Walter, DO NOT LEAVE. That is an order.
Walter,,,even though I have no idea about the who's and whatzits of this situation, it makes no sense to empower anyone that way. Stay and persevere.
I have also had icky feelings about the broadening of resistance in Iraq, many small groups claiming that they hold no allegiance to the old regime, but want to kill Americans anyway.
The coalition murdered up to 8000 civilians. There is no-one in that nation who hasn't been touched. All I can do is put myself in their shoes-and if it was me, I'd want to kill Americans too.
sorry walter...you are vastly outnumbered...your previous post will be set on fire and tossed into the sea
Forget that, set the offender on fire and cast them into the Cuyahoga river in ohio .....
(caught fire a few years ago)
Kara, busted ..... going to read .....
Sorry its taken so long to respond. Mondays officially suck, big time. One section of Western Civ at a community college, one section of upper div. medieval at a local 4 year school (office hours by appointment or cell phone, thank you!), and my own classes in the afternoon. I guess I shouldn't complain,at least I am getting teaching time, and it makes up for the cut in my stipend (Thank you republican controlled state legislature). Anyway, Wahabbism...
Directly linked with the Islamic Brotherhood movenment in the nineteenth century, like many fundy movements (including the christian ones) it advocates reading of the Koran and Hadith as documents that are literally true, and opposes any form of "modernism." It usually advocates the imposition of this view on those who are unwilling to convert voluntaritly. The Wahhabist srtrain includes some of the more repressive aspects of Bedouin tribal law (hence the particularly misogynistic aspects of the sect). That it has been embraced by the Al Saud family is hardly surprising, since they are an extremely unpopular ruling family, and an alliance with a repressive religious group is completely in keeping with their efforts to exert control and resist change.
I don't recall who it was that compared modern Islam with the situation that existed in the early 16th entury reformation, but it was spot on. It is not incorrect to compare Whabbism with Calvinism in its most extreme forms, and also with the Anabaptist community at Munster.
As for the person who posted an article from Ralph Reed, get real!
Anyway, off to bed and a Guiness or three now (perhaps not in that order.)
Hobitbob, I cut this paragraph from a post I did on 394 .... it goes a long way in explaining the mindset of the Iraqi people.
---------------------------------
Then he repeats the argument in much of the anti-American graffiti around Baghdad: "We suffered under Saddam and we hate him, but we would put him in our hearts ahead of a Christian or a Jew, because he is a Muslim."
Reporters: U.S. Troops Negligent
The Associated Press
Monday 18 August 2003
BAGHDAD - Fellow journalists accused U.S. troops of negligence in the shooting death of a Reuters cameraman, saying it was clear the victim was a newsman when soldiers on two tanks opened fire. Press advocacy groups called for an investigation.
Mazen Dana, 43, was shot and killed by U.S. soldiers Sunday while videotaping near a U.S.-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. The U.S. Army said its soldiers mistook his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Press advocacy groups Reporters Without Borders and the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists demanded a full investigation into the shooting.
Reporters Without Borders urged Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to conduct an "honest, rapid" investigation. The group also noted that there have been isolated cases in which soldiers in Iraq have been hostile to the news media.
"Such behavior is unacceptable and must be punished. It is essential that clear instructions and calls for caution are given to soldiers in the field so that freedom of movement and work of journalists is accepted in Iraq," the group said in a statement.
The film Dana shot showed a tank driving toward him. Six shots were heard, and the camera appeared to tilt forward and drop to the ground after the first shot.
Dana was working outside the Abu Ghraib prison after a mortar attack there Sunday in which six prisoners were killed and about 60 wounded. Witnesses said Dana was dressed in civilian clothes.
"We were all there, for at least half an hour. They knew we were journalists. After they shot Mazen, they aimed their guns at us. I don't think it was accident. They are very tense. They are crazy," said Stephan Breitner of France 2 television.
Breitner said soldiers tried to resuscitate Dana but failed.
A U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity that American soldiers saw Dana from a distance and mistook him for an Iraqi guerrilla, so they opened fire. When the soldiers came closer, they realized Dana was a journalist, the official said.
