Islam Dominates Iraq's Draft Constitution

[tocqueville]

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 4 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Framers of Iraq's constitution will designate Islam as the main source of legislation — a departure from the model set down by U.S. authorities during the occupation — according to a draft published Tuesday.

The draft states no law will be approved that contradicts "the rules of Islam" — a requirement that could affect women's rights and set Iraq on a course far different from the one envisioned when U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.

"Islam is the official religion of the state and is the main source of legislation," reads the draft published in the government newspaper Al-Sabah. "No law that contradicts with its rules can be promulgated."

The document also grants the Shiite religious leadership in Najaf a "guiding role" in recognition of its "high national and religious symbolism."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050726/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Frederik]

2. I don't think it's up to us

Iran is pulling the strings in Iraq now. The US is rapidly losing influence and has no credibility whatsoever.

[lvx35]

10. My God, that is the scariest picture ever!

Like Coke is from another planet or something!

[Frederik]

14. It is!

That's why they haven't disclosed the ingredients yet after 100+ years! The consumption of Coke is slowly turning us into lizards! :-)

[endarkenment]

6. hmmmm

1) Japan is not a model democracy. Japan is a dysfunctional one-party system completely corrupted by corporate oligarchs.

2) Germany did indeed reform itself after the defeat of the third reich.

3) Both Japan and Germany were at war with us or our allies when we went to war with them. Our occupation of both of these countries was a direct consequence of the attempt by the axis powers to essentially conquer the world. They posed a direct and formidible military threat to us.

Iraq, on the other hand, posed no threat to us. We had no business attacking them, nor do we have any business now telling them what sort of government they should have. As a libertarian, you ought to know better.

[kenny blankenship]

9. Fervent Nazism was extinguished by years of measureless bloodshed

the death of an entire generation, the bombing day and night of German cities, but more importantly by the guilt of Nazi genocide on their heads and the certain knowledge that they, the German people, both the Nazi minority and the non-Nazi majority who had failed to stop them, had brought all of the suffering they experienced upon themselves. Otherwise without the awareness of their failure as a society, the Allied occupation and reformation would have been impossible.
Germans accepted the right of the Allies to reform their society and depended on the charity of the Allied countries for their sheer survival. Japanese society was even more disposed to defer to authority, and having been incinerated from the air and beaten in the field, Japanese society was led by their Emperor to accept reformation by the American conqueror. Without that example it would not have been possible.

Nothing of the sort exists in Iraq. The people of Iraq have done nothing to deserve our destruction of their country, and so guilt like the Germans felt after WW2 does not give the United States the moral authority to reform their society. In any case we didn't "forcibly impose" democracy onto Germany so much as allow them to restore their own democratic tradition. There was no traditional embodiment of the nation in Iraq, as in the case of the Emperor Hirohito, to transfer the sovereignty of Iraq to the American conqueror in a feudal sense of allegiance and suezerainty. The figure of traditional authority in Iraq who is able to compel respect for American authority by his example wasn't Saddam Hussein but Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani, a person whom we have not defeated and who is at all times free to say no to us. Since he is able to get what he wants for Iraq by saying "Yes, but only in this way..." we won't be either confronting him and overwhelming his followers with guilt nor will we obtain his submission. In the end, Sistani will have "agreed" to everything we say we demand, and nevertheless we will leave behind us an Islamic Republic with close ties to Iran, our worst enemy in the region

Force itself can impose nothing but a cycle of violence. The willingness of the peoples in Germany and Japan allowed us to "reform" them. Without that willingness, no amount of force would have been sufficient. I don't see how force will induce the Iraqi people to become more willing.

[lvx35]

12. Damn that was a good post!

Exactly what I believe. Sun Tzu, in the Art of War, refers to this as "The Moral Law", one of the prerequisites of military victory! So the inevitable is happening, which is that their moralle is increasing, while ours is decreasing, as more and more people see the truth. Note the recent poll of Americans thinking they've been lied to. And they thinks its the media! Its not the media of course, its reality. We were lied to, and we don't have the moral law on our side. Reality does not go away when the media stops reporting it.

[Book Lover]

13. What kind of libertariansim is this, Otto?

This nation has no right to invade any other nation in order to install a government more pleasing to us, ever. What libertarian would say anything else?

[jsamuel]

3. What did we expect? They have a culture and it would be reflected in the

constitution. If you expected anything different, then you must of thought that we were going to write it for them.

[wtmusic]

5. Surprise: we are writing it for them

Hence the bogus "freedom of speech" provision.

[barb162]

8. IWe aren't writing/drafting it now for them

that's why the Islamic and anti-women stuff is popping out

[sui generis]

4. some day hundreds or maybe thousands of years from now

historians will look back on our "modern" society as pathetically stone age and unable to cope with technological progress.

We may build the tools and even use them, but only to reinforce our irrational behaviors. It is only a matter of time before a strictly Islamic or Christian government refuses to trade with any other government that doesn't toe the line on their beliefs - we like to think we're noble by looking at human rights abuses as a reason not to trade with a country or to sponsor international embargoes, but they may look at nobility as refusing to trade with countries that allow their women to wear pants and leave the house without proper attire or a male guardian.

Religion in government is really a bad idea all the way around.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Those durned "unexpected consequences" keep popping up.

So, we replace a dictator who respected women's rights and diversity with another Dark Ages government like Iran's or Saudi Arabia's. Brilliant!!

What's a "liberator" to do???

[dogday]

11. We are spreading Democracy

sure we are... Sounds like the women are going to be back in their burkas in no time....