Angry Arabs not angry about Arab hypocrisy

I want to document the apparent lack of anger or even awareness among Arab intellectuals at Arab hypocrisy. The Angry Arab wrote today 'Qatari government hearts Isarel': '"Qatar to allow Israeli football players if it wins World Cup bid". Make no mistake about it: all lousy Arab regimes would beg for peace for Israel to please the US.'

The Angry Arab has not commented on the difference between the way Arabs have treated Qatar and the way they've treated the new Iraq and its government. The Arab "resistance" have killed tens of thousands of Iraqis since the overthrow of the tyrant Saddam and his murderous regime. More than 1,100 suicide bombers, most of them non-Iraqi Arabs, have blown themselves up in Iraq since 2003. They continue to attack Iraqi security forces, and I still remember the comments on the blogosphere by Arabs from all over the world who believed that it was right to attack Iraqi security forces, because Iraqi security forces work with the infidel occupier. But the Arab resistance has never attacked Qatari security forces like they've attacked Iraqi security forces.

The rules seem to apply only to Iraq, and they definitely do not apply to Qatar. There have been no bombings of Qatari police stations, no bombings of markets in Qatar, where there are 10 Starbucks and one very large and important American military base from which the US launched two wars on Iraq. This bit of Arab hypocrisy does not seem to anger the Angry Arab. Or maybe he didn't notice.

I was curious if the Angry Arab has ever mentioned CENTCOM on his blog, so I searched for it and found this post:

'A US-supported, Shi`ite version of Zarqawi: "The Centcom commander met first with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a languid Shiite cleric who is the leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite party. Hakim, flanked by the chief of his group's Badr Organization militia, told Fallon that "the real problem in Iraq is the Sunnis." Even if the Shiites made concessions to the Sunnis by sharing oil revenue or easing de-Baathification, Hakim said, "the enemies will never accept."" '

So the only thing As'ad Abu Khara has to say about CENTCOM is that its commander met Abdul Aziz al Hakim, who was a Shi'ite version of Zarqawi, according to the Angry professor. Is this guy really a professor? I don't remember Hakim writing a letter encouraging the Shia to mass murder Sunni Arabs, nor do I remember the Badr Brigade bombing markets in Sunni neighborhoods, but we're supposed to believe that Hakim was as bad as Zarqawi.

This is the same professor who has attacked Sistani many times. Sistani is the cleric who repeatedly called for an end to the violence in Iraq and appealed for unity between Sunna and Shia. In one post the Angry Arab wrote: 'the two people most responsible for sectarian conflict in the Middle East are the Saudi King and the Grand (not at all) Ayatullah, Sistani. (You can add others like Al-Qa`idah, the Badr militia, Hariri family, etc).'

No mention of CENTCOM in Qatar and no mention of Arab hypocrisy. OK!

The one-sided sectarian violence continues

It's good to see the mainstream media reporting the truth about Iraq. The Associated Press acknowledged the sectarian nature of the recent violence:

Explosions killed at least 26 people across Iraq on Thursday, most of them Shiite pilgrims taking part in a holy mourning ceremony, authorities said, raising fears of further sectarian attacks at the approach of Shiite Islam's most solemn occasion.

The deaths came three days before the climax of Ashoura, when hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims converge on the central city of Karbala to mourn the killing of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein, in a 680 A.D. battle that sealed the split between Shiites and Sunnis.

While Thursday's attacks were smaller than similar bombings in previous years, they demonstrated the continued ability and intent of insurgents to incite sectarian tensions.

Al Jazeera had to report that Shia were attacked, but they quoted a journalist in Baghdad who said "They were not by the hand of al-Qaeda - they were not suicide bombers, but mostly car bombs and bombs beside cars."

They were not suicide bombings, but does this mean they were not carried out by AQ? I think it just means that AQ is low on suicide bombers.  Or it means the bombings were strictly the work of Saddamists. 

Al Jazeera has come a long way from 2004 and 2005, when they did not identify the sects of victims in Iraq.  Like many biased Arabs, before 2006 Al Jazeera could not bring themselves to admit that their "brave and honorable resistance" would bomb places of worship and kill innocent Iraqis.  AJ seemed to refuse to admit that Sunni extremists were terrorizing Iraq's Shia population.  Even western media did not  discuss the sectarian nature of the violence before 2006.  

Some western media seemed themselves to be biased.  After the Iraqi government closed down Al Jazeera's office in Baghdad in 2004, a Guardian journalist reported the "raid followed a decision by the prime minister, Ayad Allawi, to close the station temporarily in August because of its apparent failure to support the US occupation."  Really? Is that why they closed AJ's Baghdad office?  So it had nothing to do with AJ's biased reporting and their praise of the "resistance" that was attacking Iraqi security forces and civilians?  If Al Jazeera was that concerned about US occupation, why did they never criticize Qatar, where CENTCOM and Al Jazeera's headquarters are?  Did Al Jazeera not know of CENTCOM's role in the US invasion(s) and occupation of Iraq?  Or are the Arabs simply hypocrites?  To be fair, Al Jazeera was funded by the Emir of Qatar, which explains their bias and lack of journalistic consistency.  But the ordinary Arabs and the "intellectual" and "educated" Arabs did not discuss AJ's hypocrisy, which to me symbolizes the stupidity of these "intellectual" and "educated" Arabs.  As'ad Abu Khara (Happiest Father of Shit) is a good example.  