"This is clearly another tragic incident, it is extremely regrettable," Central Command spokesman Sgt. Maj. Lewis Matson said.
Dana's driver, Munzer Abbas, said Dana had got out of the car when he saw the tanks approaching.
"We saw a tank, 50 meters away. I heard six shots and Mazen fell to the ground. One of the soldiers started shouting at us, but when he knew we were journalists, he softened. One of the soldiers told us they thought Mazen was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade," said Abbas.
"There were many journalists around. They knew we were journalists. This was not an accident," he said.
Reuters quoted soundman Nael al-Shyoukhi, who was with Dana, as saying that the U.S. soldiers "saw us and they knew about our identities and our mission.
"After we filmed we went into the car and prepared to go when a convoy led by a tank arrived and Mazen stepped out of the car to film. I followed him and Mazen walked three to four meters (yards). We were noted and seen clearly," al-Shyoukhi said.
"A soldier on the tank shot at us. I lay on the ground. I heard Mazen and I saw him scream and touching his chest.
"I cried at the soldier, telling him you killed a journalist. They shouted at me and asked me to step back and I said 'I will step back but please help, please help and stop the bleed."'
He said they tried to help him but Dana was bleeding heavily.
"Mazen took a last breath and died before my eyes."
Dana's death brings to 13 the number of journalists who were killed in Iraq since the start of the war on March 20. Two Independent Television News journalists, cameraman Fred Nerac of France and translator Hussein Osman of Lebanon, have been missing since shooting incident March 22 in southern Iraq in which correspondent Terry Lloyd was killed.
An outspoken critic of the Israeli government's treatment of journalists, Dana was honored by the Committee to Protect Journalists with an International Press Freedom Award in November 2001 for his work covering conflict in his hometown of Hebron in the West Bank. He was shot at least three times in 2000, according to the citation on the group's web site.
Dana was married and had four children.
Just last week, an investigation by Central Command into the April 7 attack by a U.S. tank on Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, which killed two journalists, found the attack was "fully in accordance with the Rules of Engagement."
The probe found that troops were under heavy attack and suspected a spotter was operating in the area around the hotel. When the tanks spied what looked like a spotter on a balcony of the hotel, the commander gave the order to fire.
"They fired a single round in self-defense," the report said. Journalists from Reuters and from a Spanish television station were killed.
"Baghdad was a high intensity combat area and some journalists had elected to remain there despite repeated warnings of the extreme danger of doing so," the report found. "The journalists� death at the Palestine Hotel was a tragedy and the United States has the deepest sympathies for the families of those who were killed."
The same day, U.S. forces killed an Al Jazeera correspondent. The next day, Centcom said: "These tragic incidents appear to be the latest example of the Iraqi regime�s continued strategy of using civilian facilities for regime military purposes." Central Command repeatedly blamed the deaths of civilians on Iraqi tactics.
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Jump to TO Features for Tuesday 19 August 2003
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Gels, I bet nothing comes of this "investigation." c.i.
gelis - and that is one big problem. We have no exit strategy. We don't seem able to win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqis; we don't seem able to control the attacks and sabotage (which is growing more sophisticated every day); and we've left ourselves with nowhere to go, and damn all to come and lend a hand.
Bush, in Tuesday's Washington Post, changes his version of the Iraqi war. He also announces that coalition forces will be coming in, with Poland contributing the largest - 2,400. I have no idea how many will be joining from Mongolia, Latvia, Estonia. But it turns out that the Pentagon will be paying most of the costs of the Polish army. I have visions of armed enclaves; of irritated and frustrated troops; of a growing enmity from the Iraqis. And now, it appears, they come from other countries to join the cause. Afghanistan, when it is mentioned, has acquired a surreal look. Bush talks about having won the war, that Afhanistan is now a free and democratic society. And yet the papers describe situations where the Taliban, far from disappearing, has joined with the war lords, and things are about the same as they were. That the only place to be talked about is Kabul, and, that despite all the fancy talk, the main road (the one that was of extreme importance) has yet to be built.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11485-2003Aug18.html
CI - I'm not so sure of the sleeping Americans. Reading the papers today gives a very different slant than from just a few months ago. Letters to the editors sound far more aware. And in my very mixed neighborhood, a lot of the flags have come down, and there is far more grumbling.
mamaj, Nothing like that on the west coast. I wonder why? Maybe it's this recall thing that's taking up all the media time, and people can't think about more than one thing at a time. c.i.
