ican711nm wrote:McTag wrote: This thread is entitled "The US, the UN and the Iraqis themselves" and in my view is not improved by wrangling about US domestic politics.
However, as far as foreign policy goes, if Kerry takes over this is most definitely an "I wouldn't like to start from here" problem. Bush would be handing him a crock of sh1t. American foreign policy is in its worst state for 100 years, probably ever.
This week, we learn that Karl Rove has told Michael Howard, the conservative leader in Britain, not to come to America because of his opposition to Tony Blair. Just as a small example.
McTag, thanks for your response (such as it is).
OK then! What is your recommendation for how shall this "crock of sh1t" you referred to be rectified?
I think the US should stop bombing people.
Reagan invaded Grenada. What was that all about? Clinton bombed Sudan, a pharmaceutical factory as I recall. And Libya. Scores of civilians were killed.
Bush has prosecuted an illegal and immoral war, killing tens of thousands, and shows no sign of remorse yet, nor any change of policy.
What was it Bill Clinton said in Ireland? If you can't kill all your enemies or lock them all up, then sooner or later you have to make a deal. Bush's current course (let's not dignify it with the description "policy") is guaranteed to increase the number of enemies, make them more virulent, and make more of them susceptible to influence by religious extremists. Shocked and awed they are evidently not. That is the particular crock I was referring to.
BTW, has anyone been following the Pentagon Lawrence Franklin story?
"Franklin's movements reveal the contours of a rightwing conspiracy of warmongering and aggression, an orgy of destruction, for the benefit of the Likud Party, of Silvio Berlusconi's business in the Middle East, and of the Neoconservative Right in the United States. It isn't about spying. It is about conspiring to conscript the US government on behalf of a foreign power or powers."
And of course, spreading freedom and democracy.
How cozy! The HUSSEIN Watch... And insider jokes. And the famous "rim-shot" sound-effect after every quip! We Are Having PHUUN Now!!!!!
Informed Comment
Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan
Monday, August 30, 2004
Baldauf: Najaf Standoff Helped Muqtada
CSM journalist Scott Baldauf, who has his ear to the ground in Iraq in a way that US officialdom seldom does, believes that Muqtada al-Sadr benefited politically from the recent standoff in Najaf. He writes,
' Six months ago, Sheikh Jawad al-Khalasi was what most would consider an Iraqi Shiite moderate. Critical of the militant ideas of fellow Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Mr. Khalasi preached a more cooperative approach toward the Americans and the interim Iraqi government.
Then, last Thursday, when Iraqi snipers opened fire on him and thousands of demonstrators converging on Najaf, hoping to end the siege there and protect the shrine, Khalasi changed his mind. Now he's a radical, a troubling sign that Mr. Sadr has grown stronger from a three-week-long standoff that the Iraqi government once hoped might reduce Sadr to irrelevance. '
Meanwhile, fighting continued on Sunday in Iraq. The US bombed Fallujah yet again, and fought Mahdi Army militiamen in East Baghdad, killing 16 Iraqis during the two sets of clashes.
In downtown Baghdad, 250 Iraqis gathered to protest the ongoing US military actions in Iraq.
Another 35 Iraqis were wounded, and two guerrillas killed, in a clash between US forces and nationalists at Tel Afar in northern Iraq.
Dawn reports that
In Najaf Sunday morning, police raided an office of Grand Ayatollah Kadhim al-Husseini al-Hairi's representative and arrested several men, according to his supporters. Al-Husseini al-Hairi is believed to be Al-Sadr's mentor and he spent 25 years in the Iranian city of Kom.
Al-Husseini al-Hairi is more conservative than Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who managed to persuade Al-Sadr's militia to withdraw from holy sites in Najaf on Friday. Also a spokesman for Al-Sadr in Basra told Arabic broadcaster al- Jazeera that Mahdi Army fighters were not responsible for an explosion at a pipeline near the southern oil fields of Rumeilah.
Actually, al-Haeri broke with Muqtada some time ago, and has denounced his use of an armed militia. So this raid on his offices has to do with something else. Al-Haeri is very anti-American, and it is likely just an attempt to curb any influence he may be building in Iraq, from which he has been exiled for decades, living in Qom, Iran.
In other Iraq news, the British also negotiated with Mahdi militiamen, in Basra, in an effort to end clashes with them there. Guerrillas blew up pipelines near Basra on Sunday, reducing Iraqi exports further.
And caretaker PM Iyad Allawi has signed an order abrogating the firing of Baath Party members in Iraq's ministries. Massive de-Baathification, which left many Iraqis jobless, had been implemented by Allawi's rival and distant cousin, Ahmad Chalabi.
posted by Juan @ 8/30/2004 06:15:05 AM
Analysis
A neo-Ba'athist dressing down in Najaf
Luke Harding
Monday August 30, 2004
The Guardian
For journalists working in Iraq, it sometimes feels like trying to operate between a rock and a hard place.
Last week around 60 of us covering the battle in Najaf were sitting in our hotel when the Iraqi police burst in.
