Posted on 09/22/2008 9:10:39 PM PDT by Ooh-Ah
First his two sons were murdered. Now he faces prosecution. The reason for Mithal al-Alusi's troubles? Visiting Israel and advocating peace with the Jewish state - something Iraq's leaders refuse to consider.
The Iraqi is at the center of a political storm after his fellow lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strip him of his immunity and allow his prosecution for visiting Israel - a crime punishable by death under a 1950s-era law. Such a fate is unlikely for al-Alusi, though he may lose his party's sole seat in parliament.
Because he had visited Israel, many Iraqis assume the maverick legislator was the real target of the assassins who killed his sons in 2005 while he escaped unharmed.
Now he is in trouble for again visiting Israel and attending a conference a week ago at the International Institute for Counterterrorism.
"He wasn't set to speak, but he was in the audience and conversed with a lecturer on a panel about insurgency and terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel," said conference organizer Eitan Azani. "We didn't invite him. He came on his own initiative."
Al-Alusi has a German passport, allowing him to travel without visa restrictions imposed on other Iraqis. Lawmakers accused him of humiliating the nation with a trip to the "enemy" state.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor called the reaction to al-Arusi's visit "very distressing" and said it was sad this was the response to someone who merely visited Israel and was interested in a dialogue with it.
"It is very unfortunate that the reaction was so violent and aggressive," he said. "It adds nothing."
Palmor said Israel was appreciative of al-Alusi's "courage," and that the reactions to his visit were an example of the extremism that was plaguing that country and leading to so much bloodshed there.
The uproar shows how far Iraq has moved from the early US goal of creating a democracy that would make peace with Israel and remove a critical force from the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The US Embassy declined comment. "It is an issue for the Iraqi parliament, not the US Mission to Iraq," said spokesman Armand Cucciniello.
"What has happened was a catastrophe for democracy," Al-Alusi told The Associated Press in an interview in his Baghdad home. "Within an hour's time, the parliament became the policeman, the investigator, the judge, the government and the law. It was a sham trial."
Al-Alusi said he went to Israel to seek international support for Iraq as it struggles against terrorism, and insisted that the outcry reflected Iranian meddling in Iraq's internal affairs - an accusation often leveled by Sunnis like himself against Iraq's mostly Shi'ite neighbor.
"Iran is behind Hamas and Hizbullah and many other terrorist organizations. Israelis are suffering like me, like my people. So we need to be together," he said. "Peace will have more of a chance."
Iraq sent troops to three Arab wars against Israel, and fired Scud missiles at it in the 1991 Gulf War. It remains technically at war with the Jewish state. Iraq's once-thriving Jewish community has shriveled to just a few people, most having fled after Israel was established in 1948.
Words fail me.
Declined comment?? How spineless of this administration. Thousands of our men and women didn't die so that fascism could prevail in Iraq.
With or without WMD’s we had plenty of justification to take out Saddam, but Bush and I parted company on the compassion issue. No matter what we do to or for these people, in the end, we are still the infidel and we know what the muzzie thinks of Jews and infidels.
Well said.
Suddenly I'm losing my passion for "victory" in Iraq. If this is the kind of government we are getting for all the shed blood of Americans, then it was not worth the effort.
Some people are still stuck on stupid. Another generation of American advisors might make the difference, and that is my hope.
My son, a Jewish American soldier helped to liberate Iraq. It is about time that they grew up.
I hope the U.S. will find its tongue and step up in some way to help this guy. These people are beyond it.
Apparently we are not strong willed enough to ask them to grow up. We are powerful enough to reduce their entire country to a sea of glass, but we are not willing to forcefully ask them to act a little more mature than the devils that we liberated them from.
I have a feeling that after we leave, nothing will have changed except the name of the dictator. They will resume their endless war with Iran and they will be paying suicide bombers to kill civilians in Israel. They will begin the process of becoming a nuclear power and they will threaten to nuke Israel in order to show the world that they will not tolerate a Jewish State. They will expel all the Christians and ultimately they will resume their internal hatred of each other until there is nothing left of Iraq except sand dunes and graveyards.
When I read crap like this I begin to get very depressed about the future of this planet. History repeats itself, but then nobody ever learns that History lesson.
