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Author The Gulf War 2 Thread - Stick to the topic this time.
Sammy_boy
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Posted: 2004-05-04 18:37
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Hi, thought I would start off a new thread to discuss the rights/wrongs of Gulf War II: The Sequel.

I decided to start this thread after other threads talking about specific things in Iraq got threadjacked by people talking about various ethical/legal/religious subjects (and I count myself amongst those guilty of threadjacking those threads!)

So, post here if you want a good debate about the situation in general in Iraq - should we have gone in in the first place? What about these alleged torture/brutality cases by both US and UK soldiers? Do you think the pictures of UK soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners are fakes or not?

In fact, anything you want to debate about this 'war', fire away!

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[ This Message was edited by: tranquil on 2004-05-04 18:56 ]
panpaniscus
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Posted: 2004-05-04 18:48
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Brutality is a close friend of war. Don't have a good army anyware

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tranquil
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Posted: 2004-05-04 20:03
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Before you start flaming me for locking the two other topics on this subject: I locked them with a request to continue them here and I altered the heading on this one to make you aware that we would like this matter to be discussed in a suttel matter.
Please stick to the topic and share your views in a diplomatic manner.

(Personally I dislike topics on politics and religion. They allways get ruined by somone trying to stir things up. I have, on the other hand, accepted that there might need to be set off some room for these kind of topics.)

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[ This Message was edited by: tranquil on 2004-05-04 19:04 ]
Sammy_boy
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Posted: 2004-05-05 01:10
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Thanks @Tranquil - although I did have a bit of a shock when I realised my title had changed a bit!

@gelfen - I didn't intend for your thread to be locked I hope you don't mind (Apologies if you do! )

Anyway - feel free to post any positives you can find out of this Iraq situation as well as general discussion/debate/arguments - often out of wars can come good - look at all the technological advances that were made during and because of WW2! Some were good - like the development of the jet engine, others not so good - e.g. nuclear weapons, not to mention the millions that died. However, I don't think you can say that any real technological advances were made out of Gulf War 2.....
"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke

gelfen
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Posted: 2004-05-05 02:07
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not entirely wrapped that my thread got shafted because of threadjacking. i'm interested to know why it's the original threads that get locked, when intuitively it's the newer ones that should be stopped before they get going.

@sammy_boy: i understand. not your decision.

i thought i'd put links to the original threads for anyone joining this discussion late, so they can see what ground has been covered:

Other bad news from Iraq

this was a general thread about the troubles in Iraq. i'm guessing this thread is picking up from where that left off

A little bit of good news from Iraq

this thread kicked off with an article i found about the Iraqi Olympic team feeling hopeful about their future, and hoping to use sport as a means to inspire their people, free of the depravity of Saddam Hussein's son Uday (refer also to the Sports Illustrated article Son of Saddam). It discussed the democratic election of the president of Iraq's National Olympic Committee, Ahmed al-Sammarai (formerly an Iraqi basketballer and general in Saddam's army before defecting in 1983), and the return of refugees to their homeland now that it is free of Saddam's dictatorship.

later i also uncovered an iraqi sports website, perhaps the most inspiring website i have ever seen, from a country that until a few months ago had no such thing as free media or internet access:

Iraqi Sports Online: The New Generation

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[ This Message was edited by: gelfen on 2004-05-05 01:16 ]
gelfen
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Posted: 2004-05-19 08:13
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with everything that's been happening in iraq during the past few weeks i'm surprised this thread has lain so dormant.

it's nice to see that today four people were arrested over the beheading of Nicholas Berg. however, none of the four included al-Qaeda linked Jordanian extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who US authorities believe carried out the killing of the 26-year-old along with other atrocities in Iraq.

yesterday, over 100 mourners attended the funeral of slain Governing Council chief Izzedin Salim. Salim was killed in a massive car bomb blast outside the gates of the highly-protected Green zone in the heart of Baghdad, in a heavy blow to US plans for a smooth transition of power to Iraqis on June 30. US officers have said the massive suicide car bombing which killed Governing Council President Izzedin Salim also had all the "hallmarks" of a Zarqawi attack, although another group has claimed responsibility.

IMO, Salim's assassination is obviously the work of someone who doesn't want to see Iraq achieve democratic self-rule. All it will is ensure Coalition forces stay longer, and in larger numbers.

investigations continue into the Sarin bomb explosion in Baghdad yesterday.

whether or not this bomb was manufactured in iraq recently, or is a left-over from an earlier stockpile is irrelevant. if it was in iraq under Saddam's rule, then he was in contravention of UN resolutions.

