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Sept. 24, 2004 Okey Dokey, I tried I really tried. I told myself I was starting to get too intense here. I was beginning to wake up thinking about something one of the conservatives said in writing at U-K and what the response should be. I was getting involved in debate that was circular and non productive. I thought that maybe I should just ratchet it back a few notches and if I was going to submit articles I would just do what I do best, which is come up with an opening line and run with it, see where the story goes and be satisfied that I have created word pictures, first for my enjoyment and hopefully for the pleasure of them who take the time to read it. That after all is the first rule of Creative Writing 101; the author has a contract with the reader. The reader invests time in return for pleasure delivered by the scribe. I was beginning to derive no pleasure from the writing so I wanted to return to the free form style I have come to love, writing that I could do with no thought and no research. Then Sher Zieve had to go and spoil my re- developing Zen with another one of her rants about Kerry. I was very happy with my headphones on, listening to The Stooges and writing about Medium Charley. Then I read “John Kerry Spits On Prime Minister Allawi” © Sher Zieve 9/23/04. Ms. Zieve is one of the more extreme conservatives here and has made me chew my tongue on more than a few occasions. In the above named article I fear I will have to go to the hospital for re-attachment surgery so outrageous is her latest rant. I mean seriously I doubt John Kerry’s intent is to expectorate on Ayad Allawi, even from “the safe distance of another state.” Allawi came to this country as a part of the president’s political campaign. When he arrived here to speak to a joint session of congress and appear with the president in the Rose Garden his words become an issue that the opposition has a right to comment on. Because Ms. Zieve thought Senator Kerry should have told the American people that Allawi was the greatest thing since canned beer does not mean that Senator Kerry loses his right to voice his dissent. Ms. Zieve states in part “Now, PM Allawi is lying to Mr. Kerry, too! Yikes! It seems to be one conspiracy after another! Is the whole world out to get Mr. Kerry or is it just the pro-American contingencies?” She made this comment because according to her; Senator Kerry said “I think the prime minister is obviously contradicting his own statement of a few days ago, where he said the terrorists are pouring into the country. The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story.” First off I ask what is it that Senator Kerry said that is open for dispute. It has been widely reported that the CIA has created a national intelligence estimate that states the situation in Iraq is tenuous at best and could end in civil war as a worst case scenario. Kerry said from Columbus Oh that “the Bush administration was "in disarray," noting that the president's remark Wednesday that Iraq was plagued by a handful of terrorists contradicted Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's previous statements that the country had attracted many terrorists, as well as Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's acknowledgment this week that terrorists were "pouring" into Iraq. (4) I don’t here the sound of phlegm flying in that statement but then I do have my headphones on and Matchbox Twenty is rather rockin’ at the moment. I don’t agree with Ms. Zieve that Senator Kerry was spitting on Allawi. But then let’s take a look at Iyad Allawi and see if there is anything in his background worthy of contempt. I am going to be referencing a couple of different sources here when discussing Allawi’s history so stick with me. Allawi was born in 1945 a son of the merchant class whose grandfather helped negotiate Iraq independence from Britain and whose father was a minister of parliament. Allawi graduated from medical school in Baghdad. It was in that city where he first met Saddam Hussein (3). Allawi was a member of the Ba’ath party. Allawi openly broke with Saddam Hussein in 1971. Allawi was a socialist and did not like the take over of the Ba’ath party by Hussein and the clan from Tikrit. Here is where the story gets somewhat murky because Allawi either exiled himself to London and Lebanon or was sent by the rising star of the Ba’ath; Saddam Hussein. It has been said that he was an operative of the Mukhabarat (Iraqi Secret Police) and spied on expatriate Iraqis and even performed executions of them who truly opposed Saddam. It appears that Allawi was recruited by the British secret service, MI6, in 1976. Because it was discovered by the Ba’athists that he was a double agent he was the targeted for assassination an attempt was apparently carried out in 1978. (1) (3) After the assassination attempt Allawi finally and completely switched sides. In 1980 he began Radio Free Iraq with the help of the Saudi Secret Service and joined the business community reportedly in the, of course, oil industry; where he again reportedly, amassed a fortune. (1) In 1991 Allawi set up his own organization that was ready to move into Iraq with what looked like the inevitable demise of Hussein, but Hussein fooled everyone and hung onto power for another ten years. The name of the organization that Allawi formed was the Iraqi National