DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ الديموقراطيه في العراق

[Guest Guest_tajer]

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/default.asp?p...3335&issue=9470

 

In Arabic.. Intersting article from inside Iraq by Iraqi scholar Dr. Habib.. Talking about the new life of Iraqis discussing the ellection.. Rather than hearing the call for ramadan practices only, mosques are preaching for ellection and the necessity of women participation..

[Guest Mustefser]

I was watching a Charle rose program on TV meeting with three academic scholar that were not with the ellection.. Here is my take about some of their points

1-Sunni Arabs are not with ellection because they know that elelction makes Shia majority rullling the country : My take is why aren't Sunni Kurds who are smaller minority than Arab sunni, believing this way.. Having in mind that for kurds this issue might be bigger, as 80% are Arabs.

 

2-By ellections, we really make Shia Iraq stronger, some thing that would work for benefits of the Iranians..

My take: Which Iranians? those in power or the majority of Irain Shia that are against the regim? Those in power are looking for growing Najaf rule in Shia faith as a very dengrouse development. That is why they are trying their best to encourage instability in Iraq.. Those who oppose the regime find the democratic progress in Iraq as their opportuinity for better future..

 

3- Iraqis don't have faith in the current ellection legimacy, so why we are going this way? the main reason is to bring a legitemate government. something that would not happen under such feeling.

My take: which Iraqis , the 10% Sadamees and Salafees or the 90% other Iraqis.. Those who have no faith in elelction as a milestone for getting into a legitamate government are same who commit all the terror acts.. Are you saying that for the sake of this 10% we should block the 90% from their rights?

 

4- Iraqi society is so fragmented and the ellection will for faith not for nation..So democracy in Iraq will never fly.. A theocratic or monarachy is the solution for Iraq..

My take: we tried both Monrachy and theocratic sytems, what was the result? History of Iraq never never tell on any one accident of clash between factions .. Same tribs have part of them as Shia and part of them Sunni.. Sunnis are both Kurds and Shia....

[Guest Mustefser]

http://www.nahrain.com/d/news/04/11/10/srq1110h.html

 

In Arabic..

Alsystani office in London officially denied the news that he is working on managing some Shia list for Shia parties and figures. Mr. Khafaf, talking on belf of the office "one of only three offices that are allowed to talk on behalf of Slsystani" confirmed that all these news are just speculations by media..

Alsystani insisted that he will not support any list and leave to the Iraqi people to decide their representatives.

[Guest mustefser]

http://www.nahrain.com/d/news/04/11/15/nhr1115e.html

 

In Arabic.. About the voting of Iraqis out side Iraq..

[Guest Mustefser]

http://www.nahrain.com/d/el/mniei.html

 

In Arabic .. More about it..

[Guest Mustefser]

http://www.elaph.com/AsdaElaph/2004/11/22153.htm

In Arabic.. By Iraqi Nazar Haider about the drawbacks of postponing the ellections.

[Guest Mustefser]

http://www.radiosawa.com/article_view.aspx?id=408203In Arabic.. Interview with the scientist Dr. Husain Alshahristani.. Talking about Ellections and replying on the newYork times article about what the newspaper called "the domination of Shia" if the expatriot are allowed to participate.

 

I would like to add the followings to whay Dr. Alshahristani mentioned

1- The most ethnic group who might benefit of such participation is not Shia, they are Christians, kurds and other ethnic minoroties. At least 50% of Christains had left Iraq, not mentioning the huge Kurds community in Europ.

 

2- What ever the case, these are Iraqis who still wanted to participate in deciding the future of their country. No matter which group they might belog to.

 

3- Durring Saddam sanctions on Iraqi people, hunderds of thousands of Iraqi scholars "from all ethnic groups" had chose to migrate abroad.. Blocking such important voters would be harmfull for Iraq ..

[Texas Gentleman]

Iraq at the Tipping Point

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN (NY Times)

 

CAMP FALLUJA, Iraq

 

Every time I visit Iraq, I leave asking myself the same question: If you total up all the positives and negatives, where does the balance come out? I'd say the score is still 4 to 4. We can still emerge with a decent outcome. And the whole thing could still end very badly. There's only one thing one can say for sure today: you won't need to wait much longer for the tipping point. Either the elections for a new governing body happen by the end of January, as scheduled, and the rout of Saddam loyalists in Falluja is consolidated and extended throughout the Sunni triangle, or not. If it's the former, there are still myriad challenges ahead, but you can be somewhat hopeful. If it's the latter, we've got a total fiasco on our hands.

