Religion – After almost five years of war, many young Iraqis, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.
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May be they should thank Bush for destroying their once peaceful country.
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/iraqi-violenc...
Iraq: Children being cooked "In at least one incident, an 11-year-old boy was ...recently 'slaughtered' by Muslim militants believed to be linked to the 'al Qaida in Iraq' group, who later "cooked" the child, several news reports said. His family was allegedly later invited to a "feast meal" where they were forced to eat the boy, reports said." In the most shocking report from Iraq we have received, a toddler was kidnapped in Baghdad in October 2006. The mother could not afford to pay the ransom, and so the kidnappers killed the child. They returned the body to the mother. The little child had been beheaded, roasted and was served on a mound of rice. In another incident a 14-year-old Christian boy was held down by his limbs and beheaded, or, as Iraqi Christians have described it, "crucified". His Muslim attackers called him a "dirty Christian sinner" and chanted "Allahu akbar" (Allah is great).
Yep, sounds really peaceful doesn't it nikkibabe?
I can't imagine how peaceful Iraq would be without American soldiers killing 11 year olds and forcing their families to eat them...oh wait! My bad, that's the Al Qaida hahah silly me.
Sounds just like the US. Only we're not in a war zone.
Part of the Peaceful Past of Iraq under Saddam - Not fit for minors!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHvIsv9UWCo
If that is the standard you're going to use to justify military intervention, then the U.S. should have sent troops into Darfur before sending troops into Iraq.
Or China (our most favored trading partner)
Or Saudi Arabia (BushCo's best buddies)
Or... The list goes on.
Ah so you guys really are fir war, just not this one?
SLATE:
"Ah so you guys really are fir war, just not this one?"
Typical oversimplified response. Certainly, there are instances where war is justified; self-defense is one, which is why the war in Afghanistan is universally supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. However, the Iraq war was NOT a case of self-defense, as declassified documentation from our intelligence agencies, Pentagon, and Senate Intelligence committees have demonstrated by showing Iraq did not have an active WMD program and Saddam did not have operational ties to Bin Ladin.
Just because I can admit there exist reasonable justifications for war, does not mean I am "for war." Only a fool, who has never lost a loved one due to military service, would be "for war."
Contrary to what you said, defense isn't always the only good justification for war.
I'm thinking you had little problem going into the Balkans 10 years ago under NATO did you? Now after this time they gave country away.. Darfur, now there is another place we have heard we need to go, what do we need to defend ourselves against them?
As far as WMDs, your favorite president, his wife and most of the world thought Saddam had WMDs and WJC actually used might against Saddam for that very reason, your weak attempt to once again try and make out like everyone knew their were and WMDs is well weak. Try again, we have all the things we need by YOUR standards to have goen into Iraq.
Mass graves (the most important reason), WMD programs, which the former administration used US might to attack. Bush also had a unanimously signed UN bill authorizing force that means the WORLD thought Saddam had WMDs and needed to be dealt with by military action.
Bush also had the US congress, including Hillary and others that are now doves signing the bill to proceed. Now in hindsight you guys cry they were 'lied' to for political ammo. All those smart people just voted YES without vetting the information even a little. I'm sorry I don't buy that, what with at least one of those people being the smartest woman in the world and all.
SLATE:
"Contrary to what you said, defense isn't always the only good justification for war."
Looks like you need remedial reading comprehension. My EXACT WORDS were "Certainly, there are instances where war is justified; self-defense is one." NEVER did I say that self-defense is "the only good justification for war," as you misquoted. You obviously have a problem with oversimplifying complex, nuanced positions.
Pathetic
SLATE:
"As far as WMDs, your favorite president, his wife and most of the world thought Saddam had WMDs"
WRONG. The declassified documentation shows that our intelligence agencies didn't know whether Saddam had WMDs. Many leaders, like the Clintons, were rightfully suspicious, but were hesitant to act without PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of (1) operational ties between Bin Ladin and Saddam and (2) an active WMD program--hence the strategy of containment, which was EFFECTIVE.
SLATE:
"WJC actually used might against Saddam for that very reason"
Your claim that Bill Clinton's use of targeted missile strikes and Bush Jr's 5-year long occupation are equivalent reveals just how simple-minded your analysis is:
1) While Clinton's missile strikes were used to force Iraq into compliance with UNSCOM to facilitate UN inspections, while Bush's preemptive strikes prevented UN inspectors from completing their jobs.
2) In 1998, Iraq had been dragging its feet in complying with UNSCOM, which led to Clinton's actions. But after 9/11, CIA and Pentagon documents show that Saddam switched to full compliance so as not to give the U.S. and Israel an excuse to invade.
http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2006...
