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

The Republicans' Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iraq

A guerrilla attack on a police station at Mahawil south of Baghdad left 22 police and soldiers, and 14 attackers, dead on Sunday. Some reports suggested that the US military denied this report, but it was carried by major wire services.

The Republican Party spin machine was bouncing around the airwaves like an overloaded washing machine on Sunday attempting to obscure from the American public that they had by their actions managed to install a Shiite religious ruling class in Iraq. The New York Times even lead with a headline, "U.S. Officials Say a Theocratic Iraq Is Unlikely." This headline is probably wrong, but in any case it begs the question of what a "theocracy" is.

If it means a clerically-ruled state, then I agree with Vice President Dick Cheney that a) you have to look at what Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani wants, and b) that Sistani does not want clerics to rule the country as in Iran. But the main goal of political Islam in the past few decades hasn't been clerical rule. It has been the replacement of civil law with shariah or Islamic canon law. This was done by the non-clerical government of Sudan, e.g. And that is where Iraq is headed. The only question is how wideranging the substitution will be. Will it just be personal status law (marriage, divorce, inheritance, alimony, etc.), or will it be in commercial law and other spheres of society?

Even as Cheney was pooh-poohing the notion of Iraqi theocracy, Sistani's close colleague Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Ishaq al-Fayyad said, "We warn officials against a separation of the state and religion." Then Sistani's spokesman came out and said that the Grand Ayatollah Sistani "wants the source of legislation to be Islam."

A lot of Americans believe whatever Cheney says, though I cannot for the life of me understand why, since he lies to them relentlessly. He is the one who tried to link Saddam and al-Qaeda operationally. He even once said he knew exactly where Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were. Most people will only remember that Cheney said there wouldn't be an Iraqi theocracy, but won't bother to actually read the newspapers on Monday to see the news I'm reporting below.

Although George Orwell/ Eric Blair wrote 1984 as an anarcho-syndicalist socialist critique of Stalinism, it is becoming increasingly clear that it was also prophetic about the direction of Late Capitalist societies characterized by corporate media consolidation. In such a society, Cheney can substitute himself for Sistani and speak for Sistani, erasing the real Sistani just as the Republican pundits have erased the real Iraq. "Ignorance is knowledge."

IRAQ SETS SECURITY DATE

Iraq should be in full control of its own security within 18 months, the country's interior minister has said.

Falah al-Naqib said it would depend largely on the country's political situation.


But he did not indicate when coalition troops would leave.

"I would say within 18 months we will be able to have ... full control of our internal security," Mr Naqib said a terrorism conference in Saudi Arabia.

"But that will depend on a couple of things - the political situation in Iraq, and then the ministry of defence also have their own schedule."

US President George Bush has refused to put a timetable on the withdrawal of US troops, stressing that America will not leave until Iraqi forces can protect their people.

Mr Naqib added that neighbouring countries were not doing enough to keep foreign fighters out of Iraq.

He did not name names but the US has complained that Iran and Syria were complicit.

Mr Naqib said the majority of foreign fighters, around 30%, were from Sudan.

He added that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the insurgency was "on the run" and moving from town to town to avoid troops.

Last Updated: 16:16 UK, Monday February 07, 2005

Gel, you still haven't explained the disconnected words you admitted constituted gibberish. Have you made that appointment?

Great story, JW! (Revel, your doesn't make sense. Read her article).

I especially liked Hchim Shahir had to say.

Quote:

Hachim Shahir, an 83-year-old bricklayer standing in line for hours to vote, was asked how it had been possible for somebody like him to arrive at such a late stage in life without ever having voted, and now finally to have cast a ballot. He thought for a long while, then answered: "America - it was America that did it."

And how did he feel about that?

"America will be good if it completes what it came here to do, to bring us democracy, and then it goes home," Mr. Shahir said. "The main thing now is that they keep their promises, and leave. Personally, I believe they will do it."

"We have no electricity here, no water and there's no gasoline in the pumps," said Salim Mohammed Ali, a tire repairman who voted in last Sunday's election. "Who do I blame? The Iraqi government, of course. They can't do anything."

See ....

But it doesn't set well me that I should shoulder the blame or absorb patronization for someone else's overreaction to a valid point because they don't like the tone.

... I guess we won't be leaving any time soon which is going to continue to drain our country of money and resources but it seems that we now have no choice.
While not knowable, the cost of not invading Iraq and not trying to establish a secure democracy there, should be examined and estimated. One alternative was to wait until France and Russia decided it was more in their respective interests to not veto UN support of an invasion of Iraq, than it was to try and protect their multi-billion dollar Saddam investments and cash flows. Another alternative while waiting for that change of mind by the French and Russians, would have been for the US to ignore the highly probable continuing build up of al Qaeda--and conventional weapons/munitions for their future use--in Iraq, and instead build the US national equivalent of the Berlin Wall (yes, that same wall that failed to protect the communist east against the flight of communist easterners to the capitalist west). Our national wall built to keep out al Qaeda would have cost billions of dollars in construction, maintenance and operation costs, not including the continuation of the thousands of murders of Iraqi innocent civilians per year under Saddam. But the chances are quite poor that such national wall would have achieved its objective. Even the Great Wall of China failed in its goal of keeping out the so-called Mongol invaders. I think chances look much better for the establishment of middle eastern democracies that eradicate al Qaeda on their own at al Qaeda's source rather than on our own at al Qaeda's destination.
At the risk of blaming america first, if the administrataion had taken time to let the inspection run it's course and have been more diplomatic instead of finger pointing like they was to win more people on our side we wouldn't have had bear so much of the responsiblity and the cost. I think this an unreasonable expectation. The current generation of european {correction: French, German, and Russian} leadership, for example, has proven itself unlikely to risk anything more than symbolic investments of lives and money in securing the liberty of others, whether those others are europeans, africans or middle easterners.

