Iraq: Offensives 'an attempt to block Sunni registration'
IOL: The US and Iraqi sectarian offensives on Sunni towns are aimed to block Sunni Arabs from registering to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections, a senior Sunni leader said on Sunday, September 11.
"We will take part in large numbers [in the elections] even if we are bombarded, our homes destroyed, our families displaced and sons arrested," Adnan Al-Dulaimi, the secretary general of the National Conference for the People of Iraq, told a press conference in Baghdad.
He said Sunni Arabs are resolved to vote to "save Iraq from the current appalling conditions, put an end to its destruction and turn off the bloodshed."
Iraqi Defense Minister Saadun Al-Dulaimi unveiled Saturday, September 10, that and Iraqi and US forces would strike "insurgents" in the four northwestern towns of Ramadi, Samarra, Rawa and Qaem, all heavily populated by Sunnis.
Sunnis are currently registering in large numbers to vote down the draft constitution, which is due to be put to a national referendum on October 15 ahead of elections in December.
They are a majority in Al-Anbar, Nineveh and Salahudin provinces and Iraq's interim law stipulates that the draft fails if two-thirds of any three provinces vote against it during the planned referendum. Read more
db: What hope has the US of gaining acceptance for the yet to be finalised draft constitution without drawing upon it's global experience in electoral engineering? Juan Cole comments that US and Iraqi forces appear to be adopting a policy of de-urbanizing the Sunni Arab population and cautions that "the problem with such a tactic is that it will not actually reduce attacks on the US military or the Iraqi police. It will just seed ethnic hatred for decades to come."
It's likely that the majority of the so-called insurgents/terrorists arrested in the sweeps will, at a convenient time, be released without charge - either in a few days - or for the unlucky ones after a spell inside a major 'prison' such as Abu Ghraib.
Cox News reports:
...Among the cases they described, U.S. troops arrested one Iraqi man because he had an Arabic poster showing a beheaded man. The soldiers thought it was the sinister propaganda of terrorists and hauled him away to the Abu Ghraib prison camp. Months later, the Iraqis reviewing the case quickly recognized that the poster was a benign tribute to a Shiite hero beheaded in the 7th Century (Imam Hussein)...
Another Iraqi was selling copies of the Witness, a popular tabloid newspaper peddling gossip about the old dictatorship. Troops saw the cover photo of Saddam Hussein and took the man away for months until his case was reviewed and he was set free. [db:really, even if the guy did have a picture of SH - can that justify his incarceration/abuse? - think NKVD]
Many more Iraqis are wrongly detained based on the lies of manipulative informants, false positives in explosives tests or because they were simply among the many passersby swept up for being in the vicinity of an attack on U.S. troops... Read more
"We will take part in large numbers [in the elections] even if we are bombarded, our homes destroyed, our families displaced and sons arrested," Adnan Al-Dulaimi, the secretary general of the National Conference for the People of Iraq, told a press conference in Baghdad.
He said Sunni Arabs are resolved to vote to "save Iraq from the current appalling conditions, put an end to its destruction and turn off the bloodshed."
Iraqi Defense Minister Saadun Al-Dulaimi unveiled Saturday, September 10, that and Iraqi and US forces would strike "insurgents" in the four northwestern towns of Ramadi, Samarra, Rawa and Qaem, all heavily populated by Sunnis.
Sunnis are currently registering in large numbers to vote down the draft constitution, which is due to be put to a national referendum on October 15 ahead of elections in December.
They are a majority in Al-Anbar, Nineveh and Salahudin provinces and Iraq's interim law stipulates that the draft fails if two-thirds of any three provinces vote against it during the planned referendum. Read more
db: What hope has the US of gaining acceptance for the yet to be finalised draft constitution without drawing upon it's global experience in electoral engineering? Juan Cole comments that US and Iraqi forces appear to be adopting a policy of de-urbanizing the Sunni Arab population and cautions that "the problem with such a tactic is that it will not actually reduce attacks on the US military or the Iraqi police. It will just seed ethnic hatred for decades to come."
It's likely that the majority of the so-called insurgents/terrorists arrested in the sweeps will, at a convenient time, be released without charge - either in a few days - or for the unlucky ones after a spell inside a major 'prison' such as Abu Ghraib.
Cox News reports:
...Among the cases they described, U.S. troops arrested one Iraqi man because he had an Arabic poster showing a beheaded man. The soldiers thought it was the sinister propaganda of terrorists and hauled him away to the Abu Ghraib prison camp. Months later, the Iraqis reviewing the case quickly recognized that the poster was a benign tribute to a Shiite hero beheaded in the 7th Century (Imam Hussein)...
Another Iraqi was selling copies of the Witness, a popular tabloid newspaper peddling gossip about the old dictatorship. Troops saw the cover photo of Saddam Hussein and took the man away for months until his case was reviewed and he was set free. [db:really, even if the guy did have a picture of SH - can that justify his incarceration/abuse? - think NKVD]
Many more Iraqis are wrongly detained based on the lies of manipulative informants, false positives in explosives tests or because they were simply among the many passersby swept up for being in the vicinity of an attack on U.S. troops... Read more
posted by exoplanet at 2:28 PM
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