November 17, 2005

The Torture Club

Hatched by Dafydd

It should hardly be a shock to discover that the so-called Shiite torture prison was in fact run by militias who had infiltrated the local police and security services. Sachi blogged about that general problem more than a month ago, here and here.

Simply put, the same rules that apply to Sunni Arabs in Iraq must apply to the Shia as well: just as the Sunni must reject Zarqawi and other terrorists, the Shia must also reject Sadr and his ilk. But it's unsuprising that they would not be exactly rushing to cast out those who abuse suspected car bombers while the Sunni still aid, abet, conceal, and apologize for those same car-bombers in the first place.

We cannot allow this to be a deal breaker in Iraq. Support for armed extremists -- on both sides -- will gradually diminish as Iraqis come to have more faith in the democratic system with its constitutional protections for the minority and majority populations. But this is something that comes with experience in democracy; it cannot be made to be a precondition of democracy, because then neither will ever happen.

The Iraqis are following the right course here: break up such Shiite gangs when they run across them, get them out of the security services -- but don't delay the elections or other democratization, even though some areas may be voting under a cloud. The vote itself is more important than perfection in the vote.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 17, 2005, at the time of 2:13 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist

Well, the whole story ain't out so far. Anyway, time is running out on the Sunni, and they should all be dead already, in my opinion. This is war, and they want to fight instead of surrendering. Mercy has its limits, and the Sunni in Iraq have ran out of any more mercy, in my opinion. The Shia will kill Sadr when the time is right, and he knows it.

Vote or die...

Karmi

The above hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 17, 2005 5:17 PM

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