Re:Jonathan Steele of the Guardian
Re:Jonathan Steele "US allies are behind the death squads and ethnic cleansing "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1753653,00.html
"I have come to believe that objectivity means giving all sides a fair hearing, but not treating all sides equally....Objectivity must go hand in hand with morality"
Christine Amanpour
What captured my attention when I read this flawed article was the way its writer repressed the news that he didn’t favour For instance he writes that “The rampaging by Shia militias and the rise of defensive Sunni vigilantes have launched a low-intensity ethnic cleansing”. Strange as it may be, but this dishearteningly ignorant thesis attempts to dismiss a simple fact that is in the aftermath of the American invasion, it was this “defensive” Sunni vigilantes” which first declared a war on Shiite. The bombing of Ali’s Shrine in Najaf in August 2003 that resulted in the death of tens of Shiite, among whom was Bakr Hakim, the late head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was just the beginning of an endless series of sectarian attacks against the Shiite who compose the majority of Iraqis. Since then, there has been literally thousands of attacks against the Shiite, many of which was directed against them during their holy days and at their scared shrines
To illuminate this point, here is some figures from the BBC:
2004
Total attacks: 26,496
Improvised bombs: 5,607
Car bombings: 420
Suicide car bombings: 133
Suicide bombers wearing explosive vests: 7
2005
Total attacks: 34,131
Improvised bombs: 10,593
Car bombings: 873
Suicide car bombings: 411
Suicide bombers wearing explosive vests: 67
Commenting on the horrors of these attacks, a certain Brian Anthony remarks in readingeagle “Imagine a single one of these events happening in downtown Poughkeepsie, let alone a thousand. How many times would you turn the other cheek?”
But it's really worse than that, is Steele’s crude simplification when he writes about the Americans battle against the Jihads(it would better read Wahabis) and the “nationalist Sunni-led insurgency”. What stroke in his latter notion was the total absent of any in-depth understanding of the underlying motives of such “nationalist” insurgency. I mean it is more reasonable to say the reason why the insurgents strongholds lies mainly in the Sunni areas where they enjoy supports from the locals is power per se. For the Sunni were holding the grips of power for decades and when a someone comes in and take what they considered to be their “divinely given right” to a group which happens to be the majority, then it is not surprising that they will fight with tooth and nails to regain their lost power? So it is realpolitik, rather an abstract notion of nationalism that drives them to fight.
That is why most of the Arab Sunnis in Iraq have never acknowledged that Shiite are the majority. Ironically enough, they claim that they are the majority?
Probably the best solution to this dead block is a recognition from the part of Sunnis that they are a minority and act accordingly. At the same time, their leaders should stopped embracing Saddam’s unrevealed rubbish argument that the most of the Iraqi Shiites are Iranians. And a milder approach from the Shiite politicians and surely heeding the advice of Sistani who has been advocating a bigger saying for the Sunnis in the future of Iraq will be the answer to this problem.
If both also abandoned their self-victimhood and had a better faith in each other which must be complimented by disarment of the militias AND of those Sunnis zealots. Only then, they will be able to eliminate the dangers of a disastrous full-scale civil war. After all, about a quarter of the Iraqi populations, have already made that choose through the mixed Shiite-Sunni marriages. I wish that the rest of the Iraqis will learn from the human experiences of their compatriots.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1753653,00.html
"I have come to believe that objectivity means giving all sides a fair hearing, but not treating all sides equally....Objectivity must go hand in hand with morality"
Christine Amanpour
What captured my attention when I read this flawed article was the way its writer repressed the news that he didn’t favour For instance he writes that “The rampaging by Shia militias and the rise of defensive Sunni vigilantes have launched a low-intensity ethnic cleansing”. Strange as it may be, but this dishearteningly ignorant thesis attempts to dismiss a simple fact that is in the aftermath of the American invasion, it was this “defensive” Sunni vigilantes” which first declared a war on Shiite. The bombing of Ali’s Shrine in Najaf in August 2003 that resulted in the death of tens of Shiite, among whom was Bakr Hakim, the late head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was just the beginning of an endless series of sectarian attacks against the Shiite who compose the majority of Iraqis. Since then, there has been literally thousands of attacks against the Shiite, many of which was directed against them during their holy days and at their scared shrines
To illuminate this point, here is some figures from the BBC:
2004
Total attacks: 26,496
Improvised bombs: 5,607
Car bombings: 420
Suicide car bombings: 133
Suicide bombers wearing explosive vests: 7
2005
Total attacks: 34,131
Improvised bombs: 10,593
Car bombings: 873
Suicide car bombings: 411
Suicide bombers wearing explosive vests: 67
Commenting on the horrors of these attacks, a certain Brian Anthony remarks in readingeagle “Imagine a single one of these events happening in downtown Poughkeepsie, let alone a thousand. How many times would you turn the other cheek?”
But it's really worse than that, is Steele’s crude simplification when he writes about the Americans battle against the Jihads(it would better read Wahabis) and the “nationalist Sunni-led insurgency”. What stroke in his latter notion was the total absent of any in-depth understanding of the underlying motives of such “nationalist” insurgency. I mean it is more reasonable to say the reason why the insurgents strongholds lies mainly in the Sunni areas where they enjoy supports from the locals is power per se. For the Sunni were holding the grips of power for decades and when a someone comes in and take what they considered to be their “divinely given right” to a group which happens to be the majority, then it is not surprising that they will fight with tooth and nails to regain their lost power? So it is realpolitik, rather an abstract notion of nationalism that drives them to fight.
That is why most of the Arab Sunnis in Iraq have never acknowledged that Shiite are the majority. Ironically enough, they claim that they are the majority?
Probably the best solution to this dead block is a recognition from the part of Sunnis that they are a minority and act accordingly. At the same time, their leaders should stopped embracing Saddam’s unrevealed rubbish argument that the most of the Iraqi Shiites are Iranians. And a milder approach from the Shiite politicians and surely heeding the advice of Sistani who has been advocating a bigger saying for the Sunnis in the future of Iraq will be the answer to this problem.
If both also abandoned their self-victimhood and had a better faith in each other which must be complimented by disarment of the militias AND of those Sunnis zealots. Only then, they will be able to eliminate the dangers of a disastrous full-scale civil war. After all, about a quarter of the Iraqi populations, have already made that choose through the mixed Shiite-Sunni marriages. I wish that the rest of the Iraqis will learn from the human experiences of their compatriots.
posted by Suhrawardi at 9:06 AM
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