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Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation
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| Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation
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| salafibrigades |
Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation
By Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted May 9, 2007.
On Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.
It's a hugely significant development. Lawmakers demanding an end to the occupation now have the upper hand in the Iraqi legislature for the first time; previous attempts at a similar resolution fell just short of the 138 votes needed to pass (there are 275 members of the Iraqi parliament, but many have fled the country's civil conflict, and at times it's been difficult to arrive at a quorum).
Reached by phone in Baghdad on Tuesday, Al-Rubaie said that he would present the petition, which is nonbinding, to the speaker of the Iraqi parliament and demand that a binding measure be put to a vote. Under Iraqi law, the speaker must present a resolution that's called for by a majority of lawmakers, but there are significant loopholes and what will happen next is unclear.
What is clear is that while the U.S. Congress dickers over timelines and benchmarks, Baghdad faces a major political showdown of its own. The major schism in Iraqi politics is not between Sunni and Shia or supporters of the Iraqi government and "anti-government forces," nor is it a clash of "moderates" against "radicals"; the defining battle for Iraq at the political level today is between nationalists trying to hold the Iraqi state together and separatists backed, so far, by the United States and Britain.
The continuing occupation of Iraq and the allocation of Iraq's resources -- especially its massive oil and natural gas deposits -- are the defining issues that now separate an increasingly restless bloc of nationalists in the Iraqi parliament from the administration of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose government is dominated by Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish separatists.
By "separatists," we mean groups who oppose a unified Iraq with a strong central government; key figures like Maliki of the Dawa party, Shia leader Abdul Aziz Al-Hakeem of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq ("SCIRI"), Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi of the Sunni Islamic Party, President Jalal Talabani -- a Kurd -- and Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish Autonomous Region, favor partitioning Iraq into three autonomous regions with strong local governments and a weak central administration in Baghdad. (The partition plan is also favored by several congressional Democrats, notably Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.)
Iraq's separatists also oppose setting a timetable for ending the U.S. occupation, preferring the addition of more American troops to secure their regime. They favor privatizing Iraq's oil and gas and decentralizing petroleum operations and revenue distribution.
But public opinion is squarely with Iraq's nationalists. According to a poll by the University of Maryland's Project on International Public Policy Attitudes, majorities of all three of Iraq's major ethno-sectarian groups support a unified Iraq with a strong central government. For at least two years, poll after poll has shown that large majorities of Iraqis of all ethnicities and sects want the United States to set a timeline for withdrawal, even though (in the case of Baghdad residents), they expect the security situation to deteriorate in the short term as a result.
That's nationalism, and it remains the central if unreported motivation for many Iraqis, both within the nascent government and on the streets.
While sectarian fighting at the neighborhood and community level has made life unlivable for millions of Iraqis, Iraqi nationalism -- portrayed as a fiction by supporters of the invasion -- supercedes sectarian loyalties at the political level. A group of secular, Sunni and Shia nationalists have long voted together on key issues, but so far have failed to join forces under a single banner. |
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| Fdubya247 |
Can anyone but the most craven, belly-sliding, brainwashed conservative cock-sucking cockroach (VaCuntTheTurd who?) deny that the Iraqi's DON'T WANT US THERE???
Why are we there??? |
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| zimmie |
NBC: Iraqis Want U.S. to Stay, Anti-War
Effort Helping Insurgents
6:55am EST, Tuesday March 6, 2007 (Vol. Twelve; No. 41)
Visiting Iraq, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams learned from Army officers that Iraqis want U.S. forces to remain in their country, from NBC News Baghdad reporter Richard Engel that Al-Sadr's insurgents have stepped down and are counting on pressure from anti-war opponents to provide them with victory, and from retired General and NBC News military analyst Wayne Downey that U.S. troops are proud of their mission. Traveling with Lieutenant General Ray Odierno for stories on his Monday newscast, Williams ran a clip of Army Colonel John Charlton proclaiming that Iraqis "do not want us to leave" and a soundbite from Army Lt. Colonel Charles Ferry who asserted: "The people here are very glad to see us." Williams marveled: "You just said, 'They don't want us to leave.' That's the tenth time today I've heard that. I've got to go back to the States and do a newscast that every night has another politician or 12 of them saying, 'We have got to get out of that godforsaken place.'"
To explain the decreased violence in Baghdad, Engel noted how "the militia decided they fought the U.S. two-and-a-half years ago, didn't have a lot of success. They decided this time they're going to wait it out, see if political pressure in the U.S. can help them win this time." Downey related how "every soldier that I ran across today I asked him: 'How do you feel about what's going on,'" and "without exception -- this was spontaneous, especially when you start talking to PFCs and Spec 4s, they're going to tell you the truth, no party line. Very proud of what they're doing. Very, very dedicated."
[This item was posted Monday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]
During his first story on his trip, as aired on the March 5 NBC Nightly News, Williams related:
"This is what the General heard today about how warmly the locals now view the Americans."
U.S. Army Colonel John Charlton: "They do not want us to leave. They want to see the police come through."
U. S. Army Lt. Colonel Charles Ferry: "The people here are very glad to see us. They are very hesitant still because they're not sure if we're going to stay. They want us to stay."
Voice of Odierno?: "That's the issue."
Ferry: "That's the whole deal. If we stay down here and to keep beating down the insurgents."
Brian Williams, to one or more of the officers: "You just said, 'They don't want us to leave.' That's the tenth time today I've heard that. I've got to go back to the States and do a newscast that every night has another politician or 12 of them saying, 'We have got to get out of that godforsaken place.'"
Odierno: "They can talk about policy, okay, and that's what they have to do back there. My mission right now is to provide protection for the Iraqi people so this government can grow."
The MSNBC.com online version of the Williams story: www.msnbc.msn.com
At the end of his newscast, Williams stood at an outside location with Engel and Downey, as he noted how they felt safe enough to remove their bullet-proof vests. Engel explained the decrease in violence from Al-Sadr's insurgents in Sadr City:
"Some say they are just waiting to see how long the U.S. will stay and how long this surge will continue. It was obvious, the U.S. announced the surge, they said where the U.S. troops were going and the militia decided they fought the U.S. two-and-a-half years ago, didn't have a lot of success. They decided this time they're going to wait it out, see if political pressure in the U.S. can help them win this time."
Brian Williams: "And General, you and I heard sentiments we don't often hear today, the U.S. commanders quoting the Iraqis: 'please don't leave us.' And a lot of the U.S. fighters there today said they didn't want to leave this fight, they are dedicated to it."
Retired General Wayne Downing: "Brian, every single one of them, I ran into a lot of officers and NCOs that I served with -- every soldier that I ran across today I asked him: 'How do you feel about what's going on, what do you know about what is going on back in the states?' And without exception -- this was spontaneous, especially when you start talking to PFCs and Spec 4s, they're going to tell you the truth, no party line. Very proud of what they're doing. Very, very dedicated. Many of these guys, Brian, are back here on their second and third tours. These are one-year tours. Extremely well trained and very professional." |
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| salafibrigades |
| zimmie the retard |
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| Luther |
| I wonder how Americans would feel about a Muslim occupation. |
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