As predicted by Newsinsider, last Monday the deadline passed to which the first draft of the Iraqi constitution should have been completed. Seen as a bad omen by many it became clear that this deadline would not be reached and the parliament agreed unanimously to extend the deadline by a week. So why is this constitution such a hassle, what causes the disagreements which delay completion and maybe more importantly should Iraq even form a nation?
The place to start is with the people, is there disagreement among them what morals and values should become law. Do they have different views on life?
An easy question with an easy answer: YES!
Iraq consists of three major ethnic-religious groups consisting of the Shia Arabs, the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds. They do not share the same idea of what a nation should be, the Kurds want an autonomous state in the north region of Iraq and the Shiites want the same in the southern region of Iraq which holds some of the most oil-rich land of the entire nation. The Sunnis obviously disagree, mainly because it would leave them with the central region of Iraq which holds little to no oil. To make their point stand out more to the Western forces they vigorously compare such a federal state to the one of former Yugoslavia which was coincidentally torn apart by war in the recent past.
So shouldn’t we simply agree to disagree, shouldn’t we learn from these views that maybe, just maybe, Iraq just doesn’t make sense as a nation. Did it ever make sense? Well actually no, Iraq simply exists because the French and British formed some sort of political potpourri after the Ottoman Empire fell at the end of World War I.
Naturally our fearless President cannot accept such a fact and is pushing to get this over with so he doesn’t look like the complete fool he is. Many believe this “forced” constitution will result in some sort of Islamic republic, similar to Iran. The result will become clear in a few days as the new deadline will pass on Monday. Whatever it will be the citizens of Iraq still have a say in their national referendum on the 15th of October, if approved it will serve as basis for a new election on December 15.
Shooting on 22nd of July still a mystery
LONDON, August 18 – Lawyers for the family of a Brazilian man killed by police nearly a month ago have demanded clarity on the matter. Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead on the 22nd of July by policemen, first indications suggested he was wearing a padded jacket, hurdled a barrier, ignored police instructions and then ran to get on a train. Reports leaked to ITV this week show an entirely different story, De Menezes was wearing a denim jacket, not padded, he also did not jump over any barriers nor ignore any instructions by the police. He only picked up a free newspaper and then ran for the train as it came into the station, probably in a hurry to catch it to get home in time.
The entire situation is incredibly embarrassing for the Metropolitan Police and of course a tragedy to the family of the Brazilian electrician. The family has now demanded to get more information on what actually took place that unfortunate day and asked the Independent Police Complaints Commission to speed up its’ investigation so they can get the answers they want. More and more public figures are also demanding a public inquiry about the matter so the general public knows what happened too.
Chances are the raddled nerves of the policemen in question, combined with the chaos of the past two terror attacks triggered an unfortunate incident, chalking another victim up to the terrorist attacks.
Democrats pleased to finally get some insight
WASHINGTON, August 16 – Finally there has been information released on the conservative views of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts. After long critique that there is no information available to get a glance at Roberts’ past work for the government the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library released almost 6,000 documents on Monday. First signs show that the fear for his conservative view on abortion by Democrats are not false, actually it forms a pattern in his past work for the government.
One of his many memos shows this perfectly, in this 1985 memo for President Reagan after being asked if it would be appropriate for the President to show his support to a controversial memorial service for aborted fetuses by anti-abortion protesters Roberts said it was an entirely appropriate way to call attention to the “abortion tragedy”. Another revealing fact is that Roberts was co-author of a document that argued that the Roe vs. Wade decision was wrongful and should be overturned.
This all seems to send a dark cloud over the confirmation hearings starting Sept. 6. Roberts’ chances seem to get slimmer, especially after another memo showed that he did not agree on the request of three Senators for a law on equal pay for females after a court decision supporting this. In his eyes this way still a “radical redistributive concept” and he found it troubling that the three lawmakers embraced this concept so easily. Ironically one of those three senators plays a key role in his confirmation hearings if the votes become close.
Is Roberts that uncontroversial?
NASHVILLE, August 15 – This weekend’s “Justice Sunday” did only mention Supreme Court nominee in passing by but did not make a big matter out of it. Organizers admit that they have played with the thought but decided to focus on the role of the Supreme Court in our everyday life rather than “commercialise” the Supreme Court nominee, a clear conservative favourite.
The cast of influential evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics and Republican congressman gathered on Sunday evening behind the Two Rivers Baptist megachurch in Nashville. It was expected to become a big plea for the conservative Christian nominee John G. Roberts but turned out completely different. Even among the conservatives the same concerns arose as among the Democrats, they find it difficult to judge Roberts’ suitability for the job based on his limited judicial record.
All in all it seems that most of the parties involved with the nomination process are eagerly awaiting the hearings on Roberts’ nomination. His work for anti-abortion protesters as well as for gay rights groups show he has done work for both “sides” and thus it is not guaranteed that he will be either extremely right-winged or extremely left-winged. More to come when the hearings start on September 6th.
Although a diplomatic solution is favorable
CRAWFORD, Texas, August 14 – On Saturday President Bush admitted in an interview that he would consider military action against Iran if they do not halt their nuclear conversion plants. Of course it is favorable to find a diplomatic solution but there is no way to rule out using force, the President stated. Iran recently angered the U.S. and European Union by defying a solution they were building and simply resuming nuclear work in a plant in Isfahan.
German Chancellor Schroeder replied almost immediately to Bush’s statement urging that the military option should be taken off of the table because it clearly hasn’t worked in the past. Bush however is reluctant to rule out any option and stood by his point by saying “The use of force is the last option for any president and, you know, we’ve used force in the recent past to secure our country,”
Bush made a similar reference in February at a news conference in Brussels where he told reporters that there was no military action planned against Iran, he certainly wouldn’t rule out the option. It looks like another war might be in the making, Sept. 3 is the deadline set by the IAEA to stop the conversion of uranium. If Iran does not comply they will face sanctions by the U.N. but it is still unknown how far they might go, especially considering China and Russia have a veto in this matter and they are both known to have ties with Iran.
Emotional outbursts as oral histories are revealed
NEW YORK, August 13 – NYC opened a large part of its’ archives to the public on Friday after being ordered to do so in court. In early 2002 the New York Times already requested access to these archives but the administration of Mayor Bloomberg refused to do so which led to a fight in court. The Court of Appeals then demanded publication of these archives earlier this year and finally NYC has complied to this.
It was an emotional moment as many of the survivors and families of those killed in the terrorist attack finally had access to those chaotic records of communication of that unfortunate day. The amount of information released was massive, consisting of over 23 compact discs containing all communication of that day. These histories were collected in 2001 by the order of the fire commissioner at the time of the attacks, Thomas von Essen.
Among the records were many unreleased communications from emergency medical technicians, paramedics and supervisors which shed a whole new light on the chaos of 9/11. Fire officers and families of those killed were reviewing the material in an office building in Manhattan, it quickly turned into an emotional situation when the desperate calls of fellow fire fighters were heard and it became clear that there was no real plan for the massive amount of casualties that arose that day. No doubt that we will hear much more about this as more and more of the released tapes will be reviewed.
