In The Red Zone

(note:  you can also catch this piece on the Adventures of Chester, where I'm concluding a four-day stint as a guest blogger.  Go there, and if you haven't already, make it a daily habit, like I have.)

As is the wont of things, after the euphoria comes the sobering reminder that a single success does not solve a multitude of problems.  Nowhere is this truer than Iraq.  With the risk of seeing like dreary chunk of Juan Cole in the Christmas stocking of Iraq's elections, let me outline some of the challenges immediately facing the Land Between the Rivers.

The Kurds.  The flashpoint is the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk.  Here, Kurds are vying against Sunni Arabs and their Turkomen allies for control of the oil fields of Baba Gurgur.  Although Kirkuk technically falls outside Kurdistan, the Kurds have long eyed the city as the capital of an independent nation.   When the Iraqi Electoral Commission last month ruled that Kurds displaced by the Baath Party's "Arabization" program could vote in local elections, Arab candidates withdrew.  Turkey, meanwhile, is registering ominous objections to Kurdish maneuvering for autonomy.  Kurdish Democratic Party leader Massud Barzani hardly helped matters when he announced in a recent interview that "an independent Kurdish state is indeed going to be happening."

The Shia.  Of immediate interest is the post-election unity of the victorious Party of Ali.  As the Los Angeles Times' Ashraf Khalil notes, the United Iraqi Alliance fused together by Ayatollah Sistani comprises a number of religious and secular Shia groups, many of which--such as Dawa Islamiyya and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq--are traditional rivals.  As Khalil observes, a splintering of the slate could provide an opportunity to secularists like Ayad Allawi to pick up some dissenting Shia to form a ruling coalition; on the other hand, a collapse of unity risks weakening the prestige of Sistani (the most unifying figure today in Iraqi politics) and alienating Shia from the democratic process. 

Other things to look for:  The fate of Moqtada "Mookie" al-Sadr.  He was a big loser yesterday--especially because his fatwa to boycott the elections was generally ignored.  In the Shia world, one's advancement in influence and power is determined by how many people pay attention to your pronouncements (rather like blogging); he may have slid a ways down the marja totem pole.  Also, keep an eye on Ahmad Chalabi.  While fighting Defense Minister Shaalan over mutual corruption charges and the Arabists in the State Department and CIA, this consummate in-fighter seems posed to play an important role in the new "secular" face of the Shia leadership.  He didn't do much for Iraqi unity last week, however, when he seemed to call for Shia "autonomy" over the oil-rich southern provinces.

The Sunnis.  We'll have to see their turn-out totals, especially in areas not dominated by anti-Iraqi forces.  If it turns out, as I believe true, that Sunnis wanted to vote, but were prevented by fear, the "voter boycott" was in fact "voter suppression."  And this, in turn, could erode the legitimacy of the Muslims Scholar's Association's "leadership"--a positive development.  The MSA's politics of resentment, grievance and non-participation in democracy (with the telling exception of oil-rich Kirkuk) echo the PLO tactics and could doom the Sunnis to similar cycles of despair and violence.  To save their clerical skins, the MSA and their allies will use any sliver of plausibility to decry the elections as illegitimate (especially if voter turn-out results drop below 50 percent).  But even they seem to see less room for maneuvering, as evident in their demands that they have a seat at table when it comes time to hammer out a constitution.  Sunnis, thy name is chutzpah.

The Anti-Iraq forces.  Allah be praised, they were the biggest losers of the day--although there will no doubt be further attacks.  But the political, rhetorical and psychological terrain has changed.  In the past, the homegrown Iraqi militants got a lot of mileage from their claims that they fought a "foreign occupation."  Whatever little merit that argument possessed has vanished with the election:  now the ex-Baathist Saddamites appear in their true light--fascists attempting to overturn a democratic government.  At what temperature does the legitimacy of reactionaries burn?  Fahrenheit 9-11. 

As for the foreign jihadists, Z-Man declared war against the elections and then couldn't stop them.  History--despite what would-be restorers of the Caliphate might say--is not on his side.  The fighting will continue--that's what jihadists do, after all--but the legitimacy of the mujaheddin has been shot by ballots not bullets, and time will bring an end to their nihilistic bloodshed.  This isn't Afghanistan, 1990s, Z-Man, and you're not fighting a doomed dictatorial state.  Something you will no doubt reflect upon when you're sitting in an Iraqi prison, as you will most surely be soon.

The Left.  Hopeless.  Shameful.  History will record that the U.S. could have saved tremendous loss of life and treasure had we liberated Iraqi with more troops and a proper "after-victory" plan.  But the chronicles will also show that America could have saved time, money and--most especially, lives--had the Left contributed its valuable resources to the liberation effort as well.  Imagine if feminists, labor leaders, environmentalists, civil rights activists, artists and the media had joined in the struggle instead of sitting on the sidelines--or worse, assisting the fascists?  Imagine if the clarion cry of freedom and democracy had arisen from a unified progressive front consisting of conservatives and liberals?  Just as we've learned how much succor the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong took from the anti-war protesters of the 1960s, we will someday learn how the parochial, small-minded, narrow-souled opposition to the establishment of democracy in Iraq stiffen the fascist backbone of the "insurgency."  But of course, the Michael Moores, Robert Fisks, George Galloways, Ted Kennedys and innumerable Hollywood celebrities and academics of this world will not care--they will always find reporters, voters, fans and tenure committees willing to dull the sting of conscience.

Our soldiers.  Job well done.  But it ain't over till its over.  And it won't be over until Iraq reaches one benchmark:  the government has the monopoly on violence.  In other words, not until an Iraqi army and police force takes the guns away--literally or metaphorically--from the country too-many armed militias can our men and women go home. 

The Iraqi people.  From now on, we will identify the true Iraqi Resistance fighter as an average man or woman brandishing the weapon of a blue-tipped index finger.

Bloggers.  I can't imagine how the liberation of Iraq would have progressed without the hundreds, the thousands, of blogs that cut through the anti-war bias of the MSM.  By giving a voice to people and viewpoints which otherwise would have gone silent, bloggers helped articulate the cause of democracy and civil rights that lies at the base of this conflict.  Which make me wonder:  how would bloggers have affected the course of Vietnam War?

On that note, I will close out my guest appearance on Chester.  I can't thank Josh enough for the opportunity to address you all.  I only hope my contributions added something to your appreciation of the war, the election and the Iraqi people. Now, with a wave of my own blue-tipped fingertips, I shall bid you farewell.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(note:  you can also catch this piece on the Adventures of Chester, where I'm concluding a four-day stint as a guest blogger.  Go there, and if you haven't already, make it a daily habit, like I have.)

As is the wont of things, after the euphoria comes the sobering reminder that a single success does not solve a multitude of problems.  Nowhere is this truer than Iraq.  With the risk of seeing like dreary chunk of Juan Cole in the Christmas stocking of Iraq's elections, let me outline some of the challenges immediately facing the Land Between the Rivers.

The Kurds.  The flashpoint is the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk.  Here, Kurds are vying against Sunni Arabs and their Turkomen allies for control of the oil fields of Baba Gurgur.  Although Kirkuk technically falls outside Kurdistan, the Kurds have long eyed the city as the capital of an independent nation.   When the Iraqi Electoral Commission last month ruled that Kurds displaced by the Baath Party's "Arabization" program could vote in local elections, Arab candidates withdrew.  Turkey, meanwhile, is registering ominous objections to Kurdish maneuvering for autonomy.  Kurdish Democratic Party leader Massud Barzani hardly helped matters when he announced in a recent interview that "an independent Kurdish state is indeed going to be happening."

