Iraqis comdemn Fallujah atrocities

[KurtNilsen]

"Town leaders in troubled Fallujah denounced the gruesome murder of four American contractors here, as imams decided to devote Friday prayers to condemn such acts considered sins in Islam.

Rawi also said "imams across Fallujah have decided to make a unified Friday sermon today that will condemn the mutilation of the bodies, based on the holy Koran and the teachings of Prophet Mohammed, which prohibit them."

Many Fallujah residents expressed dismay at the mutilation of the bodies which they considered against Muslim teachings, although some justified the acts as a reaction to army raids on homes and mosques in the town. "


-AFP



""BAGHDAD — The mere mention of Fallujah prompted grocer Salam al-Graizi, 57, to raise his sleeve and display the goose bumps on his left arm.

"I feel ashamed for all of us in Iraq," he said, referring to images of Iraqis desecrating American bodies and hanging blackened corpses from a nearby bridge. "I am ashamed even for myself. Heathens would not approve of such acts. I only wish all of Iraqi people are not held responsible. It makes my skin shrink."

"Civilians are being killed," Mafraji said. "This is totally wrong.""

USA TODAY



""Prophet Muhammad prohibited even the mutilation of a dead mad dog and he considered such a thing as religiously forbidden. What happened in Fallujah is a distortion of Islamic principles and it is forbidden in Islam. We condemn such acts and all Fallujah clerics will do so during the Friday prayers," he told The Associated Press. "

AP

---------------------------------------------------------------------


Quite different reaction than from some here on DU.

On edit: removed part of title which was needlessly offensive (and inaccurate.)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I am glad

that the imams have come out with the facts on Islam. On other boards, Muslim bashing was coming out after this incident. The whole incident made me cry.

[KurtNilsen]

10. I am glad as well, but I do know enough muslims to know

that this is far from acceptable.

It's the people who cheer this on that have placed themselves in opposition to the vast majority of human kind.

Thank goodness.

[rfranklin]

2. To what are you referring?

What's your point and who are you accusing of what?

[KurtNilsen]

12. I am accusing everyone who cheers on the atrocities in

Fallujah, and fail to condemn the barbarity.

I don't even think the Taliban stooped that low.

Oh, well. To each their own.

[truthspeaker]

32. no one is cheering them on

Failing to condemn them is not cheering them on.

I'm not condeming them because the victims had it coming.

[KurtNilsen]

37. Correction then: I am refering to anyone who doesn't

condemn what took place.

[thebigidea]

40. why would it matter?

All this "condemning" doesn't really accomplish much...

I condemn your insistence that we all condemn those that don't condemn!

[KurtNilsen]

42. Alright, you win :-)

[thebigidea]

44. I condemn your use of emoticons as highly inappropriate

It does a great disservice to our brave, dead contractors. Is it all just some grim JOKE to you that you can smile and wink about? People are dying here, and progress is being made... little by little, the seeds of democracy are being planted within the soft skulls of those Iraqis... one day, we will reap a great harvest of metaphorical somethingorother.

[KurtNilsen]

47. huff da.

[Spentastic]

3. Your point being?

Iraqis are intelligent people.

Bremner swore revenge yesterday you'd have to be a numpty to stand in front of a camera and say "yeah, shit happens. Mercenaries shouldn't be here and good riddance to em"

"although some justified the acts as a reaction to army raids on homes and mosques in the town."

Sounds like DU to me.

[KurtNilsen]

19. See my respone to "truthspeaker"

[truthspeaker]

4. DUers don't have Paul Bremer's boot on our necks

Unlike Iraqis, we have freedom of speech.

[KurtNilsen]

7. Are you just pretending to be ignorant.?????

There is more freedom of speech at the moment in Iraq than there probably has been at any other time in recorded history.

If anything, those who deny people in Iraq freedom of speech are the insurgents who actively seek to kill and intimidate people who are perceived to support the coalition.

If you had even followed a tiny bit of what is going on in Iraq you would have noticed that staging rabid anti-american marched (that you probably would have been proud to join) is the norm, not the exception.

Cheers.

