Replies to post #1457 on Foreign Correspondence

[otraque]

It is already getting really dirty, Iraqi "Government" is setting up cause to hunt down Sadrist anywhere i suspect( that is the U.S. Miltary. at the request of Allawi)
There is without question a massive hatred by Iraqi Police and the resistance.
I believe this is smear and the militias response is valid.
Sadr City is becoming the Gaza Strip--virtually the same number of people and also live in despair and without hope.
How bad is it i will post later the Iraq's ambassador of Iraq saying that The Grand Ayatollah al Sadr was a protected ally of Saddam Hussein(rubbish), and not mentioning that he was assassinated by Hussein's henchmen.
The established in the iraqi government are building a verbal massing to prepare ground to eradicate 'the slum vermin'.
****************************************************

Corpses fuel suspicions as Najaf battle ends

By Michael Georgy

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Shi'ite militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi forces may have reached a peace deal to ends weeks of bloodshed in Najaf,
but they are still trading accusations amid the corpses.

Just after taking control of the shrine where militiamen had been holed up, Iraqi police rushed to a hotel housing journalists and offered them
access to an Islamic courthouse that had been run by militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr.

"Cover your noses. This is where his Mehdi Army slit the throats of people and then left them to rot," one said.

Inside the court, about 200 metres from the sacred Imam Ali shrine, were 15 bloated, blackened corpses covered in flies.

One was missing fingers. They could have been chopped off, or blown off by a mortar or a rocket. Some had gashes in their necks. It was
impossible to tell whether their throats had been slit or they had suffered wounds or natural decay.

But it was clear animosities still seethe despite the peace deal brokered by Iraq's top Shi'ite leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The U.S.-backed Najaf police accuse Sadr of handing down death sentences in a makeshift, illegal court. The young cleric sees himself as
a champion of the impoverished and condemns the interim Iraqi government as American puppets.

The Islamic court's chief administrator, Hashim Abu Reef, denied the police accusations.

"We denounce this charge. This government is very capable of trying to frame us. Those corpses are our fighters which we could not wash
or move because the Iraqi government and Americans cut off the electricity and water," he said.

"There is also one woman who was passing by the shrine and killed by a sniper. We can identify each and every body."

The cleric said the bodies had been there for two days.

As reporters and residents stood over the decaying bodies, police held up a carton of beer and gin.

"Is this the Mehdi Army's version of Islam?" a policeman asked as he hurled a box of cans.

But Reef said the Mehdi Army militiamen did not consume alcohol, which is forbidden by Islam.

Accusations were traded as police organised units around the shrine and nearby areas that have been pulverised by U.S. air strikes, rebel
mortar attacks and fierce gunfire.

There was an uneasy calm. A few militants who had changed into civilian clothes and stuck around glared at nervous policemen, waving
their AK-47 rifles as a new crowd of people inspected the bodies.

Deputy police chief Amir al-Daami announced that his forces had taken control of Najaf. But his words were laced with a heavy dose of
reality after three weeks of fighting.


Reuters

[otraque]

No propaganda here, but with the usual western anti-Islam slant--and one wonders why muslims world-wide see this as a Crusade to destroy Islam and install wild west greed capitalism which is one of the most sacred banners of the CRW.
i wonder how many western traders in the sex-slave trade are are seeing dollars in turning the slums of Baghdad into The Bangkok of the Middle-East????
These western male power mongers thinking "bet ah those Iraq women are a good f---, man we can get Baghdad to Rock".
O i forgot, this is about democracy; damned i keep forgetting!!!!
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3146701

<<Sistani ends the siege

Aug 27th 2004
From The Economist Global Agenda


Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has struck a deal to end the bloody three-week siege of Najaf's Imam Ali shrine. But the agreement leaves rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr at large and confirms Mr Sistani as a figure who wields uncomfortable influence over the Iraqi government

ALL the force of the American marines couldn't do it. Nor could Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister. But the moral authority of the frail, 73-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was enough to persuade the armed followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, a young firebrand cleric, to leave the holiest of shrines in the holy city of Najaf. On Friday August 27th, Mr Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen, who had been engaged in a bloody stand-off with American and Iraqi government forces for three weeks, were reported to have handed in their weapons and left the Imam Ali shrine, melting in with the thousands of pilgrims flocking there.