Over the years Al Jazeera has changed and today they appear to be more objective.  They seemed to be influenced by western media and eventually they acknowledged the sectarian nature of the violence, especially after innocent Sunni Arabs in Baghdad were rounded up and murdered by Shia militias in 2006.  

Although western media reported that Shia were being attacked in 2004 and 2005, they did not call it "sectarian" violence.  In the eyes of the media, it was not "sectarian" violence until Shia militias began killing innocent Sunni Arabs.  

The one-sided sectarian violence continues in Iraq, and the mainstream media is actually reporting it this time; they are correctly calling it "sectarian" violence.  Arab and Arab American bloggers, meanwhile, continue their KABOBfest and they continue to praise the "resistance" and condemn the "puppet" government of Iraq.  


PS: The Washington Post also called it sectarian violence!  


"The Shiite festival, commemorating the death of Imam Hussein in 680 AD, has been marred over the past six years by sectarian violence."

Suicide bombings in Israel vs. Iraq

I am surprised that no journalists except Robert Fisk have compared the number of suicide bombings in Israel to the number of suicide bombings in Iraq. Between 2000 and 2002 there were 70 suicide bombings in Israel, the country that has been hated by most Arabs for 60 years. In Iraq, it has become difficult to keep count of the number of suicide bombings and the number of victims. In March Robert Fisk and The Independent published an article that estimated the number of suicide bombers in Iraq at the time to be an astounding 1,121:

'But a month-long investigation by The Independent, culling four Arabic-language newspapers, official Iraqi statistics, two Beirut news agencies and Western reports, shows that an incredible 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq. This is a very conservative figure and – given the propensity of the authorities (and of journalists) to report only those suicide bombings that kill dozens of people – the true estimate may be double this number. On several days, six – even nine – suicide bombers have exploded themselves in Iraq in a display of almost Wal-Mart availability. If life in Iraq is cheap, death is cheaper.

This is perhaps the most frightening and ghoulish legacy of George Bush's invasion of Iraq five years ago. Suicide bombers in Iraq have killed at least 13,000 men, women and children – our most conservative estimate gives a total figure of 13,132 – and wounded a minimum of 16,112 people. If we include the dead and wounded in the mass stampede at the Baghdad Tigris river bridge in the summer of 2005 – caused by fear of suicide bombers – the figures rise to 14,132 and 16,612 respectively. Again, it must be emphasised that these statistics are minimums. For 529 of the suicide bombings in Iraq, no figures for wounded are available.

...Never before has the Arab world witnessed a phenomenon of suicide-death on this scale. During Israel's occupation of Lebanon after 1982, one Hizbollah suicide-bombing a month was considered remarkable. During the Palestinian intifadas of the 1980s and 1990s, four per month was regarded as unprecedented. But suicide bombers in Iraq have been attacking at the average rate of two every three days since the 2003 Anglo-American invasion.

The mind boggling number of suicide bombings in Iraq, when compared to the number of suicide bombings in Israel, is symbolic of what Arab extremists think of Iraqis. To these Arabs, Iraqis are expendable, if not apostates or traitors who deserve violent death. Iraqi Shia are "worse than the Jews", according to many takfiri Arabs. The number of suicide bombings in Iraq and the celebration of such bombings proves the Arab hatred of Shia in Iraq.

Why did takfiri Arabs not mass murder Iraqi Shia before 2003? Because in general Sunni Arabs were reasonably happy with Saddam. They had nothing to complain about. Saddam was oppressing Iraq's Shia and non-Iraqi Sunni Arabs did not seem to mind. Since 2003 Iraqis have been cooperating with Americans in setting up a democracy in Iraq, as flawed as it may be, and for this they are mass murdered by our Arab "brothers". Iraqi Sunni Arabs who support democracy have been murdered as well. As more of Iraq's Sunni Arabs turn against Al Qaeda and work with Americans, Al Qaeda in Iraq has murdered more Iraqi Sunni Arabs - just yesterday a suicide bomber blew himself up among worshipers in the Abu Hamifa mosque in Adhamiya, killing the deputy commander of Adhamiya's Sahwa.

So this is what our Arab "brothers" think of Iraqis. Arabs have traveled from near occupied Palestine to fight US occupation and ended up mass murder Iraqis, apparently because it's easier than entering Israel and killing civilians there. Gulfie Arabs mass murder Iraqis for working with Americans as US companies do big business in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar. Arabs complain about US military bases in Iraq as US bases and embassies are scattered throughout the Arab world, including the US CENTCOM in Doha. Yet we do not read about suicide bombings in Doha, no bombings of markets in Riyadh. Only Iraqis are murdered in these horrific ways and in such large numbers.

Unfinished business from 1991

Geoffrey Wawro: 'Bush called for a "clean end." The main thing, Bush insisted, was to avoid "charges of brutalization," of piling on just to kill Iraqis in the war's last hours. Secretary of State Baker concurred: "We have done the job. We can stop. We have achieved our aims. We have gotten them out of Kuwait." But, like everyone else in the room, Baker worried about "unfinished business." What would become of the Saddam Hussein regime? Would the Americans give it a shove, or let it stand? In Riyadh, Schwarzkopf was declaring victory at the Hyatt Hotel -- "the gates are closed ... we almost completely destroyed the offensive capability of the Iraqi forces" -- and assuring the press that going to Baghdad was not in the cards. That ingenuous revelation prompted a startled protest from Paul Wolfowitz in the Pentagon, who agreed that the allies probably weren't going to Baghdad, but considered it foolhardy to tell that to the Iraqis. Wolfowitz and the other "Washington hawks" -- the future neo-cons -- were still hoping for a coup, and wanted to keep pressure on Saddam.

