Is It A War On Islam?

sooo -- ``What, then, should be the strategy for all those who believe in a just world and are appalled by America`s war on the weak?``

GO NUCLEAR.

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12-head:
FYI, I obtained my residency a long time ago. Yet, unlike you, I am not selfish to close the door on others who are following me. If you are so sincere toward Islam, go back and let some Islamic country benefit from your expertise in whatever. America is already chock full of PhDs, your departure won`t hurt a bit. For once, put your money where your mouth is and stop your incessant display of hypocrisy. When will you understand that talk is cheap! Despite your sometimes correct stance, you don`t get any respect around here because people know that you`re just full of hot air. You are seriously demented and only get satisfaction by offending and harassing everyone.
I have been active in demonstrations and protests against Special Registration, discrimination against Pakistanis and Arabs and what not. I continue to support Pakistanis who want to migrate or legitimize their status in this country. You, on the other hand, sit on your ass all day and harass everyone on this board. The truth is that you`ve made it in this country, and in true desi fashion, you want to close the door on those left behind.

Dr. Hoodbhoy -- it couldn`t be against Islam --

the first bush war was -- against Extremist Fundamentallist who happened to be Muslims -- the second bush war is against secular Iraqis who happen to be Muslms -- its not a war against Islam --

it is just the nature of the BEAST --

Neshey aqrub nu uz paye keeN ust
Muqtazaaye tabeetush eeN ust

great aticle

hasan

Dr. Hoodbhoy -- it couldn`t be against Islam --

the first bush war was -- against Extremist Fundamentallist who happened to be Muslims -- the second bush war is against secular Iraqis who happen to be Muslms -- its not a war against Islam --

it is just the nature of the BEAST --

Neshey aqrub nu uz paye keeN ust
Muqtazaaye tabeetush eeN ust

great aticle -- best wishes

hasan

Asif Naqshbandi #60:
It totally destroys the case for `A War on Islam`, if Robert Fisk`s article is to be believed. It makes a very good case for a war for oil not on Islam. Nobody has denied the oil factor playing out in this game.

USA pretty much controls Saudi Arabia, yet unable to get the oil for free. Saudis get the same price per barrel as Libya, Mexico or Venezuela (depending on the quality of crude). Who would Iraq sell oil by remaining under Saddam or anti-American for the next 100 years? Would Iraq be able to get higher price for oil than anti-American Iran and pro-American Saudis? Saddam is dying to be able to sell oil at the market price but USA led west is not allowing it through UN sanctions.

What has Islam got to do with oil? War is about oil, hegemonic wish, imperialism, removing Saddam or destroying weapons of mass destruction or whatever; it is not a war against religion.

If it is a war for oil, why then MMA, jihadis, fundamentalists, Islamists and gulab jamans are whining? When did Iraq supply oil free of cost to any Muslim country?

The antiwar cause on the basis of religion is baseless. It is an understandable and debatable cause on the basis of human rights, peace and non-interference etc.

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This is the REAL reason for the war:

******
Robert Fisk: This looming war isn`t about chemical warheads or human rights: it`s about oil
Along with the concern for `vital interests` in the Gulf, this war was concocted five years ago by oil men such as Dick Cheney
18 January 2003


I was sitting on the floor of an old concrete house in the suburbs of Amman this week, stuffing into my mouth vast heaps of lamb and boiled rice soaked in melted butter. The elderly, bearded, robed men from Maan – the most Islamist and disobedient city in Jordan – sat around me, plunging their hands into the meat and soaked rice, urging me to eat more and more of the great pile until I felt constrained to point out that we Brits had eaten so much of the Middle East these past 100 years that we were no longer hungry. There was a muttering of prayers until an old man replied. ``The Americans eat us now,`` he said.

