'Another set of politicians is betting that the future belongs to those who hold themselves above the sectarian din. The forerunner of this group is Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who should be commended for breaking ranks with the dominant identity-based Shia coalition that first propelled him to power and stature. Sure, he did so after failing to secure a guarantee from it about keeping his job post-elections, but the narrative he is going to run on is patriotism, rather than myopic sectarianism; he too cannot run on efficiency and integrity, but his fallback rhetoric is positive, rather than malicious. This changes the game in fundamental ways; what Maliki is starting in the Shia camp will echo immediately in the Sunni camp, and eventually find itself expressed in the Kurdish camp too.
This will be a years-long process, so it is lamentable that true secular democrats are not available in force and funding to mount a challenge at this stage. But their time will come as the trend deepens; if their moment is not to be at these next elections, their chances will improve in the electoral round after that. Maliki is an Islamist, but wants to market his secular credentials. This will not be enough for a number of Iraqis who do not want to vote for Islamists under any guises; their fall-back candidates will likely be Ayad Allawi and Saleh al-Mutlag in lieu of real democrats. Allawi and Mutlag’s sole saving grace is that they are secular, but they far from being democratic: they are the chief proponents of neo-Ba’athism, that is the rehabilitation of Ba’athists into Iraqi politics. For these next elections, they are place-holders for the anti-Islamist vote, but in another cycle they may be eclipsed by a democratic opposition.
The positive trends discussed above will need time to mature. But the fact that they are in the works means that things are heading the right way in Iraq. They are doing so with minimal U.S. meddling --as exhibited by Mr. Hill -- as they should be. The U.S. should not be playing favorites in this game; the Iranians and Saudis are doing so, rumored to be spending tens of millions of dollars, but they are thankfully and effectively canceling each other out. One of the biggest accusations against the concept of a democratic revolution in Iraq is that it can be imposed by the Americans. Fine, the Americans cleared away the poisonous legacy of the Saddam years to allow this new sprout to flourish. Like the date tree of Iraq, the country’s iconic symbol, once the sprout takes, it requires minimal attention, its roots shooting downwards to soak up the ample reserves of ground water. If vigilance is required, it should be directed against those who wish to uproot the sprout, or bioengineer it to look something like the weird growths that pass for government in much of the Middle East. A tree grows in Baghdad -- let it be.' --Nibras Kazimi
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Was it worth it?
Q. As you look back at your time in Iraq, can you tell us whether anything has changed since you began your reports? Are you hopeful in any way that the people of Iraq will achieve some kind of peaceful accord so that life for them will be less violent? Will Iran leave Iraq alone so that the people of Iraq can rebuild their lives and their country?
— Barbara M.
A. Well, Barbara, one thing that’s changed, and for the better, is that Saddam Hussein is gone for good, along with his murderous tyranny, and that 25 or 30 million Iraqis are no longer subject to the sickening extremities of state-sponsored brutality — the Murder Inc. — that were the hallmark of his quarter-century in power. That, of course, has become a commonplace point for those who argue, still, that all in all it’s been worthwhile despite the appalling costs that those who committed allied troops to the invasion of 2003 seemed not to have factored into their calculations.
And since this week’s debate among us on the “At War” blog goes to the fundamental issues in contest in assessing the war in Iraq, and whether in any sense it’s been worthwhile, it is perhaps not a bad thing to start by reminding ourselves of what those costs have been: the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been killed and injured, the total tragically and shamefully unknown; the 4,664 allied troops who have lost their lives, 4,346 of them Americans; the tens of thousands of allied troops who have returned home with amputations and other life-changing injuries; the hundreds of billions of American taxpayers’ dollars, almost certainly a trillion dollars before the last American troops come home; the blighted lives of millions of Iraqis who have lost relatives and friends, fled the country, or suffered years of deprivation, from lost years of education to debilitated hospitals to merciless summers without electrical power for cooling, as well as countless other indignities.
