Post by bot on Apr 10, 2004 22:18:49 GMT -5
From: black_ice (black-ice@bellsouth.net)
Subject: Iraqi Governing Council Comes out Against Bush
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.politics.gw-bush, alt.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.democrats
Date: 2004-04-10 14:46:27 PST
Say, where is GW and how is his "crusade" going in Iraq?
see
www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html#108149971423625
340
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Fallujah Bloodbath threatens US-Appointed Iraqi Government with Collapse
AP reported that the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) issued
a demand early on Saturday that the US cease its military action
against Fallujah and stop employing "collective punishment."
Not only has what many Iraqis call "the puppet council" taken a stand
against Bush administration tactics in Iraq, but individual members are
peeling off. Shiite Marsh Arab leader Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi
suspended his membership in the council on Friday. A Sunni member,
Ghazi al-Yawir, has threatened to resign if a negotiated settlement of
the Fallujah conflict cannot be found. Old-time Sunni nationalist
leader Adnan Pachachi thundered on al-Arabiya televsion, "It was not
right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these
operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal." For him to go on
an Arab satellite station much hated by Donald Rumsfeld and denounce
the very people who appointed him to the IGC is a clear act of
defiance. There are rumors that many of the 25 Governing Council
members have fled abroad, fearful of assassination because of their
association with the Americans. The ones who are left appear on the
verge of resigning.
This looks to me like an incipient collapse of the US government of
Iraq. Beyond the IGC, the bureaucracy is protesting. Many government
workers in the ministries are on strike and refusing to show up for
work, according to ash-Sharq al-Awsat. Without Iraqis willing to serve
in the Iraqi government, the US would be forced to rule the country
militarily and by main force. Its legitimacy appears to be dwindling
fast. The "handover of sovereignty" scheduled for June 30 was always
nothing more than a publicity stunt for the benefit of Bush's election
campaign, but it now seems likely to be even more empty. Since its main
rationale was to provide more legitimacy to the US enterprise in Iraq,
and since any legitimacy the US had is fading fast, and since a
government appointed by Bremer will be hated by virtue of that very
appointment, the Bush administration may as well just not bother.
The Interior Minister, Nuri Badran, who was dismissed by Paul Bremer on
Thursday, appears to have gone into exile in Jordan. He was probably
let go because he objected to the twin US assaults, on Fallujah and on
the Sadrist Shiites, or at least to the way it was being done.
The degree of hatred for the United States in the Muslim world is
growing by the minute, as the events in Fallujah are broadcast
throughout the region. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's warning to
Bush that by invading Iraq he would be creating 100 Bin Ladens may well
come to pass. For more on this see the Washington Post.
Part of what caused this incipient collapse of the US-appointed Iraqi
government is that the US military decided to besiege the entire city
of Fallujah to get at insurgents who killed 4 US Blackwater mercenaries
last week, even though reports indicated that the guerrillas left the
city after the killings. Those guerrillas, supported by civilian
demonstrations and desecration of the mercenaries' bodies, announced
that they were taking revenge for the Israeli murder of Hamas clerical
leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Just as the Israelis and their American
amen corner helped drag the US into the Iraq war, so they also have
inflamed Iraqi sentiment against the US by spectacular uses of state
terror against Palestinians. Both the Sunni and the Shiite uprisings in
Iraq in the past week in a very real sense were set off by Sharon's
whacking of Yassin, a paraplegic who could easily have been arrested.
(Only once Muqtada al-Sadr announced his support for Hamas was he
targeted by the Neocon-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority for
arrest, convincing him that he had nothing to lose and had better
launch an insurgency).
The siege and assault on Fallujah during the past 5 days have killed
some 400 Iraqis and wounded 1000, according to eyewitnesses. The
civilians in the city had begun wanting for food and water. On Friday,
the US appears to have spread panic by broadcasting warnings of an
imminent attack and encouraging women and children to leave. Large
numbers have streamed out. Some attempted to take their men with them,
but Marines refused to allow male civilians out. Some families chose to
remain together and face further bombardments rather than split up.
