Posted on 08/20/2005 7:48:23 AM PDT by takenoprisoner
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. concessions to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraqi law marked a turn in talks on a constitution, negotiators said on Saturday as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline under intense U.S. pressure to clinch a deal.
U.S. diplomats, who have insisted the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined comment.
Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish negotiators all said there was accord on a bigger role for Islamic law than Iraq had before.
excerpt
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
bttt
Damn, we gave them freedom and now they are going to tell me they want to take a step backwards. What in the hell are these people about anyway. Islam rule would be a step back to some of the same oppression of the past. Maybe that old saying is right, can't teach an old dog new tricks. If I were them I would hate to be seen by the free world as backward.
I'm sure you've heard the old saying "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." Well considering Reuters is well into quadruple digits in the "...fool me XXXX shame on me" part of that saying, I'm not sure why you are going to wait until you find out whether or not this zero sourced article is accurate.
Are you suggesting our Reps in Iraq don't have to "make concessions" because they have veto power over the Iraqi constitution? You can only lead a horse to water. If the Iraqi's blow this chance we delivered them, I do not blame us. For now, we have to accept that they are not, and were never gonna be, American mini-me's. Our strategic interests are basically sereved if they are NOT a threat to us or our allies....anything else (like turning Iraq into some model of democratic governance for the muslim world)...is gravy....and do-able, even with some role for Islam in the government. Beats having the Shia break off a totally secular federal system.
Yet there are people right here on FR who'd love to see our country turned into a fundamentalist Christian nation.
Would that also be a mistake?
Our concessions? What's this when Rice has been claiming over and over that this is an Iraqi process?
If sharia is the law of the land - their constitution is toilet paper.
The ME really isn't ready for "freedom" but we still needed to try and any operation, exercise, war that kills muzzie fanatics is a good thing.
That is a the biggest problem (among many) with Islam. Unlike Christianity, Islam recognizes no distinction in purpose, really, between the state and clerical authorities. Thus religious freedom and freedom of speech is a myth in most countries where Islam plays a role in governance.
In this case I don't know what other options we have. The Iraqi population will flatly reject any governing document that does not include Islam as its governing spirit, if not its reality. However, allow Islam too much governing rope and it will strangle the country of freedom. It is a very, very tough situation.
"Are you suggesting our Reps in Iraq don't have to "make concessions" because they have veto power over the Iraqi constitution? "
"we are fighting for the freedom of the Iraqi people"
An islamofascist state is not a "free Iraq."
That is all I am suggesting.
"This is also reuters, so I take it with a big grain of salt."
My take as well, there was another similar report that came from ap last nite.. I don't give either any credence, but I do wish the WH had better PR to counter a lot of the media hype.
Too, despairing and relenting are far easier that optimism and sacrifice.
And I forgot to mention that the job of the media is to sell spectacle. They have to create and sell their wares, and unfortunately the only thing that sells, even to many of the news savvy, is this spectacle.
From Robert Spencer:
The American government seems intent on insuring that it will do nothing to harm Islam, nothing to exploit those ready-made aspects of Iraq which lend themselves so obviously (obvious to me) to increasing division, disarray, demoralization, within Islam itself.
The Kurds, of course, will be the immediate losers, but by failing to support their well-justified demands for at the very least, autonomy, and even better, for independence, the American government loses a chance to encourage, within the world of Islam, recognition by non-Arab Muslims that they need not permanently accept Arab domination, or the Arab supremacist ideology of which Islam has always been a vehicle.
This could have consequences for the Iranians, so many of whom have become disgusted, because of the past quarter-century of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with Islam. Yet they still cannot quite see their way to jettisoning Islam, possibly for another "religious identity" (name-tags being so very important in the Middle East, where the idea of the individual, the Leibnizian monad floating in the universe, is too frightening to contemplate), most likely Zoroastrianism. It is not the content that matters in that, but rather the notion that one can choose something that is specifically Persian, and that emphasizes the Trojan-horse gift of those primitive Arabs to the superior civilization of the Persians.