Still, now that the end of the war for America is in sight — God grant — it is worth remembering what good there was achieved by the invasion. In the fury of the debate over unconventional weapons, it has been largely forgotten that ending Saddam’s tyranny for the sake of ordinary Iraqis was one of the justifications offered by President George W. Bush for toppling the regime in Baghdad — one stated in a lower key, to be sure, and subordinate to the argument about the threat Saddam posed with his (as it turned out ) non-existent stockpile of chemical and biological weapons. At the worst moments of the American occupation, between 2005 and 2007, there were many Iraqis, to be sure, who argued that things would have been better if Saddam had never been ousted, for all of the miseries he inflicted. But that was a snapshot, a cry of desperation, if you will, and not, in my experience, a reliable reflection of what the majority of Iraqis believed, in moments of sober reflection. Certainly it was not the view of most Shiites, more than 60 percent of the population, who, with the Kurds, suffered the worst of Saddam’s viciousness, and who were freed by the allied invasion to claim the political primacy denied them for centuries by the minority Sunnis. The short-lived protests at Saddam’s botched and politically tainted hanging in December 2006, even among Sunnis, were a testament of their own on how the great majority of Iraqis felt.
As for where the balance lies in all this — whether it has in any sense been worth it — that’s an issue for history, and for the peoples most deeply impacted by the war: Iraqis, first of all, and Americans, who will no doubt come to a more settled view over the longer term, once we have a clearer sense of Iraq’s future trajectory. That, of course, remains profoundly uncertain. What does seem fair to say is that America, by deposing Saddam and opening the way for Iraq’s fractious ethnic, sectarian and political groups to settle their differences not by the gun and the garrote but through the give-and-take of parliamentary democracy, has opened the door to a better future than was in prospect before 2003. Whether Iraqis will walk through that door is now a matter for them; American influence, though far from spent as long as 130,000 United States troops remain the guarantor of last resort against any near-term return to dictatorship, is waning by the day, and the government of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has shown, in numerous ways in recent weeks, that it feels ever more at liberty to ignore American advice and urgings on hot-button political and security issues.
Many leaders — Prime Minister Maliki himself; moderate Sunnis like the vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi; and the most modern of all men who have held senior positions in Baghdad since 2004, Barham Salih of the Kurds — seem to have grasped to one degree or another the lesson that American ambassadors and military commanders have pressed for years, which is that there can be no political stability in Iraq without a fundamental commitment to political reconciliation between the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. But there remains a dearth of anything that could be called statesmanship among the political leaders in Baghdad. More than five years after Iraqis formed their first post-Saddam government, the fundamental issue confronting the country — agreement on the future disposition of political and economic power among the contending population groups — remains unresolved: Many Sunnis remain unreconciled to a future that strips them permanently of their dominant status, just as many Shiites seem reluctant to concede to their former persecutors the place in the Iraqi sun that will be necessary if there is to be any hope of binding their loyalties to a Shiite-dominated state; and the loyalty of the Kurds to the new state, in many ways, is as conditional as that of the Sunnis. Beyond all the complexities, it is that basic impasse that explains the failure to agree on the future sharing of oil revenues, to settle the dispute over the contested oil city of Kirkuk or to resolve a manifest of other potentially explosive issues.