At least one British soldier has been arrested over the fake Iraqi abuse photographs published in the Daily Mirror newspaper, Britain's Ministry of Defence (MOD) said. "At least one soldier has been arrested in connection with the (Daily) Mirror photographs," an MOD spokeswoman told AFP. The Daily Mirror newspaper has apologised over its publication of faked photographs supposedly showing British soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners.

finally, i would like to attach the text of an interview on Australian television with Salam Pax, aka "The Baghdad Blogger", who maintained an online diary throughout much of the Coalition incursion into iraq and for several months preceeding the invasion. Salam Pax has much to say about the current situation in Iraq, and it is refreshing to hear the opinion of an Iraqi rather than the biased and self-serving commentary provided by most media outlets (both left- and right-wing). i urge you all to read this interview and absorb what Salam Pax has to say, and not try to colour it with your own prejudices and (deliberate) misinterpretations.

Salam Pax appeared on the ABC television show Enough Rope with Andrew Denton which is an interview/chat style show hosted by (funnily enough) Andrew Denton, an Australian presenter/commedian/radio announcer. The interview was pre-recorded in front of a live audience on Monday, before the assassination of Governing Council President Izzedin Salim.

Salam Pax
When he began keeping a diary, he had no idea that the world would read it. An Iraqi living in Baghdad before the invasion of last year, he was typing his thoughts and observations onto the Internet just to keep his friends up to date. But as the coalition of the willing closed in, word of his writing spread. At great risk he became an accidental journalist more embedded and often more truthful than many of the Western press could hope to be. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Salam Pax.

Andrew Denton: If I could just give a bit of background first, Salam. You're an architecture student. You come from a reasonably well-off Iraqi family. You've lived several years in the West, including Vienna. Your mum's a Shia Muslim, your dad's a Sunni, you're an atheist…

Salam Pax: Yeah, but don't say that.

Andrew Denton: OK. I won't mention… And you're gay.

Salam Pax: Er, yeah. Don't say that as well.

Andrew Denton: OK, I won't say that. Am I wrong, or is this not a typical Iraqi profile?

Salam Pax: No, it's very typical. No. The problem, you see, um, you have so many things that you want to say and coming from such background my mother is Shia, my father is Sunni, and I being different. It's just that there is so much you really want to say, and in Iraq before the war there was no way you could really express any of these opinions or feelings. And this diary was great when I found out there was a place I could express all these feelings and say these things.

Andrew Denton: Nonetheless, I would have thought, a risky thing to do because on the Internet you are public.

Salam Pax: Yeah. You see, when I first started it, just trying to get in touch with my friend, it was supposed to be a very small personal thing and it was really two people at most reading it and then just slowly building up. I didn't think of the risks, I didn't see it as a risk because it wasn't supposed to be that big any way. It attracted too much attention at the point where I had to stop. Only just before the war started thinking of the risks, really, it was a bit foolish.

Andrew Denton: Absolutely. You were chronicling a country that was about to be invaded. A scary, scary prospect. Why did you stay in Baghdad? You didn't have to.

Salam Pax: Actually, you do have to. It is your country going through really one of the most important changes. There was at a point a discussion within the family. What do you do, do you stay? Do you leave? Do you at least go out of Baghdad into some other city? I think we all decided… We got all together, my uncles and aunts, we stayed together, like, my aunt's house and ours was close together. Everybody was there. You have your family, your loved ones, stay together, let's stay here. In the end you want to see what happens. You cannot leave when something like this happens to your country. You need to know.

Andrew Denton: The benevolent West was coming to save your country from a despotic tyrant. You weren't too happy about that, were you?

Salam Pax: There is this one problem, is that when they come with this idea that "Let's teach those backward brown people over there how it's supposed to be done." It's a problem with who thinks is superior to us. And coming over to Iraq telling you what you're supposed to be doing without understanding your own culture is a problem. But of course we all realised there was no way to get rid of Saddam without foreign intervention. You are standing in the middle not knowing whether to invite them in or to kick them out. You don't know what to do. You have to wait. I am still hoping and trying to be optimistic with all the problems, just looking forward and hoping that some time in the future things will get better. The 'benevolent West'. Well, they're trying. They are not listening enough to Iraqis, but they're kind of trying.

Andrew Denton: Sorry, I didn't hear a thing you just said then.

(Pax laughs)

Andrew Denton: It is something very few of us have been through. How do you prepare for an invasion when it's your country that's about to be invaded?