The Shia.  Of immediate interest is the post-election unity of the victorious Party of Ali.  As the Los Angeles Times' Ashraf Khalil notes, the United Iraqi Alliance fused together by Ayatollah Sistani comprises a number of religious and secular Shia groups, many of which--such as Dawa Islamiyya and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq--are traditional rivals.  As Khalil observes, a splintering of the slate could provide an opportunity to secularists like Ayad Allawi to pick up some dissenting Shia to form a ruling coalition; on the other hand, a collapse of unity risks weakening the prestige of Sistani (the most unifying figure today in Iraqi politics) and alienating Shia from the democratic process. 

Other things to look for:  The fate of Moqtada "Mookie" al-Sadr.  He was a big loser yesterday--especially because his fatwa to boycott the elections was generally ignored.  In the Shia world, one's advancement in influence and power is determined by how many people pay attention to your pronouncements (rather like blogging); he may have slid a ways down the marja totem pole.  Also, keep an eye on Ahmad Chalabi.  While fighting Defense Minister Shaalan over mutual corruption charges and the Arabists in the State Department and CIA, this consummate in-fighter seems posed to play an important role in the new "secular" face of the Shia leadership.  He didn't do much for Iraqi unity last week, however, when he seemed to call for Shia "autonomy" over the oil-rich southern provinces.

The Sunnis.  We'll have to see their turn-out totals, especially in areas not dominated by anti-Iraqi forces.  If it turns out, as I believe true, that Sunnis wanted to vote, but were prevented by fear, the "voter boycott" was in fact "voter suppression."  And this, in turn, could erode the legitimacy of the Muslims Scholar's Association's "leadership"--a positive development.  The MSA's politics of resentment, grievance and non-participation in democracy (with the telling exception of oil-rich Kirkuk) echo the PLO tactics and could doom the Sunnis to similar cycles of despair and violence.  To save their clerical skins, the MSA and their allies will use any sliver of plausibility to decry the elections as illegitimate (especially if voter turn-out results drop below 50 percent).  But even they seem to see less room for maneuvering, as evident in their demands that they have a seat at table when it comes time to hammer out a constitution.  Sunnis, thy name is chutzpah.

The Anti-Iraq forces.  Allah be praised, they were the biggest losers of the day--although there will no doubt be further attacks.  But the political, rhetorical and psychological terrain has changed.  In the past, the homegrown Iraqi militants got a lot of mileage from their claims that they fought a "foreign occupation."  Whatever little merit that argument possessed has vanished with the election:  now the ex-Baathist Saddamites appear in their true light--fascists attempting to overturn a democratic government.  At what temperature does the legitimacy of reactionaries burn?  Fahrenheit 9-11. 

As for the foreign jihadists, Z-Man declared war against the elections and then couldn't stop them.  History--despite what would-be restorers of the Caliphate might say--is not on his side.  The fighting will continue--that's what jihadists do, after all--but the legitimacy of the mujaheddin has been shot by ballots not bullets, and time will bring an end to their nihilistic bloodshed.  This isn't Afghanistan, 1990s, Z-Man, and you're not fighting a doomed dictatorial state.  Something you will no doubt reflect upon when you're sitting in an Iraqi prison, as you will most surely be soon.

The Left.  Hopeless.  Shameful.  History will record that the U.S. could have saved tremendous loss of life and treasure had we liberated Iraqi with more troops and a proper "after-victory" plan.  But the chronicles will also show that America could have saved time, money and--most especially, lives--had the Left contributed its valuable resources to the liberation effort as well.  Imagine if feminists, labor leaders, environmentalists, civil rights activists, artists and the media had joined in the struggle instead of sitting on the sidelines--or worse, assisting the fascists?  Imagine if the clarion cry of freedom and democracy had arisen from a unified progressive front consisting of conservatives and liberals?  Just as we've learned how much succor the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong took from the anti-war protesters of the 1960s, we will someday learn how the parochial, small-minded, narrow-souled opposition to the establishment of democracy in Iraq stiffen the fascist backbone of the "insurgency."  But of course, the Michael Moores, Robert Fisks, George Galloways, Ted Kennedys and innumerable Hollywood celebrities and academics of this world will not care--they will always find reporters, voters, fans and tenure committees willing to dull the sting of conscience.

Our soldiers.  Job well done.  But it ain't over till its over.  And it won't be over until Iraq reaches one benchmark:  the government has the monopoly on violence.  In other words, not until an Iraqi army and police force takes the guns away--literally or metaphorically--from the country too-many armed militias can our men and women go home. 

The Iraqi people.  From now on, we will identify the true Iraqi Resistance fighter as an average man or woman brandishing the weapon of a blue-tipped index finger.

Bloggers.  I can't imagine how the liberation of Iraq would have progressed without the hundreds, the thousands, of blogs that cut through the anti-war bias of the MSM.  By giving a voice to people and viewpoints which otherwise would have gone silent, bloggers helped articulate the cause of democracy and civil rights that lies at the base of this conflict.  Which make me wonder:  how would bloggers have affected the course of Vietnam War?

On that note, I will close out my guest appearance on Chester.  I can't thank Josh enough for the opportunity to address you all.  I only hope my contributions added something to your appreciation of the war, the election and the Iraqi people. Now, with a wave of my own blue-tipped fingertips, I shall bid you farewell.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Thanks for dropping by -- and don't forget, you can catch my election blogs, and one final wrap-up (plus many other diverse and extraordinary things) by visiting the Internet's own intrepid Rough Rider, Chester.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks for dropping by -- and don't forget, you can catch my election blogs, and one final wrap-up (plus many other diverse and extraordinary things) by visiting the Internet's own intrepid Rough Rider, Chester.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Grand Imperial Wizard of Iraq

Before we get to the good news, check out this weird Times headline:

Violence Fails to Spoil a Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Streets

What's the point of mentioning...?  Oh never mind.  What do we call a reverse "Damning But?"

Anyway, reporter Dexter Filkins goes on to write that the Independent Election Commission of Iraq estimates turn out at eight million people, or 57 percent.  Then he goes from the fantastic to the incredible:

The predicted low turnout in Anbar, a hotspot of Sunni resistance to the American occupation, was exceeded to such an extent that extra voting materials had to be rushed to outlying villages, where long lines were formed at polling stations, Mr. Ayar said.

Ready, set, go, bloggers.  Now we have to pile on the "boycott" meme.  We have to change the discourse:  It was no "voter boycott" the Muslim Scholars Asscociation was attempting, but "voter suppression."  Harith al-Dhari's group does not represent the Sunni people any more than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi does. These people are shams, phonies, liars, murderes.  And they lost.

To put their activities in another perspective:  The Muslim Scholars Association and Zarqawi's "Al Qaeda in Iraq" franchise attempted to do to the Sunni Arabs what Jim Crow laws and the KKK inflicted for decades on African-Americans in the South:  rob them of their freedom, dignity and inalienable human rights.  We can't say it enough:  this war is about civil rights in Iraq.  

Hmmm, where's all that talk about the "Resistance" now?

