Bush supports Islamist law in Iraq

[FreedomAngel82]

Link: http://www.alertnet.org/printable.htm?
URL=/thenews/newsdesk/MAC029238.htm

<Islam will be "the main source" of Iraq's law and parliament will
observe religious principles, negotiators said on Saturday after what
some called a major turn in talks on the constitution and a shift in
the U.S. position.

If agreed by Monday's parliamentary deadline, it would appear to be a
major concession to Islamist leaders from the Shi'ite Muslim majority
and sit uneasily with U.S. insistence on the primacy of democracy and
human rights in the new Iraq.

U.S. diplomats, who have been shepherding the process closely,
declined immediate comment and at least one secular Kurdish
politician said Kurds would try to block such a deal.

But an official from one of the main Shi'ite Islamist parties and a
leading Sunni Arab negotiator said agreement had been reached,
reversing an understanding reached earlier in the recent talks that
Islam would simply be "a main source" of law.

Parliament would not be able to pass legislation that contradicted
the principles of Islam, several negotiators told Reuters. One
Shi'ite official said that a constitutional court would decide
whether laws conformed to Islamic faith.

But Sunni negotiator Saleh al-Mutlak said that, at the insistence of
U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the constitution would also contain
language stating that the "principles of democracy" would be
respected.>

More at the link...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. the problem with Islamic law

is how it is interpreted, and from where the scholars source their opinions. I remember when the Saudi women drove cars in protest during Gulf War I and the Wahhabists called on scholars to show where in the Qur'an or the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet) such things were forbidden. The scholars couldn't come up with anything other than the wives of the Prophet were allowed to drive their own camels. But somehow or another they "interpreted" this and other things to ban women from driving, because that is what the men in power wanted.

In other words, the weak link in Islamic law as practiced in some countries is that there is no independent judiciary.

[Nite Owl]

2. Couldn't access the link

'Internal server error'

So Islamist law, that mean women have less rights than they had under Sadaam right?

[Fatima]

5. Yes!

They will have far fewer rights under anything crafted around Islamic law. In some parts of Iraq, it's already happening.

[blm]

3. Bush supports theocratic rule over democracy.

Thanks George.

[Connie_Corleone]

4. Bush invaded a sovereign, secular country...

and is now turning it into an Islamic theocracy. Good job, Chimp!

[ima_sinnic]

6. oh I'm so happy to know our young men and women are dying

so Iraq can become an Islamist state. very nice of you, George, to donate our military, the lives of almost 2,000 Americans, to their cause. :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

HEY FREEPER BUSHITISTAS: mission accomplished, eh? gotta love that there "democracy" your Mighty ManDate got goin' in I-rak. That's somethin' to be real proud of, yup!

[noahmijo]

7. I have to say it: I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR TWO YEARS NOW

Anybody who is the least bit observent saw this coming from miles away. It only makes sense that now that the evil saddam isn't around to torture and murder extremist Muslims who rebelled against Saddam's dictatorship it's open season now for every Islamic Fundie to bust through the fences and impose an Islamic Republic once and for all.

Bush has successfully won the war for Islamic Fundamentalism and Iran.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!! C'MON SING IT WITH ME!!!

:crazy:

[Nite Owl]

8. This was discussed way back

after Gulf War I and one of the reasons why daddy didn't go to Baghdad. * has been the best thing to happen to fundamentalists---of all kinds. They share the same basic principles of retribution and radicalism no matter if they are Islamic, Christian, Jewish or any thing else.

[meow2u3]

10. Who else suspects this?

Bush and bin Laden are on the same team. :shrug:

[Hubert Flottz]

9. He ought to support it, because they own half our country...

They all are shareholders in Carlyle Group with Shrub's Daddy!

[Wizard777]

11. Striiiiiiiike Three! Your outta here!

Okay so it's not about "9/11",it's not about "WMD's", and it's not about "establishing a Democracy."

Okay so we have spent 200 Billion dollars to topple Iraq's (in the spirit of 2000, by what ever means)Elected President to enact a regime change from a Democracy to an Islamic Theocracy. So how many Christians like Tariq Aziz will have positions within this newly forming Theocracy?

[Wind Dancer]

12. More..............

Iraq's Second-Class Citizens
Yifat Susskind
August 18, 2005


This week’s constitutional crisis in Baghdad demonstrates again that the Bush administration’s drive to recreate the Middle East in its own image is producing theocracy, not democracy, in Iraq. On Bush’s watch, Iraq’s once-secular government has been delivered to religious parties (Dawa and the Prime Minister’s Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) that want Iraq to be ruled by Islamic law. In the provinces they control (which make up roughly half the country), Islamists have already imposed severe restrictions on the rights of women and religious minorities. Now, they are fighting to ensure that Iraq’s new constitution paves the way for the creation of an Islamic state.

Like religious fundamentalists in the United States and around the world, these parties use religion as a means of asserting a reactionary political agenda that begins with the subjugation of women within the family. That’s why the first battle over the new constitution concerns family status laws governing marriage, divorce and women's inheritance and property rights. The Islamists are pushing to replace Iraq’s current statutes—among the most progressive in the Middle East—with language that would subordinate women’s human rights to arbitrary interpretations of Islamic law.

The Bush administration bears direct responsibility for this crisis. Prior to the U.S. invasion in March 2003, Iraqi women in exile warned that religious extremists would step into any political vacuum created by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But rather than support Iraq’s formidable women’s movement and other democratic forces, the United States chose the politically expedient route of courting right-wing extremists. In summer 2003, Bush appointee Paul Bremmer—who headed the U.S. administration in Iraq—hand-picked several reactionary Muslim clerics to sit on the Iraqi Governing Council, empowering leaders with a stated commitment to restricting women's rights. Then, in the period leading up to this year’s election of the National Assembly, Bremer derailed a series of demands by Iraqi women's organizations, including calls to create a women's ministry; appoint women to the drafting committee of Iraq's interim constitution; guarantee that 40 percent of U.S. appointees were women; and pass laws codifying women's rights and criminalizing domestic violence, which has skyrocketed under U.S. occupation.

The administration’s decision to trade women's rights for support from religious conservatives has left Iraqi women worse off today under U.S. occupation then they were under the notoriously repressive regime of Saddam Hussein. The Ba'ath Party utilized women's rights only to consolidate its own power. Yet, for all its brutality, Saddam Hussein’s government guaranteed women’s rights to education, employment, freedom of movement, equal pay for equal work and universal day care, as well as the rights to inherit and own property, choose their own husbands, vote and hold public office. Ironically, these fundamental rights stand to be abolished in an Iraq “liberated” by the United States in the name of (among other things) promoting democracy.

more

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050818/iraqs_secondclass_citizens.php