Saddam did that bcos he had USA’s backing and support. don’t act so innocent like you don’t know your own country was supplying wespons and other material to be used against these people. he stayed in power till now bcos USA wanted him to be in power. you accuse muslims to be silent, well those who raised their voices ended up in these mass graves. democracy was no an option these people had and USA made sure that it stays that way.
Condemned for taking out Saddam. condemn for not taking out Saddam, nice to have it both ways isn't it?
^
are you following john allen and malvo's case?
what was john allen's role and malvo's role?
please elaborate.
The U.S., Russia, France, and others did provide Saddam weapons out of fear that Iran would overrun the mid-east back in the 1980’s. It’s a policy that has haunted the U.S. since. Mistakes were made, and the U.S. helped rectify that mistake by removing Saddam and is attempting to bring peace to Iraq that has been held hostage by brutal dictatorships and war for decades. Many of those fighting in the ‘resistance’ are not for Iraq but simply against America
^
yeah mistakes were made and now instead of correction those mistakes, USA is making more and more mistakes. how can you excpet to believe that iraqis will accept another regiem appointed by the same USA that gave them saddam and co decades ago. faces have changed but intensions are still the same. those who hhave lost relatives in the past are not just going to sit and go through the same traume again and again. they will and are hitting back, you may call them whatever you want to call them, but for me these people are doing something they should have done decades ago. then they kept silent and suffered the inevitable. now they are voicing their opposition and some have gone a step further and are targetting those who are helping americans and troops. they know these helpers will get lots of rewards and positions after USA has left and then they will do the same saddam did to them. its better not to let them have a strong hold now. as they say, NOW OR NEVER.
btw you still haven't answered my question abt john allen & malvo.
Well we will see, I think the U.S. gives Iraq the best chance at becoming a successful state and as I said many of those attacking places such as the UN and Red Cross are not those you want leading a country.
I'm not really following the case but know John Allen is considered the mastermind of the killings and was sentenced to death by a jury.
well iraq can become a successful state only if its people are given the rights to chose the people they want in power. but i don't see that happening. USA thinks that they lack the intelligence to pick someone who will run this country successfully. further, USA also does not want to have someone in power who may yeild to public demands and does something to hurt USA interests. don't forget 80+ billions are going into iraqs construction. many 80+ billions are now owed to iraqis and USA won't have someone in power who won't pay them through cheap oil. cheaper the oil, less the money and more the oil for more money. simply economical equation.
about UN, for me UN lost its credibility when it failed to stop USA from attacking iraq and failed for years to end sanctions on iraq. it took another war to remove saddam, but in that course millions lost their lives and now in war thousands have perished. you can't except them to love UN for not doing anything for them.
about john allen, he was the mastermind behind the killings [so the media says] and he supported malvo and helped him in the killings. also he provided him with the weapon and trained him to be a sharp shooter. allen is now convicted and is sentenced to death. malvo's trial is still on. does this senario rings a bell / two?
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by ZaiN_12345: *
well iraq can become a successful state only if its people are given the rights to chose the people they want in power. but i don't see that happening. USA thinks that they lack the intelligence to pick someone who will run this country successfully*
not just the "right" to pick someone they want in power, but also the "ability" to pick someone. In addition having some good choices will be useful too.
heck ppl in Pakistan picked benazir twice :)
the situation there is critical, a vaccum must not be created because the types of leaders Iraq needs are def not as organized as those who Iraqis do not need. You dont want a baathist party dude in another guise showing up and then going down the same path.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Fraudz: *
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by ZaiN_12345: *
well iraq can become a successful state only if its people are given the rights to chose the people they want in power. but i don't see that happening. USA thinks that they lack the intelligence to pick someone who will run this country successfully*
not just the "right" to pick someone they want in power, but also the "ability" to pick someone. In addition having some good choices will be useful too.
heck ppl in Pakistan picked benazir twice :)
the situation there is critical, a vaccum must not be created because the types of leaders Iraq needs are def not as organized as those who Iraqis do not need. You dont want a baathist party dude in another guise showing up and then going down the same path.
[/QUOTE]
well then where is all democracy and freedom gone then if they can't even pick their own leader? and who are you as an outsider to decide whether they have the ability to pick the right person or not. give them the chance and let the system do its normal course.
zain,
you missed the point.