Through the open door, where rain splashed on the paving stones, a sharp east wind howled in from the east, from the Jordanian and Iraqi deserts. Every man in the room believed President Bush wanted Iraqi oil. Indeed, every Arab I`ve met in the past six months believes that this – and this alone – explains his enthusiasm for invading Iraq. Many Israelis think the same. So do I. Once an American regime is installed in Baghdad, our oil companies will have access to 112 billion barrels of oil. With unproven reserves, we might actually end up controlling almost a quarter of the world`s total reserves. And this forthcoming war isn`t about oil?

The US Department of Energy announced at the beginning of this month that by 2025, US oil imports will account for perhaps 70 per cent of total US domestic demand. (It was 55 per cent two years ago.) As Michael Renner of the Worldwatch Institute put it bleakly this week, ``US oil deposits are increasingly depleted, and many other non-Opec fields are beginning to run dry. The bulk of future supplies will have to come from the Gulf region.`` No wonder the whole Bush energy policy is based on the increasing consumption of oil. Some 70 per cent of the world`s proven oil reserves are in the Middle East. And this forthcoming war isn`t about oil?

Take a look at the statistics on the ratio of reserve to oil production – the number of years that reserves of oil will last at current production rates – compiled by Jeremy Rifkin in Hydrogen Economy. In the US, where more than 60 per cent of the recoverable oil has already been produced, the ratio is just 10 years, as it is in Norway. In Canada, it is 8:1. In Iran, it is 53:1, in Saudi Arabia 55:1, in the United Arab Emirates 75:1. In Kuwait, it`s 116:1. But in Iraq, it`s 526:1. And this forthcoming war isn`t about oil?

Even if Donald Rumsfeld`s hearty handshake with Saddam Hussein in 1983 – just after the Great Father Figure had started using gas against his opponents – didn`t show how little the present master of the Pentagon cares about human rights or crimes against humanity, along comes Joost Hilterman`s analysis of what was really going on in the Pentagon back in the late 1980s.

Hilterman, who is preparing a devastating book on the US and Iraq, has dug through piles of declassified US government documents – only to discover that after Saddam gassed 6,800 Kurdish Iraqis at Halabja (that`s well over twice the total of the World Trade Centre dead of 11 September 2001) the Pentagon set out to defend Saddam by partially blaming Iran for the atrocity.

A newly declassified State Department document proves that the idea was dreamed up by the Pentagon – who had all along backed Saddam – and states that US diplomats received instructions to push the line of Iran`s culpability, but not to discuss details. No details, of course, because the story was a lie. This, remember, followed five years after US National Security Decision Directive 114 – concluded in 1983, the same year as Rumsfeld`s friendly visit to Baghdad – gave formal sanction to billions of dollars in loan guarantees and other credits to Baghdad. And this forthcoming war is about human rights?

Back in 1997, in the years of the Clinton administration, Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and a bunch of other right-wing men – most involved in the oil business – created the Project for the New American Century, a lobby group demanding ``regime change`` in Iraq. In a 1998 letter to President Clinton, they called for the removal of Saddam from power. In a letter to Newt Gingrich, who was then Speaker of the House, they wrote that ``we should establish and maintain a strong US military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests [sic] in the Gulf – and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power``.

The signatories of one or both letters included Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, now Rumsfeld`s Pentagon deputy, John Bolton, now under-secretary of state for arms control, and Richard Armitage, Colin Powell`s under-secretary at the State Department – who called last year for America to take up its ``blood debt`` with the Lebanese Hizbollah. They also included Richard Perle, a former assistant secretary of defence, currently chairman of the defence science board, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the former Unocal Corporation oil industry consultant who became US special envoy to Afghanistan – where Unocal tried to cut a deal with the Taliban for a gas pipeline across Afghan territory – and who now, miracle of miracles, has been appointed a special Bush official for – you guessed it – Iraq.

The signatories also included our old friend Elliott Abrams, one of the most pro-Sharon of pro-Israeli US officials, who was convicted for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal. Abrams it was who compared Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon – held ``personally responsible`` by an Israeli commission for the slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian civilians in the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre – to (wait for it) Winston Churchill. So this forthcoming war – the whole shooting match, along with that concern for ``vital interests`` (ie oil) in the Gulf – was concocted five years ago, by men like Cheney and Khalilzad who were oil men to their manicured fingertips.

