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

 
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sat 17 Jul, 2004 04:56 pm
FOLKS ON THE LEFT ARE SUCCEEDING IN THEIR EFFORTS TO WEAKEN BUSH'S RESOLVE. CONGRATULATIONS!

In Iraq, Silencing Memory

By Lawrence F. Kaplan
Sunday, July 11, 2004; Page B07


Quote:
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.


The writer is a senior editor at the New Republic and a Hudson Institute
fellow.
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Sat 17 Jul, 2004 08:02 pm
The frantic backpedlar wrote:
. . . implies he probably financed other terrorists . . . that Al Qaeda was probably among those other terrorists . . . etc., etc . . . .


Those can stand for a type of all of the nonsense you've posted here. I won't bother to explain, as i have done time and again in these seven threads, that 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. That would require an understanding of the politics of religion, and the religion of politics, in the middle east. It is my constant observation that those who support this idiot policy don't want to be confused with the facts.

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. 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.

Yes, you provide no demonstrable proof--and you constuct a ludicrous tissue of assumptions, innuendo, implications, probabilities. But you 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.
0 Replies
 
Gelisgesti
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 05:16 am
Source
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 11:43 am
Setanta wrote:
... 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.


Quote:
there are very goodr reasons indeed
Laughing

So what are those reasons?

I infer that you have switched again. Now instead of accusing me of not providing
Quote:
demonstrable proof
, which I never claimed to have provided, you attempt to ridicule my evidence without providing any evidence of your own to support your ridicule of my evidence.

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


I agree Osama was a frequent critic of Saddam before the invasion of Iraq.

I do not agree that Osama's criticism caused Saddam not to help finance, not to help equip, and not to help provide training facilities for Osama's Al Qaeda. They both hated America enough to compel them to work together informally to help destroy their common enemy. Osama's public crticisms of Saddam were nothing more than a propaganda ploy to fool fools into believing that despite credible evidence to the contrary, Osama and Saddam were not working together. Had Osama not pretended to have nothing to do with Saddam, he all by himself risked greatly encouraging the US to invade Iraq.

You claim
Quote:
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.


What is that demonstrable proof? I agree we have persuasive evidence
Quote:
that not only has the Sudan supported AQ, but in fact that Bin Laden lived there before going to Afghanistan
. There is a huge difference between demonstrable proof and persuasive evidence.

Never mind your claim of demonstrable proof
Quote:
Clinton was pressuring the Sudan to give him up.


What persuasive evidence do you have that
Quote:
Clinton was pressuring the Sudan to give him up
? The evidence I have encountered is that Clinton refused to accept Sudan's offer to give up Osama.

You claim
Quote:
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.


I partly agree. Actually Sudan continues to practice genocide while Saddam has been compelled to stop practicing genocide. Our military resources are limited so we are limited in the number of countries we can concurrently help civilize. However, the countries of western europe are currently less limited. Why aren't you advocating that they invade Sudan and Rawanda in order to civilize those two countries.

You claim that I
Quote:
constuct a ludicrous tissue of assumptions, innuendo, implications, probabilities. But {I} only apply this to Iraq.
Your fabrication of foolish arguments here leads you to your false assessment of my arguments. Obviously, I have limited my arguments to Iraq because you have done that very thing in titling this your forum. Should you desire, then say so and we shall expand the discussion in this your forum to include what should be done about genocide in Rawanda and Sudan.


Setanta wrote:
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.


I think it pathetic that your arguments seem devoid of acknowledgment of the difference between claims of evidence and claims of demonstrable proof. I have claimed only the former. I infer you seek to require me to provide demonstrable proof for my claims, but you excuse yourself from that same standard with the pathetic and childish claim of not wanting to take any more time to provide that same demonstrable proof.

Now that, my dear Setanta, is real hypocrisy.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 11:46 am
Will the electorate in the US consider what's happening in Iraq when they vote? It's called "democracy in the middle least." No misspellings.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 11:52 am
Jesus and Jihad
July 17, 2004
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

If the latest in the "Left Behind" series of evangelical
thrillers is to be believed, Jesus will return to Earth,
gather non-Christians to his left and toss them into
everlasting fire:

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning
chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough
to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and
screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was
silent when the earth closed itself again."

These are the best-selling novels for adults in the United
States, and they have sold more than 60 million copies
worldwide. The latest is "Glorious Appearing," which has
Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all non-Christians from
the planet. It's disconcerting to find ethnic cleansing
celebrated as the height of piety.

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.

In "Glorious Appearing," Jesus merely speaks and the bodies
of the enemy are ripped open. Christians have to drive
carefully to avoid "hitting splayed and filleted bodies of
men and women and horses."

"The riders not thrown," the novel continues, "leaped from
their horses and tried to control them with the reins, but
even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their
eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated. . . . Seconds
later the same plague afflicted the horses, their flesh and
eyes and tongues melting away, leaving grotesque skeletons
standing, before they, too, rattled to the pavement."

One might have thought that Jesus would be more of an
animal lover.

These scenes also raise an eschatological problem: Could
devout fundamentalists really enjoy paradise as their
friends, relatives and neighbors were heaved into hell?

As my Times colleague David Kirkpatrick noted in an
article, this portrayal of a bloody Second Coming reflects
a shift in American portrayals of Jesus, from a gentle
Mister Rogers figure to a martial messiah presiding over a
sea of blood. Militant Christianity rises to confront
Militant Islam.

