Hoe goed gaat het in Irak?

[TomB]

Een propaganda emailtje van the US army:

From: Seitz LtCol Scot S
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 8:40 AM
To: 1MAW MWSS171 All Personnel
Cc: Fenstermacher Col Stephen M; Kirkpatrick LtCol Stephen F; Chase LtCol Eric T



Subject: ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Marines and Sailors,

As we approach the end of the year I think it is important to share a few thoughts about what you've accomplished directly, in some cases, and indirectly in many others. I am speaking about what the Bush Administration and each of you has contributed by wearing the uniform, because the fact that you wear the uniform contributes 100% to the capability of the nation to send a few onto the field to execute national policy. As you read about these achievements you are a part of I would call your attention to two things:

1. This is good news that hasn't been fit to print or report on TV.

2. It is much easier to point out the errors a man makes when he makes the tough decisions, rarely is the positive as aggressively pursued.

Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1

...the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
... nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
... on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the prewar average.
... all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
... by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than scheduled.
... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
... all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
... doctors salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
... pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to
700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
... the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccinations to Iraq's children.
... a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's
27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men
and women.
... we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone
services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
... there are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect
50,000 by year-end.
... the wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite
dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities
and towns.
... 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
... the central bank is fully independent.
... Iraq has one of the worlds most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
... Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
... satellite TV dishes are legal.
... foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for "minders" and other government spies.
... there is no Ministry of Information.
... there are more than 170 newspapers.
... you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
... foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.
... a nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial or executive - of a representative government, now does.
... in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils. Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.
... today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.
... the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events.
... Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen
international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit.
... The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.
... Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.
... for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.
... the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.
... Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.
... children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.
... political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
... millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.
... Saudis will hold municipal elections.
... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.
... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.
... the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian -- a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.
... Saddam is gone.
... Iraq is free.
... President Bush has not faltered or failed.

... Yet, little or none of this information has been published by the Press corps that prides itself on bringing you all the news that's important.

Iraq under US lead control has come further in six months than Germany did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII. Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's, and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared.

It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let alone attempt to build something else in its place.

Now, take into account that Congress fought President Bush on every aspect of his handling of this country's war and the post-war reconstruction; and that they continue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this conflict has been a failure.

Taking everything into consideration, even the unfortunate loss of our brothers and sisters in this conflict, do you think anyone else in the world could have accomplished as much as the United States in so short a period of time?

Above all, be proud that you are a part of this historical precedent.

God Bless you all. Have a great Holiday.

Semper Fidelis

[parcifal]

huhuh, interessant.
Doet me een beetje denken aan dat verhaaltje van die
inbreker die wel alle juwelen van de vrouw des huizes
had gepikt maar daarnaast wel netjes de boel had opgeruimd
en de afwas had gedaan.

Het blijft een inbreker, toch?

[TomB]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door parcifal

huhuh, interessant.
Doet me een beetje denken aan dat verhaaltje van die
inbreker die wel alle juwelen van de vrouw des huizes
had gepikt maar daarnaast wel netjes de boel had opgeruimd
en de afwas had gedaan.

Het blijft een inbreker, toch?

Dus als uw welvaart vertienvoudigt is het niet goed omdat het Amerikaanse welvaart is en het uw land is en niet het hunne. I think I understand.

[Flippend Rund]

Hoe meer de Amerikanen geloven in hun Neocon Disneyworld, hoe sneller hun nederlaag zal komen.

_________________________
Zich verongelijkt voelen - waar een klein volk groot kan zijn.
De Openbaringen van Flippend Rund, 570

[Mustapha]

Ze hebben daar niks opbouwend gedaan.
Wat ze wel hebben gedaan is daar onherstelbare schade aangericht.

Gebouwkes bouwen, schooltjes oprichten, ziekenhuizen bouwen, etc etc is de normaalste zaak van de wereld. Het is toch meer dan logisch dan men zaken terug geeft (herbouwen) wat je hebt gepikt (vernielt door raketten)?

