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Iraq: free for radicalism

4/22/2003 6:13 PM
Kursad K	Iraq: free for radicalism Mr. Garner faces the realities The Americans have to deal with de facto Iraqi leaders and the Shi'ite radicals... Retired American General Jay Garner is now in Baghdad to take on the challenge of creating some kind of administrative order for Iraq. As soon as he arrived in the Iraqi capital he was faced with an awkward situation where his administration had to announce it does not recognize a self-appointed governor for the city... Mr. Garner is getting a first hand taste of the mess he is getting into in Iraq, with Middle Eastern and Byzantine intrigue playing a central role in the way things work. The American official was shocked to find out that a former exile identified as Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Council tried to jump the gun by declaring himself the "governor" of Baghdad and taking charge of the city... He even announced he would send one of his deputies to the OPEC emergency meeting... He claimed he was elected by people representing clerics, academics, Muslim Shi'ites and Sunnis, Christians, writers and journalists. But nobody knew when this highly important election had taken place... According to wire dispatches Zabaidi said he was in close contact with the U.S. military and his council was working with them to switch power back on, resume supplies of fuel and cooking gas, and set up a Baghdad radio station. If all this is true then it once again shows there is confusion within the American establishment. It was the Pentagon that flew in Chalabi and his men into Iraq and made sure they had a political head-start. Now, is the Pentagon naming a governor for Baghdad while the American administration is bringing in Mr. Garner as the new boss in the interim Iraqi administration? The U.S. should not allow such confusion to prevail in Iraq. It has to get its act together from the very start or else Mr. Garner may be faced with more confusion and may find it impossible to forge some kind of order in the country. Besides all this, the U.S. should also read the Shi'ite demonstrations carefully. President George W. Bush said the demonstrations were a fine example of what people do when they win their freedom, but if he thinks the roads of Karbala are the same as the roads in Washington or San Francisco that would be a huge judgement of error. If you think such demonstrations are rather innocent then you have to think twice... After all, that is how the Islamic revolution took shape in Iran. Yes, it is excellent for people to exercise their new found freedoms in Iraq, but in the Middle East such freedoms may well be used to further the cause of radicalism that will actually end those freedoms and prevent the creation of a pluralistic system. The U.S. is obliged to be on alert when it comes to the de facto leaders of Iraq and the motivations of Shi'ite radicals. Negligence in these areas could lead to the disintegration of Iraq. Ilnur Cevik/TDN

4/22/2003 6:13 PM

Kursad K

Iraq: free for radicalism

Mr. Garner faces the realities

The Americans have to deal with de facto Iraqi leaders and the Shi'ite radicals...
Retired American General Jay Garner is now in Baghdad to take on the challenge of creating some kind of administrative order for Iraq. As soon as he arrived in the Iraqi capital he was faced with an awkward situation where his administration had to announce it does not recognize a self-appointed governor for the city...

Mr. Garner is getting a first hand taste of the mess he is getting into in Iraq, with Middle Eastern and Byzantine intrigue playing a central role in the way things work.

The American official was shocked to find out that a former exile identified as Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Council tried to jump the gun by declaring himself the "governor" of Baghdad and taking charge of the city... He even announced he would send one of his deputies to the OPEC emergency meeting...

He claimed he was elected by people representing clerics, academics, Muslim Shi'ites and Sunnis, Christians, writers and journalists. But nobody knew when this highly important election had taken place...

According to wire dispatches Zabaidi said he was in close contact with the U.S. military and his council was working with them to switch power back on, resume supplies of fuel and cooking gas, and set up a Baghdad radio station.

If all this is true then it once again shows there is confusion within the American establishment. It was the Pentagon that flew in Chalabi and his men into Iraq and made sure they had a political head-start. Now, is the Pentagon naming a governor for Baghdad while the American administration is bringing in Mr. Garner as the new boss in the interim Iraqi administration?

The U.S. should not allow such confusion to prevail in Iraq. It has to get its act together from the very start or else Mr. Garner may be faced with more confusion and may find it impossible to forge some kind of order in the country.

Besides all this, the U.S. should also read the Shi'ite demonstrations carefully. President George W. Bush said the demonstrations were a fine example of what people do when they win their freedom, but if he thinks the roads of Karbala are the same as the roads in Washington or San Francisco that would be a huge judgement of error.

If you think such demonstrations are rather innocent then you have to think twice... After all, that is how the Islamic revolution took shape in Iran.

Yes, it is excellent for people to exercise their new found freedoms in Iraq, but in the Middle East such freedoms may well be used to further the cause of radicalism that will actually end those freedoms and prevent the creation of a pluralistic system.

The U.S. is obliged to be on alert when it comes to the de facto leaders of Iraq and the motivations of Shi'ite radicals. Negligence in these areas could lead to the disintegration of Iraq.

