Via the comments, former Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi has some very unkind things to say about Iraq today:
“People are doing the same as (in) Saddam Hussein’s time and worse. It is an appropriate comparison,” Allawi told British newspaper The Observer.
“People are remembering the days of Saddam,” said Allawi, a secular Shi’ite and former Baathist who is standing in elections scheduled for Dec. 15. “These are the precise reasons why we fought Saddam Hussein and now we are seeing the same things.
“We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated,” said Allawi in an apparent reference to the discovery of a bunker at the Shi’ite-run Interior Ministry where 170 men were held prisoner, beaten, half-starved and in some cases tortured.
“A lot of Iraqis are being tortured or killed in the course of interrogations.”
…”The Ministry of the Interior is at the heart of the matter,” Allawi said. “I am not blaming the minister himself, but the rank and file are behind the secret dungeons and some of the executions that are taking place.”
It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that Allawi is not pointing the finger at the Americans themselves. He’s saying that the Iraqis who run Iraq today, or at least the mid-level employees, have decided to take up Saddam’s lead in dealing with opposition. Maybe the Interior Ministry would have started this shit without any input from us, can’t say. Allawi himself hardly has a clear record when it comes to treating prisoners humanely. I can say that when it comes to detainee treatment we could have set a much better example than we did.
Paddy O'Shea
Tragic to see that certain elements of the Iraqi govt we paid so dear a price to put into power have taken to emulating the military prison practices of America’s first S&M administration.
Andrew Reeves
Hmm… I tend to think that Allawi’s talk right now is his angling for votes. After all, he had a fairly close relationship with the Interior Ministry and it’s commandoes, who were not exactly the most squeaky clean when it comes to dealing with human rights.
No, my guess is that he’s going to be trying to get votes as a thinly-disguised ex-Ba’athist.
rilkefan
Where’s the “M” part, O’S? Maybe “Miers”?
Paddy O'Shea
rilkefan: Hmm, good question. I suspect we won’t know that full consequences of that one until Jeff Gannon’s tell-all comes out.
Rumor has it the working title is “Operation Spread Eagle.”
Mithrandir
You don’t have a skeptical eye upon these comments? Wouldn’t an obvious political opponent of the current president in Iraq want to say such things prior to an election? Wouldn’t statements from Talabani (the current president) cast doubt on Allawi’s comments?
And you may make a passing remark that “he’s not saying US” but in saying that you are still pointing the finger at the Abu Ghraib photos et al as evidence of some kind of “we did it, can’t you see it?” -type of statement. (As evidenced by Paddy’s mis-worded comment.) That’s a bit of a stretch to say the least.
I’m not going to attempt to deny Allawi’s comments outright, but it seems to be given too much credit and weight here particularly in the light of the article you quoted from. Why MUST there be guilt applied when only an allegation has arisen?
Paddy? S&M is for sexual gratification, and has nothing to do with torture or human rights offenses. Even as an attempt at humor it only shows blatant and blind animosity toward the administration. Par for the course for a Democrat, but so shallow it’s appalling.
MisterPundit
Allawi sounds like he’s taking his queues from the DNC. Take an event, blow it out of proportion, and watch the sock puppets rush to your side.
Face it, as long as Iraq’s democracy isn’t perfect, there will be those who will proclaim it a “disaster”. No sense of proportion. No context. It’s either perfect, or it’s a “disaster”.
Paddy O'Shea
Mithrandir: You are nothing more than an apologist for torture. Just another clueless barking mutt in the George W. Bush Choir of Denial.
MisterPundit
Mithrandir: You are nothing more than an apologist for torture. Just another clueless barking mutt in the George W. Bush Choir of Denial.
Well then, using you’re retarded logic, you’re an apologist for terrorists.
Paddy O'Shea
That would be “using YOUR retarded logic,” Mithrandir.