Without reconciliation, all the gains Iraq has made — a growing economy, for one — will be at grave risk of foundering when American troops are no longer around to act as a counterweight to the sectarian ambitions and vengefulness that remain a powerful and unrequited force in Iraqi political life. That’s a warning that Mr. Maliki, and President Obama, have been given insistently by American officials closest to events in Baghdad — including the present and immediate past U.S. ambassadors, Christopher R. Hill and Ryan C. Crocker, and the present and former American military commanders, Gen. Ray Odierno and Gen. David H. Petraeus. Earlier this month, in a speech to a blue-ribbon audience in London, General Petraeus repeated what he has told Congress repeatedly, that the stunning improvements in the security situation in Iraq in the past 24 months remain “fragile and reversible.” Decoded, what that means is that there is still a real risk of backsliding in the security gains that began with the 2007 troop “surge,” and of Iraq heading back toward the murderous sectarianism that General Petraeus faced when he took command in Baghdad in early 2007. What Mr. Obama would do if chaos set in as the American troop withdrawal gathers momentum next spring and summer could be one of the most testing moments in his presidency, all the more so for the evident fact that most Americans and most American legislators — not to mention many in command ranks in the armed forces with lengthy on-the-ground-experience in Iraq, to judge from my e-mail correspondence — seem to have decided that America has already borne the burdens of Iraq for too long and needs to shift its priorities to Afghanistan.
Already, there has been a frightening increase in the “spectacular” suicide bombings across Iraq that punctuated the pre-surge period, and there seems every chance that Shiite and Sunni extremist insurgent groups will do everything in their power to destabilize the national elections in January, which will determine the government that will be in power as the last American troops leave — a government that will no longer face, if it chooses not to, the imperative of facing the electorate’s verdict when its four-year term expires. As for how Iraq’s neighbors will behave if the worst comes to the worst, that’s anybody’s guess, save for the certainty that countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran — especially Iran, which has already shown its readiness to meddle in the Shiite politics of Iraq, and to arm extremist groups with the armor-penetrating weapons known as explosively formed penetrators that have killed many American troops — are not likely to stand idly by. Six and a half years from the moment when American troops captured Baghdad on April 9, 2003, nothing is settled, save for the fact that Saddam lies buried — and for most Iraqis, unregretted — in a temporary mausoleum in Awja, his hometown 100 miles north of Baghdad.' --John Burns, NYT
— Barbara M.
A. Well, Barbara, one thing that’s changed, and for the better, is that Saddam Hussein is gone for good, along with his murderous tyranny, and that 25 or 30 million Iraqis are no longer subject to the sickening extremities of state-sponsored brutality — the Murder Inc. — that were the hallmark of his quarter-century in power. That, of course, has become a commonplace point for those who argue, still, that all in all it’s been worthwhile despite the appalling costs that those who committed allied troops to the invasion of 2003 seemed not to have factored into their calculations.
And since this week’s debate among us on the “At War” blog goes to the fundamental issues in contest in assessing the war in Iraq, and whether in any sense it’s been worthwhile, it is perhaps not a bad thing to start by reminding ourselves of what those costs have been: the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been killed and injured, the total tragically and shamefully unknown; the 4,664 allied troops who have lost their lives, 4,346 of them Americans; the tens of thousands of allied troops who have returned home with amputations and other life-changing injuries; the hundreds of billions of American taxpayers’ dollars, almost certainly a trillion dollars before the last American troops come home; the blighted lives of millions of Iraqis who have lost relatives and friends, fled the country, or suffered years of deprivation, from lost years of education to debilitated hospitals to merciless summers without electrical power for cooling, as well as countless other indignities.
Still, now that the end of the war for America is in sight — God grant — it is worth remembering what good there was achieved by the invasion. In the fury of the debate over unconventional weapons, it has been largely forgotten that ending Saddam’s tyranny for the sake of ordinary Iraqis was one of the justifications offered by President George W. Bush for toppling the regime in Baghdad — one stated in a lower key, to be sure, and subordinate to the argument about the threat Saddam posed with his (as it turned out ) non-existent stockpile of chemical and biological weapons. At the worst moments of the American occupation, between 2005 and 2007, there were many Iraqis, to be sure, who argued that things would have been better if Saddam had never been ousted, for all of the miseries he inflicted. But that was a snapshot, a cry of desperation, if you will, and not, in my experience, a reliable reflection of what the majority of Iraqis believed, in moments of sober reflection. Certainly it was not the view of most Shiites, more than 60 percent of the population, who, with the Kurds, suffered the worst of Saddam’s viciousness, and who were freed by the allied invasion to claim the political primacy denied them for centuries by the minority Sunnis. The short-lived protests at Saddam’s botched and politically tainted hanging in December 2006, even among Sunnis, were a testament of their own on how the great majority of Iraqis felt.
