A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq's Rebels Fight On

[moghrabi]

Thanks I know I am clever. LOL

Not making a big issue of it. Somewho the question evolved to what it is now. Not blaming you for anything. It is just a question I am throwing around to see how canadiams actually react to such a thing.

Peace mate.

BTW: do you like my new Sig?

 

[moghrabi]

Re: RE: A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq's Rebels Fight O

Thanks I know I am clever. LOL

Not making a big issue of it. Somehow the question evolved to what it is now. But when did it become indefensible and by who?


Peace mate.

BTW: do you like my new Sig?

 

[Just the Facts]

Re: RE: A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq's Rebels Fight O

Thanks I know I am clever. LOL

How does that old saying go...the man who thinks he knows everything has a lot to learn... ...just teasing

Not making a big issue of it. Somehow the question evolved to what it is now. But when did it become indefensible and by who?

I guess indefensible is not the best word but I couldn't think of a better one. Basically,the argument was lost :lol:

because, arguments I'm hearing: on the one hand, we have the dirty mean old west who arbitrarily drew up a bunch of borders in the ME for their own convenience, with no regard to the wishes of the local people...therefore, ME people "always oppressed by the west"

but

on the other hand it's better to kill and die than to accept division of those borders that were arbitrarily drawn up by the west.

It doesn't add up, why go to war and kill your brothers to defend something that is the creation of those you hate, and is actually one of the reasons you hate those hate? :?

Peace mate.

And peace to you.

BTW: do you like my new Sig?

Yes, it's very merry

 

[Just the Facts]

Oh your Sig, I was thinking of your Avatar. Yes it's funny, Bush really is a master of the English language...not!

One thing about Bush he sure has been a boon for comedians 8)

 

[moghrabi]

Thanks about my sig. And true Bush is a natural moron for comedians to make a lot of money.

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

What is your definition of an insurgent when it comes to Iraq, moghrabi?

 

[moghrabi]

First we have to define the true meaning of the word insurgent.

The word insurgent is any person revolting against an established government or civil authority.

Now since Iraq does not have an established goeverment (they have a US appointed puppet government) and the country is under occupation, I can not agree on calling them insurgents. They are people who know what the real motives behind the occupation and defending their land. I do not agree with some of the acts they are doing such as kiddnapping or bombing (if they are the ones who are doing it), but I do not call them insurgents. I call them liberators.

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

But liberators implement a very positive view, while - as you say it yourself - they have been involved in kidnapping and bombings (in which countless innocents have been killed - my opinion, but probably that can also accounts as statistics, taking in consideration HRW says about this). And these innocents have not only been killed when American soldiers or other people alligned to the foreign forces were nearby; they have also been directed to secular Iraqis or activists, as well as to certain specific groups.

However, and that was actually the meaning of my question, can we divide these people into groups? What about foreign fighters? What about specific Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish groups?

 

[no1important]

I think after the next UK election and Blair gets turfed, the British troops will leave Iraq, so what will America do next? Bring back the draft? They will need more soldiers.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: A Year After Saddam's

But Blair will win the next British election. I haven't seen a serious challenger in his party yet and the Tories are more pro-war and pro-Bush than Labour is, so Tony has another four or five years.

You thought we were screwed for leaders in Canada?

 

[jimmoyer]

What if the insurgency, the bombs and the massacres are happening precisely because there has been no national discussion of the past?

If that sounds peculiar, don't listen to me. Listen instead to Kanan Makiya, the former Iraqi dissident who has now dedicated himself to consolidating, scanning and investigating the archives of the former regime.

Makiya thinks that what matters is not whether the Iraqis remember Hussein's reign but how they remember it.

Was the Baathist state a totalitarian regime under which the entire nation suffered?

Or was it a conspiracy of the Sunni minority against the Shiite majority?

If Iraqis come to believe the former, argues Makiya, it might still be possible for them to unify behind a new national government.

If Iraqis come to believe the latter, the result could be ethnic civil war.

A complete trial of Hussein, one that showed the extent of the corruption, forced collaboration, violence and terror he imposed on the entire nation, might help Iraqis understand that all of them -- Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish -- suffered in different ways.

If Makiya's views aren't convincing, listen to Leszek Balcerowicz, who was the Polish finance minister during his country's economic transformation at the beginning of the 1990s.

Ruminating recently on the parallels between post-communism and post-Baathism, Balcerowicz noted that along with inflation and price controls, one of the most serious obstacles to reform in Poland was the information imbalance.

Because there was no free press before 1989, Poles knew little about the real state of their country.

After 1989 there was a lot of free press, and it was all negative. Fed on a diet of "isn't everything terrible," many began to idealize the past and reject the present.

Something similar may be happening in Iraq today. Increasingly, everything that is wrong in Iraq, from the malfunctioning infrastructure to the ethnic tensions, is blamed on the U.S. occupation.

A wider debate about how Iraq got to where it is -- how Hussein mismanaged the country, murdered whole villages and stole the nation's money -- might help persuade Iraqis to invest in the present.

Time to Tell Hussein's Story
By Anne Applebaum

Wednesday, October 27, 2004; Page A25