Which is pretty much the level of literacy one would expect from some clown who took his posting handle from “The Hobbit.”
http://www.angelfire.com/me2/Mithrandir/
MisterPundit
Mmmm… Hello bonehead, I’m not Mathindir. Thanks for the spelling lesson. Yawn.
Dexter
Allawi is an ungrateful punk who has no idea what life in Iraq was like under Saddam.
Darrell
Tim, there is a distinction between Iraqi citizens held in prison vs foreign terrorists not wearing uniforms hiding among and targetting innocents. Civilians and legal combatents have more rights than ILLEGAL combatents who target and hide among civilians.
Your ‘analogy’ would have more validity had Allawi made those comments in the context of torturing foreign Pakistani and Syrian terrorists who were caught trying to blow up a grade school.
Paddy O'Shea
MisterPundit: Actually it was a grammar lesson.
MisterPundit
Thanks Paddy. “You’re” retarded. Hope I got it right that time.
Paddy O'Shea
Got a joke for ya, MisterPundit:
Q) How do you lose a war to a country with no government or organized military?
A) Put George W. Bush in charge.
Richard Bottoms
What the hell does Iyad Allawi know about Iraq anyway? I get my information about what’s going on over there from loyal Americans not some raghead who’s doesn’t know anything.
Wait a minute…
MisterPundit
Why Paddy, I do believe you told that one already.
May I suggest you keep things fresh by turning to the next page in your copy of “George Bush Jokes for Dummies and BDS Sufferers”, and post something new. Just grip the page between your thumb and index finger (that’s right, it’s the same finger you have shoved up your nose at the moment), and pull upward and left.
You can do it. I know you can.
Paddy O'Shea
Mr. Pundit: Good to see the old short term memory is working for you again. After that last series of blows your ex administered to your head many had their doubts.
Now perhaps you should clean from your keyboard the residue of where your fingers have spent most of this fine and Holy day.
God knows your trailer is starting to stink of it.
Dexter
If Allawi doesn’t like being in Iraq, maybe we ought to send him to Gitmo. I can’t believe the ingratitude of this hack.
Paddy O'Shea
Dexter’s definition of gratitude and patriotism: Keeping your mouth shut about torture.
Hard to believe Republicans actually once claimed to be the reliquaries of higher ethical and moral standards.
Those days are certainly over.
ppGaz
Uh, has anyone seen DougJ?
Message from the Big Giant Head ….
ppGaz
DougJXter-isms aside …. no matter how you read the news from Iraq these days, it’s a complete clusterfuck over there.
Where’s Darrell with his “Hey, we’re handing out CANDY!” distractions, when you need him?
Mac Buckets
How dare you joke while our boys are fighting over there…traitor!
MisterPundit
Now perhaps you should clean from your keyboard the residue of where your fingers have spent most of this fine and Holy day.
Nuh-uh! Your sister came over to lend a “helping hand” and that residue is all I have to remember her by. She loved the smell of the trailer though. Said it reminded her of home.
S.W. Anderson
Guess we know who hasn’t spent enough time with GI’s to know they freely and regularly enjoy such humor, among themselves and from others.
We also see who equates having a high opinion of George W. Bush’s Vaudeville rendition of leadership with being patriotic. Get the hook!
Uh, on second though, get two.
demimondian
There’s this thing called “irony” which sometimes shows up in discourse. Mac Buckets has been know to use it as a part of his expressive pallette occasionally — he’s dangerous and anti-American that way.
Now, I can’t be sure, because, as everyone knows, subtlety is lost on me, but I *think* that he might have been using it there.
Paddy O'Shea
Um, Mister Pundit? I have no sister.
Mom been in your makeup again?
MisterPundit
Um, Mister Pundit? I have no sister.
Sorry, the woman was ugly as sin and dumb as a brick, so I just assumed you were related. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure she was human. She may have been Irish.
Paddy O'Shea
Nope. Obviously your mom.
