Shams goes to the UK

"Shams Karim's left eye was completely destroyed and her face badly injured in the explosion near a Baghdad market in 2006."

I cannot stop sympathizing with Palestinians

I know some of them supported Saddam and Zarqawi. I still cannot stop sympathizing with them. I cannot ignore the injustice of their plight. Many Iraqi Shia, including my parents, feel this way, despite the fact that some Palestinians will not stop praising Saddam. It bothers me (and most Shia) that Palestinians in general seemed to side with the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, but it is not surprising, given that most Palestinians are Sunni. It bothers me that hardcore Baathists make the Palestinian cause the number one cause for Iraq, and some of the most passionate supporters of Palestine are some of the biggest jerks in the world. This doesn't change the fact that Palestinians have been victimized in the last 60 years. The injustice continues, and people continue to write about it.

Through an exchange with a fellow Iraqi Shi3i, I came across the article below. I find it interesting that many of the great writers who expose the injustice are Jewish, and yet many American Christians disbelieve them or dismiss them.

'Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division. In an interview in Ha’aretz on 22 December, he accused Israel’s government of having made a ‘central error’ during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing ‘to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . . When you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,’ General Zakai said, ‘it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire . . . You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.’

'It is too easy to describe Hamas simply as a ‘terror organisation’. It is a religious nationalist movement that resorts to terrorism, as the Zionist movement did during its struggle for statehood, in the mistaken belief that it is the only way to end an oppressive occupation and bring about a Palestinian state. While Hamas’s ideology formally calls for that state to be established on the ruins of the state of Israel, this doesn’t determine Hamas’s actual policies today any more than the same declaration in the PLO charter determined Fatah’s actions.

...Halevy also pointed out the absurdity of linking Hamas to al-Qaida. "In the eyes of al-Qaida, the members of Hamas are perceived as heretics due to their stated desire to participate, even indirectly, in processes of any understandings or agreements with Israel. [The Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled] Mashal’s declaration diametrically contradicts al-Qaida’s approach, and provides Israel with an opportunity, perhaps a historic one, to leverage it for the better." '

“The point behind this explosion was sabotage”

The anniversary of the fall of their hero is near.

'The first bombing occurred around 7 a.m. on a narrow street in the Alawi neighborhood in Baghdad’s center when a parked car exploded outside a row of grocery stores and inexpensive restaurants, one of them called “Father of Peace.” At least 4 people died there; 15 others were wounded. Among those killed was a man selling tea from a small sidewalk cart; he and his clients appeared to bear the brunt of the blast.

“We are all so simple,” said Hussein Jawad, a 40-year-old construction worker, who returned to street afterwards, his head swathed in bandages from his injuries. “We are all workers. We are not a military outpost. This is a public place.”

He expressed anger but seemed at a loss to understand a motive behind the bombing, except to say, “The point behind this explosion was sabotage.” '

Thanks IraqPundit for linking to the article.

Long time terrorist chased out of Iraq

The kind of guy Saddam protected.

AP INVESTIGATION: Notorious terrorist indicted in US eludes capture in Iraq, slips into Syria

'Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Ibrahim had managed to elude coalition forces — possibly while aiding the Sunni insurgency — before he recently crossed into Syria, federal law enforcement and former CIA officials believe.

The FBI is eager to catch Ibrahim, whose real name is Husayn al-Umari, and has ramped up efforts to find him, releasing an age-enhanced sketch of Ibrahim to the AP, the first known picture of him ever made public.

...The 73-year-old Ibrahim is an almost mythological figure in terrorism, a sort of mysterious puppet master — always out of reach, in the background, pulling strings.

Pictures of him are rare. The Palestinian didn't make tape recordings and broadcast his anti-Israel, anti-American manifesto to the world. He let his bombs do the talking and taught a group of proteges his formidable skills — ones he acquired studying chemical and electrical engineering and later learned from KGB.

He's been described as a "genius." The "grandfather of bomb makers." A "Michelangelo." Or as one former Pentagon official said, "Dr. Frankenstein." '

2 gay Iraqis killed by relatives

Murdered by their relatives. For being gay. After a backward cleric repeatedly condemned homosexuality.

More than a year ago I had dinner with a cute Iraqi girl who asked me as we drank wine what I would do if my son turns out to be gay. I said I would support him. I asked her what she would do if her son turns out to be gay. She said "I would kill him" and laughed uproariously.