UPDATE:  Be prepared.  Final voter turn-out percentages may be dropping.  Could we go below 50 percent?  Still a victory for democracy, of course, but also possibilities for face-saving spin for the terrorists, the Sunni clerical establishment and Juan Cole.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Grand Imperial Wizard of Iraq

Before we get to the good news, check out this weird Times headline:

Violence Fails to Spoil a Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Streets

What's the point of mentioning...?  Oh never mind.  What do we call a reverse "Damning But?"

Anyway, reporter Dexter Filkins goes on to write that the Independent Election Commission of Iraq estimates turn out at eight million people, or 57 percent.  Then he goes from the fantastic to the incredible:

The predicted low turnout in Anbar, a hotspot of Sunni resistance to the American occupation, was exceeded to such an extent that extra voting materials had to be rushed to outlying villages, where long lines were formed at polling stations, Mr. Ayar said.

Ready, set, go, bloggers.  Now we have to pile on the "boycott" meme.  We have to change the discourse:  It was no "voter boycott" the Muslim Scholars Asscociation was attempting, but "voter suppression."  Harith al-Dhari's group does not represent the Sunni people any more than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi does. These people are shams, phonies, liars, murderes.  And they lost.

To put their activities in another perspective:  The Muslim Scholars Association and Zarqawi's "Al Qaeda in Iraq" franchise attempted to do to the Sunni Arabs what Jim Crow laws and the KKK inflicted for decades on African-Americans in the South:  rob them of their freedom, dignity and inalienable human rights.  We can't say it enough:  this war is about civil rights in Iraq.  

Hmmm, where's all that talk about the "Resistance" now?

UPDATE:  Be prepared.  Final voter turn-out percentages may be dropping.  Could we go below 50 percent?  Still a victory for democracy, of course, but also possibilities for face-saving spin for the terrorists, the Sunni clerical establishment and Juan Cole.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(Note:  You can also read this at Chester who has been kind enough to post my contributions along with his extensive coverage of the elections, and just about everything else)

It might be the wrong finger, but Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar's message to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is clear.

Nasir Hasan once told me that on April 9, 2003--the day Saddam's statue fell in Baghdad's Firdusi Square--he learned that "history can actually smile."

Well, my friends, history has just smiled again. 

I write this just after the polls have closed in Iraq.  Over 70% turnout, we hear.  Minimal violence.  Election results, of course, are not yet known--except this:  the big winners were the Iraqi people.  And democracy.

Let us pause to consider:  In a week when we commemorated the liberation 60 years ago of the Nazi death-camp at Auschwitz--on the day that, 72 years ago, Weimar president Paul Hindenburg appointed Adolph Hitler Chancellor of Germany--the forces of democracy and freedom have won their greatest victory since the fall of the Berlin Wall.   There are few words to describe the magnitude and magnificence of this moment.  Just as there are no adequate words to describe the sacrifices of the Iraqi people and American soldiers that brought the world this moment.

Look at these pictures from Iraq. (scroll down).  No doubt we'll be seeing many more shots like this. Average people. Two years ago few of us (including myself) gave much thought about them; they were unknown, unseen, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  Yet today, they were the focus of the entire world.  Today, the course of history pivoted on their fingertips--fingertips stained not with the blood of tyranny, but the ink of democracy.

And their enemies, what of them?  What of those who indulged in grandiose fantasies of "blood baths" and "massacres" rather than engage in the quiet, humble process of elections?  They--thank God--could not make good their threats in full.  Oh, we can guess their next tact will be to claim the elections were "illegitimate"  (unlike, of course, their nihlistic "insurgency").  But, as Osama bin Laden once said, history rides with the "strong horse."  In the competition between Al Qaeda and democracy, Al Qaeda lost.  Big time.  Who's the strong horse now?

What to look for in the next few days:  Sunni voting results from areas not under threat of terrorism.  If we can determine that Sunnis would have voted if not in fear of their lives, then we can gauge the measure of their committment to democracy.  If, as I suspect, it is high, then we must immediately replace the concept of a "Sunni boycott"  with "Sunni vote suppression."  Boycotts are voluntary acts of non-participation; suppression is when you use force to prevent someone from acting.  And if terrorists and their clerical allies suppressed voting, then doesn't that "de-legitimize" their claim to represent Sunni Arabs?  In this case, contending that Sunnis didn't vote because they supported Zarqawi and the Muslim Scholars Association would be like saying blacks didn't vote in the post-bellum South because they agreed with Jim Crow and the KKK.

And what of our friends on the Left?  I'm sorry they can't share in our joy--because there is no reason they should not.  Alas, like the Muslim Scholars Association, they, too, decided to "boycott" the elections.  For example, here is what the great lefty website Daily Kos had to say yesterday:

The war is long past lost. Time to pack it in, and save the lives of our men and women in uniform that will otherwise face a barrage of bullets and RPG rounds during their extended stay in the desert.

Clearly, Dean-shill Marko Zuniga has an odd perception of liberalism.  On a day when millions of Iraqi citizens stood up against the specter of fascism to exercise their rights as free and dignified human beings, Zuniga claims the election is "simply an exercise in pretty pictures."  Tell that to the Iraqis who danced and cried for joy at the chance to vote, Mr. Zuniga.  Tell that to people who have suffered for decades under a tyrant whose crimes were brutal to the point of madness.  Tell that to the men and women who died to make this day a reality.

But Zuniga can't top the outrage posted on TalkLeft.  First, the site runs this excerpt from Chris Allbrittion's blog from Iraq :

So far, not as much violence as everybody feared. The question is why? Is the insurgency taking a pass on this one? (It's possible. Our sources in the insurgency say the election will make no difference to them, so why expend a lot of energy?) Is the insurgency much weaker than previously thought? Or is the level of security sufficient to keep it in check? If that's the case, then that is discouraging, too, because the measures that have kept today safe (so far) are truly draconian. No driving, dusk to dawn curfews, states of emergency. If that's what it takes to provide security in Iraq, why erase one police state only to replace it with another?

Beneath this tactless, heartless passage, they post a photo of a U.S. soldier in sunglasses.  Message received:  the U.S. has formed a police state similar to Saddam's regime.  Tell that to the Marines, folks.

But let's let that pass.  Today is not for us, it is for the Iraqis.  No doubt there will be further victories to enjoy and disappointments to mull over in the days to come.  For now, let's contemplate the meaning of democracy and the spread of freedom in a hitherto dark land.  And let us celebrate, for today history did more than smile.  It cheered.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(Note:  You can also read this at Chester who has been kind enough to post my contributions along with his extensive coverage of the elections, and just about everything else)

It might be the wrong finger, but Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar's message to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is clear.

Nasir Hasan once told me that on April 9, 2003--the day Saddam's statue fell in Baghdad's Firdusi Square--he learned that "history can actually smile."

Well, my friends, history has just smiled again. 

I write this just after the polls have closed in Iraq.  Over 70% turnout, we hear.  Minimal violence.  Election results, of course, are not yet known--except this:  the big winners were the Iraqi people.  And democracy.

Let us pause to consider:  In a week when we commemorated the liberation 60 years ago of the Nazi death-camp at Auschwitz--on the day that, 72 years ago, Weimar president Paul Hindenburg appointed Adolph Hitler Chancellor of Germany--the forces of democracy and freedom have won their greatest victory since the fall of the Berlin Wall.   There are few words to describe the magnitude and magnificence of this moment.  Just as there are no adequate words to describe the sacrifices of the Iraqi people and American soldiers that brought the world this moment.

