What? Me worry?
The Islamists who police Basra’s streets – Editorials & Commentary – International Herald Tribune — How many billions have we spent so far?
The results are apparent. At the city’s university, for example, self-appointed monitors patrol the campuses, ensuring that women’s attire and makeup are properly Islamic. “I’d like to throw them off the grounds, but who will do it?” a university administrator asked me. “Most of our police belong to the same religious parties as the monitors.”
Similarly, the director of Basra’s maternity hospital, Mohammad Nasir, told me that he frequently catches staff members pilfering equipment to sell to private hospitals, but hesitates to call the police: “How do I know what religious party they are affiliated with, and what their political connection is to the thieves?”
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The other side of the coin
This just proves what should be obvious to everyone: you cannot impose democracy on a people. They have to want it for it to work. Maybe in a few generations the middle east will be ready for it, but not in my lifetime.
Well done guys – you’ve managed to take the only secular state middle east state and put it on the road to taliban style afghanistan.
That’s not really the “other side of the coin”. It’s just a bunch of sorority girls, saying how much they love their husbands/ bfs/ brothers who have gone to fight in Iraq.
We all love the SOLDIERS. It’s the nitwits like Dumbya who sent them over there to die so that the new gummint can spit on America that we’re not too keen on.
I’m still waiting to see if there’s another side to this coin. So far there seems to be only one side….Dumbya lied and twisted facts to get us into a war he was committed to waging long before 9/11, and which had nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. Now, the war is going like crap, and Iraq, formerly a tinhorn dictatorship, has turned into the world’s most prolific breeder colony for suicide terrorists and other lethal fruitcakes. And all the while, it’s draining our treasury further and further into the red, while the “commander” in “chief” hands out tax breaks to billionaires and oil companies like party favors.
Boola boola.
John, the caption should be:
“I don’t think there is any question but that I don’t need to worry.”
Keep in mind, folks, that all the naysaying and cheerleading will still be on this blog in 5 or 10 years (right, John?), so don’t go pretending like you predicted what outcome we would get, if it goes the other way.
I’m not too happy about the current Iraq situation either. But it occured to me recently that the Bush administration has no choice but to continue with the same overall strategy. All the strategic alternatives are blocked by practical or political considerations. For example, raising troop levels isn’t an option either politically or practically.
Training more Iraqi troops and waiting until the people become fed up with the insurgency has become the de facto course. And the people are becoming fed up, talking about negociating with domestic insurgents, and kicking out the foreign jihadis.
The Shias and Kurds want democracy. Only the Sunnis don’t, and that is due to fear of the unknown, and anger over the power they lost.
When the national and local governements regain their strength, this ad hoc religious policing will be brought under control.
The author of the piece you linked to, By Steven Vincent The New York Times, was murdered in Basra this past week. FYI…..
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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Free-lance journalist Steven Vincent, who was killed in Iraq this week, was an art critic inspired to write about war after watching from the roof of his New York apartment as the World Trade Center towers fell.
Author of a well-reviewed book on Iraq called “In the Red Zone,” Vincent documented his regular trips to Iraq on an Internet blog that touched on everything from Islamic feminism to arts and shopping in supermarkets in Basra.
Vincent was found shot dead in Basra on Tuesday. His Iraqi translator was also shot and injured.
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