phknrocket1k's personal thread for posting long articles about Iraq

[WMS]

Turkey would never allow an independant Kurdistan.

And that is the crux of many of the long-term problems in this region.

[opebo]

Well.. opebo.. wouldn't you want to seperate the religous into thier own country? Thats why I support them in seeking thier own state.

No, I preferred having them tortured and subjugated by Saddam.

Such intolerance from one who claims to be tolerant.

A tolerant cannot tolerate the intolerant (aka religious).

[RBH]

I read one thing which claimed this sort of thing was surprising.

I think it was in a Seattle paper.

Granted, the fact that the Shiites would rather not be in a state with the Sunnis shouldn't be too stunning.

When it comes to their country, if they want to divide it into three, let them do it fairly. But then again, that's probably not good when it comes to interests and all that.

[John Dibble]

Well.. opebo.. wouldn't you want to seperate the religous into thier own country? Thats why I support them in seeking thier own state.

No, I preferred having them tortured and subjugated by Saddam.

Such intolerance from one who claims to be tolerant.

A tolerant cannot tolerate the intolerant (aka religious).

But not all religious are intolerant. In fact Christians make up 80% of the nation - easily enough to get an amendment making Christianity the offical state religion and forbidding atheism. If Christians are intolerant, why haven't they done so?

[Lunar]

Turkey would never allow an independant Kurdistan.

And that is the crux of many of the long-term problems in this region.

That and Iran wouldn't either.

It's interesting that the Kurds are one of the few "stateless" Arabs that aren't really a problem for everybody else.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Turkey would never allow an independant Kurdistan.

And that is the crux of many of the long-term problems in this region.

That and Iran wouldn't either.

It's interesting that the Kurds are one of the few "stateless" Arabs that aren't really a problem for everybody else.

Kurds aren't Arabs.

[opebo]

Well.. opebo.. wouldn't you want to seperate the religous into thier own country? Thats why I support them in seeking thier own state.

No, I preferred having them tortured and subjugated by Saddam.

Such intolerance from one who claims to be tolerant.

A tolerant cannot tolerate the intolerant (aka religious).

But not all religious are intolerant. In fact Christians make up 80% of the nation - easily enough to get an amendment making Christianity the offical state religion and forbidding atheism. If Christians are intolerant, why haven't they done so?

I suppose they're blasphemers.  Is that the proper word for a member of one of these cults who escapes the mind-control?  Or is it heretic?

[Lunar]

Turkey would never allow an independant Kurdistan.

And that is the crux of many of the long-term problems in this region.

That and Iran wouldn't either.

It's interesting that the Kurds are one of the few "stateless" Arabs that aren't really a problem for everybody else.

Kurds aren't Arabs.

Whatever, they dwell in Arabia.  I should have used the term "Muslims" since I was thinking of Chechnyans too.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Turkey isn't in Arabia.

[WMS]

Turkey would never allow an independant Kurdistan.

And that is the crux of many of the long-term problems in this region.

That and Iran wouldn't either.

It's interesting that the Kurds are one of the few "stateless" Arabs that aren't really a problem for everybody else.

Yeah, can't forget those imperial Iranians, oppressing the Azeris and Kurds...geez, NW Iran isn't Iranian at all! It does, however, leave an avenue with which a clever U.S. administration could make life tricky for the Iranian government...

(and BRTD already dealt with the Kurd =/= Arab issue so I'll just not mention it )

[phk]

Iraq's Kurds May Drop Secession Demand

Saturday August 20, 2005 12:01 PM
AP Photo BAG127
By SLOBODAN LEKIC
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Talks on Iraq's new constitution have stalled over the role of Islam and the distribution of the country's oil wealth, negotiators said Saturday. The leadership of the country's Kurdish minority said it may drop its contentious demand for the right to secede.

Iraqis have until Monday night to complete work on the draft - otherwise parliament must dissolve. The United States is putting intense pressure on negotiators to finish the charter, which Washington hopes will in time take the steam out of the insurgency.