In Riyadh, the deputy Centcom commander, General Calvin Waller, also expressed amazement at Washington's hasty, charitable concession of a cease-fire, when only about half of the Republican Guard's equipment had been destroyed, and before the last bridges over the Euphrates had been demolished, effectively bottling up the Iraqi army, most of which was still south of Basra, squarely in the sights of the U.S. forces. American planners had planned to disarm and dismount the Iraqis and then send them streaming back into Iraq on foot. That was the kind of image that would humiliate Saddam and rock his regime. "You have got to be shitting me. Why a cease-fire now?" Waller expostulated. "One hundred hours has a nice ring," Schwarzkopf chuckled. "That's bullshit," Waller said. "Then you go argue with them," Schwarzkopf said. "Them" was the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon, and the Bush White House. Schwarzkopf had never squared off against Powell and was not about to begin now. Powell set the tone in the J.C.S., and talked the other chiefs into an early end to the war. Desert Storm had evicted Saddam from Kuwait and erased the stain of Vietnam, so why fight on?

Air Force Chief of Staff General Merrill McPeak privately protested the "merciful clemency" offered Saddam, but publicly supported Powell. President Bush too wanted to quit while he was ahead. In Washington, the analogy on everyone's mind was not Vietnam, but Korea, where a limited American war -- to evict the North Koreans from the south -- had slipped (under MacArthur's gung-ho influence) into an unlimited struggle to destroy the North Korean communists that had dragged on bloodily and inconclusively for three years and then left American troops as a permanent fixture in South Korea. Few wanted to risk this easy victory and expand American liabilities by rolling the dice and pushing north to Baghdad. Powell ridiculed the notion: it was not as if "a lot of little Jeffersonian democrats would have popped up to run for office" in Baghdad on America's coattails. Still, Bush felt tension and incompleteness everywhere. "Why do I not feel elated?" President Bush asked aloud. He knew why. The instigator of the war had survived to fight another day, and there was little that Bush could do to change that outcome. In his diary, Bush wrote of his anger at seeing Baghdad Radio broadcasting victory even as U.S. forces trounced the Iraqis. But the coalition would not support continued combat in Iraq or Kuwait merely to "destroy Iraqi forces," nor would many Americans. The war was not cheap either; 390 Americans had died in combat, and the bill for the war stood at about $620 billion. "We need to have an end. People want that. They are going to want to know that we won and that the kids can come home. We don't want to screw this up with a sloppy, muddled ending." Within a year, two-thirds of Americans would come to believe that President Bush had terminated the war too soon, and the unresolved issue would contribute to Bush's defeat in the elections of 1992.

The Hundred Hour War ground to an equivocal close, over Paul Wolfowitz's recondite objection that "100-hour war" would be a politically disastrous term since it would evoke memories of the 100-hour Franco-British-Israeli attack on Egypt in 1956. ("Would 99-hour war be better?" Cheney joked.) Bush had confidently predicted that the Iraqi "troops will straggle home with no armor, beaten up, 50,000," but they were more numerous than that, and they had extricated lots of armor. American surveillance photos of southern Iraq revealed the depressing news that Saddam had pulled one-quarter of his tanks and half of his APCs from Kuwait. Worse, the tanks that escaped were largely Republican Guard. Indeed the Republican Guard divisions in Kuwait had pulled off a desert Dunkirk, extricating 80,000 troops with large numbers of tanks, helicopters, and heavy guns.

"The end game: it was bad," McCaffrey recalled. "First of all, there was confusion. The objectives were unclear. And the sequence was wrong." Ordinary Iraqis expressed wonderment at Saddam's continued hold on power. Retreating troops fired their AK-47s into the portraits and murals of Saddam that lined their routes home. An Iraqi cement worker muttered: "Kuwait destroyed by Saddam. Iraq destroyed by combined forces. But Saddam is still in his chair." The Shiites of southern Iraq, who had begun to seethe even before the ground war, exploded into rebellion after the cease-fire. Saddam was weakened and discredited. The moment to rise up had arrived. In northern Iraq, the Kurds made the same calculation. They took President Bush's awkward March 1 declaration as a call to action: "In my own view, I've always said it would be - that the Iraqi people should put him aside and that would facilitate the resolution of all these problems that exist, and would certainly facilitate the acceptance of Iraq back into the family of peace-loving nations."