Salam Pax: I can give you a long list. Dig a well, water will get cut off. Buy a little generator, lots of candles. Buy alcohol, the shops will close. Food, I don't know. Just get whatever. But to prepare… I guess the important thing is having your family and loved ones close to you. Keeping in touch is very difficult after the war. The problem was always in Iraq that we never had information. When you don't know what's coming… People just needed to know what's going to happen, what's the situation. Is it going to happen tomorrow? In a month? The slack of knowledge and information was actually the most difficult part. We had to smuggle a tiny little satellite dish every couple of hours to check the news because satellite dishes, you get 6 months in prison for having a satellite dish. The most important thing is you need to know what is going to happen. At least we know something bad is happening in this city. Then we just didn't know. Suddenly the bombs would start falling.

Andrew Denton: What was the city like in the last few days before the war started?

Salam Pax: Very strange. I've never seen Baghdad like that. People just didn't close their shops, they actually built their shops. You'd see people just building all the windows and doors of shops and houses and there were lots of people trying to leave Baghdad. But then the neighbouring countries, they were very friendly. They kind of cut us off. You were not allowed to go out Jordan, Syria, of course not Kuwait, Turkey, Iran — they closed the doors and you Iraqis stay here, wait to get bombed. The decision to stay in Baghdad was not just a decision we made. It was made for us. "You're staying."

Andrew Denton: You chronicled all this, and your web diary, which started with a readership of one — your friend in Jordan — suddenly was being read by hundreds of thousands all around the world. What sort of reactions were you getting?

Salam Pax: All sorts. Most were kind of not believing that someone in Baghdad would be writing this. There was so much doubt and thinking, "No, no, no." Then came the period when everybody was saying, "He's definitely either CIA or the secret police," which was fun. Then came the part where people started asking questions. It went slowly into building up this readership, which is good, because in the beginning you tend to almost know the people who are reading what you are writing. At one point it get out of proportion. By then I didn't know what was happening because we didn't have any Internet. Apparently the 'Guardian' published huge chunks of the weblog. When I came back online much later I was very amazed at how much attention it got. It was almost scary.

Andrew Denton: I am going to show you footage of what you would be familiar with. This is what we saw on our TV screens at the start of the war, Operation Shock and Awe, which, from where we sat, was extraordinary television. What was it like from where you were?

Salam Pax: It was very strange war, to be watching this while you were getting bombed. It was very strange. We had this small room, the safest room in the house, and we'd be like 15, 16 people sitting in there with a tiny TV and watching this while it was happening. It was very strange.

Andrew Denton: You said your family were all together. You had 30 people waiting out the war in your house. How did you pass your days?

Salam Pax: It is good to have everyone around you. You talk. When we'd have electricity we'd watch a movie on video, and everybody of course would be sitting in front of the TV or the radio trying to figure out what's happening where.

Andrew Denton: What sort of movies would you watch?

Salam Pax: For some reason 'Ice Age' was a favourite. I don't know why. We sat there once watching… What that film was called? It's about an American President who gets in love…

Andrew Denton: 'The American President'. You were watching 'The American President'?

Salam Pax: So strange. It was really weird. Besides, you get all these shots of the White House and you are thinking, "Why are they complaining about Saddam's palaces? The White House was really nice." It was very, very strange watching these things. I think it was for some reason a favourite.

Andrew Denton: You're an architecture student, but first and foremost, Baghdad is your home. Is it painful to watch your city being bombed?

Salam Pax: Of course. I remember watching… Inside the palace complex there's a building that looks almost like a pyramid with its head chopped off. And it's scary how precise the bombs are. It fell right in the middle, and it was spectacular, how it just exploded and everything went boof! And you go there thinking, "My God." It… Yeah, the first couple of days was very difficult. It was very difficult to watch this. But then, I guess it's, you know, human nature — you kind of get used to it. You wake up, another bomb there, explosions there. It just goes on.

Andrew Denton: Another building gone, another day.

Salam Pax: Yeah. The good thing is that every day, while we were able to do it, before the troops went in, we could go during the day, very early on, and look at the sites that were bombed. I just needed to do that. I just needed to go. Me and my cousin would sit in his car and we would go and try to find, you know, from the pictures, to see what happened to these buildings. I just needed to see what happened. What really hurts is that it's been a year now and the buildings are still there, you know, bombed, and it doesn't give you good feeling about your city. It looks like it's just been in a war. We don't need to see this anymore, we need to see change.

Andrew Denton: You, on your online diary, were very critical of the way the Western media covered the war. What did they get wrong?