Mullah Bakhtiyar, a senior official from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the political party of Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, said all parties were showing flexibility in order to finish drafting the constitution.

``As for the self-determination for the Kurds, this issue did not enjoy the support of Sunnis or Shiites, and we almost gave up this demand,'' Bakhtiyar said.

The Kurds have enjoyed de-facto independence since 1991. If they drop their demand to guarantee the right of self-determination - a codeword for eventual secession that goes beyond mere federalism - it would represent a major concession and would remove an obstacle to agreement on the charter by next Monday's deadline.

But a comprehensive compromise on a constitutional draft remained elusive, with the main outstanding dispute focusing on the role of Islam in the new state, pitting Kurds and secular groups against Islamist parties representing Iraq's Shiite majority.

``As for the issue of Islam's role, negotiations are still underway,'' Bakhtiyar, told The Associated Press from the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.

On Saturday, leaders of all factions continued a series of meetings in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni representative on the drafting committee, said the talks had bogged down after ``deep differences'' emerged. He said Shiites were demanding that the new charter explicitly state that the decrees of their religious leadership were sacred - something both the Sunnis and Kurds oppose.

Shiite lawmaker Saad Jawad Kandil said the division of Iraq's potentially vast oil revenues also remained unresolved, along with the question of whether federal units could maintain relations with foreign states.

Shiites insist that the foreign affairs should be the job of the central government while the Kurds prefer that each region have the right to maintain ties with other countries, Kandil said.

As the Monday deadline to finish the constitution approached, Sunni Arabs and some Shiites rallied in Baghdad and elsewhere Friday to protest calls for a federated state.

On Saturday, about 5,000 people gathered outside the main mosque in the western city of Ramadi to condemn the constitutional process.

And in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, several hundred Arabs demonstrated against the charter, chanting ``Yes to unity, no to federalism.''

``We are against federalism (because) we believe that federalism is a step toward separation,'' said Mohammed Khalil, an Arab city council member.

In the 1980s, former President Saddam Hussein displaced thousands of Kurds from Kirkuk, and replaced them with Arab settlers. The city, which the Kurds seek to incorporate into their territory, has been the scene of ethnic tensions the past two years.

According to Article 58 in the interim constitution, all Iraqis, including Kurds, displaced under Saddam's regime have the right to return to their homes or receive compensation. Political leaders appear to have agreed on implementing Article 58 before general elections are held on Dec. 15.

The United States believes the key to defeating the Sunni-dominated insurgency is to encourage an inclusive political process that would encourage disaffected Sunni Arabs to lay down arms.

On Friday, a Kurdish official who took part in the negotiations said the United States was pressuring the Kurds to accept demands of Shiites and Sunnis on the role of Islam in government in order to reach agreement.

The entire process hinges on the success of the drafting committee in producing a constitution acceptable to all Iraqi communities by Monday's deadline. If parliament approves the draft, it goes to voters for ratification in October.

In recent weeks, various Sunni groups - which boycotted January's parliamentary elections - have been urging fellow Sunnis to vote in the referendum and a general election planned for December. The voter-registration deadline is Sept. 1.

The boycott left the once-dominant community with few seats in a parliament dominated by Shiites and Kurds, and reduced its influence in the political maneuvering surrounding the draft charter.

In other developments, Ramadi police reported on Friday that U.S. warplanes bombed a house, destroying it but causing no casualties. Police Capt. Nassir Al-Alousi said the house was empty at the time of the air strike.

A statement released by the U.S. military Saturday said only that Air Force F-16s and Royal Air Force GR-4s had ``provided close air support to coalition troops'' in the area. It gave no further details.

In Baghdad, two policemen were killed in a gunfight on Saturday morning with militants near Al-Shurta tunnel in the Amiryaa neighborhood, Capt. Talib Thamir said.

Unidentified gunmen also shot and killed two civilians in the Al-Amil district, and a mortar shell exploded in the capital's Mansour neighborhood, injuring a woman, police said.