There you go again bill; I read JW article and that was my conclusion based on this one paragraph.

Quote:

"We have no electricity here, no water and there's no gasoline in the pumps," said Salim Mohammed Ali, a tire repairman who voted in last Sunday's election. "Who do I blame? The Iraqi government, of course. They can't do anything."

jw, keep up (as those who are in charge of these things and set the tone for supporters) with blaming iraqi's for mistakes and you will evavorite whatever good thing has come out of Iraqi elections.

We are the occupying force therefore it is our responsiblity in seeing it reconstructed.

The rest of the article is nothing more than political posturing in my opinion which of course you are to disagree about. If the leading Shiite's didn't demand election when they did, Iraq would not have had them. Bush originally wanted to wait. Then they wanted to divide it up into caucuses or something and the leading clerics didn't go for that either but wanted one vote for one man or however the proper phrase goes. Bush gave in and now claims victory over it when it was the shiites who kept pushing the elections and encouraged their people to come out and vote. It is the Shiite's who deserve the credit for the elections, not the Americans. The elections happened despite of our screw ups and despite of our inability to get a handle on the insurgents of which was our responsibility as the occupying force.

You are of course free to disagree, but you are not free to cast my opinions as nothing more than either ignorance or just wanting to blame America first as you usually do without getting called on it. I have frankly had it up to here with you all guy's tactics in this matter and refuse to take it anymore.

Gelisgesti wrote:

See ....

yea

Murders, one murder .... and how many people think keeping score makes a point. Please try to concentrate.

Bill Wrote:

Quote:

But it doesn't set well me that I should shoulder the blame or absorb patronization for someone else's overreaction to a valid point because they don't like the tone.

Funny, you seem to expect others to act that way in response to your posts quite often.

Gelisgesti wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

That would be called Argumentum ad hominem... but that's not what I'm doing. Your posts do not make sense. No amount of concentration will deliver any coherent message in these disconnected words:

Quote:

Murders, one murder .... and how many people think keeping score makes a point. Please try to concentrate.

That's gibberish... as if you'd forgotten to include some of the key words to your thought, whatever it may be.

Taken out of context, or as you have done, applied without context, it is gibberish ..... the same could be done with your statements. I may have overlooked the problem, retention deficit disorder ..... yes, that would fit the scenario quite nicely .... as you were.

I didn't take anything out of context. There was no context. That is your post in it's entirety. And that, after I had to guess at what you were saying in you post before that. I still have no idea what you are talking about. Do you?

Atta boy IB. Don't be ashamed to admit you blame America first without rhyme, reason or any hint of justification.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Gelisgesti wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

All sins are equal is your point Gel? A trillion suffering families doesn't equal more "bad"?

And if it does; shouldn't the goal be to reduce the number as much as possible?

That is what I'm trying do figure out. At what point do you feel it is time to intervene and when do you stop. You say 'reduce' ....to what number?Nam would still be going on if not for the loss of popular support
58,000 American and a couple million Viet Cong. How does one decide ..... for me, I stop at number one for obvious reasons.

Gel, your unqualified, unprovable assumptions about Vietnam are wholly irrelevant to any discussion you're having with me. What does "stop at one" mean? You were perfectly content to have our country remain on the sidelines while Saddam continuously added to his already million-plus body count. You're not making any sense at all?

Murders, one murder .... and how many people think keeping score makes a point. Please try to concentrate.

Gelisgesti wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Gelisgesti wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

All sins are equal is your point Gel? A trillion suffering families doesn't equal more "bad"?

And if it does; shouldn't the goal be to reduce the number as much as possible?

That is what I'm trying do figure out. At what point do you feel it is time to intervene and when do you stop. You say 'reduce' ....to what number?Nam would still be going on if not for the loss of popular support
58,000 American and a couple million Viet Cong. How does one decide ..... for me, I stop at number one for obvious reasons.

Gel, your unqualified, unprovable assumptions about Vietnam are wholly irrelevant to any discussion you're having with me. What does "stop at one" mean? You were perfectly content to have our country remain on the sidelines while Saddam continuously added to his already million-plus body count. You're not making any sense at all?

Murders, one murder .... and how many people think keeping score makes a point. Please try to concentrate.

Is this enough context? A bit more than you gave me credit for oui? There is more i f you need it..... what with that attention thing you got ooing on.

Falah al-Naqib said it would depend largely on the country's political situation.

But he did not indicate when coalition troops would leave.

"I would say within 18 months we will be able to have ... full control of our internal security," Mr Naqib said a terrorism conference in Saudi Arabia.

"But that will depend on a couple of things - the political situation in Iraq, and then the ministry of defence also have their own schedule."

Gel, how thick can you be? If reading what you've already witten was sufficient for me to understand you, I would have long ago.

Wha you think I want to be called more names ..... I think I may have over estimated you anyway. there is the prime directive.

Call me thick. Call me stupid. Call me Susan if it makes you happy, but stop thinking I'm capable of responding to your gibberish as anything else if you don't tell me wtf you are trying to say. <shrugs>