Car bomb kills al-Hakim

[GePap]

CNN is saying death toll stands at 95!

[Defiant]

Yea, they thought it was going to be 100 or more.

[Dinner]

I'm still thinking the best possible out come we can hope for is a situation like in Turkey. We train the military to act as the guarantee of a secular society and deliver a democratic constitution with a mandated separation between religion and state. Then when ever the masses elect a religious extremist it will be the responsibility of the military to insure the constitution and remove the fundamentalists as needed.

Turkey is the closest thing to a democracy in the Islamic world and this is how it works in Turkey.

[GePap]

well, in pakistan the army turned islamist: in indonesia the army got power. In Algera, when the army did this it lead to a civil war and over 100,000 dead.

[Dinner]

All better then having another fundimentalist state.

[GePap]

Pakistan isn;t that far..and that is where Osama probably is now. Islamists and fundies are not the same thing: Algeria being the case where the people elect an Islamist party and in denying emocracy, the real fundies come out to play.

[Defiant]

Originally posted by GePap
well, in pakistan the army turned islamist: in indonesia the army got power. In Algera, when the army did this it lead to a civil war and over 100,000 dead.

But did they have an American army sitting in the background watching to make sure the army doesn't overextend its responsibility?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Defiant
But did they have an American army sitting in the background watching to make sure the army doesn't overextend its responsibility?

The US wouldn't do anything about an army takeover in Turkey. we didn't in the 80's, we wouldn't now.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I'm still thinking the best possible out come we can hope for is a situation like in Turkey.

That's a horrible thing to say. The Turkish military is one of the most brutal in the world.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Defiant


But did they have an American army sitting in the background watching to make sure the army doesn't overextend its responsibility?

In Indonesia they were prompted by the American government.

[DanS]

Damn, that's lots of people.

[Defiant]

Originally posted by GePap


The US wouldn't do anything about an army takeover in Turkey. we didn't in the 80's, we wouldn't now.

I believe in Iraq we would, we would want to maintain a presence(like the 75M in Germany) until we are sure the army in on the even, however longs it takes.
We cannot allow for Iraq to slip back into chaos(once we achieve a democracy) so our presence is necessary.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by GePap
The US wouldn't do anything about an army takeover in Turkey. we didn't in the 80's, we wouldn't now.

That's because the Turkish army was kicking out suspected fundies. Why would be intervine?

[GePap]

Islamist do not equal fundies (for the second time). besides, in the 80's fundies were our friends (since they are anti-communist)

[Timexwatch]

Islamicist and Fundamentalists aren't quite the same in the academic sense, but many fundamentalists shre their objectives with Islamicists.


Interestingly, I was watching *ahem* FOX *ahem* and Marc Ginsberg, one of their more intelligent commentators (and former Ambassador to Morocco) hinted that it could be the work of one of the younger Al-Sadr cronies in an attempt to bump off the older clergy.