In die zin, zijn de Amerikanen niet bezig aan de opbouw van Irak, maar meer met de herstel van hun vernielingen.

Gebouwen, scholen en ziekenhuizen zijn er genoeg in Irak.
Irak was ooit de modernste Islamitische land, met meer vrouwen aan unifs dan mannen, goed opgeleide artsen, topwetenschappers, prachtige gebouwen etc.
Tot Irak niet meer naar de pijpen van de VS danste.

Ze hebben een heel ziekenhuis vernield in Fallujah, daar terug een ziekenhuis bouwen is niet te klasseren onder "heropbouw van het land", maar "teruggeven wat we weggenomen hebben".

Het belooft de 30ste januari.

[parcifal]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door TomB

Dus als uw welvaart vertienvoudigt is het niet goed omdat het Amerikaanse welvaart is en het uw land is en niet het hunne. I think I understand.

Que?
Je trekt nogal snel gevolgen TomB, begrijp niet goed hoe je
tot het bovenstaande gekomen bent....
Heb ik iets gezegd over welvaart?

Wat ik wil zeggen is dat de duitse SS mogelijk óók dergelijke
communiqués rondstuurde na de inval in Polen in 1939.
En blij dat die Polen waren met die situatie.

[VlaamseBelg]

Nu moeten ze al propaganda verspreiden onder hun eigen kanonnenvoer ook?

Het is nog te vroeg om al victorie te kraaien, als nu in januari een stelletje debiele extremisten aan de macht komen, zullen die ziekenhuizen sneller verdwijnen dan ze gekomen zijn. Dan kunnen ze de gloednieuwe voetbalpleinen weer als schietstand voor hun vrouwen gebruiken.

[labyrinth]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door TomB

Dus als uw welvaart vertienvoudigt is het niet goed omdat het Amerikaanse welvaart is en het uw land is en niet het hunne. I think I understand.

Ik weet niet of het "Amerikaanse welvaart" is maar onlangs zag ik dat huurlingen van over heel de wereld naar Irak toestroomden om er ongeveer 12.000 € per maand als salaris en eventueel enkele kogels als premie te ontvangen.....
Irak is voor het ogenblik het Wilde Westen, volgens hen...... Een goudmijn voor allerlei avonturiers.....
Ook terroristen komen er hun "eigen" oorlogje voeren.
En zelfs burgers worden zenuwachtig.

Die stembureau's zullen wel heel erg goed moeten beveiligd worden.....
En, zullen ze daar met computers stemmen ? Ze kunnen misschien stemmen vanuit Amerika......

[boer_bavo]

Vandaag in "The Wall Street Journnal Europe" (2004-11-23 pA3)
"Childhood malnutrition soars. Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nealy douwled since the invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi govenment."

[neruda]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door boer_bavo

Vandaag in "The Wall Street Journnal Europe" (2004-11-23 pA3)
"Childhood malnutrition soars. Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nealy douwled since the invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi govenment."

Meer hierover : "[font=Courier New]Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children are suffering from diarrhea and nutrition deficiencies, UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy said Tuesday Nov. 23, 2004 in Geneva. Young children are the most vulnerable to malnutrition, which is exacerbated by a lack of clean water and adequate sanitation, she said. "...[/font]
[font=Courier New][/font]
[font=Courier New][/font]
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[font=Courier New]En dit allemaal waarom ???? Om een Texaanse idioot te plezieren....[/font]
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[Jolle]

...the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
Jeps. Ze worden wel bij bosjes dood langs de kant van de weg gevonden. De kantoren waar ze worden ingeschreven worden opgeblazen door zelfmoordterroristen.

... nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
Ze reikt niet verder dan de grote steden, op het platteland heerst terug anarchie

... on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the prewar average.
Toen Saddam aan de macht was, was het meer. Toen werd er ook meer olie opgepompt, en lag de export niet stil na de zoveelste aanslag op de pijpleidingen

... all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
... by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than scheduled.
... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
Dit is weer in twee van de drie grote steden (niet in Falluja, zoals we gezien hebben). Bovendien is het leven ook een pak duurder, waardoor die loonstijging van geen betekenis is.