As for where the balance lies in all this — whether it has in any sense been worth it — that’s an issue for history, and for the peoples most deeply impacted by the war: Iraqis, first of all, and Americans, who will no doubt come to a more settled view over the longer term, once we have a clearer sense of Iraq’s future trajectory. That, of course, remains profoundly uncertain. What does seem fair to say is that America, by deposing Saddam and opening the way for Iraq’s fractious ethnic, sectarian and political groups to settle their differences not by the gun and the garrote but through the give-and-take of parliamentary democracy, has opened the door to a better future than was in prospect before 2003. Whether Iraqis will walk through that door is now a matter for them; American influence, though far from spent as long as 130,000 United States troops remain the guarantor of last resort against any near-term return to dictatorship, is waning by the day, and the government of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has shown, in numerous ways in recent weeks, that it feels ever more at liberty to ignore American advice and urgings on hot-button political and security issues.
Many leaders — Prime Minister Maliki himself; moderate Sunnis like the vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi; and the most modern of all men who have held senior positions in Baghdad since 2004, Barham Salih of the Kurds — seem to have grasped to one degree or another the lesson that American ambassadors and military commanders have pressed for years, which is that there can be no political stability in Iraq without a fundamental commitment to political reconciliation between the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. But there remains a dearth of anything that could be called statesmanship among the political leaders in Baghdad. More than five years after Iraqis formed their first post-Saddam government, the fundamental issue confronting the country — agreement on the future disposition of political and economic power among the contending population groups — remains unresolved: Many Sunnis remain unreconciled to a future that strips them permanently of their dominant status, just as many Shiites seem reluctant to concede to their former persecutors the place in the Iraqi sun that will be necessary if there is to be any hope of binding their loyalties to a Shiite-dominated state; and the loyalty of the Kurds to the new state, in many ways, is as conditional as that of the Sunnis. Beyond all the complexities, it is that basic impasse that explains the failure to agree on the future sharing of oil revenues, to settle the dispute over the contested oil city of Kirkuk or to resolve a manifest of other potentially explosive issues.
Without reconciliation, all the gains Iraq has made — a growing economy, for one — will be at grave risk of foundering when American troops are no longer around to act as a counterweight to the sectarian ambitions and vengefulness that remain a powerful and unrequited force in Iraqi political life. That’s a warning that Mr. Maliki, and President Obama, have been given insistently by American officials closest to events in Baghdad — including the present and immediate past U.S. ambassadors, Christopher R. Hill and Ryan C. Crocker, and the present and former American military commanders, Gen. Ray Odierno and Gen. David H. Petraeus. Earlier this month, in a speech to a blue-ribbon audience in London, General Petraeus repeated what he has told Congress repeatedly, that the stunning improvements in the security situation in Iraq in the past 24 months remain “fragile and reversible.” Decoded, what that means is that there is still a real risk of backsliding in the security gains that began with the 2007 troop “surge,” and of Iraq heading back toward the murderous sectarianism that General Petraeus faced when he took command in Baghdad in early 2007. What Mr. Obama would do if chaos set in as the American troop withdrawal gathers momentum next spring and summer could be one of the most testing moments in his presidency, all the more so for the evident fact that most Americans and most American legislators — not to mention many in command ranks in the armed forces with lengthy on-the-ground-experience in Iraq, to judge from my e-mail correspondence — seem to have decided that America has already borne the burdens of Iraq for too long and needs to shift its priorities to Afghanistan.
