a free and peaceful Iraq.

Nothing, that is, except the Americans who have pledged to transform that
vision into reality. Just as it has moved from de-Baathification to
re-Baathification, from non-sectarianism to accommodation with Iraq's tribes
and militias, and from idealism to realism, the United States has been
steadily distancing itself from progressive Iraqis who bet their lives on
Washington's high-minded rhetoric. None has been jettisoned so abruptly and
inexplicably as Makiya, who, no less than John Paul Vann 30 years before
him, has come to embody America's declining fortunes in a foreign war.

It wasn't always so. As a member of the State Department's Democratic
Principles Working Group and the principal author of a draft Iraqi
constitution emphasizing secularism and minority rights, Makiya was the
war's great liberal hope. He even earned a spot by President Bush's side in
the Oval Office in April 2003, where the two watched on television as Saddam
Hussein's statue came crashing down in Firdos Square. Soon after, Makiya,
whose Iraq Research and Documentation project at Harvard has been collecting
evidence of atrocities in Iraq since 1992, headed to Baghdad to rescue and
catalogue what he calls Iraq's "sacred texts" -- the government records that
provide a documentary history of mass murder.

Over the past year, Makiya has amassed a building's worth of evidence. A
flick of the switch in the basement of his Baghdad-based Memory Foundation
illuminates millions of files stacked to the ceiling. Each contains a truth
many Iraqis would just as soon forget -- execution orders, accounts of
interrogation and torture, assessments about the trustworthiness of
secondary school students. Lest the memories fade and Iraqis lose a vital
measure by which to evaluate their present and future, and lest yesterday's
victims become tomorrow's victimizers, Makiya hopes his archive will perform
the same function as similar collections in Germany, Cambodia and South
Africa: to remind and, hence, to warn. "Acknowledgment is something we owe
the victims," Makiya explains, "otherwise we will see an attempt to erase
the past."

Alas, for reasons about which no two members of the Bush team seem able to
agree, the very officials who only last year were touting Makiya's work as
an essential foundation of Iraqi democracy have reduced his status to that
of an unwanted stepchild, leaving him penniless and adrift in this
blood-soaked landscape. Last year the administration requested $1 million
from Congress to fund the Memory Foundation. Coalition Provisional Authority
administrator L. Paul Bremer, however, never passed the funds on to the
foundation. Instead he signed an order establishing his own National
Commission for Remembrance, whose mission duplicates that of the Memory
Foundation -- and which he funded to the tune of $10 million. Then, on the
same day that U.S. forces raided Ahmed Chalabi's house in Baghdad, the CIA
descended on Makiya's home -- this despite the fact that the human rights
activist has no use for Chalabi's shenanigans or, indeed, for any cause
other than the commemoration of Iraq's past.

On the eve of his departure from Baghdad last month, Bremer phoned Makiya to
tell him the $1 million would be released. A Memory Foundation staffer
filled out the necessary wire transfer forms, only to be told later by the
CPA that it had no record of his doing so. Finally, on the day of the
handover, the foundation received an e-mail message from the CPA. Now that
sovereignty had been transferred, it said, the United States no longer had
the authority to release the $1 million. It suggested Makiya take up the
issue with the Iraqi government.

What is going on here? CPA officials argue that byzantine grant restrictions
and a justifiable reluctance to play favorites made it difficult for them to
release the funds, and that Makiya's impatience with bureaucratic procedure
made the task no easier. His American friends -- who recently took their
case to the White House -- argue that Makiya has become caught in the
all-consuming turf wars between the Pentagon and the State Department, where
the long memory of America's diplomatic corps has yet to absolve Makiya of
his complaints about its commitment to Iraqi democracy.

As for Makiya himself, the soft-spoken academic has no idea what lies behind
the rejection of his work. He sees the experience as simply another metaphor
for America's retreat from its avowed aim of a liberal Iraq. Which it is.

. . . implies he probably financed other terrorists . . . that Al Qaeda was probably among those other terrorists . . . etc., etc . . . .

... there are very goodr reasons indeed why Hussein had no interest in AQ, and why Bin Laden was, before the war gave an excuse, never a supporter and frequently a critic of Hussein's secular regime.

there are very goodr reasons indeed

demonstrable proof

Bin Laden was, before the war gave an excuse, never a supporter and frequently a critic of Hussein's secular regime.

We have demonstrable proof that not only has the Sudan supported AQ, but in fact that Bin Laden lived there before going to Afghanistan, because Clinton was pressuring the Sudan to give him up.

that not only has the Sudan supported AQ, but in fact that Bin Laden lived there before going to Afghanistan

Clinton was pressuring the Sudan to give him up.

Clinton was pressuring the Sudan to give him up

The Sudan's government has practiced, in its southern civil war, and supported the practice of genocide in the west in Darfur. They've been in power for as long as Hussein, and they are murdering their own people.

constuct a ludicrous tissue of assumptions, innuendo, implications, probabilities. But {I} only apply this to Iraq.

I am at a loss to say i am more hilariously amused at what passes for proof with you; or more sickened by the reek of hypocricy.

Jesus and Jihad
July 17, 2004
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

...
If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of "Glorious
Appearing" and publish it in Saudi Arabia, jubilantly
describing a massacre of millions of non-Muslims by God, we
would have a fit. We have quite properly linked the
fundamentalist religious tracts of Islam with the
intolerance they nurture, and it's time to remove the motes
from our own eyes.
...

ican ...
The results of a simple google search might give you an idea about the differences between the Koran and books like "Glorious Appearing" - others got taught that at school.

There is no way that any of you can say that the Qu'ran does not contain numerous passages suggesting that all infidels, i.e. non-believers in Islam, be destroyed, including beheading as one of the options. You will find many more such passages in the Qu'ran of that type than you will find any suggesting tolerance and mercy for the infidels.

Well, the confession I grew up with (RC), never taught me to follow the words of the bible blindly-literally - other wise I would have had much difficulties ... I think that similar to the words in/of the Bible, you can you can find controversial verses in the Koran as well.

The Old testament, New testament and Koran was neither written by or related by God. It is the handiwork of people and written based upon the social concepts of the time in which it was written.

ican711nm
What are you looking for evidence of Gods existence? Wouldn't we all like to know one way or the other? As to the bibles, Hebrew, Christian and Islamic they all originated from the nimble minds of men. I would not believe them if they were sworn to on a stack of----