US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

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The USA invaded Iraq March 2003 when the then Iraq government ignored USA government requests and would not stop harboring (i.e., allowing) al Qaeda training camps in Iraq because that harboring is a threat to our way of life.

If that was the reason the US invaded Iraq, why wasn't that on the ever changing list of reasons cited by Bush to justify the invasion?

The USA invaded Iraq March 2003 when the then Iraq government ignored USA government requests and would not stop harboring (i.e., allowing) al Qaeda training camps in Iraq because such harboring is a threat to our way of life. The USA invaded and destroyed the al Qaeda training camps in Iraq, and began the process of replacing the then Iraq government with a democratic government in order to reduce the probability that al Qaeda would return and re-establish its training camps when the USA left Iraq.

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Osama's deputy Turabi had ties to Iraq and through him provided Osama a connection to Iraq. Osama helped form Ansar al-Islam.

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The non-partisan 9/11 Commission Report in Chapter 2.4, page 61, note 54".
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
To protect his own ties with Iraq, Turabi [Bin Laden's Sudanese deputy] reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad's control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.54

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By the time of the invasion of Iraq, Ansar al-Islam had grown significantly.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Islam
Ansar al-Islam (i.e., Supporters or Partisans of Islam) is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam and holy war. At the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq it [i.e., Ansar al-Islam] controlled about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northern Iraq on the Iranian border.

AI [I.E., Ansar al-Islam] is believed to be responsible for several suicide bomb attacks in Iraq, mostly in the north. The first such was at a checkpoint on February 26, 2003, before the war [March 20, 2003].

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Ansar al-Islam was formed in December 2001, a year and three months prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Islam
It [i.e., Ansar al-Islam] was formed in December 2001 as a merger of Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), led by Abu Abdallah al-Shafi'i, and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan led by Mullah Krekar. Krekar is alleged to be the leader of Ansar al-Islam. He has lived in Norway, where he has refugee status, since 1991. On March 21, 2003 his arrest was ordered by Økokrim, a Norwegian law enforcement agency, to ensure he did not leave the country while accusations that he had threatened terrorist attacks were investigated.

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Soon after the USA invaded Iraq, USA military forces attacked the camps of the Ansar al-Islam terrorists in northeastern Iraq.

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"American Soldier in Chapter 12 A CAMPAIGN UNLIKE ANY OTHER, CENTCOM FORWARD HEADQUARTERS 21 MARCH 2003, A-DAY, page 483, General Tommy Franks.
The Air Picture changed once more. Now the icons were streaming toward two ridges and a steep valley in far northeastern Iraq, right on the border with Iran. These were the camps of the Ansar al-Islam terrorists, where al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had trained disciples in the use of chemical and biological weapons. But this strike was more than just another TLAM [Tomahawk Land Attack Missle] bashing. Soon Special Forces and SMU [Special Mission Unit] operators leading Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, would be storming the camps, collecting evidence, taking prisoners, and killing all those who resisted.

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When the USA military forces attacked the camps of the Ansar al-Islam terrorists in northeastern Iraq, their leaders escaped.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Islam
When the US invaded, it attacked AI [i.e., Ansar al-Islam] training camps in the north, and the organization's leaders retreated to neighboring countries. When the war in the north settled down, the militants returned to Iraq to fight against the occupying American forces.

Kara, if you don't already know, Ican makes it up as he goes along. I would advise you not to waste your time on him, but it's your party.

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Sunday, November 06, 2005

Movies and Dreams...
My parents, like many Iraqis of their generation and educational background, discouraged too much tv. When E. and I were younger, they were vigilant about the type of shows and movies we were allowed to watch. They didn't like for us to be exposed to propaganda- Arab or Western- and any programs containing excessive violence, foul language or sexual content were prohibited. On the other hand, all types of books were encouraged. I grew up reading books by authors ranging from Jane Austen to John LeCarre, from Emily Bronte to Maxim Gorky to Simone de Beauvoir… nothing was ever off-limits.

Where movies and television were concerned, there were times when something would slip through their censorship- or rather, there were times when WE would slip through their censorship and watch something at a friend's house or at a relative's house, etc.

I believe everyone remembers a movie or two, seen during childhood, that remained ingrained in their memory for years. For me, there were two such events. One was a movie, the other was a recording or documentary- I can't remember which.

In my memory, neither of them have a name and neither of them have a place- I don't remember where I saw either one. The images, however, play themselves over in my head with the clarity of an original DVD being shown at the highest resolution.

