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the dumb fairy
‘Readers tell me that Americans don’t live here any more. They ask what responsible American citizenry would put up with the trashing of the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers, with wars based on deception, and with pathological liars in control of their government? One reader recently wrote that he believes that "no element of the U.S. government has been left untainted" by the lies and manipulations that have driven away accountability. So-called leaders, he wrote, "talk a great story of American pride and patriotism," but in their hands patriotism is merely a device for "cynical manipulation and fraud."
The Bush regime acknowledges that 30,000 Iraqi civilians, largely women and children, have been killed as a result of Bush’s invasion. Others who have looked at civilian casualties with greater attention have come up with numbers three to six times as large. The Johns Hopkins study accounted for 98,000 civilian deaths. Patrick Cockburn, using more sophisticated statistical analysis, concluded that 180,000 Iraqis died as a result of Bush’s invasion. The former prime minister Iyad Allawi says that Iraqi sectarian violence alone is claiming 50–60 deaths per day, or 18,000–22,000 annually, a figure that could quickly worsen.’
- By Gus Leonisky at 23 Mar 2006 - 5:30pm
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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the secular versus the religious mob...
from the BBC
Iyad Allawi, the man who won Iraq's parliamentary elections, has accused Iran of trying to prevent him from becoming prime minister.
The leader of the secular alliance that narrowly won this month's poll told the BBC that Tehran was interfering directly in Iraq's electoral process.
His Iraqiyya bloc beat the rival State of Law alliance of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki by just two seats.
Both the UN and US envoys to Iraq have said the 7 March poll was credible.
But Mr Maliki has said he will challenge the count through the courts.
Despite winning the election, Mr Allawi is a long way short of the majority he needs to form a government, says the BBC's Andrew North in Baghdad.
Much of his support came from Iraq's Sunni minority, our correspondent adds, but most of the parties he would need to back him represent Iraq's Shia majority, and have close ties to Iran.
Difficulty governing?
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Allawi said it was "very clear" that Iran was trying to stop him from becoming prime minister.
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Things could become ugly... see toon at top...
sinking in the mess of "mission accomplished"...
BAGHDAD — Only three hours into a parliamentary session called on Thursday to begin the process of approving an agreement on a new unity government, members of an alliance led by the former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, walked out in protest.
While the walkout did not immediately scuttle the agreement, which was reached only the night before, it was a stark illustration of the fragility of a broad coalition that was not yet 24 hours old, and was a portent of the political struggles ahead.
The Obama administration has insisted during Iraq’s protracted political deadlock that a new government should mirror the will of the electorate. It got its wish: the government — if it holds together — will be fractured and unwieldy, rife with suspicion, hobbled by a shaky grasp of the rule of law and prone to collapse, or at least chaos.
Despite reaching a tentative agreement, Iraq’s leaders continued to squabble over positions and power, and to make threats that could unravel a deal that took eight months to reach.
Members of Mr. Allawi’s bloc walked out after failing to force a vote on demands that included a release of detainees. They also sought to reverse a decision that disqualified three of the alliance’s candidates on the grounds that they were loyal to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. Both are contentious issues among the country’s Sunni Arabs.
“We can’t go on with a government that begins with a violation of its agreements,” said Haydar al-Mullah, an Allawi supporter. Mr. Allawi’s alliance narrowly defeated Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s bloc in elections last spring but failed to win enough support to unseat him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
see toon at top...