Democracy, transparency and human rights are terms often used as jokes.

[kpete]

ARAB NEWS
Iraq Realities Challenge US Platitudes
Haifa Zangana, The Guardian

The planned reduction in the number of US troops in Iraq is to be put on hold, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, indicated while visiting US troops in Iraq; following the statement of Gen. David Petraeus that he wants to slow troop withdrawals, “to consolidate the past year’s security gains”.

There is no mention of Petraeus’s “sustainable level of violence” of which the last six weeks have been a fine example. For Iraqis who are long forgotten by the US and British governments, since they are often seen as terrorists’ facilitators, the security gains mean pre-dawn house raid, arbitrary arrests, kidnapping, killing by mercenaries called security employees and car bombs in crowded markets. Blasts have occurred in Baghdad, Salah ad Din, Anbar and Ninevah. The historic city of Mosul, north of Iraq, is under siege by occupation troops for the third week.

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As for the celebrated US/allied tribal Sunni militia called Al-Sahwa (the awakening), the last few weeks has proved that it is increasingly becoming the monster about to devour its creator. Sheik Ali Hathem Al-Duleimy, the head of Al-Sahwa, many of whose members are paid by the occupiers, went on Iraqi TV and said that his militia would no longer allow the US or Iraqi government to interfere with its work.

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On the other hand, Iraqis suffering from the lack of basic services continue to call the Maliki government “the government of the sectarian militias” with the highest record of corruption permeating in every aspect of its body. Democracy, transparency and human rights are terms often used as jokes.

more at:
http://arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=106858&d=17&m=2&y=2008