Look at these pictures from Iraq. (scroll down).  No doubt we'll be seeing many more shots like this. Average people. Two years ago few of us (including myself) gave much thought about them; they were unknown, unseen, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  Yet today, they were the focus of the entire world.  Today, the course of history pivoted on their fingertips--fingertips stained not with the blood of tyranny, but the ink of democracy.

And their enemies, what of them?  What of those who indulged in grandiose fantasies of "blood baths" and "massacres" rather than engage in the quiet, humble process of elections?  They--thank God--could not make good their threats in full.  Oh, we can guess their next tact will be to claim the elections were "illegitimate"  (unlike, of course, their nihlistic "insurgency").  But, as Osama bin Laden once said, history rides with the "strong horse."  In the competition between Al Qaeda and democracy, Al Qaeda lost.  Big time.  Who's the strong horse now?

What to look for in the next few days:  Sunni voting results from areas not under threat of terrorism.  If we can determine that Sunnis would have voted if not in fear of their lives, then we can gauge the measure of their committment to democracy.  If, as I suspect, it is high, then we must immediately replace the concept of a "Sunni boycott"  with "Sunni vote suppression."  Boycotts are voluntary acts of non-participation; suppression is when you use force to prevent someone from acting.  And if terrorists and their clerical allies suppressed voting, then doesn't that "de-legitimize" their claim to represent Sunni Arabs?  In this case, contending that Sunnis didn't vote because they supported Zarqawi and the Muslim Scholars Association would be like saying blacks didn't vote in the post-bellum South because they agreed with Jim Crow and the KKK.

And what of our friends on the Left?  I'm sorry they can't share in our joy--because there is no reason they should not.  Alas, like the Muslim Scholars Association, they, too, decided to "boycott" the elections.  For example, here is what the great lefty website Daily Kos had to say yesterday:

The war is long past lost. Time to pack it in, and save the lives of our men and women in uniform that will otherwise face a barrage of bullets and RPG rounds during their extended stay in the desert.

Clearly, Dean-shill Marko Zuniga has an odd perception of liberalism.  On a day when millions of Iraqi citizens stood up against the specter of fascism to exercise their rights as free and dignified human beings, Zuniga claims the election is "simply an exercise in pretty pictures."  Tell that to the Iraqis who danced and cried for joy at the chance to vote, Mr. Zuniga.  Tell that to people who have suffered for decades under a tyrant whose crimes were brutal to the point of madness.  Tell that to the men and women who died to make this day a reality.

But Zuniga can't top the outrage posted on TalkLeft.  First, the site runs this excerpt from Chris Allbrittion's blog from Iraq :

So far, not as much violence as everybody feared. The question is why? Is the insurgency taking a pass on this one? (It's possible. Our sources in the insurgency say the election will make no difference to them, so why expend a lot of energy?) Is the insurgency much weaker than previously thought? Or is the level of security sufficient to keep it in check? If that's the case, then that is discouraging, too, because the measures that have kept today safe (so far) are truly draconian. No driving, dusk to dawn curfews, states of emergency. If that's what it takes to provide security in Iraq, why erase one police state only to replace it with another?

Beneath this tactless, heartless passage, they post a photo of a U.S. soldier in sunglasses.  Message received:  the U.S. has formed a police state similar to Saddam's regime.  Tell that to the Marines, folks.

But let's let that pass.  Today is not for us, it is for the Iraqis.  No doubt there will be further victories to enjoy and disappointments to mull over in the days to come.  For now, let's contemplate the meaning of democracy and the spread of freedom in a hitherto dark land.  And let us celebrate, for today history did more than smile.  It cheered.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm schedued to appear tomorrow on "Fox & Friends" at 6:15 a.m. to talk about--well, what else?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm schedued to appear tomorrow on "Fox & Friends" at 6:15 a.m. to talk about--well, what else?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

10:20 a.m. -- The polls are closed now.  Nour tells me the competition in Basra is tight between the Shia's 169 ticket and Allawi's slate.  If true, this is surprising.  Although, as Nour says, many Iraqis are fearful that the Shia are too close to Iran.  The religious parties have also earned much opprobrium from Basrans for apparently financing some of their operations with fuel smuggling and drug dealing--particularly hashish.  This was going on last Spring when I there, so I'm not surprised it has continued. 

9:00 a.m. -- al-Sistani's representative Ali al-Hakim, chief of the Al-Abulla mosque in  Basra, told Nour that al-Sistani will not vote in the elections.  Seems the Grand Ayatollah never renounced his Iranian citizenship.  In other words, the man who did so much to guide Iraq to this place cannot participate in the elections he helped create.

7:50 a.m.  -- Here's some information from Nour in  Basra.  She's working with a U.K. Guardian reporter who apparently has some contacts in the street.   She tells me:

*  Voting is heavy in Basra.  At some sites, people are shouting out "169"--the United Iraqi Alliance ticket -- and the monitors and election coordinators do the actual voting.

* Christians are apparently voting for Allawi, afraid of the domination of the religion parties.

* The Buraha region in the center of the city is voting fairly heavily for the Communist Party

*  In the Sunni-T, turn out low, as expected.  According to Nour's info, 9,000 people out of Falluja's 400,000 or so voted.  She tells me one (!) man in Tikrit voted.

* She heard of 10 explosions in Baghdad.  In the town of Al-Hartha, north of Basra, anti-Iraqi fascists drove a pick-up truck disguised as a police vehicle into the polling station.  No word on casualities, but the site was closed.

More to come. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

10:20 a.m. -- The polls are closed now.  Nour tells me the competition in Basra is tight between the Shia's 169 ticket and Allawi's slate.  If true, this is surprising.  Although, as Nour says, many Iraqis are fearful that the Shia are too close to Iran.  The religious parties have also earned much opprobrium from Basrans for apparently financing some of their operations with fuel smuggling and drug dealing--particularly hashish.  This was going on last Spring when I there, so I'm not surprised it has continued. 

9:00 a.m. -- al-Sistani's representative Ali al-Hakim, chief of the Al-Abulla mosque in  Basra, told Nour that al-Sistani will not vote in the elections.  Seems the Grand Ayatollah never renounced his Iranian citizenship.  In other words, the man who did so much to guide Iraq to this place cannot participate in the elections he helped create.

7:50 a.m.  -- Here's some information from Nour in  Basra.  She's working with a U.K. Guardian reporter who apparently has some contacts in the street.   She tells me:

*  Voting is heavy in Basra.  At some sites, people are shouting out "169"--the United Iraqi Alliance ticket -- and the monitors and election coordinators do the actual voting.

* Christians are apparently voting for Allawi, afraid of the domination of the religion parties.

* The Buraha region in the center of the city is voting fairly heavily for the Communist Party

*  In the Sunni-T, turn out low, as expected.  According to Nour's info, 9,000 people out of Falluja's 400,000 or so voted.  She tells me one (!) man in Tikrit voted.

* She heard of 10 explosions in Baghdad.  In the town of Al-Hartha, north of Basra, anti-Iraqi fascists drove a pick-up truck disguised as a police vehicle into the polling station.  No word on casualities, but the site was closed.