The first one, I remember, was a movie about the Holocaust. It was fictional but obviously based on actual events. I saw that film sometime in the mid-eighties. The image that horrified me most was of a little girl, no more than six or seven years of age, being made to run by Nazi guards and try to scale a very high wall. She was told that if she could scale that wall, she would be free. As soon as she started running towards the wall, her little feet stumbling in the rush to cover the distance between her captors and freedom, the guards set free three large, ferocious, black dogs on her. I don't remember exactly what happened next, but I remember a symphony of terror- her screams, the barking dogs and laughing guards.

The second movie/film/actual footage had no actors- they were real people acting out atrocities. We were visiting Iraq and I was around 8 years old. I walked in on someone, somewhere, watching what I thought at first was news footage because of the picture quality. It showed what I later learned was an Iraqi POW in Iran. I watched as Iranian guards tied each arm of the helpless man to a different vehicle. I was young, but even I knew what was going to happen the next moment. I wanted to run away or close my eyes- but I couldn't move. I was rooted to the spot, almost as if I too had been chained there. A moment later, the cars began driving off in opposite directions- and the man was in agony as his arm was torn off at the socket.

I never forgot that video. Millions of Iraqis still remember it. Every time I hear the word "aseer" which is Arabic for POW, that video plays itself in my head. For weeks, I'd see it in my mind before I fell asleep at night, and wake up to it in the morning. It haunted me and I'd wonder how long it took the man to die after that atrocity- I didn't even know human arms came off that way.

The horrors of what happened to the POWs in Iran lived with us even after the war. The rumors of torture- mental and physical- came back so often and were confirmed so much, that mothers would pray their sons were dead instead of taken prisoner in Iran- especially after that video that came out in either 1984 or 1986. Every Iraqi who had a missing relative from that war, saw them in the agonized face of that POW who lost his arm. SCIRI head Abdul Aziz Al Hakim and his dead brother Mohammed Baqir Al Hakim were both well-known interrogators and torturers of Iraqi POWs in Iran.

There isn't a single Iraqi family, I believe, that didn't lose a loved one, or several, to that war. There isn't a single family that didn't have horror stories to tell about the POW that came home. They were giving back our POWs up until 2003. In our family alone, we lost four men to that war- three were confirmed dead- one Shia and two Sunnis- and the fourth, S., has been missing since 1983.

When he left for the war, S. was 24 and engaged to be married within the year- the house was even furnished and the wedding date set. He never came back. His mother, my mothers cousin, finally gave up hope that he'd come back in 2003. With every new group of POWs returning from Iran, she'd make phone calls and beg for news of her darling S. Had anyone seen him? Had anyone heard of him? Was he dead? With every fresh disappointment, we'd tell her that in spite of the long years, it was possible he was still alive- there was hope he'd come back. In 2002, she confessed to my mother that she wished someone would come along and crush the hope once and for all- confirm he was dead. In her heart, a mothers heart, she knew he was dead- but she needed the confirmation because without it, giving up hope completely would be a form of betrayal.

The agony of the long war with Iran is what makes the current situation in Iraq so difficult to bear- especially this last year. The occupation has ceased to be American. It is American in face, and militarily, but in essence it has metamorphosed slowly but surely into an Iranian one.

It began, of course, with Badir's Brigade and the several Iran-based political parties which followed behind the American tanks in April 2003. It continues today with a skewed referendum, and a constitution that will guarantee a southern Iraqi state modeled on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The referendum results were so disappointing and there have been so many stories of fraud and shady dealings (especially in Mosul), that there's already talk of boycotting the December elections. This was the Puppets' shining chance to show that there is that modicum of democracy they claim the Iraqi people are enjoying under occupation- that chance was terribly botched up.

As for the December elections- Sistani has, up until now, coyly abstained from blatantly supporting any one specific political group. This will probably continue until late November / early December during which he will be persistently asked by his followers to please issue a Fatwa about the elections. Eventually, he'll give his support to one of the parties and declare a vote for said party a divine obligation. I wager he'll support the United Iraqi Alliance - like last elections.

Interestingly enough, this time around the UIA will be composed of not just SCIRI and Da'awa- but also of the Sadrists (Jaysh il Mahdi)- Muqtada's followers! For those who followed the situation in Iraq last year, many will recognize Muqtada as the ?'firebrand cleric', the ?'radical' and ?'terrorist'. Last year, there was even a warrant for Muqtada's arrest from the Ministry of Interior and supported by the Americans who repeatedly said they were either going to detain the ?'radical cleric' or kill him.

