Inglis made a courageous break with the 'neo-cons'
Iraq is worse off today, with U.S. helping shape the country into Iran's banana republic.
By Ali Alarabi
Fourth District Congressman Bob Inglis' decision to vote in favor of a nonbinding resolution against sending more U.S. soldiers to Iraq, and the controversy that erupted afterward here in Greenville, highlights the growing and healthy debate over the war in Iraq.
When I met Congressman Inglis late last year to discuss with him his opinion on issues of the Middle East, he showed genuine desire for a stable, safe and democratic Iraq and real concern for the safety and well being of American troops fighting there especially after he himself went to visit with the U.S. troops in Iraq last year.
He was an enthusiastic supporter of democracy and freedom in Iraq, and I am sure he still is. Congressman Inglis, however, deserves our full support for his courageous decision to break with the neo-cons over this war that has, as he put it," led us to slaughter." There is no need for more young American soldiers to die in this un-winnable war.
Untold billions of U.S. dollars went towards shoddy reconstruction projects. More billions of Iraqi oil money were looted by the new Iraqi Shia leaders who turned out to be even worse than Saddam ever was. Before this war, Iraq had no terrorist presence on its soil and was a secular modern state despite Saddam's brutality and criminality.
Today, sad to say, Iraq has become a medieval, intolerant republic of hatred and horror ruled by anachronistic ayatollahs, and it has become a proving ground for terrorists of all kinds. Al-Qaida terrorists operate a daily horror show by killing innocent civilians, both Shias and Sunni. Shia death squads and terrorist groups such as the Mahdi Army and Badr Brigades rape Muslim women and destroy Muslim mosques.
Iraqi government troops and security forces also rape women, and engage in kidnapping, murder and slaughtering of innocent civilians. The reason for the proliferation of terrorism in Iraq is that the United States supported a sectarian Shia rule in Iraq instead of maintaining an Iraqi national identity that is not based on religious and ethnic background. After the fog of war had subsided and Saddam's regime had collapsed, the Shia organizations descended upon Iraq (from Iran) like vandals looting the booty.
Nowhere on their mind was rebuilding a democratic Iraq and reconciliation. Judging by their performance in the past three years, revenge and blood was their mantra. The major problem with sending American soldiers into harm's way is that they are going to support an Iraqi government that sees itself as strictly Shia government beholden only to Iran next door.
The sectarian Shia rule in Iraq has more or less become the United State's Achilles' heel.
On Dec. 12, 1983, terrorists bombed the U.S. and French embassies, along with other facilities in Kuwait City. Seventeen people were arrested and as it turned out that they were from an Iraqi Shia terrorist group called Al-Dawa that bombed the U.S. embassy on behalf of Iran. Al-Dawa Shia party is the current Iraqi Prime minister Nouri Maliki's ruling party in power in Iraq today.
Recent U.S. news reports uncovered that one of those terrorists convicted in that bombing is a current member of the Iraqi parliament. This does not even stop there, other Shia groups such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), headed by Abdel Aziz- Al Hakim, is another organization in power in Iraq, that was founded and financed, and its militias trained and equipped, by Iran.
Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army is another Shia terrorist group that has killed Arabs, Muslims and Christians, and bombed mosques. These actions serve the narrow sectarian Shia interests and eventually the interests of their pay masters in Tehran.
Perhaps one would find so many moral arguments in favor of removing Saddam Hussein from power, and rightly so. However, according to recent published U.N. report on the war in Iraq, it said that over 750,000 Iraqis were killed as a direct result of war, ethnic and religious violence. Moreover, there are over 2 million Iraqi refugees in neighboring Syria and Jordan.
Millions of other Iraqis can barely make ends meet, while their leaders loot the riches of their country. The situation today is far worst than it was under Saddam's regime. What needs to be done in Iraq today is for the U.S. government to stop the ongoing process of transforming Iraq into Iran's banana republic, or the "Iranification of Iraq," and thus force the Iraqi Shia leadership to dissolve their own militias and terrorists groups and rebuild Iraq for all Iraqis -- Arabs and Kurds, Muslims and Christians.
