Blogging the democratic revolution
From the time the US and coalition forces deposed Saddam and his Ba’athists, over 25 million newly free Iraqis have had the opportunity to develop a society along a new path; the nature of that path has faced challenges from Iraqi sects, international terrorist groups, and foreign states, and its direction has been hotly debated. I have believed for some time that Iraqis have been making gradual but clear progress on many fronts in their attempt to rebuild a society — in terms of democratic reform, economic development and reconstruction, and other key elements of civil society. A little over…
It was not more than a couple of weeks ago that I picked up a copy of Newsweek at the embassy with that same title. It detailed Moqtada al-Sadr’s rise to power; the murders of his Shia rival, the hesitance of American troops to kill or capture him, and his domination of presdent-day Iraqi politics. Overall, not much new information. However, it was the headline that said it all. Moqtada al-Sadr, given either the lack of will or the lack of ability on part of the Iraqi and American ground forces to counter him, has become the most powerful man…
After the departure of Donald Rumsfeld, it is no surprise that President Bush would seek to reshuffle the rest of his war cabinet. It leaves a vacancy that begs that such a void be filled wherever possible. According to the latest news, Bush will be sending Negroponte back over to State while appointing a retired admiral to fill his place; ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad will become the new ambassador to the United Nations; and his own vacancy to be filled by ambassador to Pakistan Ryan Crocker. This all suggests a large realignment in the way that the Bush administration…
Amid the recrudescence of Cold War murder from Russia, the specter of strife in Lebanon, and the shadow of tyranny darkening over the defiantly hope-filled streets of Venezuela, there also is great suffering among the people in Iraq, where the recent attacks have been the war’s most violent. Of course it is a civil war. There have been news reports that both sides can sustain their battle and both Sunni and Shia have old grudges to settle. This item here really explains the dynamic from the strategic perspective. But amid all this, the people of Baghdad, day after day, are…
American military personnel fighting in Iraq Source: Free Republic We don’t see too many American babes, but these girls, busy crushing terrorists and tyrants and bringing democracy to Iraq, will definitely do. Who said liberation had to be ugly? This photo montage came about when people at Free Republic started examining the faces of U.S. female soldiers who were among a Minnesota troop contingent that came up with a hilarious smackdown gag photo, directed at a certain French-looking swell of a politician named John Kerry who thought all U.S. soldiers were dumb. The photo they took (below), with their grinning…
Manfred Nowak, the UN’s chief man on anti-torture, said today that torture in Iraq is worse now than it was under Saddam. “What most people tell you is that the situation as far as torture is concerned now in Iraq is totally out of hand,” Mr Nowak said in Geneva. “The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein.” The State Department is outraged about this, taking the comment as hypbole and moral relativism. A State Department official in Washington, asked about Professor Nowak’s comments, told The Times:…
While overall the testimony provided by witnesses of Saddam Hussein’s massacres has been damning, the overall “court experience” has been nothing less than a circus. I am not talking about the accusations by human rights groups like Amnesty International which accuse that the trial is well below international standards due to the inherent and legal bias against the defendant. Such things, like the fact that the tribunal does not have to find Saddam guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” are true, and were certainly existent in the infamous Nuremberg trials. However, what I am talking about is the fact that there…
As Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz es-Saud meets with Turkish leaders this week, the Sunni Arab world’s desperation should be kept in mind. Though economic concerns have been paramount in Turko-Arab relations for many years, and have grown since the election of the Turkish PM Erdogan, the Saudi King made a few remarks indicative of the Sunni Arab world’s fearful position. At a meeting with the Turkish President Ahmed Necdet Sezer, Abdullah called for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, obviously aimed bolstering Turkish support for the Arab position on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He then stated that ???????Like you…