"By late 2002, Saddam finally tilted towards pursuing policies designed to persuade the international community that Iraq was cooperating with UNSCOM and that it was free of WMD...As 2002 drew to a close, the regime took active measures to counter the Coalition's assertion that WMD still remained in Iraq. Saddam was insistent that 'in order not to give President Bush any excuses to start a war,' Iraq would give full access to UN Inspectors."
"Saddam became convinced that because there were no WMDs to be found in Iraq, the Americans or Israelis were not beyond planting fake evidence."
"Saddam avoided taking actions in the year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. that would appear obstructionist or threatening. In late 2002, he told a group of officers that Iraq would provide UN inspectors with the access they needed, thus denying President George W. Bush and the Americans any excuse for starting a new conflict."
SLATE:
"I'm thinking you had little problem going into the Balkans 10 years ago under NATO did you?"
3) Again, your confusion between Clinton's actions and Bush's actions reveal how shallow your analysis is. As a signatory member of the UN and NATO, Bill Clinton was OBLIGATED to act in the Balkans to halt genocide--the primary purpose for the establishment of the UN. Bush did NOT act under UN or NATO mandate; in fact, his actions were in direct violation of the UN Charter and UNSCR 1441. And furthermore, in 2003 Saddam was NOT in the process of comitting mass genocide, as was occuring in the Balkans in 1998. The gassing of the Iranians and Kurds occurred in the 1980s with Reagan's FULL SUPPORT and, some argue, with American weaponry technology given to Iraq.
SLATE:
"Darfur, now there is another place we have heard we need to go, what do we need to defend ourselves against them?"
Darfur needs peacekeepers, not bombs.
SLATE:
"Mass graves (the most important reason)"
WRONG. The single most important reason was to prevent Al Qaeda from launching attacks against the U.S. using Iraq's allegedly active WMD program--14 of the 23 reasons listed on the AUMF dealt with this fabricated accusation. The "mass graves" largely occurred during the Iraq-Iran war (or shortly thereafter), and occurred with REAGAN'S SUPPORT, as Saddam used chemical weapons (given to him by the U.S.) against Iranians and Kurds.
SLATE:
"Bush also had a unanimously signed UN bill authorizing force"
WRONG. UNSCR 1441 was NOT a war resolution. On the contrary, it calls for inspections to continue. In fact, Bush HIMSELF violated UN Resolution 1441 when he prematurely pulled UN inspectors out of Iraq before they could complete their inspections and unilaterally invaded Iraq, instead of returning the matter to the UN Security Council for "further deliberations" as specified in Resolution 1441. Russia, France, and China only agreed to sign 1441 on the guaranteed condition that 1441 would send the matter of Iraq back to the Security Council for "further deliberations" in the event that Iraq refused to comply. Bush broke this promise when he attacked Iraq preemptively. Do yourself a favor and read UNSCR 1441. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/3925920.html
http://www.un.org/apps/news/storyAr.asp?NewsID=...
"Security Council hears repeated calls for more time for UN inspections in Iraq"
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0301/27/...
"U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has just come out and asked the Security Council to give weapons inspectors in Iraq more time...The U.S., of course, didn't think inspectors should be granted that much time. They are pushing for a quicker, more definitive decision on Iraq's level of cooperation."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0623-10...
"Three-and-a-half months for new inspections was a rather short time before calling it a day and especially when we now see the U.S. government is saying that, 'look, you have to have a little patience, you know these things take time.' All right," Blix told his audience of foreign policy analysts, business leaders, academics and journalists."--Hanx Blix
SLATE:
"Bush also had the US congress, including Hillary and others that are now doves signing the bill to proceed."
And it's ALREADY been shown that these Congressmen signed the AUMF because they were misled by the manufactured "alternative intelligence" briefings provided by Douglas Feith and Don Rumsfeld.
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/ig020907-decl...
"The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship, which included some conclsions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers...The OSP, under direction from Feith, was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, as evidenced by the role of Feith's office in hatching the imaginary meeting between Mohammad Atta and Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague."
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/06/...
"The Inspector General''s report slams former Defense Policy Chief Douglas Feith, who ran a kind of intelligence think tank within the Pentagon, for amping up the case against Iraq on al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction, when the evidence did not support it."
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2005/May/05_crm_238...
"Lawrence Franklin [who worked under Douglas Feith at the OSP] surrendered to authorities at the FBI's Washington Field Office in D.C. this morning. A criminal complaint filed Tuesday and unsealed this morning charges Franklin with disclosing classified U.S. national defense information to a person or persons not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(d)."
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3105iraq_...
