Congratulations to my Iraqi friends on the occasion of the significant (if not quite total) withdrawal of US military occupation rule from your cities and towns that has been taking place today according to the November 2008 Withdrawal Agreement between our two governments.
I wish you all the very best as you continue working to reconstruct lives, communities, and a nation that have been harmed very severely indeed by the actions and decisions of my government and its military (as well as by others.)
I am so sorry that we in the peace movement were unable to prevent the disastrous (and lie-based) decision our government took to invade your country in 2003. We tried, but we were not strong enough.
I hope that the rest of the US withdrawal, as mandated in the Withdrawal Agreement, goes ahead smoothly.
The PDF of the Agreement’s text can now be found here.) It stipulates, Article 24 (1) that:
- All United States forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.
I hope, additionally, that we in the US peace movement can work effectively with our fellow citizens here to persuade our government to pay due reparations to your country for the harm we have caused you– though of course many of these harms can never be adequately “repaired.” The 600,000-plus Iraqi citizens killed by and as a result of the US invasion and occupation cannot be brought back to life. I mourn the loss of their lives and send compassion and love to the family members and friends they left behind.
But our government is now, even if with painful slowness, doing the right thing in withdrawing the troops and ending their occupation of your country. We shall try to make sure the rest of the withdrawal occurs according to, or in advance of, the agreed timetable.
Foreign military occupation is always, in itself, a major infringement of the rights of the residents of the area occupied. How could it be otherwise when military rule is established over an entire civilian population– and this military is, furthermore, in no way directly accountable to or connected by ties of common nationality to the residents of the occupied area?
As we Americans withdraw our military occupation regime from Iraq, we must equally work to ensure that Israel, a state to which we have given– and continue to give– an extraordinary level of all kinds of support, likewise speedily ends the military occupation regime that it has maintained for 42 years over the residents of the non-Israeli territories of the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan; and that it withdraws its troops from those areas back inside its own borders.
The US has committed many bad–indeed, under international law, illegal– acts during its six years of occupation so far in Iraq. These included the mass detentions and the major abuses in the detention facilities; the complete (and quite illegal) transformation of the political and economic order in the country; use of excessive force in numerous military engagements; and so on.
However, one violation of international law it did not commit was to seek to implant its own citizens as settlers inside Iraq.
During Israel’s 42-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza it has committed all or nearly all of the same abuses the US committed in Iraq. (Including, after the free and fair Palestinian election of January 2006, it decided to work to overthrow the results of that election; and outrageously, it received full backing from Washington in that endeavor.) But in addition to all those violations of international law, successive Israeli governments since 1967 have also worked systematically to implant large numbers of their own citizens into the occupied areas.
This has constituted a major and ongoing infraction of the natural rights of the Palestinians and the Golani Syrians to the free use of their own land’s resources. It has also made the act of withdrawing from the occupied areas, as international law stipulates must happen, that much harder for any Israeli government to contemplate. But that is the fault of all those Israeli citizens who for 42 years now have participated in, profited from, supported, or condoned the settlers’ project. Now, Israelis need to take the settlers back into their own country.
When I was growing up in England in the 1950s and 1960s our country was also facing the demographic consequences of seeing an empire retract. English settlers had gone to many countries under British rule, in good faith and with the full backing of the British government. Many had lived in those other countries for some generations. Now, they had to face the choice of either living under the newly independent national governments of those countries, or of returning “home” to an England that many of them had never even seen before.
For the Israeli settlers, returning “home” to Israel will be, by comparison, an easy matter. They all know Israel well. They will not have to move far. Those who want to stay in their current settlement homes may be offered the chance to do so– but they would have to live peaceably as foreigners under the government of an independent Palestine and would have no special privileges at all over their Palestinian neighbors. It is also possible that the PLO/PA may negotiate a land swap arrangement that would transfer some portion of the settlement areas to Israeli rule; but many of the current settlers would not be covered by it.
Anyway, that is the Palestinian issue– though we Americans can understand what occupation rule means a lot better now that we have had six disturbing years of our own foreign-occupation rule in Iraq to look back on. So let’s wish the Palestinians and Israelis well in their pursuit of a fair and durable agreement that mandates not only peace but also the end of foreign military occupation and the complete withdrawal of the troops that have maintained it.
Today, though, is primarily a day for congratulating Iraqis (and Americans) on their progress towards this goal.
Looking back it looks more and more that in spite of his poor articulation Bush was right with the axis of evil and with Iraq being doable. I always said poor Rumsfeld deserved the Nobel prize.
Let’s see how Saint Obama fares with the other two evils of the axis. So far useless words. I never thought I would miss Bush.
I tip my hat to the young Americans in the service that did all the hard work and got little of the respect and glory they deserve. Awesome.
Iraq being ‘doable’? In what sense? In the sense of a woman being ‘rapeable’ perhaps– That is, it is technically ‘doable’ and never mind the devastation you leave behind…
Titus, you write like the worst kind of imperialist here. Guess what. We’re not in the 19th century any more. Other peoples’ lives matter– just as much as our own.
(They did in the 19th century too, of course. But then, that wasn’t quite as widely recognized among the ‘superior’, ‘white’ races as it is today.)
Helena.
Hear, Hear.
Although not as knowledgable in Constitutional matters as the experts the one issue that I bring up given half a chance is:
“Where in the US Constitution is the commander in chief mandated to undertake, either the spread of democracy (to socalled axis of evil nations) or undertaking socalled “regime change” in other nation in costly billion actions as well as deaths and crippling of thousands of Americans”?
Comments as posted by Titus and others are but continual testimonials to Pogo’s dicta of “we have met the enemy and it is us” (if I am quoting correctly).
The SOFA gained passage in Iraq ONLY because of an Iraqi parliamentary specification that a referendum by held on it in June/July of this year.
Obama/Maliki have canceled that referendum with the present spate of bombings and violence in Iraq the direct result.
However, one violation of international law it [the USA] did not commit was to seek to implant its own citizens as settlers inside Iraq.
Sixty-four years after the end of WWII there are still American troops in Germany. There are still American troops settled in Korea and Japan, periodically raping the young female residents and getting away with it.
There will be American troops, not to mention oil companies and their American managers, in Iraq for similar decades… forever, if Obama and his masters can carry it off.
Please don’t use some left-handed comparison to try to make Israel look worse than its senior partner in crime.
Actually, contra Titus (or should it be contra Titum?), what today has showed is precisely that Iraq was not “doable”.
