.....voted unanimously on a motion demanding an official apology from the US Embassy and Washington.

....some calling for the fortified Green Zone to be “liberated from the occupation”.

Deputies took turns to speak for almost two hours about the many indignities that they and the Iraqi population suffer when coming in contact with US troops.

“They should be put on notice and given two months — no more — to leave the Green Zone,” ......

“Yes, the end of occupation begins here. The Green Zone must be liberated from occupation!”


No headlines in America......

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They should be grateful that we got rid of Saddam Hussein for them.

> They should be grateful that we got rid of Saddam Hussein for them.

Difficult situation. How grateful would we in the Thirteen Colonies have been if France had invaded unilaterally to throw out the British before our own revolutionary war? Even if they promised to leave once the colonies were once again stable. Not exactly a perfect similarity, but it does illustrate the difficulty in overcoming nationalistic resentment for occupying armies.

Something doesn't pass the smell test here. First off there are at least 2 accounts of what happened pressented (and at least 1 more to come). The "victim" (Fatah Al Sheikh) is aligned with Muqtada al-Sadr. Who is the "they" (I'm assuming UIA, who's platform boils down to getting a timetable for the multinational force to pull out) that voted unanimously for the apology? The whole thing is hardly a cut and dry issue.

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

It should be remembered that someday not so far from now, the US will come to the Iraqi parliament for a status of forces agreement (SOFA), and Fattah al-Shaikh and his friends will be voting on it.


Meanwhile back in Washington, the US Senate showed disdain for Bush's attempt to keep the additions to the $200 billion Iraq funding requests, out of the budget

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> > They should be grateful that we got rid of Saddam Hussein for them.
>
> Difficult situation. How grateful would we in the Thirteen Colonies have been
> if France had invaded unilaterally to throw out the British before our own
> revolutionary war? Even if they promised to leave once the colonies were once
> again stable. Not exactly a perfect similarity, but it does illustrate the
> difficulty in overcoming nationalistic resentment for occupying armies.
>

Yea, I know Murasaki, but if we end up leaving Iraq, that country will just fall apart. Our soldiers have to use some of these strict methods to insure that certain areas are secure for both our military and the Iraqis in the area under US protection. I kinda figured that these kinds of things would eventually happen sooner or later since we've been there for quite some time now and it's natural for the Iraqis to start resenting our presence.

In the case of the Thirteen Colonies, I would agree with you, but I don't think that there was any chance that Saddam Hussein or his successors would have been overthrown by their own people for a very long time. Having said all that, I still don't think that we should have gone in to Iraq the way that we did. It would have been best I think to just support internal armed resistance. I also think that no US leadership at any time should try to exaggerate certain dangers (Tonkin Gulf) that an adversary may pose. Man, I hope I didn't get off subject. [edited]

I think you're not off topic, Alex...

As laid out in the Project for a New America and embodied in our National Security policies, we went into Iraq to establish permanent bases in the region in order to control Iraq's natural resources....

It's not only the Iraqi's who were duped into thinking we only meant to unseat Saddam.

Iraq today has many problems which are worse than under Saddam.....

The security situation is still out of control..... remember, Saddam held sway with a million man army..... we disbanded that army and we can't commit enough troops to do the job.

Add that we have done a miserable job on reconstructing the infrastructure we bombed into disfunction and it's no wonder that there is 'unrest' manifesting itself with our continued presence.

Iraqi view... Read a sampling of the archives, as well as the more recent posts....

Read this for a comprehensive view of Iraq's political complexities and current events.

---

> I think you're not off topic, Alex...
>
> As laid out in the Project for a New America and embodied in our National
> Security policies, we went into Iraq to establish permanent bases in the
> region in order to control Iraq's natural resources....
>
> It's not only the Iraqi's who were duped into thinking we only meant to unseat
> Saddam.
>
> Iraq today has many problems which are worse than under Saddam.....
>
> The security situation is still out of control..... remember, Saddam held sway
> with a million man army..... we disbanded that army and we can't commit
> enough troops to do the job.
>
> Add that we have done a miserable job on reconstructing the infrastructure we
> bombed into disfunction and it's no wonder that there is 'unrest' manifesting
> itself with our continued presence.
>
> Iraqi view... Read a
> sampling of the archives, as well as the more recent posts....
>
> Read this for a comprehensive view of
> Iraq's political complexities and current events.
>

Hmm, interesting reading Paul. Reading all the news at juancole.com, It's difficult for me to see how we can really control the security situation in that country. Based on all that's happening, I think it would take at least 3 to 5 FULL corps to establish an appropriate long-term stability in Iraq, and not the reletively small amount of forces that we have there right now. And we simply do not have that many active land forces to do this.

I would say that there must always be a point where it's time to admit that there is only so much that we can do in a post-war evironment such as this, especially in a region where the politics are so complex. The Iraqis themselves must find some way to build their country back, and also try to bring about some form of stable functioning society. I think it's getting time to consider an exit plan for the next few years. But in the meantime, we should do what we can to keep the country from falling into complete chaos. [edit] If our government indeed went into this to gain control of Iraq's oil, than I think someone has made a very serious mistake cuz there's no way that the flow of oil would be stable under these circumstances. Besides that, the people of Iraq would eventually lose their trust of us if they thought that this was a major reason for the war. [/edit]

> ....

Required reading.

L8R....

T'Khasi Time: Thursday, 21 April 2005 - 06:50 PM --700 (Pacific Standard Time)

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