Salam Pax: I don't know. I don't think it's… It's not exactly the way… Before the war they had a problem, they had a real problem with reporting. There was no way they could move around without secret police around them. I got really annoyed every time I read someone interviewing "the man on the street", an Iraqi. You knew that there's secret policeman standing right beside him and he would never be able to tell you anything but "We love Saddam." So it was kind of…that was really frustrating. During the war, I don't know, it was just seeing all these explosions and the way the troops moved. You'd never get an idea what was really happening. What was really scary is that you'd see, for example, on Western media, the side of the…the coalition army moving in. You'd see them bombing. You'd never see what happens when the bomb falls. Then comes something like 'Jazeera'. They would show, right in the beginning of the war, in Basra, really horrible images, because hospitals were never capable to deal with…

If something serious happened, they were never able to deal with it. They went into a hospital and I just remember thinking, "This will never be good. You have one opinion here and another opinion there and you can't try to find where the middle is."

Andrew Denton: You… As you said, people were speculating as to who you were — were you Secret Service, were you Israeli, were you Iraqi, who were you and did you exist? One man found out eventually. That was your father. How did he find out and what was his reaction?

Salam Pax: (Laughs) Oh, that wasn't a good day.

LAUGHTER

Salam Pax: You see, at one point, I think it was BBC or 'Voice of America', they…for some reason… Why did they do it? They just went on air and said, "There's an Iraqi who is writing all about the war," and he comes down from upstairs, going, "Salam?" I go, "Uh-oh, that's no good." And, um, he's saying to me, "There is an architect called Salam writing stuff about the war." I'm going… (Innocently) "Mmm?"

LAUGHTER

Salam Pax: Yeah, it was… You know, when you think of it, it was really foolish. We sat down later, much later on, and had this talk. I had to admit that it was foolish and it could have gotten us all into real, real serious trouble. But at the time when I was doing it, it became so important to me, it became such an outlet, and people were reacting. I could talk. We were just, you know, getting…exchanging opinions, which was so important. I didn't think about the problems. But then it was lucky. I was really lucky that nothing happened.

Andrew Denton: I'm going to show you another piece of footage now we all saw, which was the pulling down of the statue of Saddam Hussein. Was this a good day?

Salam Pax: It was a very good five hours. We…we… Oh, God. We sat there and electricity was out. We had a generator. Many of the family was in my aunt's house. So we ran over, called them just to watch this. It took forever. Of course, the whole thing about the Americans coming and pulling it down with the cows, it's like, "Oh, God, no we don't want this to happen bad," you know. But still, pulled down, and then just half an hour after that, 'Jazeera' started showing reports of looting in the city and everybody went crazy, everybody wanted to go back to their house. It was a very good five hours just watching this happen. Of course I am not really sure this wasn't just done for the benefit of the reporters who were around the hotels. Why choose this place out of the other places? I don't know. But still, it was a good day, it was a good day. But then we were hoping things would get better. They didn't. It just went up and down and up and down.

Andrew Denton: Your dad was optimistic, wasn't he, about…

Salam Pax: He still is. Kind of to a point where I sometimes think, "Please, get real." He still is so very optimistic. He was kind of all up and happy about the governing council, which I was thinking, "Come on, they don't know Iraqis." He goes, "No, no, no, they'll do something." Now he is very excited about the next interim government, which, again, I don't think they'll have much to do, but he's going, "Oh yes, they'll bring us to good points." I don't know.

Andrew Denton: It's not just the Americans you're ambivalent about, though, because you write about the freedom fighters that have come from other countries to fight the Americans. You don't seem to have a great deal of time for them?

Salam Pax: Uh… I was once in Jordan, in a taxi, and talking to the taxi driver, and he said something which got me really angry. He said, "Look, we want to, you know, we want to be jihadis and we want to fight the infidel, and Iraq now is the place." Fight your wars somewhere else. That's the problem. We ended up being a battlefield. Not only… We have enough problems in Iraq — you know, the Kurds, the Sunni the Shiah — everybody has its own agendas. And now, you know, other people seem to be fighting their wars inside our country, which is even more frustrating. I mean, you can't even deal with your own problems. Now you have to deal with these people who are coming in. It is very strange. Um, I don't know… We were never expecting something like this to happen — that we've become a battleground for all this. Everybody is trying to, you know, settle their problems inside our country.

Andrew Denton: Your name, 'Salam Pax', means 'peace' in Arabic and 'peace' in Latin. Do you see any peace for Iraq?