Already, there has been a frightening increase in the “spectacular” suicide bombings across Iraq that punctuated the pre-surge period, and there seems every chance that Shiite and Sunni extremist insurgent groups will do everything in their power to destabilize the national elections in January, which will determine the government that will be in power as the last American troops leave — a government that will no longer face, if it chooses not to, the imperative of facing the electorate’s verdict when its four-year term expires. As for how Iraq’s neighbors will behave if the worst comes to the worst, that’s anybody’s guess, save for the certainty that countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran — especially Iran, which has already shown its readiness to meddle in the Shiite politics of Iraq, and to arm extremist groups with the armor-penetrating weapons known as explosively formed penetrators that have killed many American troops — are not likely to stand idly by. Six and a half years from the moment when American troops captured Baghdad on April 9, 2003, nothing is settled, save for the fact that Saddam lies buried — and for most Iraqis, unregretted — in a temporary mausoleum in Awja, his hometown 100 miles north of Baghdad.' --John Burns, NYT
Monday, September 28, 2009
"we were always at war with Saddam in charge"
From a great story posted by Omar:
'Saeed said he saw his wife shot in the neck while hanging clothes out to dry, was thrown in jail by an associate of Saddam Hussein and was forced to participate in three separate wars as a result of Hussein's administration.
"I could not understand why we were always at war with Saddam in charge," Saeed said. "The Americans have always tried to help the people of Iraq and he had to make it hard for all of us."
Iuliano agreed with Saeed, saying, "The last people who ever want to see war are those of us in uniform." '
'Saeed said he saw his wife shot in the neck while hanging clothes out to dry, was thrown in jail by an associate of Saddam Hussein and was forced to participate in three separate wars as a result of Hussein's administration.
"I could not understand why we were always at war with Saddam in charge," Saeed said. "The Americans have always tried to help the people of Iraq and he had to make it hard for all of us."
Iuliano agreed with Saeed, saying, "The last people who ever want to see war are those of us in uniform." '
“We’re so out of here”
'This week, John F. Burns, The Times’s chief foreign correspondent, will be taking questions on the end of the American war in Iraq.
In February, the newly inaugurated President Obama announced that all combat troops would be withdrawn by August 2010, seven and a half years after the war began, and the remaining troops by 2011.
But with relative calm in Iraq and instability expanding quickly in Afghanistan, Americans and their leaders increasingly see Iraq as the war already fought. “We’re so out of here,” a Marine officer said in July in Anbar province, once the heart of the insurgency there.
Does America seem intent on leaving Iraq, no matter what happens? Should we? Would a return to wide-scale sectarian violence, or the opening of a new front between Kurds and Arabs, obligate U.S. soldiers to stay? What was accomplished and what was left undone?'
In February, the newly inaugurated President Obama announced that all combat troops would be withdrawn by August 2010, seven and a half years after the war began, and the remaining troops by 2011.
But with relative calm in Iraq and instability expanding quickly in Afghanistan, Americans and their leaders increasingly see Iraq as the war already fought. “We’re so out of here,” a Marine officer said in July in Anbar province, once the heart of the insurgency there.
Does America seem intent on leaving Iraq, no matter what happens? Should we? Would a return to wide-scale sectarian violence, or the opening of a new front between Kurds and Arabs, obligate U.S. soldiers to stay? What was accomplished and what was left undone?'
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Al Qaeda group escapes Tikrit prison
It's not clear how many of these men are members of Al Qaeda.
NYT: 'Sixteen prisoners, including leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other extremist groups who had been sentenced to death, escaped from a prison in northern Iraq, in what officials described as a brazen breach of security that prompted a manhunt across a large part of the country on Thursday.'
BBC: 'Reports said five of the group, who were being held at a facility in Tikrit, had been sentenced to death for involvement in attacks.
A security official said that the men removed the windows from a bathroom, crawled through the opening and climbed a ladder over the prison walls.
One of the men has since been caught, but the rest remain at large.
Checkpoints have been set up around Tikrit, which is a predominantly Sunni town in Salah al-Din province about 80 miles (130km) from Baghdad.
Iraqi military spokesman Maj Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf said extra surveillance had also been ordered at Iraq's borders and throughout the north-west of the country.