In fact, I`m getting heartily sick of hearing the Second World War being dug up yet again to justify another killing field. It`s not long ago that Bush was happy to be portrayed as Churchill standing up to the appeasement of the no-war-in Iraq brigade. In fact, Bush`s whole strategy with the odious and Stalinist-style Korea regime – the ``excellent`` talks which US diplomats insist they are having with the Dear Leader`s Korea which very definitely does have weapons of mass destruction – reeks of the worst kind of Chamberlain-like appeasement. Even though Saddam and Bush deserve each other, Saddam is not Hitler. And Bush is certainly no Churchill. But now we are told that the UN inspectors have found what might be the vital evidence to go to war: 11 empty chemical warheads that just may be 20 years old.

The world went to war 88 years ago because an archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo. The world went to war 63 years ago because a Nazi dictator invaded Poland. But for 11 empty warheads? Give me oil any day. Even the old men sitting around the feast of mutton and rice would agree with that.
****

#58
S. Rush die will get a ``Nishan-e-khabasat`` from his rottena$s Bushurraf himself

A GOOD SIGN OF PROGRESSIVNESS IN PAKISTAN:

WHEN, SALMAN RUSHDIE IS HONORED ``NISHAN..E..``SOMETHING`` LIKE THEY GAVE TO DILIP KUMAR, IN PAKISTAN.

Anyone who wants to know more about Iraqi history:

There are sites which cite the Baghdad Pact as a US-Britain ploy to prop up a puppet regime. in Iraq and force Iraq to sell its oil to them at rates specified by them. Whether it was so or not, a look at Iraqi history shows the kind of issues of nation and state which will be reopened and the instability which will result in the entire region from a US-Iraq war.

http://www.al-iraq.org/iraq_history.html

British influence

During the First World War, Turkey became a German ally and its empire collapsed when British forces invaded Mesopotamia in 1917 and occupied Baghdad.



The country became a British Mandate - due, in no small part, to the British interest in Iraqi oil fields, and because they wanted to build a transcontinental railroad from Europe, across Turkey, and down through Iraq to Kuwait on the Persian Gulf. This railroad would allow a direct trade route with India without having to skirt Africa. - and an armistice was signed with Turkey in 1918. Local unrest (Thawrah), however, resulted in an Iraqi uprising in 1920, and after costly attempts to quell this, the British government decided to draw up a new plan for the state of Iraq.


The British government had laid out the institutional framework for Iraqi government and politics; the Iraqi political system suffered from a severe legitimacy crisis; Britain imposed a Hashimite (also seen as Hashemite) monarchy, defined the territorial limits of Iraq with little correspondence to natural frontiers or traditional tribal and ethnic settlements, and influenced the writing of a constitution and the structure of parliament. The British also supported narrowly based groups--such as the tribal shaykhs--over the growing, urban-based nationalist movement, and resorted to military force when British interests were threatened, as in the 1941 Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani coup.


Iraq was to be a kingdom, under the rule of Emir Faisal ibn Hussain, brother of the new ruler of neighbouring Jordan, Abdallah, a member of the Hashemite family, and although the monarch was elected and proclaimed King by plebiscite in 1921, full independence was not achieved until 1932, when the British Mandate was officially terminated. Iraq joined the League of Nations in the October of that year, and was officially recognized as an independent sovereign state. On Faisal`s death in 1933, he was succeeded by his son, King Ghazi I. In March 1945, Iraq became a founding member of the League of Arab States (Arab League), which included Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. And in December 1945, Iraq joined the United Nations (UN).