"The Senate inquiry includes an examination of the Pentagon's the Office of Special Programs' Douglas Feith, which "cherry-picked" intelligence from Iraqi defectors and others, and then sent it directly to the Office of the Vice President, by-passing normal intelligence channels and procedures."
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_03_12/article...
"The Nuremburg tribunals established the now universally accepted principle that anyone who falsely makes a case for aggressive war should be considered a war criminal and held accountable. And there is much in the lead-up to the war against Iraq that suggests such a conclusion. Beyond the collection and stovepiping of dubious intelligence, the provenance of the Niger uranium forgeries has never been resolved to anyone's satisfaction, and the possible role of the Office of Special Plans in their exploitation cannot be ruled out."
And who can blame them for losing faith in religion?
I'm surprised more people haven't, really. Israel against a lot of the Middle East (if not much of the world), Northern Ireland with the decades of fighting between Prostestants and Catholics. The list is long...
Until people actually start following a few of those old tenets from the early days of their respective religions, we'll never get along.
No one is better than anyone else in this world, and that goes for the religion they believe in, too.
I seem to remember a brutal gang rape, murder and burning of a fourteen year old Iraqi girl...oh, and murdering her family too...your getting mixed up is understandable.
The nerves of the right to act is we need you to protect us and the world from this. You are the reason for this, keeping you in power can only create more of the same because you don't get it...They wouldn't have done this if we hadn't started this stupid way!
The reason Islamic extremist are cooking Iraqi children and forcing the parents to eat them is the U.S. right wing? hmmm?
It would take a crazy person to think that, however i don't think it happens if we didn't invade Iraq. These guys were soo afraid of Sadam they wouldn't have even dream of setting foot there much less doing this. Look you know what i meant you are not stupid just stop trying your spin on me.
"It would take a crazy person to think that, however i don't think it happens if we didn't invade Iraq."
You have heard of saddam's rape rooms where fathers were forced to watch their wives and daughters being assaulted? Rooms where people were whipped until there skin hung off and were then dipped into human waste?
People were fed alive into wood-chippers?
People were butchered and the remains delivered to the family in a bag?
These new butchers were trying to move in and take saddam's place as head barbarian. The people saw that and rejected them. That is why we can't desert them until they have a decent, elected leadership in place to protect them from animals.
Not from Sadam, people say all sorts of thing that is not true. Do I think Sadam ws a bad guy, yes I do, but the same arguement is true for Bush is it not? If we are honest with ourselves, he may not kill and make eat 11 year old kids but so far over 1,300 non solders are dead. And maybe more, we will never know since our medis has stop reporting on it for our own good...smile
.
as some on the right like to say...... the same old talking points. after 5 years of occupation they've worn thin. i guess by your way of thinking all of this makes over a million dead iraqi civilians and over 4 million displaced iraqis, a country in tatters without electricity, water, law and security, a quasi-war and indefinite occupation completely justifiable and a bed of roses by comparison. the iraqis have so much to thank us for (sarcasm off). only thing.... they hate our guts and wish we'd leave
"i guess by your way of thinking all of this makes over a million dead iraqi civilians ..."
Show me some reliable documentation for that ridiculous claim.
It is claimed that saddam was the cause of about a million Muslim deaths during his rule.
"The highly regarded British polling agency, Oxford Research Bureau, has just updated its estimate of deaths. Their new estimate a couple of days ago is 1.3 million. That's excluding two of the most violent provinces, Karbala and Anbar. On the side, it's kind of intriguing to observe the ferocity of the debate over the actual number of deaths. There's an assumption on the part of the hawks that if we only killed a couple hundred thousand people, it would be OK, so we shouldn't accept the higher estimates. You can go along with that if you like."
http://www.propeller.com/viewstory/2008/02/26/n...
saddam ruled for 24 years and murdered a million iraqis. we topped that number and did it in one fifth of that time
The reason Islamic extremist are cooking Iraqi children and forcing the parents to eat them is the U.S. right wing? hmmm?>>
The poster gave you a good response. The seriously crazed insurgents...or whomever is doing these inhuman things, wouldn't have dared when hussein was there. WHY did we let them in? WHY didn't we secure those borders? WTF have we done to the Iraqi people? WTF have we done?
How can you of all people fall for this ludicrous propaganda? You are not BoBo in Texas or HMMace. There is not a particle of evidence to support these accusations, and the accent sounds fake to me, although I can not swear to that. I would like to hear from an Iraqi, or better still, an expert in Arabic dialects. Or, perhaps an expert in American dialects can determine where the speaker is really from.
markoller
How can you of all people fall for this ludicrous propaganda? You are not BoBo in Texas or HMMace. There is not a particle of evidence to support these accusations, and the accent sounds fake to me, although I can not swear to that. I would like to hear from an Iraqi, or better still, an expert in Arabic dialects. Or, perhaps an expert in American dialects can determine where the speaker is really from.