There may be an Arabo-Iranian Cold War brewing, if the Arabs make themselves relevant again As the Arabs furiously try to guilt Syria into curbing Hezb Allah????????s activities and ???????rejoining??????? the Arab world, one cannot help but see an almost laughable, but certainly pathetic, last ditch attempt at salvaging what influence the Sunni Arab states have in the Middle East. Ever since the American invasion of Iraq, the strong men of the Sunni Arab world have become less and less relevant in a region that has become increasingly polarized on various fronts. On the one hand, with the liberation of…
The New York Times publishes the announcement by Gen. George Casey at a press conference alongside U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Iraqi Prime Minister Jawad al-Maliki: ???????Ladies and Gentlemen, Coalition Forces killed al-Qaida terrorist leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and one of his key lieutenants, spiritual advisor Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman, yesterday, June 7, at 6:15 p.m. in an air strike against an identified, isolated safe house. ???????Tips and intelligence from Iraqi senior leaders from his network led forces to al-Zarqawi and some of his associates who were conducting a meeting approximately eight kilometers north of Baqubah when the air strike was launched.…
I hate Islamists. You know the deal. But if you don’t, it’s at the end of every news article about Algeria: “Algeria’s civil war between the military and Islamist militas began in 1992 after the military halted elections that the Islamist FIS was poised to win took over 150,000 lives . . . blah blah blah”. That’s why. Islamists come in many different forms though. Some are peaceful and practice a sort of social gospel. Others are irritable and beat women for not being covered. Others massacre entire villages. Still others advocate sectarianism and conflict between religious groups in countries…
No more than three days ago, I wrote: On the political level, despite all of the killings, things have chugged along slowly but surely. Of these developments, however, the most interesting and perhaps the most important has always been the breakdown of the Shiite alliance as each party pursues its own interests in the new Iraq. Up until now it has always been simply on the political level, with parties haggling over minister portfolios and nominations. Now the politics have converged with the violence. With the tough issues coming to the forefront, such as disarming sectarian militias, distribution of oil…
The road to forming a new Iraqi government, from the elections in December last year to its actual formation no more than a week ago, splintering between the country’s different ethnic and religious groups has been everyone’s concern. Sunnis attacking Shiites, and vice versa. Even with the end of the insurgency, the development of death squads supplied by Iran have continued the extra-judicial killings. On the political level, despite all of the killings, things have chugged along slowly but surely. Of these developments, however, the most interesting and perhaps the most important has always been the breakdown of the Shiite…
The Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance, which is the largest bloc in parliament and is therefore constitutionally obligated to nominate for approval the prime minister, has decided within itself to scrap Ibrahim al-Jaafari as its candidate for the post and has instead voted to nominate someone new. His name is Jawad al-Miliki. No comment yet from the Kurdish, SUnni, and secular parties. BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s ruling Shi’ite Alliance nominated Jawad al-Maliki as its new candidate for prime minister on Friday in an effort to end four months of political paralysis over the formation of a new government. No immediate reaction…
Not that they already weren’t, as Dawa party candidate and current Prime Minister Ibraham al-Jaafari only won by a single vote within the UIA due to backing by the Sadrists, but the barrier for removing him has been broken as several independent politicians have broken with the alliance and said that someone else should be chosen for the position. That’s the big news over the weekend. BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 1 ???????? A senior member of the dominant Shiite bloc called on Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Saturday to drop his campaign to keep his post, becoming the first Shiite political…
I’ll never forget him. Fabrizio Quattrochi, the brave Italian man in Iraq who told his brutish Islamofascist kidnappers at the moment of his murder that he had no intention of dying with a hood on his head and tried to tear it off, saying he would show them ‘how an Italian dies’ struck a fearsome blow against the cowards perpetrating the war on terror. He not only exposed them as inhumanly evil, he ruined their crummy snuff-murder propaganda movie, which was the reason they killed him in the first place. His actions achieved the exact opposite effect of their evil…
DOWN is a good way to put it for today’s world festival of anti-Iraq democracy protests. Because as GatewayPundit has noticed, attendence is down at every single one of these. He’s got a liveblogging roundup of these “antiwar” (who the hell isn’t antiwar?) protests around the world, city by city, showing that this ‘movement’ doesn’t quite have the move it used to. Not many people want to go to these stupid irrational things anymore, not after “peace mom” Cindy Sheehan kissed Iran ally Hugo Chavez on the lips. And even more because given the growing victory of democracy and democratic…
