Re: A Hero for Our Times

"Crowfoot" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 16:48:08 -0500, "Robert McClelland"
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > >I love how they slipped that "pro-coalition" tag in there. It's as
> > >though
> > >any Iraqis who want a stable, democratic Iraq must obviously be in
> > >favour of
> > >the US occupying it.
> >
> > Actually, the coalition is not "occupying" Iraq in the same sense as the
> > occupation of Japan after World War II. In Japan, there was an
> > established
> > government that was forced by surrender to disarm under formal
> > occupation.
> >
> > In Iraq, there is no current centralized government. The coalition
forces
> > are
> > affecting stability to the region and taking the brunt of terrorist
> > threats head
> > on and from the side. They liberated Iraq and are now there at the
> > request of the Iraqi governing council. Really. No kidding.
> >
> > Ray
>
> Er -- That's Chalabi's "Governing Council", is it?  The one the US
> cooked up out of the pool of Iraqi exiles for its own purposes,
> including generous portions of business stooges and financial finaglers?
> Do you know the meaning of the old word "Quisling"? Damn straight they
> continue to "request" the presence of American troops -- to protect
> themselves and their sudden accession to power in a country some of them
> haven't seen in decades.
>
> No, wait, let me backpedal to a place of less outrage.  I'm sure there
> are some true Iraqi patriots on the governing council, and that they
> will really try to fix things without necessarily becoming totally
> corrupted by the fact that they have a US-guaranteed free hand and no
> elections (real elections, with actual choices by the voting
> populations) in sight.  They are the sacrificial lambs who will be left
> out in the cold when the whole thing implodes.
>
> Invading people's country and telling them that you have made them free
> -- so long as they only vote for politicians you approve of, that is -- 
> is a recipe for disaster, and the fact that some things *are* working
> again only raises expectations that the promise of real freedom will
> *also* start working soon.  Unfortunately, the US administration simply
> cannot allow real political freedom there, since that would very likely
> result in the triumph of the very people Saddam Hussein was oppressing
> -- the conservative Muslim majority, who are in fact a lot closer in
> attitude to Al Quaida than rotten old Saddam ever was.  The Bush gang
> has gotten itself into a classic double bind, and all the rest of us,
> unfortunately, with them.  I do not forsee a happy course for the future
> out of all this.  If I, and the many others who share this gloomy view,
> are proven wrong, the world will be a much happier place; but I will
> only believe it when I see it.


Apparently there is at least one Iraqi on the council who isn't following
Bush's script.

The current President of Iraq's ruling council, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, says he
would be happy for the coalition forces to leave Iraq immediately.

The leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution has been at the
forefront of moves by Iraq's Islamic clerics to overturn US plans to phase
in democracy over two years, and has demanded that Islamic laws be written
into any proposed constitution.

"We are not asking, we are not demanding for forces to stay," he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1002317.htm

I think this will be the last we see of him though.

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