Iraqi Indicted for Proposal to Open Talks With Israel

October 6, 2004 5:24 PM

Iraqi Indicted for Proposal to Open Talks With Israel Bringing democracy to the Middle East--let freedom ring. "A court of Iraq's interim government has brought criminal charges against a prominent politician for attending an antiterrorism conference in Israel and publicly suggesting that Iraq should open talks with Israel. The indictment and arrest warrant, based on a 1969 law promulgated by the Baath Party that bars Iraqis from having contacts with enemy states, are likely to anger the United States government, which has sponsored Iraq's new courts and is a close ally of Israel." So it goes...
posted by Postroad (10 comments total)

awww, snapdragon.
posted by The God Complex at 5:47 PM on October 6, 2004

What's the problem? Democracy is not the same as freedom. If the people want to prohibit travel to Israel, should the US interfere? (Not that they have a democracy as such, but the principle is the same.)
posted by smackfu at 6:00 PM on October 6, 2004

I think the argument would be that this administration is suggesting that freedom and democracy in Iraq is a means to fight terror, but the Iraqi government is prosecuting someone for wanting to open talks with America's ally Israel and for attending an anti-terrorism rally, which is funny in a (sadly) ironic way.
posted by The God Complex at 6:09 PM on October 6, 2004

yeah, but Israel is hte only democracy in the Middle East. Beat that you puppet government of Iraq.
posted by jmgorman at 8:35 PM on October 6, 2004

It's not a democracy when a huge chunk of the population is not only disenfranchised, but subjugated by the military in a soon to be walled off area of the country.
posted by blasdelf at 9:19 PM on October 6, 2004

yeah, but Israel is hte only democracy in the Middle East

I think Turkey may disagree with you .
posted by sixdifferentways at 10:28 PM on October 6, 2004

I think Turkey may disagree with you .

Turkey is definitely more democratic than most states in the region, and is moving in the right direction. However, my understanding is that the Turkish military is not entirely under civilian control, and has something of a track record of bringing down the government when it feels necessary.
posted by kickingtheground at 10:53 PM on October 6, 2004

Also Turkey is in Europe.
posted by PenDevil at 1:05 AM on October 7, 2004

Or at least is close enough to Europe to not be in the Middle East...
posted by PenDevil at 1:07 AM on October 7, 2004

Wasn't this guy one of the close friends of the once-aspiring dictator to Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi?

Funny how he went from honored guest of POTUS at the SOTU speech to never-mentioned pariah in just a few short months.

You'd think the corporate media whores would occasionally mention this abberation when reporting such a story.

Else this is a very incomplete picture of the situation.

This entire story revolves around Chalabi and his neocon buddies in the US with their imperialist ambitions and gets zero ink. What a shame.
posted by nofundy at 6:43 AM on October 7, 2004