... all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
... doctors salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
... pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
... the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccinations to Iraq's children.
240 hospitaals minus alvast één : dat in Falluja is platgebombardeerd. Over welke hospitalen gaat het hier trouwens? Wat die lonen betreft : zie hierboven. Die hospitalen liggen dan ook vol en worden dagelijks aangevuld met nieuwe slachtoffers, ofwel "collateral damage", ofwel slachtoffers van aanslagen. De 12,000 ton pharmaceutica is dan ook meer dan noodzakelijk...

... a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.

... we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
... there are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect 50,000 by year-end.
Mooi zo. Nog steeds deed Saddam het beter. blijven bouwen die handel...

... the wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.
ja inderdaad, al goed. Dit is dus geen overwinnning van de VS, dit is een logisch gevolg van het einde van de officiële oorlog : commercie kan terug doorgaan. Dit is dus niet dankzij, eerder ondanks...

... 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
... the central bank is fully independent.
... Iraq has one of the worlds most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
... Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
Banken draaien zelfs als het oorlog is, altijd zo geweest. En die "onafhankelijkheid" van de centrale bank, dat wil ik nog zien. Die staat onder hoede van het IMF.

... foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for "minders" and other government spies.
... there is no Ministry of Information.
Mooi. Er is dan wel de oorlogscensuur van de VS, en er is zowiezo weinig informatie die doordringt tot alle delen van de bevolking. Verder wordt op verschillende plaatsen de bevolking opgejut tegen zowel de VS als andere bevolkingsgroepen

... there are more than 170 newspapers.
... you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
tof

... foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.
Min of meer dan toch. na authorisatie door de VS-strijdkrachten, en liever niet als het Al Jazeera betreft...

... a nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial or executive - of a representative government, now does.
... in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils. Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.
... today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.
... the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events.
... Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen
international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit.
... The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.
Mooi. Nu nog de Iraki's ervan overtuigen dat ze worden vertegenwoordigd door een regering, en niet door marionetten van de VS. Ik wacht met spanning op 30 januari...

... Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.
... for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.
Mooi. Ondertussen is het dikke rel tussen Soennieten en Sjiieten, en gunnen ze mekaar het licht niet in de ogen. Aanslagen op Soennietische doelen worden vergolden met aanslagen op sjiietische doelen, en verschillende hoge geestelijken zijn al afgemaakt

... the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.
Best hé. Den boel kapot schieten en dan gaan lopen, d�*t zou pas grof zijn. Anyway, er ligt nog een hoop in puin, en ze hebben er juist nog een hoop puin bijgemaakt

... Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.
Inderdaad. Hun taak is overgenomen door terroristen, en voor een deeltje ook door inventieve amerikaanse militairen die zich vervelen op hun wachtrondes

... children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.
... political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
Nee. Nu worden ze gemarteld en vermoord voor samenwerking met de Ami's. Of gemarteld voor de fun van de Ami's...

... millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.
Huh? "Wanneer komt de volgende aanslag van terroristen resp. grote kuisactie van de Ami's" is dan niet leven in "perpetual terror"?

... Saudis will hold municipal elections.
Wat heeft d�*t in godsnaam met Bush te maken? Ondertussen hebben ze daar wel nog steeds de sharia in voegen (dat is dus die wet die de Taliban ook gebruikte)

... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.
Dat heeft al helem�*�*l niks te maken met Bush of de VS, dat is de eigen "verlichting" die daar (al wel een tijdje) doorbreekt. De prins van Qatar is een moslim die wel respect verdient

... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.
Blablabla jadejadejade. Weerom : niks te maken met Bush, zeker niet na zijn uitspraken over Jordanië. 't zijn niet meteen de dikste vriendjes...

... the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian -- a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.
Uitgereikt in Noorwegen, en niet op voordracht van de Ami's. Dus?

... Saddam is gone.
Ja. Terrorisme niet

... Iraq is free.
zij vinden van niet. Zij vinden "bezet door de VS"

... President Bush has not faltered or failed.
Juist, hij heeft zijn doel bereikt : Saddam weg, belastingverlaging voor zijn vriendjes, olie veilig.