The growing state


In 1936 King Ghazi I formed an alliance with other Arab nations, known as the Pan-Arab movement. This was, in effect, a non-aggression treaty, and promising kinship between Arab countries. Also in 1936 Iraq experienced its first military coup d`etat--the first coup d`etat in the modern Arab world, led by General Bakr Sidqi. The Sidqi coup marked a major turning point in Iraqi history; it made a crucial breach in the constitution, and it opened the door to further military involvement in politics. Ghazi sanctioned Sulayman`s government (Sulayman was one of the agents of the coup along with General Bakr Sidqi) even though it had achieved power unconstitutionally. Eventually, Sidqi`s excesses alienated both his civilian and his military supporters, and he was murdered by a military group in August 1937.



In 1938 King Ghazi decided to attempt to realize his ambition of annexing Kuwait, part of his dream to lead the Fertile Crescent movement [King Ghazi, announced from Qasr al-Zohour radio station, he is looking forward to the day when Syria, Palestine, and Kuwait, united to Iraq]. With a combination of propaganda (Qasr al-Zohour radio station), and military intimidation, he began to foment dissent in Kuwait, exploiting the aspirations of sections of the Kuwaiti middle class, which sought greater participation in government. But, at a critical moment, when Iraqi troops had massed near Kuwait`s northern border, Ghazi`s obsession with fast motor cars proved his undoing. The king drove his car into a lamppost and died instantly on the 3rd of April 1939.



King Ghazi was succeeded by his three-year-old son, Faisal II, under a regency. Ghazi`s first cousin, Amir Abd al Ilah, was made regent. Faisal, the cousin of Jordan`s present King Hussein, did not assume the throne formally until his eighteenth birthday, in May 1953. Whereas Faisal and Ghazi had been strong Arab nationalists and had opposed the British-supported tribal shaykhs, Abd al Ilah and Nuri as-Said were Iraqi nationalists who relied on the tribal shaykhs as a counterforce against the growing urban nationalist movement. By the end of the 1930s, panArabism had become a powerful ideological force in the Iraqi military, especially among younger officers who hailed from the northern provinces and who had suffered economically from the partition of the Ottoman Empire. The British role in quelling the Palestine revolt of 1936 to 1939 further intensified anti-British sentiments in the military and led a group of disgruntled officers to form the Free Officers` Movement, which aimed at overthrowing the monarchy.



During the earlier part of World War II, Iraq`s government was strongly pro-British, however, the Iraqi nationalist and ardent anglophobe Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani succeeded Nuri as-Said as prime minister. The new prime minister proposed restrictions on British troop movements in Iraq. Abd al Ilah and Nuri as-Said both were proponents of close cooperation with Britain. They opposed Rashid Ali`s policies and pressed him to resign. In response, Rashid Ali and four generals led a military coup, on April 3, that ousted Nuri as-Said and the regent, both of whom escaped to Transjordan; and announced that the temporarily absent regent was deposed. Shortly after seizing power in 1941, Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani appointed an ultranationalist civilian cabinet, which gave only conditional consent to British requests in April 1941 for troop landings in Iraq. The British quickly retaliated by landing forces at Basra on April 19, justifying this second occupation of Iraq by citing Rashid Ali`s violation of the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930. Many Iraqis regarded the move as an attempt to restore British rule. Iraqi troops were then concentrated around the British air base at Habbaniyah, west of Baghdad; and on May 2 the British commander there opened hostilities, lest the Iraqis should attack first. Having won the upper hand at Habbaniyah and been reinforced from Palestine, the British troops from the air base marched on Baghdad. The ensuing war between Britain and Iraq lasted less than a month, as the British steadily advanced, and on May 30th Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani and his government fled to Egypt. A new, pro-British government was established. Abd al Ilah was reinstated as regent; Nuri became prime minister; and the British military presence remained to uphold them. In the following year Iraq became an important Middle Eastern supply centre for American and British forces, particularly with regard to the trans-shipment of arms to the USSR.





