This is a good “helicopter –view” of the Iraqi political scene regarding SOFA:
- The Kurdish nationalist parties publicly announced their total support to SOFA, and attacked SOFA’s opposition political blocs. The Kurdish Islamic parties, stayed silent.
- Parties allied under the United Iraqi Alliance exchanged different roles. The leaders of the Supreme Council shared various positions from the security agreement. Between non-acceptance, acceptance and asking to add new amendments to the pact, they finally settled on refusing seven — five articles in the final draft. Second-degree politicians from this coalition are still announcing different positions.
- Maliki’s Dawa Party, in each occasion keeps repeating that the party supports the government decision.
- Sunni “Accordance Front” are also in different positions, some of them endorsed SOFA, some with reservation, and the other called for more time.
The official position of the Front has changed, from a neutral position and very close to support the pact at the beginning, to the reservation and demand amendments.
- SOFA’s opposition fronts are not at their best also, the ironic scene of the anti-occupation camp gives us an initial idea of the reality of this camp:
Baath Party released a list of names called “traitors and agents of the occupation” includes the name of Muqtada Al-Sadr and the leaders of the Sadr Trend, some of them are still in the American prisons, while the Sadrists in every occasion curse the Baathists repeatedly.
This is just a tragic example refers to the totalitarian mentality that produced such attitudes and delayed the final defeat of the occupation.
I can’t understand your deep love for the iran’s puppet Moqtada al-Sadr and his wonderful drill-team: however it isn’t my business. But do you really think that the baath party should praise the Mahdi army, that not only ethnic cleansed Baghdad and the south of iraq, mass murdered tens of thousands (conservative estimate) of innocent iraqis, fought against the resistance, forced hundreds of thousands of iraqis to fleee their country and tortured and slaughtered the palestinian refugees in Iraq, but also lynched president Saddam Hussein, desacrated his body and danced around his desacrated body? And that the baath party doesn’t love that much Sadr’s death squads because of baathist “totalitarian mentality? What should the baath party party write according to you : “three cheers for the assassins of Saddam Hussein? ”
Paola
My deep love is to see the Sunnis resistance forces working together with Sadr against the occupation.
Since this is not happening. I am with every group demand the withdrawal of the U.S. occupation forces, it is the Sadrists “Mahdi Army, Harith Al-Dhari or the Baathists.
Lady bird,
i still can’t believe my lying eyes when i read you website. You have been denouncing the Mahdi army’s monstruos crimes for years, you wrote many times that there was a cooperation between Mahdi Army and US forces in order to ethnic cleanse Iraq (for instance: http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2006/12/23/evidence-of-cooperation-between-mahdi-army-and-uus-forces-to-attack-sunni-neighborhoods/ ), then suddendly you started writing eulogies to the sadrists mass murderers. But this isn’t my point. Of course you have the full right to change your mind and to like the sadrist drillers and maybe their Iranian masters too.
Am asking another thing: how can you think that the victims of the mahdy army could so easily forget and forgive their persecutors, how can you think that the baath party could cheere the assassins of Saddam Hussein and of thousands of baathists? And above all, how can you believe that the iraqi resistance and the iraqi people could trust Sadr and his thugs that always fougth AGAINST the same resistance and that act at iran’s beck and call?
Paola
I never changed my mind, but there is difference between what I wish see and what is going on in reality.
I just want to remind you that about one year and half, AL-Sadr had good relations with the Sunni resistance and out the sudden (After Al-Askreen mosque bombing) not any more.
There is a missing link here, which probably can be found in Iran or the U.S.
Again, I am not saying that all the crimes must be forgotten, but first let us think how to kick the Americans out and as for who committed crimes that will come later.
The Sadr movement is full of contradictions. The leadership became part of the occupation political process in 2005, before the Golden Mosque was bombed. The best source on the mysteries around that bombing is of course, you, Ladybird.
Even while the leaders have been on payroll we know conclusively that the occupation went after the JAM militarily. There is evidence that the mass base not only returned the favor but sometimes went on the offensive. It looks to me like the leaders like the occupation’s gravy but the Sadrist masses do what they will anyway. Maybe some of them are really Baathists?
The Baath on the other hand has fought the occupation tooth and nail from the start. It has maintained the essential principle of having no political dealings with the occupation.
So, the Sadrist leaders hate the Baath and the Baath hates the Sadrist leadership. That does not make them the same but there is, despite all the failings of the Sadrists, a problem of national unity.
I don’t know the answer. My opinion is that it is a question of what the Baath and other sections of the national resistance must do to overcome the problems created by the Sadrist leaders.
David, who sold themselves out to Americans again back in the late 50’s and early 60’s to get some U.S support just to take a down a “nationalist” and his group? Couldn’t have been Baathists could it?
Or what about some guys in Anbar today, aka Baathists who not that long ago said they prefer John McCain (a guy who wants U.S troops to stay in Iraq as long as he feels like) as U.S president but that (if I recall correct) they preferred an U.S presence in the country?
Like ladybird said, kick out americans and every other foreigner (including ones from neighbhouring countries) and then solve out problems about who commited most crimes. The Baathists have no moral highgrounds whatsoever, every group is responsible for crimes.
It would help, Lagash, if you would relate a few facts rather than vague references to who-knows-what legends, imaginings, etc.