Jaja, propaganda, ze snappen het wel die Ami's

PS : Ik doe hier geen uitspraak voor of tegen de oorlog in Irak. Ik heb gewoon een hekel aan "goed nieuws shows" en volksverlakkerij. Dat is dus dezelfde kritiek als sommige partijen (terecht!) geven op het beleid van Verhofstadt...

[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door neruda

Meer hierover : "[font=Courier New]Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children are suffering from diarrhea and nutrition deficiencies, UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy said Tuesday Nov. 23, 2004 in Geneva. Young children are the most vulnerable to malnutrition, which is exacerbated by a lack of clean water and adequate sanitation, she said. "...[/font]

[font=Courier New][/font]


[font=Courier New]En dit allemaal waarom ???? Om een Texaanse idioot te plezieren....[/font]

inderdaad, schandalig, op den duur begint een mens sympathie te krijgen voor Osama Bin Laden, en dat is net wat ikj in Egypte gewaar werd, de extreme Amerikaanse misdadigheid vertaalt zich in massale steun voor een (al even misdadige) "vijand van mijn vijand"

[tomm]

Gebouwen, scholen en ziekenhuizen zijn er genoeg in Irak.
Irak was ooit de modernste Islamitische land, met meer vrouwen aan unifs dan mannen, goed opgeleide artsen, topwetenschappers, prachtige gebouwen etc.
Tot Irak niet meer naar de pijpen van de VS danste.

inderdaad, DIT heb ik op een christelijke website gevonden:

Why Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria
[size=1]Posted on Thursday, August 12 @ 11:50:42 IDT [/size] [size=2]So ironically, Iraq and Syria, led by two of the least Muslim regimes in the Arab world, are the two most targeted by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the attacks on the U.S. by an Islamic terrorist group intimate with neither. Again ironically, these two have been particularly tolerant of their Christian communities whose existence dates back nearly 2000 years [size=1]

Gary Leupp, CounterPunch, August 9, 2004 [size=2]



The recent spate of attacks on Christian churches in Iraq is symptomatic of the general insecurity that Christians (about three percent of the population, around 800,000 people) face in the occupied country. The interim constitution states that "Islam is the official religion of the State and is to be considered a source of legislation" and while recognizing religious freedom "respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people." For some, Islamic identity means the imposition of Muslim morality. In Sadr City, the Mahdi militia is shutting down Christian-owned liquor shops. Some shop owners have been killed, some Christian women attacked for appearing in public inappropriately attired. Others have been attacked because of a widespread belief that Christians are abetting the occupation.

The irony here, of course, is that Saddam's Iraq was a secular state, ruled by the Baath Party. The Iraqi regime, although suspicious of and sometimes brutal towards the Shiite majority, supported Shiite and Sunni mosques, Assyrian and Chaldean Christian churches, and even the sparsely attended Baghdad synagogue, while forbidding proselytization in general. Saddam appointed Tariq Aziz, a Christian, to top posts; in response, enraged Islamists tried to assassinate Aziz in 1980. Osama bin Laden hated Saddam's Iraq for its specifically non-Islamic character. Now with the fall of the Baath regime, Islamic fundamentalists (of various types) have been unleashed to redefine the role of religion in the country. The U.S. occupation officially dissolved the huge Baath Party, purged Baathists from their posts (including those in medicine and education) and officially approved the wording of the constitution, while creating the power vacuum in which numerous Islamic militias now thrive.

Here's a second irony. According to the New York Times (August 5) some 4,000 Iraqi Christian families have taken refuge in Syria. Others go to Jordan or Lebanon, but Syria is the favored destination. Ruled by a branch of the Baath Party at odds since the 1960s with its Iraqi counterpart, Syria remains a secular republic. Ten percent of the population (about 1.8 million) is Christian, and Iraqi Christians reportedly feel little discrimination in the country. There is no rigid dress code such as one finds in Saudi Arabia and some other Arab nations; the liquor stores are open.

