Uh oh - Here we go again- Iraq's Ayatollah is back in town
 

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/05/10/hakim_return030510

Does this look familiar to anyone else but me??

I seem to recall another Ayatollah returning from exile in Paris a few years back.

Old habits die hard with the hard core muslims it would seem.

Here's the best part........

Al-Hakim, 64, later addressed thousands of supporters at a stadium in Basra, where he called for Iraq to be governed by the Iraqi people under Islamic law.

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Islamic law eh. Isn't that where they chop of hands, stone people force women to be slaves, etc, etc.


Saddam was a prick, no doubt about that, but the one thing he was was secular and he did not tolerate any muslim fundamentalist BS.

If the US was smart they would load this guy on a plane right back to where he came from NOW.

Religion and politics DON'T mix and fundamentalist anything makes me sick.

I agree that I don't want this guy in power, but he could conceivably win a free election. We seem to like democracy in these countries until it become inconvenient to us.

Re: Uh oh - Here we go again- Iraq's Ayatollah is back in town
 

question: How do you can get rid of him without pissing off 60% of the iraqis? dangerous situation...

Re: Re: Uh oh - Here we go again- Iraq's Ayatollah is back in town
 

Do you think the Iraqis aren't already pissed off.

Fundamentalist whackos are always problems, be they muslim, christian, or jewish.

You need a fundamental separation of church and state.

This is exactly what happened in Iran, and something a lot of western countries don't understand about the middle east. Given the choice, the people there will elect another dictator, worse than saddam.

You can say what you want about syria, but they have never tolerated muslim fundamentalism either.

Could see this one coming since the days before the war.

last thing we want now is one of these a-holes in power

The situation is all f*cked up, and the US is in trouble: if the Iraquis democratically choose to be repressed by a fundamentalist muslim government, then all the trouble the US went through to "liberate" them was useless. But then, if they impose who should govern the country, then lots of people would be unhappy.

Re: Re: Uh oh - Here we go again- Iraq's Ayatollah is back in town
 

Iraq is a very dangerous place - there are munitions everywhere - people are shooting people - Am I missing something here? Is it not possible he could be involved in an accident? Naw!

Re: Re: Re: Uh oh - Here we go again- Iraq's Ayatollah is back in town
 

OK, but you explain that accident to the iraqi people.

Well Bush IS going to need an Ayatollah if he wants to reenact Reagan's '80s.

Haven't you ever read the Onion article?
http://www.theonion.com/onion3702/re...ve_branch.html

Thing about repressive regimes is, the church or the mosque has always been a pretty decent place to organize some political opposition. Problem is when the extremists are the ones doing the organizing. The US should try to involve Iraqis in secular civil administration at the local level, outside of the mosques - help them get that well built before the local Imam helps them do it.

Why is the U.S. in trouble? It took four weeks last time - there are several 4 week periods left - Wanna' try for one week this time?

Exactly. Well said. The U.S. may temporarily remove the person in power, but the mindset and way of life will not be changed. Saddam is just one part. It's the same thing in other countries too. The U.S. tried something similar back during the Vietnam conflict. They hand-selected a "puppet" for a president and his unpopularity quickly became evident. The U.S. then lost control. If you play with fire, sooner or later someone's gonna get burn.

Re: Re: Re: Uh oh - Here we go again- Iraq's Ayatollah is back in town
 

The idea has merit, AS LONG AS THE CIA ISN'T INVOLVED IN ANY WAY!!!!!!!

In 1959 the Iraqi president started to get all cosy with the Soviet Union. Iraq was becoming a dangerous place and likely to go communist! The CIA decided to assassinate the Iraqi President and in the best traditions of deniability they got a brainless 22 year old Iraqi thug to do the shoot. The assassination didn't go well... The shooter killed the wrong man, only slightly wounded the Iraqi President, got himself shot in the leg by one of his assistants, and had to be whisked out of the country and moved around the middle east under CIA protection until it was safe for him to return to Iraq (after somebody competent did the shoot in 1962).

No prizes for guessing the name of the CIA's incompetent assassin!

The fundamental problem with Iraq, and indeed the whole of the middle east is that the borders of the various states do not follow the ethnicity of the peoples who live there. That's what happens when you let European and American leaders loose with maps and coloured pencils. Inciting and encouraging Arab, Moslem and Jewish nationalism during wars in the past certainly didn't help. In short, President Woodrow Wilson, T.E. Lawrence, and David Lloyd George are to blame for this mess and I doubt that it will be fixed in our lifetime. The recent war certainly didn't fix it.

My bet for the next 5 years is that Iraq will fragment and become not one rogue state, but 3. I'll bet that we WILL have to invade again and next time it'll be the entire middle east (do we have the resources to do this?) and we go in as an invading & occupying army like we did with Germany and Japan in 1945.

Mike.

So you made the iraq "free" to choose a goverment which you will overthrow if you don't like it and "free" the iraqi people again, until they "free"ly choose a US friendly Goverment? Hurray for "free"dom!

And you still wonder why some people don't like the USA? Why don't you just install a US friendly dictator like you always did? People are already used to that.

Ya' know, if you're going to be accused of it you might as well do it! Right? I really don't think you'd like the world at all if we did everything some of you like to insinuate we might do.

Ok, say the US decides to give the Iraquis the right to do whatever they want to do, and they vote to have a muslim fundamentalist as a leader (which they most likely will if they had the chance). He may turn out to be better than Saddam, but the freedoms the US had commited to, will dissapear, specially for religious minorities. This will be frowned upon by the international community, and will make the US look real bad.

Then, say for instance the US doesn't let the iraquis choose their own government. Is that the kind of freedom they promised? Well, that will create a lot of resentment against americans. Resentment, LD, is what fuels terrorist attacks. Maybe it wont happen straight away, or it might not happen in America itself, but its an undesirable thing.

Maybe the US can draft and Iraqi consitution that specifys that no religious cleric of any faith can hold elected office in an Iraqi parliament or congress or whatever, unless the constitution is ammeded by say 90 percent of the voting constituents.

In this manner, their constitution would likely never be ammended and the religious whackos will forever be kept out of power.

Over time, hopefully, the public can break away from their repressive religion.

I have a friend who is a christian Iraqi and he claims that already his family in Iraq is being threatened by muslim fundamentalists.

You do the math.

Is that the so-called "iraqui freedom"? Free them, but then tell them what to do?

Yeah, unless the religious whackos start a coup and come up with a constitution of their own.

The problem is, that the mayority of iraquis (i presume), are fine with the "oppresive" religuion, I mean, it might seem oppresive for us, but that is what they are used to, and people don't always like change.

Im sorry about your friend, but that sort of discrimination is not easily eliminated. It takes a lot of time and effort. You need to educate a whole country on how to be more tolerant towards others.

I think the main problem now is for the US to do what is best for the iraqui people, and not necessarily what they think would be best.

This troubles me as well. We want to push free elections, but only if we approve of whom the elect. How were we not prepared for this possibility? The one thing I have always said, is that for all of Saddam's crap, he was fairly predictable as far as we were concerned. He valued his life too much to do anything so stupid for us to take him out (unless the request was turn over the entire country). A fundamentalist in control would be horrible news.