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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Media / War / International Spreading Democracy

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 4:50 PM

A court in Iraq fined the Guardian for publishing an article criticizing prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Bill Keller of the NYT says it best:

"This ruling has to send a shiver up the spine of anyone who hopes for a genuinely democratic Iraq. What the court calls libel is, in most countries, called journalism.

"Indeed, if a respected journalist like Ghaith Abdul-Ahad can be punished for reporting on concerns about a trend toward authoritarian government, the verdict would seem to lend credence to those very concerns."

Nobody wants to think that all those lives were lost just so Iraq could slide back into authoritarianism... but what if it does? Will the ~~coalition of the willing~~ United States keep invading until it gets the government it wants?

Comments (9) RSS

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We can invade them a thousand times, and we're still going to end up with a Shiite authoritarian state every time.

Posted by Fnarf

on November 12, 2009 at 5:01 PM

Ask Dan.
It was his fucking idea to invade.

Posted by 5,634 dead Americans on November 12, 2009 at 5:10 PM

What makes you think that's not what they want?

Posted by patrick66 on November 12, 2009 at 5:13 PM

Democracy was never the point. The point was to reinstate a pro-U.S. government. As long as the authoritarians in power stay loyal, we won't invade again.

Posted by keshmeshi on November 12, 2009 at 5:14 PM

i think Nouri al-Maliki is a kurd, and according to the nytimes, the kurds are just as brutal to other etnic minorities as arabs were to them.

so to answer your question, yes, all those lives were lost so iraq could slide back into authorianism, including the thousands, and thousands of iraqi lives.

Posted by SeMe on November 12, 2009 at 5:36 PM

What do we need to "re-invade" for? We still haven't left after the first invasion.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on November 12, 2009 at 7:28 PM

This very issue was one generating colonial angst toward Britain (as the jury nullified libel law which ignored the fact that the "libel" *was* fact).

Hurray jury nullification!

Posted by Mr.Joshua on November 12, 2009 at 10:53 PM

This is exactly why letting them write their own Constitution was idiotic. We should have handed them a copy of ours. Tough shit if they wanted theocracy.

Posted by BGKev on November 13, 2009 at 6:18 AM