They were the most enthusiastic supporters of the democracy project, but now that it is clear that it isn't getting them what they want, they're singing a different tune. From the LA Times, with thanks to Arjun:
BAGHDAD — They have a new constitution, a new government and a new military. But faced with incessant sectarian bloodshed, Iraqis for the first time have begun openly discussing whether the only way to stop the violence is to remake the country they have just built.Leaders of Iraq's powerful Shiite Muslim political bloc have begun aggressively promoting a radical plan to partition the country as a way of separating the warring sects. Some Iraqis are even talking about dividing the capital, with the Tigris River as a kind of Berlin Wall.
Shiites have long advocated some sort of autonomy in the south, similar to the Kurds' 15-year-old enclave in the north, with its own defense forces and control over oil exploration. And the new constitution does allow provinces to team up into federal regions. But the latest effort, promulgated by Cabinet ministers, clerics and columnists, marks the first time they have advocated regional partition as a way of stemming violence.
"Federalism will cut off all parts of the country that are incubating terrorism from those that are upgrading and improving," said Khudair Khuzai, the Shiite education minister. "We will do it just like Kurdistan. We will put soldiers along the frontiers."
good give it to them and give the kurds their own country. Of course don't sell out the assyrians. which will probably happen anyways.
Assalamau-Laikum all,
Well it looks like no one can live with the sunni...if proper rules are not formed ....there is trouble ahead.
If it is gonna be an India-Pak style partition ....your troops neeed to be there ensuring a smooth partition...with adequate protection to the peoples starting a new life in a strange country.
This you owe ...you have been the instigitators of this mess (albiet that there have always been low level tensions between the sunni & shia...Sadaam had this covered).
Don't do like the british did in India...rule for over 200 years and get their lilly livered white asses outta there when they were really required.
By the way off topic...happy rakhee day to all the hindoos & sikhs out there...have a good day and tuck into those sweets and all the boys...look after your sisters.
How about partitioning Pakistan into Qadianistan and Najistan? Which portions would you want?
Unfortunately, the biggest losers, if this partition comes about, will be non-Muslims, Christians, Mandaeans, Yadzis. They will be slaughtered and those remaining alive will be forced to flee for their lives. Naseem, the West owes Muslim countries nothing. What we do owe to ourselves is a variety of new energy sources in order that we stop the huge transfer of money to Islamic countries. That is the only way that my grandchildren will ever be able to live in true peace. Speaking of peace, Naseem, I ask you as a member of the religion of peace, why do you think that Western troops are necessary in order to facilitate the proposed partition? Can't the mullahs, from both sects, call all of their followers to a huge love and peace fest, and charge everyone to live in peace and harmony as followers of the religion of peace??? One thing I do agree with you on is your statement where you admonish the "hindoos" and sikhs to "look after your sisters." Yes, indeed. They need to look after their female relatives, in your country and all other Muslim-dominated countries where kidnapping, rape and forced marriages of non-Muslim young women are common practice.
Infidel pride asked "Where is the other thread about the dead person under the sheets sitting up? Did that get deleted?", pertaining to the thread header "AP raises the dead!"
What did happen to it?
Partitioning is to be distrusted. The Shi'ites want to divide and conquer. What would stop their 'trouble-making' neighbor Iran from join forces with them (something I think is already being planned for later tihs month) to then go in and attack the rest of Iraq to take over the whole of the region.
No, this is not the solution.
HE says:
Federalism will cut off all parts of the country that are incubating terrorism from those that are upgrading and improving," said Khudair Khuzai, the Shiite education minister. "We will do it just like Kurdistan. We will put soldiers along the frontiers.
Yeah Right!. and just how soon would it be before they start shooting at each other, or how soon would it be before one side gets angry because the other is making more money, or how soon before one side becomes angred for whatever stupid reason.
These Muslims, they hate everyone, including themselves. They do not know how to have a life. They only know how to take a life.