“Doability” is a wonderfully masculine word, full of testosterone, and action, and success. Well, success is not what the US has got in Iraq.
The US is withdrawing from the cities today (and good chance they will keep to the SOFA as agreed in 2011, but if you want to dispute that, we can do that another time). What US interests have been achieved by the expenditure of nearly a trillion dollars, if that is the correct figure? Nothing. What will have been achieved by withdrawal time in 2011? Nothing. Apart from killing off one president, and a lot of mayhem. Pretty expensive way of getting rid of one president. They could have given a billion dollars to each of ten assassins – you get a lot of assassin for a billion dollars – I’m sure one of them would have got Saddam.
Of course we really understand that this was a pillage operation. The US was supposed to get Iraqi oil and other resources. I particularly remember the pique in the voices of US officials, when the Iraqi parliament wouldn’t vote the oil law. So apart from the 20 billion or so in Iraqi cash that was shipped out on pallets in early 2004, and distributed in such a way that it all disappeared into the pockets of US contractors, apart from that it has ended up being a pillage of the US taxpayer. The first pillage of the US taxpayer, the second being the TARP, of similar proportions.
All in all, pillage is a fine masculine act.
By the way, I’ve just added _no to my moniker, as there were getting to be too many Alex’s. It’s the same person.
What I heard today on the phone:
“We’ve got the locals singing and dancing and waving at our patrols like we’re moving out of our base. … [but] … we’re not.”
He expects it to get really bad really soon there because of this.
My early question was why US troops on the street and around residential area all that. no one come forward to answer this question.
US military its not police forces its compacting troops they did more damage and more killing that the day of bombing in 2003.
If you asked any Iraqi now will tell you tens of stories about US Heroes what they done to their cities and roads and all of basic structures and service of the cities and towns.
Six years of contentious distraction of life.
If Iraqi feel happy because they no longer see the faces of your ” Heroes” on their streets, they are happy they don’t worry of their cars crashed or kicked by US military trucks, they are happy they don’t waiting for hours because there is US troops passing, they are happy because the will no worry be shoot dead because so close “less 100” of US trucks or checkpoints.
Anyway the timing of this “Celebration” used well to pass very important matter it’s a “Televised Auction” of Iraqi oil fields to keep things covered pass in a very smears way.
For Iraqi and Iraq future Oil is vast more important than US pull out of streets, but how much attentions picked by Iraqi media and officials who telling they working for Iraq and Iraqi.
“I am so sorry that we in the peace movement were unable to prevent the disastrous (and lie-based) decision our government took to invade your country in 2003. We tried, but we were not strong enough.”..
…to stop you Shia people having to open those mass graves into which your leader had shovelled your families. We are sorry we were not able to stop you 80% Shia people from being freed of three decades of 20% Sunni-dominated Baath totalitarian rule and brutality. Above all we are sorry, sorry, sorry that you have had to vote four times to replace totalitarianism with a modern democratic system.
But take heart, we are helping ensure your brethryn next door never have to go through the suffering you have endured since the removal of the tyranny. Go in peace.
Biden’s New Brief
bb, I wonder in future how many “mass graves” will be recovered after Iraq got “a modern democratic system”
The light is fading from the dusty Baghdad sky after six years later Americans leaving the streets of Iraqi cities and towns, leaving behind an Iraq’s New Death Squad .. Today, though, is primarily a day for congratulating Iraqis (and Americans) on their progress towards this goal.
“He expects it to get really bad really soon there because of this.”
Because of what? Because they are not moving out of their bases? And bad for whom? Iraqis or Americans?
Well Helena the proof that the Iraq project was doable is in that all military goals and some of the political goals were achieved. They could have been achieved in 2003 by the Iraqis just realizing that a peaceful response would lead to an American withdrawal much earlier. But no, they had to play out their ethnic cleansing phase and see if the faction of the nephew of the prophet could cleanse the sunnis or the other way around…
I never thought of the masculinity of the doable term, I just thought of doing as opposed to talking (which is what abounds on this board).
As for your imperialist accusation Helena, what can I say, guilty as charged, but I am not a white man imperialist, but rather a US centric imperialist. Of all other alternatives I have seen, a US centric world is the least bad, and somehow the fact that you moved to the US has to contain an element of that fact. I would love to see a world of equals, but in the absence of that I prefer the US to win.
God bless the US of A
This morning as part of a news story about the (sort of) withdrawal from the cities I learned that American officials are very concerned that Iraqis might not be ready to manage their own security. The example used to justify that concern? Well, several Iraqis were recently killed and injured in Baghdad in an “insurgent” attack on U.S. troops.
Gen. Odierno Concedes Troops Remain in Iraqi Cities, Won’t Say How Many
On Sunday he declared all troops were out of Iraq’s cities, but today top US commander in Iraq General Raymond Odierno conceded that “a small number” of US troops are still there, and “will remain in cities to train, advise, coordinate with Iraqi security forces, as well as enable them to move forward.”
When pressed to give a number, Gen. Odierno declined, declaring “I just don’t want to do it,” and insisting that the exact number would change from day to day depending on “how much coordination is required.”
The closest estimate Odierno would give was to say that it was “a significantly smaller number than what we had.” The troops didn’t move particularly far, and are presenting ringed around the city limits of Iraq’s major cities poised to re-enter at a moment’s notice.
At present the Pentagon says that roughly 131,000 US troops remain on the ground in Iraq, only 4,000 fewer than were in the nation three and a half months ago. The level of troops is still somewhat above pre-surge levels, and what passes for a pullout plan continues at an almost impossibly slow pace.
What if the Neo-Cons did not invade Iraq ?
Saddam will still be there .
1.5 million Iraqis will have been still alive.
Maimed people will have been spared .
Iraq’s infrastructure will still be intact, if there was no sanctions/invasion/occupation .
thousands of American and international subjects will be still living with their families/friends.
Treasures will have been put to better use .
Environment, not polluted with depleted uranium.
Pain and suffering by those affected will be spared .
Millions of refugees around the world, homelessness, destitute all this were non existant in Iraq before this unhumane invasion .
Occupation is a tool only the greedy and lowest of low encourage, but more importantly defend .
The Zionist occupation is the longest, unless you count Tibet in, were most supporters of the state of israel consider it illegitimate.
Spielberg comes to mind during the Chinese olympics !! and those who claim a natural instinct for justice and peace .
Under international laws the occupier is responsible for any loss of civilian life .