Accord (INA) and was backed by a wide variety of Secret Services including those of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. (3) “Allawi's INA organised terrorist attacks in Iraq between 1992 and 1995, allegedly including the bombing of a cinema and a school bus that killed school children. This campaign never posed a threat to Saddam Hussein's rule, but was designed to test INA's capability to effect regime change “(3). In 1992 the INA was forced by the CIA and MI6 to team up with the rival Iraq National Congress (INC) which was headed by Ahmed Chalabi, a relative by marriage of Allawi’. Now there is a very disturbing story here that depending on whom you believe that Allawi began a campaign to discredit Chalabi. It seems that in 1995 Chalabi had been able to organize a revolt against Saddam, a revolt which ended in a massacre but four months later Allawi stepped up to the plate for his turn at trying to overthrow Saddam . “…after getting the go- ahead from President Bill Clinton, who was already campaigning for his re-election, the CIA prepared a second coup against Saddam. This time Allawi was given his chance. According to Samuel Berger, Clinton's security adviser, Allawi had succeeded, unlike Chalabi, in gaining the confidence of Arab powers in the region, was well considered by those who mounted the operation, and seemed less interested in self- aggrandizement than his cousin. By mid-January 1996 the operation was up and running. The CIA came up with $6m, as did Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Jordan provided the venture's rear base. The coup would be carried out by the army. Allawi flattered himself that he had the support of several dozen high-ranking officers (in the Iraqi Army). This may be true, but we shall never know for certain. A month before the end of June, when the operation was due to take place, Allawi, who wanted to put down his markers, told the -Washington Post that a secret operation against Saddam was imminent. No one believed him except Saddam, who had already captured one of Allawi's envoys in Iraq - and persuaded him to talk. On June 20 the arrests began. Within 10 days some 30 disloyal generals were executed; 120 others were arrested and tortured. In all, almost 800 people are believed to have lost their lives in Saddam's bloody purge. The coup attempt was a fiasco, but no Americans died and it was swept under the carpet.” (1) It is also reported that it was both Allawi and Chalabi that gave the British and Americans the intelligence, if it could be called that, that Saddam was able to deploy his Weapons of Mass Destruction in forty five minutes or less. This is the same intelligence that the Bush and Blair administration used to convince their citizenry of the immanent danger posed by Hussein. The same intelligence that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have been backing away from for over a year. (1) (3) I think it is safe to say that this person, Iyad Allawi along with Ahmed Chalabi, was able to first deceive the intelligence services of two major powers in the world and then by way of those intelligence services two heads of state who then led their nations to war on the premise of that false information. And I wonder why it is that Ms. Zieve embraces this man. He is not the savior of Iraq, he is allegedly a murderer who has performed summary executions of prisoners he termed as insurgents; “On July 17, two Australian newspapers published an article alleging that one week before the handover of sovereignty, Allawi himself summarily executed six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station. The allegations are backed up by two (other) :klindependent sources and the execution is said to have taken place in presence of about a dozen Iraqi police, four American security men and Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib. Mr Allawi reportedly said that the execution was to "send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents". Both Allawi's office and Naqib have denied the report. US ambassador John Negroponte did not clearly deny the allegations. Iraq's Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin pledged to investigate the allegations against his PM” (3). Is this the man we are supposed to trust to lead Iraq to an American style democracy? I for one am glad that Senator John Kerry did not support the words of this man, the way President Bush and Ms. Ziev have. 1) Ayad Allawi: The CIA's Main Man in Baghdad PATRICE CLAUDE / Guardian Weekly (UK) 23jul04 http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Allawi-CIA-Baghdad23jul04.htm 2) The Guardian is a British newspaper published by Guardian Newspapers Limited. It is a serious broadsheet newspaper with liberal politics http://www.fact-index.com/t/th/the_guardian.html 3) Iyad Allawi From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayad_Allawi (4) Kerry Accuses Bush of Deception on Iraq http://www.latimes.com/news/yahoo/la-na-kerry24sep24,1,5715431.story ------------ About the author: Mr. Durfee is a trouble maker. He has recently decided that no matter what the end result of his research is that there is only one way to think about things and that way is your way. hhhhaahahahhaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaahhhaaaaa Email: mcd5255@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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