[truthspeaker]

9. and if you had followed the news

you would know that often those "anti-American" (that is, anti-occupation) marches are shot at. And that news organizations have been shut down. And that labor unions have also been shut down.

[KurtNilsen]

22. Soldiers responds to being attacked.

Frankly, freedom of speech doesn't include stoning or shooting.

Did you for instance see the way the British troops handled the recent unrest in Basra. I'd say it's quite remakable that they didn't fire a shot. This while the "demonstrators" raided a womens group.

And I am sure you know that freedom of speech doesn't include inciting violence. You should post a death threat here to the president and see what happens.

I don't know about labour unions being shut down. I would appreciate a link if you could dig one up.

[truthspeaker]

30. Iraq Labor Federation shut down by US troops

here you go: http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0ea74f4207000f2a20cd2bdf4ab0e2a9

[thebigidea]

33. oh, why must you disrupt our pristine Iraq narrative with the truth?

There's a LOT OF GOOD THINGS GOING ON IN IRAQ.

Just the other day I was talking to an imaginary man from the "Arab Street" who said the Iraq stuff made him want to embrace democracy, America, and Paul Wolfowitz particularly.

[KurtNilsen]

46. Thanks for the link.

I must admit that the events described in the article.

No one doubts that a huge number of mistakes has been made.

The sacking of the enire army, and the crash privatisation has been disasters. That's why it is critical to get a regime change in Washington. Politics cannot be determined by people with a religious ideological zeal, facts be damned.

[coda]

55. " freedom of speech doesn't include inciting violence "

Not all Inciters of Violence™ are created equal, of course. Sometimes they appear to be merely smug, self-satisfied, remf cheerleaders.

Behold! the power of one succinct, arrogant, and self-serving phrase.

BRING IT ON!

[thebigidea]

56. if that quote were true, Richard Perle would be in prison

[KurtNilsen]

59. Along with his pal Frum.

[thebigidea]

60. and their friend Friedman

"Let's give war a chance," huh, Tom?

[coda]

64. We can dream, can't we? Here's a pearl from the Perle. Relax and enjoy.

I'm such a sucker for the nostalgia of yesteryear.



Relax, Celebrate Victory

By Richard Perle
Posted: Friday, May 2, 2003

ARTICLES
USA Today
Publication Date: May 2, 2003

From start to finish, President Bush has led the United States and its coalition partners to the most important military victory since World War II. And like the allied victory over the axis powers, the liberation of Iraq is more than the end of a brutal dictatorship: It is the foundation for a decent, humane government that will represent all the people of Iraq.

<snip>


In full retreat, the war's opponents have now taken up new defensive positions: "Yes, it was a military victory, but you haven't found Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction." Or, "Yes, we destroyed Saddam's regime, but now other dictators will try even harder to develop weapons of mass destruction to make sure they will not fall to some future American preemptive strike."

We will find Saddam's well-hidden chemical and biological weapons programs, but only when people who know come forward and tell us where to look. While Saddam was in power, even a hint about his concealment and deception was a death sentence, often by unimaginable torture against whole families. Saddam had four years to hide things. We have had a few weeks to find them. Patience--and some help from free Iraqis--will be rewarded.


<snip>


Iraqis are freer today and we are safer. Relax and enjoy it.



Richard Perle, assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration and a member of the Defense Policy Board, is a resident fellow at AEI.


more.....


http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.17096,filter./news_detail.asp

[KurtNilsen]

58. Good point,

[Mandate My Ass]

61. Be careful, coda

If you don't agree with everything that comes out of the cheerleader's mouth, Kurt will call you crazy and say you have no moral compass. So what if he egged on the Iraqis to attack our soldiers, according to Kurt, he has moral clarity and Clinton is the liar....:eyes:

[KurtNilsen]

63. huh?

What do you mean?

I didn't say that. I just said that taking the stand that EVERYTHING bush does is evil, and consequently the opposite must be good is not a reliable moral compass.

I stand by that.

And, I never called Clinton a liar. I am a great admirer of the man. I spent my life savings to see him speak a few years ago in Oslo. Great man, and a great speech.