Seems that might is right. Long live Hizbullah !!!
A resistance party who showed one of the most brutal occupier its real traits . They waged a war on Southern Lebanon, entered like Lions with there apache and mirkavas . They withdrew like scums.. pathetic all invaders are, the outcome is always the same . Loss of lives and withdrawal .
However, one violation of international law it did not commit was to seek to implant its own citizens as settlers inside Iraq.
Well, with the huge ambassy campus built in the green zone, I’d say the US is on the track.. wiht an army of “civilian” councelors, the US has been heavily weigthing on the organization of the Iraqi society. So, what is this army of civilians councelors parked in he biggest US ambassy in the world ? To my eyes, this looks like the forts, the US used to build in the American West. This is the premises for more in the future.. always under a pretext or another : counseling for the oil industry, counseling for trade, counseling for banking.. counseling for infrastructures.. and on the way, fill the pockets of big US corporation.
I’ll believe to the end of occupation when all the US troops (the fighting troops and the others) and all the US counselors are out of the country..
The US has ruined a country, just because it wants to control the oil ressources and prevent the French, the Russians and the CHinese & Indians to get at it.
A freind alluded to a Karl Marx comment some time ago and after reading Titus’s comment above:- “As for your imperialist accusation Helena, what can I say, guilty as charged, but I am not a white man imperialist, but rather a US centric imperialist. Of all other alternatives I have seen, a US centric world is the least bad, and somehow the fact that you moved to the US has to contain an element of that fact. I would love to see a world of equals”, I Googled and got the following:-
“Karl Marx’s role as an apologist for the British Empire’s “globalization” is explicit in his defense of the British Empire’s rape of India. Marx advanced a Mandevillian argument, that, because “capitalism” is superior to “oriental despotism”, even though the intent and actions of British colonialism were evil, British colonialism benefitted India!”.
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/opium.htm
From the standpoint of Israel Iraq has been shown to be very much doable and so it is mission accomplished. Next mission: Iran?
Those gloating over a broken Iraq while hypocritically draping themselves in the American flag reveal their true loyalties perhaps a little more transparently than they realize.
jsf,
…after Iran, Turkey..
Iraq and Pakistan “more dangerous than all the Arab world combined” One of the Zionist’s P.M.
Egypt is subdued
Neda Agha Soltani is the name of the young woman assassinated with a bullet in her heart by the Iranian government Basij Militias. No family funeral was allowed for Neda.
Her family and fiancé were interviewed and the video of her ruthless murder has not ceased circulating across the globe…
All conservative, Neocon media outlets have been talking about Neda.
But how come no media outlet has spoken of the hundreds of thousands of Nedas in Iraq that have been brutally murdered Militias trained, armed and funded with death squads and mercenaries?
Hundreds of Iraqi women have suffered a worst fate than that of Neda,
Why?
Here we hear and read few odd voices while setting in their bubble like Titus, bb, defending Neda case seriously , but when its comes to Iraq, which knew nothing about Iraq and what inside Iraq, keep putting their nonsense here without shame. Without any felling carelessly ignoring the fact how Iraq become or what Iraqi live right now due to a criminal and unlawful war that build on lies created by liars and believed by their own stupid minds and heads just because they are criminal of war and war mongers.
JSF says:
Those gloating over a broken Iraq while hypocritically draping themselves in the American flag reveal their true loyalties perhaps a little more transparently than they realize.
Here we go with the true loyalty canard. Let’s be crystal clear, my affinity is with the USA side, on principle and on the pragmatism of where my future is, and the shape of the future I prefer. The FBI has informers in mosques as you know, they never had to put informers in my house, my family, and my circles.
With the moslems we all know about the mabrouks going around in New Jersey in 9/11, we all heard about the moslem US soldier who killed 8 others while stationed in Kuwait, or the Lebanese US soldier that deserted faking his own capture, and the recent shooting by a US moslem at a US recruitment center.
Yes Iraq is done, and it worked. The Iran and North Korea problems are there and the Hussein Obama solution ain’t much to write home about. And even Hussein Obama has not ruled out military force, neither have the cowardly French, so the Iran question mark you pose is not far fetched.
Hi Omop,
You caused me to go back to a collection of Marx and Engels’ writings on colonialism. Among other things (including material on India and China) I found these words from a letter to Marx’s friend Kugelmann, dated 29 November 1869:
“…they will never be able to do anything decisive here in England before they separate their attitude towards Ireland quite definitely from that of the ruling classes, and not only make common cause with the Irish, but even take the initiative…
“And this must be done not out of sympathy for Ireland, but as a demand based on the interests of the English proletariat.”
This makes the point very well, I think, that one must act in his own interest, and combine with others on that basis.
As for Marx “defending the rape of India”, that is absurd.
I often wonder why people like yourself, Omop, run to obviously biased third parties to give you a steer on what Karl Marx wrote. Why on earth don’t you read Marx for yourself? Even five minutes with the Communist Manifesto would clear up so much nonsense. Nearly everything of Marx and Engels can be found on the Internet.
It is certainly not the case that Marx is more difficult or less concise or a worse writer than your chosen commentators.
I think that what prevents you from reading Marx is fear.
The FBI has informers in mosques as you know, they never had to put informers in my house, my family, and my circles.
That’s precisely the point, Titus: they should have done. You have a split loyalty; you may have a preferred loyalty to the US, but you also have a secondary one, to judge from what you say.
Others very, very like you, have gone a lot further and outright betrayed the US to a foreign country, Israel.
I don’t think American Muslims have done that, in spite of the false citations you make of so-called joy among American Muslims after 9/11.
the Hussein Obama solution ain’t much to write home about.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft: How Israel gets away with murder
That’s precisely the point, Titus: they should have done. You have a split loyalty; you may have a preferred loyalty to the US, but you also have a secondary one, to judge from what you say.
I don’t see anything in Titus’ comments that would even suggest a dual loyalty. Why, I don’t even see anything that suggests that Titus is a J-E-W. But maybe we should invite Titus to the next meeting of the cabal?
BTW, I wholly agree with Titus on George W. Bush and Barack Obama. (But then you can’t go completely wrong with people like Helena despise the former and simply adore the latter!)
Domza.
Why not give, http://american_almanac.tripod.com/opium.htm, before getting personal. You might also find an extensive review of Marx’s quotes on India and the Opium War on Google.
Since I do not really know you on a personal basis I am unable to, ” wonder why people like yourself, take personal offense and resent biased third parties opinions”.