The deal was negotiated during a 24-hour ceasefire ordered by Mr Allawi, which had begun on Thursday afternoon. Mr Sistani, Iraq's most respected Shia cleric, had swept into Iraq from Kuwait hours earlier, at the head of thousands of pilgrims, having flown into the region on Wednesday from London, where he had undergone heart surgery. His absence had left a vacuum in which Mr Sadr, a relatively junior cleric whose father and uncle were killed by order of Saddam Hussein,( -this the fact as the Iraqi Ambassador to Moscow today pours out horrendous propaganda lies to the press that Sadr was tight with Saddamist---incredible--wl) was able to present himself as the leader of Shia resistance to the coalition occupation. When he called on his supporters to occupy the shrine, they followed in their hundreds. Marines were sent to defeat the insurgents, but though they advanced to within 400 metres of the shrine, concern about inflaming Muslim opinion kept them from attacking the building.




Various members of Iraq's religious elite and its government tried to persuade the Mahdi Army to leave the mosque, but Mr Sadr proved a tricky and elusive negotiator--indeed, he has not been seen in public for some time and may have fled several days ago. But though several recent reports of a breakthrough in Najaf have proved false, the latest deal seems to be holding, for now. The Reuters news agency reported that Iraqi police had taken control of the area around the shrine on Friday afternoon. Al-Arabiya, a satellite-television station, reported that Mr Sistani had been given the keys to the mosque.

Under the agreement, Sadrist fighters were to lay down their arms and to leave the holy compound by 10am on Friday morning. Those who did so were to be given an amnesty. Mr Sadr himself, who is wanted on charges of murdering a fellow cleric last year, was also to be allowed to go free. And the American marines too were to withdraw from Najaf. The safety of the city, and of the neighbouring city of Kufa, is to be the responsibility of Iraq's fledgling police and security forces. The government has agreed to pay compensation to the victims of the fighting. ( which they will have to ask Big Daddy Uncle Sam for the money--good luck--wl)

The deal appears to herald a victory for Mr Sistani's moderate, collegiate brand of Islam over the more confrontational, demagogic type practised by Mr Sadr (and also by the Shia theocrats who run neighbouring Iran). Mr Sistani, unlike his younger rival and Iran's leaders, believes that clerics should not run countries. However, despite his avowed desire to remain above the political fray, the grand ayatollah has had a strong influence over the evolution of post-war Iraq. Most importantly, his insistence on early elections forced the United States to change its plans.

If Mr Sistani adopts the same stance with Mr Allawi as he did with Paul Bremer, America's former proconsul in Iraq, the interim prime minister will have a lot to contend with. The deal in Najaf has re-established Mr Sistani as the country's most influential political figure. If the ayatollah chooses to reassert himself in everyday politics, Mr Allawi will probably have to send emissaries to Najaf to consult with him every time he wants to float a new initiative. The prime minister is unlikely to relish such a prospect.

Moreover, despite Mr Sistani's assertions that he does not want a role in politics, some Kurds and other secular Iraqis worry that they might just be exchanging one would-be theocrat for another. Mr Sistani may be less of a rabble-rouser than Mr Sadr, but he is equally hostile to federalism and anxious to impose an Islamic identity on the rest of Iraq, they fear.( Gawd Forbid!!!! The Horror, he wants to impose an Islamic identity to Iraq---how could Sistani wish such evil to keep an Islamic identity to a country which for well over 1,000 years has had an Islamic identity--the man must be a fanatic-- no this invasion is not at all an attempt for the Judeo/Christian world to crush Islam--OF COURSE NOT, yeh sure---wl


For now, though, debates about federalism and secularism seem moot. More than 100 people were killed, and more than 500 injured, in shootings and mortar attacks around Najaf and Kufa on Thursday, even as Mr Sistani and his supporters were marching on Najaf to end the conflict. On the same day, an attack by insurgents on oil facilities near Basra helped reverse the fall in oil prices from a peak of almost $50 a barrel a week ago. On Friday, the Italian government confirmed that a freelance journalist, Enzo Baldoni, had been killed by his kidnappers because of its refusal to withdraw its troops from Iraq. With much of the country still lawless, the level of influence wielded by an elderly cleric is not the most immediate of worries.