"We are safe here, and so we feel free," says Abdulkhalek Sharif Nuamansaid, who has brought his family to Damascus from Baghdad. "The Syrians are brothers to us. There is no discrimination here. That is the truth, and not a compliment." According to a 2002 report by International Christian Concern, a group that monitors persecution of Christians globally, "No government acts of religious persecution have been witnessed" recently, and "There is no evidence that prisoners are being held for their Christian beliefs at this time."

But Syria is vilified by the Bush administration, just like Iraq, and for the same (ostensible) reasons: weapons of mass destruction (chemical weapons Syria acknowledges it possesses---as a deterrent from an attack by nuclear-armed Israel), and terrorist connections (to anti-Israel groups). Add to these charges the fact that Syria occupies parts of Lebanon (where it has with Arab League authorization stationed troops, now numbering 16,000, since 1976). Add the charge that, in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Syria has harbored fleeing Iraqi officials (an action which would, if it occurred, seem perfectly legal), that Iraqi funds in Syrian banks have facilitated resistance activities, that Iraq accepted WMD from Iraq prior to the invasion (which would explain why none have been found), and that Syria actively supports the passage of Arab fighters across its border with Iraq. And of course the built-in charge of rule by a dictator, which a Washington intimate with Musharraf, Mubarak, Karimov etc. applies with straight-faced selectivity whenever useful. (The "we overthrew a dictator" claim is all they really have now, after all, on Iraq). The neocons have targeted Syria for regime change for a long time, for reasons they cannot discuss openly: acquisition of U.S. hegemony over Southwest Asia. providing geopolitical advantage vis-�*-vis Europe, Japan, China, etc. well into what they call the New American Century; and the imagined enhanced security of Israel). They are doggedly building their case, with help from Israel's Likud government---the origin of the WMD transfer report.

But to successfully press the case for regime change in Syria, its advocates must try to establish some link between the trauma of 9-11 and this next targeted nation. This they do through the sleight-of-hand of linking Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and Hezbollah (with offices of some sort in Damascus) with al-Qaeda, not because they actually work together, but because they're all on the State Department's official list of foreign terrorist organizations (along with various nationalist and communist and other groups unrelated except for their putative terrorism).

This terrorism is understood by President Bush to constitute a single, simple Evil that God has appointed him to smite. The administration has not accused Syria of direct support for al-Qaeda, and Syria has in fact been helpful in the fight against it. But Bush can exploit confusion and the willingness of many Americans to conflate all Arabs targeted by the administration as components of that looming Evil. The confusion troubling Dubya's mind so obviously in any unrehearsed public situation has long been this administration's forté; the useful confusion spreads, at a frighteningly rapid pace, from the inarticulate presidential podium to the pulpits and editorial pages of Middle America and the barking anchors of Fox News, NBC and CNN.

As early as 2002, CNN's influentially insufferable Lou Dobbs proclaimed that the "War on Terrorism" was in fact a "War on Islamism." Then, following protests by rational people that targeting "Islamism" would produce animosity towards Islam in general, he changed that to war on "fundamentalist Islamic extremism" or "radical Islamism." In at least one broadcast, he referred to Iraq as a radical Islamist nation, making no sense whatsoever but eagerly abetting the confusion-capitalizing warmongers' cause. Small wonder, given the disinformation spread by authoritative-looking captains of the free corporate press, that the majority of Americans might still believe that Saddam had something to do with 9-11. Disinformation surrounds reportage on Syria as well, so one ought to stress again and again that Syria is in fact a secular rather than "Islamist" society. One in which Christians, after fleeing the ruin of their lives in the New (increasingly intolerant) Iraq, somehow feel comfortable.