More to come. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I't's 6:30 a.m. EDT, I've spent the last hour trolling the 'net looking for Iraqi election information.  It seems we're in a lull, not suprising since one of the glories of democracy is that it's actual process is rather dull (even, apparently, with the threat of car bombs and assassination), as opposed to mind-numbing cathedrals of light and gargantuan eagles and other Speerian flourishes. 

I do have some initial thoughts, which I'll organize into a better post soon. 

We should expect a low Sunni turn-out.  Why?  Well, we know, right?  The so-called "Sunni boycott."  But, no--that is wrong!  The majority of Sunnis want to vote--what the Sunni "leadership" has done is no boycott, but old-fashioned vote suppression. They didn't boycott the vote, they suppressed it with gunmen and homicidal martyrs.  Saying, "The Sunnis refused to vote because their leaders organized a boycott" would be similar to arguing that blacks in the South after the Civil War refused to vote because they agreed with lynchings and Jim Crow laws.  I am kicking myself for not realizing this rhetoric trap earlier.  Score one for the anti-Iraqi forces.

Oh yes, can we now call the fascist paramilitaries "anti-Iraq?"  (Credit:  Chrenkoff)  They garnered enormous legitimacy posing as fighters against "foreign occupation"--now it is clear--even to the left, or should be, at least--who they truly oppose:  average Iraqis.

Speaking of average Iraqis and democracy--check out the photographs of people going to vote.  (I don't have time for links at the moment.)  This is the true beauty of democracy--you, me, millions and millions of people around the world care so much that everyday Iraqis are voting.  They are the heroes of the day!  And to think, less than two years ago, they were unknown, unseen, unheard, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  That is Democracy:  power--and visibility--and identity--to the people!

More later.  I'm contacting Nour in a few minutes to get the situation in Basra.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I't's 6:30 a.m. EDT, I've spent the last hour trolling the 'net looking for Iraqi election information.  It seems we're in a lull, not suprising since one of the glories of democracy is that it's actual process is rather dull (even, apparently, with the threat of car bombs and assassination), as opposed to mind-numbing cathedrals of light and gargantuan eagles and other Speerian flourishes. 

I do have some initial thoughts, which I'll organize into a better post soon. 

We should expect a low Sunni turn-out.  Why?  Well, we know, right?  The so-called "Sunni boycott."  But, no--that is wrong!  The majority of Sunnis want to vote--what the Sunni "leadership" has done is no boycott, but old-fashioned vote suppression. They didn't boycott the vote, they suppressed it with gunmen and homicidal martyrs.  Saying, "The Sunnis refused to vote because their leaders organized a boycott" would be similar to arguing that blacks in the South after the Civil War refused to vote because they agreed with lynchings and Jim Crow laws.  I am kicking myself for not realizing this rhetoric trap earlier.  Score one for the anti-Iraqi forces.

Oh yes, can we now call the fascist paramilitaries "anti-Iraq?"  (Credit:  Chrenkoff)  They garnered enormous legitimacy posing as fighters against "foreign occupation"--now it is clear--even to the left, or should be, at least--who they truly oppose:  average Iraqis.

Speaking of average Iraqis and democracy--check out the photographs of people going to vote.  (I don't have time for links at the moment.)  This is the true beauty of democracy--you, me, millions and millions of people around the world care so much that everyday Iraqis are voting.  They are the heroes of the day!  And to think, less than two years ago, they were unknown, unseen, unheard, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  That is Democracy:  power--and visibility--and identity--to the people!

More later.  I'm contacting Nour in a few minutes to get the situation in Basra.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tonight, as Saturday in North America moves toward its close, the people of Iraq--most of them, insha'allah--will be preparing to vote.  It will be a long night for us, but an even longer day for them, crowded with acts of courage and violence, despair and inspiration--everything we've come to expect in a land that, for some of us, has become more familiar than we could have guessed, or in many cases, wished.  There's nothing we can do now, of course, save offer our thoughts to those Iraqis who choose to vote, and anxiously await the course of democracy.

We bloggers intend, or at least hope, that our words are read by as wide an audience as possible.  Today, though, I write with but a few people in mind - friends, acquaintances, strangers I met in Iraq during my all-too-brief travels through the country. People whose faces and voices will forever remain with me, who today form the living fulcrum upon which the events of the morrow will turn.  People for whom, 10,000 miles away, I offer my prayers.

Like bulky, bearded Esam, whose irrepressible charm disguised the despair most Iraqis feel about their brutal society:  recently, I posted a letter from him describing life in a Baghdad bereft of electricity, where nights are broken by the roar of American jets and distant explosions.  I pray, too, for Ahmed, perhaps the most easy-going Iraqi I met, who broke my heart last week when he sent me a terse text-message reading "I am OK...not OK...miss you."  Perhaps their new democracy will bring, along with accountable government and an independent judiciary, some electricity and heat.

I offer prayers for Zena, the Baghdad housewife who struggles to raise three small daughters in a city where kidnapping children is as common as car bombs.  The internet cafe where we met is closed, a victim of the insurgency's targeting of foreigners.  She spends her days now in hours-long queues, waiting to fill her car with gas.  She is tired, worried, distraught.  May the new democracy bring her additional supplies of fuel, along with law and order to the streets.

And Rand, the Christian woman who also worked at the internet cafe.  She left the cafe to work for Iraqna, the cellphone company, which provides her the amazing opportunity to travel to Egypt and Syria.  Back home in Baghdad, however, the church she used to attend was bombed by Zarqawi.  Her Christian friends have begun to fear for their lives.  May the new democracy bring the capture of the terror master and his malignant ilk--as well as comfort to the Christians of Iraq. 

And Naseer, brilliant, tormented, forever perched on the edge of melancholy and despair.  His insights into the Iraqi soul had a profound impact on my own views of his nation.  Recently, in a Frontpage essay he expressed a steely resolve to vote and--as he put it--"resist" the paramilitary fascists.  He above all the Iraqis I met bears the emotional scars of Saddam and a thirst for justice.  May democracy bring an end to the "insurgency" and peace to my dear, tortured friend.

Nor can I forget Nour, my beautiful Basran comrade, guide and protector.  For me, she embodied the indominable but endangered spirit of women in a land that treats females as second-class creatures.  Her faith that moderate Islam and democracy represent the best hope for her country caused me to re-evaluate my notions of religion and politics.  My prayers are never far from her.  And by Allah's good grace, she seems to be doing well:  an e-mail from her today tells me she is busy working with international journalists covering the elections.  May He continue to bring her good fortune, democracy and the freedom she so desperately desires and deserves.

There are others.  Mohammad--a good-natured bear of man whose fondest wish was to design books for children; Ahmad, handsome, cosmopolitan, plagued by rumors that he spied for Saddam's secret police; Qasim, the silver-haired, silver-tongued, crypto-Baathist impresario of the Hewar Gallery; Dhia, who took me through the Sunni Triangle at peril to his life; Samir, who rescued me at a religious festival when Zarqawi killed over a hundred people with suicide bombs.  May democracy bring them what they never had under the shadow of Saddam, and what the paramilitaries would once again deny them:  a future.

Some Iraqis will not vote out of fear, resentment or apathy.  Many will not because they are forever beyond the ballot box or the terrorist.  They number in the thousands, these men and women, transformed in a flash from living beings to figures on a casualty sheet too long to comprehend. And so I pray for one, an Iraqi woman who worked for the CPA, whom I know only from a faded photograph in a makeshift memorial--although I saw the wreckage caused by the sucide attack that killed her.  May democracy bring meaning to her life; may Hadeel not have died in vain.