Well, today he's very much alive and involved in the ?'political process' American politicians and their puppets hail so energetically. Sadr and his followers have been responsible for activities such as terrorizing hairdressers, bombing liquor stores, and abductions of women not dressed properly, etc. because all these things are considered anti-Islamic (according to Iranian-style Islam). Read more about Sadr's militia here- who dares to say the Americans, Brits and Puppets don't have everything under control?!

Americans constantly tell me, "What do you think will happen if we pull out of Iraq- those same radicals you fear will take over." The reality is that most Iraqis don't like fundamentalists and only want stability- most Iraqis wouldn't stand for an Iran-influenced Iraq. The American military presence is working hand in hand with Badir, etc. because only together with Iran can they suppress anti-occupation Iraqis all over the country. If and when the Americans leave, their Puppets and militias will have to pack up and return to wherever they came from because without American protection and guidance they don't stand a chance.

We literally laugh when we hear the much subdued threats American politicians make towards Iran. The US can no longer afford to threaten Iran because they know that should the followers of Sadr, Iranian cleric Sistani and Badir's Brigade people rise up against the Americans, they'd have to be out of Iraq within a month. Iran can do what it wants- enrich uranium? Of course! If Tehran declared tomorrow that it was currently in negotiations for a nuclear bomb, Bush would have to don his fake pilot suit again, gush enthusiastically about the War on Terror and then threaten Syria some more.

Congratulations Americans- not only are the hardliner Iranian clerics running the show in Iran- they are also running the show in Iraq. This shift of power should have been obvious to the world when My-Loyalty-to-the-Highest-Bidder-Chalabi sold his allegiance to Iran last year. American and British sons and daughters and husbands and wives are dying so that this coming December, Iraqis can go out and vote for Iran influenced clerics to knock us back a good four hundred years.


What happened to the dream of a democratic Iraq?

Iraq has been the land of dreams for everyone except Iraqis- the Persian dream of a Shia controlled Islamic state modeled upon Iran and inclusive of the holy shrines in Najaf, the pan-Arab nationalist dream of a united Arab region with Iraq acting as its protective eastern border, the American dream of controlling the region by installing permanent bases and a Puppet government in one of its wealthiest countries, the Kurdish dream of an independent Kurdish state financed by the oil wealth in Kirkuk…

The Puppets the Americans empowered are advocates of every dream except the Iraqi one: The dream of Iraqi Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen… the dream of a united, stable, prosperous Iraq which has, over the last two years, gone up in the smoke of car bombs, military raids and a foreign occupation.


- posted by river @ 12:47 AM

However, many other people do not live in my universe, either. I wait and listen.

dys...sometimes, boyo, you get me going.

I really don't want this story to be true...

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US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article325560.ece

Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused.

"We had all this SASO (security and stabilization operations) training back home," he said. "And then this turns into a real goddamned war."

Just as his team started to eat a breakfast of packaged rations Saturday, Bogert got a fire mission over the radio.

"Stand by!" he yelled, sending Lance Cpls. Jonathan Alexander and Jonathan Millikin scrambling to their feet.

Shake 'n' bake

Joking and rousting each other like boys just seconds before, the men were instantly all business. With fellow Marines between them and their targets, a lot was at stake.

Bogert received coordinates of the target, plotted them on a map and called out the settings for the gun they call "Sarah Lee."

Millikin, 21, from Reno, Nev., and Alexander, 23, from Wetumpka, Ala., quickly made the adjustments. They are good at what they do.

"Gun up!" Millikin yelled when they finished a few seconds later, grabbing a white phosphorus round from a nearby ammo can and holding it over the tube.

"Fire!" Bogert yelled, as Millikin dropped it.

The boom kicked dust around the pit as they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call "shake 'n' bake" into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week.

They say they have never seen what they've hit, nor did they talk about it as they dusted off their breakfast and continued their hilarious routine of personal insults and name-calling.

Some of the heaviest damage apparently was incurred Monday night from air and artillery attacks that coincided with the entry of ground troops into the city. U.S. warplanes dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on the city overnight, and artillery boomed throughout the night and into the morning.

"Usually we keep the gloves on," said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. "For this operation, we took the gloves off."

Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.

Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, "The corpses of the mujaheddin which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted."

ITEM 2: AP: Scholar Says This Generation’s Muslims Face a Momentous Choice

Scholar says this generation’s Muslims face a
momentous choice

Nothing less than the very soul of Islam is at risk

By Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press
Friday, November 04, 2005 (Published in the Manila
Times)


LOS ANGELES: Khaled Abou El Fadl, a law professor at
the University of California, Los Angeles, has a
scholarly manner and speaks in soft tones. But listen
as he tells his story.