Salam Pax: Um…as I said, I always try… The now is difficult. It's always difficult to watch what's happening now. I'm always amazed at how things can get worse and worse. Every time I think, "This is really as bad as it gets," it gets just a bit worse. So I'm kind of always… It's nice to have little milestones in front of you. The next interim government with its preparations for elections and everything — I'm looking at that, I'm hoping that this is something that can get us out of the slump here and now. Oh, yes, peace. We'll get peace some day. We'll just have to learn. It's a learning process.

Andrew Denton: After what we've learnt from the torturing of prisoners, would it be better if the coalition withdrew? Would that help?

Salam Pax: No. Um…that was very unfortunate. Bad timing. It shouldn't have happened. Part of the war the West is fighting is a moral war, showing what's wrong to the ignorant people in the Middle East. That was not good for your moral. It's…you're losing that battle. This shouldn't have happened. But still it doesn't mean that everybody should go, "OK, 'bye," because it will plunge us deeper into chaos. People are using this to drive away the coalition. It's very unfortunate. It shouldn't have happened. It's horrible, but nobody should just lose hope. They just need to listen more to Iraqis. They just need to understand Iraqis more. They have been trying to communicate.

Andrew Denton: It is fantastic to have an Iraqi voice on Australian television. Salam Pax, may your name be true. Thank you very much.

Salam Pax: Thank you very much.

the transcript of an online forum chat with Salam Pax and Andrew Denton can be read here
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Sammy_boy
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Posted: 2004-05-19 18:35
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@gelfen -
I'm surprised this thread's been dormant for so long too, and a bit sad, as I started this thread and it seems to have died a death straight away!

That interview with Pax is quite thought provoking. After reading the transcript, it makes me think there's no right answer at all to the Iraq problem, or indeed the current terrorist threat.

I also get the impression that the silent majority of iraqis are looking forward to the elections and self-government in their country (as long as it doesn't turn out to be a US 'puppet' administration). It sounds like a minority of very vocal people, egged on by radical clerics, and foreign fighters looking for a ruck with the americans causing most of the problems.

The US (and to an extent, the UK) haven't helped themselves either. Those pictures of US soldiers torturing prisoners is inexcusable, no matter what. The US is arguing that these are evil people, so a bit of humiliation is alright. Bollocks. They've simply lowered themselves to Saddam's level! It's no wonder many people in the Arab world are upset. The pictures of the UK soldiers humiliating a prisoner have been revealed as fakes, but it sounds like one or two of our soldiers have still been a bit too enthusiastic with their fists, if Amnesty International is correct.

Btw, hope this comment isn't in too poor a taste, but the female US soldier (Lynddie England, I think) probably has a good potential career as a dominatrix once she's released from prison! It seems a strange irony that there are probably thousands or millions of men who would pay a lot of money to be treated like a dog and humiliated! Another strange quirk of the human condition
"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke

Sammy_boy
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Something I've just heard on the BBC's world service, and from their website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3805649.stm (where the full document is). Some food for thought/discussion: -

"A top Muslim official has denounced what he called the extensive backwardness of the Islamic world.
Abdelwahed Belkeziz - Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) - made the stinging attack at meeting in Turkey.

He blamed the rise of Muslim extremism on the feeling of "powerlessness" felt by members of the Islamic world.

The meeting also heard a statement from UN chief Kofi Annan calling for Islamic support for Iraq's government.

Rising extremism

Mr Belkeziz told the foreign ministers from the 57-member states that their countries had a poor record on issues ranging from education and health to economic development.

"The aggregate gross domestic product of all our member states remains lower than that of one single advanced country such as France or Britain," he said.

Mr Belkeziz concentrated on the failures of the Islamic umma or community. There was, he said, a sharp contrast between its present and past.

We must fight this extremism resolutely and determinedly at a time when we are working to correct the tainted image of Islam in the world

Abdelwahed Belkeziz
OIC Secretary General
Today, he said, the community was dispersed, divided, diminished and debased, overwhelmed by a debilitating feeling of impotence.

"The powerlessness that the Muslim world is experiencing today and the difficulty of finding solutions to our just causes have been the reason behind the rise of extremism," he said.

"Fanatics have seen in this an opportunity to commit odious and reprehensible acts... which is why we must fight this extremism resolutely and determinedly at a time when we are working to correct the tainted image of Islam in the world."