Here, CI, for your enjoyment...
Elisabeth Bumiller, in the New York Times, explains it all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/18/national/18LETT.html
While the devil may be in the details, the macro climates in both Iraq and Afghanistan seem to reflect a spiraling downward, rather than progress upward. Making other nations our paid mercenaries is obscene, and does nothing to improve this monstrous situation and get closer to getting our troops home.
mamajuana, I was thinking the same thing this morning, as I read the NYTimes. I noticed it, too, in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. I wonder if it hasn't happened gradually, one columnist or editorial or letter to the ed after another, each gaining courage from a previous writer, to speak the unspeakable. We were wrong to attack Iraq. We were deceived by our administration. There had been a few voices crying in the wilderness, a senator here, a journalist there, and now I see more and more. I wonder if we are not seeing the effect of commentary by the rest of the world, lapping on our shores, affecting insular America at last.
The next few months will be interesting, as we run up to the election year and candidates are forced to speak more openly about their views. Is it too much to hope that we will have a public outcry as in Britain?
I finished reading blatham's third link from the Telegraph, about Super Duper Power. A fascinating piece. In fact, profound in some ways.
Explosion in Baghdad -- possibly up to fifty fatalities at UN headquarters:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/default.asp?cp1=1
That is such bad news. The US could have chosen some other model with which to think and act in the middle east, and they go and choose the Israeli model. Makes one want to rip one's hair out.
But blatham, it so fits the Bush style :sad:
You know, Kara, I think this may be happening. Elisabeth Bumiller of the NY Times, who has been following Bush, has more and more pieces, which are reporting (she says nothing that isn't a quote, nor a certifable fact), but it's there. When she describes Bush on his ranch, for instance, she rarely leaves out the descriptive 16,000 ranch, which is accurate, but what it conveys is a picture of a man idling away on his ranch.
Dana Milbamk, in the WP, has writing that is going the same way. My local papers report things like "Mr Bush, having returned from the golf course....." - factual, but giving a different picture, as they've been doing with Ashcroft. Krauthammer's columns seems to have dropped (at least, mostly) from my papers. SO the tone lof the letters has changed.
Recently I read that the WH was complaining about Al Jazeera; that it was picking up viewership, and that it was all propaganda. Of course, things like this happen when newspeople think they're on the scent of changes, so maybe even more is happening.
Somewhere, last night on the readio, I heard someone say not to compare this with the Israeli-Palestinian situation. That this was different. That the situation here was of an army coming in to occupy, to rule, whereas with the Palestinians and the Israelis, they both live there, and the resolving of that conflict is rooted in very many different things. That this is the Arab world, it is considered an invasion of Iraqi territory by a force that was not wanted and unwelcomed, who is considered the enemy.
Is this a fine line of distinction? No - the facts are that we did invade a country, went to war with them, had no plans for after the war at all, and are now knee deep in mud of our own making.
Even those here who are convinced we did and are doing the right thing (although the reasons grow dimmer) are beginning to get fuzzy about the whole thing. And some of the press is srating to feel that the heavy hands of Rove, Norquist, and the rest may not carry muscle with them.
I was reading today about one Marine company in Task Force Tarawa, which suffered 18 killed and 14 wounded in a single day's battle in An Nasiriyah--the highest casualty rate of any unit in the war. The Rummy sent too few troops to get the job done right away, and has too few on the ground there right now. It costs lives in the shooting war, and its costing lives now, in the "peace."
What made me think of this was a Steppenwolf album i was listening to in the jeep as i drove around today, one song in particular:
America, where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know, we need you now?
We can't fight alone against the monsters.
Of course, that was about a different war. But in so far as this administration is concerned, and the Rummy in particular, the answer to the question: "Don't you care about your sons and daughters?" is very apparently, no.