In the northern city of Mosul, U.S. troops and Iraqi police clashed with insurgents in the northeastern neighborhood of Qadissiya, leaving three insurgents dead and one police captain wounded, Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed al-Jbouri said.

---

[phk]

US backs down on Islamic law in Iraq
 
By Luke Baker and Michael Georgy In Baghdad

THE careful negotiations over the Iraqi constitution appeared last night to be leaning further towards making Islamic law the main source of law for the country rather than a source after US diplomats apparently gave way to the concerns of Iraqi officials.

Sunni Arab negotiator Saleh al-Mutlak said a deal was struck which would mean parliament could pass no legislation that “contradicted Islamic principles”.

Yesterday Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish negotiators, meeting with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, all said there was accord on a bigger role for Islamic law than Iraq had before.

One secular Kurdish politician said: “We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi’ites. It’s shocking. It doesn’t fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state. I can’t believe that’s what the Americans really want or what the American people want.”

He said Kurds opposed subjecting all legislation to a religious test. US diplomats, who have insisted that the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined to comment on the progress of negotiations.

Al-Mutlaq added that negotiations had effectively stalled last night after “deep differences” emerged between the parties, who are frantically trying to reach an agreement on the constitution.

Al-Mutlaq said Shi’ites were demanding that the new charter explicitly states that the decrees of the Marjiyah – their religious leadership – were sacred, something both the Sunnis and Kurds oppose. “The Americans agreed, but on one condition: that the principles of democracy should be respected,” Mutlak said.

He said Kurdish negotiators are demanding that provincial governments should have control over both “discovered and undiscovered resources”, which would give their self-governing region a significant slice of Iraq’s oil wealth.

US diplomats have long insisted the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy – the US still has some 140,000 troops in Iraq, and the White House has insisted that in the “new Iraq”, Iraqis are free to govern themselves. President George Bush, however, has described the kind of clerical rule seen in Shi’ite Iran as “evil” and has made it clear that the US will not approve of such a construct for the constitution.

In a further sign of the growing unease over legal issues in Iraq, the UN representative to the country pleaded yesterday for the public executions of three men planned for next week to be cancelled.

A decree authorising the execution was signed last week by Iraqi vice-president Adel Abdel Mehdi after president Jalal Talabani refused on moral grounds. The death penalty has recently been reintroduced in Iraq, some say because of the upcoming trial of Saddam Hussein.

Yesterday Ashraf Qazi, the UN envoy to Iraq, said he “deeply regretted” the reintroduction of the death penalty and asked that the three prisoners due to be hanged in the central city of Kut should be spared. “One should look at consolidating the right to life instead of imposing the death penalty, which has a very poor recognised effect in deterring crimes,” he said in a statement. The three prisoners, a Kurd and two Sunni Arabs, would be the first prisoners to be executed since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The men are reported to be suspected members of the Al-Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sunna, and were sentenced to death in May, a verdict that was later approved by the highest judicial authority in Iraq.

British officials said that they will continue to lobby for the abolition of the death penalty in Iraq.

Qazi pointed out in his statement, released by the New York office of the UN Mission for Iraq, that the Human Rights Commission in Geneva had “condemned the application of the death penalty” in April 2005.

Diplomats, clerics and officials working to finish the constitution are “frantic” to come up with a working framework or risk having to hold new elections in the coming weeks to resolve the legality of the new government.

The Iraqi parliament averted its own dissolution on Monday last week by giving constitution drafters a further seven days to resolve crucial differences over regional autonomy, the role of religion, the status of women and the division of oil revenues in Iraq.

US ambassador Khalilzad, who has previously said there will be “no compromise” on equal rights for women and minorities, helped draft a constitution in his native Afghanistan that declared it an “Islamic Republic” in which no law could contradict Islam. It also, however, contained language establishing equal rights for women and protecting religious minorities.