Your invective comments are reflective of individuals who seem unable to know how to think.
Omop, of course I did go to that link that you gave, and my remarks were based on my response to that low-grade piece of work, as I judge it to be.
I can’t imagine why you can lead such a drab text as any sort of evidence of what Karl Marx thought, said or wrote. It is no such thing.
I am sorry if I offended you by grouping you with others. I should not have done that.
Nevertheless as a student of Marx it is a constant surprise to me that I meet this phenomenon again and again, and occasionally several times in the same week, namely references to experts on Marx who are no such thing.
It really is much better, and more enjoyable, to read the man himself.
Marxists Internet Archive is at http://www.marxists.org.
I don’t see anything in Titus’ comments that would even suggest a dual loyalty. Why, I don’t even see anything that suggests that Titus is a J-E-W.
Old JES, you’re forgetting the basic rule of blog commenting: you have to assess a commenter’s views based on the entire run of their comments, not just on the last one. With essentially anonymous commenting, it’s the only way. I’ve been reading and commenting on this blog since 2004, if I remember correctly. Titus will, I’m sure answer for himself.
As for the old anti-semitic canard, I’ve never imagined that all the Israeli spies in the US were Jews. Maybe I’m wrong, could be. There’s been so much changing of names. In that case, the situation would be even worse: Jews would have to be considered automatically a danger to the US, and not employed in sensitive positions. That is ridiculous. There is a lot of evidence of Israeli agents who are acting legally and who are not Jews; the spies should come from the same demographic profile.
Anyway, this thread is about Iraq.
jsf’s From the standpoint of Israel Iraq has been shown to be very much doable and so it is mission accomplished.
That is an old idea, and things have moved on.
It is true that Israel may have encouraged the invasion of Iraq, though the evidence has still to come out. It is true also, that the US decided to use Israeli methods in the occupation. Even, there are many reports of Israelis in Kurdistan.
In 2003, the Israelis were ready to run and restore the Jewish shrine of Ezekiel at Dhu’l-Kifl, south of Baghdad.
Where is all that today? Disappeared in the wind.
The fact is that Israeli interests have been intimately tied to those of the US.
The atmosphere in Iraq today is completely different from what it was a year ago. A year ago, on 26th June, I think it was, the Bush conditions for the SOFA were published, under which Iraq would be permanently occupied and an eternal vassal. Today, US troops are leaving the cities, and have promised to leave the country entirely in 2011 (on which you may be sceptical, as per Shirin).
The process of what happened is quite clear. Maliki essentially put an ultimatum to the US: either get out, or maintain a full military occupation of an unwilling people for ever. This point of view was of course rubbished by people like Don Bacon, who said there are other options (I still don’t know what). At first, US officials and military just laughed: how can Iraq dictate to us? But towards November, Ryan Crocker, a rare ambassador experienced in the Middle East, must have succeeded in convincing Bush that it is a serious question. And so they signed essentially the Iraqi conditions. Still all the Americans laughed: no way we’re going to conform to what these numbskulls are demanding. Comes Obama; he wants to fight his war in Afghanistan, finds nothing much to be achieved in Iraq, and has financial problems: so he confirms the agreement. This time it’s a military revolt – Odierno makes remarks about continuing the occupation. Old soldiers support him. Obama slaps him down. So we are where we are now: the US forces are withdrawing from the cities, as according to the agreement. The US military are still sneering. The military are leaving their checkpoints saying ‘we’ll be back in a couple of weeks, you can’t cope’.
I wouldn’t bet on it. The basic spectre of the ultimatum is still there, and it’s credible. Maliki wasn’t playing a game. What he has demanded is almost universally supported in Iraq (except in Kurdistan). The unusual aspect of Maliki’s policy is that he presented the choice in such black and white terms.
Of course, at the end of the year, elections are coming up, and Maliki might lose and be replaced by another possibly more susceptible to US persuasion (though he himself was thought to be a lapdog), or be assassinated in the meantime. Evidently we don’t know now what the consequences of such events might be (nor do I know who might be a replacement). However I do believe Maliki has succeeded in setting the agenda. For a successor to say ‘no, no, no, we want the US to stay’, and to draw back, is unlikely to play well in Iraq. In a couple of months the successor would be turning round and continuing Maliki’s policies. Perhaps the survival of a vestigial US force, I’ve always admitted that possibility.
The fact is, Maliki has played a brilliant hand, from a very weak starting point. Neither he, nor Iraq, is out of the woods yet. I am not even a supporter of Maliki, but I have to recognise his achievement, that he has shifted the agenda.
“Today, US troops are leaving the cities…”
Only sort of. They are not all leaving, and those who are leaving are going to bases only a few miles outside circling the cities, where they will wait, ever ready to charge back inside at a moments’ notice.
But it WAS sweet when that general (or whoever it was) gave Iraqis the gift of the key to their own country (what PR genius dreamed THAT one up?!).
Looking at the future –
Maliki has played a game which is centralist and nationalist. A game which plays well in Iraq. In the West we have not seen this, because of the intense propaganda which suggests that no real Iraqi identity exists. That is far from the truth, as our Iraqi commenters, such as Salah or Shirin, would agree, and have said. Even I have attempted to outline the history of Iraqi identity, in a chapter in Reidar Visser’s work An Iraq of its Regions. Maliki has played that game, with success.
Evidently he could be overturned, but that would be mainly within the Shi’a, an area on which there are experts, but I am not one.
The Sunni Arabs, I regret to say, have been defeated. Falluja and Haditha wiped out Sunni resistance. I don’t like to say it, because I have always been a defender of the Sunnis, having lived among them in ‘Ana and Samarra. But it is true, the Sunnis are not going to resist the US or Maliki any more. Members of the Sahwa or not.
I resent Juan Cole’s constant recall of Sunni extremists as possible sources of suicide bombings. It’s outdated.
The upcoming contest is between Baghdad and the Kurds. Between Maliki’s centralisation, and the expansionism of the Kurds. It’s a traditional conflict; Saddam did it, as his predecessors. The difference is that Kurdish expansionism has been highly approved in the west, so it is good. We’ve heard that there are Kurdish populations everywhere, even that there is a Kurdish population in Kyrgyzstan, which should consequently be included in the new Kurdistan. I’ve since heard from my Kurdish student that the Kurds in Kyrgyzstan are the product of Stalin’s deportations from Armenia, so I was exaggerating, but they are still there on the Kurdish map.
