US-backed militia terrorises Iraqi town / Shia leader murdered in Najaf (merged)

Malik73 · April 18, 2003, 10:46am

Now we have ethnic cleansing being practised right under the noses of the Anglo-American occupation forces. Another sign of the increasing instability brought to Iraq by the illegal invading forces…

Nadia_H · April 18, 2003, 8:04pm

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Malik73: *
**Now we have ethnic cleansing being practised right under the noses of the Anglo-American occupation forces. Another sign of the increasing instability brought to Iraq by the illegal invading forces...*
[/QUOTE]

That's just it, everyone seemed to revel in the assumption that this would be a cakewalk. How do you deal, realistically, with so many diverse ethnic groups? Now it's the Kurds who have the upper hand (perhaps, temporarily) and they are enacting their form of revenge against some Arab citizens of Iraq.
Bush has done a beautiful job of furthering instability.

Malik73 · April 21, 2003, 9:30pm

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Nadia_H: *

That's just it, everyone seemed to revel in the assumption that this would be a cakewalk. How do you deal, realistically, with so many diverse ethnic groups? Now it's the Kurds who have the upper hand (perhaps, temporarily) and they are enacting their form of revenge against some Arab citizens of Iraq.
Bush has done a beautiful job of furthering instability.
[/QUOTE]

For the American's the nightmare in Iraq is just unfolding i.e. how to rule Iraq with an increasingly hostile population...

mAd_ScIeNtIsT · April 21, 2003, 9:38pm

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Malik73: *

For the American's the nightmare in Iraq is just unfolding i.e. how to rule Iraq with an increasingly hostile population...
[/QUOTE]

And the amusing thing is how the hawks had been touting the cakewalk scenario - the welcoming crowds of people yearning for liberation by the Americans.......

.....and it looks like they're going to receive an Iraqi Hezbollah instead. I think that right now, we're seeing the quiet before the storm. What will be particularly interesting is seeing later this week how politicised the pilgrimage to Karbala will be - I think it would give a good feel of what the future will hold for Iraq.

Malik73 · April 26, 2003, 3:11pm

Town after town being taken over by local people who have no time for the American occupiers…

Iraqi Shi’ites Say Ruling Najaf, Ignore U.S. Troops](Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More)

Nadia_H · April 27, 2003, 9:07am

Roger Morris worked on the National Security Council staff under presidents Johnson and Nixon.
This is an excellent article by him.

**Washington has rarely been adept, or candid, in fostering authentic democracy. Almost nowhere in half a century - from 1950s’ CIA coups in Iran, Guatemala and Congo, among other places, to expeditions into the Caribbean, Africa and elsewhere in the 1980s and 1990s - has regime change left a nation freer. Not even Germany and Japan. The CIA colluded with ex-Nazis in Bonn to fix the rule of a Cold War ally, and covert manipulation entrenched a corporate oligarchy in Tokyo. In the latest case in point, Afghanistan, politics have reverted to the old warlord feudalism. U.S. forces barely venture beyond bases still rocketed by Al Qaeda.

“The United States has no interest, absolutely no interest, in ruling Iraq,” said Zalmay Khalizad, a White House aide who was also Bush’s envoy to post-Taliban Afghanistan. But history says different: U.S. arms and aid for propping up an Iraqi monarchy in the 1950s. CIA-backed coups in 1963 and 1968, one bringing in the Baathists and the second bringing in Hussein himself. The Gulf War. Now its sequel. Five times in a generation, Washington intervened to ensure that Iraq did not defy U.S. interests.

**

Freedom, American-Style, Roger Morris, LA Times, 23 April 2003

Malik73 · April 27, 2003, 2:37pm

America’s are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.