Ethnic tensions in the northern oil city of Kirkuk spilled on to the streets yesterday in protest at the constitution negotiations with hundreds demonstrating against federalism – code for Kurdish ambitions to annex Kirkuk. Gunmen damaged the office of a Kurdish political party for the second time in a month, wounding three guards.

In Baghdad, a US soldier was killed when his vehicle hit a road-side bomb, and four Iraqi soldiers were killed and three wounded when an insurgent hurled a hand-grenade at a passing Iraqi army patrol in Falluja, west of Baghdad, according to reports.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I can't wait to hear the Bush apoligists defend this.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Acutally the argument I've heard is it doesn't matter how Iraq ends up as long as there are fair elections to cause it.

Robert Mugabe won fair elections initially too.

[Jake]

Good, seeing as it is an Islamic country, at least they have the sense to govern it as such. I couldn't care less what's in the Constitution as long as they pass one soon.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Good, seeing as it is an Islamic country, at least they have the sense to govern it as such.

Iran has turned out so well huh?

[opebo]

Good, seeing as it is an Islamic country, at least they have the sense to govern it as such. I couldn't care less what's in the Constitution as long as they pass one soon.

See, our theocrats support this.

[afleitch]

I for one feel sorry for Iraqi women if this is the case.

[WMS]

Realpolitique, buccos. The Sunni and Shi'a Arabs agree on this. That's at least 80 percent of the population. If the U.S. tries to stop this things could get very nasty very quickly - one truth of Iraq at the moment is that if the Shi'a rise against the Americans, the U.S. position becomes untenable at best. I like the Kurds quite a lot, but a compromise via federalism is the best that can be achieved.

And it doesn't appear that they're setting up an Iranian-style system...something new going on here...wait and see...

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Basically we replaced Iraq and Iran with 2 Irans at a cost of over 2000 "coalition" lives.

[??????????]

Basically we replaced Iraq and Iran with 2 Irans at a cost of over 2000 "coalition" lives.

Are you rooting for our troops to die like those hippies in Crawford?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Basically we replaced Iraq and Iran with 2 Irans at a cost of over 2000 "coalition" lives.

Are you rooting for our troops to die like those hippies in Crawford?

No

[phk]

Basically we replaced Iraq and Iran with 2 Irans at a cost of over 2000 "coalition" lives.

Are you rooting for our troops to die like those hippies in Crawford?

What exactly are you rooting for? Taking US casualties indefinitely just to protect Khomeini's Iraqi bitch-fighters and establish the "Islamic Republic of Iraq"?

[opebo]

Realpolitique, buccos. The Sunni and Shi'a Arabs agree on this. That's at least 80 percent of the population. If the U.S. tries to stop this things could get very nasty very quickly - one truth of Iraq at the moment is that if the Shi'a rise against the Americans, the U.S. position becomes untenable at best. I like the Kurds quite a lot, but a compromise via federalism is the best that can be achieved.

And it doesn't appear that they're setting up an Iranian-style system...something new going on here...wait and see...

Realpolitique would have been to deal with Saddam.  Anything else - and everything that has been done since the beginning of the invasion - is Idealism, WMS.  And therefore idiotic.

[WMS]

Realpolitique, buccos. The Sunni and Shi'a Arabs agree on this. That's at least 80 percent of the population. If the U.S. tries to stop this things could get very nasty very quickly - one truth of Iraq at the moment is that if the Shi'a rise against the Americans, the U.S. position becomes untenable at best. I like the Kurds quite a lot, but a compromise via federalism is the best that can be achieved.

And it doesn't appear that they're setting up an Iranian-style system...something new going on here...wait and see...

Realpolitique would have been to deal with Saddam.  Anything else - and everything that has been done since the beginning of the invasion - is Idealism, WMS.  And therefore idiotic.

After the 1991 Gulf War dealing with Saddam ceased to be a good option. And the bit on Idealism is in your eyes, cynic. Idealism doesn't have to be dumb, despite Rumsfeld's performance. The world would be a much nastier place if Idealism was never followed - at least there's the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (the one UN agency everybody loves) to take care of distressed peoples around the world, for example.