I sense nervousness amongst the Kurds, whether they are going to be able to keep the gains they have made, without US support.
This is the issue we should be looking at, when we hear of destabilisation bombings in Baghdad.
“I resent Juan Cole’s constant recall of Sunni extremists as possible sources of suicide bombings.”
With all due respect to Juan Cole, he is NOT by any stretch an Iraq expert. He has never been to Iraq, and it shows in his analyses. He gets it wrong much more often than he gets it right. You can huge amounts of information about something, but that is no guarantee you will draw the right conclusions from it.
With all due respect to Juan Cole, he is NOT by any stretch an Iraq expert.
Entirely agree, Shirin.
I find the issue significant, of those pundits who have not been to Iraq, and or who have been to Iraq under US politico-military patronage.
Actually I find the latter worse than the former.
Of those who have not been in Iraq, the main ones are Juan Cole, who nevertheless did his doctorate on the Shi’a in Iraq, and Reidar Visser, whose doctorate was on the Shi’a of Basra, and a researcher whose objectivity I much approve of, though his ignorance of Iraq is evident.
At least these people have remained independent of the US political machine.
The others, Marc Lynch, Peter Parker, Abu Muqawama, have indeed visited Iraq, under US sponsorship. They tell us about the numbers of Iraqis they have met, and the visits they made in the provinces. But you have the strong impression, unsaid, that these visits took place in military helicopters. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of conversation took place, when accompanied by a US liaison officer. And one must not forget the briefings in the sumptuous seminar rooms of the US embassy in the Green Zone.
Evidently Cole has not been accepted by the military establishment, although he hopes to speak to those within the Beltway, with some success or not. He has banned me as too radical.
One takes these people as they are.
It’s pretty rare to find Westerners who actually know Iraq. Even me, I only spent a couple of years there in the 80s, however we were integrated into the local community in ‘Ana and Samarra, we didn’t have the money to remain apart. I still have the family photos from ‘Ana.
On rereading my last comment, I think I might have been a little unfair about Reidar Visser. He has to be admired as having remained independent, although, at the last time I saw him, he had not been able to visit Iraq.
That is better than taking the cash, as certain of his colleagues have done, in order to puff the Kurdish Regional Government
Old JES, you’re forgetting the basic rule of blog commenting: you have to assess a commenter’s views based on the entire run of their comments, not just on the last one.
Yes Alex. That’s exactly what I’m doing in relation to your comments in terms of the “anti-Semitic canard”. Or is it the “Islamophobe canard”? Or the “racist canard”?
There is a lot of evidence of Israeli agents who are acting legally and who are not Jews; the spies should come from the same demographic profile.
Oh really, Alex, well here’s a challenge. Why don’t you name just one, apart from Larry Franklin. In fact, you know what, seeing as you are the one making the charge of “dual loyalty” – and not Titus or me – why don’t you name, say, half a dozen Jews, apart from Pollard and Kadish, who have been suspected of spying for Israel.
Alex,
Wasn’t Abu Muqawama in Iraq as part of the occupation force? I was sure I had seen that stated explicitly somewhere on his blog. That pretty much tells us about how his experience was framed, doesn’t it?
Wasn’t Abu Muqawama in Iraq as part of the occupation force?
Yes, he was a soldier, then spent time in Beirut doing research, a doctorate, now at some naval research centre. Personally I find his use of an Arabic name offensive, more correctly ‘Father of crushing resistance’
Today I was thinking of my friend Salah when I read the transcripts the FBI released of Saddam Hussein’s “conversations”. They are at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB279/index.htm
They both coincide with Salah’s mindset and also expose the fallacies and lies behind it. A couple of gems from Saddam’s lips:
The former Iraqi leader, when asked about his accomplishments, listed social progress for the people of Iraq, a temporary truce with the Kurds in the early 1970s, the nationalization of Iraq’s oil in 1972, support for the Arab side during the 1973 Middle East war with Israel, and after that, for the remaining 30 years of his rule, simple survival – through a devastating eight year war with Iran that he had launched, and a 12-year sanctions regime imposed on his people after another war that he began.
There you are Salah, the attacks on Israel did not start because of the Osirak incident in 1980, you and your ilk were on the aggression path way before, actually since 1948.
He takes personal responsibility for ordering the launching of SCUD missiles against Israeli targets during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, because he blamed Israel and its influence in the U.S. for “all the problems of the Arabs”, but denies that his purpose was to draw that country into the conflict and to divide Washington from its Arab allies.
There, the usual stupidity and paranoia making you act in irrational ways and then you are surprised when others gloat upon your demise, and point to the irony of Iraqis being now the largest refugee problem in the area.
The most fateful and stupid angle is that Iraq was pretending it had WMD to scare away the lunatic Iranian Mullahs, talk about unintended consequences when Iraq gets run over by the US for pumping their chest and inflating a lie to posture for the Iranians. You could not have written fiction like that.
Again, all because of the nephew of the prophet and some disagreement over God know what, and this Arab vice of always pursuing the hardest and bloodiest route to every problem, because the easy and peaceful one would not be jihad, would it?
Shirin opines:
With all due respect to Juan Cole, he is NOT by any stretch an Iraq expert. He has never been to Iraq, and it shows in his analyses. He gets it wrong much more often than he gets it right. You can huge amounts of information about something, but that is no guarantee you will draw the right conclusions from it.
Neither has Helena been to Iraq and she has posted huge amounts of opinions, professorial lectures, and sermons. Juan Cole has been well informed at least during the early days of the Iraq war and his perspectives on the main stakeholders have been pretty solid.
Alex-no ponders:
Old JES, you’re forgetting the basic rule of blog commenting: you have to assess a commenter’s views based on the entire run of their comments, not just on the last one. With essentially anonymous commenting, it’s the only way. I’ve been reading and commenting on this blog since 2004, if I remember correctly. Titus will, I’m sure answer for himself.
Answer what Alex? No, I have not been reading your comments since 2004, and have no idea what your loyalties are. Me, I am grateful to the US and think their people are incredible generous and open to outsiders. It pains me when people that wish the US bad abuse that generosity and spit on the US, from an anti-American Briton who cut hr teeth in the rats nest of 1980s Beirut (what good can come of that besides a broken marriage), to an ex-Iraqi soldier, through flaky euro-cowards spewing poison while professing tolerance, an to arabic sounding females that profess their forward looking views but never able to reconcile with the moslem retrograd angles they can’t come to condemn.