[thebigidea]

71. ok, can you point out one good thing Bush has done? Just one.

otherwise, yeah - its a pretty safe bet that whatever Bush likes, the exact opposite is preferable.

[thebigidea]

13. I just wish people would report more about the GOOD THINGS in Iraq

there's so many GOOD THINGS to talk about because we're making such GOOD PROGRESS.

Too much Tom Friedman, maybe? Smells like it to me.

[KurtNilsen]

25. Actually, he was on CNN International last night :-)

Do you get insight with Jonathan Mann on CNN in the United States?

[thebigidea]

26. I only watch FOX News, sorry. I don't watch that liberal stuff.

CNN spends WAAAY too much time concentrating on all the NEGATIVE NEWS coming out of Iraq, every minute they spend screaming about somebody dying could be better spent covering the opening of a new bridge or perhaps a small child with large eyes could be handed a stuffed animal by a man with a shiny gun.

I prefer FOX - they tell it how it really is, that O'Reilly guy really IS looking out for me.

[KurtNilsen]

28. Fox news was canceled in Norway. People said it was to the right

of Atilla the Hun :-)

[thebigidea]

31. yeah, but he made the trains run on time.

[KurtNilsen]

27. And he seemed quite worried about the situation, and wanted

to see Iraqia condemn the events in Fallujah. Well Tom, if you are reading, here it is :-)

[thebigidea]

29. "quite worried" - that's rich. He did his part to instigate it.

[KG]

15. nice try, but the US just shut down a newspaper

so your statement: 'There is more freedom of speech at the moment in Iraq than there probably has been at any other time in recorded history.' is BS, just like all the other BS you've posted.

[KurtNilsen]

50. I am glad you have an open mind...

I don't know how many newspapers there are in Iraq at the moment, but I promise you that it is more than anything that has ever existed before.

But, that's off course just BS.

Things might have become worse in Iraq in many respects, but freedom of speech is not one of them.

[thebigidea]

52. you might want to actually check your facts before promising things

[maddezmom]

5. wonder if they will be saying the same thing after the US retaliates?

:shrug:

[maddezmom]

21. "U.S. vows to hunt down Fallujah killers"

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0404/02iraq.html

I condemn both the killing of the "civilians" and our tactic of retaliation on a grand scale.

[KurtNilsen]

51. If they want to hund down the killers, I won't object.

But the killers are probably not in Fallujah anymore. Any large scale retaliation has to be avoided at all cost. That's playing right into the hands of extremists on all sides, and will cause more unecessary suffering and death.

[KurtNilsen]

48. Well, I think some of them said that the US should not

retaliate. I just hope the commanders on the ground resist any attempt at a politically driven revenge mission.

Who knows what GWB might order in order to satisfy his base?

[thebigidea]

49. are you calling on our brave soldiers to mutiny? to defy orders?

Vengeance must be as Bremer dictates. Bremer knows all!

[KurtNilsen]

53. I have surrendered. You win. I am not discussing with you,

because you clearly just want to throw insults and not have a DIALOGUE.

Cheers.

[thebigidea]

54. your opening post before you edited it was an insult.

your very argument about freedom in Iraq is an insult to the dead, dying, and deprived. Far more insulting than any of my sarcasm.

[mmonk]

6. I condemn them

But looking at the morning papers and the letters written in, I understand the public doesn't understand what this war is about. An uninformed public bothers me. The news has been sanitized on the horrors of war so far.

[theHandpuppet]

16. Exactly...

For me the real issue is not choosing which side to condemn, but to use this as an opportunity to understand where such rage might come from. What part may our own actions have played in the Fallujah tragedy? Who were/are these civilian contractors and what part are they playing in Iraq?

There are many questions/issues to be discussed, and I don't mean to come off as impersonal here, but unless we are willing to take good hard look at what really happened and why and dispense with knee-jerk reactions and jingoism, there will inevitably be many more Fallujahs to come.

[KurtNilsen]

45. Good post......

No doubt, there has been many mistakes. However, instaed of seemingly hoping that it all goes to hell, it is critical that it can be sorted out. John Kerry will most probably inherit the situation, and make sene of it.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KurtNilsen]

14. Are you talking to me?

I'll bugger off, when the admins don't want me here anymore.