The U.S. and the Ba'ath Party

What is the Baath Party, which so emphasizes secularism and seeks to curb the influence of the Muslim clerics? And why does the Bush administration hate it so much? The press has generally avoided these questions, while making it clear that the Baathists (variously termed "Stalinists" and "fascists"---these being very different, irreconcilable things) are really bad. So let's explore them briefly. Baath means "Resurrection" or "Renaissance" in Arabic. During the 1930s, middle-class intellectuals in Syria began to organize a movement against foreign domination (France had colonized Syria in 1916, and Syria remained under French or British control to the 1940s). Movement leaders Zaki al-Arsuzi, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Michel Aflaq opposed such colonialism, but were also influenced by trends in political thought in the colonizers' countries. They were emphatically opposed to Islamic fundamentalism and the application of Sharia law; Aflaq was an Orthodox Christian. For the Arab world to enjoy a renaissance, they felt, it must reject religious bigotry, and commit itself to secularism, and western-style law and constitutional structures.

In 1947 the Baath Arab Socialist Party was formally inaugurated in Damascus as an organization espousing pan-Arab nationalism, anti-colonialism, and "socialism" (the latter understood to mean a strong government role in steering economic development, but clearly distinguished from and opposed to socialism in the Marxist-Leninist sense). Factions of this party have subsequently not only governed Syria and Iraq, but been influential in Jordan and elsewhere. The Baathists have met strong opposition, both from Communists (who were once the best-organized and largest party in Iraq) and Islamists, both of whom the U.S. and its intelligence community have traditionally opposed. Thus, according to Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer in the 1970s, the CIA chose the Baath Party "as its instrument" in the 1950s.

Intimate ties between the Agency and Saddam Hussein date to 1959 when Saddam botched an assassination attempt on then President Abd al-Karim Qasim. Qasim, a military officer who had seized power in a coup overthrowing the Iraqi monarch, had alienated the U.S. by withdrawing from the anti-Soviet Central Treaty Organization (Baghdad Pact), developing cordial relations with the USSR, and tolerating (although he cracked down on it hard sometimes) the strongest communist party in the Arab world. The CIA and Egyptian intelligence skirted him out of the country to Lebanon, where the CIA paid for his Beirut apartment, and then to Cairo, where according to UPI intelligence correspondence Richard Sale, he met with CIA operative Miles Copeland and station chief Jim Eichelberger.

Qasim was overthrown in a Baath coup in 1963. Under the new government headed by President 'Abd as-Salam 'Arif, Saddam (age 26) was placed in charge of the interrogation and execution of communists whose names the CIA happily provided to the new regime. 'Arif turned on his erstwhile supporters, provoking a split in the Baathist Party, while the above-mentioned Christian Baathist Aflaq promoted Saddam to become a member of the Baath regional Command.

Jailed between 1964 and 1966, Saddam rose within the Baathist ranks. His cousin and mentor, General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, seized power in 1968, and Saddam became the number two man in the Iraqi government, in charge of internal security. Engineering al-Bakr's resignation in 1979, Saddam took power, invading Iran the following year and soon acquiring U.S. support and approval. During his rule, the Baath Party maintained the longstanding discrimination against the Shiites. In 1991, following the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, Shiites rose up against the regime, encouraged by the first Bush administration (which failed to provide promised assistance). They were crushed brutally. In 1999, the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, spiritual leader of the Shiites, was assassinated in Najaf, reportedly on Saddam's orders. Truly, Saddam's was an irreligious regime.

In Syria, meanwhile, the Baath Party experienced ups and downs and factional struggles. It was dissolved along with all other political parties during the period of union with Nasser's Egypt (1958-61), but was the ruling party throughout the presidency of Hafez al-Assad (1970-2000) and remains such under his son Bashir al-Assad. In 1973 al-Assad (a member of a minority Alawi Muslim sect) revised the Syrian constitution, omitting the requirement that the president be a Muslim. This occasioned riots by those accusing al-Assad of atheism; they were suppressed by the army, but the requirement was reinstated. In 1980, members of the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to assassinate the president, and in February 1982 this group rose up in rebellion in the town of Hama. Again they were suppressed by the army, while al-Assad sought to strengthen his legitimacy among Syria's Sunni majority my espousing popular Islam. "But," according to Ray J. Mouawad, writing in the Middle East Quarterly in 1991, "that did not negatively affect the status of Christians in Syria nor their attitudes toward the regime; indeed Christians in Syria perceive the actual regime as their protector. Accordingly, Christians find it easy to obtain authorization to repair or build new churches and to pray or have processions in public without harassment. They enjoy more religious freedom than they did under the Ottoman Empire before 1918. Their religion is not mentioned on identity cards. Legislation is entirely secular with the exception of personal status laws that are applied by specific tribunals and vary according to the differing communities. Friday is the official day off, but in consideration for the Christian population, work starts at 10 a.m. on Sunday. All the Christian holidays are official state holidays and members of the clergy are excused from military service. Christians are united behind the regime, particularly since the events in Hama, conscious that it is their protection against a possible Islamic drift."