A Kuwaiti native, he was fascinated by militant Islam
as a young man, then evolved into a moderate champion
of democracy who suffered arrest and torture in Egypt
for his views. Saudi intermediaries failed to buy his
silence but long limited his influence by preventing
publication of his works in Arabic. He received death
threats over antiterrorist comments after the
September 11 attacks.

Now, as Muslim immigrants to America struggle to find
their voice, no one is more outspoken than Abou El
Fadl—driven by what he sees as a global crisis: the
fight between “moderates” and “puritans” to determine
who represents authentic Islam.

“Nothing less than the very soul of Islam” is at risk,
says the 42-year-old Abou El Fadl, who is calling upon
moderates to reverse their declining influence and
reclaim bold leadership of the faith.

This is a “transformative moment,” he says. In his
view, Islam is suffering a schism as dramatic as the
16th-century Protestant Reformation that split
Christian Europe.


Two main movements claim to perpetuate true Islam, he
says. On one side, the professor’s fellow moderates
uphold centuries of Muslim teaching and the beliefs of
an often-quiescent Muslim majority.

Their opponents, as he sees it, are puritans—he
dislikes the “fundamentalist” and “Islamist”
labels—who have won a remarkable following as they
have preached religious extremism and, often, carried
out acts of reprehensible violence in recent decades.

Eventually, one of these two rivals will achieve
near-total commitment from the world’s more than 1
billion Muslims and “the power to define Islam” for
the indefinite future—including attitudes toward
terrorism, he predicts.

Abou El Fadl depicts the contest in his new book The
Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists
(HarperSanFrancisco). It’s probably the most dramatic
manifesto from an American Muslim since the September
11 attacks.

Reaching this point has been a complex, dangerous and
sometimes lonely struggle for the author.

Abou El Fadl spent a decade in Egypt learning the
intricacies of Islamic law, then received an Ivy
League education in America (Yale bachelor’s, Penn law
degree, Princeton doctorate)—a potent and rare
combination. His library of tens of thousands of
volumes has long since spilled from his home into the
garage.

Yet as a teenager, he found the intense call of Muslim
radicalism emotionally satisfying, a feeling that only
dissipated as he studied Islamic legal traditions in
earnest. At Yale he plunged into advocacy of democracy
and human rights.

Abou El Fadl says he returned to Egypt in 1985 after
winning a key undergraduate honor and expected a warm
reception. Instead he was subjected to torture. “By
the third day in there I was praying I would die,” he
recalls.

His tormenters provided no explanation but indicated
hostility to his liberal political ideas. It took him
a month to recover, physically and emotionally, and it
was years before he returned to Egypt again. The
ordeal made him opt to become a US citizen, instead of
working in Egypt.

The professor reports that Saudi intermediaries made
three offers to buy his silence and that Saudi
pressure prevented publication of his books in Arabic,
an essential step for gaining any permanent impact in
the Muslim world—though some of his writings and
interviews are available in Arabic on the Internet. “I
felt I probably would not have much use in my
lifetime,”

because of the censorship, he says.

Yet some Arabic translations have finally appeared in
the Middle East in the past two years, and he expects
The Great Theft will eventually follow.

He was pleased by appreciative audiences last summer
during talks in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

A Christian expert, J. Dudley Woodberry of
California’s Fuller Theological Seminary, says,
“Muslims of good will are longing for someone to make
a case for moderation.”

That makes Abou El Fadl “a star on the rise,”
Woodberry adds.

“I hope he’s right. And for the West, he pretty much
is.”

Muslims who join Abou El Fadl in advocating moderation
include those associated with the Washington-based
Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy and
authors in the forthcoming anthology Islamic
Democratic Discourse (Lexington).

In that volume, editor Muqtedar Khan of the University
of Delaware will criticize Abou El Fadl as too
traditional, because he favors application of shari’a
(Islamic law) as interpreted by religious jurists.
Though Abou El Fadl has a liberal interpretation of
religious law and supports democracy, Khan says, on
this point “he says what Islamists are saying.”

The moderate cause also is embraced in group
pronouncements like one in July from 18 scholars of
the Fiqh Council of North America.

They declared that “targeting civilians’ lives and
property through suicide bombings or any other method
of attack is haram—or forbidden under the Koran and
Muslim law.

They mounted a ferocious effort. There were no qualms over stooping to emotional blackmail. Rebels were asked: "Are you going to vote with the police or not?" But the tough approach adopted by Hilary Armstrong, the Chief Whip, and her team appeared to have backfired. One left-winger said: "There are a lot of people who are very angry about what they see as appalling pressure to fall in line, particularly through the pages of The Sun."