And considering she fucked your fourlegged father, she’s obviously capable of anything.
narciso79
Seriously, now, Mr. Allawi, was plucked out of semiobscurity
by MI-6, when he was working a hitch with the foreign branch of the Moukhrarabat or General Intelligence; his faction, the National Accord, was chock full of ex-Republican Guards and other moody intellectual types like
Saleh Omar, the hanging judge of the ’68 Baathist purge/
pogrom. A little bit of the pot calling the kettle. . . As to the methods of Bayan Jabr, I found them not aggresive enough, if these are the folks that have blown up schools, hospitals, and the like; they deserve less consideration,
not more. By the way, don’t sell me that there all innocent
line, or it’s just a phase, that’s what they said of the Amman bomber, a year ago.
MisterPundit
And considering she fucked your fourlegged father, she’s obviously capable of anything.
Hey, at least she’s not Irish!
Paddy O'Shea
No, most obviously she’s not.
A $5 a throw bowling alley hosebag maybe. But not Irish.
MisterPundit
A $5 a throw bowling alley hosebag maybe. But not Irish.
Exactly! Now, is she was a $1 a throw bowling alley hosebag, she’d be Irish, like your mother.
Paddy O'Shea
Yeah, but that still makes your mouth a .50c cunt.
smijer
Yeah, Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss… that’s the WHO, tipping their hat to the new liberation or something… and which I’ve echoed a time or two before.
I think this among the many shameful results of this war that gives the lie to the rationale that the Administration did this to get freedom on the march… If they cared about human rights, and if this war was designed to restore them to Iraqis, we would have seen a much different war. We would have seen resolutions introduced to condemn human rights violations in Iraq and elsewhere. We would have seen action in Sudan before we saw it in Iraq. We would have seen great care taken by everyone from the DoD to the Secretary of State, to the President of the U.S.A. to be sure there was a liberal, non-sectarian coalition of Iraqis prepared well in advance to take power during the transition. And, there would be major, continuing pressure on that transititional government – the newly elected government, and the Pentagon to weed out any members of any security forces the first moment they started to resort to the old ways in Iraq. And we would never have seen Abu Graib… or it’s Iraqi counterparts.
I think that this is among the biggest things that war apologists just don’t get.
MisterPundit
Yeah, but that still makes your mouth a .50c cunt.
Only when your mother is sitting on it.
Steve S
Iraq and this Administration was never in favor of human rights. They just used that as an excuse to beat down liberal opponents of invasion.
That’s the thing. I hear them speak, but there is no heart to what they say. It’s hard to take them seriously. They think human rights is an issue of political opportunism, rather than deep founded beliefs.
MisterPundit
They think human rights is an issue of political opportunism, rather than deep founded beliefs.
I feel the same way about Democrats, and apparently so does 70% of the country.
smijer
MisterPundit…
I feel the same way about a lot of Democrats… but that doesn’t keep me from agreeing with Steve S. Maybe there are some Colin Powell type GOP’s in power who really care about human rights, but they sure as hell aren’t the ones running the show. The evidence is undeniable.
ppGaz
Very excellent post.
MisterPundit
If they cared about human rights, and if this war was designed to restore them to Iraqis, we would have seen a much different war.
I’m sorry, but it’s clear you have absolutely no idea how complicated the transition from a dictatorship to a democracy is. Anyone can proclaim “Why didn’t Bush just press the “Easy” button when he liberated Iraq” but those people are usually incapable of recognizing context, and applying perspective, to political dynamics that changes almost daily. You can’t combat terrorism and religious extremism with wishful thinking.
Steve S
Really?
I thought we were talking about liberation?
Perhaps this has something to do with why your liberation isn’t easy.
MisterPundit
We’re talking about a lot of things. Try to keep up. It’s complicated.
smijer
Come on, MP- you know as well as I do that there were lots of things that the Admin could have been doing if freedom and human rights were on their priority list… and that they didn’t do them… and that they didn’t do them. They still aren’t doing them. In some cases, they are still fighting against the impulse some of us have to do them (witness Dick Cheney going to the Senate to try to get CIA exemptions from torture bans).