[otraque]

Regards where i am coming from in my defense of non-Taliban/Wannabe Islam(which i oppose) is the fact , that though i am not a Buddhist-- i am deeply immersed in Buddhism and it teaches to have extreme tolerance of other cultures---something i have always believed so that gets me to gravitate to Buddhism, in part.

[Amaunet]

Rumsfeld suggests part of Iraq might not vote

Let me get this straight only part of Iraq is to vote but more than all of Afghanistan is to vote. And Bush is plugging ahead because this big farce looks so good on his record. No one can possibly take these elections seriously and as such their results will be continually challenged and become the source of even more conflict.

In Afghanistan the number registered already exceeds the estimated total of eligible voters for the whole country.
#msg-3904070

-Am

Allawi, Bush repeat election vow

Rumsfeld suggests part of Iraq might not vote

By Elisabeth Bumiller
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

September 24, 2004



Reuters


WASHINGTON – President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi vowed in the White House Rose Garden yesterday that Iraq would hold free elections as scheduled in January, even though Bush acknowledged the "persistent violence" in some parts of the country and Allawi conceded that the elections "may not be perfect."

Similarly, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke openly for the first time yesterday about the possibility that the January elections might be held only in parts of Iraq.

"Let's say you tried to have an election, and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country but some places you couldn't because the violence was too great," Rumsfeld said at a hearing on Capitol Hill. "Well, that's so be it. Nothing's perfect in life."

But on a day when both Republicans and Democrats used Allawi to reinforce starkly different campaign messages about Iraq, Bush and his ally presented, overall, a rosy picture of the country.

By contrast, Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, seized on the visit to paint a bleak portrait of Iraq and a Bush administration in disarray.

By the end of the day, it was clear that Allawi's trip to Washington, his first as Iraq's interim prime minister, was not simply a state visit but a politically charged moment with the debate on the course of the war intensifying.

"I stand here today as the prime minister of a country emerging finally from dark ages of violence, aggression, corruption and greed," Allawi told a joint session of Congress before his appearance at the White House. "Like almost every Iraqi, I have many friends who were murdered, tortured or raped by the regime of Saddam Hussein."

In the Rose Garden two hours later, Allawi and Bush cited progress in a nation that has been plagued by an emboldened insurgency, suicide bombings and the recent beheadings of two American hostages.

"You can understand it's tough and still be optimistic," Bush said. "You can understand how hard it is and believe we'll succeed."

Allawi, a former neurologist with close ties to the CIA, was selected as interim prime minister in May by a U.N. envoy under heavy pressure from the United States. He said in the Rose Garden that every day he receives a threat on his life, and that in the past month he has learned of four conspiracies to kill him.

Bush said polls asking Iraqis whether the country was on the right or wrong track showed more positive results than similar polls in the United States.

"I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America," Bush said, adding, "The people see a better future."

A Kerry campaign spokesman, Joe Lockhart, responded that Bush must be "unhinged from reality" to cite such a poll.

The poll was taken July 24 to Aug. 2 by the International Republican Institute, a nonprofit group that advocates the spread of democracy. The group queried 3,230 Iraqis nationwide in face-to-face interviews. The poll found 51 percent of Iraqis feel their country is headed in the right direction.

Bush said he and Allawi expected violence to escalate as the January elections draw closer, and that if the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, asked him for more troops to secure the nation ahead of the election, "I would listen to him."

Abizaid told members of Congress yesterday that he anticipated the need for more Iraqi or international troops to help with the elections, but he did not rule out adding to the current 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

The president, when asked about Abizaid's statement, replied: "He was in my office this morning. He didn't say that to me, but if he were to say that, I'd listen to him. Just like I've said all along, that when our commanders say that they need support, they'll get support because we're going to succeed in this mission."

Top Pentagon officials, including Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that as soon as Allawi took office in June he began moving to beef up Iraqi security forces, increasing the target for their eventual numbers and seeking to add armored units.

A significant part of the administration's recently requested shift of spending from reconstruction to security would be used to pay for that plan, the officials said.