Coups, wars & instability


War with Israel followed in 1948, in which Iraqi forces were allied with those of Transjordan, in accordance with a treaty signed by the two countries during the previous year. Fighting continued until the signing of a cease-fire agreement in May 1949. The war also had a negative impact on the Iraqi economy. The government allocated 40 percent of available funds for the army and for Palestinian refugees. Oil royalties paid to Iraq were halved when the pipeline to Haifa was cut off in 1948. The war and the hanging of a Jewish businessman led, moreover, to the departure of most of Iraq`s prosperous Jewish community. Although emigration was prohibited, many Jews made their wayto Israel during this period with the aid of an underground movement. In 1950 the Iraqi parliament finally legalized emigration to Israel, and between May 1950 and August 1951, the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government succeeded in airlifting approximately 110,000 Jews to Israel in Operations Ezra and Nehemiah; about 120,000 Iraqi Jews emigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1952.



In the mid-1950s, the monarchy was embroiled in a series of foreign policy blunders that ultimately contributed to its overthrow. Following a 1949 military coup in Syria that brought to power Adib Shishakli, a military strongman who opposed union with Iraq, a split developed between Abd al Ilah, who had called for a Syrian-Iraqi union, and Nuri as-Said, who opposed the union plan. Although Shishakli was overthrown with Iraqi help in 1954, the union plan never came to fruition. Instead, the schism between Nuri as-Said and the regent widened. Sensing the regime`s weakness, the opposition intensified its antiregime activity.



The monarchy`s major foreign policy mistake occurred in 1955, when Nuri as-Said announced that Iraq was joining a British supported mutual defense pact with Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. The Baghdad Pact constituted a direct challenge to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. In response, Nasser launched a vituperative media campaign that challenged the legitimacy of the Iraqi monarchy and called on the officer corps to overthrow it. The 1956 British-French-Israeli attack on Sinai further alienated Nuri as-Said`s regime from the growing ranks of the opposition. In 1958 King Hussein of Jordan and Abd al Ilah proposed a union of Hashimite monarchies to counter the recently formed Egyptian-Syrian union. At this point, the monarchy found itself completely isolated. Nuri as-Said was able to contain the rising discontent only by resorting to even greater oppression and to tighter control over the political process.



Inspired by the example of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, the Hashimite monarchy was overthrown on July 14, 1958, in a swift, predawn coup executed by officers of the Nineteenth Brigade known as ``Free Officers``, under the leadership of Brigadier Abdul-Karim Qassim (known as ``il-Za`im``) and Colonel Abdul Salam Arif. King Faisal II and Abd al Ilah were executed, and displaying the bodies in public, hanging them by their feet outside the palace; as were many others in the royal family. Nuri as-Said escaped capture for one day after attempting to escape disguised as a veiled woman, but was then caught and put to death, his body tied to the back of a car and dragged through the streets until there was nothing left but half a leg. Iraq was proclaimed a republic.



Later the same year, on two occasions, Aref attempted to assassinate the new Prime Minister, Qassim, but failed.



In 1959, the Mosul garrison, disillusioned with the new government, organized a revolt against Qassim. The revolt was ruthlessly suppressed, with the massacre of many hundreds of disaffected Arab nationalists and Ba`athists.



Later in 1959, another assassination attempt against Qassim, this time organized by the Ba`ath Party, failed. Amongst the unsuccessful assassination squad was the young Saddam Hussein.



Qassim ended Iraq`s membership in the Baghdad Pact (later reconstituted as the Central Treaty Organization- CENTO) in 1959. Qassim remained in power for more than four years. The Nasserites and the Baathists both wished to join the UAR (United Arab Republic - Egypt), a means to control the communists, but Qassim, not wishing to be overshadowed by Nasser, allied himself with the left and refused their demands. This served to alienate himself from his strongest supporters.



In 1961, Kuwait gained its independence from Britain. Abdul-Karim Qassim immediately claimed sovereignty over it, claim to the Amirate as originally part of the Ottoman province of Basrah. Britain reacted strongly to this threat to its ex-protectorate, dispatching a brigade to the country to deter Iraq. Qassim backed down, and in October 1963, Iraq recognised the sovereignty and borders of Kuwait.



