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

The Constitution of the United States of America
Article II
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Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
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Article II
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Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; ...

George
Blatham

Blatham, in your desire to cast a shadow over the whole affair; are you really now going to argue that capturing the Tyrant that spent the last 30 years suppressing dissention in Iraq with rape, murder and all manner of heinous oppression is irrelevant in terms of promoting their free will? Really? I like you too… quite a bit actually and respect your intelligence as well… which is why it strikes me as utterly preposterous when you suggest I have to prove that such an event has a positive effect on millions of people who will vote their will next week for the first time in their lives. Think it thru and concede this foolishness.

Deep down, you're as happy as I am for the Iraqis who've tasted freedom for the first time in public demonstrations and will now take the most important step of their lives towards securing that freedom for future generations. Sure it's only one step of many... but if you're an Iraqi, or Iraqi sympathizer, it's a friggin giant step for mankind!

Do it now… and then join us in the happy-dance.

No one's claiming victory here. We're just excited for the possibilities and I think when you're not poking holes; you are too.

This may be nothing but is there anything behind the observation that those little guys are in lockstep and wearing red?

Ican, stick to doing coloured writing. A good attorney, even a poor one, could drive a coach and horses through that "legal" position.

The ballot, not the bullet, will see off Iraq's religious terrorists
By John Keegan
(Filed: 19/01/2005)

UK Telegraph - Opinion

Those who supported the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein in March 2003 may not now remember why they did so.

I supported the war and, given the emergence of similar circumstances, would do so again. Saddam's refusal to satisfy the outside powers that he no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) justified the use of force against him.

It is more than likely that the proven existence of WMD in the hands of rogue rulers will require force to be used again. Both America and Israel are clearly contemplating military action against Iran, which scarcely bothers to disguise that it has embarked on the production of weapons-grade uranium and already has missile delivery systems.

Yet it is not so much the spectre of WMD that prompted my espousal of the war two years ago but the likely outcome of the war itself. In the teeth of those who warned of hard fighting and heavy casualties, of a Stalingrad-on-Tigris, I took the view that the war would be won quickly and cheaply at little cost in lives to either side.

As things turned out, those who made that judgment were proved right. Iraq's armed forces were demolished and Saddam's regime overthrown, at a cost of 150 coalition battle casualties, in a campaign that lasted only three weeks. Regarded solely as a military operation, the Iraq war of 2003 was a scintillating success. It is the aftermath that has sowed doubt among those who supported the decision to risk an attack.

Casualties among the Western forces have risen. Casualties among Iraqis have risen even higher and continue to rise; not, however, for the reasons foreseen by the anti-war party. It is not conventional force or conventional defence tactics that end lives, but something quite different, which may be called large-scale terrorism, largely by car bombing, suicide bombing and the assassination of Iraqis who co-operate with Westerners.

This is not a new development. What is going on in Iraq resembles the second Palestinian intifada, though it is more intensive and better organised. It is also more difficult to counter, since the Western forces lack the detailed intelligence to which the Israeli security forces have access.

Some critics of Western occupation policy are raising the idea that Iraq is becoming a Vietnam, a popular thought with old-style opponents of American foreign policy, but quite inaccurate. What America confronted in Vietnam was ideological nationalism, organised at several levels, political and military, all ultimately depending on the Vietcong's ability to defeat the enemy by conventional methods. There is absolutely no equivalent in Iraq of the Vietcong main force and its battalions of highly motivated infantrymen.

It is important to understand that the violence in Iraq is not country-wide. Large areas are comparatively peaceful, including the whole of the Kurdish north and much of the Shia south, which is garrisoned mainly by the British.

The heartland of the trouble is in the centre, in the so-called Sunni Triangle, west of Baghdad. Those who make the trouble are former Ba'ath members, loyal to Saddam's system, and unemployed officials, together with jihadis who enter the country from Syria and Saudi Arabia.

They are supported financially by Islamic charities and are motivated by the neo-Islamic belief propagated by Sayyid Qutb, executed by Nasser in 1966. Qutb has been enormously influential in the Muslim world and is largely responsible for the rise of al-Qa'eda. He preached that the decline of Islam from its rightful place in the world could be overcome only by setting aside the primacy of compassion as a value and indeed adopting the calls for jihad.

Jihad, he taught, could bring about the circumstances that would allow the restoration of the universal caliphate - hence Nasser's hostility - and the subordination of the infidels to a new Islamic empire. The supporters of the neo-Islamic movements are known as Salafists and learn the importance of adopting strict piety and self-sacrifice, including if necessary the self-sacrifice of suicidal combat.

It is these religious, not ideological, beliefs that make the anti-Western forces in Iraq so difficult to deal with. Placing no value on their own lives, let alone the lives of those they revile, they are not susceptible to the usual methods of military control employed by Westerners, who presume that survival in combat is as important to their enemies as it is to themselves.

Since the American leaders - particularly the neo-conservatives who inaugurated the war - took it for granted that Western-style politics would readily take root in Iraq, if offered as an alternative to Saddam's dictatorship once overthrown, religious terrorism baffles their approach.

Yet not altogether. Neo-Islamists are a minority, even in the most pious Muslim countries, and few Muslims, however devout, wish to die as suicide fighters. A majority of Muslims everywhere are familiar with what Western civilisation offers and are eager to enjoy its rewards.

That explains in part the extensive opposition to the holding of the impending elections in Iraq. Successful elections and the establishment of a government bring a mandate that shakes the claims of even the most committed Islamists to enjoy the right to oppose its authority.

Such a government, properly supported by Western troops and money increasingly to be supplied by Iraq's growing oil revenues, would hearten Iraq's home-grown security forces, at present under attack from Islamist terrorists.

It would also dishearten the pragmatic opponents of democracy, of whom there are many, who, while assuming Islamic clothing, really fear that democracy will expose them for what they are: unreformed supporters of the old regime, in which a Sunni minority exercised power over the Shia majority.

Let us hope that the American believers in elections as the best cure for political trouble are proved right in Iraq, as they have usually been elsewhere.

I think it's nice of you to think that Western thinking is the result of greed and selfishness, I thought it was the other way around, but the chances of 10 million Shia turning to what, secular humanism?, is about the same as the entire population of LA turning to Buddhism, which believe me would not be a bad thing, but ain't ain't ain't going to happen.

So, do yourself a favor, and stop thinking that Muslims are anything like anything but Muslims.

So, do yourself a favor, and stop thinking that Muslims are anything like anything but Muslims.

Person A. is told by a Radical Cleric: American soldiers are bloodthirsty monsters who will kill you, rape your mother and eat your children if given a chance. Now, if person A. meets 10 or 20 different American Soldiers who don't rape, kill or eat anyone, but instead hand out bags of flower and a rations of Water with a kind word… and person A. looks in their eyes and sees compassion and feels the