Ilnur Cevik/TDN

4/22/2003 6:29 PM
Skreddy	Yes, there are some major differences between the Pentagon and the State Department's visions of Iraq's transitional government. The Pentagon wanted Chalabi, but the State Department recognizes he has limited political currency in Iraq. At the moment, the Pentagon is in a position to call all the shots, and Jay Garner's appointees have all been second-guessed by Donald Rumsfeld, who has substituted his own hand-picks for several key positions in Garner's cabinet. It MUST be made clear to all concerned that Iraq's new government WILL NOT be an Islamic state!!! (for example, would it then be a She'ite government? What, then, would become of the Sunnis, the Christians, the Buddhists, the non-religious???) That would spell complete disaster for the country as well as any dividends the US hopes to acheive from the war. Islam is simply not compatible with Democracy. Freedom of religion is not compatible with an Islamic state. No kind of freedom can exist in an Islamic state; it is the severest form of totalitarianism, even more so than Marxism. A constitution is clearly needed. These things take time. It took seven years for Japan and four for Germany...

4/22/2003 6:29 PM

Skreddy

Yes, there are some major differences between the Pentagon and the State Department's visions of Iraq's transitional government. The Pentagon wanted Chalabi, but the State Department recognizes he has limited political currency in Iraq.

At the moment, the Pentagon is in a position to call all the shots, and Jay Garner's appointees have all been second-guessed by Donald Rumsfeld, who has substituted his own hand-picks for several key positions in Garner's cabinet.

It MUST be made clear to all concerned that Iraq's new government WILL NOT be an Islamic state!!! (for example, would it then be a She'ite government? What, then, would become of the Sunnis, the Christians, the Buddhists, the non-religious???) That would spell complete disaster for the country as well as any dividends the US hopes to acheive from the war. Islam is simply not compatible with Democracy. Freedom of religion is not compatible with an Islamic state. No kind of freedom can exist in an Islamic state; it is the severest form of totalitarianism, even more so than Marxism.

A constitution is clearly needed.

These things take time. It took seven years for Japan and four for Germany...

4/22/2003 6:38 PM

Kursad K

quote:
"is simply not compatible with Democracy. Freedom of religion is not compatible with an Islamic state"

It's time to redefine the truth then, and say that Islam is indeed compatible with democracy, and in fact it's the religion of freedom, the most modern and the most logical. The truth of the past does not matter, as long as people believe that Islam is compatible with democracy, then it is compatible. After all, religion is all about what people believe to be true. This may sound like a joke, but it can be done, and has been done, and it works.

Kursad

4/22/2003 6:54 PM
Skreddy	Not sure what you're getting at. You know you would have to completely re-write the Koran, right? How many Muslims would stand for that? It doesn't sound like you're being sarcastic, so what are you saying exactly?

4/22/2003 6:56 PM
Kursad K	In Turkey no one has ever re-written Koran but 60 millon people stand for secularism and democracy. How do you explain that? It is possible to change the way people think. That's what education is for. Kursad

4/22/2003 7:56 PM
Skreddy	Oh. I was just saying that you can't have an Islamic regime and expect freedom and Democracy. Turkey is a secular state, isn't it? I wasn't saying people shouldn't be free to practice their religion, whether it's Islam or something else. We, of course, have quite a few Muslims here in the US too. Even Christians, who believe strongly in the rightness of their religion, recognize that Theocracy is the most abhorrent form of government. Well, the smart ones do anyway! hehe That's why our founding fathers, most of whom were devout Christians, included the clause "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" in the US Constitution.

4/22/2003 7:56 PM

Skreddy

Oh. I was just saying that you can't have an Islamic regime and expect freedom and Democracy. Turkey is a secular state, isn't it? I wasn't saying people shouldn't be free to practice their religion, whether it's Islam or something else. We, of course, have quite a few Muslims here in the US too.

Even Christians, who believe strongly in the rightness of their religion, recognize that Theocracy is the most abhorrent form of government. Well, the smart ones do anyway! hehe That's why our founding fathers, most of whom were devout Christians, included the clause "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" in the US Constitution.

4/22/2003 8:29 PM

Kursad K

quote:
"Oh. I was just saying that you can't have an Islamic regime and expect freedom and Democracy. "

I agree.

quote:
"Turkey is a secular state, isn't it? "

Yes and Muslims are happy with that excluding a few fundementalists who are blacklisted and considered to be in the same category with terrorists. They live in Germany, in the country of freedom (=>tolerance for fundamentalism), because they would get arrested in Turkey. One of them used to live in USA and was CIA's favorite guy for stirring Turkic nations in the ex-USSR. (of course, officially that's not true and similarly once Bin Laden wasn't the favorite guy of CIA either.)
Anyway, that's a bit off topic in this context. Remember back in Renaissance Christians had redefined the truth too. That's something similar. The new truth replaces the old one and creates the impression that as if it had always been that way.

Kursad

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