But even as he incited the Iraqis to rebel, Bush rejected any push to Baghdad and conceded Saddam the use of armed helicopters on his side of the border. Saddam promptly exploited the American concession not to hop-scotch over shattered roads and bridges but to blast his rebellious subjects from the air. Bush 41 expressed again his mixed feelings about Desert Storm, this time to a (startled) White House press conference: "You know, to be very honest with you, I haven't yet felt this wonderfully euphoric feeling that many of the American people feel." The father's doubts would sow the son's resolve to, as Bush 41 concluded, "cross the last 't' and dot the last 'i.'" '

There Was No Al Qaeda In Iraq Before 2003

I don't know how many times I have heard people say that there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before 2003.  It is a true statement, but do people who make this statement ask why?  Why did Al Qaeda, the Base of God's Support, not attack Saddam Hussein's secular regime, who murdered countless Iraqi Muslims for wanting an Islamic government in Iraq?  Did Saddam possess some kind of mojo (doubtful) that kept Al Qaeda suicide bombers out of Iraq?  It seems that when people say that there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before 2003, they are giving kudos to Saddam and his henchmen, as if to say they were doing something right.  Did the regime build a wall along the Iraqi-Saudi border that we don't know about?  How did Saddam keep Al Qaeda out of Iraq?  Did Al Qaeda even think of destabilizing Iraq before 2003 by suicide bombers, car bombs, and attacking government officials? 

If Al Qaeda is concerned only with attacking Arab governments that cooperate with foreign occupiers, why hasn't Al Qaeda ever attacked government officials in Qatar, the Arab Muslim country that hosts the United States Central Command ( CENTCOM)?  Has a suicide bomber ever blown himself up among people in Doha?  We don't we see Al Qaeda attacking the forces of Mahmud Abbas, who has cooperated with Israeli occupiers for many years now? 

Al Jazeera English covers arrest of Qatari blogger

More kudos to Al Jazeera English for covering the arrest of a blogger in Qatar, where Al Jazeera headquarters (and CENTCOM) are.

AJE: "Amnesty International says a blogger and human rights activist has been detained incommunicado in Qatar and is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

The UK-based human rights group said Sultan al-Khalaifi was arrested on March 2 by around eight individuals in plain clothes, believed to be members of the security forces.

According to information received by Amnesty International, al-Khalaifi had told his wife earlier that day that state security had contacted him, asking him to report to them, but that he did not know why.

The reasons for his detentions and his whereabouts are unknown, Amnesty said in a statement on Friday, adding that it is believed he is being held in the custody of state security."

AJE also covered this: "Saudi Arabia bans protest rallies"

Starbucks in the Arab World

Over the years I have heard Arabs and Arab Americans calling to boycott Starbucks because its CEO (a Jew!) allegedly shares his wealth with Israel.  As Arabs and Arab Americans continue to preach "resistance" and hate the "puppet" government of Iraq, and as Arab terrorists continue to wage war on innocent Iraqis, often targeting small cafes, in nine Arab countries customers buy frappuccinos without worrying about terrorism or "resistance":  

• 24 Starbucks in Egypt, which has cooperated with Israel in stopping weapons smuggling into Gaza, and has been accused of strangling Gaza's economy.
• More than 90 Starbucks in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, etc), host to a US Air Force base. 
• 10 Starbucks in Qatar, along with Al Jazeera headquarters and a very important US military base called "CENTCOM". 
• 71 Starbucks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including 26 in Mecca (holy cappuccino!). In 1991 KSA hosted almost a million foreign troops, 73% of whom were American.
• 16 Starbucks in Lebanon. 
• 10 Starbucks in Jordan, home of Zarqawi and the deranged sons of Salt.
• 12 Starbucks in Bahrain, host to a US Naval base. 
• 7 Starbucks in Oman, which makes its military bases available for use by the US.  
• 72 Starbucks in Kuwait, which makes its air bases available for use by the US and is also host to a few US Army bases.  

And there have been more than 1,700 suicide bombings in Iraq.

PS: As an afterthought (again!) I thought I should explain that in 2007: 

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

And in 2005: 

Who are the suicide bombers of Iraq? By the radicals' account, they are an internationalist brigade of Arabs, with the largest share in the online lists from Saudi Arabia and a significant minority from other countries on Iraq's borders, such as Syria and Kuwait. The roster of the dead on just one extremist Web site reviewed by The Washington Post runs to nearly 250 names, ranging from a 13-year-old Syrian boy said to have died fighting the Americans in Fallujah to the reigning kung fu champion of Jordan, who sneaked off to wage war by telling his family he was going to a tournament.

Since 2004, Iraq has been the only country in the Arab world that is ruled by Shia.

I had to revise this post a few times because I kept finding more Arab countries with Starbucks and it took some time researching the American military presence in each country.  Also I tried to read it from the perspective of somebody who has little understanding of the history and sectarian nature of the conflict.

Are the Arabs not the biggest hypocrites in the world?

Iraq is least peaceful country in 2009

The Global Peace Index has ranked Iraq as the least peaceful country in 2009. This is not surprising, as Iraq has been plagued by violence and inept government for decades.

I was surprised by Israel's ranking, which is near the bottom between Sudan and Somalia. I was also surprised to see Qatar tied with Germany at 16th. This despite the fact that Qatar hosts the United States Central Command (CENTCOM). How did the Qataris achieve such peace, despite the US military presence?

New Zealand is ranked first in peace. New Zealand also happens to be the biggest pot smoking nation in the world - I overheard this from a tour guide in Amsterdam. Just a coincidence?

ExxonMobile Helps Qatar Prosper

Why do so many Arabs and leftists have no problem with Qatar, host to CENTCOM, prospering from its business with ExxonMobil, while they bitch and moan about Iraq's recently signed short-term service contract with ExxonMobile and other oil giants?