A period of considerable instability followed, with one military coup swiftly succeeding another, and leaders came and went throughout the 60s and early 70s. Qassim was assassinated in February 1963, when Ba`ath Arab Socialist Party members took power; under the leadership of Gen. Ahmed Hasan al-Bakr as prime minister and Col. Abdul Salam Arif as president. Nine months later, President Abdul Salam Mohammad Arif led a successful coup against the Ba`athists, ousting the Ba`ath government. In April 13 1966 President Abdul Salam Arif dies in a helicopter crash! and is followed by his brother Gen. Abdul Rahman Arif. Following the Six Day War of 1967, the Ba`ath Party felt strong enough. The Ba`athists overthrow Arif and regained power on 17th of July 1968 coup. Ahmed Hasan al-Bakr became president and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) following the Ba`athists return to power.



Iraq`s general policy during these years was one of Arab National. Iraq was on the head of the other Arab troops during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and in the liberation war of 1973, gave material aid to Syria. Iraq was heavily opposed to the cease-fire, which ended the conflict.



Relations with Iran were fast deteriorating in the early 70s. Iranian arms supplies to the Kurd leader, Mustafa al-Barzani, now fueled the ongoing Kurdish situation, which had first emerged in a 1961 Kurdish rebellion. Problems were compounded by border disputes with Iran, but these were partially settled in 1975, In Algiers on March 6, 1975, Saddam Hussein signed an agreement with the Shah (Algiers Agreement), that recognized the thalweg as the boundary in the Shatt al Arab, legalized the Shah`s abrogation of the 1937 treaty in 1969, and dropped all Iraqi claims to Khuzestan and to the islands at the foot of the Gulf. In return, the Shah agreed to prevent subversive elements from crossing the border, whereupon Iran withdrew aid from the Kurdish revolt and effectively halted it.



By the end of 1977, the Kurdish people had been granted greater autonomy and Kurdish was recognized as an official language. Politically, Iraq seemed to be stabilizing, and the oil boom of the late 70s contributed dramatically to an upsurge in the economy.





Saddam Hussein & the invasion of Kuwait


In July 1979 the president, Ahmed Hasan Al-Bakr, was replaced by Saddam Hussein, his vice president, chosen successor, and the true ruler of Iraq. Saddam then assumed both of the vacated offices and purged political rivals in order to assure his position. Once more the political situation flared into hostilities with Iran. The Iran-Iraq War, which began in 1980, lasted for eight years and had a crippling effect on the economy of both countries; in which after eight years of war no territory had been gained by either side but an estimated one million lives had been lost. In July, 1988, Iran accepted the terms of UN Resolution 598, and the cease-fire came into force on 20th August, 1988. Before Iraq had a chance to recover economically, it was once more plunged into war, this time with its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.



The invasion was the result of a long-standing territorial dispute. Iraq accused Kuwait of violating the Iraqi border to secure oil resources, (on July 17, 1990 Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates of flooding the world oil market. In addition, he singled out Kuwait for the production of oil from a disputed supply, the Rumaila oil field), and demanded that its debt repayments should be waived. Direct negotiations were begun in July 1990, but they were destined soon to fail; along with reassurance from the United States making a claim that they would not get involved (the famous meeting of Saddam Hussein with April Glaspie, the United States Ambassador to Iraq, on the 25th of July, 1990). This was the go ahead that Hussein needed. Iraqi troops overran the country on 2nd August 1990. The U.S. fell short on its claim to not get involved and instantly declared interest in keeping Saudi Arabia safe. Over the ensuing months, the United Nations Security Council passed a series of resolutions condemned the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, implementing total mandatory economic sanctions against Iraq. Other countries subsequently provided support for ``Operation Desert Shield``. In November 1990, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 678, permitting member states to use all necessary means, authorizing military action against the Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait, and demanded a complete withdrawal by 15th of January 1991.