"And we Sunnis cannot stand for this. Iraq is the site of the oldest known mosque, at Samarra, and the place from which Arab armies brought Islam to Sassanian Persia. It was in Baghdad that Haroun al-Raschid had his court, and Arab civilization was at its height. This cannot possibly be allowed to fall into Shi'a hands. Zarqawi was right: "Rafidite dogs." The Americans, of course, listened to all those Shi'a in exile, never understood that we Sunnis never wished for anything but to defend ourselves against those Shi'a, and yes, sometimes the methods of Saddam Hussein were excessive. We will fight. Will you Americans leave us some weaponry, now that you have spent several years building up the Shi'a, training all of them when you thought you were training an "Iraqi" army and an "Iraqi" police. And the stronger they get, the better trained they get, the worse it will be for us.
So help us now -- or at least, don't move your forces to the west to guard the border and prevent our Sunni brothers from entering to help us, and to bring weapons. We know how to act. They think when you leave they will no longer have to hold back and obey your silly rules. They think they will crush us. But we know, that when you leave, we will crush them. It will take a long time. And lots of help: money from Saudi Arabia, volunteers from Jordan, from Egypt, from Saudi, from everywhere. And of course we will have to kill those Shi'a volunteers from Lebanon, and they have had good training, but we will manage.
So couldn't you, please, leave us just a little of that equipment you wre actually thinking of leaving for the "Iraqi" army -- which means the Shi'a? Or have you gone mad?
Infidel pride & Eisenhund,
The picture that appeared here yesterday was probably genuine (in the sense that it was that of a corpse). This became apparent when viewing the other pictures in the sequence. You were able to see the body in the same position without the sheet over in what looked like a state of rigor mortis.
...you have been the instigitators of this mess (albiet that there have always been low level tensions between the sunni & shia...Sadaam had this covered).
Mohammed instigated this and so many other messes, not white folk. But thank you, Moslima, for your frank admission that Moslems require the strictest of supervision to be able to get along.
...happy rakhee day to all the hindoos & sikhs out there...have a good day and tuck into those sweets and all the boys...look after your sisters.
Out here in civilization our women can take care of themselves; this happy fact made possible by our men behaving as gentlemen. However, there is growing concern in Europe and Oz about the boom in rapes, caused by the new Moslem Male citizens foolishly let into these once safe nations.
...you have been the instigitators of this mess (albiet that there have always been low level tensions between the sunni & shia...Sadaam had this covered).
Jimney Christmas. Uncle Saddam had it covered all right....brutality, torture, bloodshed.
This is just standard operating procedure for sister Naseem, and according to her story, she's one of those who has been exposed better modes of consensual government!
Hugh is right. You can take the Muslim out of Mad Mohammed's territory, but you sure can't take Mohammed's madness out of the Muslim.
An article and comments worth reading, Iraqi Shi'tes Chant Death to Israel
But it is the comments that I find informative
This is most interesting of all Maliki himself was "in Syria as a political officer for Dawa, at a time when the party developed close ties with Hizbullah in Lebanon and with Iran," during the Iran-Iraq war. Now when Maliki gave his address to the US Congress, he shifted gears and said: "history will prove that the sacrifices of Iraqis for freedom will not be in vain. Iraqis are your allies in the war on terror." And the Bush administration made it absolutely clear that Maliki is their man. This shows what a farce this "war on terrorism" is. AP on December 27, 1986 reported that when an Iraqi airline was hijacked, "the hijackers acted in cooperation with the Dawa party of pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiites." Most of the US media seems to be too wrapped up in "neocon" spin to pay attention to what is in their own reports. Robert Fisk actually bothered to get the facts:
"Da’Wa and the SCIRI parties in the government [are] effectively are Iran in the government...
[The Americans] will need the help of the Syrians also with the Iranians, because they’re allies....