Bush and Allawi asserted in the Rose Garden that there were nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police and other security officials in the country.

But Kerry said only 5,000 Iraqi soldiers had been trained.

Allawi said at the White House that of the 18 provinces in Iraq, "14 to 15 are completely safe" and that only three provinces had "pockets of terrorists" who were inflicting damage there and elsewhere in the country.

Allawi's assessment was at odds with the private view of some of Bush's senior advisers, who have said in recent days that the U.S. military's main problem is that it is not in full control of Baghdad.

Allawi said Fallujah, where Camp Pendleton-based Marines have suffered major casualties, was one of the pockets of terrorism. He told reporters that Fallujah sits in a "vast, very big" province called Al Anbar, where there are "many other important towns, such as Ana, such as Rawa, such as Ramadi" unmarked by such problems. But a number of U.S. troops have been killed in Ramadi.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040924/index.html?0.9618038904622126

[Amaunet]

WARLORDS THREATEN TO WRECK DEMOCRATIZATION PROCESS IN AFGHANISTAN


During the first presidential debate Bush sited a somewhat different picture of the pending Afghan election. And the Taliban are no longer in power. Ten million people have registered to vote in Afghanistan in the upcoming presidential election.
http://www.liberalslant.com/tfpd100404.htm

What he did not mention was that the Taliban were busily intimidating would-be voters, the number registered already exceeds the estimated total of eligible voters for the whole country and warlordism poses an even greater threat to Afghanistan’s stabilization efforts than does the Taliban insurgency.
#msg-3904070

-Am

Daan van der Schriek 10/05/04



In July, Afghan President Hamid Karzai ditched his vice-president, Marshal Mohammad Fahim, one of the country’s most powerful warlords. In September, Karzai sacked Ismail Khan – another influential warlord – as the governor of Herat. The moves were designed to expand the influence of Afghanistan’s central government. Yet, both have failed to produce the desired effect. With Afghanistan’s presidential election just days away, warlords remain in position to adversely influence the country’s political future.

Karzai appears headed for victory in the October 9 presidential vote. But given the fact that Karzai’s administration exerts little authority beyond Kabul, some observers are warning the election could mark what the group Human Rights Watch (HRW) characterizes as a "hollow victory" for Afghanistan’s democratization process.

To a large extent the warlord threat to Afghan’s elections – both the presidential vote and the parliamentary ballot scheduled for 2005 – has been overshadowed by the ongoing Taliban insurgency. Taliban raids have intensified in the weeks leading up to the presidential vote. On October 4, for example, seven Taliban militants were killed in a clash with government security forces.

Taliban violence has kept the presidential campaigning limited mainly to Kabul, although Karzai ventured from the capital on October 5 for an appearance in the eastern city of Ghanzi. Amid heavy security, about 10,000 Afghans attended Karzai’s rally in Ghanzi – marking the president’s first campaign appearance outside of Kabul.

The Taliban insurgency represents the main security threat in southern and southeastern Afghan provinces. In rural areas of those regions, Taliban loyalists have sought to coerce residents into staying away from the polls. "In the central parts of Kandahar, Uruzgan [and] Zabul, where the government is in control, if a person doesn’t register for the election, he will be fined 500 afghanis [$11]. But in some parts outside government control, some people were beheaded by the Taliban because they had voter cards for the election," one Kandahari resident told the local Kabul Weekly.

Warlords and their militias, operating largely beyond the control of Kabul, wield the most influence in northern Afghanistan, political analysts say. "Many voters in rural areas say the militias have already told them how to vote, and that they’re afraid of disobeying them. Activists and political organizers who oppose the warlords fear for their lives," said Brad Adams, HRW’s Asia director.

A HRW report, titled "The Rule of the Gun: Human Rights Abuses and Political Repression in the Run-up to Afghanistan’s Presidential Election, suggests that warlordism poses an even greater threat to Afghanistan’s stabilization efforts than does the Taliban insurgency. "Political repression by local strongmen is the principle problem," the report stated. "Throughout the country, militarized political factions—militias and remnants of past Afghan military forces who came into power in the wake of the Taliban’s [late 2001] defeat, continue to cement their hold on political power at the local level, using force, threats and corruption to stifle more legitimate political activity."