Yes, I am grateful for this fair country, and I do all I can to see it prosper. May god confuse our enemies, and from what they write on this site, they sure seem pretty confused.
Alex and Shirin, help me please.
What I know about Juan Cole is that he is a dissident Baha’i who was ostracised by that sect, in the way that they do, which is a great hardship to one such as Juan Cole who has a genuine and all-consuming devotion to Bahaullah. He bore the other Baha’is refusal of community and fellowship with great courage, turned his energy towards his “Informed Comment”, and became a blogging phenomenon of world renown.
Ostracism is just about the worst thing in the world. It is impossible not to feel human solidarity with Juan Cole.
However that may be, his religious convictions are still there, but they are hidden, and that is a problem that interferes with Cole’s scholarship. Cole’s exhaustive reading of Middle Eastern newspapers, many in the original languages, and his relentless output, outstripping all others, produce an impression of earnest scholarly detachment. But for me this gloss disappeared as soon as I tried to interrogate Cole about his understanding of the political economy of the countries he was writing about. He did not want to know.
Cole is at root a partisan for a class-blind religious homogeneity, as much of a theocracy as can be conceived of; a gnostic theocracy in fact. While separated by ostracism from the other Baha’is, Cole still pursues the same goal as they do, but on a lonely parallel track.
My question for you now is: do you want to know about political economy? Do you, and especially Alex, have any concept of the disposal of class forces in Iraq, that could and does in fact generate an Iraqi nationalism that is stronger than religious or ethnic sectarianism?
I ask this question, Alex, because I read that you had a period of living in Iraq, but I get no sense of the class of people you were living among, or that such a matter had occurred to you as being at all significant.
Both the working class and the local bourgeois class conceive of their future in national terms but feudals do not, or not primarily. This is according to me. But if you have no such class-analysed understanding of society, then how do you think that nationalism can arise? On what foundations does nationalism stand, if not on class?
This was the question I asked Juan Cole many years ago and got no answer, just a slightly irritated sort of bafflement, as I recall. Now I ask you the same question: What is this thing called nationalism, and from whence does it spring, if not from a dynamically class-divided political economy?
Alex brought the subject of Reidar Visser, whose doctorate was on the Shi’a of Basra. in fact he also mentions or actually there were considerable Jews in Basra at that time
Today this story caught my attention and Basrawi Jew in Israel and what he doing and fighting for. Interesting reading
In praise of … Ezra Nawi
Alex, your reading of Iraq and Maliki its clear outsider view who don’t know any things on the ground inside Iraq and how things changes in faces due to American’s struggle to overcome and control a nation hating the occupier, had 13 years of sanction and tired of wars…
Titus
A couple of gems from Saddam’s lips:
Titus, how are you so sure these words came OUT from dead tyranny? just because came from FBI source it’s all true and full of truth?
If you still believes in the lairs that faked Iraq war and occupation by WMD were only exist in their heads.
Do you trust lairs again and again?
The real significance of Iraq today is the effect it is having and will have on Iran and vice versa. Iraq has conducted four elections now under the most transparent of all democratic electoral systems – proportional represention. All of these elections have been monitored by credited international observers.
Grand Ayatollah Sistani was born in Iran, but he is an exponent of the Islamic version of separation of church and state – the opposite of the current regime in Iran. The Iraqi constitution calls for Islamic law but qualifies it by saying it must not be inconsistent with democracy. While the interpretation of the law in practise (I think) has not served women so well as the Baath constitution did, Iraq is, as far as I am aware, the only country IN THE WORLD that insists women hold 25% of the seats in the Council of Representatives???? Groundbreaking!
The first election to be held since the insurgency was (largely) defeated saw the Iraqis moving quite decisively away from the jihadi Islamist parties (Accord and Sadrists/Fadhila.) The ABC/BBC polls have always shown that only around 20% support the idea of an Islamic State. 64% now say “democracy” is their favoured system.
The contrast with the recent Iran election could not be greater. Which system would the Iranians prefer? Their present one, or that of Iraq?
That’s what the current regime is fearing.
btw – normally I have always tried to say “government” not “regime” – but there’s not much doubt that Iran has a regime today – in much the same way that Iraq once had a “regime”.
I suspect that the majority of Iranians are not going to like being less “modern” than Iraq – but that’s what they are facing.
And on the subject of westernocentric US bloggers and commenters on Iraq:
The fact that none of you have even mentioned Nibras Kazimi, son of Iraqi communists, just highlights again how sunni arab-centric you all are. A failing you share with Marc Lynch, beholden to the Saudis, but typical of the US commentariat. You all pose as being Left but the Iraq communist party arose from the shia! Today they are part of the democratically-elected government of Iraq. Along with the Kurdish parties, long aligned with the socialist internationale.!
You lot are all truly the children of Kissinger …. and seem so happy about it instead of being ashamed. Or maybe ignorance is really bliss.
“Personally I find his use of an Arabic name offensive, more correctly ‘Father of crushing resistance’”
Indeed! It is beyond offensive on several levels.
Nibras Kazimi
Yub,
Nibras Kazimi a guy from Kurdish and Iranian rooted family ( an Iranian Shia) ,working in Washington and well known for his close work with Ahmad Chalabi as spokesman of Ahmad Chalabi, what a candidate and real Iraqi example with his International thug handler working for US government.
That telling more about this “Iraqi” Nibras Kazimi
BB, you never cease to entertain.
Alex – Shirin …
“Personally I find his use of an Arabic name offensive, more correctly ‘Father of crushing resistance'”
I always thought “Abu” meant “father” and Muqawama meant “armed resistance”. Ergo “father of armed resistance”.
Where does the “crushing” come into it?
Muqawama does not mean armed resistance. It means, simply, resistance.
If you know anything about this fellow who calls himself Abu Muqawama you will understand why Alex said it should be father of crushing resistance.
Firs, Helena, our friends apologies for lengthy comment here.
Looks the two talent here are holding their strings talking about Iraq and how the “War of Necessity, War of Choice” “Occupations” turned to Transparent Democracy with transparent election, but the reality were its worse than ”Zimbabwe election” under Mogabi.
If you thinks your views are factual and correct, what we call these people like Lieven De CauterA philosopher, initiator of the BRussells Tribunal when talking March 20, 2009 about Iraqi A Forgotten Humanitarian Disaster?