It is not hard to imagine that an independent Kurdistan could worry Syria and Iran: by agreement with the Americans, standing in for the Turks, that no territorial demands would be made on Turkey -- and by agreement with the Turks, who will not be admitted to the E.U. and need the Americans more than ever, that no harm would be done, or hostility demonstrated, to that Kurdish state.
What do we see, however? We see Condoleeza Rice lecturing and hectoring the Kurds. This is the woman who, like her Boss, claimed that those who were doubtful about the Administration's Democracy-Is-On-the-March view of Iraq (with no clear explanation of how, even were such to be true, it would improve the world-wide position of Infidels, or help to weaken Islam) were akin to those who scoffed about post-war Occupied Germany and Occupied Japan. If she failed to see the difference between the complete destruction and defeat of Nazi Germany and militarist Japan, as compared to Iraq, where the reigning ideology, Islam, has not been and cannot be defeated through military means alone, she needs a course in history and another in logic.
oh just great, another 7th century nation - !!!
Everyone calm down. As long at there is a regular vote, freedom of the press, and regular elections, the people won't be held down for long. When a politician stands up and says, "Women should be equal." and then some old school dude says "that's not Islamic," how long can that really fly in front of a glaring and curious media?
As long as there is regular elections and a free press (especially an international presence), some cleaver politician will eventually vanquish the defenders of this oppressive ideology. Just look at the history of freedom in this country. We had Martin Luther King and also the Women's Temperence Society (remember them from the 20's?) to get things fixed. Be patient. There are two truths in life. Water always finds a level and freedom always finds a way.
"...the fact of the Church and its claims to authority over men's lives meant that the emperor (later the state) could not be all in all. Politics was thereby desacralized: because God was God, Caesar was not God and neither were Caesar's successors, be they kings, princes, prime ministers, presidents...or members of the Politburo."
The Church's victory in the West over what was then the state planted into the culture seeds that would later blossom into moral convictions concerning the dignity of the individual and liberty. The attendant resiliency of moral convictions would see them through many tests and lead to democratic states.
The Church of the Byzantine East would not be liberated from the Empire's participation in ecclesial affairs until 1453, when Byzantium fell to Islamic invaders. Also, Islamic culture would never benefit from the infusion of the ideal of religion's independence from the state: Islam is the state, desacralizing the sacred.
This is the cause of the greatest peril for an Iraqi constitution. Either we support what the Islamic leadership will tolerate as a constitution, or we will have bedlam and complete failure in Iraq. With a compromised democracy, we can bide our time until cultural gradualism inspires greater change in Iraq. But it will take time.
"The Kurds, of course, will be the immediate losers, but by failing to support their well-justified demands for at the very least, autonomy, and even better, for independence, the American government loses a chance to encourage, within the world of Islam, recognition by non-Arab Muslims that they need not permanently accept Arab domination, or the Arab supremacist ideology of which Islam has always been a vehicle. " Spencer
I agree with this.
bttt
hmmmm. I don't remember hearing our founder fathers were a bunch of staunch Catholics. Staunch Christians yes. But was there even a Catholic among them? And when was the last time a Catholic layman voted for a Bishop or Priest, nevermind the Pope. I'm not arguing the merits of Catholicism mind you, just questioning your interpretation of what inspired democracy.
America has always been a fundamentalist Christian nation BUT we have a constitution to protect against any one religion being made a power of the governement, and allowing all religions to practice in peace.
Christians also have no rules that require killing off the opposition, and our constitution also protects those of other religions so they are not whacked because they believe differently than a state sponsored religion, none of this is true of sharia law, which condones the killing of christians and other religious groups, jews for instance, and the enslavement of women, just to name a few of it's more endearing qualities.
We have no state sponsored religion and your supposition that Christians want to somenow overthrow the US government and turn us into a "Christian" government without the protection of the law we are now afforded is just BS.
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