 

I came out to the Falluja front in a small press pool accompanying the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, who flew in to inspect the toughest problems in Iraq firsthand. Most of the fighting in Falluja was over by the time we arrived at this headquarters compound, although the tom-tom beat of 155-millimeter howitzers, still pumping rounds into the city, was constant. Here are the questions I came with and the answers I took away:

 

How important is taking Falluja? Huge. Falluja was to the Iraqi insurgency what Afghanistan was to Osama bin Laden. It was the safe haven where militants could, with total impunity, plan operations, stockpile weapons and connect the suicide bombers from abroad with their Iraqi handlers. That's gone. One arms cache alone found here had 49,000 pieces of ordnance, ranging from mortars to ammo rounds. Another arms cache blown up last week kept exploding for 45 minutes after it was hit, a senior U.S. officer said.

 

What happens next in Falluja? The plan is for Iraqi Army, police and National Guard units to move in, restore order and hold the place so the insurgents can't retake it and voting can be conducted in January. Whether the Iraqi Army can do that is unclear. Don't believe any of the big numbers that people in Washington throw around about how many Iraqi security people we have trained. Those numbers are meaningless.

 

The reality is this: Where you have individual Iraqi police, National Guard and Army commanders who have bravely stepped forward to serve the new Iraq and are willing to lead - despite intimidation efforts by insurgents - you have effective units. Where you don't have committed Iraqi leaders, all you have are Iraqi men collecting paychecks who will flee at the first sign of danger. The good news: there are pockets of Iraqi leaders emerging throughout the Army and police. The bad news: there are still way too few of them.

 

Then do we have enough U.S. troops? No way. U.S. commanders are constantly having to make hard choices between deploying troops to quell a firefight in one place or using them to prevent one from breaking out in another. With two months before elections and the campaign about to start, Iraq remains highly insecure. And with most aid workers having pulled out, U.S. forces have to do everything. Units of the First Cavalry in Baghdad might be fighting militants in Sadr City in the morning, dealing with sewage problems in the afternoon and teaching democracy in the evening. Some of these young soldiers already have three Purple Hearts from having survived that many grenade attacks in Baghdad.

 

What have we learned from the many insurgents captured in Falluja? A vast majority are Iraqi Sunnis, with only a few foreign fighters. This is an Iraqi Sunni rebellion, but a senior Iraqi official told me that they had discovered Saddam loyalists who were using Aleppo, Syria, to regroup and plan operations.

 

Bottom line? Iraq is a country still on life support, and U.S. troops are the artificial lungs and heart. At the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Babil Province, which I visited, 211 marines have been injured in fighting in the past few months. But 180 of them insisted on returning to duty after being injured. U.S. forces still have a strong will to win.

 

But another thing remains impressively strong: The insurgents will go to any lengths to intimidate Iraqis away from joining the new government. Too many people, from cleaning women to deputy ministers, are being shot. The insurgents' strategy is intimidation. The U.S. strategy is Iraqification. This is the struggle - and the intimidators are doing way too well. Without a secure environment in which its new leadership can be elected and comfortably operate, Iraq will never be able to breathe on its own, and U.S. troops will have to be here forever.

[Texas Gentleman]

Iraq at the Tipping Point

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN (NY Times)

 

CAMP FALLUJA, Iraq

 

1. Every time I visit Iraq, I leave asking myself the same question: If you total up all the positives and negatives, where does the balance come out? I'd say the score is still 4 to 4.

 

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2. How important is taking Falluja? Huge. Falluja was to the Iraqi insurgency what Afghanistan was to Osama bin Laden. It was the safe haven where militants could, with total impunity, plan operations, stockpile weapons and connect the suicide bombers from abroad with their Iraqi handlers. That's gone.

 

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3. What happens next in Falluja? The plan is for Iraqi Army, police and National Guard units to move in, restore order and hold the place so the insurgents can't retake it and voting can be conducted in January. Whether the Iraqi Army can do that is unclear. The reality is this: Where you have individual Iraqi police, National Guard and Army commanders who have bravely stepped forward to serve the new Iraq and are willing to lead - despite intimidation efforts by insurgents - you have effective units.

 

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4. Then do we have enough U.S. troops? No way. U.S. commanders are constantly having to make hard choices between deploying troops to quell a firefight in one place or using them to prevent one from breaking out in another.

 

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5. What have we learned from the many insurgents captured in Falluja? A vast majority are Iraqi Sunnis, with only a few foreign fighters. This is an Iraqi Sunni rebellion, but a senior Iraqi official told me that they had discovered Saddam loyalists who were using Aleppo, Syria, to regroup and plan operations.