In 1983 the Mufti of Jerusalem issued a fatwa against al-Assad (for his hostile treatment of the Palestinian Liberation Organization). Plainly the Syrian government has acquired its share of Muslim enemies.

Targeting the Least "Islamist" Regimes in the Arab World

So ironically, Iraq and Syria, led by two of the least Muslim regimes in the Arab world, are the two most targeted by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the attacks on the U.S. by an Islamic terrorist group intimate with neither. Again ironically, these two have been particularly tolerant of their Christian communities whose existence dates back nearly 2000 years. But the targeting makes sense when you recognize that any modern society featuring a coeducational free education system, with a rational bureaucracy, national health care system, and separation of religion and state, is likely to develop more rapidly and become stronger than medieval monarchies and mullocracies. And any Arab state reaching European levels of economic and military attainment while not swearing allegiance to the hyper-power is, in the neocon perspective, a valid candidate for regime change. Lands governed by kings, sultans emirs in concert with the Muslim clergy may nurture in their madrasses Islamist extremism, and hence become a threat (as Donald Rumsfeld in his famous leaked October 2003 memo suggests).

But these have been the historical favorites, good business partners disinclined to threaten Israel; indeed Morocco, Tunisia, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar all now have some level of diplomatic and trade relations with Israel. The fact that al-Qaeda-type ideology might appeal to many in such countries, resulting in terrorist attacks on U.S. targets, causes some neocons to contemplate their ultimate replacement with American-guided "democracies" and de-Islamicized education systems. But for the time being, an officially Muslim state supportive of U.S. goals in the region, even if its citizenry rejects those goals, is far more palatable than a secular state defying and obstructing them. Hence the 1991 expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait, resulting in the return of a loyal, non-threatening monarch.

The Baathists' positives do not mitigate their horrific human rights records, of course (not that the Bush administration is in any position to judge such matters). But this issue of the fate of Arab Christians might perhaps influence the way that Bush's Christian fundamentalist social base sees the evolving situation in the Middle East. Franklin Graham, who says Islam is "a very evil and wicked religion" is chomping at the bit to bring the Truth to the benighted Iraqi people. His flock should know what Bush policy actually entails for the existing Iraqi Christian community. (Of course, I don't know whether Graham acknowledges that the Assyrian and Vatican-recognizing Chaldean churches are "really" Christian in his fundamentalist understanding of the term.)

One wants to visit Bush-friendly Christian churches and stand at those pulpits and cry out: "Brothers and sisters, the problem is not 'forces of good' versus 'forces of evil,' but secularism vs. religious fundamentalism, all over the world! Bin Laden's fundamentalism produced 9-11; Bush's, the bleeding sore of Iraq. The problem is Bush's extremist Christian fundamentalism, versus not just Muslim fundamentalism, but even the most religiously tolerant regimes in Muslim nations! Why are Christians fleeing 'liberated' Iraq? Because, brothers and sisters, the illegal war toppling the Baathists in Iraq has produced terrible suffering among Christian believers, and Baathist Syria bad though it may be provides succor. If secular, religiously tolerant Syria is next on the 'War on Terror' attack list, even though it's got nothing to do with al-Qaeda and 9-11, is there not something very wrong (even evil) in the administration's whole approach to the region?"

I'm not optimistic the message would resonate, but Christians who agree might give it a try. [/size][/size][/size]


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