After 3 years of slaughter, Irak is nowhere near the bleak place where a dictator called Saddam would subdue, slaughter, and torture to keep the people under control. Instead, here is what America brought: Welcome to the new Iraki democracy!
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')o, no, on this most solemn of days above all, let us have recourse instead to a fine, reliably conservative journal, which has staunchly supported the Leader's noble mission in Iraq from the very start. Let us see what the Sunday Telegraph, pro-war, pro-Bush, has to say about what has been happening in Abu Ghraib since the Leader's favored Iraqi factions have taken it over. Let us see the kind of liberation that the exploited deaths of almost 3 ,000 people on 9/11, and the deaths of more than 2,600 Americans killed in Iraq since then, and the deaths of more than 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians has produced. Let us see what Bush has purchased with so much blood.
Tortured screams ring out as Iraqis take over Abu Ghraib
The notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad is at the centre of fresh abuse allegations just a week after it was handed over to Iraqi authorities, with claims that inmates are being tortured by their new captors. Staff at the jail say the Iraqi authorities have moved dozens of terrorist suspects into Abu Ghraib from the controversial Interior Ministry detention centre in Jadriyah, where United States troops last year discovered 169 prisoners who had been tortured and starved.
An independent witness who went into Abu Ghraib this week told The Sunday Telegraph that screams were coming from the cell blocks housing the terrorist suspects. Prisoners released from the jail this week spoke of routine torture of terrorism suspects and on Wednesday, 27 prisoners were hanged in the first mass execution since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Conditions in the rest of the jail were grim, with an overwhelming stench of excrement, prisoners crammed into cells for all but 20 minutes a day, food rations cut to just rice and water and no air conditioning.
Abu Ghraib became synonymous with abuse after shocking pictures were published in 2004 showing prisoners being tortured and humiliated, galvanising opposition to the US presence in Iraq.
The witness gained access to the prison just days after the Americans formally handed over control to the Iraqi authorities on Sept 1.Inside the 100-yard long cell block the smell of excrement was overpowering. Four to six prisoners shared each of the 12ft by 15ft cells along either side and the walls were smeared with filth. The cell block was patrolled by guards who carried long batons and shouted angrily at the prisoners to stand up.
Access to the part of the prison containing terrorism suspects was denied, but from that block came the sound of screaming. The screaming continued for a long time. "I am sure someone was being beaten, they were screaming like they were being hit," the witness reported. "I felt scared, I was asking what was happening in the terrorist section. I heard shouting, like someone had a hot iron on their body, screams. The officer said they were just screaming by themselves. I was hearing the screams throughout the visit."
PeakOil is You
Irak: finally democracy!
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Re: Irak: finally democracy!
by PenultimateManStanding » Tue 12 Sep 2006, 11:03:57
Sad, but what did you expect? Doesn't everybody say that Saddam kept people in line? that he "controlled" the country to prevent chaos? The government is facing a brutal insurgency. Do you think the insurgents would play nice if they gained power? Miki, you seem to be an idealist.
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PenultimateManStanding - Expert
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Re: Irak: finally democracy!
by Grifter » Tue 12 Sep 2006, 11:34:04
It makes a mokery of the whole system. the politcians and talkers, the honest decent ones always said this would happen. They told us all so.
We should have been told, lets get rid of that bastard saddam and show the world how truely barbaric we can be. Come to think of it, we put him there in the first place. Well the US did.
We should have been told, lets get rid of that bastard saddam and show the world how truely barbaric we can be. Come to think of it, we put him there in the first place. Well the US did.
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Re: Irak: finally democracy!
by PenultimateManStanding » Tue 12 Sep 2006, 12:09:32
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Grifter', 'I')t makes a mokery of the whole system. the politcians and talkers, the honest decent ones always said this would happen. They told us all so.
We should have been told, lets get rid of that bastard saddam and show the world how truely barbaric we can be. Come to think of it, we put him there in the first place. Well the US did.
We should have been told, lets get rid of that bastard saddam and show the world how truely barbaric we can be. Come to think of it, we put him there in the first place. Well the US did.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')evolutionary sentiment was characteristic of the era in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. The stranglehold of the old elites (the conservative monarchists, established families, and merchants) was breaking down in Iraq. Moreover, the populist pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt would profoundly influence the young Ba'athist, even up to the present day. The rise of Nasser foreshadowed a wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s, which would see the collapse of the monarchies of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya. Nasser challenged the British and French, nationalized the Suez Canal, and strove to modernize Egypt and unite the Arab world politically.
In 1958, a year after Saddam had joined the Ba'ath party, army officers led by General Abdul Karim Qassim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq. The Ba'athists opposed the new government, and in 1959, Saddam was involved in the attempted United States-backed plot to assassinate Prime Minister Qassim.[10] He was sentenced to death in absentia. Saddam studied law at the Cairo University during his exile.
Rise to power
Army officers with ties to the Ba'ath Party overthrew Qassim in a coup in 1963. However, the new government was torn by factionalism. Saddam returned to Iraq, but was imprisoned in 1964. He escaped prison in 1967 and quickly came to be a leading member of the party. Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, Saddam, and others overthrew Abdul Rahman Arif in the bloodless coup of 1968, again with the backing of the CIA (New York Times March 14, 2003 "A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making" [11]). Saddam became the real strongman, and was soon named deputy to the President al-Bakr. According to biographers, Saddam never forgot the tensions within the first Ba'athist government, which informed his measures to promote Ba'ath party unity as well as his ruthless resolve to maintain power and programs to ensure social stability.
Soon after becoming deputy to the president, Saddam demanded and received the rank of four-star general despite his lack of military training.
That CIA, whew, what pie did they not have their greasy fingers in?
Question, why was the CIA involved in Revolutionary Arab Nationalism? Seems to me it must have had some kind of Cold War aspect, but I don't know what it was. I would guess that the breakdown of the old classes meant the rise of either pro-Soviet groups or pro-American groups. (the key to CIA backing of the Baath party may have been it's rejection of Marxism)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_hussein
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PenultimateManStanding - Expert
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Re: Irak: finally democracy!
by nwildmand » Tue 12 Sep 2006, 12:20:32
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Miki', 'A')fter 3 years of slaughter, Irak is nowhere near the bleak place where a dictator called Saddam would subdue, slaughter, and torture to keep the people under control.
your right miki. the arabs cannot maintain order without brutaly oppresive genocidal dictators. sorry we thought we could make it l little better. when you guy run low on oil, and we are ready to leave, we will make sure that the most oppresive ones make it to power, for the arabs sake, and give them the weapons to maintain order.
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