"In November 2005, ExxonMobil started production at the Al Khaleej block in the North Field at a rate of 750 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d). In July 2006, the company announced a $3-billion plan to expand this output to 1.6 Bcf/d by 2009, which will be used to fuel power plants and industrial customers in Ras Laffan, the RasGas LNG project, and as feedstock at the Oryx Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) Project. ExxonMobil is the largest foreign investor in development projects at Qatar’s North Field. Aside from Al Khaleej, the company is also involved in increasing natural gas supplies for the RasGas and Qatargas LNG projects, each of which will rely on significant increases in output from the North Field over the next several years (see the LNG Section below for additional details)."

No Violence = No Occupation

Proof that most US troops would have been out of Iraq by now had the 'resistance' not been so violent. The 'resistance' should have listened to Sistani.

Iraq war plan projected just 5,000 US troops in 2006

Mike Sheehan
Published: Thursday February 15, 2007

Newly obtained documents reveal that U.S. war planners expected only a small number of American troops would remain in Iraq by the end of 2006.

Meeting slides prepared by Central Command for a White House briefing in 2002 show CentCom's projection that "the U.S. would have only 5,000 troops left in Iraq as of December 2006," Joyce Battle and Thomas Blanton write for the National Security Archive.

The Associated Press reported that about 140,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq by early December 2006.

The Permanent Infidel Presence in Persian Gulf

Over the weekend my father and I were talking about the incredible stupidity and hypocrisy of Al Qaeda and other "resistance" groups who murder foreigners in Iraq and Iraqis who work with foreigners. I told him that AQI murders Iraqis who work with Americans, but apparently it's OK for Al Qaeda that Saudis do big business with Americans and the US CENTCOM is in Doha, Qatar. I mean we don't hear about suicide bombings in Riyadh or Doha. My father agreed and told me that it's apparently OK with Al Qaeda that France, the country that banned the hijab, has signed a deal with Abu Dhabi for a permanent French naval base there. I missed this months-old announcement and thought I should add it to the list of examples of Arab hypocrisy.

Jordan's secret role in America's CIA

'Hours after last week's deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan, a revision was made in official accounts of the number of intelligence operatives killed in the suicide bombing. Instead of eight deaths, as initially reported, the CIA acknowledged only seven.

The eighth victim resurfaced over the weekend when his flag-draped coffin arrived in his native country, Jordan. The man, a captain in the Jordanian intelligence service, was given full military honors at a ceremony that referred only to his "humanitarian work" in war-torn Afghanistan.

...Yet, despite Jordan's critical role, officials from both countries have insisted that its participation remain virtually invisible, in part to avoid damaging Amman's standing among other Muslim nations in the region, former intelligence officials said."

They seek to avoid damaging Amman's standing among other Muslim nations in the region? Are you serious?? Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia, the country that hosted more than half a million American (crusaders!) soldiers in 1991? Or would the Muslim country of Qatar, which hosts the US CENTCOM, look down on Jordan for their work with Americans? Perhaps the pious Muslims of the UAE, where there are more than 90 Starbucks, would stop going to Amman for vacation if they hear such blasphemous news!

Thanks Tony for posting the article.

How the Arabs reacted to the end of Saddam

Below is a post I put together from two comments for this post and thought it summarizes well my feelings about how the Arabs in general reacted to the overthrow, trial, and hanging of Saddam. I think it's important to document their reaction.

FYI: 90% of Arabs are Sunni Muslim. The combined population of Arab nations is 325 million, about the same population as the US.

'Approximately half of my relatives fled Iraq before 2003. Most of them live in the UK now. None of my relatives worked for the US military except a relative who worked as an economic advisor to the CPA for two years, and he was never harmed. But he was in Kurdistan. A man who was married to my uncle's wife's sister worked as a translator for the Americans (not sure in what capacity) and in 2005 he was shot in the head in front of his family while shopping in Baghdad.

In 2006 on the Angry Arab blog many commenters labeled Iraqi translators and Iraqi police as traitors, which made me very angry. Many of those commenters, even though some of them were born and raised in America, attacked me for being a "traitor" to my country, because I was happy to see the end of Saddam and his murderous dictatorship and one day I called Bush's intentions in Iraq "noble" because I believed that he and many Americans were genuinely interested in helping the Iraqi people overcome years of war and sanctions and build a prosperous democracy. I still believe that this was America's intentions for Iraq. Bush may have had ulterior motives and may have hoped that western oil companies would benefit, and some companies like Halliburton and Blackwater did benefit from the war. But it was Operation Iraqi Freedom, despite the ulterior motives and despite the crimes of US soldiers, which were few in comparison to the crimes of Saddamists and Wahhabi terrorists. Some Shia militiamen also killed innocent Iraqis.

Some accused me of not condemning crimes committed by Americans in Iraq. I know that many innocent Iraqis were accidentally and intentionally killed by US forces, but the vast majority of violent deaths in Iraq since 2003 have been caused by the "resistance" and the jarab who blow up markets and restaurants. I know we're supposed to blame those murders on America too, and many Iraqis have, but I won't do that. Bush made mistakes for sure, but I will always blame the murders on the people who directly participated in the murders.

Saddam's henchmen were responsible for the wrongful imprisonment and murder of many of my relatives, and astoundingly some people expected me to tell the world to keep Saddam in power. It was as if they expected me to shut up about Saddam's crimes, so my writings wouldn't be used as justification to overthrow the mass murderer.

