Letters to the Editor
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The blind leading those with blinders
Our political 'leaders' are clueless and they lead us around by the nose. It is important to our collective sanity that people like Juan Cole are around to clear away a little of the smokescreen through which we try to view Iraq.
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Maliki Can't Win - and Neither Can We
Cole is absolutely correct in his observation that while Maliki may not be up to the job of bringing about Iraqi reconciliationi, he is equally correct in stating that very likely no one would be up to the job right now. There are fires which must first burn themselves out, and neither we nor any governor can bring that about; it will take the time it takes. We lit the fire, but we cannot extinguish it and neither can Maliki. To lay the blame at his feet is to abet the already collapsed Bushite set of senseless theories and random, scattershot appraisals. Ms. Clinton (and also Levin) have acted in bad faith in joining my partisans in pointing at the one man who's had the guts to at least stand on the "X" and go thorugh the motions of trying to govern the ungovernable, a situation precipitated entirely by us. John Warner should not be expected to commit a wholesale abandonment of what is left of his President, but Clinton really should know better. Her cultivation of this scapegoating plays into the hands of the end-gamers still left in the White House. This is not helpful. This is not even honorable.
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The consequences
Are either anarchy or totalitarianism. Pick one. There is no third option, sorry. At best we could hope for a benign dictatorship a-la Jordan hemmed in by its own fear of acting. Of course that really only works in a small country which is already largely one ethnic, religious, linguistic group and has no commodities to squabble and kill over.
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Where do they get these people who want to lead
what develops leaders
I am just so overwhelmed at their moxie.
love?,
consideration?,
narcissism?,
psychosis?,
greed?,
voices?,
alien manipulation of past genetics,
any other ideas?
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The whole Iraq project is a form of US imperialism
As such, Maliki's fate depends entirely on the U.S., not on the Iraqi parliament. As for undermining 'what little faith remains in democracy in Iraq' - who is the author kidding?
Lets get serious. This is 'democracy' at the barrel of US guns and 150,000 troops - not a 'democracy' that has ever represented the people of Iraq. The author is correct about one thing, though - the US political establishment considers Iraq a 'US pocession.'
As for unermining 'democracy,' such has never existed in Iraq, not to mention the US itself where a clear majority want the US to start pulling troops out - not an escalation of the war as Bush and the Congress have continued since the mid term elections and seem destined to do once again with regard to Iran as well.
It's time for the liberal political and media establashment to start getting serious with regard to this foreign policy catastrophe and the US sponsored war crimes that are ongoing in Iraq and elsewhere in the Mideast, not to mention the state of 'democracy' within the US itself.
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The war against Maliki
Why stop at Maliki?
I say we should get rid of the whole Diem family and replace them with someone who can win this war.
(Sorry. Wrong puppet.)
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A new election in Iraq
What is needed at this time is a new election in Iraq with thousands of international observers and a cease-fire called by a vote at the United Nations.
If this were to take place, without any interference from any outside governments, including the United States and Iran, I believe, based on the articles I've been reading in The New York Times for the past several months, that the cleric Moktada al-Sadr would win the election overwhelmingly.
And if he did win the election, that would mean the United States would HAVE to leave the country, abandon it's Green Zone and that the Sadr Iraqi government would then begin to work closely with the government of Iran.
"IF" there were democratic elections. Read all the articles, study what's happening.
But there WON'T be any democratic elections, the United States will most likely bring Maliki down in a coup and replace him with THEIR choice in a leader, probably Mallawi who is a CIA asset and is currently making the U.S. talk show circuit to drum up support. Or maybe they'll try to bring Chalabi in again. Who knows?
The United States needs someone in control of Iraq who will rubber stamp the deal with the U.S. oil companies so they can control Iraq's oil. That is the most critical "benchmark" that the Maliki government is dragging its feet on.
Which was what this war was all about from day one of Bush's selection by the Supremes.
The control of Iraq's oil.
What a sin that in the process the U.S. military has created a toxic wasteland there with the use of all the depleted uranium munitions. Just Google Dr. Lauren Moret and depleted uranium and you'll understand.
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What about Iraqis calling for Maliky's ouster?