A man we later nicknamed "the evil smurf" stormed into the lobby and fired a shot into the wall. Other policemen, some of them wearing balaclavas, then ran upstairs and went from room to room, yelling "Yalla, Yalla" - "Go, go".
It is hard to argue with someone who is pointing a Kalashnikov at you, and so we went - waiting outside the Sea of Najaf hotel while the police fired a live volley over our heads. They then herded us on to a truck.
From there, I managed to phone London on my satellite phone and say: "We've been arrested ... "; unfortunately, the evil smurf then grabbed it.
The incident last Wednesday confirms an unwelcome truth: that despite the talk of democracy, Iraq's interim government shares many of the same authoritarian traits as its predecessor.
The new police force is very like the old one. The same Ba'athist instincts - to threaten and intimidate people who cause you embarrassment - appear to be alive and well.
Many of the rank-and-file police officers who served under Saddam Hussein are now back in uniform.
The only organisation that inspires any confidence is the Iraqi National Guard (ING) - the new Iraqi army that started patrolling the streets of Najaf last Friday.
So far Iraq's US-backed interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, himself a former Ba'athist, has offered no explanation or apology for last week's mass arrest, despite complaints from the Guardian, the BBC and other media organisations.
Asked over the weekend why the Iraqi police were behaving like the resistance, he chose to remain silent. One can only assume that, like others, he blames the media for the string of bad news stories coming out of Iraq.
But if the attitude of Iraq's interim rulers to the press was not bad enough, journalists operating in Iraq also face the constant threat of kidnapping. As the tragic case of Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot shows, travelling out of Baghdad means risking your life.
The entire Sunni part of Iraq - towns such as Fallujah, Ramadi and Baquba - is now considered so dangerous that western reporters have simply stopped going there. The south is dangerous too; though Shia militant groups have so far refrained from executing westerners they have taken hostage.
Most American TV networks now rarely venture out of their Baghdad hotels. Last week not a single American TV reporter travelled to Najaf to cover the conflict there; instead the American networks prefer to "embed" with the US military, where the information on offer is, at best, one-sided.
By contrast, the British media emerged well from what was the biggest story in Iraq since the Abu Ghraib scandal, with all major British newspapers and the BBC represented in Najaf.
After having us dragged into his station at gunpoint, meanwhile, Najaf's police chief Ghalib al-Jazae'ri then gave us a classically neo-Ba'athist dressing down.
"You are not under arrest, but you will listen to us to see what disasters you have caused," he told us, before complaining about media coverage of the impending visit to Najaf of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
We had, he said, caused him lots of problems by reporting Mr Sistani's call for thousands of pilgrims to descend on Najaf.
But it wasn't our fault, we protested - Mr Sistani had, after all, said it.
Instead of arguing, though, we shut up, and emerged from the police station blinking into a twinkling night sky.
The evil smurf drove us home.
Dear contributor: What part of the regurgitated prior published new items you copied and posted here are "informed"? To save space, my query is rhetorical and thus an "informed" reply is not expected or requested.
Both of them, I would say. J
I agree, Joe. I guess a fool's mind sees everything foolish.
Hey, Chuckster. If you've got a point, step up and make it. Ican needs some help here, holding the neocon line.
McTag wrote: I think the US should stop bombing people.
Do you think that necessary, or sufficient, or necessary and sufficient for rectifying the Iraqi situation?
McTag wrote:Hey, Chuckster. If you've got a point, step up and make it. Ican needs some help here, holding the neocon line.
Is what I advocate really the neo-con line?
1. Hold an Iraqi plebiscite to decide whether or not Iraqis want the US military to stay and do what it thinks needs to be done to democratize Iraq.
2. Terminate al Qaeda's ability to murder and/or maim Americans.
I didn't think you were being very neo-con, Ican.
McGentrix wrote:I didn't think you were being very neo-con, Ican.
Me either! I thought I was merely being neo-pragmatic, or conforming to contemporary nomenclaure, neo-prag.
Ho ho.
You want to run a plebiscite in Iraq, and you can't manage an election in Florida?
That should be really representative.
heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .
good one McT . . .
okbye
CASE CLOSED
Al Qaeda were and are in bed with the Taliban of Afghanistan, the Baathists of Iraq and Syria, and the Mullahs of Iran.
Many of the Taliban supported al Qaeda fled from the invasion of Afghanistan to neighboring countries (e.g., Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia). The Pakistanis allege they are trying to capture or kill those al Qaeda that fled to Pakistan. The Saudis allege they are trying to capture or kill the al Qaeda that fled to Saudi Arabia. The US is alleging it is trying to capture or kill the al Qaeda in Afghanistan plus those that fled to Iraq.
Now assuming all those allegations are true, what shall be accomplished next?
Um, to assume those allegations are all true would be a hell of an assumption, Icann.
To say that Al Qaeda was 'in bed' with the Baathists is crazy. CRAZY. We've all heard your theories, so don't bother repeating 'em.
Cycloptichorn
Ican will go to his grave still searching the bottom of that barrel, it seems. Discourse with him on the issue is a bit like trying to push rain back up into the clouds.