A senior provincial security official told AFP news agency that the escapees had probably received assistance from within the prison system.
"It is clear there was co-operation with specific groups that helped them escape. Probably one of the officials helped them," he said.
In a separate development, 24 people have been arrested in Morocco on suspicion of having links to a cell recruiting suicide bombers for Iraq, according to a state news agency.
It said the group, based in towns and cities across Morocco, was also suspected of recruiting men to fight in Somalia and Afghanistan.'
Update (Saturday, Sept 26): 'Also Saturday, the police said that they had captured two more suspects in a brazen escape from a detention center in the city of Tikrit on Wednesday in which 16 prisoners escaped, apparently by climbing out a bathroom window.
Among the escapees from the center, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, were members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a Sunni extremist group, who had been sentenced to death. Eight of the 16 men have been recaptured, the authorities said.
The entire staff of the detention center — more than 100 people — has been detained for questioning as part of an investigation into whether the prisoners had inside help, and the chief of the prison has been dismissed.'
NYT: 'Sixteen prisoners, including leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other extremist groups who had been sentenced to death, escaped from a prison in northern Iraq, in what officials described as a brazen breach of security that prompted a manhunt across a large part of the country on Thursday.'
BBC: 'Reports said five of the group, who were being held at a facility in Tikrit, had been sentenced to death for involvement in attacks.
A security official said that the men removed the windows from a bathroom, crawled through the opening and climbed a ladder over the prison walls.
One of the men has since been caught, but the rest remain at large.
Checkpoints have been set up around Tikrit, which is a predominantly Sunni town in Salah al-Din province about 80 miles (130km) from Baghdad.
Iraqi military spokesman Maj Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf said extra surveillance had also been ordered at Iraq's borders and throughout the north-west of the country.
A senior provincial security official told AFP news agency that the escapees had probably received assistance from within the prison system.
"It is clear there was co-operation with specific groups that helped them escape. Probably one of the officials helped them," he said.
In a separate development, 24 people have been arrested in Morocco on suspicion of having links to a cell recruiting suicide bombers for Iraq, according to a state news agency.
It said the group, based in towns and cities across Morocco, was also suspected of recruiting men to fight in Somalia and Afghanistan.'
Update (Saturday, Sept 26): 'Also Saturday, the police said that they had captured two more suspects in a brazen escape from a detention center in the city of Tikrit on Wednesday in which 16 prisoners escaped, apparently by climbing out a bathroom window.
Among the escapees from the center, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, were members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a Sunni extremist group, who had been sentenced to death. Eight of the 16 men have been recaptured, the authorities said.
The entire staff of the detention center — more than 100 people — has been detained for questioning as part of an investigation into whether the prisoners had inside help, and the chief of the prison has been dismissed.'
"Neighbouring countries don't want Iraq to succeed"
I'm glad Iraq Pundit is writing again:
'The mainstream media in the United States want so much to prove that their predictions of a dead Iraq that they allow it to interfere with their professionalism. The Arabic papers are famous for printing rumours wihtout bothering to check them out.
Instead of writing about how politicians are forming alliances, new parties, and negotiating to make changes in the country, the newspapers print rumours. Instead of showing that democracy is slowly developing here, the papers add to the conspiracy theories that spread so easily in the region. But most Iraqis believe, rightly or wrongly, neighbouring countries don't want Iraq to succeed.'
'The mainstream media in the United States want so much to prove that their predictions of a dead Iraq that they allow it to interfere with their professionalism. The Arabic papers are famous for printing rumours wihtout bothering to check them out.
Instead of writing about how politicians are forming alliances, new parties, and negotiating to make changes in the country, the newspapers print rumours. Instead of showing that democracy is slowly developing here, the papers add to the conspiracy theories that spread so easily in the region. But most Iraqis believe, rightly or wrongly, neighbouring countries don't want Iraq to succeed.'
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? '
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? '
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