The "Brigadiers" are still at it, lo this many years later...
Posted on 08/16/2005 7:13:40 AM PDT by Brigadier
``We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic,'' said another US official familiar with policymaking from the beginning.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestandard.com.hk ...
QUOTE
He kept religious wars and tension at bay with an iron fist.
UNQUOTE
Ah yes, those halcyon days of peace, free from all tension with Saddam in power and his iron fist doing little else but pen romantic novels and pose for another giant portrait.
Well...at least you've nailed your colors to the mast and there's no danger of your comments being misconstrued.
Yeah, Saddam's rape rooms were nothing compared to this.
Wake up. They were there before, they are everwhere in the slum known as the Arab ME. We just turned on the lights and the roaches scurried into it.
Instead of allowing the evil ones to plan and function in the dark, we have made them show themselves. It will take time to eradicate them, but it's the only way to go.
Unintended consequences are a bitch? I thought the bitch was Robin Wright.
Not to mention the wonderful aroma of poison gas and the shipload of castor beans that he would never make into ricin.
You oughta tell that to the Turks. They must not have gotten that memo.
Saddam's defense team on board!!!!
I agree that Islam has a lot of built-in doozies that make it easy to justify just about any action that would be considered counter to a stable and healthy society.
I am inclined, however, to believe the same as the President, and that is that Freedom is inherently desired by all people, regardless of their faith, their economic status, or their country of origin. In the long run, the trend is for people to want to be free, and that the trend is overwhelming when given a chance to prosper.
Oppressive regimes where the civilians have parity with the government's security forces are easily overthrown. Modern regimes, however, have a force disparity in their favor, which makes such revolutions nearly impossible these days. Thus, outside assistance of a force majeure, figuratively speaking, are now necessary in assisting those who want to be free.
To be fair, we are only beginning to understand how to build Democracies out of former theocracies, and dictatorships. Mistakes will be made. I think that our exceptional successes in Japan and Germany clouded our perceptions of the problems that we would face in Iraq. We knew it would be difficult, and that it would take time. We did not anticipate the degree to which the local population would be neutral to our efforts. But that neutrality is eroding as the obvious sovereignty exhibited by their new government is exercised. Whereas the neutrality has as much to do with the distasteful fact that we were occupiers in their country, as to the fact that after decades of oppression and negative propaganda against us, even those inclined to help us held back while they waited for a clearer sign of things to come.
I think the signs the people have been waiting for are really converging, and Iraq is going to come together strongly into a Federalist country. Iran is playing into this by rattling their sabres, creating an external threat. Sunni and Shia Iraqis generally agree that they are Iraqi. The Kurds, as I understand it, tend to vary on that issue - generally considering themselves Kurds. But it should become quite obvious even to the Kurds that the cumulative security of Iraq is better than attempting to become an independent country that will be embroiled in a state of war for the foreseeable future. Peace within an Iraq where they have not only a voice, but a proportional number of votes, and the ability to contribute to public policy, is preferable to fighting a war for independence, and then fighting to keep their independence, and their oil.
Good old Saddam
The Western nightmare: Saddam and Bin Laden versus the world
Iraq's half-built chemical arsenal, and the planet's most prolific terrorist - Julian Borger and Ian Black on a marriage made in hell
Saturday February 6, 1999
The Guardian
It must have been a bitterly cold and uncomfortable journey. In the last days of December, a group of Iraqi officials crossed the Hindu Kush border from Pakistan to Afghanistan on their way to keep an appointment deep in the remote eastern mountains.
At the head of the group was a man by the name of Farouk Hijazi, President Saddam Hussein's new ambassador to Turkey and one of Iraq's most senior intelligence officers. He had been sent on one of the most important assignments of his career - to recruit Osama bin Laden.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,798270,00.html
Gosh, you think maybe Iraqis would be happier if Saddam was still in power, women were being escorted into Rape Rooms, and Uday was running his industrial shredding machines on dissidents?
Yeah, I'm sure.
i would remind you that Iran is an "islamic republic" and indeed uses elections to vote on a parliamentary body. the structure of a government is only relevant if that nation state rules by law, empowers its minorities to participate in the ruling process, and guarantees equal standing under law to all citizens. islamic republics cannot pass this test no matter whether they are arab or asian. if iraq is headed down this road, we, on the right, might like to re-evaluate what defines victory in this war. removing a great supporter of world terrorism, (saddam) is already a victory. weakening iraq is another. dismantling iraq would have even been better.
a sample of islamic republic thought:
"What we are up against is best illustrated by what the Jews did to the World Trade Centre. Everyone in the Muslim world knows that September 11 was a Jewish plot to pave the way for a joint Israeli-US military operation against not just Osama bin Laden and the Taleban but also Islamic militants in Palestine. On the day of the bombing, 4,000 Jews were absent from the World Trade Centre; they had been tipped off.
I thought this canard had long ago vanished up its own orifice, but it was being retailed with all sincerity by a Pakistani taxi driver last week in New York of all places - which proves nothing except that he is an accurate representation of a now unshakeable Muslim conviction. Millions and millions and millions believe this rubbish, as a Gallup Poll has found after questioning people in nine predominantly Islamic countries - Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia - representing about half the world's Muslim population. "
Some 67 per cent found the attacks morally unjustified, which is something - why not 100 per cent? - but they were also asked if they believed reports that groups of Arabs carried out the bombings. Only in West-aligned Turkey was the answer Yes, but it was close; 46 per cent to 43 per cent. In all the other eight Islamic countries, the populations rejected the idea that Arabs or al-Qaeda were responsible. Repeat, that is a poll just a couple of months ago, after millions of words from reporters and exultant videos from the Osama bin Laden show. The majorities are overwhelming in Pakistan, Kuwait, Iran and Indonesia - in Pakistan only 4 per cent accept that the killers were Arabs. Thomas Friedman, of The New York Times, reported last month from Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim state, that nobody has any doubt about the Mossad conspiracy.
http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/lies.html
The "Brigadiers" are still at it, lo this many years later...
link
there is no more such a thing as Iraqi as there was Yugoslavian. the same holds true for most of the arab countries. they were created by the league of nations as rewards for cooperating sultans during WWI and punishment for those that did not.
Please explain Turkey.
No no. Saddam was a prince who helped civic groups like Al Quaeda
TOP U.S. OFFICIALS linked Iraq and al Qaeda in newspaper op-eds, on talk shows, and in speeches. But the most detailed of their allegations came in an October 7, 2002, letter from CIA director George Tenet to Senate Intelligence chairman Bob Graham and in Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5, 2003, presentation to the United Nations Security Council.
The Tenet letter declassified CIA reporting on weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's links to al Qaeda. Two sentences on WMD garnered most media attention, but the intelligence chief's comments on al Qaeda deserved notice. "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qa'ida going back a decade," Tenet wrote. "Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression. Since Operation Enduring Freedom [in Afghanistan], we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qa'ida members, including some that have been in Baghdad. We have credible reporting that al Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs." In sum, the letter said, "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military actions."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/969032/posts
Indosesia is moving in the direction of Muslim conservatism. For example, in Aceh, the sharia court system is now in effect and there is a movement to make sharia the law of all Indonesia (source: DhimmieWatch). In Muslim majority countries, a legal system that is not consistent with Sharia is seen as affront to Islam.
That was true 60-80 years ago. But the Iraqis have been a country long enough to have developed a national identity. The Kurds are the most likely not to consider themselves Iraqi, though their active participation in the government lends credence to the idea that they are willing to stay in an Iraq that allows them to have a voice, and that recognizes their equality with their Arabic neighbors.
So I humbly beg to differ.
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