You don't need proof to believe anything the Western media say. You can take it for granted, they invent lies all the times, Zionists are long dead and they can't survive without lying and distorting things in the Muslim world and without wars they will die a natural death.
capecoralM
Iraq: Children being cooked "In at least one incident, an 11-year-old boy was ...recently 'slaughtered' by Muslim militants believed to be linked to the 'al Qaida in Iraq' group, who later "cooked" the child,
Zionist media are capable of cooking up news to keep their propaganda to mislead the American people and the world, they have been doing it for a long time and they know they can do it without getting quote, because Americans are so dumb that they will believe anything the media tell them, no question asked.
More typical "bash Israel" rhetoric from Daylight
Hate to tell you, but Israel has had NOTHING to do with Iraq. In fact Israeli officials were warning US to stay out of Iraq. For Israel, there was nothing better than when Iran and Iraq were in a constant state of war with eachother and leaving Israel alone!
The rare interface between Iraq and Israel was when Sadaam was paying the families of suicide bombers a large reward for their blowing up Israeli civilians. More peace and love from our Arab brothers.
Oh, and when Israel did the whole world a favor and took out his nuclear reactor and weapons program. Had Israel not done that, Iraq would have kept Kuwait and put a stranglehold on Western oil imports.
Get real.
Check your history, that country was far from peaceful.
Actually, Iraq was quite peaceful before Bush decided to invade. But, in order to know that, one would have had to actually have visited Iraq prior to the Bush led invasion.
well, there was of course the iran iraq war where we openly backed saddam but also backed iran with some sneaky double dealing. there was the gassing of the kurds who begged us for help but back then rummy was pressin palms with saddam so we quietly looked the other way. then there was iraq war one with bush one who gave saddam the wrong impression about what could be done with kuwait so saddam paid for it. then there were the no-fly zones where we bombed both the north and the south even though the un said we shouldn't, then there was the invasion and occupation, hmmmmm.... now wait a minute, if iraq hasn't been too peaceful it looks like it was that way BECAUSE OF US!!!!
When I write peaceful, I'm comparing Iraq before Bush decided to invaded & after. You're right in the sense that overall, Iraq has not been peaceful. Our meddling over the past years has had a lot to do with creating the instability there.
first up, pc, i was talking more in reply to codi. my aim hasn't been too good on this thread and it landed right behind yours (it's also my second shot at the same post, the first wound up on the next page!) and yeah, i follow what you mean by peaceful, being that it was stable and secure. now it's not, that would be because of us
Codi6934
Check your history, that country was far from peaceful.
Muslim countries can't be peaceful as long as occupation is continuing and the dictators are in control and supported by the Us and it's Zionist allies.
Muslim countries could be peaceful if they would join the rest of the world in the 21st century.
Codi6934
Muslim countries could be peaceful if they would join the rest of the world in the 21st century.
Muslims are more advanced than you if you are talking about your Secular laws. You are not in the 21st century, you are about 5000 years backward. Your so called life style lasted at that time, Moses came and made you civilized and then Jesus came 200 years ago and preached and try to reform you, these were the things he said to your forefathers: continues
Woe unto you, you blind guidesâ;¦â;¦Woe unto you, ye fools and blindâ;¦â;¦Thou blind Phariseesâ;¦â;¦ Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell... and evil and adulterous generation, see how he finished it. Now go back to you book and check it out, you will discover that it was an ancient pagan life style you are trying to sell it to the Muslims but we have a clean and purest life style where we invite you to live like human beings with your family with respect, dignity and honor. Please we don't need to follow your way of life, you can live the way want but stop imposing your crap on us.
I am not imposing a life style on anybody. If you want to worship a folk, I don't care. Where I have a problem is when a religion promotes death to non believers. And killing those non believers is a sure way to paradise. That way of thinking may have been fine in the 7th century, but not now.
Honestly, how dare you demean such an article with a political jab against the US? Yes, we are in a mess, we have created a mess, we have yet to clean up this mess, but for all that is holy, this article is meant to open eyes to what the common people are dealing with there, and how evil infests any and all sides. It is not so black and white as Bush = every problem in the modern world. Did you even read about Hussein's oppression of the Shiites? The evil (there is no other word for it) in human hearts spreads its plagues through many means, and wears many masks.
Peaceful?? Invading Iran, invading Kuwait and threatening invasion of Saudi Arabia, rewarding the families of suicide bombers with money, the blatant murder of hundreds of thousands of Kurds, state-sponsored torture and murder of its citizens, athletes tortured for not winning in the Olympics. Yes, a VERY PEACEFUL existence, indeed!