Besides, I think that I would be talking for our nominee Kerry, when I am expressing my viewpoints. And, I think still a majority here agrees with me too.

[KG]

17. 'our' nominee?

you plan on mailing in a ballot from norway?

[KurtNilsen]

34. No, I plan to use http://www.theworldvotes.org/

[thebigidea]

35. I prefer http://www.imaginaryfantasyleaguevoting.com for "our" candidate

[thebigidea]

18. Geez, I wish I could claim to be talking for Presidential candidates too

I thought you had to be Press Sec. types to do that, but apparently not.

[KurtNilsen]

36. I think you know what I mean.

A poster kindly told me to bugger off, because I espouse views which I think is close to what John Kerry would belive. Afterall I think he went on record and did condemn the atrocities.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

[thebigidea]

38. well, I try not to speak on behalf of... say, Ansgar Gabrielsen

[KG]

43. you were requested to 'bugger off' for your accusatory thread title

that you have since edited. but, you knew that, didn't you?

[KurtNilsen]

57. No, I honestly thought I was told to bugger off because I

happen to have a view that runs contrary to a section of DUers who I assumed you belong to. If the one poll is accurate DU is pretty much split down the middle.

It just seems like one side is much more vocal than the other.

[Vickers]

11. I imagine the averageDUer is less likely than the average Fallujaher

to be bombed. Their condemnation of the mutilations is self-preservation at its finest.

[Lexingtonian]

So????

So there are DUers who write critical stuff in which the 'patriotic' provincial pieties are neglected and sobriety is lacking.

And there are Iraqis who see the overt moral tragedies involved and, as a matter of selfpreservation of their sensibilities, respond to them as victims of moral tragedy.

Apples vs oranges. We don't have the standing to understand the moral tragedy in the situation fully for what it is/was. The Iraqis of Fallujah don't have the standing to see it for and assert it as the policy failure and yet another malfeasance whose roots lie quite directly in vile machinations in small parts of Washington.

If DUers felt certain that Bremer's razzia today in Fallujah had much of anything to do with a civilized notion of justice and method of attaining it the anger would be directed at the guerillas. But for all we know, it could all still prove to be the consequences of a shakedown by the mercenaries gone bad.

[matcom]

20. wwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee early mornin' flame wars!

i love the smell of flame wars in the morning. they smell like...um.... flame wars :eyes:

[thebigidea]

23. think of it as an OPPORTUNITY to discuss the good progress in Iraq

for example, I never knew that the Iraqi people are at the freest they've ever been at any moment in recorded history. I know this because some guy on the internet said it, and who am I to judge?

[matcom]

24. lol

good point

[blondeatlast]

67. If it's on the net, it MUST be true! nt

[blondeatlast]

66. Little too much poo being burned in this onem and rightly so.

So I'll plug my nose and watch.

[matcom]

39. your 'outrage' at DU is a little misguided

while i don't condone killing of ANY KIND (yes, that most certainly includes Shock and Awe this admin threw at the innocent) let me give you a scenario.

America is on the receiving end of an invasion/occupation. Our newpapers are shut down, our homes destroyed, we have no running water, homelessness and poverty are the norm. Every day occupying forces roll their tanks down our sidewalks. Our men are taken away and jailed, interrogated and released with no explanation. Our statues are destroyed our monuments burned.

I am 100% sure that NO middle 'Murican would EVER stoop so low as to blow up a vehicle and torture the 'towel heads' responsible. No WAY would ANYONE do things like tie the occupiers up behind their trucks and drag them down the streets. No WAY would the bodies of dead occupiers EVER be paraded through a midwestern town and be put on display to show the mighty resistance of the U.S. Nope that would NEVER happen see because WE are not BARBARIANS like SOME countries. No see we Americans are so above all of that that we would accept OUR occupation with grace and dignity, and THANK our occupiers for writing our new constitution, installing THEIR puppet government and bringin THEIR idea of 'freedom'!