All these leaders of the Iraqi side of the insurgency are former officers in the Iraqi army from 1980 to 1988. Some of them were trained in America, some in Britain. They speak English; they can be talked to. And eventually, we will have to do so....
the Da’Wa Party, which is a linchpin of the new government which is in constant negotiation and talks with the Americans, with the British and everyone else, the Da’Wa Party were the people who were behind all the kidnapping of Westerners — Islamic Jihad — in Beirut in the 1980s, including my friend Terry Anderson, who was held for seven years. The Da’Wa Party attacked the American and the French embassies. In Kuwait, the Da’Wa Party tried to kill the emir of Kuwait to get its prisoners out of Kuwaiti jails. Now the Da’Wa Party is in the government. That is Iran in Baghdad...."
I heard Tony Snow, for the umpteenth time today trying to equate the occupation of Iraq (and it's invasion) to the war on Terror.. The only relationship would be if it were a war on Islam, since that is the only thing that that Iraq (Saddam) and todays "terrorism" have in common.
However the uncomfortable and inconvenient facts are that our invasion and continued occupation of Iraq is only providing Muslims with a breeding ground, a recruiting depot and a training ground for Jihadis (whom Bush, the RNC and Snow call terrorists).
There are thousands more now, and trained and experienced at that, than there were in March 2003, and like the misconceived Bosnia Kosovo adventure Iraq is just another Islamist training and recruiting ground.
But NOw we have the spectacle of a man and a party that can't admit that they screw up, defending an adjunct, a satrapy of Iran (al Maliki, Da'wa and SCIRI) and wasting our money and blood for their purpose, while simultaneously waging a political war with that entity (the mad mullahs of Iran) while our ally Israel is fighting for it's life with another adjunct, agent and satrap of Iran.. Hizballah.
It doesn't make any sense.
Saddam Hussein is a horrible monster, presiding over a tyrannical government based upon Theft, intimidation and murder. His tyranny, however, was based upon self-interest and not upon the ideology of jihad. His presence effectively bunged up the jihadi idealogues and consequently could have been further exploited to either to offset the Ahmadinejads of the region or to at least prevent the further spread of their influence.
That was taken away in the ill-conceived invasion and occupation of Iraq by the Bush/Cheney administration. Yes, it is altogether true that WMDs in the hands of a Hussein cannot be tolerated and pressure was needed to ensure that UN resolutions against Iraq's WMD programs were being enforced. Such pressure was applied through a credible display of strength by the US in the Gulf. But sometimes all that is required is to show the stick, not to use it. I believe this to be the case for Iraq. Instead, the US is now spending precious resources in an act of nation-building that is extremely unlikely to succeed. Instead, we may see the consolidation of the Iraqi and Iranian Shia communities, with implications regionally --I have in mind increased support in recruits, training and supplies to Hezbollah-- and almost certainly globally.
Yes, Hussein is a monster, but worse monsters exist, ones that are inflamed by a desire to dominate the world or die trying. The Bush/Cheney administration has foolishly rubbed the magic lamp holding this fever, releasing a genie that has not only has no intention of granting Dubya's wishes, but has an insidious agenda of its own.
Posted by: The Goobs
"Partitioning is to be distrusted. The Shi'ites want to divide and conquer."
Great, let them go for it. And let their Sunni co-religionists counter the Shiite plans. Let them blow each other up, and get our troops out of the place immediately.
"No, this is not the solution."
Got a better idea?
They are at it in iraq.
"Blast kills 35 near Shi'ite shrine in Iraq"
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-08-10T101110Z_01_L10918104_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ.xml
"If it is gonna be an India-Pak style partition ....your troops neeed to be there ensuring a smooth partition...with adequate protection to the peoples starting a new life in a strange country.
This you owe ...you have been the instigitators of this mess (albiet that there have always been low level tensions between the sunni & shia...Sadaam had this covered)."
We dont OWE anything. We should have left immediately after we got Saddam and left the nation building to the UN . If they want to kill each other, thats an internal issue. I say let 'em and deal with who ever is left.