1) I am all for Iraqis being able to pick their own leaders, the sooner the better
2) I am also for having a level playing field and the groundworks established to have real elections with real results and variety of candidates. the conditions have to be right and must be made right
now aside from that, this is still a war, like it or not. it has happened..as an outsider you dont have the right to pick their leader true, but as a current occupying force you have the responsibility to ensure a smooth transition to a representative govt, elected be people. If it takes a little bit of time I would prefer that than a hasty withdrawl and handing power to the first clown who emerges as was done with Karzai sahab in Afghanistan, or leave without giving the people the means and systems to be able to elect a leader, a la afghanistan after soviet war.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Fraudz: *
zain,
you missed the point.
1) I am all for Iraqis being able to pick their own leaders, the sooner the better
2) I am also for having a level playing field and the groundworks established to have real elections with real results and variety of candidates. the conditions have to be right and must be made right
now aside from that, this is still a war, like it or not. it has happened..as an outsider you dont have the right to pick their leader true, but as a current occupying force you have the responsibility to ensure a smooth transition to a representative govt, elected be people. If it takes a little bit of time I would prefer that than a hasty withdrawl and handing power to the first clown who emerges as was done with Karzai sahab in Afghanistan, or leave without giving the people the means and systems to be able to elect a leader, a la afghanistan after soviet war.
[/QUOTE]
karzai sahab is limited to kabul only. outside kabul warlords and other nuts are in power. they control majority of the country and population. that kind of government will only make people more bitter and divided. infact country itself is divided bcos of this structure.
about iraq, if got the chance to select their leader then all the power to them. but i'm not sure nor i've read somewhere that they will have elections to elect any leader / representative. all i've read so far is about transition and an iraqi council made up of some foreign-returned people who don't have any strong following in iraq. these people won't help USA cause in the long run. we need a long-lasting solution for this gap, otherwise iraq will see more bloodshed and mass graves in decades to come.
Think about it. For 30 years Saddam eliminated any opposition. They became Baathist, or became part of a mass grave. If the Iraqi equivalent of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin existed, they would have been fed into some large shredding machinery by Uday.
A democracy, or any form of representative government requires the foundations of a government. Freedom from corruption, courts that really work, real leadership, a vision for the future, a decent economy, none of which are yet evident. Patience, things will taek time.
As far as the murdered soldiers, we will be dispatching the 101st Crips from South Central LA, and the 82nd Bloods from Compton. Sounds like a gang murder.
*Originally posted by ZaiN_12345: *
karzai sahab is limited to kabul only. outside kabul warlords and other nuts are in power. they control majority of the country and population. that kind of government will only make people more bitter and divided. infact country itself is divided bcos of this structure.
I am in agreement with you here, and that is my point. The hasty propping up of Karzai is not a practical long term solution. It would be foolish to repeat the same mistake in Iraq.
still worse is what was done in afghanistan the previous time where it was left as a free for all with the warlords turning the whoel country into south central LA.
The bes thign for Iraqi people is that the systems, processes and structure needed to elect and govern is built, and leaders have the opportunity to emerge thus providing ppl with some real choices.
*about iraq, if got the chance to select their leader then all the power to them. but i'm not sure nor i've read somewhere that they will have elections to elect any leader / representative. all i've read so far is about transition and an iraqi council made up of some foreign-returned people who don't have any strong following in iraq. *
I dont think all the ppl in teh current council are foriegn retruned anyways, but a gradual transition of power, while building the systems needed to have a representative govt is what is needed. And in the end the elections should be supervised by the UN to avoid any allegations of hanky panky there.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
As far as the murdered soldiers, we will be dispatching the 101st Crips from South Central LA, and the 82nd Bloods from Compton. Sounds like a gang murder.
[/QUOTE]
dyamn boaaay, i knew it, OG stands for Original Gangsta not Ohio Guy..
Some more on the Iraqi elections - as in other parts of the world, if popular vote brings forward someone we don’t like then we crack down - eg. Algeria FIS
"Rigging Iraq’s Elections
…
But the truth of the matter is, Bush doesn’t want any old democracy in Iraq.
He only wants a so-called democracy if he can pick the head of the new government .
…
Listen to the rationale from Charles Healtly, spokesman for the U.S. occupation: “Rushing into a census in this time frame with the security environment that we have would not give the result that people want,” he told the Times.