:eyes:

[thebigidea]

41. well, you can be sure the Republicans would be the first to collaborate

the hypothetical occupation could use men like William Bennett, no doubt.

[KurtNilsen]

62. I have no outrage at DU. I love the DU.

It is incredibly interesting to follow the thoughts of supporters of what will "hopefully" be the next administration in Washington. I think you are perfectly aware that what happens in Washington affects the entire globe. It's been a bad 3 years already.

Still if what you say is true, it doesn't make it wrong to fight barbarity. The line between good and evil goes straight through the heart of every man. We all can be capable of reverting to depraved barbarity. That is why I fight so hard against it.

And that's why I do take offence to people who condone or fail to condemn what happened in Fallujah.

What's interesting is that it doesn't seem like a particularly large group. Just very vocal.

[blondeatlast]

68. "What's interesting is that it doesn't seem like a particularly

large group. Just very vocal."

Then why get your panties in a bunch?

Use the "ignore" or "hide thread" feature if it has gotten to the point that you can't respond reasonably. I do, and even though I've POed some people on DU, I'm still here and so are they--we politley deny each other's existence!

Edit: punctuation to make the quote make sense.

[dpibel]

69. Oh, those damned binaries

It's kinda like the whales: Reducing the choices to two may leave out a nuance or so.

To condone the Fallujah incident would be to say, "Cool, guys! Do it some more!" If you can point me to the person on DU who has said anything like that, I'll be surprised.

To condemn the Fallujah incident is to say, "That's awful! They shouldn't do that!" I believe if you read the comments, even those of the people who do not immediately and absolutely agree with you, you will discover that condemnation is a fairly common reaction.

That, however, does not quite cover the spectrum, since the spectrum includes roy g biv, and is not limited to b & w.

There's this third reaction, which is: "That's awful. But I can see what might motivate people to do that. What's more, I suspect if Americans (and even--who knows?--Norwegians) were put in that situation, they might well do the same sorts of things." I have a recollection that a very reliable source once said that the Norwegians might have committed the occasional atrocity during WWII, for instance.

The problem with all of this dialogue is that it quickly devolves into demands for unqualified condemnation (often stated in terms of "Iraqis," as opposed to "the residents of Fallujah who were responsible for this atrocity.") For many of us it is possible to hold in our minds two more or less related ideas, e.g., it's a bad, but understandable thing and, since some of our countrypeople might do similar things under similar circumstances, we ought mount, perhaps, a medium-sized moral horse instead of a high one.

Tell ya the truth, Kurt: For a person who quite cheerily and politely demands that other people see the truth he sees, you seem to have precious little interest in responding to suggestions that your position might be propped up on some pretty shaky buttresses.

Explain to me again how it is that, in our examination of the immorality of this whole episode, we begin history at the moment those men were driving down the streets of Fallujah? If we really want to get down to proximate causes, doesn't it all have something to do with a mad dauphin avenging (or, if you want to be Freudian, one-upping) his daddy? Not to mention the help he got from a pliant media including, not by any means as the least, Tom Friedman? What is the necessary "but for" that results in those guys being in Fallujah in the first place? (Hint: It's not some wild America-hating pan-Islamic jihad.)

[KurtNilsen]

70. dpibel, thanks a lot for an insightful post. You know what?

I think I will take a few days off.

You are perhaps right, that I argue my case, not only because I think it is right, because I do, but also because I desperately want it to be right.

Thanks again for your post.


God bless, and have a great weekend!

[coda]

65. The shock and outrage is almost puzzling, l thought we all had received

that good advice to not " waste our beautiful minds
on something like that?" I thought that "it's not relevant"?


Here, after all those pictures of dead Iraqi women and children, I thought (from the lack of outrage from the many) that we had become desensitized to all that violence.

Of course there were some, during the course of the war, when confronted with pictures of the dead (and obviously innocent) Iraqis, who would say, with no small amount of resignation, "While it's tragic, these things happen in war and can't be helped."

It gives one hope to know that we aren't, after all, "desensitized to violence", and that we can still work up a healthy amount of shock, disgust, and moral outrage, as well as empathy for the dead and their families.