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LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

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Byline: The Register-Guard

TAL was wrongly marginalized

Iraq Study Group recommendations falsely assert essential U.N. expertise in crafting a constitution for national reconciliation. An Iraqi interim council of 25 ethnically and religiously diverse members produced the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) to form the basis for a new constitution. Its 39 articles were unique in the Arab world for conceiving a republican, federal, democratic and pluralistic government guaranteeing rights for speech, religion, private property, etc. for all including Christians, Jews and former Baathists. In 2004 the United States marginalized this extraordinary indigenous effort when approving a new interim government, and favoring a U.N.-brokered scheme compatible with traditional Arab authoritarian rule.

The roughly 130 countries emerging from implosion of colonialism provide U.N. expertise in crafting validation for and perpetuation of totalitarianism from ideologies such as democracy, socialism, communism, and more recently the Bolivarian movement and Islamic fundamentalism. Too often people unwrapped the gift of independence expecting freedom, only to rediscover prehistory norms of crushing civil wars, murderous political intrigues and pandemics of disease and starvation.

The tragedy of marginalizing the TAL was obscuring individuals, such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Nelson Mandela, who might have instilled national patriotic fervor. Instead U.N. assistance reliably provided, and provides, an environment compatible with the violent, charismatic leaders who dominate most emerging countries.

NOLAN NELSON

Eugene

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