The Coalition of the Willing went into Iraq - leaving aside the spurious claim Iraq had WMDs - to remove Saddam and restore democracy to the country.
Years later, with countless deaths and injury and general mayhem and disruption to the country and its people, today comes news [see The New York Times, here] that the Iraqi authorities are imposing censorship on a range of things. So much for the vaunted liberation of the Iraqi people and establishing democracy and freedom!
"The doors of the communications revolution were thrown open in Iraq after the American-led invasion in 2003: In rushed a wave of music videos featuring scantily clad Turkish singers, Web sites recruiting suicide bombers, racy Egyptian soap operas, pornography, romance novels, and American and Israeli news and entertainment sites that had long been blocked under Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Now those doors may be shut again, at least partially, as the Iraqi government moves to ban sites deemed harmful to the public, to require Internet cafes to register with the authorities and to press publishers to censor books.
The government, which has been proceeding quietly on the new censorship laws, said prohibitions were necessary because material currently available in the country had had the effect of encouraging sectarian violence in the fragile democracy and of warping the minds of the young."
Years later, with countless deaths and injury and general mayhem and disruption to the country and its people, today comes news [see The New York Times, here] that the Iraqi authorities are imposing censorship on a range of things. So much for the vaunted liberation of the Iraqi people and establishing democracy and freedom!
"The doors of the communications revolution were thrown open in Iraq after the American-led invasion in 2003: In rushed a wave of music videos featuring scantily clad Turkish singers, Web sites recruiting suicide bombers, racy Egyptian soap operas, pornography, romance novels, and American and Israeli news and entertainment sites that had long been blocked under Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Now those doors may be shut again, at least partially, as the Iraqi government moves to ban sites deemed harmful to the public, to require Internet cafes to register with the authorities and to press publishers to censor books.
The government, which has been proceeding quietly on the new censorship laws, said prohibitions were necessary because material currently available in the country had had the effect of encouraging sectarian violence in the fragile democracy and of warping the minds of the young."
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