There are more, many more, enough to tax a reader's patience, and so I will close.  But not before I offer a final prayer--for our troops, standing guard over the first stumbling steps of the Iraqi infant America has helped bring into the world.  May tomorrow's elections and the democracy it promises bring them something, too:  a journey home. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tonight, as Saturday in North America moves toward its close, the people of Iraq--most of them, insha'allah--will be preparing to vote.  It will be a long night for us, but an even longer day for them, crowded with acts of courage and violence, despair and inspiration--everything we've come to expect in a land that, for some of us, has become more familiar than we could have guessed, or in many cases, wished.  There's nothing we can do now, of course, save offer our thoughts to those Iraqis who choose to vote, and anxiously await the course of democracy.

We bloggers intend, or at least hope, that our words are read by as wide an audience as possible.  Today, though, I write with but a few people in mind - friends, acquaintances, strangers I met in Iraq during my all-too-brief travels through the country. People whose faces and voices will forever remain with me, who today form the living fulcrum upon which the events of the morrow will turn.  People for whom, 10,000 miles away, I offer my prayers.

Like bulky, bearded Esam, whose irrepressible charm disguised the despair most Iraqis feel about their brutal society:  recently, I posted a letter from him describing life in a Baghdad bereft of electricity, where nights are broken by the roar of American jets and distant explosions.  I pray, too, for Ahmed, perhaps the most easy-going Iraqi I met, who broke my heart last week when he sent me a terse text-message reading "I am OK...not OK...miss you."  Perhaps their new democracy will bring, along with accountable government and an independent judiciary, some electricity and heat.

I offer prayers for Zena, the Baghdad housewife who struggles to raise three small daughters in a city where kidnapping children is as common as car bombs.  The internet cafe where we met is closed, a victim of the insurgency's targeting of foreigners.  She spends her days now in hours-long queues, waiting to fill her car with gas.  She is tired, worried, distraught.  May the new democracy bring her additional supplies of fuel, along with law and order to the streets.

And Rand, the Christian woman who also worked at the internet cafe.  She left the cafe to work for Iraqna, the cellphone company, which provides her the amazing opportunity to travel to Egypt and Syria.  Back home in Baghdad, however, the church she used to attend was bombed by Zarqawi.  Her Christian friends have begun to fear for their lives.  May the new democracy bring the capture of the terror master and his malignant ilk--as well as comfort to the Christians of Iraq. 

And Naseer, brilliant, tormented, forever perched on the edge of melancholy and despair.  His insights into the Iraqi soul had a profound impact on my own views of his nation.  Recently, in a Frontpage essay he expressed a steely resolve to vote and--as he put it--"resist" the paramilitary fascists.  He above all the Iraqis I met bears the emotional scars of Saddam and a thirst for justice.  May democracy bring an end to the "insurgency" and peace to my dear, tortured friend.

Nor can I forget Nour, my beautiful Basran comrade, guide and protector.  For me, she embodied the indominable but endangered spirit of women in a land that treats females as second-class creatures.  Her faith that moderate Islam and democracy represent the best hope for her country caused me to re-evaluate my notions of religion and politics.  My prayers are never far from her.  And by Allah's good grace, she seems to be doing well:  an e-mail from her today tells me she is busy working with international journalists covering the elections.  May He continue to bring her good fortune, democracy and the freedom she so desperately desires and deserves.

There are others.  Mohammad--a good-natured bear of man whose fondest wish was to design books for children; Ahmad, handsome, cosmopolitan, plagued by rumors that he spied for Saddam's secret police; Qasim, the silver-haired, silver-tongued, crypto-Baathist impresario of the Hewar Gallery; Dhia, who took me through the Sunni Triangle at peril to his life; Samir, who rescued me at a religious festival when Zarqawi killed over a hundred people with suicide bombs.  May democracy bring them what they never had under the shadow of Saddam, and what the paramilitaries would once again deny them:  a future.

Some Iraqis will not vote out of fear, resentment or apathy.  Many will not because they are forever beyond the ballot box or the terrorist.  They number in the thousands, these men and women, transformed in a flash from living beings to figures on a casualty sheet too long to comprehend. And so I pray for one, an Iraqi woman who worked for the CPA, whom I know only from a faded photograph in a makeshift memorial--although I saw the wreckage caused by the sucide attack that killed her.  May democracy bring meaning to her life; may Hadeel not have died in vain.

There are more, many more, enough to tax a reader's patience, and so I will close.  But not before I offer a final prayer--for our troops, standing guard over the first stumbling steps of the Iraqi infant America has helped bring into the world.  May tomorrow's elections and the democracy it promises bring them something, too:  a journey home. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

They are terrified lest elections prove contagious and spread to Iraq's neighboring states and peoples.  The danger to certain Arab governments, whose position has become almost identical to that of bin Laden and al-Zarqawi, is not the alleged "Shiite crescent," or a theocratic and religious "non-Arab" government in Iraq, but the democratic "weapon of mass destruction" that could destroy the structure of tyranny and backwardness that weighs heavily upon the chests of their peoples.

-- Salama Neemat, Washington correspondent for the daily Al-Hayat

(David Hirst, Daily Star)

*

[T]he patience of the Iraqi majority about the crimes committed by the Arab terrorists, who are possibly being supported by some Sunni clerics, will eventually run out, and the world must then be prepared for their angry response.

--  Hassan Hanizadeh, Tehran Times

*

Insha'allah, We will win.  The Iraqi Coalition shall win, [Sunni-born Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem] Shaalan shall get nothing, and we shall have insha'allah a strong security force made of children of the martyrs of the south, and go after the Sunni killers and destroy them.

Ya Allah

Ya Mohammad

Ya Ali

-- "ali (the real ali)", commenting on a post appearing on the website Words from Iraq

Posted by Steven Vincent at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

They are terrified lest elections prove contagious and spread to Iraq's neighboring states and peoples.  The danger to certain Arab governments, whose position has become almost identical to that of bin Laden and al-Zarqawi, is not the alleged "Shiite crescent," or a theocratic and religious "non-Arab" government in Iraq, but the democratic "weapon of mass destruction" that could destroy the structure of tyranny and backwardness that weighs heavily upon the chests of their peoples.

-- Salama Neemat, Washington correspondent for the daily Al-Hayat

(David Hirst, Daily Star)

*

[T]he patience of the Iraqi majority about the crimes committed by the Arab terrorists, who are possibly being supported by some Sunni clerics, will eventually run out, and the world must then be prepared for their angry response.

--  Hassan Hanizadeh, Tehran Times

*

Insha'allah, We will win.  The Iraqi Coalition shall win, [Sunni-born Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem] Shaalan shall get nothing, and we shall have insha'allah a strong security force made of children of the martyrs of the south, and go after the Sunni killers and destroy them.

Ya Allah

Ya Mohammad

Ya Ali

-- "ali (the real ali)", commenting on a post appearing on the website Words from Iraq

Posted by Steven Vincent at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(Note:  you can also find this piece on The Adventures of Chester, where I'm double-blogging for the next few days.)

Two more days until Iraqi elections; the voting's already begun in Australia, and, of course, the disloyal opposition is registering their presence, as well.

