It’s Looking Like…
…the Bush Administration has f@cked this one up royally.
Iraq secularists denounce “Islamist” constitution
Secular Iraqis said on Wednesday a proposed new constitution left no room for doubt about the Islamist path the country was heading down two years after a U.S.-led invasion was supposed to produce greater freedoms.
The document presented to parliament on Monday is suffused with the language of political Islam in defining the state, and assigns a primary role to Islam as a source for legislation.
“The draft aborts the democratic process Iraqis hoped for and is a big victory for political Islam,” said writer Adel Abdel-Amir. “Islamic law, not the people, has become the source of authority.”..
…Language guaranteeing “rights and freedoms” is subordinate to the primary position given to Islam, opponents say.…
…The prominent women’s rights campaigner denounced wording that grants each religious sect the right to run its own family courts — apparently doing away with previous civil codes — as an open door to further Islamicise the legal system…
…Souhail said the United States, a crucial backstage player keen for a deal that meets U.S.-backed deadlines, had let the Shi’ite Islamists and Kurds in government do as they wish.
“We have received news that we were not backed by our friends including the Americans. They left the Islamists to come to an agreement with the Kurds,” she said.
Getting a draft of any f@cking thing signed by an arbitrary date is more important than ensuring a free and open society, huh? Where are all the big mouths of the opinion press or the feminist v-word agenda on this one? I’m just a wee voice in the wilderness here, but, as an American, I sure as hell don’t want to be responsible for creating the new Iran. Or condemning my vibrant, educated, free Iraqi sisters to the despicable black hole that is Sharia. And that’s what’s happening, because the Bush Administration wants to be seen as ‘hands off’ ~ as long as a ‘deadline‘ is met. “DEAD”, indeed.
Oh, that’s one hell of a promise kept, Mr. President.
Humanity...or the Lack Thereof | Mr. Bingley | 
August 24, 2005 10:07 am
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Agreed that pressure to satisfy impossible political demands at home is adversely affecting the war effort. I’m not sure that W realized that doing the right thing would inevitably lead to his being blamed no matter what happened. Hands off, to appease (yes I said it) Europeans of every continent – result is a stronger Islamist presence in the government and fewer freedoms. Hands on, to prevent this, and the Americans are meddling imperialists.
In the last couple of days I read an oddly encouraging bit about the beginning of self rule here (probably over at NRO) – after we won we wound up taking a year to finally get a document that wound up needing to be scrapped and redone – it took eleven years after the declaration for the Constitution to be written, and it took longer after that to expand its freedoms to include every citizen in the country. (Some would argue that we haven’t finished that yet.)
No matter what’s actually written, Iraq will face efforts to disenfranchise certain groups, and all sorts of power plays and little schemes to carve out choice bits of the pie. I’m not saying “Don’t do better,” but “Don’t get discouraged.”
It is just appalling, depressing. What was the point? I can’t believe that this is what so many people are dying for.
Is this really going to be better than the Saddam Hussein regime?
This is just a travishamockery. They need to keep it out of the Const, and just allow freedom of religion for all Iraqis. Bush just seems to keep buying into this religion of peace crapola. This situation will get worse if they don’t address it now.
Diptera, my problem is the ‘meddling Imperialist’. We became that the second we invaded, we’re still walking the streets and building the schools and putting freaking lights on and flush toilets where there were never any, so f@ck public opinion and ensure the thing’s done right. W has no election to win. Let his legacy be what he promised when this whole thing started, when he used pictures of Afghani women being executed in the soccer stadium to bolster support of that military action. As far as our Constitution taking time, can we not expect to have learned something from the intervening 200+ years? The wheel doesn’t need to be re-invented in Iraq, like it had to here in the Colonies. It needs to be set on the right footing, first thing. When the subject of Parliment and self rule for Iraq was first bandied about, certain things were supposed to be non-negotiable. Remember those purple fingers? THOSE women weren’t voting to subjugate themselves to religious law. They THOUGHT they were part of the process to a new, open society. He owes them, at the very least, the guarantee of the rights they had before the first American soldier set foot in that snake pit. We as Americans owe them that, with everything we have to ensure it. NON-negotiable.
What she said.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with THS. This is not good. MAYBE the Iraqis can rewrite their constitution in 11 years. I doubt it.
With any luck, the voters will reject it. That would be the best (and last) course available.
This is a draft, not a finished, signed, ratified document. Everybody can see that this isn’t what we went in for, nor the Iraqi people. I’m confident it won’t stand as currently presented.
It should not have been on the table to begin with.
NON-negotiable means just that.
Interesting how we’ll go into a country and to rebuild them, but then refuse to have any say at all in the documents that will govern the country.
We’re doing the same in Afghanistan.
I have no problem going into a country to have to set someone straight. But to leave these countries set up for failure, it seems like a slap in the face to all the the servicemembers who’ve given so much.