THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Once again I appeal to the holy warriors of democracy to make a few days holiday Bagdad( The congenial time is september or october)

Ask mysteryman .
Let us not be a banal intellectuals

I Live in Köln ( Germany) Sir
and not in Texas.

Iraq PM halts battle with militia

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has ordered a stop to all operations against "people who carry weapons" in the country.

This comes a day after he promised to continue to pursue criminals and outlaws in all provinces.

Last week there was intense fighting between the Mehdi Army militia and the Iraqi security forces in Basra.

Separately, police say a suicide bomber killed at least 15 people in an attack in a funeral in the province of Diyala.

The attack, on the funeral of a Sunni policeman, happened in the town of Sadiya, 60km (37 miles) from Baquba.

Attacks on funerals are usually blamed on al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Unclear intentions

The clashes between the army and Shia militia spread to various areas in Iraq, including Baghdad, and hundreds of people were reported killed in days of fighting.

This eased on Sunday when Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr ordered his Mehdi Army fighters to stand down.


BBC Baghdad correspondent Crispin Thorold says Mr Maliki's intentions over the past 10 days have been far from clear.

From the beginning, the prime minister said that the Iraqi security forces operations in Basra were targeting "criminals".

In practice that meant militiamen from the Mehdi Army.

When the Iraqi forces faced tougher resistance than expected, Mr Maliki vowed to continue the fighting to the end.

Instead elaborate negotiations involving, senior Iraqi politicians and the Iranian government, persuaded Moqtada Sadr to back down.

His militia are off the streets, but still have their weapons. Mr Maliki appears to be saying that they will not be pursued, for now, our correspondent says.

Violence continued in the southern city of Basra on Thursday. A US statement said Iraqi troops killed seven militants and detained 16 in clashes.

One of those detained was a militia leader, the statement said, involved in the kidnapping and murder of Iraqi soldiers, oil smuggling and running foreign fighter networks.

In a separate clash, US warplanes bombed insurgents engaging Iraqi forces in Basra, the statement said.

Al-Qaeda 'weakened'

Separately, an American intelligence report on security in Iraq says the improvements seen since the surge in troops last year have been maintained.

The latest National Intelligence Estimate highlights how Sunni Muslim tribes have helped weaken al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The new report was given to Congress a week before the most senior US general in Iraq, David Petraeus, gives evidence to a Senate committee.

The report does not mention the Iraqi government's operation against the Shia groups.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7330033.stm

Published: 2008/04/04 12:05:29 GMT

Most of the people around the globe are fed up with criminals.

Ican
it depends.
Ask those poor poverty -stricken Kalkutta( culcutta= India) people. they give a different answer.
Come to Köln and ask those homeless people( they give a different answer)
The so called Anti-communist and pro-barbaric consume-oriented system is facing a slow and steady death.
Rama

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79n/

Part III, Chapter II
'Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.'

PART III, Chapter III
'And do you consider yourself a man?'

'Yes.'

'If you are a man, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are non-existent.' His manner changed and he said more harshly: 'And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies and our cruelty?'

'Yes, I consider myself superior.'

Part III, Chapter IV
'Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble'

'If he THINKS he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously THINK I see him do it, then the thing happens.' Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: 'It doesn't really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought under instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real' things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.'

He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he was in no danger of succumbing to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never to have occurred to him. The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. CRIMESTOP, they called it in Newspeak.

http://www.icasualties.org
Military Fatalities: By Month

Period US UK Other* Total Avg Days
2-2008 29 1 ..... 0 ..... 30 . 1.03 29
1-2008 40 0 ..... 0 ..... 40 . 1.29 31
12-2007 23 1 ..... 0 ..... 24 . 0.77 31

…

5-2003 37 4 ........ 0 ..... 42 . 1.35 31
4-2003 74 6 ........ 0 ..... 80 . 2.67 30
3-2003 65 27 ........ 0 ..... 92 . 7.67 12
Total . 4011 176 .. 133 .. 4282 . 2.37 1809

Iraq's Unheralded Political Progress

We've been hearing for months that the U.S. troop surge has been a security success and a political failure. But with little media fanfare, Iraqis may have just found the key to resolving their differences: old-fashioned politics.

Five years into the Iraq war, the original goal of standing up a stable liberal democracy in the Arab world seems as distant as ever. There's no question U.S. troop deaths are down and Iraqi civilian casualties have dropped precipitously. Yet, as many observers have noted, it's hard to find measures of success that don't have "Petraeus" written all over them. The violence may have lessened, but what about national reconciliation?

Amid the recriminations for the lack of political progress, few seem to have noticed what may have been a watershed moment for Iraqi democracy. Indeed, February 13, 2008, might someday be remembered as the day Iraq's political class finally showed itself capable of compromise and accommodation.

On February 13 the Iraqi parliament simultaneously passed three new laws: one that sets the relationship between the central and provincial governments, a second giving amnesty to thousands of detainees, and a third setting the 2008 national budget. Each piece of legislation is important in its own right, but how the overall compromise came about may prove even more significant than the laws themselves.

Second, the maneuvering of the participants themselves is also encouraging. Iraqis are beginning to sort themselves based on ideas and interests rather than on simply their ethnic or sectarian identities. A year ago, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army was being accused of sectarian cleansing of Sunnis. But on February 13, the Sunni coalition and Sadrist party stood side-by-side to push for a stronger amnesty law. In the debate over provincial powers, Sunni, secularist, and Shiite parties (including the Sadrists) came together to form a powerful "centrist" political bloc advocating greater centralized control over the provinces. The largest Shiite party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, and the Kurds maintained a "federalist" coalition calling for greater provincial autonomy. Iraqi politics to date have been dominated by a Shiite-Kurdish alliance that has been accused of marginalizing Sunni interests and ignoring their concerns. But the fact that several Shiite parties defected away from the Supreme Council, choosing ideology over sect, suggests that new intersectarian political coalitions may be emerging that could make national reconciliation easier.

Finally, the process that led to the February 13 compromise suggests a growing respect for the rule of law, and not just the rule of men. Throughout the debate, "centrists" and "federalists" alike went to great lengths to frame their positions on the basis of popularly agreed-upon constitutional principles. When a constitutional dispute stalled the provincial-powers bill in the summer of 2007, for instance, lawmakers looked to the Federal Supreme Court for guidance. The Supreme Council framed its objections to the law in terms of "contradiction[s] with the Constitution," while its proposed amendments were designed to "ensure the constitutionality of the law." Of course these positions were based on political agendas, and one should therefore be cautious not to draw too far-reaching a conclusion from one parliamentary debate. But in a nation with scant experience with liberal democratic governance, Iraq's newfound reliance on the Constitution and independent judicial institutions should provide some hope that a new political culture is beginning to take root.

It's too early to tell just how much, if at all, the February 13 compromise will transform Iraqi politics. Anything could happen on the security front. One well-timed bomb could easily undermine whatever political progress has been made. Formidable economic challenges remain as well. But something very encouraging just took place, and if Iraqis can build upon the February 13 compromise, someone other than General Petraeus may claim a success.