his is interesting...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/world/middleeast/04youth.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=acab5b5867bb89bf&ex=1362546000&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
(snip)
Quote:In the beginning, they gave their eyes and minds to the clerics; they trusted them," said Abu Mahmoud, a moderate Sunni cleric in Baghdad, who now works deprogramming religious extremists in American detention. "It's painful to admit, but it's changed. People have lost too much. They say to the clerics and the parties: You cost us this."
(snip)
Quote:By 2006, even those who had initially taken part in the violence were growing weary. Haidar, a grade-school dropout, was proud to tell his family he was following a Shiite cleric in a fight against American soldiers in the summer of 2004. Two years later, however, he found himself in the company of gangsters.
Young militia members were abusing drugs. Gift mopeds had become gift guns. In three years, Haidar saw five killings, mostly of Sunnis, including that of a Sunni cab driver shot for his car.
It was just as bad, if not worse, for young Sunnis. Rubbed raw by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence says is led by foreigners, they found themselves stranded in neighborhoods that were governed by seventh-century rules. During an interview with a dozen Sunni teenage boys in a Baghdad detention facility on several sticky days in September, several of them expressed relief at being in jail, so they could wear shorts, a form of dress they would have been punished for in their neighborhoods.
Read the rest of the article, its interesting.
Ramafuchs wrote:The fact is this.
None of the A2k members want to make a lovely holiday trip to Iraq
Only mysterman and my poorself had risked the pleasure.
Pray thee preach the sermons
Pace pour forth your venoms
Costs too much
will take too much time
offers too little pleasure.
Grand Canyon
Alaska
Disney Land
Disney World
are far more appealing
This year I am not going to any of these
either.
Any reasonable honest person could very well see the huge difference in taking a vacation in Iraq and anywhere inside the United States regardless of cost.
Quote:Baghdad
Iraqi Army found a mass grave containing 25 bodies in Mahmoudiyah, to the south of Baghdad late Thursday. The bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition and investigations are ongoing in an effort to identify them.
1 Katyusha rocket hit the Palestine Meridian Hotel on the Abu Nawas side, in central Baghdad at 3.15 pm Friday. It landed on the second floor causing the death of 3 civilians and the injury of 7.
1 Katyusha rocket fell on the Green Zone at around 3.15 pm Friday. No casualties reported.
A roadside bomb exploded targeting a police patrol in Shaab, northeast Baghdad at around 2 pm Friday, killing 1 policeman and injuring 3.
A roadside bomb exploded targeting a joint US/Iraqi patrol in Baladiyat, north east Baghdad at 3 pm today killing 3 civilians. Clashes broke out with the gunmen after the IED went off. No casualties were reported.
A mortar round fell on a bread bakery in Talbiyah, Square 83 killing 2 civilians and injuring 5.
3 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad today by Iraqi Police. 1 in Baladiyat; 1 in Shaab and 1 in Hurriyah.
Anbar
A car bomb driven by a suicide bomber targeted al-Hamudhiyah checkpoint, east Ramadi which is manned by Sahwa (CLC) members. The explosion took place at 5.30 pm Friday and caused the death of 4 Sahwa members and injuring 3 civilians.
Salahuddin
A car bomb driven by a suicide bomber targeted a Sahwa checkpoint, 20 km to the north of Baiji on the main route of Baghdad/Mosul at 5.30 pm Friday. 1 Sahwa member was killed and 8 were wounded.
Diyala
A roadside bomb exploded targeting an Iraqi Army patrol in Abu Khamis, 10 km to the south of Baquba at 12.15 this afternoon injuring 2 army servicemen.
A roadside bomb exploded as a civilian car was passing in al-Muradiyah, 20 km to the east of Baquba at 1 pm Friday. In the car was a family of 7. 1 child was killed; the mother, father and 4 other siblings were severely injured.
Najaf
Seyid Riyadh al-Noori, brother in law to Seyid Muqtada a-Sadr, leader of the Sadrist trend and the Mahdi Army was assassinated by gunmen in Adala neighbourhood, Najaf city at 2.20 pm Thursday as he was returning from Friday prayers. Seyid Riyadh was Head of the Sadr office in Najaf city, and a close friend and associate of al-Sadr.
