Iraq - Feel The Surge

Iraqi police shoot Sunnis in 'revenge attack'

At least 45 Sunni men have been killed by off-duty police officers enraged at bombings targeting the Shia community, police and security officials said today.

The shootings in Tal Afar, a city in the north-west of Iraq, were an apparent revenge attack for yesterday's bombings that killed at least 63 people in a Shia district.

The officers were said to have started roaming around Sunni neighbourhoods on foot early in the morning, shooting at Sunni residents and homes, the Associated Press reported.

The shootings continued for more than two hours, officials said, before Iraqi army troops moved into the Sunni areas to stop the violence.

It was incredibly stupid of the coalition forces to disband what was left of the infrastructure, turning out Ba'ath party members and disbanding the army, they lost the 'war' there and then. There is a vacuum in Iraq and no one is there to fill it.

When the allies occupied Germany, they worked with the local government, whinch ofte contained Nazi party members.

The British used Japanese troops to re-occupy Indonesia for the Dutch.

Going back into history, both the British and the Romans co-opted the local elites, showered them with honors, to keep them on their side and to make governing a province easier.

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Democracy must come from the people, from their own cultural backgrounds, it has to be organic. This is such a basic point it gets overlooked.

These types who think its the West's goal is to impose their Judeao-Christian version of democracy on other countries (which on its own is insulting and patronizing) seem to forget it took hundreds of years, revolutions, wars - civil and foreign, laws, pressure groups, rebellions, protests and so forth to get where democracy in the West is here today.

Iraq

Iraqi PM rules out second term

· Maliki: I wish I could step down
· Man held over Saddam video
· Co-accused 'to be executed Thursday'

Nuri al-Maliki has said he wants to step down as prime minister of Iraq, as one of his advisers revealed that a man accused of recording Saddam Hussein's execution on his mobile phone has been arrested.

In a candid interview with an American newspaper, Mr Maliki said the most difficult decision he had ever made was taking the prime ministerial post.

"I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again," he told the Wall Street Journal.

Sounds like Nursi al-Maliki wants to have a long healthy life. Who would want the poison chalice of PM of Iraq? A country which is currently engulfed in a civil war

Saddam's execution certainly pleased the Iranians.

I think out of this whole mess the Iranians have gotten the most of out of it, getting rid of an enemy on their doorstep, having a Shia friendly government installed.

Iran also scares many US/Western backed Arab dictatorships, because the Iranian people overthrew their Shah, the same could happen to them if their populace is given the right nudge yet the US has spent a fortune in lives and money giving wrong nudges, effectively forestalling the organic revolutions.

How can the US and the UK go on about 'democracy' when they back Mubarak's regime and the House of Saud? To many Muslims in the ME that appears hypocritical, so its no wonder the Bush Junta aren't 'winning hearts and minds', and that 'freedom on the march' proved shortlived.

Basically they have fucked up and its going to take decades to repair the damage done and I'm not even sure its possible and you have the I/P issues hanging over everyone's head.