When Saddam Hussein failed to comply with this demand, the Gulf War (Operation ``Desert Storm``) ensued on the 17th of January 1991, with allied troops of 28 countries, led by the US launching an aerial bombardment on Baghdad. The war, which proved disastrous for Iraq, lasted only six weeks, one hundred and forty thousand tons of firearms had showered down on the country, the equivalent of 7 Hiroshima bombs. Probably as many as 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed and tens of thousands of civilians. Allied air raids destroyed roads, bridges, factories, and oil industry facilities (shutting down the national refining and distribution system)` and disrupted electric, telephone, and water service. Conference centers and shopping and residential areas were hit. Diseases spread through contaminated drinking water because water purification and sewage treatment facilities could not operate without electricity. A cease-fire was announced by the US on 28th February 1991. UN terms for a permanent cease-fire were agreed by Iraq in April of that year, and strict conditions were imposed, demanding the disclosure and destruction of all stockpiles of weapons.



A few days after the war had ended, popular insurrections broke out in southern Iraq and in Kurdistan in the north, where rebels took control of most of the region`s towns. The United States (President George Bush) again fell short of its commitments in protecting the uprising, let the people exposed. Units of the Republican Guard that had survived the conflict acted with extreme brutality and gained the upper hand in the Basrah, Najaf and Karbala regions. In the southern cities, rebels killed Baathist officials, members of the security service and other supporters of the regime.



Meanwhile, in Kurdistan, Iraqi helicopters and troops regained control of the cities taken by the rebels and there was a mass exodus of Kurds, fearing a repeat of the 1988 chemical attacks, to the Turkish and Iranian borders. By the end of April there were 2.5 million refugees. In late April 1991, it was announced that there had been an agreement to implement the Kurdish peace plan of 1970; however, again, negotiations were stalled on the delineation of the borders of the Kurdish autonomous region with the Kurds insisting on the inclusion of Karkuk.



The United States, in an attempt to prevent the genocide of the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq and the Kurds to the north, declared air exclusion zones north of the 36th parallel and south of the 32nd parallel. The Clinton administration judged an alleged attempted assassination of former President George Bush while in Kuwait to be worthy of a military response on 27 June 1993. The Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters in Baghdad was targeted by 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles, launched from US warships in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf. Three missiles were declared to have missed the target, causing some collateral damage to nearby residential housing and eight civilian deaths.



In October 1994, Iraq moved some Republican Guard units towards Kuwait, an act that provoked a large-scale US troop deployment to the Gulf to deter any Iraqi attack. The move was interpreted as a sign of Saddam`s frustration with the continuation of UN sanctions, but afterwards he took a more moderate line, agreeing to recognize the existence and borders of Kuwait. In the months that followed his position appeared to become more precarious as dissatisfaction with his rule spread in the army and among the tribes and clans at the core of his regime. In June clashes broke out with the Dulaimi tribe, which supplied many of his senior officers after one of them was said to have been secretly executed by the regime. These culminated in the brutal suppression of demonstrations in the town of Ramadi by troops under the control of Saddam son, Uday, and in a subsequent attack on Abu Grein prison by a dissident military unit dominated by members of the Dulaym tribe.



In May 1995 Saddam sacked his half-brother, Wathban, as Interior Minister and in July demoted his notorious and powerful Defense Minister, Ali Hassan al- Majid, known popularly as `Chemical Ali` because of his role in gassing operations in Kurdistan. These personnel changes were the result of the growth in power of his two sons, Udai and Qusai, who were given effective vice-presidential authority in May 1995. They have been able to remove most of Saddam`s loyal followers and it is clear that Saddam feels more secure protected by his immediate family members. In August Major General Hussein Kamil Hassan al-Majid, his Minister of Military Industries and a key henchman, defected to Jordan, together with his wife (one of Saddam`s daughters) and his brother, Saddam, who was married to another of the president`s daughters, and called for the overthrow of the regime. In response, Saddam promised full co-operation with the UN commission disarming Iraq (UNSCOM) in order to pre-empt any revelations that the defector could make.