A political storm had been heading over Iraq with the bombing of the al-Askariya shrine and the sectarian tensions that rose out of it. The Shia United Iraq Alliance used the occassion to push forward with it’s plan to nominate current Prime Minister Ibraham al-Jaafari for the position again, despite the wishes of every other political bloc in the new parliament. In essense, they said that they are the only group fit to rule the country right now and their choice for prime minister is constitutional and must be respected by the other parties. Well, a few people disagreed. The…
As I’ve been saying all along, the only ones who really stood to benefit, and those who really took advantage of the al-Askariya shrine bombing, is Moqtada al-Sadr and his counterparts in Iran. Now, a preliminary investigation by the deputy governor of Saladin, where the Shia holy city of Samarra and the shrine is located, has yielded that the perpetrators of the bombing was most like… dun dun dun… Iran! The deputy governor of the Iraqi province of Saladin, where the holy city of Samarra is situated, said preliminary investigation was pointing to Iran????????s role in the bombing of the…
The rising star of Moqtada al-Sadr has been the subject of much recent speculation: how his bloc became the biggest in the Shia UIA alliance, how he controls one of the most extremist militias in the country, and how he has become one of the most important politicians in Iraq’s development toward democracy. And also one of its biggest threats. Avowedly ready to stage an uprising should Iran give the order, some military commanders must be wondering why the hell they didn’t get rid of him a long time ago when they had the chance. Now his prominence is being…
The blogosphere has been abuzz about the bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Iraq, one of holiest shrines in Shia Islam. Of course, news reports always labels shrines as one of the holiest shrines, but it’s definitely true this time. This one is at the top. The attack was so profoundly felt by Shia Muslims that it has led to attacks on Sunni Muslim mosques and believers all over the country in retribution. Some think this may be a precursor to civil war. Others think not. I think not. But many haven’t looked at is the politics behind the attack;…
Finally, investigations are being held into the existence of Shia-led death squads in Iraq. Apparently the U.S. military caught some policemen about to execute a Sunni, and when questioned about it, they admitted it as if nothing were wrong with it. The incident has prompted an official investigation, though that it has not happened yet is absolutely astounding. The so-called “death squads” are formed by members of the different Shia militias, like Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the SCIRI-linked Badr Organization that was trained by Iran for about twenty years. These squads have targeted, and still target, Sunnis and kill…
Via Real Clear Politics, Donald Rumsfeld has presented his thinking on the new kinds of challenges the U.S. faces as it fights the long hard war on terror and seeks to win the hearts and minds of the Arab world in spreading the idea of democracy. He lays out all the angles on how this is playing out in democratic revolution – through technology and the power of ideas here. This happens to coincide with what we’ve been seeing on the State Department’s Web site, debunking all the flying-saucer theories put out by leftists and assorted ignoramuses and tinfoil-hat wearers…
The Shia-based United Iraq Alliance finally made its nomination for prime minister evident, voting by an inter-party margin of one vote to choose current Prime Minister Jaafari to lead the country’s first democratically elected government. I think the choice could end up in a stalemate, with a new candidate eventually having to be proposed. Iraq the Model has thoughts on the matter, ultimately concluding that it’s too early to speculate too much — but that won’t stop me! Iraq’s ruling Shia coalition announced yesterday it had chosen incumbent Ibrahim al-Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister, clearing the way for…
Unbelievable. Code Pink, an anti-American, anti-Iraqi-freedom, anti-Iranian-democracy full-Sandalista nuisance group, has taken to photoshopping photographs of Iranian freedom babes brave enough to protest against the monstrous mullahs of Iran, and used their beautiful images as recruiting tools for their own odious, anaphrodisiac cause. This cause just happens to be cut-and-run from Iraq, so that mullahs will be free to oppress women in ‘peace.’ That’s Code Pink’s cause! It is so disgusting! They can’t even tell the difference between Iranians and Iraqis, among other things, and just don’t care. But that’s not nearly as bad as changing the message the women…