I disagree.
I would rather have this government than Saddam.
Those were our only options.
In our early days as a nation we violated what the new nation was supposed to stand for. It took us a long time to get pretty close to the ideals that our own people shed blood over.
I’m not equating Iraq with the value of America.
I’m reminding that we failed before we succeeded in several areas.
Saddam was paying the family of every Palestinian suicide bomber $25,000 for killing Israeli men, women and children in their cities, towns, villages and countryside.
He knowingly supported terrorism against innocents and harbored infamous terrorists inside Iraq.
He terrorized his own captive population in the torture chambers, jails, rape rooms and death houses, by the tens and hundreds of thousands.
Daily his henchmen shot at our planes that patrolled the No Fly Zone to keep down his ability to massacre his disfavored populations or invade his neighbors.
Thank you American soldiers. Your sacrifice is noble and not in vain. What you achieved is infinitely better than what was, as flawed as it might be.
You don’t know that.
Your crystal ball is hardly infallible.
Our soldiers have said it is worth it.
I believe THEM.
Christians are fleeing the state. The monster Saddam actually afforded them some good protection. The Jews are still despised. It appears no enlightenment comes from democracy in Islam. It still takes American forces to actively combat Islamists. I know, I know. Americans are still in Germany. However, they are there as a forward base against Russia. We are not shooting Germans.
I think the unstated reason Bush invaded Iraq was to strike at the heart of Islam. By occupying Iraq and Afghanistan along with maintaining ties with a secular Turkey, America has cut the Islamic world in two. It now surrounds Syria and most of Iran. Lybia was isolated from its champions. It's strategic positioning for a long term geopolitical goal.
I understand the strategy; its to posture American ruling elite's power to protect what? There is only one thing the elite care about beside power, and that is money. They are protecting it from gangsters who would like to take over the oil operation. The sad part about this we are protecting the Saudis. we pay them for their oil. We pay for their protection. They show their thanks by raising prices. Oh, and they pay Jim Baker and his legion of lawyers to protect who? And they pay Clinton a hundred million dollars after his presidency to show his successors how the game works.
America needs a bath.
We didn't execute people for talking to Jews.
Im not equating Iraq with the value of America. Im reminding that we failed before we succeeded in several areas.
Iraq will never be what America was. But then again America will probably never again be what America was.
Saddam was paying the family of every Palestinian suicide bomber $25,000 for killing Israeli men, women and children in their cities, towns, villages and countryside.
See post 11.
Bush is out of his mind if he thinks we’ll ever ‘get along’ with these animals.
He helped reduce the threat of course with the war, by getting rid of the regime. However, they are our enemies and always will be. We’ll be fighting these idiots again someday down the road.
What happens when they leave? What kind of government will Iraq choose for itself?
Right now it has chosen a government that will execute it own citizens for visiting Israel. It has chosen a government that calls Israel it's "Enemy". And this is while Jewish Americans are dying to protect their @$$e$ from their own Muslim terrorists.
Are you really that optimistic that when we leave, Iraq will suddenly see the error of the ways of fundamentalist Islam and embrace Christians and Jews and be a friend to Israel and America?
This article tells me that Iraq will most likely slink back into the 12 century the minute that they no longer have to pretend to like Americans.
We liberated France and within a generation they hated us as much as they hated their German oppressors. Will Iraq be an exception to that rule?
I don't think he ever “promised” that. In fact, I recall him saying that the war on Islamic terrorists was going to be long and difficult, with many successes and a few setbacks, but that in the end we would prevail. I stand with him on that, and I don't think I'll be embarrassed in the end.
The big problem is that we let them enshrine Islam in their constitution. I was stunned when we did that: we were in a position to insist that it be entirely secular, but we let them go ahead with declaring that it was an Islamic state and nothing in it should conflict with Islamic law. Since Islamic law is actually political and governs every aspect of Muslim life, including the treatment of the infidel, that first phrase basically negated anything else in their constitution.
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A rather unfortunate situation, encouraged by American moral cowardice.
It is an issue for the Iraqi parliament, not the US Mission to Iraq
Armand Cucciniello, US Embassy spokesman
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