No, I’m not stupid, and I don’t think that there should be an easy button, but to quote George Bush, we went to war “at the time of our choosing”… There was a lot that the admin could have done to make sure their goals (if indeed their goals were human rights and democracy) had a better chance of success. They chose not to take the time to do it. They continue to shirk those jobs. I can believe some of them are just too stupid to know that this kind of work needs done. I can believe that they were really arrogant enough to think that the Pentagon, rather than Iraqis, was the best choice to hand out reconstruction contracts, even knowing that to do so would be to forfeit the opportunity to let Iraqis try their hands at self-determination and control over their own employment problems (which our contractors haven’t handled so well). So, stupid and arrogant – yeah, maybe. But they can’t be all that stupid and incompetent. If freedom and human rights were a concern somebody in the Administration would have done something to actually try and secure them for the Iraqis. The fact that they haven’t (and have taken opportunities to do the opposite) is too big a fact to explain by stupidity, arrogance and incompetence. It can only be explained by lack of motivation.
MisterPundut
If freedom and human rights were a concern somebody in the Administration would have done something to actually try and secure them for the Iraqis.
You mean aside from removing Iraq’s dictator, and giving Iraqi’s (men and woman alike) the opportunity to vote for their own government and constitution for the first time in Iraqi history? Maybe the only reason you don’t see the progress being made, is because you don’t want to. I can’t help you with that. People like you nitpick at the inevitable problems that will arise when a country makes the transition from a dictatorship to a democracy, and ignore the fundamental shift taking place. I prefer to look at the big picture.
ppGaz
Oh gee, I just love it when somebody decides to deliver a lecture on this topic …. since vritually NOTHING IS KNOWN ABOUT IT.
Please list the Arab countries that have successfully made this transition. Hint: Don’t list Egypt. Egypt is a democracy in name only. I am talking about stable, liberal democracy. Real democracy, where regular and peaceful regine change happens. Take your time. List ’em all.
When you have your list of zero countries, then please take note of the fact that the failure rate for conversion to democracy worldwide in the last 100 years is around 80 percent, according to people who teach this stuff at pointy-headed universities back East.
So you have zero history of Arab conversion from despot to disneyland, and a huge general failure rate out there.
Question: What convinced the pea-brains in the White House that they could march into Iraq, a country that didn’t even really exist until the British created it 80 years ago or so, and create a stable democracy?
There’s only one right answer, so think it over first.
rs
At the risk of crossing “the line”,my answer is the infectious hubris of the neo-cons.
Al Maviva
Well, they will have a chance to vote on it, again, in a couple weeks’ time.
MisterPundut
Please list the Arab countries that have successfully made this transition. Hint: Don’t list Egypt. Egypt is a democracy in name only. I am talking about stable, liberal democracy. Real democracy, where regular and peaceful regine change happens. Take your time. List ‘em all.
Oh gee, more childlike rhetorical questions from Mr. Explain The Meaning Of “This” himself. Okay, try to keep up …
How many Arab states have a “true liberal democracy”? Well, if it was up to you, then obviously none of them would ever have one, because hey! none of them ever had one. If the litmus test for having a democracy is having had a democracy, we may as well give up on the developing world and let them go fuck themselves.
It should however be encouraging to see that democracy is now – shall we say – at the very least more likely now than 5 years ago, in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. It should be more encouraging, but for some it obviously is not, ostensibly because they care about freedom and democracy. What a joke.
Steve S
That’s because idiots don’t realize that… The Road to Democracy is paved by Capitalism.
Steve S
It’s not up to ppGaz, or me, or you, or George Bush the Lesser. It’s up to the people living in that country. If they want Democracy, they shall have it.
God damn idiotic liberals. The litmus test to democracy is not having had one… it’s wanting one. Which is why the Road to Democracy is Paved by Capitalism. Just as we are seeing in China, as the economic fortunes are allowed to flourish, the people have more of a desire to influence what the govt does. Thus begat the Magna Carta, and from there everything else…
The only joke here is your pathetic liberal paternistic attitude.