Most people in the Arab world and most leftists have never lived in a dictatorship like Saddam's, and therefore they really have no idea how most Iraqi Shia and Kurds felt about Saddam's regime. The only kind of Shia they seem to like are the ones who fight Americans, like Muntadhar al Zaidi and Muqtada al Sadr.

Since the overthrow of Saddam's regime my relatives have had difficult lives or sure, due to the security situation. I've blamed the Bush administration for not adequately planning for the overthrow of the dictatorship and other things, and I've blamed the new Iraqi govt for being incompetent and corrupt. But the reason there was so much sectarian violence, so much hatred towards the Shia, is because the Sunni extremists provoked the Iraqi Shia in the most horrific ways, and the Sunni Arabs did not protest very much. Many of them insisted that the US was behind the bombings of markets and other public places in Iraq. The extremists proved they would murder 34 Iraqi kids just to kill one American soldier. They did it and committed many more horrible crimes, and all the Arabs and leftists could do is blame Bush. The Sunni Arab "resistance" proved they could make life for Iraqis much worse than before the invasion, and they did, because the Sunni Arabs lost control of Iraq, and therefore they tried to destroy Iraq.

Angry Arab fans attacked me for being angry with the Arab terrorists instead of the Americans. They also attacked me for pointing out that life for Iraqi Shia and Kurds was quite miserable before 2003. The response from the Sunni Arabs, as the Sunni Arab "resistance" blew up Iraqi markets and universities, was "how do you like your freedom now??"' I will never forget the rage I felt after reading the responses of our Arab "brothers" from all over the globe. Some of them could not understand my rage and were merely condemning the perceived meddling in Iraq and the injustice that resulted from such meddling.

In the 60s and 80s, the Sunni Arabs and leftists did not protest US meddling in Iraq. In 1991 they did not scream as loudly about US intervention, even though the US-led coalition bombed Iraq for 40 consecutive days and nights in 1991, even though the US launched the war on Iraq from their HQ in Doha, Qatar.

They did not protest as strongly about US meddling until Saddam's murderous regime was overthrown in 2003, and when the murderers were put on trial for crimes against humanity and the piece of shit was belatedly hung in 2006, the Sunni Arabs got *really* pissed. They escalated their attacks and blew up even more markets, weddings, funerals, universities, restaurants, and just about anything related to the newly elected government in Baghdad. But no bombings of markets in Qatar, the country that hosts the US CENTCOM, from which the US military again launched the air campaign in 2003.

In 2006, after the Al Askari mosque was bombed, the Sunni Arabs discovered Shiite death squads had been murdering innocent Sunni Arabs in Baghdad. Their protests and animosity towards Iraqi Shia grew. Prior to their discovery of Shiite death squads, they did not protest "Sunni death squads", which began their murderous rampages in 2003. The Sunni Arabs did not notice, or perhaps ignored, the 144 suicide bombings in 2004 or the 478 suicide bombings in 2005. Angry Arabs could not easily blame suicide bombings on Americans or Iraqi Shia, because even the idiots among the Sunni Arabs know that Americans and Iraqi Shia don't do suicide bombings in markets and restaurants.

During this time a historic trial, the first trial of an Arab dictator, was taking place. In the past, if an Arab tyrant was overthrown, he was immediately killed. No trial, no questions, no evidence or debate. That's how the Arabs do revolution, and they were pissed that one of their Lions was being humiliated by "infidels". Many Arabs and Arab Americans believed that Saddam was innocent, and that even if he is guilty, he should not be killed. So the war on the Iraqi Shia and US forces intensified.

In 2006 I became acquainted with a Palestinian American woman, born and raised in California, a frequent commenter on Angry Arab. When I first started commenting on the blog she attacked me and called me a traitor and did not believe I am Iraqi, but eventually we became friends and we talked a few times on the phone. The day after the convicted Saddam and his half brother were hung she called me and said "bad move Shia". That is how the Sunni Arabs, even the ones in America, reacted to the overthrow and trial and hanging of a mass murderer, a tyrant who imprisoned and killed millions of innocent Iraqis, a dictator who led Iraq to ruin. They treated him like a hero, they mass murdered Iraqis and blamed it on Americans, and then they asked the Iraqis if THIS is the freedom they wanted!

Certainly not all Sunni Arabs thought alike, and I know many Sunni Arabs, mostly Iraqis, who were happy to see the end of Saddam. But a few Iraqi Sunni Arabs were very angry about the hanging of Saddam and turned him into a hero-martyr:



I suppose I should not have wanted to see the end of Saddam's regime. I should not have ever sought support from the US, the country that helped put the tyrant in power in the 60s and helped him again in the 80s, to remove the tyrant from power in 2003 and help Iraqis set up a semblance of a democracy in Baghdad. I should have known, like many smart people apparently did, that Sunni Arab extremists would incite sectarian violence in Iraq, and that Shiite militias would react by killing innocent Sunni Arabs. Shoulda stuck with Saddam, shoulda kept quiet about his crimes like the Sunni Arabs did so well.

The "brave resistance" demanded an end to the occupation. Well it's been two years now since Shiite militias killed innocent Sunni Arabs, nine months since Bush has been out of office, and it's been three months since US troops withdrew from Iraqi cities. But the "resistance" is still blowing up innocent Iraqis, mostly Shia. Hundreds have been killed in the last few weeks. Is that not injustice? '

Iraq's neighbors a "lurking menace"

But Iraq must talk to them and try to be "neighborly" with them, and the US must help. David Ignatius writes:

The Baker-Hamilton recommendations are mostly forgotten, swept away by President George W. Bush's 2007 surge of U.S. troops. That certainly improved security, but the recent bombings in Iraq are a reminder that the surge didn't usher in a new era of peace and love. Political reconciliation is still more slogan than reality -- and the neighbors are more a lurking menace than Baghdad's partners.