Or reading for By Sara FloundersSep 3, 2007 about U.S. occupation creates humanitarian disaster in Iraq
Or redaing report by BBC 4 November 2008 Viewpoint: Bad case of Baghdadophobia
Finally let read from Dr Omar Al-Kubaisi , he is highly regarded Iraqi surgeon and he worked with the occupiers, in his own word he telling the reality, his speech to the European Parliament and Members of the European Parliament last March 18th, 2009:
So all these people are untrustworthy when they talking about Iraq?
Are you both most truthful when writing about Iraq? we should listen and believes what you write?
tell us we confused here by your parsing the ugly face of occupiers in Iraq.
Bb,
Grand Ayatollah Sistani was born in Iran, but he is an exponent of the Islamic version of separation of church and state –.
What a hoax statement.
Go watch their TV’s and radios how they used the their “religion version” in politic in Iraq, or you know what just give visit to Najaf on Ashora’a and see what this lunatic Sisitani doing live on the streets.
Bb, you should tell your government to let Sheikh Al Hilaly, Australian Islamic cleric and former mufti of Australia dictating your polices and your life just as the overstayed Sistani?
Biden’s visit to Iraq raises questions about Iraq’s future
Joost Hiltermann… applauded Obama’s choice of Biden for this visit because of his importance in the administration: “Biden has clearly indicated that he never supported the breakup of Iraq via partition… “
Biden proposes partitioning Iraq into 3 regions
WASHINGTON – The senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee proposed Monday that Iraq be divided into three separate regions — Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni — with a central government in Baghdad.
Joost lying, like his boss and his boss’ boss, whenever he opens his mouth.
Just for the record, I don’t know how Titus got the impression I’ve never been to Iraq because indeed I have. But reference to mere facts seems not to stop some people, including on occasion our colleague “Titus”, from expressing firm judgments about things they know little about…
By the way, I quite agree with those who find young Andrew Exum’s use of the nom-de-plume “Abu Muqawama” offensive. What it reminds me of most is the long-time habit of Israeli interrogators to give themselves “Arabic” names as a way of hiding their true identities.
Abu Muqawama
Let not undermine these “spys” guys who worked under cover. or within US forces. may be can add Ner Rosen to the list and other hidden
Gen. David Petraeus when he cam to Iraq he surrounded by a grope of highly educated guys and academic from around the world, he used their advices with his feast of die hard forces which turned the face of the war.
Donald Rumsfeld has finally said he’s sorry. Sort of.
Salah, at July 3, 2009 04:19 AM:
Alex, your reading of Iraq and Maliki its clear outsider view who don’t know any things on the ground inside Iraq and how things changes in faces due to American’s struggle to overcome and control a nation hating the occupier
Salah, I have never claimed to know as much about Iraq as Iraqis. I know from your previous comments that you are a Sunni.
Your real complaint is that Maliki, a Shi’i, is leading Iraq, and may betray Iraq to Iran. It is true that Maliki has been quite partisan, and has not favoured the Sunnis.
On the other hand, he has done what is necessary, and has worked to get rid of the US, as his primary objective. He has been very nationalist. Absolutely right. Restoring Iraq as a country is the first priority.
(For the non-Iraqis, all this crap about Iraq not being a real country is just propaganda, intended to divide and rule.)
The Iraqi Sunnis right now would be well advised right now to work within the system. Let Maliki pursue his aims, and work to put the Sunnis in the best position, but not aim to break Maliki.
Salah, I have never claimed to know as much about Iraq as Iraqis. I know from your previous comments that you are a Sunni.
I am Iraqi fist and last, so your guess wrong.
Well prove my past guess that western still thinks that Iraq have strong barriers between them ethnically/ religiously. This is not the case if its excuses it by some for self-necessities as we seen by these Da’awa Party and Al-Hakeem part and other who are miserably failed to give what the promised Iraqi when they were in opposition stand..
Anyway, US needs that image for Maliki using Malik as an “Iraqi” PM, he is working for Iraq and Iraqis who do not like / stopping US of interfering in any Iraqi internal plastics.
As we see today what telling that Iraqi government upsets and rejected Biden speech about Iraq.
The reality US being working for awhile to be in back set as a driving power, ignoring all that, is misleading reading and inaccurate.
,b>The Iraqi Sunnis right now would be well advised right now to work within the system.
By whom?
Maliki?
US?
Domza, at July 3, 2009 02:47 AM:
I didn’t reply to your question, because I had to go to Germany for a conference. So here is the response.
Do you, and especially Alex, have any concept of the disposal of class forces in Iraq, that could and does in fact generate an Iraqi nationalism that is stronger than religious or ethnic sectarianism?
Firstly, I am not a believer in theory, though I am a socialist; therefore I wouldn’t necessarily believe that nationalism is generated on a class basis.
On the question of fact, I lived with ordinary people in Iraq, and I heard what they had to say. I also attended receptions with members of Saddam’s regime, and was horrified by their gangster attitudes.
However, national identity in Iraq has a very strong basis. It is historical and goes back to Assyrian and Babylonian times. For the details, you will have to read my chapter in Reidar Visser’s An Iraq of its Regions. I could copy it all here, but it would be inappropriate.
With regard to religious or ethnic sectarianism?, you have to understand that this was a game played by the US in order to divide and rule. Any Middle Eastern country is multi-ethnic. Iraq had been cut off from the outside world for a long time, because of Saddam and his predecessors. There was no ethnic conflict, as Shirin has witnessed. But they were naive, and, in the confusion of the US invasion, ethnic conflict could be lit by such events as the Samarra bombing. The Samarra bombing, and its successor a year later, was almost certainly an American event, deniable no doubt.
The idea of sectarianism comes from the US. One can be more precise: it comes from the KRG in origin (Kurdish Regional Government). I am not saying all Kurds, just the KRG; they want their independence, and have had their propagandists. Peter Galbraith had a big influence in the US in persuading the idea that Iraq was just a jumble of ethnic identities, combled together by the British Mandate. Since then there’s been a continuing pressure from Erbil, on all fronts, to weaken the power in Baghdad.
In effect, Maliki has taken a nationalist, centralist, position, and is “pushing back” on the Kurds, with a fair degree of success.
Does his identity push have a class basis. I woul.d say no it is more an historical identity
I am Iraqi fist and last, so your guess wrong.
Salah
I am sad you object to my remarks. I agree with what you say, your statement is proof of what I said.
I did not say ‘Iraqi’, because I did not remember a comment from you which said you are Iraqi, and not Syrian, for example.
Nevertheless, you have made many remarks against the Shi’a. This is a mistake.