Kirkuk
A police patrol found the body of a policeman in al-Orouba neighbourhood Friday morning. The policeman was 30 years old; he was shot to death.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/212/story/33381.html
I know there is violence in US cities but it is the type of violence which is the difference. It's like having school shootings or terrorist actions every day in Iraq along with the criminal aspect of violence. It is the difference in living in country ravaged by an ongoing war and a country that is not. It would be like if instead of political fighting with words and elections, we fought with violence like Iraq currently does as a matter of course.
Violence is a barbaric act whether it emanates from Dalai lama's leadership or the Gandhi's leadership.
Forget about other criminals.
Ican
I wish you a nice, congenial and affable life, whereever you spend your holidays.
Regards
Rama
revel
Veteran Member
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Posts: 6353
just see my reaction sir
1,300 Iraqi troops, police dismissed
The rest at the source.
I am just wondering who is going to go after Maliki's militias and criminal gangs.
One of the war victims had this view .
Some cause happiness whereever they go,
others WHENEVER THEY GO.
ican
Thanks.
Take care of the next president not to sing the same old song with faulty INTELLIGENCE report.
The people around the globe are fed up with USA's journalist, corrupt corporate sponsored political high drama.
Ramafuchs wrote:ican
Thanks.
Take care of the next president not to sing the same old song with faulty INTELLIGENCE report.
The people around the globe are fed up with USA's journalist, corrupt corporate sponsored political high drama.
I'd like to know how you would, "take care of the next president not to sing the same old song with faulty INTELLIGENCE report" if you were me.
I too am fed up with the "USA's journalist, corrupt corporate sponsored political high drama." However, I'm fed up with how they appear to me, not how they appear to the rest of the world. I think too much of the rest of the world exhibits even worse problems that cause major flaws in their judgments of themselves as well as of the USA.
There are some ex Abuzzers in this forum.
Ask those people who speak better English
Ramafuchs wrote:There are some ex Abuzzers in this forum.
Ask those people who speak better English
I'm an ex-Abusser!
Even so, I don't know what
you think about my comments, and it is what
you think about them that is my immediate interest.
Here they are again:
I'd like to know how
you would, "take care of the next president not to sing the same old song with faulty INTELLIGENCE report" if
you were me.
I too am fed up with the "USA's journalist, corrupt corporate sponsored political high drama." However, I'm fed up with how they appear to me, not how they appear to the rest of the world. I think too much of the rest of the world exhibits even worse problems that cause major flaws in their judgments of themselves as well as of the USA.
Sorry sir.
I give a vague answer to substantiate my views.
In Italy they had picked up a multi multi multi media mega-person for the third time.
But if you see the Italy of today it is not a simple rotten dustbin gutter but a country which dance according to the moneyed people..
Berusconi is a close friend of BUH who had spoiled the image of USA.
Back to your sharp question.
Among the available candidates none deserve your respect.
If I were you I will croos the street and vote all the people and thereby make my vote invalid.
I wish all the approved voters to invalidate their votes.
Voter participation 99 percent and invalid votes are 98 percent. That result will teach the contagerous corporate candidates a lesson
Laugh a while.
Smile a lot.
Rama
I don't really know about other countries and I really don't know about individuals in those countries other than what I read on the news in our country and a few like "gulf news" and BBC news so I will just leave that alone.
However; I will address the idea of not participating (or sabotaging; never heard of that one; not sure you can really do that in an election box) in elections to teach those in elected offices a lesson. If we do not participate in government then we can not complain about our government.
But your line
Quote:Laugh a while.
Smile a lot
aint bad.
Tribal identities in a modern world
Tribal identities in a modern world
By H.D.S. Greenway
Boston Globe Op-ed
April 15, 2008
GENERAL David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have gone back to Baghdad with all the time they want, but with no clear plan other than carrying on as before and muddling through. "Our patience is not unlimited," said Senator John Barrasso, but apparently it is. Congress has not the will to be decisive, and so we fight on, with an illusion of progress always dangling before us like a mirage of water in a desert wasteland.
more stories like thisPetraeus and Crocker were masters at obfuscation as they tried to thread their way between congressional hawks and doves last week. A straight answer was as rare as a day without death in Baghdad. But Petraeus did admit: "We haven't turned any corners. We haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel."