He is certainly right. Let's review the list of Iraq's neighbors:

Turkey

Lying to the north of Iraq, Turkey has been the least menacing. Turkey has enjoyed good relations with Israel, Europe, and the US. Turkey has a robust tourism industry, and they've been able to contain extremists and provide relatively good security. But in Turkey, you may be arrested for teaching or studying Kurdish. Recently Turkey has bombed Kurdish militia inside Iraq, and most worrying, the Turks have dammed the Tigris and Euphrates at several places, squeezing Iraq's historically life-sustaining rivers and resulting in more severe droughts in Iraq. But in a country that has experienced at least 1,200 suicide bombings in the last 6 years, Turkey's offenses seem minor.

Iran (aka Persia)

Going clockwise on the map, we see Iran to the east, which shares 1,458 kilometers of border with Iraq. Persia occupied the land between two rivers for almost two centuries, and in 539 BC, Cyrus of Persia sacked Babylon and freed the Jews.

It can be argued that Iran has had the greatest influence on Iraq, especially since the rise of Khomeini and his Islamic Revolution. In 1965 Khomeini moved to Najaf, home of the Imam Ali shrine, and there he lectured and instilled in young Shia the notion of Islamic revolution and Islamic government. By the late 60s he became a marja taqlid or "model for imitation" for hundreds of thousands of Shia. By 1975 support for Khomeini the leader of the Islamic Revolution had grown in Iran and among the Iraqi Shia. The Ayatollah was forced out of Iraq by Iraqi VP Saddam Hussein in 1978, and in January 1979 the Shah left Iran. The following month Khomeini moved back to Iran and became the first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, changing the course of history in the region for decades to come.

In the 70s in Iraq the Islamic Da3wa Party had gained popularity, and they too wanted an Islamic government, which put them at odds with the ruling Ba3ath Party and Saddam Hussein, who pushed aside his President-cousin Ahmed Hassan al Bakr and took control of Baghdad in 1979. By the summer of 1980, Saddam and his security apparatuses had murdered and expelled tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia and pushed Da3wa out of Iraq. In September 1980 Saddam's Iraq invaded Iran, beginning a horrible war that cost a million lives by 1988 and ruined the economies of both countries. In the 80s Iraqi Shia who were able fled by the hundreds of thousands to the US, Europe, and of course to Iran.

Today the Iranian influence in Iraq is even greater, with Da3wa in charge of Baghdad, Hakim's Islamic Supreme Council party garnering about 10% support among Iraqis, and with Muqtada al Sadr studying quietly in Qum in an effort to become the next big Ayotallah. Iran was happy to see the end of Saddam's dictatorship, but they did not want to see the the Iraq become a colony of the US. Instead, some Iraqis fear that Iraq will eventually become a colony of Iran.

Kuwait

In July 1990 I became a citizen of the United States of America. Less than one month after I became naturalized, Saddam's Iraq invaded Kuwait. After Bush Sr. crossed his line in the sand and built a case for war against Iraq, my father became afraid. For a while there my dad really thought I might be drafted, if it ever became a real war, which it never did become. It was interesting to see my father go through the effort to find out if I could ever be drafted into such a war. The answer was no, I couldn't be drafted because I could be considered an "conscientious objector". It turns out my help would not be required anyway, as the US military, with the help of the British and many Arab states, bombed Iraq into the Stone Age, and making life very difficult for Iraqis for many years to come.

On the face of it poor little Kuwait looks to be the least menacing of Iraq's neighbors. There are unknown numbers of Shia in Kuwait, and many of them are Iraqis who fled Saddam's tyranny. But Kuwait is ruled by a Sunni Arab family, and in general they were friendly with Saddam and shared his fear of Iran. So what happened to the love? Saddam invaded Kuwait because, basically, Kuwait was being a punk ass bitch (please pardon the vernacular), giving money (the Kuwaitis say loaning) to Saddam to fight Iran, and then after the war, after Iraq's economy was devastated, Kuwait produced oil way beyond their OPEC quota, and thus resulting in lower oil prices, which hurt Iraq's bottom line. The Iraqis also claimed Kuwait was slant-drilling into Iraq's oil field.

In the end Saddam invaded Kuwait and stole many of its riches and refused to leave Kuwait. However he intentionally kept his Republican Guard out of Kuwait, which was a wise move for him, because he would need them to put down the Shia rebellion after the war and keep himself in power. The allied forces, led by the US, pounded Iraq's army, first by 40 days of air strikes, and then by a ground invasion, killing tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, and accidentally, of course, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians. The Iraqi army was expelled from Kuwait, and on their way out of Iraq, Saddam had his guys burned nearly 700 Kuwaiti oil wells, creating a huge environmental disaster. The US military, led by Colin Powell and Norman Swartzkoff, won a quick war in Iraq and could have easily overthrown the Iraqi dictator, but in the end Bush decided to allow Saddam to live, and ordered US troops not to intervene in the Shia rebellion. It is said Bush's decision was influenced by the Saudis, who did not want to see the Shia take control of Iraq.