Meanwhile, you have to admire a people with the ability to alarm kings, sultans, terrorists, military officers, newspaper columnists, CIA officials and State Department panjandrums, not to mention thousands of citizens who once supped at the table of their worst enemy.  I'm talking, of course, about Iraq's Shia population.

Focused as we are on the spread of democracy in the region, we are less attuned to what may be the true revolution in this election.  Numbering some 150 million of Islam's 1.2 billion adherents, the Shia have always suffered minority status in the Muslim ummah.  Only in Iran and tiny Azerbaijan do a Shia majority rule their nation.  But now, thanks to American military might and their own astonishing discipline and maturity, the Party of Ali is poised on the brink of political control of Iraq, the heart of the Muslim Middle East. 

And their neighbors are afraid.  Along with other observers, I've noted earlier ("Our Man in Waziristan") that Sunday's elections will create a "Shia crescent" running from Lebanon into Syria (where Bashar Assad's minority Alawite sect is an off-shoot of Shiism), Iraq, Iran and then hooking around to Bahrain, which lies adjacent to Saudi Arabia--where two million more Shia sit atop the Wahhabi kingdom's richest oil fields.

This fear of rising Shia power lies behind many of the negative comments we read about the upcoming Iraqi elections.  For example, on December 8, King Abdullah of Sunni-dominated Jordan warned that a Shia victory in Iraq would "open us to a whole new set of problems" that may destabilize the (Sunni) Middle East, including (Sunni-Wahhabi) Saudi Arabia. Reporting yesterday, Soraya Nelson and Huda Ahmed of the Knight Ridder news service, quoted a retired Jordanian (Sunni) general "summing up the views of many critics" that the Iraqi elections are "mission impossible...without the acquiescence of the Sunnis."

And here's Qatari academic and political analyst Mohammad al-Misfer, quoted on Wednesday by Agence France Presse: 

[Sunni-dominated Gulf regimes] will not be in a stable situation if the Iraqi elections produce a Shiite leadership, because many Shiites in the region will no longer accept to be subordinate [to the Sunnis] after they see fellow Shiites in control in Iraq in addition to Iran.  (my emphasis)

In (Sunni) Egypt, Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif warns that Iraq could plunge into a civil war, while former foreign minister Ahmed Maher cast doubts on the real motives for the elections:

What is suspicious is the insistence of the American and Iraqi authorities to hold the elections within the timescale.  This arouses fear and doubt over the real intentions of the supporters of the vote.  Elections which...impose the domination of the majority, some of whom are bent on vengeance, could have destructive consequences that extend throughout the region.

These fears are not confined to the Muslim world, but exist in Washington, as well.  As Fouad Ajami wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Wednesday:

The power of the Arabist view lingers in the State Department and in the ranks of the CIA which retain a basic sympathy for the Sunni order.

We see these sympathies in the CIA's support for Ayad Allawi, who--not to overlook the incredible bravery of the man (Shia-born, we should note)--halted the de-Baathification program in Iraq and attempted to bring Baathists into the government, resulting, some argue, in creating a network of insurgent spies and informers within the interim administration.  Nor should we overlook ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheurer's offensive near-idolization of Osama bin Laden ("The Trouble with Hubris”), who seems to be positioning himself as the Sunni-Wahhabi standard-bearer against renascent Shiism.

The State Department also seems to exhibit signs of Shia-phobia.  As an observer in a neo-conservative Washington think-tank recently told me, "They want nothing to do with religion--they don't get it, they don't like to touch it."  After all, it was a Shia theocracy in Iran that burned the diplomatic and foreign intelligence services during the 1979 Khomeini revolution.

Why is this important?  Because the news we receive about Iraq and, in particular, the upcoming elections, passes through many filters, not least of which is the difficult-to-understand Shia-Sunni split.  Officials in both the Middle East and Washington have their allegiances and their biases, which they convey, sometimes unconsciously, to reporters who in turn pass them on to us, often themselves unawares.  But they exist, and they are important.  Ghosts from the Battle of Karbala, fought 14 centuries ago in Iraq, reach to the halls of Washington, the front pages of our daily newspaper, and the television screens of our homes.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(Note:  you can also find this piece on The Adventures of Chester, where I'm double-blogging for the next few days.)

Two more days until Iraqi elections; the voting's already begun in Australia, and, of course, the disloyal opposition is registering their presence, as well.

Meanwhile, you have to admire a people with the ability to alarm kings, sultans, terrorists, military officers, newspaper columnists, CIA officials and State Department panjandrums, not to mention thousands of citizens who once supped at the table of their worst enemy.  I'm talking, of course, about Iraq's Shia population.

Focused as we are on the spread of democracy in the region, we are less attuned to what may be the true revolution in this election.  Numbering some 150 million of Islam's 1.2 billion adherents, the Shia have always suffered minority status in the Muslim ummah.  Only in Iran and tiny Azerbaijan do a Shia majority rule their nation.  But now, thanks to American military might and their own astonishing discipline and maturity, the Party of Ali is poised on the brink of political control of Iraq, the heart of the Muslim Middle East. 

And their neighbors are afraid.  Along with other observers, I've noted earlier ("Our Man in Waziristan") that Sunday's elections will create a "Shia crescent" running from Lebanon into Syria (where Bashar Assad's minority Alawite sect is an off-shoot of Shiism), Iraq, Iran and then hooking around to Bahrain, which lies adjacent to Saudi Arabia--where two million more Shia sit atop the Wahhabi kingdom's richest oil fields.

This fear of rising Shia power lies behind many of the negative comments we read about the upcoming Iraqi elections.  For example, on December 8, King Abdullah of Sunni-dominated Jordan warned that a Shia victory in Iraq would "open us to a whole new set of problems" that may destabilize the (Sunni) Middle East, including (Sunni-Wahhabi) Saudi Arabia. Reporting yesterday, Soraya Nelson and Huda Ahmed of the Knight Ridder news service, quoted a retired Jordanian (Sunni) general "summing up the views of many critics" that the Iraqi elections are "mission impossible...without the acquiescence of the Sunnis."

And here's Qatari academic and political analyst Mohammad al-Misfer, quoted on Wednesday by Agence France Presse: 

[Sunni-dominated Gulf regimes] will not be in a stable situation if the Iraqi elections produce a Shiite leadership, because many Shiites in the region will no longer accept to be subordinate [to the Sunnis] after they see fellow Shiites in control in Iraq in addition to Iran.  (my emphasis)

In (Sunni) Egypt, Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif warns that Iraq could plunge into a civil war, while former foreign minister Ahmed Maher cast doubts on the real motives for the elections:

What is suspicious is the insistence of the American and Iraqi authorities to hold the elections within the timescale.  This arouses fear and doubt over the real intentions of the supporters of the vote.  Elections which...impose the domination of the majority, some of whom are bent on vengeance, could have destructive consequences that extend throughout the region.

These fears are not confined to the Muslim world, but exist in Washington, as well.  As Fouad Ajami wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Wednesday:

The power of the Arabist view lingers in the State Department and in the ranks of the CIA which retain a basic sympathy for the Sunni order.

We see these sympathies in the CIA's support for Ayad Allawi, who--not to overlook the incredible bravery of the man (Shia-born, we should note)--halted the de-Baathification program in Iraq and attempted to bring Baathists into the government, resulting, some argue, in creating a network of insurgent spies and informers within the interim administration.  Nor should we overlook ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheurer's offensive near-idolization of Osama bin Laden ("The Trouble with Hubris”), who seems to be positioning himself as the Sunni-Wahhabi standard-bearer against renascent Shiism.

