Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (94240)	4/17/2003 2:07:08 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

... and black-bereted Baghdad police too By Ian Urbina The trouble with democracy is that it has everything to do with the rule of the majority. If 60 percent of a country consists of one constituency, you can forget about getting anything done without a significant portion of them on board. Unfortunately for the Pentagon and the White House, it is the 60 percent Shi'ite population of Iraq that is proving most resistant to post-Saddam Hussein plans. Only days ago, all attention in Iraq faced north. The media riveted on the unpredictable effect of the Kurds, who were then in the process of seizing the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. The scowls from the Turkish capital Ankara and reprimands from Washington were soon to follow. Now, all eyes look south as the Shi'ites of Iraq prove ominously obstructionist to US post-war plans. Four recent events stand out over the past week. A crowd of anti-American Shi'ites in the city of Najaf, led by Moqtada Sadr, surrounded the home of the nation's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and ordered him to leave the city. Eventually town elders convinced the crowd to disperse. The same raucous crowd was suspected of having stabbed and killed Ayatollah Sayyed Abdul Majid Khoei, the London-based Shi'ite cleric who had been working with US forces. Then there was Kut. A cleric there opposed to the US presence boldly announced that he was in charge of the city. Marines had earlier attempted to get access to the cleric, who is protected by over 20 armed guards, but a crowd of more than 1,000 protesters forced the American soldiers to retreat. Finally, as US-led planning meetings get under way in the city of Nasiriyah, Iraq's most important Shi'ite group, the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SAIRI, stated that it was boycotting the event because it objected "to any process which is under an American general". At the last minute, a low-level representative was sent. In the lead-up to the war, the US had made some overtures toward opposition Iraqi Shi'ite groups, but Washington did not succeed in making real inroads or establishing solid relations. Another complicating factor within the Shi'ite community in Iraq is a group called Dawa Islamiyah, or Islamic Call, which has several thousand fighters under arms. Dawa agents almost succeeded in killing Uday Hussein, the deposed Iraqi president's eldest son, in 1996, shooting him 14 times as he drove in Baghdad. Dawa is split into factions, some of which are based in Iran. The fundamentalist, anti-Western supporters of Dawa are said to have been very active since Saddam's demise - they have taken control of Saddam City, a slum area of Baghdad that is home to about 2 million Shi'ites and last Sunday they renamed it Medina Sadr, or Sadr City. atimes.com

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (94240)	4/17/2003 2:28:56 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

A lady with real attitude Definitely. Courage of her convictions.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (94240)	4/18/2003 2:11:20 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 281500

Re: Uzma Bashir~~Where was she here? She is disgraceful! Or, she thinks kids should be in jail, and their parents should be tortured and murdered.... Message 18819508 88888888888888888888888888888888888 Or was she here when the children were let out of jail....JAIL! CHILDREN! Is she a barbarian that thinks kids should be in JAIL??? Jailed Iraqi children run free as marines roll into Baghdad suburbs Tue Apr 8,12:30 PM ET story.news.yahoo.com. BAGHDAD (AFP) - More than 100 children held in a prison celebrated their freedom as US marines rolled into northeast Baghdad amid chaotic scenes which saw civilians loot weapons from an army compound, a US officer said Around 150 children spilled out of the jail after the gates were opened as a US military Humvee vehicle approached, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla told an AFP correspondent travelling with the Marines 5th Regiment. "Hundreds of kids were swarming us and kissing us," Padilla said. "There were parents running up, so happy to have their kids back." "The children had been imprisoned because they had not joined the youth branch of the Baath party," he alleged. "Some of these kids had been in there for five years." The children, who were wearing threadbare clothes and looked under-nourished, walked on the streets crossing their hands as if to mimic handcuffs, before giving the thumbs up sign and shouting their thanks. It was not clear who had opened the doors of the prison. Message 18816028