2,300

[yes_justice]

Passed 2,300 soldier slain this week, tens of thousands wounded. Iraq remains very bad.

Why Shia? Why Sunni? Why Christian?  Are not all Iraqi?

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 Liberating with chutzpah:

Two Iraqi women whose husbands and children were killed by US troops during the Iraq war have been refused entry into the United States for a speaking tour. The women were invited to the US for peace events surrounding international women’s by the human rights group Global Exchange and the women’s peace group CODEPINK.

In a piece of painful irony, the reason given for the rejection was that the women don’t have enough family in Iraq to prove that they’ll return to the country.

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Iraqi Women Make Rare Trip to U.S. to Tell Their Stories of Life Under Occupation



This weekend, five Iraqi women arrived in New York City to begin a speaking tour to educate Americans about the reality in Iraq and meet with UN and US officials to call for a peace plan. Two of them join us in our firehouse studio: Faiza Al-Araji is a civil engineer and blogger, whose family recently fled to Jordan after her son was temporarily kidnapped, and Eman Ahmad Khamas, an Iraqi journalist, translator and human rights activist.

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Comments

[teapolitik.livejournal.com]

Why Shia? Why Sunni? Why Christian? Are not all Iraqi?

In a sense, sure. But in reality, of course not! Iraq's historical existance is colonial. The boundaries forming Iraq were created by empires far away, to maximize control over both populations and, more importantly, resources. Kurds have no investment in Iraq (and are most likely going to secede), and historically autonomous areas such as central and south Iraq have very little reason to remain intact. Religious sectarianism in Iraq is mostly just an expression of a very reasonable desire for the areas which have common cause, geography and culture to have something resembling self-determination. Why shouldn't Iraqis be able to determine for themselves where their boundaries lie? Why should they be forced (at the business end of a gun, no less) to maintain colonial borders that serve the interests of foreign imperialists over those of the Iraqis?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Why shouldn't Iraqis be able to determine for themselves where their boundaries lie?

Agreed. Kuwait, Syria, Iran, etc may have some say in it.

Why should they be forced (at the business end of a gun, no less) to maintain colonial borders that serve the interests of foreign imperialists over those of the Iraqis?

I don't see a good reason, other than some Iraqis may want to remain unified.

[teapolitik.livejournal.com]

Kuwait, Syria and Iran may have some say where they stand to be affected, of course. But I wasn't referring to their borders with outside countries, I was referring to internal borders.

And I'm sure some Iraqis want to remain unified, but I'm deeply suspicious of their motives and suspect that many (if not most) of them are closely aligned (ideologically if not literally) with the US and other imperialists.