No one who lived through the horrors of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's regime, from whose ruins the new Iraq is emerging, will ever forget them. It is one of the reasons that the elections to be held in January -- the first time most Iraqis will have had the chance of a meaningful vote -- have such wide support in the country.
The very notion of a free and fair vote for ordinary citizens was an abomination to Saddam. He and his cronies tortured and murdered their fellow Iraqis if they so much as hinted at dissent.
These elections, in which the Iraqi people will decide not just who will govern them but how they are governed, show the country is emerging from this nightmare. They should be supported by all who wish Iraq well. What do those who claim to have the best interests of Iraq at heart fear from elections?
Iraqis are striving to construct a society where freedom of choice, the democratic process and the rule of law are paramount.
They want, as they continually tell me and my colleagues in the Iraqi interim government, freedom, peace and stability for their children.
No one should be able to deny them this dream. But a small minority of Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists who have nothing to offer but violence are trying to do just that.
They exist in various parts of Iraq, but their base has been Fallujah for some time.
From this city, they have terrorized the local population and spread murder across the country. They have blown up women and children and executed in cold blood fellow Iraqis trying to end the lawlessness in our country. No civilized person can stand by and allow this to continue. No civilized person should support those behind this campaign of murder.
The people of Fallujah do not support these men of violence. They want rid of them and have been pleading for the interim government to free them. It would have been better for everyone if this could have been done peacefully.
So for many months, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and my colleagues in the interim government have made repeated efforts to negotiate a peaceful resolution.
We have stopped at nothing to persuade the terrorists and insurgents to lay down their arms, stop hurting innocent Iraqis and spare the city from further military action. We have continually said that the political process remains open to those who renounce violence. It still does.
The terrorists and insurgents have refused our advances, preferring instead to continue fighting. Finally the interim government had no other option than to take this action to liberate the people of Falluja from these murderers and protect the people of Iraq from further atrocities. I wish there had been another way.
But we need to resolve the situation and quickly. The real aim of these terrorists, as well as causing as much destruction as possible, is to derail the national elections planned for January. They know the more successful these elections are, the less space there will be for their nihilistic brand of violence.
Given the current security climate, holding free and fair elections on time poses a huge challenge. But delaying the elections would pose a greater danger to the country's future.
By the end of January, Iraqis should have had the chance to elect a national assembly, 18 provincial governors, and the Kurdistan national assembly. The country's ethnic and religious diversity will for the first time in Iraq's troubled history be properly reflected in its political institutions.
These elections will show that the entire Iraqi population, minus the small group of violent people, want a better future. They will demonstrate that we want, as people throughout the world do, a choice in how our country is run, and who runs it.
Terrorists and extremists will not let up in their campaign to derail the political process in Iraq. Motivated by hatred and tyranny, they cannot tolerate Iraq's transformation towards a federal democracy. But we in the interim government cannot tolerate their violent contempt of basic human rights and their attempts to destroy Iraq.
We also expect the international community to actively support Iraqis in this battle against terrorism and extremism. We have to be realistic and accept that the resolution of the situation in Falluja will not eradicate the plague of terrorism in Iraq, but it will deny terrorists the command center and refuge they have enjoyed for so many months.
It is also hoped that restoration of the rule of law to Falluja will pave the way for improved security and allow full participation in the elections by a larger section of the Sunni Arab community who live there.
Iraq has the chance of a new, better future. It will require a great deal of courage, hard work and dedication to help bring it about. But because this future is what the Iraqi people are determined to grasp, no matter what the sacrifice, it will happen.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations