About

Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

Categories

Monthly Archives

Search


Advanced Search

Join Og's Mailing List

Powered by ExpressionEngine

OgBlog.net

Iraq

Monday, March 07, 2005

EVEN SUNNI ARABS AREN’T REALLY “OTHER”......

Meaning, that when they find out how far the “insurgents” are willing to go, humanity trumps ideology, standards emerge, and they object to “total war”. 

“The real resistance should only target the occupiers, and no normal person should consider dozens of dead people to be some kind of collateral damage while you are trying to kill somebody else,” cleric Ahmed Abdul-Ghafur told worshippers yesterday at the main Sunni mosque in Baghdad. “Everybody should speak out against such inhumane acts.”

Note that this mullah thinks that bombing the Americans should continue, but with more care not to murder nearby innocents.  Well…...it’s a start.

READ THE WHOLE THING

Posted by Earl on 03/07 at 11:37 AM
Politics • Iraq • Comments •

Monday, February 21, 2005

A BIT OF GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ - SUNNIS NOW *WANT* TO BE INVOLVED!

“As the Shiite majority prepared to take control of the country’s first freely elected government, tribal chiefs representing Sunni Arabs in six provinces issued a list of demands — including participation in the government and drafting a new constitution — after previously refusing to acknowledge the vote’s legitimacy.

“We made a big mistake when we didn’t vote,” said Sheik Hathal Younis Yahiya, 49, a representative from northern Nineveh. “Our votes were very important.”

Since al-Sistani of the Shia is reaching out to the Sunni, this looks like very good news, indeed.  Via cigarsinthesand     Read the rest….

Posted by Earl on 02/21 at 09:53 PM
Politics • Iraq • Comments •

Thursday, February 17, 2005

DEFEATING ISLAMISTS WITH LOGIC?  YEMEN GIVES IT A TRY…....

When Judge Hamoud al-Hitar announced that he and four other Islamic scholars would challenge Yemen’s Al Qaeda prisoners to a theological contest, Western antiterrorism experts warned that this high-stakes gamble would end in disaster.

Nervous as he faced five captured, yet defiant, Al Qaeda members in a Sanaa prison, Judge Hitar was inclined to agree. But banishing his doubts, the youthful cleric threw down the gauntlet, in the hope of bringing peace to his troubled homeland….

“It’s only logical to tackle these people through their brains and heart,” says Faris Sanabani, a former adviser to President Abdullah Saleh and editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer, a weekly English-language newspaper. “If you beat these people up they become more stubborn. If you hit them, they will enjoy the pain and find something good in it - it is a part of their ideology. Instead, what we must do is erase what they have been taught and explain to them that terrorism will only harm Yemenis’ jobs and prospects. Once they understand this they become fighters for freedom and democracy, and fighters for the true Islam,” he says.

  Read the rest….

Posted by Earl on 02/17 at 01:51 PM
Miscellany • Religion • Politics • Iraq • Comments •

NEW YORK LIBERALS ARE IN A SERIOUS BIND.  THE ONLY WAY OUT IS TO ROOT FOR BUSH

After the blizzard and before the fashion shows, you may have heard, the elections in Iraq went off extremely well. Remember? Or, like most New Yorkers, perhaps you let that fact slide from your consciousness as quickly as possible . . . Hey, speaking of Fashion Week, what is it with this renaissance in corseting?

Seriously: The success of the elections poses a major intellectual-moral-political problem for people in this city. The cognitive dissonance is palpable….

Each of us has a Hobbesian choice concerning Iraq; either we hope for the vindication of Bush’s risky, very possibly reckless policy, or we are in a de facto alliance with the killers of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. We can be angry with Bush for bringing us to this nasty ethical crossroads, but here we are nonetheless.

  Read the rest….

Posted by Earl on 02/17 at 12:06 PM
Politics • Iraq • Comments •
Page 7 of 7 pages « First  <  5 6 7