Which people is he referring to? Bush and Bremer?
Healtly added, “There is concern not to rush the process.”
Or as Noah Feldman, a former adviser to Bremer, said in an article on November 29: “Simply put, if you move too fast, the wrong people get elected.”
Ah, yes.
We’re for democracy.
Just not yet. Not until we’ve rigged the outcome. "
This may be a few weeks old, but its still somewhat relevant to the topic. Thought it might be an interesting read for some.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions
U.S. Ignores This Ayatollah in Iraq at Its Own Peril.
The various plans under discussion in the Bush administration for handing more power to Iraqis — either in the form of a single ruler or a bolstered Governing Council — all appear to share a common element: No one wants to let the Iraqi people vote on the matter just yet.
This determination to postpone the Iraqi democracy we were supposedly fighting for ignores the views of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s 15 million Shiite Muslims. No one should have any doubts about either his influence or the fact that we may be ignoring him at our peril.
Just about the time that the U.S. Marines were pulling down Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad, an event occurred that should have attracted more attention from Iraq’s conquerors than it did. The BBC reported (erroneously) that Sistani’s modest house in Najaf was under threat from a hostile mob. The news spread like wildfire.
“I was sleeping in a village near Basra that night,” one of Sistani’s advisors recalled. “Suddenly I saw the villagers grabbing their guns and preparing to rush to Najaf, hundreds of miles away. ‘Sistani is under attack,’ they told me. That was all they needed to know. The same thing happened all over Iraq.”
In the Shiite hierarchy, the 71-year-old Sistani, who moved from his native Iran to study in Najaf about 50 years ago, is a source of emulation for millions of followers inside and outside Iraq. As such he can pronounce judgments and rulings on religious and secular issues that his devotees are obliged to follow.
Hence, in the early days of the occupation, Sistani spoke against looting, which then died down in Shiite towns and cities. His representatives helped organize local councils to enforce order and restore basic services.
In June, Sistani issued a momentous judgment on the future governance of Iraq. The occupation authorities had announced that the writing of an Iraqi constitution would be turned over to a committee appointed by U.S. overseer L. Paul Bremer III’s handpicked and unelected Governing Council. Only after the committee had finished its work would ordinary Iraqis be allowed a say in the form of a referendum.
Sistani was having none of it. The occupation powers, he declared in the classical Arabic that comes naturally to Shiite scholars (whose training includes 10 years of grammar), had no authority to appoint the framers of an Iraqi constitution. “The entire project is unacceptable.” There should instead be a general election (using voting rolls drawn from the comprehensive United Nations ration distribution lists) through which each and every Iraqi could choose a constitutional assembly.
The prospect of a democratically elected constitutional assembly reflecting the views and aspirations of Iraq’s Shiite majority was not acceptable to U.S. officials, who assumed that they would end up with an Islamic Republic just as unwelcome as the one that emerged from the Iranian revolution.
Yet Sistani’s edict was carefully phrased so as to make it clear that he is not demanding an Islamist constitution. In denouncing the idea that the Governing Council should develop a constitution, he explained that this group might not produce a document conforming to “the higher interests of the Iraqi people, of which righteous Islamic faith and the noble values of society are an integral part.”
“He’s making it clear that he views Islamic faith and the ‘noble values’ as two distinct things,” one close advisor to Sistani told me recently. “He’s talking about other groups in Iraq, such as Kurds and Christians.”
For months after Sistani’s constitutional edict, the occupation authorities hoped that the issue could be fudged. At one point Bremer sent a message suggesting that Sistani designate a representative to negotiate on the matter. “Mr. Bremer,” Sistani replied, “you are an American and I am an Iranian. I suggest we leave it up to the Iraqis to devise their constitution.”
“If the Americans continue to ignore Sistani on this, he will lose patience and call for protests and mass demonstrations,” his advisor told me. “And they will grow and grow.”
“Like what happened in the Iranian revolution?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he answered.
Forget Iraq, I wish someone gets rid of that Mugabe chap?.
The prospect of a democratically elected constitutional assembly reflecting the views and aspirations of Iraq's Shiite majority was not acceptable to U.S. officials, who assumed that they would end up with an Islamic Republic just as unwelcome as the one that emerged from the Iranian revolution.
Yes, the American's are terrified of real representative democracy in Iraq, which would lead to a Shia-majority government not of their liking.