 

~~~~~~~~

 

6. Bottom line? Iraq is a country still on life support, and U.S. troops are the artificial lungs and heart. At the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Babil Province, which I visited, 211 marines have been injured in fighting in the past few months. But 180 of them insisted on returning to duty after being injured. U.S. forces still have a strong will to win.

 

~~~~~~~~

 

7. But another thing remains impressively strong: The insurgents will go to any lengths to intimidate Iraqis away from joining the new government. Too many people, from cleaning women to deputy ministers, are being shot. The insurgents' strategy is intimidation.

 

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8. The U.S. strategy is Iraqification.

 

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9. Without a secure environment in which its new leadership can be elected and comfortably operate, Iraq will never be able to breathe on its own,

 

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10. and U.S. troops will have to be here forever.

 

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1. Score 4 to 4? I disagree, I think the score just went 6 to 2, Favor Iraqis siding with the coalition.

 

2. I agree it is a huge victory and still necessary to keep it that way.

 

3. I Agree with some of what he says, but I beleive the more an Iraqi military builds its forces and becomes properly equiped and trained, the better they will perform weeding out the misfits. The same for the Iraq Police. The IP are under manned and under equipped to face the insurgents in many cases. They are not cowards, nor are the equipped to be soliders needing a Stronger Iraqi military to back them up for CRIMINAL prosecutions. None of this is accomplished quickly. It is sadly progressing as quickly as recruitment and training can be done.

 

4. I totally disagree with him here. We have enough troops to do the job with out makin more targets of our own troops. The more Iraqi's participate in taking their own country out of terrorist militant hands.. the stronger will be their earned democracy, simply because they will cherish it and more likely keep what THEY HAVE WON for themselves.

 

5. Probably so, but I think that is the way of the terrorist.... they run away from any fight to cowardly attack elsewhere. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT IRAQIS REPORT THIS SCUM TO COALITION AUTHORITIES where ever they see them, as soon as they see them so they can be sent to badWord.

 

6. I think Iraq is still growing in ability to protect itself from this vermin.. but it IS getting stronger day by day. There is one thing for sure.. the coalitions Marines, & Soldiers will be right there with you as long as you Iraqi's have a will to fight along side for your own democratic freedoms.

 

7. I think the insurgents can see the writing on the wall in Iraq and are giving it their last best effort to protect their demented ideology disquised as religion. What they will find is a badWord Allah has prepared for them.

 

8. Yes the coalitions strategy is Iraqification.. we have lives and homes of our own where we would prefer to be. But we will help you make yours safe.

 

9. I disagree a little. I think Iraq will face some resistance from Saddams facist who are out of power and the religious fanatics until they die for several more years.

 

10. I do not agree with that at all.

[Guest Mustefser]

http://www.elaph.com/Politics/2004/11/22442.htm

 

In Arabic.. List of participating 91 groups/parties and also a list of 41 who are bycotting.. Going through the bycotting list , I couldn't recognize any known one other than the recently established Muslin Sunni "Sddame style" clerics association.

Looking to the participating , there are the main Shia, kurd and arab sunni groups.

The only missing in the two lists is the Alsader party.. The jewell of this conflict..

Let us wait and see..

[Guest Diana Weiss]

Good Morning

 

I read your post and it is very optimistic. I have been studying and reading most of the blogs posted on this web site. "Iraq net" Your view point is most optimistic. Your fellow Iraqi's seem to post different points of view as it should be with freedom of speech. There are those as seen on Iraq net that just slit the throat of two Iraqi national guardsmen in broad day light.

 

What is all the fighting for? If Iraq is going to get her governmnet. Her house of parliament. Her infrastructure repaired. What is all the fighting for? Who is standing in the way of Iraq's big moment. Why all the kidnappings. Why the car bombs. Why all the fighting if Iraq is ready for her freedom.

 

Diana Weiss

designtogo@comcast.net

[Guest Mustefser]

Dianna

 

What is all the fighting for? If Iraq is going to get her governmnet. Her house of parliament. Her infrastructure repaired. What is all the fighting for?

 

You had both the question and answer in the statement above..!!

 

 

It is because of all what you had just mentioned, the Salafees and Sadamees are commiting all these crimes.. They know that these objectives are the dead end for their idiology and power within Iraq and later within Muslim/Arab world..

That is why they are focussing on Iraqi establishments "police/governemnt/guard/people". They want to stop it by any means. Creating a chaotic situation is the only way that they might think of and left with. They are noticing the great support by Iraqis to democracy and they want to intemidate and punish such will..