Political observers say Karzai’s tentative approach on the warlord issue has exacerbated the problem. In an address to the United Nations on September 22, Karzai identified Taliban-inspired terrorism and drug trafficking as the main threats to Afghan stabilization efforts. Karzai’s omission of warlords as a security danger underscores the perception among analysts that his administration has not come to grips with the problem.

"Karzai did not make ‘warlordism’ an issue until accessing the non-Pashtun vote became an issue," said Jennifer Harbison, south Asia analyst with the London-based Control Risks Group.

"The reality is that most Afghans involved in politics on the ground are primarily afraid of warlords and their factions, much more than they’re afraid of the Taliban," Adams maintained.

Even then, Karzai’s major moves to curb warlordism – the dismissals of Fahim and Khan – have been undercut by personnel moves that appear to have rewarded other warlords. In July, Gen. Khan Mohammad, a commander in Kandahar, and Gen. Hazrat Ali, a warlord in eastern Nangarhar, were made police chiefs of their respective provinces. In the same month, Gen. Atta Mohammad was named governor of northern Balkh Province. Atta is a prominent rival of another local strongman, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is one of Karzai’s most notorious opponents.

"President Karzai is attempting to sideline abusive commanders, but often blanches on the job, believing that he can weaken warlords by making deals with them—a strategy which has failed in most areas," the HRW report said.

The HRW report harshly criticized international efforts to aid the election process, suggesting that those nations, including the United States, that have expressed a desire to promote democratization in Afghanistan, are now mired in a state of complacency. "Many falsely assume that democracy [in Afghanistan] is now on the horizon," the report said. "Little progress has been made in laying the foundation for a functioning democratic state."

It went on to assail NATO states for not making a sufficient number of troops available to project stability in most Afghan provinces during the run-up to the elections. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. It added that the US military has undermined efforts to curb warlord influence by utilizing their militias as mercenary forces in the fight against the Taliban.

"Amazingly because of the because of the inadequate provision of international forces, current security plans for the presidential election include the use of deputized warlord or factional forces to guard polling stations—the very people Afghans say they are most afraid of," the report said.

International leaders, including US President George W. Bush, have hailed the fact that over 10 million Afghans have registered to vote in the upcoming elections. Many experts in Kabul believe existing voter registration figures to be exaggerated, however, primarily to "multiple registration by voters," the HRW report said. Due in large part to the fear generated by both the Taliban and warlords, actual voter participation on October 9 could be as low as 5 million, several Afghan officials told HRW.

The true extent of warlord influence over Afghanistan’s political process may not be seen until the parliamentary and local elections in 2005, when warlord factions are expected to use all means at their disposal, including bribery and violence, to bolster vote totals for their preferred candidates.

"Credible elections are seen by many Afghans as the as the way to transform the country from a loose set of warlord-led fiefdoms into a functioning nation,’ the HRW report said. "The question is whether the presidential election in 2004 (and local and parliamentary elections in 2005) will move the country towards that goal?"

The HRW report insists the answer to that question is no. "Most signs suggest that warlordism and factional dominance will only increase," the report said.


Editor’s Note: Daan van der Schriek is a freelance journalist based in Kabul.

Posted October 5, 2004 © Eurasianet
http://www.eurasianet.org

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FJ06Ak02.html

[Amaunet]

Taliban threaten to attack Karzai inaugration

KABUL: The Taliban threatened on Monday to launch attacks during President Hamid Karzai’s swearing in ceremony. The inauguration will take place on Tuesday morning at Karzai’s presidential palace in Kabul. It will be witnessed by US Vice President Dick Cheney, the most senior US official to visit Afghanistan since US-led forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, as well as other foreign dignitaries. Senior Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah warned people to stay away from government and military installations during the inauguration. He said that Taliban guerrillas had been given orders to disrupt the ceremony to remind foreigners that Islamist fighters opposed their occupation of the country. US military spokesman Major Mark McCann told a news briefing that quick reaction ground and air units from US-led forces and NATO-led peacekeepers were part of a comprehensive plan to counter potential militant action. reuters

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_7-12-2004_pg7_43