Dr Belkeziz called for wide reaching reform around the world to address the situation. "


btw, they also intonated at this confrence also that they didn't want US involvement in any change that may occur, it should come from within and not by The US/UK/anyone else forcing the matter by invading countries or facilitating 'regime change'
"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke

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Posted: 2004-06-14 21:40
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Might just be me but maybee it is getting old having a post about pretty much the same topic. Soon it will turn into a bush bashing discussion.thats just 'MY OPINION'

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gelfen
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Posted: 2004-06-15 01:24
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and the trend continues. the closer we get to iraqi self-rule the worse the situation gets. why is it that the one thing which will do iraq the most good seems to be that which a majority of the insurgents are fighting against?
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Iraqi artists express outrage over Abu Ghraib



Interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor about a visual response by 25 artists in Baghdad to the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. At left, a sculpture by Abdel-Karim Khalil depicting a hooded detainee. Snip from CSM story:
Iraqi Union of Artists deputy chairman Qasim Alsabti created a life-size figure of a woman wrapped in a bloodstained white shroud. It symbolizes the rape of women detainees in Abu Ghraib, says Alsabti, who heard of allegations of women prisoners being raped at Abu Ghraib five months before the scandal broke. "There was a letter circulating in Fallujah from a woman inside Abu Ghraib," he says. "She was begging the resistance to bomb Abu Ghraib and bring down the walls on their heads so that their suffering would end. I felt like screaming when I heard this. I wanted to draw the attention of the American people."
[F]or many Iraqis, including artists like Alsabti, Abu Ghraib has become synonymous with what they see as the injustices of the occupation. "It's like an adviser from Saddam Hussei's regime has come back to Iraq and is now advising the Americans," he says.

[addsig]
gelfen
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Posted: 2004-06-16 03:29
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the main difference being that these people can now protest without fear of retribution.....
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gelfen
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Posted: 2004-06-16 03:39
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The coalition didn't invade Iraq on the promise that its soldiers would kill the enemy one day, and be Jesus the next.

Its promise to Iraq was more real -- to replace its tyranny with a democracy that is the best protection of freedom and virtue.

The US is now showing Iraq how such a free society works. It has shown that a soldier can complain about the brutality of fellow soldiers, and his generals will punish the guilty. It has shown that a free press will hound politicians to act, and a shamed President will feel forced to say sorry and even go on Arab television to promise justice to the victims.

This is the system the US wants to give to Iraq, and who can say it's worse than what any Arab nation now has? How many dicatators go on television to apologise for the crimes of their troops?
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Gelfen's special place where nobody talks to him anymore
axxxr
K700
Joined: Mar 21, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Londinium
PM, WWW
Posted: 2004-06-16 03:58
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Thats where your wrong again mate!..When will you start faceing the reality that America invaded Iraq for the Oil and control over the region.Do you honestly think that anyone believes that crap!.I will believe America the day Liberates zimbabwe from brutal dictator mugabe and then north korea.and whereever theres a dictator.But come on gelfen do u know aswell as i do that america's agenda only applies to Muslim nations.Its because of these double standards that we have all the terrorists running around killing innocent people.And then America and the world wonders where its all coming from.Wake up people!

And another thing you have to know is that When are people in American and the non-muslim nations wake up and realise that Iraq people are not interested in the western idea of democracy!.They are not interested in that kind of freedom..You can force feed muslims on that all you like but in the end they will live by there own traditions and culture..Arab and muslims nations just want to be left alone.If America wants to bring democracy to Iraq then it should with its no:1 allie Saudia Arabia..where Osama and the majority of terrorists originate.The problem with saudia is that the kingdom is playing ball with america so thats why u.s does'nt want to or care about democracy there..America will however go in when they refuse to play ball and remove them from power coz after all the Oil is at stake!.

[addsig]
gelfen
Z600
Joined: Nov 22, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Melbourne, Australia
PM
Posted: 2004-06-16 04:10
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nobody ever accused the US of acting without self-interest. of course the US wants the oil, not to control it themselves but to put it in the hands of someone who is at least stable and rational. i would love to see the US take on North Korea or Zimbabwe, but they won't while they are in the midst of another conflict or while there is no political motivation.

i would beg to differ that muslims aren't interested in freedom to express their ideas without being tortured, or the ability to read a newspaper which criticizes the government, or the rights of sportswomen to perform without being raped by their officials or other athletes tortured for poor performances, or living without the fear of being dumped into a mass grave with 300,000 others. muslim nations may want to be left alone, but many muslim individuals are pleading for help.
Whomsoever you see in distress, recognize in him a fellow man

Gelfen's special place where nobody talks to him anymore
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