[Guest Guest_tajer]

http://www.elaph.com/Politics/2004/11/22614.htm

 

 

In Arabic.. Some more factinoist are joining the call for Ellection bycott.

Those who read areabic might have a look to the names.. Can any one tell me about any of the listed names.. Who knows about them inside Iraq.. No one is heard about during the last thrity years of Saddam's

[Guest Guest_tajer]

http://www.alquds.co.uk/index.asp?fname=20...علي%20العراقfff

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الانتخابات المقبلة في العراق لن تكون شرعية حتي لو جرت بالشكل الذي تريده امريكا وحكومة علاوي، لانها انتخابات تتم علي جثث الابرياء في المدن العراقية، فأي ديمقراطية هذه التي تأتي بالاكراه وعبر فوهة المدافع وتحويل المدن الي قبور جماعية؟

 

Atwaan, the Sadamee's aplalestinian is judging on behalf of Iraqis that the ellections will be not legitimate becuase " It is comming over the killing of innocent people in Iraqi towns, What Democracy that come by forcing and turning cities into a grave yards?"

 

I don't to argue his description to what is going on in Iraq and who are the innocent people, are they the civilian kids and women killed by terrorists or their killers.. However I would refere to Mr. Atwan interview on CNN last week, he was saying that ellections is the only way to get legitimate representative in Palestine..

 

IS that by any how means that Mr. Atwan is no loger considering the palestinian are still under occupation and the cities of Palestine are not under Isreali fire and the Isrealis are no longer killing the palestinain activists, as he used to mention in his london based newspaper?

Why is it different in Iraq..?

[Guest spectature]

رئيس تحرير صحيفة اياد علاوي في وفد المعارضة الى مؤتمر شرم الشيخ والسلطات المصرية ترحلهم الى القاهرة لابعادهم عن اجواء المؤتمر

 

شرم الشيخ - رانيا سليمان – بغداد – الرافدين -23-11 : اكدت مصادر موثوقة ل" الرافدين" ان رئيس تحرير صحيفة " بغداد" الناطقة باسم حزب رئيس الوزراء اياد علاوي صباح سلمان سافر الى القاهرة ضمن وفد لمجموعة من الشخصيات السياسية المعارضة للحكومة ، وان سلمان الذي كان عمل مستشارا اعلاميا للرئيس العراقي السابق صدام حسين وصل شرم الشيخ صحبة السياسي المقيم في باريس والمدعوم من وزارة الخارجية الفرنسية مزهر الدليمي .

 

يذكر ان الوفد وصل شرم الشيخ قبيل افتتاح المؤتمر القليمي والدولي حول العراق بترتيب من الأمين العام لجامعة الدول العربية عمرو موسى ، الا ان الخارجية المصرية اعادت الوفد الى القاهرة ومنعته من التأثير على مجريات المؤتمر المخصص للهيئات الحكومية.

 

صباح سلمان كان عين مؤخرا رئيسا لتحرير صحيفة " بغداد" بعد ان ترك العمل في صحيفة " اليومية" التي يمولها مزهر الدليمي ، ولم تستبعد المصادر ان يكون وجود سلمان تم بالتنسيق مع الحكومة لتحقيق " اختراق" في وفد الشخصيات المعارضة ومعرفة توجهاته وخططه في الإتصال بالجماعات داخل العراق وخارجه.

 

وكانت السلطات المصرية قد منعت أعضاء وفد الائتلاف العراقي المعارض من المشاركة في مؤتمر شرم الشيخ حول العراق.

 

وقال مزهر الدليمي رئيس لجنة الدفاع عن الشعب العراقي والمتحدث باسم الوفد إن رجال أمن مصريين منعوه وزملاءه مجبل شيخ عيسى وحسن البزاز وقاسم الجميلي من التحدث لوسائل الاعلام التي تتابع المؤتمر واصطحبوهم لمطار شرم الشيخ وأعادوهم للقاهرة.

 

كان وفد المعارضة العراقية قد سلم رسالة للامين العام لجامعة الدول العربية عمرو موسى قال فيها انه (( يحمل مطالب الشعب العراقي التي تصب في ضرورة الوقف الفوري للمذابح التي تقترفها القوات الامريكية بالمدن العراقية ووضع جدول زمني لاجلاء القوات الامريكية وتفعيل دور الامم المتحدة وتاجيل الانتخابات حتى تتحقق في ظروف مناسبه وبما يضمن اجراءها وفق قواعد نزيهة ))

 

الرافدين

www.alrafidayn.com