georgeob1 wrote:For those of you who still believe that Saddam had no connections to Islamist terrorists
George's claim: article proves that "Saddam had connections to Islamist terrorists". Ok, let's see.
Quote:Saddam Hussein made an astonishing move in the last years of his secular rule: He invited into Iraq clerics who preached an austere form of Islam that's prevalent in Saudi Arabia.
Saddam invited in strict clerics (unspecified). Check.
Quote:He also let extremely religious Iraqis join his ruling Baath Socialist Party.
He opened his thus far secular party for religious Iraqis. Check. For "extremely religious" Iraqis (unspecified), sorry. Check.
Quote:Saddam's bid to win over devout Muslims planted the seeds of the insurgency behind some of the deadliest attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces today, say Saudi dissidents and U.S. officials.
Broad, abstract theory that today's insurgents are the metaphorical offspring of how Saddam had started opening up his secular regime. Proposed by American officials and unnamed Saudi dissidents. Check.
Quote:"Saddam invited Muslim scholars and preachers to Iraq for his own survival," said Saad Fagih, a London-based Saudi dissident. "He convinced them that Shiites are the danger."
Named Saudi dissident argues that Saddam used Sunni preachers as counterweight to Shi'ites.
Divide et impera; fear of the Shi'ites who had rose up against his regime; yes, sounds like Saddam. Check.
Under Saddam, a strict form of Islam had "begun" to "trickle into" Iraq. Compared to, eg, such an American ally as Saudi-Arabia where it already formed the dominant majority, I assume. Check.
Quote:They came from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, including some returning Iraqis who adopted the Salafi ideology in exile.
The relaxation of totalitarian secularism had tempted some strictly religious exiles back. Check.
Some other Arab adherents (clerics? individual believers?) of the strict "brand of Islam" came too. Check.
Quote:A Wahhabi mosque was even built in the Shiite holy city of Karbala at a time when Shiites were banned from worshipping their religion freely.
Saddam opens a Sunni mosque to humilate the Shi'ites. Divide et impera; wanting to intimidate a rebellious population group - yes, sounds like Saddam. Check.
Quote:Signs of strict Islamic codes also began appearing, such as a growing number of women wearing veils.
The relaxation of totalitarian secularism had led some Muslim women to dress like they do in most of the surrounding countries again. Check.
(Anyone notice that, if militant secularists in America try to ban religious symbols from the public space, it's a crying shame and an attack on democracy; but if militant secularists in Iraq actually start allowing religious symbols in the public space again, it's a shame and a threat to democracy? OK, cheap shot. Still, can't help noticing.)
Quote:The words "God is great" were added to the Iraqi flag after Saddam's defeat in the 1991 U.S.-led Gulf War. He closed bars and nightclubs to appease Muslims.
When he was staggering on his throne in the chaos after 1991, Saddam shored up his position by making some gratuitous concessions to the religious. Makes sense - Stalin did the exact same thing in WW2. Didnt mean the Soviet Union was suddenly turning theocratic. Check.
Quote:Around the same time, several militant Islamic groups, including Jund al-Islam (Islam's Soldier), started taking root in the mountains of northern Iraq along the Iranian border.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, these Salafi groups reorganized under Ansar al-Islam, which had ties with Osama bin Laden
Here we are. Militant Islamist groups with ties to Osama. Settled in "the mountains of northern Iraq". Yes, that was in the US-guaranteed "safe zone" -
Kurdish territory, that is.
That's it. All this article has to offer in terms of the proposed proof that "Saddam had connections to Islamist terrorists" is the hoary old Ansar-al-Islam link.
We had
a thread about that one way back already, April 2003. As MSNBC back then already noted, "Proving a link between Saddam and Islamists in a region not controlled by the Iraqi leader will be difficult for the Bush administration." Or as The Independent pointed out a little more bluntly, the Saddam-Ansar-Osama connection "was always an unlikely alliance":
Quote:The claim that Ansar was linked to al-Qa'ida was encouraged by the PUK, which wanted to get rid of a local irritant, and could point to some 100 Arabs within the group who had previously been in Afghanistan. But Mr Salih said Ansar had no link to Baghdad because the Iraqi Arabs with the group were clearly anti-Saddam Hussein.
In the few villages it held, Ansar had instituted an Islamic regime similar to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan [..] There was little firm evidence, however, that Ansar was connected to al Qa'ida.
The site alleged [by Colin Powell] to have been the poison factory turned out to be controlled by another Islamic group.
Mullah Krekar, the leader of Ansar, in exile in Norway, denied any link with President Saddam, whom he frequently denounced. "As a Kurdish man I believe he is our enemy," he said. [..]
Instead, "Ansar could not have survived without" the support of Saddam's arch enemy,
Iran, "probably channelled through the Revolutionary Guards just across the Iranian border".
Yet this is the new thing that's supposed to make us go, after all, oh yes I see it now - Saddam
did have connections with terrorists?
Logic. If Saddam was eager to invite Islamist terrorists in, and was in fact already doing so as the article implies and George claims, then why in heaven's name would Ansar al-Islam have chosen to instead settle in hostile, nominally Kurdish-controlled territory? Why not just ride into Baghdad?
And if they never did (ride into Baghdad, or Basra, or whatever actually Saddam-controlled city) - and the authors apparently didn't find anyone else in that category who
had ridden into Baghdad as beneficiary of Saddam's sudden hospitality either - then what is it exactly that we're supposed to see here in terms of "connections to Islamist terrorists"?
Let me be fair: the article
does do a very fair job in showing that:
a) after earlier decades of militant secularism, the Saddam regime, after the rocky days of 1991, had started to loosen the reins - allowing women to wear the veil again, allowing some religious exiles back, building some new mosques and even allowing/inviting some strict clerics in. (The kind, mind you, that are pretty much
predominant in neighbouring Saudi-Arabia, notably not a country we invaded over supposed ties to terrorists.)
In that sense, judged by the standards of neighbouring countries, there was a degree of normalisation. That would be standard course of action for a dictatorship under pressure - compare the "Catholic" communists of 1960s/70s Poland, or Stalin's turn to religious nationalism in the 40s; still, an interesting development nevertheless, one that invalidates the "but Saddam was a militant secularist, he would
never have involved himself with Islamists" card.
b) Saddam left no opportunity unused to intimidate and humiliate the Shi'ites, who had revolted against him at the time of the Gulf War. And he considered divide et impera the most efficient tool to keep his people down. No news there.
But the end-all that, see, proof is in - Saddam
did have "connections to terrorists"? Only if you believed it already ... strongly believed it already ...
) if the porale officer ordered an arrest warrant, would he then be able to turn judge and jurry on his own and put the poralee into jail witout any kind of due process?
Was he a traitor or a patriot to Germany in the first case? Hm... Wasn't he a Nazi? Didn't that override nationality at the time?
That last question is in regard to world opinion... not anyone here's