The weakening of the internal position of the regime occurred at a time when the external opposition forces were as weak as ever, too divided among themselves to take any effective action. At the same time, France and Russia have pushed for an easing of sanctions. US determination to keep up the pressure on Iraq has prevailed however. In any case, the apparent weakening of the regime was illusory, not least when the two defectors returned home and were killed, apparently by other clan members, in an awful warning to other potential defectors. In fact, during 1996, the regime`s grip on power seemed to have significantly strengthened despite its inability to end the UN sanctions against it.

Anti War Demos Across the US

If you are interesting in hearing the broadcasts of the march on Washington, New Mexico and San Francisco, tune in to www.wbai.org. On the East Coast: 99.5 FM

...romair, go eat your heart out...

{Ex-IITian gives $5 mn to alma mater

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

SAN JOSE, California: As a stripling teen in Delhi in the seventies, Vinod Khosla moseyed around Shankar Market looking for second hand foreign electronic journals to bone up for his IIT classes.

Now India`s most famous tech-head in the US, Khosla, 45, did his wee bit on Friday night to see that his fellow IITians of the 21st century didn`t have to scrounge so much: he announced a donation of $5 million to his alma mater.

Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems and is a general partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, is late in the ``giving`` game. Several of his peers having already lined up to honour the guru dakshina tradition that IIT alumni have taken to heart.

But he more than made up for the delay with a windfall, which was announced at the Golden Jubilee gala of the hallowed school being celebrated here in Silicon Valley. It is the largest gift by an individual to IIT Delhi.

IIT Delhi Director R S Sirohi, who is here being feted with all the seven IIT directors, said that the donation would be utilised to establish a school of IT ``which should provide an excellent research facility for undergraduate and post-graduate students.``

Besides Khosla, another Mumbai IITian Avi Nash who is an advisory director at Goldman Sachs in New York, announced a $1 million donation to the Chemical Engineering Department at IIT Mumbai for research laboratories, endowments for Chair Professorships and awards for faculty and student excellence.}

Urstruly #44 I am sure you are a macho guy who does not need to suck up to anyone. After all you have already done your sucking when you filled out your application form for a visa to the US, and stood humbly in line to get past immigration the first time you came to the US. Now you are home free, and can thumb your nose at the same americans (i.e. ``gora`s`` as you put it) who let you in. And now that you are home free, you can complain about every imagined slight, getting that extra security check at airports due to (as you put it, ``racial profiling``) or having to register and get fingerprinted, and act as if 9/11 never occurred, and act as if homeland security is not a real and serious and valid concern in the US.
HOWEVER, all Pakistanis are not as fortunate as you. Many pakistanis are in the US are ``out of status`` (i.e. illegally in the US) and are now worried about the new registration requirements. They face the real prospect of deportation. And even this is mild compared to what other people have to face in countries not as civilized as the US (I refer to the burning of muslim families in Gujrat under the tender mercies of Modi, the rape of muslim women and massacre of men in Bosnia). Lucky for you, there is no such fear of getting burnt by mobs in Detroit. Indeed, you can go running to any court on civil rights abuse charges if anyone so much as touches you. So you can safely show what a macho panjabi man you are with your talk about sucking up to gora`s.
It was with the above in mind that I was arguing about on the other board for muslims to realize that this knee-jerk enmity to others (the US, Indians, Jews) comes with a heavy price (ranging from perfectly reasonable security checks as in the US, to perfectly horrible criminal deeds as in Gujrat as mentioned above) that is paid by other people.
If you dont believe me read Dawn, where the government has finally seen the writing on the wall and is asking mullahs to cut down their anti-US bullsh!t, in light of the ultimate price people have to pay. Some years from now, your own children will pay the price of your ravings: They will have a work environment where they will depend on the goodwill of people of all faiths (jewish, hindu, christian) for success. Reflect upon this a while, and try to get rid of your urge to demonstrate what a macho man you are, now that you are securly ``in status`` resident or citizen of the US.