Exactly.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040716-105522-1300r.htm
No trial no nothing.
Trading one bad guy for another.
Way to go gang.
But lets make a debate out of it.
If this act is proven to be true. Should Allawi stay on as Prime Minister?
IF this is true, then whether or not he should may be superfluous. The question will be “can” he stay in power.
In any case, if it is true (it sounds like one of those things that is never verified but hangs over his head), then he should step down because he is a threat to whatever stability the gov’t may have had. Acting like Saddam is a rather nice way to convince more people to join the insurgency, and raise anti-American attitudes.
Wow. He shot them personally, according to the article. And here I am, just thinking he ordered the shootings.
The original story is at (registration shouldn’t be necessary):
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089694568757.html?oneclick=true
The paper also has a timeline on Allawi:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089694568976.html
Well, welll, well. Seems like smoke, could be fire.
Innocent until proven guilty, gents.
I’ve seen several interviews with him, and he doesn’t seem monumentally stupid - however, his current position is encouraging the Iraqi people to fight the insurgents themselves, and he and the rest of the gov’t reinstated the death penalty, so…
Ohhhh hell! I try to think the best of the Iraqi occupation I really do, why does it always seem that the bad shit seems to be right, is ANYTHING going right in that country? :mad:
Sorry for the tirade but this seems that the U.S is gonna put in another de facto Shah in power of a Middle Eastern Country.
We’re supposed to be spreading democracy and this happens? Damn.
:eek: That´s one tough MoFo!!!
Regarding the OP, yes, the smell is foul; but I rather wait for independent corroboration before commenting.
The US companies did a relatively quick job of getting Iraq’s oil fields pumping again.
Go figure that, eh?
Yeah but, it pisses me off that when I read the paper I never hear anything good about what the occupation is bringing, all I hear is how the US is hegemonic this and destroying that, its depressing. Am not saying I don’t wanna hear the truth its just that I hope its not as bad as everyone is trying to make it out to be. I’d love Iraq to be the success story of the ME. Much like Japan and Germany after WWII.
I don’t want this Allawi character screwing it up and then no one being able to anything about it.
And remember how well the defended the oil ministry. So what if they left everything else wide open.
Somebody’s going to bring this up, so it might as well be me: During the Vietnam War there was famous footage of a South Vietnamese police captain who executed a captured Viet Cong in public, in the street, in front of an American reporter’s camera. Just put his pistol against the handcuffed man’s temple, pulled the trigger. I’m sure we’ve all seen the still pic, if not the film. Together with the famous pic of a naked young girl running from a napalm attack, it was one of the most important media images that turned public opinion against the war.
This situation differs in two important ways:
-
If Allawi really did this, nobody caught it on film (so far as we know).
-
The Vietnamese police captain was not the head, or about-to-be head, of the government.
but the viet cong he shot was someone who had killed their wife and their kids.
You mean, the VC killed his own wife and kids? Or the police captain’s? Or whose?
Which means that we’ll likely never know, unless he admits to it. He’ll deny it, the American witnesses would probably deny it, and even if they can produce corpses, there is no proof tying Allawi to them.
HOWEVER, as I said in the beginning, this can be one of those things that hangs over his head anyway. He might not totally discourage it, either.
Right, this charge is actually far more serious, just less substantial, because it isn’t visual media.
Seeing some middle ranking officer shoot a captive enemy… OK, no way in hell that would fly today, but we expect things like this.
Head of the government lining them up and personally executing them? We also expect things like this… FROM THE BAD GUYS.
I’m sure this will play out as follows:
Alleged witnesses: Allawi offed some thugs
Allawi: No I didn’t.
Bushco: We will do an indepth investigation into these charges. Hey, look over there!
Media: Ooh, a butterfly!
Public: Wait, what?
Iraqis: سنوات من الترجمة الآلية المجانية على الإنترنت أصبح الدخول سنوات من الترجمة الآلية المجانية على الإنترنت أصبح الدخول (Wait, what? Fuck it, we’re screwed. I’m moving to Iran.)
not his or the police captains now I remember, he was guilty of killing a woman and her kids, sorry for the mix up, but thats why he shot him with brute force.
Well, that’s OK. The alleged reason Allawi allegedly shot them was for killing over 50 Iraqis.
Life is not fair; sometimes the dark cloud doesn’t have a silver lining, no matter how hard you try to see one.
I don’t remember where I read this but his reputation for “toughness” and stories like this and others (“Did you hear? he personally cut off the hands off insurgents during interrogations!”) are being met warmly by the Iraqi public. One wonders that if not true, that he might be planting them.
Violence against an enemy, no matter how weak, is deemed a good thing by some members of any population. So if it comes out that he has more popular support because of this, well, I won’t be surprised. I just saw it happen myself.
Hijack :
I believed that arabic characters couldn’t be used on this board. Did you copy/past them, or did you type them?