There was an effort among certain senators to blame our problems on Iran, and Crocker was quick to take it up. But there were no Iranians or Shi'ites in the suicide planes of Sept. 11, 2001. Al Qaeda considers all Shi'ites apostates. Barack Obama got it right when he said that if the Iraqi government "can tolerate as normal neighbor-to-neighbor relations (with) Iran, then we should be talking to them as well. I do not believe we're going to be able to stabilize the situation without them."
This may not be possible in the Bush administration that has gone to such lengths to demonize Iran as "evil." But it should be a priority of the next president, Republican or Democrat.
All but forgotten in the congressional testimony were the "benchmarks" that only last fall were supposed to be met by the Iraqis. Originally, the United States was going to stand down when the Iraqis stood up. But the government's feeble effort in Basra shows how little the national army has achieved in five years.
Petraeus said that "recent operations in Basra highlight improvements in the ability of the Iraqi security forces to deploy substantial numbers of units, supplies, and replacements on a very short notice." But does delivering soldiers to a battlefield quickly really matter if they take off their uniforms and join the enemy once they get there? Some Iraqi soldiers performed OK, but, clearly, the motivation to break out of tribal and ethnic loyalties to form a national whole is wanting.
There is a theory going around that posits that reconciliation at the top of Iraqi society doesn't really matter. It's reconciliation at the bottom that counts. This conveniently side steps the "benchmark" that reconciliation at the national level should happen if the United States is to continue its support.
The theory is that Iraq is not really a modern society, but a tribal one, and therefore shouldn't be held to Western standards. It is enough if some tribes make accommodations with each other to reduce internecine violence. And if enough of these provincial accommodations are made, maybe stability will spread.
In the modern world, however, you need national institutions at the top and power-sharing, not just tribal accommodations whereby one group promises to stop stealing camels one day, only to change its mind the next. Moqtada al-Sadr used to have an accommodation with Nouri al-Maliki, after all, and may again. Basing your hopes on tribal accommodations is to accept that Iraq has returned to where it was in the distant, Ottoman Empire past. Gertrude Bell, who had so much to do with forming the Iraqi state for the British, found, according to historian David Fromkin, "that outside the towns, Ottoman administration vanished, and the local sheikh or headman ruled instead. There were districts, too, where brigands roamed at will. The rickety Turkish government was even incapable of collecting its own taxes, the most basic act of imperial administration."
There is danger in arming tribes that, as the Financial Times put it, "is a policy that, willy-nilly, empowers more and more warlords to pull Iraq to bits."
Tribal identity may be the reality in today's Iraq. It has always had a powerful role. And, in the end, the country may break up into ever-smaller tribal, religious, and ethnic entities. But do they need us for that?
Most of the barbarians are dead.
Only tribal innocents are struggling to survive.
Ramafuchs wrote:Sorry sir.
I give a vague answer to substantiate my views.
In Italy they had picked up a multi multi multi media mega-person for the third time.
But if you see the Italy of today it is not a simple rotten dustbin gutter but a country which dance according to the moneyed people..
Berusconi is a close friend of BUH who had spoiled the image of USA.
Back to your sharp question.
Among the available candidates none deserve your respect.
If I were you I will croos the street and vote all the people and thereby make my vote invalid.
I wish all the approved voters to invalidate their votes.
Voter participation 99 percent and invalid votes are 98 percent. That result will teach the contagerous corporate candidates a lesson
Laugh a while.
Smile a lot.
Rama
Please name what you believe is a
good country. Then please tell me why you think so.
Most of you had supported this torture,loot, in Iraq.
Obviously because of your journalists had shaped your views..
none of you( Mysteryman is an exception) wish to make a few days holiday.
Why?
The second Questions is this.
How many years it take to realize the AMERICAN DREAM:
Am i exposing my ignorance?
Or Upholding the the intellegence?