I am an independent journalist who has just returned from spending four weeks in the Middle East: one week in Amman, Jordan checking in with old friends and researching the Iraqi refugee/displaced person crisis; and 3 weeks in northern Iraq, where among other things, I spent time with a group of Iraqis: Sunni, Shiite, Kurds, and at least one Zoastrian. All were working on a 6-week biodiversity survey project spanning northern Iraq. Another such survey occurs in the south at another time of the year. An Iraqi NGO employs these people and has offices in the north, in Baghdad and in Basra. These people are all educated, middle class Iraqis, some of whom had met each other for the first time. They either live in Baghdad, Basra, or northern Iraq.
Over the three weeks time I spent living with these folks, they relaxed enough to speak openly in front of me. All felt high frustration at the US for not handling the occupation appropriately form the beginning. All said that in the beginning they welcomed the US presence and being freed from the horror grip of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The general sentiment among all of them was that the US should remove Prime Minister Mailiky from his position. His ties with Iran and his favoritism of the Shiite (in the eyes of most of the Iraqis I spoke with, both in Iraq and Amman, Jordan) are absolutely not acceptable. (I did explain to them that they would have to remove Maliky themselves by way of democratic process). They also want the US to attack Iran as soon as possible - their reaction to seeing Ahmadinejad and Maliki in Iran holding hands almost tore the roof off of the building.
Just about all said the US should impose a new Prime Minister – Ayad Allawi was a name that constantly came up. But most said Maliky’s replacement didn’t have to necessarily be Allawi but definitely someone like him. That is (in the words of more than one of these Iraqis), “We want someone who will kill the terrorists because they are terrorists, and not just because they are Sunni or Shiite. We don’t make that division.”
As they explained to me in their own words, Iyad Allawi, although Shiite, was Baathist and served under Saddam. He did not differentiate between Sunni and Shiite, and simply killed people who were doing wrong (based on the definition of “wrong” at the time). Indeed, as one Iraqi woman – a refugee living in Amman – told me, “We Iraqis don’t make a distinction between insurgent, Mujahadeen, al Qaeda or terrorist. All who create terror in people’s lives are terrorists. They should be killed.”
Prof. Cole does an amazing job writing articles that weave together chosen sound bites from various Western media reports and put forth his amateurish and spurious conclusions that, in the end, only support his continuing agenda to demonize the US involvement in Iraq. This specific article was so rife with agenda-ized “frames”, catch-all words and misleading information that it would have served a better purpose as a humor piece – except that the situation is NOT humorous and deserves more in-depth and objective reporting, to say the least.
For Cole to say that Sen. Warner “doesn’t grasp the role of Iran” and simplistically back that statement up by saying, “Maliki is less close to Iran than his predecessor, Ibrahim Jaafari, was. Warner does not understand the Islamic Call Party or its history as an Iraqi nationalist organization with a Shiite emphasis” is ludicrous. Just what does “less close to Iran” mean Prof. Cole?
While understanding the history of a group or even a country is an important factor in any discussion, the situation on the ground in today’s Iraq is a primodial soup where alliances, definitions and the emergence of groups and their intentions change and realign constantly. One independent journalist who recently ventured to Baghdad told me that the Madhi militia is so fractured that moving from neighborhood to neighborhood was more dangerous than ever because there is no communication between the splinter groups. No communication means no central command.
Indeed, one cannot use the word “Shiite” and act as if it represents all Shiite. I would say the same for the word “Sunni.” Many Sunni and Shiite (and Kurds) bristle at the idea of an Iranian-infused fundamentalist-run Iraq.
Not to mention that a quick look around the souks of the east Kurdistan, Iraq show an implosion of Iranian and Turkish (and Chinese) products into the country. Iraqis take this as a sign of an Iranian invasion they feel is fully supported by Prime Minister Maliky. “His identification documents may say Maliky is Iraqi, but in truth he is an Iranian Shiite,” was a continuing theme I heard.
If Prof. Cole would dare to venture to Iraq and speak with a healthy mixture of Iraqis, he would clearly see that it is not only American Democrats and Republicans who are “bashing” Iraqi Prime Minister Maliky and his government, are desirous of his prompt removal, and want him replaced by “a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister.” Indeed, one has to wonder why Cole, a self-proclaimed expert on the goings on in Iraq, hasn’t once left his academic ivory tower to step foot in a country with issues he feels so comfortable speaking of yet he has no first hand knowledge of.
Really, Juan, I urge you to go and see for yourself. You might actually learn a thing or two. You know, broaden your horizons, have your mind opened, help you see beyond your limited view... Hell, it might even make you a better teacher.