Subject: Iraqi Governing Council Comes out Against Bush
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.politics.gw-bush, alt.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.democrats
Date: 2004-04-10 14:46:27 PST
Say, where is GW and how is his "crusade" going in Iraq?
see
www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html#108149971423625
340
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Fallujah Bloodbath threatens US-Appointed Iraqi Government with Collapse
AP reported that the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) issued
a demand early on Saturday that the US cease its military action
against Fallujah and stop employing "collective punishment."
Not only has what many Iraqis call "the puppet council" taken a stand
against Bush administration tactics in Iraq, but individual members are
peeling off. Shiite Marsh Arab leader Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi
suspended his membership in the council on Friday. A Sunni member,
Ghazi al-Yawir, has threatened to resign if a negotiated settlement of
the Fallujah conflict cannot be found. Old-time Sunni nationalist
leader Adnan Pachachi thundered on al-Arabiya televsion, "It was not
right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these
operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal." For him to go on
an Arab satellite station much hated by Donald Rumsfeld and denounce
the very people who appointed him to the IGC is a clear act of
defiance. There are rumors that many of the 25 Governing Council
members have fled abroad, fearful of assassination because of their
association with the Americans. The ones who are left appear on the
verge of resigning.
This looks to me like an incipient collapse of the US government of
Iraq. Beyond the IGC, the bureaucracy is protesting. Many government
workers in the ministries are on strike and refusing to show up for
work, according to ash-Sharq al-Awsat. Without Iraqis willing to serve
in the Iraqi government, the US would be forced to rule the country
militarily and by main force. Its legitimacy appears to be dwindling
fast. The "handover of sovereignty" scheduled for June 30 was always
nothing more than a publicity stunt for the benefit of Bush's election
campaign, but it now seems likely to be even more empty. Since its main
rationale was to provide more legitimacy to the US enterprise in Iraq,
and since any legitimacy the US had is fading fast, and since a
government appointed by Bremer will be hated by virtue of that very
appointment, the Bush administration may as well just not bother.
The Interior Minister, Nuri Badran, who was dismissed by Paul Bremer on
Thursday, appears to have gone into exile in Jordan. He was probably
let go because he objected to the twin US assaults, on Fallujah and on
the Sadrist Shiites, or at least to the way it was being done.
The degree of hatred for the United States in the Muslim world is
growing by the minute, as the events in Fallujah are broadcast
throughout the region. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's warning to
Bush that by invading Iraq he would be creating 100 Bin Ladens may well
come to pass. For more on this see the Washington Post.
Part of what caused this incipient collapse of the US-appointed Iraqi
government is that the US military decided to besiege the entire city
of Fallujah to get at insurgents who killed 4 US Blackwater mercenaries
last week, even though reports indicated that the guerrillas left the
city after the killings. Those guerrillas, supported by civilian
demonstrations and desecration of the mercenaries' bodies, announced
that they were taking revenge for the Israeli murder of Hamas clerical
leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Just as the Israelis and their American
amen corner helped drag the US into the Iraq war, so they also have
inflamed Iraqi sentiment against the US by spectacular uses of state
terror against Palestinians. Both the Sunni and the Shiite uprisings in
Iraq in the past week in a very real sense were set off by Sharon's
whacking of Yassin, a paraplegic who could easily have been arrested.
(Only once Muqtada al-Sadr announced his support for Hamas was he
targeted by the Neocon-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority for
arrest, convincing him that he had nothing to lose and had better
launch an insurgency).
The siege and assault on Fallujah during the past 5 days have killed
some 400 Iraqis and wounded 1000, according to eyewitnesses. The
civilians in the city had begun wanting for food and water. On Friday,
the US appears to have spread panic by broadcasting warnings of an
imminent attack and encouraging women and children to leave. Large
numbers have streamed out. Some attempted to take their men with them,
but Marines refused to allow male civilians out. Some families chose to
remain together and face further bombardments rather than split up.