Mashhadani on Americastan in Iraq
Gilbert Achcar kindly translates a recent article from al-Hayat, interviewing the Speaker of the House of the Iraqi Parliament. I repeat, this is the elected speaker of the House of the Iraqi government elected under Bush's auspices.
' The president of the Iraqi Parliament, Dr. Mahmoud] Al-Mash’hadani spoke to Al-Hayat yesterday, at the end of an official visit to Damascus, where he met with president Bashar al-Assad… On the accusations directed at Syria and Iran of interfering in Iraq’s affairs, al-Mash’hadani said vehemently: “America installs itself between two countries like Syria and Iran that it considers as enemies and you want them to stay passive! That is not realistic at all, and if ever they intervene, it is to protect their national security. And we do not object to that, the national security of Syria and Iran is threatened by the American presence … Let’s suppose that they (the Syrians) interfere in Iraq’s affairs, why don’t you object to America’s rule over Iraq before objecting to Syria’s interference in order to protect its security? In this respect, Iraq has opened its doors to all countries, even to an Israeli presence, so has Syrian interference now become a threat to Iraq’s security? Who destroyed Iraq? Who plundered Iraq? Who stole from Iraq? Who humiliated Iraq? Who desecrated Iraq’s holy sites? Who damaged the honor of Iraqi women? It is none other than the blue jinn whose name is: the occupation.”
Al-Mash’hadani accused the American forces of standing behind terrorist attacks in Iraq, saying: “The occupation is the first and last cause of the problem, it has overthrown the [former] regime without a plan, it has suppressed the state with no reason, it has led to the resistance and it has infiltrated it, it has brought Al-Qaeda to Iraq…” After approving the statement that “American occupation troops stand behind some of the terrorist attacks,” he described today’s Iraq as “Americastan.” '
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/08/2006 06:03:00 AM
2 Comments:
AP:
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's criticism followed a pre-dawn air and ground attack on an area of Sadr City, stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.
Col. Hassan Chaloub, police chief of Sadr City, said three people including a woman and a 3-year-old girl were killed and 12 injured in the fighting, which the U.S. command said was aimed at "individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities." He said three cars and three houses also were destroyed.
One U.S. soldier was wounded, the U.S. said.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, said he was "very angered and pained" by the operation, warning that it could undermine his efforts toward national reconciliation.
"This operation used weapons that are unreasonable to detain someone, like using planes."
Standard Israeli/American neocon operation. F-16s and/or Apaches in the middle of a city in Iraq, in the West Bank, in Gaza, in Lebanon.
He apologized to the Iraqi people for the operation and said "this won't happen again."
How much longer before the Iraqis kill Maliki as a collaborator?
Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, meanwhile, said he discussed with Iraq's President Jalal Talabani a security plan to bring "fundamental change to the security situation in Baghdad."
The people running the American occupation in Iraq are going to get all of our enlisted people there killed.
They themselves will open their military issue golden parachutes and land with rank and pensions intact.
Not much about Iraq today.
Speaker Mashhadani's views are interesting, but they are not tied to any particular news item. When he said "[the occupation] has supressed the state," he must have been referring to Saddam Hussein's state, but as it happens there is a very recent event that seems to show the Bushies suppressing their own Green Zone statelet, or not far from it:
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government has vowed to confront militias blamed for fanning tensions, but must tread carefully as some of the armed groups have close ties to political parties, including ones in his own ruling Alliance.
The Shi'ite Islamist spoke up against his American allies after U.S. and Iraqi forces fought Shi'ite militiamen in Baghdad during a raid on a suspected death squad on Monday.
'This operation is rejected and it was conducted without the agreement of the government, and it does not match the current national reconciliation environment in the country,' Maliki told al-Iraqiya state television on Monday night.
Police sources said two people were killed in the operation in Sadr City stronghold of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
The U.S. military said it backed up Iraqi forces in the raid to detain 'individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities.' One U.S. soldier was hurt.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said efforts were under way to end sectarian bloodletting.
"Meetings have taken place between forces of armed militias to reach an agreement to have assigned pledges for ending sectarian attacks on each other," he told reporters at a U.S. base in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit.
"There is more that needs to be done ... There is an effort to reach a moral compact between religious forces, Sunnis and Shi'ites, to ban sectarian violence."
The Boston Globe has a story about this affair with a Washington dateline that is mostly either background on the Sadriyya or instant analysis or dubious anonymous leakage, but it does at last describe the event itself a little:
"Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a military spokesman, said Iraqi Special Forces led the raid against the 'torture cell' and called for aircraft support when they faced heavy resistance. Three unnamed suspects were arrested on the scene, according to an Iraqi military spokesman.
Being a little jaundiced about the Republicans, I suspect that they may be taking advantage of the media focus on the Lebanon war to behave a little more crudely in Iraq than they otherwise would.
Being jaundiced about them in another way, though, I doubt they'll be able to act swiftly and boldly enough to do all the necessary things that will save neo-Iraq once and for all (yet also anger Mr. al-Maliki and other ultimate beneficiaries) before the place becomes a fishbowl once again. If Machiavelli was running their show, they would have started being ruthless a couple of weeks ago, as soon as the world's attention was sufficiently distracted.
(By the way, if anybody understands what Mr. Khalilzad's "agreement to have assigned pledges [from the militias] for ending sectarian attacks on each other" is all about, I wish he'd clue me in.)
Happy days.
(( I see somebody else noticed too. ))
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