This matters in the real world, in the same way that
fundamentalist Islamic tracts in Saudi Arabia do. Each form
of fundamentalism creates a stark moral division between
decent, pious types like oneself - and infidels headed for
hell.

No, I don't think the readers of "Glorious Appearing" will
ram planes into buildings. But we did imprison thousands of
Muslims here and abroad after 9/11, and ordinary Americans
joined in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in part
because of a lack of empathy for the prisoners. It's harder
to feel empathy for such people if we regard them as
infidels and expect Jesus to dissolve their tongues and
eyes any day now.

I had reservations about writing this column because I
don't want to mock anyone's religious beliefs, and millions
of Americans think "Glorious Appearing" describes God's
will. Yet ultimately I think it's a mistake to treat
religion as a taboo, either in this country or in Saudi
Arabia.

I often write about religion precisely because faith has a
vast impact on society. Since I've praised the work that
evangelicals do in the third world (Christian aid groups
are being particularly helpful in Sudan, at a time when
most of the world has done nothing about the genocide
there), I also feel a responsibility to protest intolerance
at home.

Should we really give intolerance a pass if it is rooted in
religious faith?

Many American Christians once read the Bible to mean that
African-Americans were cursed as descendants of Noah's son
Ham, and were intended by God to be enslaved. In the 19th
century, millions of Americans sincerely accepted this
Biblical justification for slavery as God's word - but
surely it would have been wrong to defer to such racist
nonsense simply because speaking out could have been
perceived as denigrating some people's religious faith.

People have the right to believe in a racist God, or a God
who throws millions of nonevangelicals into hell. I don't
think we should ban books that say that. But we should be
embarrassed when our best-selling books gleefully celebrate
religious intolerance and violence against infidels.

That's not what America stands for, and I doubt that it's
what God stands for.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/opinion/17KRIS.html?ex=1091066168&ei=1&en=91e2548c51d76f32

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 12:08 pm
cicerone imposter wrote:
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.
...


A Muslim has written (or rather, allegedly relayed from Allah to scribes to transcribe) just such a book. He did it circa 700 AD. His name was Mohammed. This book has various titles such as Koran or Q'uran. In this book, Allah is alleged to have directed that believers kill all unbelievers among them.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 12:30 pm
ican

Why must you always and umpteenth try to show us that you have a you have an excellent lack of knowledge in a couple of fields?

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.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 12:42 pm
Walter Hinteler wrote:
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.


I know the difference at least as well as you do.

An ugly message contained in the one has far greater influence than an ugly message contained in the others.

But, alas, they share one common attribute. They are all books.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 12:58 pm
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.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 01:34 pm
Foxfyre wrote:
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.


Oh, Foxfyer, some are capable of saying anything regardless of its truth. Smile

Verification of Foxfyre's claim is relatively easy to obtain. Several English translations by Muslims are accessible on-line. A simple Google search on Qu'ran will make those translations easily accessible.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 01:55 pm
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 with e.g. Deuteronomy, chapter 12or 13 - online for Muslims as well :wink:

I think that similar to the words in/of the Bible, you can you can find controversial verses in the Koran as well.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 02:57 pm
Walter Hinteler wrote:
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.


I agree. I have many difficulties with the Bible as well. I could never understand why God allegedly needed this or that group to commit genocide for It. Also, in the old testament God had little diffuculty committing genocide without any human help. I cannot believe God would actually grant such power to corrupt and further corruptible humans.

We were also discussing the threat some contemporary religious books present to humanity. For now at least, I think it fair to say that none of these contemporary books contain the magnitude of conflicting influence for evil as well as good that the Qu'ran and Bible do.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 03:03 pm
Well as an aside and not to highjack the thread, the Old Testament was written by a people with a particular understanding/view of God. In Chrsitian belief, God has not changed, but revelation is ongoing and human perception of Him changes. I could go into a long, detailed essay on why the Old Testament contains the bloody passages and irrational rules that it does, but it would bore you silly and is irrelevant other than to understand that theology does evolve as humankind learns and matures.
0 Replies
 
au1929
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 04:40 pm
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.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 04:49 pm
That I'll leave to the individual believer Au.

The radical militant Islamic fundamentalists however cite the Qu'ran is the world of Allah as dictated to Mohammed and they pick and choose the diatribes against the infidels as justification for the mayhem they dish out. The leaders dangle promises of sure and immediate passage to heaven before the gullible young to entice them to become suicide bombers.

The result is that we are dealing with fanatics sworn to destroy us. There is nothing so dangerous as that.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 04:49 pm
au1929 wrote:
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.


This response of mine is not to agree or disagree with you. Rather it is to request such evidence as you may have that what you have asserted is true or false.

I for one lack real evidence either way. Heck I cannot even provide some evidence of whether or when or how God communicates to humans. I hope you can!
0 Replies
 
au1929
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 05:08 pm
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---- Rolling Eyes
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 05:43 pm
au1929 wrote:
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---- Rolling Eyes


No, I'm not looking for evidence of God's existence, only evidence of God's true nature. I think the odds are that the evolution of humans was influenced by something with a degree of intelligence surpassing our own (that ain't saying much). Whenever I encounter someone who asserts unequivocally that God did or did not do something, I'm quick to ask for evidence just in case that person was doing something more than merely expressing his or her own opinion.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Jul, 2004 08:21 pm
And in the end it all comes down to what people BELEIVE about God or Allah or by whatever name they call a diety. In the case of militant fundamentalist Islam, Allah favors them, hates the rest of us. That is the concern when it comes to Islam.
0 Replies
 
 

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