You mean that the CIA didn’t provide lists of ICP leaders (and members) to the Baathists, who later on would carry out house-to-house hunt and kill most of them with the exception of those who managed to flee? What? Iraqi communists communities just settled down into places like Sweden, UK, Norway just like that, for no reason? I’m sure they just preferred to leave their country, no one ever persecuted them eh? They all just packed and left! That makes absolutely sense doesn’t it?
The Baathist party had full support from the U.S government, not due to the fact that the U.S government were in love with Baathists but due to the fact that Qasim and his group tried to nationalise the Iraqi oil industry and created what the U.S considered as provoking economic policies. To put it simply, the U.S wanted to get rid of Qasim due to his “love” for his country thus the Baathists, who also were enemies of Qasim, served as the perfect tools for getting rid of him. The enemy of my enemy is my friend!
While you’re in your state of denial do the world a favor and jump off from a cliff.
Lagash, on your nick: do you read Sumerian too? A lot of scholars here in Finland do that.
It’s very bad the occupation mobs and their minions are destroying and/or looting the cuneiform tablets and all the stuff there.
NDHF Net
http://newsdeskhelsinkifinland.net
I’ve studied about the Sumerian civilization, although not to the degree that I consider myself good at the subject. Despite having had interest for years about it I’ve simply not had the time to sit down and read carefully about this beautiful civilization. I hope to study more about it soon though.
Indeed it is sad that thugs are destroying the remains of one of the first civilizations in the world, the failed Iraqi government should put more work into protecting those important sites. It will never happen though considering the fact that they never cared about U.S base(s) destroying remains of Babylonia until people actually started to notice it.
I’ve learned some Sumerian via Hittite language, in which the Sumerian ideograms are often used happily mixed with Hittite words (Sumerian indicated with CAPITALS between the Hittite), often further supported by Akkadian (!!) prepositions.
All are cuneiform or syllabic scripts, so that in addition to the ideograms, pictures for entire words (e.g. LUGAL “king”), they are given in syllabic script, with a vowel supporting (a) consonat(s), like “mu”, “ug”, and so on (the syllabes separated with “-” from each other).
Thus, for example, a Hittite text with some Sumerian could begin as follows:
nu-mu DUMU LUGAL.GAL (.…)
which would mean
“now-(to/for) me SON (of) KING.GREAT (…)”
or more freely
“Now, for/to me, the son of the great king (…)”
By reading the Hittite text, you come also a little familiar with the most common words, such as DUMU “son”, ID “river”, HURSAG “mountain”, including names, in this case LAGASH which I readily recognized as a Sumerian place name.
Sometimes you can also understand the contents of some Sumerian words as, say, in the example above, the LUGAL word seems to contain two other Sumerian words, namelu LU “man” and GAL “great, mighty, etc.” (also added to the LUGAL.GAL), “king” being more accurately “man of might”.
I hope we get this war over soon so that I can concentrate more on Sumerian rather than those wiping off the Sumerian culture off the earth…
Let’s see what we can deliver for that
Jouna Pyysalo
NDHF Net
http://newsdeskhelsinkifinland.net
Lagash–
Maybe the CIA provided lists, maybe it didn’t. So what? Iraqis know infinitely more about Iraq than the CIA. They always have.
The 1963 massacre of the communists was a bad thing but you treat it as a CIA plot in which the Baath was only a tool. You are wrong. It was an internal conflict of Iraqi society. Your analysis is national-chauvinist. Non-Baathist military officers ended up in power in 1963, by the way.
In 1972 the Baath carried through what Kassem could only begin — the actual nationalization of Iraq’s oil. That’s another thing you fail to mention. The way you argue is fragmentary and distortive. It only serves as a ‘left’ cover to make the Baathists as bad, or worse, than the imperialist aggressors.
Your recourse to personal insult shows only that you well know how false your ‘analysis’ really is.
David, you’ve missed my whole point entirely. I never said the coup d’état of Qasim was merely a CIA plot. My original point was to prove that the Iraqi Baathists sold them selves out once to their enemies (aka co-op with the U.S government to get support). You seem to have missed this point ENTIRELY. Those vague “references” as you called them can all be found on the net, I suggest the search tool google in case if you haven’t heard about it by now.
The fact that the Baathists had problems with Qasim and his group has nothing to do at all with U.S support for the Baathists, you’ve mixed those two points, furthermore I never cared and wrote about internal conflicts.
Indeed there were non-Baathists leaders in power after the overthrow of the previous government, so what? By 1974 anyone within the Baath party who had relations with other political parties would be executed according to RCCR No .865 (funny btw how many of these resolutions contradict with what the Baathists themselves DID to come to power)
Great, I never said Baathists never made anything good for the country, like all political parties they did both bad and good, nationalization of Iraq’s oil was good, too bad that the country didn’t benefit of it in the end as they took most of the money to themselves.
The U.S is still the biggest enemy to Iraq in my eyes. Between the U.S and the Iraqi Baathists the Iraqi Baathists are angels. Still doensn’t stop me from viewing the Baathists government as trash, not that the current one we have now is any better. The Baathists were a tool to U.S plans, they were backstabbed which they realized after what would have been a succesful occupation of Kuwait turned into a failure (in fact they already got backstabbed earlier through U.S support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war). The Baathists had their own interest, it doesn’t stop the fact that the U.S benefitted from Iraqis overthrowing Qasim’s government, Iraq having war with Iran, the Baath party crushing any resistance against them, and finally Iraq trying to occupate Kuwait (which was a good thing to try and do as Kuwait belongs to Iraq). However, this and further U.S interest is irrelevant in this discussion.