Iraqi police: 2 gay men killed in Baghdad slum

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD – The bodies of two gay men have been found in Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City after a leading cleric repeatedly condemned homosexuality, an Iraqi police official said Saturday.

The killings come after Shiite cleric Sattar al-Battat repeatedly condemned homosexuality during recent Friday prayers, saying Islam prohibits homosexuality. Homosexual acts are punishable by up to seven years in prison in Iraq.

The two men were believed killed Thursday by relatives who were shamed by their behavior, said the official. Police said they suspected the killings were at the hands of family members because no one has claimed the bodies or called for an investigation.

The killings come weeks after Iraqi police found four bodies in late March buried near Sadr City with the words "pervert" and "puppies" written on their chests, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

continued

Most Egyptians and Jordanians approve of attacks on US soldiers in Iraq

"Attitudes towards the use of violence largely track with last year's findings. Only 8% of Egyptians express approval of attacks on civilians in the U.S, and 11% of Jordanians. Only 7% of Egyptians express approval of attacks on U.S. civilians working in Islamic countries (15% in Jordan, somewhat alarmingly). But 83% of Egyptians approve of attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq (down from 87% in 2007) and 72% of Jordanians approve. Most generally, 83% of Egyptians say that violent attacks carried out in order to achieve political or religious goals are not at all justified, and only 2% say strongly justified. In other words, very small minorities support al-Qaeda's approach while vast majorities agree with the Muslim Brotherhood-style approval of violence in areas considered to be under direct foreign military occupation (Iraq, Palestine).

And alarmingly, 78% of Egyptians and 66% of Jordanians approve of attacks on U.S. troops (not civilians) based in the Gulf."

Why is that alarming? Thanks Molly for posting the article.

Any moderate Taliban out there?

Check out this good article that explains the differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. Just keep in mind that although Baathists are moderate compared to the Taliban, the hardcore Baathists have murdered many innocent Iraqis. And the Saudi radicals may have been interested in striking primarily at coalition forces, but most of their victims have been Iraqis.

From the article:

* The Iraqi malcontents comprised an assortment of the disaffected--secular Baathists, Sunnis suddenly deprived of long-held privilege and power, simple religious bigots (rather than committed doctrinal fanatics, and there is a difference), and, to be honest, Iraqis who merely resented the 2003 intervention. Notwithstanding Beltway blather denying its existence--some emitted by now vice-president Biden--an Iraqi national identity, however limited, exists.

* The Sunni Awakening was encouraged when the Iraqis found their alleged "resistance" increasingly dominated by Saudi Wahhabis who had come over the long Saudi-Iraqi border in the "second Iraq intervention," as detailed here, here, and here. When "Al Qaeda in Iraq" manifested its Taliban characteristics--executing women caught without covered faces, possessors of music CDs, Sufis, and others they deemed apostates--the anti-coalition combatants perceived that the United States and Baghdad authorities were a preferable alternative to governance by lynching.

Wide as the horizons of their global ambition doubtless were, and dedicated as they were to using Iraq as a platform for reinforcement of Wahhabism in their own country, the Saudi radicals who streamed north were primarily interested in striking at the coalition, to stimulate new support for their perverse cause, and did not aim at immediate expansion into Jordan or Kuwait.

By contrast, the Taliban is not a mélange. They include no secular types comparable to the Baathists and few "Afghan patriots." Afghan national identity is much weaker than that found even in Iraq. The Pashtun base of the Taliban is tribal, but they have a lesser presence in local history than the Iraqi Sunnis that usurped power in Mesopotamia. The Taliban embody monolithic radicalism in the Wahhabi style, rooted in the Deobandi school of fundamentalism, and consider all Muslims who fail to share their ideology to be unbelievers deserving liquidation. The Iraqi Arab Sunnis, even at the height of their influence under Saddam, could not wipe out the Iraqi Shias or the Kurds, but the Taliban massacred the indigenous Hazara Shias in Afghanistan, effecting a nearly-successful genocide.

Further, the Taliban have demonstrated that their current goal, rather than mere power in Afghanistan, is the "Talibanization" of Pakistan, a nuclear-armed failing state. This would provide the running dogs of al Qaeda with unconcealed weapons of mass destruction as well as millions of fresh foot-soldiers in an environment that, along with its large and problematical diaspora in Britain, has become the main breeding ground of Islamist extremism worldwide. '