Now answer my question. Are we talking liberation or fighting terrorism?
Cyrus
That’s either ignorance of the anti-this-war position or a deliberate strawman. No one is saying we shouldn’t try to promote democracy, just that invasion and occupation is purely counterproductive in that goal. Forget the Arab world or the Middle East – in history, as far as I know, no democracies have ever been created from scratch by a foreign force. Germany and Japan post-WWII? No, they’d both had democracies before the war, even if only briefly. Italy? If you’re willing to count single-party control of the government for fifty years a democracy, that’s setting the bar pretty damn low. Those are the examples I’ve seen in previous threads, and if you have any others, be my guest.
Democracies have been created with the help of foreign forces, of course – the U.S. wouldn’t be an independent country if not for France’s intervention. But most of the fighting and all of the government-setting-up were done by Americans. Same deal here. If the Iraq experiment works, great, but it’s highly unlikely to do so, because all the fighting and most of the government-setting-up were done by the foreigners rather than people who are actually making decisions in and for their own country. Claiming that BDS is why people oppose democracy promotion [by bombs] is just stupid.
ppGaz
You are a waste of time. You don’t have a frigging clue, do you?
Go play somewhere that your platitudes and magical thinking bullshit are taken seriously. Isn’t there a rap music fan club you should be blogging to? Or a Harry Potter book you should be reading?
About 50-100 American lives a month and 50 billion dollars a year or more and the ability of your country to govern itself are hanging on the probability of successful democracy in Iraq … an idea for which there is no precedent, no plan, and right now, no prospects. It’s an idea for which the people who sold it to you had no scheme in mind for its implementation.
Go sell your “nobody said it would be easy” bullshit somewhere else. And by the way, yes they did … and they were wrong, which is one of several reasons they fucked it up.
smijer
Yeah, I mean aside from that. Seriously, think it over… Do you think that the whole job of liberating a people consists of invading, removing the dictator, and then patching together enough of a provisional government to hold elections? If you do, you’re naive. Yet that’s about all that Bush did toward liberating the Iraqi’s… He practically guaranteed failure by not doing any of the less glamorous work – he just did the flashy part where the missiles fly and people that he’s never met die on his behalf. If he was interest in liberating the Iraqi people, he would have at least made an effort toward the more important stuff.
MisterPundut
Ah yes, Balloon-Juice’s resident leftwing choir of retards and idiots float to the top of the sewer to claim their stake as the dumbest people to ever post comments on a blog. Honestly, I couldn’t be bothered reading another word you idiots come up with. It’s annoying enough to have a conversation with someone when you feel compelled to dumb everything down into mono-syllables to get a simple point across, but to repeat the exercise over and over again is just monotonous.
serena1313
There is one thing being overlooked which is altho Allawi attributes it to the Iraqis re_member nothing is done in Iraq without the US forces knowing about it on the most part. So it is pretty difficult to imagine this was done behind their backs. Notwithstanding note I said it is difficult, not impossible.
Tim F is correct, Allawi is not an all so innocent player in this. Allawi is also a US puppet. According to the Iraqis, they say they consider their “governing council” a US puppet government.
With such an immense amount of propaganda coming from both the US & the Iraqi government it makes it very difficult to get to the truth. And with Iraq embroiled in war it is too dangerous for the press to venture outside the “green zone” as a result no one really knows what is actually taking place.
The truth will eventually come out. Until then we can take bits and pieces from what is reported, but we must re_member it is speculation ONLY — not the whole truth.
MisterPundit
According to the Iraqis, they say they consider their “governing council” a US puppet government.
Which Iraqis would that be? Don’t confuse the opinion of Sunni’s (less than 18% of the population) with that of the rest of Iraq.
With such an immense amount of propaganda coming from both the US & the Iraqi government…
Not to mention the immense amount of propaganda coming from the media and other anti-liberation zealots.