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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (748257)	8/25/2006 10:31:39 AM
From: haqihana	Respond to of 769670

JDN, That is an indication of just how much they are unable to be members of the world. Their own inner fighting, and their intention of forcing the rest of the world to become moslem, makes them enemy No.one to any country that wants peace on earth. Of course, the French are too stupid to see that, as are American liberals.

To: JDN who wrote (748257)	8/25/2006 2:12:24 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"Well, that was the general consensus of opinion, and if the Shia and Sunni's had the sense the Kurds have it would have gone that way. No reasonable person could have believed people would fight among themselves rather then start a brand new country funded by much of the world and which would have led to a fantastic new life for ALL Iraqi's. jdn" _____________________ I don't know why you think this. The region has over a thousand years of discord between the factions. Here is a brief excerpt from a white paper that describes the situation under Saddam in recent years. Just like a pot ready to blow...... The politics of the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980-1988, were essentially the politics of ruthless repression. Political dissent of any kind became even more dangerous … Hundreds of thousands of Arab Shi’ites were driven out of the country, and many formed an armed opposition with Iranian support. While most of the remaining Arab Shi’ites remained loyal, their secular and religious leaders were kept under constant surveillance and sometimes imprisoned and killed. The marsh areas along the Iranian border were a key center of the fighting between Iran and Iraq, but still became a sanctuary for deserters and Shi’ite opposition elements. Iraq’s defeat in the Gulf War in 1991, following its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, did more than further impoverish the country. Uprisings in the Shi’ite areas in the south were suppressed with all of the regime’s customary violence and then followed by a mix of repression and low-level civil war that lasted until Saddam was driven from power. While this conflict received only limited attention from the outside world, it often involved significant local clashes between Iraqi government forces and those of Shi’ite opposition movements based in, and backed by, Iran. The post-Iraq War discovery of mass graves of Shi’ite fighters and civilians are a grim testimony to how serious this “quiet” fighting could be. … From 1991 until the Coalition invasion in 2003, Saddam Hussein created further problems by encouraging tribal divisions and favoring those tribes and clans that supported his rule and regime. He exploited religion by increasingly publicly embracing Islam, and privately favoring Sunni factions and religious leaders that supported him while penalizing Shi’ite religious leaders and centers he saw as a threat, At the same time, funds were poured into Sunni areas in the West, government and security jobs were given to Sunnis, and scarce resources went into military industries that heavily favored Sunni employment. The result was to distort the economy and urban structure of Iraq in ways that favored Sunni towns and cities in areas like Tikrit, Samarra, Fallujah, Ramadi and other largely loyalist Sunni towns. This 2005 White Paper on the insurgency is a very good read. There were many, many middle east experts who warned back in 2003 that the kind of violence we have seen would not only be possible...but likely, especially with Iran and others "in the mix". analysis.threatswatch.org

To: JDN who wrote (748257)	8/25/2006 2:29:57 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

"No reasonable person could have believed people would fight among themselves rather then start a brand new country...." They likely ARE gonna start 'brand new countries'... a Shi'a controlled one... a Kurdish heartland... and likely a rump-Iraq in the Sunni areas (although this one will need to affiliate itself with one of it's sunni neighbors before too long, like Saudi Arabia or Jordan). Any reasonable person (who knew anything about the area) could have expected that. The first President Bush certainly expected it....