Today Kuwait has good relations with Iraq, and the two countries have restored diplomatic ties. Kuwait was the only non-Iraqi Arab country to support the American overthrow of Saddam. They understood Saddam's tyranny very well. But Kuwait still wants its money back, even though Iraq's debt to Kuwait was racked up by Saddam's regime, and many Wahhabi-influenced Kuwaitis have entered Iraq and mass murdered Iraqis since 2003.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Saudis, the founders of Wahhabism, have been a royal pain in Iraqis' asses for decades. An analysis in 2007 revealed that half of suicide bombers in Iraq came from Saudi Arabia. The majority of the hijackers on 9/11 (80%) were also Saudi. The two statistics, from two very different places, have one thing in common: Wahhabi terrorism.

KSA never wanted to see the Shia take control of Iraq, and they have ben the biggest funders of the insurgency in Iraq. The Saudis were also the biggest funders of the war between Iraq and Iran.



The Saudis did not want to see Saddam take control of Kuwait, but they did not want to see the Shia take control of Baghdad either. Thus the Saudi government, led by King Fahd, urged Bush Sr. to keep Saddam in power in 1991, and thus they funded the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq after 2003, their clerics preaching "resistance" against the "infidel" occupier and the "agents of Iran", this despite the presence of many Iranians, Arab Shia, and Americans in the Arabian peninsula. The US launched two wars on Iraq from CENTCOM in Doha, Qatar, but Qatar enjoys peace, even Starbucks, while Baghdad burns. Nevertheless the Wahhabis sent hundreds of brainwashed suicide bombers to Iraq, to murder mostly Iraqi Shia.

With full control of the oil that Saudi Shia live on and near, the Saudi royals are not interested in democracy, and they are not interested in restoring diplomatic ties with the new Iraq. “To isolate itself from Iraq, Saudi Arabia has signed a $1 billion contract with the European defense company EADS, for the construction of a 900-kilometer [562-mile] fence." Iraqis wait anxiously and hope the fence will protect them from the backward Wahhabi cultists.

Jordan

I've heard the weather in Amman is beautiful. In the summer of 1991 my mother and sister visited Amman to see my aunts and cousins who fled Iraq earlier that year. By 2000 approximately half of my relatives had fled the wars and tyranny of Saddam Hussein, starting new lives elsewhere, mostly in the UK. I don't understand why those refugees did not receive the same attention that our Arab brothers have paid to recent Iraqi refugees from the current war. Jordan deserves praise for accepting such a large number of refugees, and not just Iraqi. 60% of Jordan's population is of Palestinian descent. Twice there were large influxes of Palestinian refugees into Jordan - in 1948 and 1967. Also twice there were large influxes of Iraqi refugees - 1991-1992 and 2005-2007. Iraqi Baathists have fled to Amman in large numbers.

But there is a dark side to Jordan's relationship with Iraq. The person most responsible for inciting the sectarian violence in Iraq was a Jordanian terrorist named Abu Musab al Zarqawi. He was born and raised in Zarqa, not far from occupied Palestine. Even closer to occupied Palestine is the Jordanian town of Salt, whose deranged sons were compelled to join their mujahideen-brothers in Iraq, to attack the new Iraqi government and its security forces, and to participate in the most gruesome sectarian conflict the world has seen in decades.

The Jordanian government, to its credit, has fought extremists and has at times been at the receiving end of Salafi terrorists like Zarqawi, but in my opinion they have not done enough to fight extremist and backward ideology in their country. Honor killings are still common in Jordan, and when the killers are punished, they are in most cases not punished nearly severely enough.

Syria

Syria is an enigma. Its population is 80% Sunni Arab, but for decades it has been ruled by a Baathist Alawi family that has had cozy relations with Iran since the Islamic Revolution. Syria's alliance with Iran was the reason for the split between Saddam and Hafez al Assad. Recently I asked my cousin if Alawis are true Shia, and I asked him if they are true Shia, how could they allow so many "mujahideen" to enter Iraq via Damascus and cause so much death and destruction against their Shia brethren in Iraq? "NO" the Allawites are not true Shia, he said, and even if Assad wanted to prevent Baathists and Wahhabis from planning and coordinating in Damascus, he couldn't because most Syrians are Sunni Arab, and many of them have been influenced by Baathism or the Muslim Brotherhood and maybe Wahhabism. So it is even more ironic that Syria has been supported by Shia-dominated Iran.

Syria has been home to the largest number of Iraqi refugees since 2003, and although their existence in Syria has been relatively peaceful, many Iraqis in Damascus are worried about raised tensions between the two governments. Iraqi PM Maliki has blamed Damascus for the August 19 explosions in Baghdad. In the end, the Syrian regime may decide to normalize relations with Iraq at least for economic reasons.

This Ramadhan we have seen fewer violent deaths in Iraq than in previous years, but in general Iraqis continue to suffer as a result of sectarian conflicts than seem never to end. This year the average number of deaths per day from suicide attacks and vehicle bombs (7.8) is still higher than in 2004 (5.2), but the number of deaths per day from gunfire/executions is 4.6, the lowest since 2003. With continuing violence and an inept government in Baghdad that still cannot provide security or 24-hour a day electricity to all Iraqis, there's not much to cheer about in Iraq these days. Many Iraqis are looking forward to the crucial elections in January, and many are hoping for real change in Iraq.