Maliki is best situated to reconstruct Iraq. Let him do it. You say “I am Iraqi first and last”. This is right.
Actually everything I saw about Maliki, he is a very typical Iraqi. If he plays a nationalist game with regard to the US, he is Iraqi, and he will not betray Iraq to Iran.
I see, Alex, that the Iraqi nationalism of which you speak is one that has its empirical basis in the common inheritance of the Assyrian and Babylonian experience.
I find it very hard to believe that such a basis would be sufficient to bind Iraqis with a force stronger than their material interests of today, or stronger than their religion, insofar as their present-day religion is distinguishable from their present-day material interests.
The political economy of which I wrote earlier in this thread would be in the first place empirical, and only afterwards theorised, which is why I posed my question in the way that I did. If in the first place you are blind to class altogether, then of course it does become difficult or even impossible to theorise around class.
In that case I would put it to you: Is not your mystical Mesopotamianism even more of a theory in search of a factual reality, than my class-struggle-as-motor-of-history is?
I follow Mahmood Mamdani on this matter. Mamdani is not a communist like me but we do share the common experience of having grown up in the same grand theatre of Imperialism, nationalism and class struggle in British-colonial East Africa.
Mamdani locates the driving force of the national struggle as the combination of the local bourgeoisie and the local working class. The Imperialist predator is allied to older, anachronistic class forces such as chiefs or traditional leaders, plus a small, treacherous gangster element sometimes known as compradors, or otherwise sellouts or Quislings, who are a direct projection of the predatory Imperialist interest into the victim polity.
In this schema, there are two opposing alliances, each consisting of two forces. The modernising, bourgeois/proletarian national anti-Imperialist bloc is the stronger force, until the bloody intervention of the Imperialists, who must then find their Quisling(s), or be obliged to withdraw.
This Mamdani-described set of phenomena is a historical process, if ever there was such a thing. It does and must continue to develop. It is not a history that stands still or ever could stand still.
Whereas your Mesopotamian mumbo-jumbo would have to yearn and pine for stasis, nostalgia, and isolation, if it existed at all, which I doubt.
Alex,
Salah here is irrelevant what the topic here, claiming that I made mistake due to remarks against the Shi’a this ridiculously funny.
A typical western mantra that people like Alex come here with this funny statements.
Those they have no idea what Iraqi is and what going there, they survey the internet and come with statement about it like this: Maliki, he is a very typical Iraqi. If he plays a nationalist game
What national game he palyied?
He is most loyal to his party Da’awa midwife by Iran than Iraq and Iraqi.
He is more loyal to Iran than Iraq; remember his visit to Iran meeting Ali Khaminie striping his tie.
And more and more.
Someone visited Iraq during Saddam time spoke to normal Iraqi coming here judging real Iraq trying to discredits him by his self-served statement. (Tell us about you visit and been close to Saddam officials? How much Saddam regime paid you.)
You should Remer this:
Iraqi government is not more than US Poppet government in all accounts the denial of this very basic facts not can change their case by statements like yours.
Democracy id fake and self designed and manipulated why?
Go to Iraqi constitution and see the evil of ethnic divisions, President Kurds, PM Shiite, Vies president Sunni.
Is this democracy? Where people are all equal despite their colour, ethnics, or religious… from the people to the people?
The according to US built democracy we should see US VP black, this % of senators should be Catholics, this % should be Jews and so one and so forth.
You know what people like you far from real world. Soon we will have new expert in ME/Iraq his name Alex…
would be sufficient to bind Iraqis with a force stronger than their material interests of today, or stronger than their religion,
It take years for US/UK to get in Iraq again after Iraq nationalise his OIL.
There were story during the negotiations about oil in early 70’s, that the head of British team of negotiations left departure from Iraq he telling that You “Iraqi” took the oil we know how we take it back??
You should taking in account that Iraq as a nation have suffered from its own tyrant for so long who bring them down by wars, followed by 13 years sanction was designed to bring Iraqi as a nation to its knees then followed by invasion and occupation.
When US on the ground they start social engineering on a nation have much changed and shattered under sever deprecation adding Shock &Awe which well chosen to humiliate and made the human been broke down..
Remember Jack stew words early days of invasion he siad:
US have short honeymoon in Iraq SIX month?
That the time people weakup from Shok & AWE war.
Salah,
Firstly,
Tell us about you visit and been close to Saddam officials? How much Saddam regime paid you.
OK, I can tell you the details. I was never paid by Saddam. I am an archaeologist, I was paid by the British, and nearly nothing by them, so we had to live with the people in ‘Ana, not in five-star hotels. Later on I worked in Samarra, I found the money myself from foundations in Europe. While we were there, the Director-General of Antiquities who was Saddamist, liked to invite Saddam’s ministers to visit, in order to prove what good work they were doing, and they used to invite us to the lunches. We British were very quiet, and we listened to what they said.
I published a book about the history of ‘Ana, the only one ever published, and another about the history of Samarra. There are more to come. I am lucky to be a professor in Paris, so I can continue to work on Iraqi history and archaeology.
Your main point is about Maliki and the Da’wa. I am not a political specialist, nor a journalist. In the last years, even the future existence of Iraq has been in danger. Maliki is, it is true, a partisan of the Da’wa, but he has also understood that the future of Iraq is in danger. In the beginning he was a puppet of the Americans, as you say, but since then, he has taken a more nationalist line, because that is what the people of Iraq want. The Americans made a big mistake, in not recognising the feelings of Iraqis, and so Maliki won on the SOFA agreement. Let us hope the agreement is maintained to the end.
Iraq has no future until the Americans leave, no compromise is possible. So, although I basically support the people I have known, in ‘Ana and Samarra, Maliki has to be supported, until the last American leaves. Then Iraq can work out its future.
Alex,
could you point us to your book please.
I believe this is the book, Salah.
Oh – sorry. That was Reidar’s book. Is this the book, Alex?
This one
And this one
Alex_no thank you.
Just one more question was it your idea of chopping the historical Ann’a Massjid Manarat in sections so that could be moved and reassembled again later on a new place?
No, I am not that sort of expert. It was the DG of Antiquities. There was a small book about that job, published by Abd al-Sittar al-Azzawi in Sharja in 1994.
Hello everyone. Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
I am from Equatorial and learning to speak English, give true I wrote the following sentence: “There are no blanket statements available to those who are searching for a means how to stop excessive sweating.”
With love ;-), Ohio.