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Alex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
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Basra abandoned to gangsters
#4587197 - 08/27/05 11:32 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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So this is "freedom" and what our brave boys are dying for by the bushel 
The truth about Steven Vincent's murder may never be known, but that should not cloud the truth about Basra's police. In an opinion piece in the New York Times on July 31, the American journalist said Shia militias had infiltrated the force and were assassinating opponents in Iraq's second city. He was right. Two days later, Vincent and his female interpreter, Noriya Ita'is, were abducted outside his hotel in downtown Basra. The next day his body was found riddled with bullets. Ita'is had been shot twice in the leg and once in the shoulder, according to a doctor who treated her.
Regardless, there is no doubt Vincent was correct about the police being infested with murderous Shia militias, notably the Mahdi army of the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Badr organisation of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri).
"The militias are the real power in Basra, and they are made up of criminals and bad people. Some of the police are involved in assassinations." That was not a frightened civilian, or an anonymous low-level copper, but General Hassan al-Sade, Basra's chief of police, speaking on record to the Guardian in late May.
With 35 of 41 provincial council seats, Shia conservatives boast an electoral mandate. Turn a blind eye to what they want - even if that is corrupting the police, burning alcohol shops, oppressing women - and you give them an interest in keeping Basra relatively quiet, allowing Britain to scale down troop levels next year. The alternative is to stir things up, US-style, by confronting clerics and arresting militia members, thus pushing British casualties closer to US levels.
Vincent raged against the trade-off and accused Britain, rich on human-rights rhetoric, of buying itself an exit strategy by abandoning Basra to intolerance and gangsterism. He was right.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1557540,00.html
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RandalFlagg
Stranger
Registered: 06/15/02
Posts: 15,608
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Re: Basra abandoned to gangsters [Re: Alex213]
#4587476 - 08/27/05 01:25 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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I have serious doubts that a stable democracy can arise from a country with such deep tribal, religious, and ethnic divides. Throw in decades of brutality and torture (which became the norm in the country) by Saddam's regime and I am inclined to believe that violence and conflict will be what defines the future of Iraq. I hope I am wrong.
Edited by RandalFlagg (08/27/05 01:26 PM)
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bukkake


Registered: 05/28/05
Posts: 2,764
Loc: Classified
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Re: Basra abandoned to gangsters [Re: RandalFlagg]
#4587538 - 08/27/05 01:44 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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The insurgents are flushed out, coalition forces leave, insurgents re-appear. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. They'll swing on by to Basra roon and get rid of them. And then, you know...
This is happening in many Iraqi towns.
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Alex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
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Re: Basra abandoned to gangsters [Re: RandalFlagg]
#4591237 - 08/28/05 02:35 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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Iraq seems to be heading the same way as Afghanistan - a "government" in the capital propped up by American forces whose power extends to a half-mile radius while the rest of the country is under the control of whichever warlord can fight his way to the top.
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LSDempire
LibertarianEnforcer


Registered: 04/23/05
Posts: 581
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
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Re: Basra abandoned to gangsters [Re: Alex213]
#4593639 - 08/29/05 12:00 AM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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Islam is a disease of the mind, Muslims will fight to the death to prevent freedom of speech.
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