The State Department also seems to exhibit signs of Shia-phobia.  As an observer in a neo-conservative Washington think-tank recently told me, "They want nothing to do with religion--they don't get it, they don't like to touch it."  After all, it was a Shia theocracy in Iran that burned the diplomatic and foreign intelligence services during the 1979 Khomeini revolution.

Why is this important?  Because the news we receive about Iraq and, in particular, the upcoming elections, passes through many filters, not least of which is the difficult-to-understand Shia-Sunni split.  Officials in both the Middle East and Washington have their allegiances and their biases, which they convey, sometimes unconsciously, to reporters who in turn pass them on to us, often themselves unawares.  But they exist, and they are important.  Ghosts from the Battle of Karbala, fought 14 centuries ago in Iraq, reach to the halls of Washington, the front pages of our daily newspaper, and the television screens of our homes.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For the next couple of days, I will be working on a major article about moderate Islam for American Enterprise magazine, so blogging will be intermittent.  Also, "Fox & Friends" has invited me to appear Monday morning to discuss Iraq's elections--I'll post the time when it's confirmed.   Ashoofak is-sabit, insha'allah.

UPDATE:  For some dual election coverage, check out The Adventures of Chester where I'll be appearing this week-end.  Same posts as here, but they'll enjoy the benefits of Chester's acumen and insight.  Hey, you gotta love a man in uniform!

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the next couple of days, I will be working on a major article about moderate Islam for American Enterprise magazine, so blogging will be intermittent.  Also, "Fox & Friends" has invited me to appear Monday morning to discuss Iraq's elections--I'll post the time when it's confirmed.   Ashoofak is-sabit, insha'allah.

UPDATE:  For some dual election coverage, check out The Adventures of Chester where I'll be appearing this week-end.  Same posts as here, but they'll enjoy the benefits of Chester's acumen and insight.  Hey, you gotta love a man in uniform!

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's Arabic for "hypocrites"--a serious charge in the early days of Islam when people would claim conversion to the faith, only to attempt to subvert the fledgling religion from the "inside."  Today, however, we see a different form of hypocrisy among the Association of Muslim Scholars.  According to Neil MacDonald in today's Financial Times, the Association issued a fatwa urging Sunnis to vote.  Not in the nationwide elections, mind you, but in provincial contests in Kirkuk province.  Or, as MacDonald quotes Mohammad Khalil, a Sunni Arab running for governor,

the Association of Muslim Scholars originally prohibited Sunnis from voting but...voting is now accepted as legitimate just for the provincial council of Kirkuk.

Why just in Kirkuk?  Oil, baby.  Kirkuk province is home to the Baba Gurgur oil fields, one of the richest in Iraq.  With all that money at stake, the Sunni Arabs don't want to be left begging for crumbs when the province's Kurds and Turkomen divvy up the petro-pie. 

So.  Apparently, Sunni Arabs consider elections objectionable under American "occupation" (for more on the Sunnis, see below)--unless you're talking about elections taking place in oil-rich provinces, when suddenly it become every Sunnis'  duty to vote.  Guess the left was right after all:  Iraqi democracy is a sham to secure oil profits.  Just ask the Association of Muslim Scholars. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

That's Arabic for "hypocrites"--a serious charge in the early days of Islam when people would claim conversion to the faith, only to attempt to subvert the fledgling religion from the "inside."  Today, however, we see a different form of hypocrisy among the Association of Muslim Scholars.  According to Neil MacDonald in today's Financial Times, the Association issued a fatwa urging Sunnis to vote.  Not in the nationwide elections, mind you, but in provincial contests in Kirkuk province.  Or, as MacDonald quotes Mohammad Khalil, a Sunni Arab running for governor,

the Association of Muslim Scholars originally prohibited Sunnis from voting but...voting is now accepted as legitimate just for the provincial council of Kirkuk.

Why just in Kirkuk?  Oil, baby.  Kirkuk province is home to the Baba Gurgur oil fields, one of the richest in Iraq.  With all that money at stake, the Sunni Arabs don't want to be left begging for crumbs when the province's Kurds and Turkomen divvy up the petro-pie. 

So.  Apparently, Sunni Arabs consider elections objectionable under American "occupation" (for more on the Sunnis, see below)--unless you're talking about elections taking place in oil-rich provinces, when suddenly it become every Sunnis'  duty to vote.  Guess the left was right after all:  Iraqi democracy is a sham to secure oil profits.  Just ask the Association of Muslim Scholars. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Certainly because we withdrew from the elections, that doesn't mean we won't be part of the drafting of the constitution.  The elections are one matter:  the constitution is another...All the Sunnis must take part in drafting the constitution.

-- Sheik Ibrahim al-Adhami, senior member of the Muslim Scholars Association

(Edward Wong, New York Times)

And there you have it, coming on the heels of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's declaration of "fierce war" against democracy:  the beginnings of an open split between the leaders of the Iraqi paramilitaries and the foreign jihadists.  The first have suddenly awoke to the fact that the Shia-Kurdish Democracy Train is indeed leaving the station and that Sunnis will have to get on board at a later stop; the second want to destroy the engine, tracks and passengers just as surely as their allies slaughtered hundreds in the stations of Madrid.  Both wings of Islamofascism realize they face a more potent threat than even the U.S. military:  a democratic constitution.  And one side is buckling.

Wong reports that this talk of participating in the political process does not emanate from leaders of the "Sunni-dominated insurgency," but rather

powerful clerics [who] have considerable influence with the guerrillas and could act as a bridge between the new government...and the insurgency.

Fine.  Good.  But let us not forget what these "powerful clerics" and their "insurgent" allies have wreaked upon the people of Iraq and our soldiers.  And let us note what their ridiculous distinction between "elections" and "constitutions" reveals:  the political and moral bankruptcy of the so-called "resistance."  And let us brand them, the "guerrillas" and all who support them either by deeds or words as history surely will:  despicable.

Would the Viet Cong have so readily abandoned their struggle and leaped into constitutional talks with the Saigon regime?  Would the FLN have stopped fighting the French colonialists and entered into a power-sharing agreement?  Never--because their objectives were fundamentally at odds with their enemies'.  But what do the Sunni "insurgents" stand for?  What is their economic policy, their education plan, their vision for the future?  What do they propose to replace the American-led liberation of their country?  I was in Ramadi, Falluja, Tikrit; I asked people these questions.  Their answer?  "Saddam."

By this time, Saddam was in custody, awaiting the war crimes tribunal that will most condemn him to death.  The inhabitants of the Sunni Triangle knew this full well:  for them "Saddam" was not a man, but a symbol of the patronage machine that rewarded their families, tribes and clans with jobs, money, prestige--even irrigation water from the Euphrates River.  "Saddam" represented their tribal supremacy over the Shia and Kurds--populations imprisoned, beaten, executed and when that wasn't enough, gassed into submission. "Saddam" embodied their own pride and self-esteem--lost, obliterated, stripped away in a pitifully few number of weeks by the American military machine.  How would these suddenly-diminished Sunni Arabs regain the honor, the patriarchal "face" they deem necessary to act in the world?  By killing those who shamed them:  Americans, and their Iraqi allies.

No, no, apologists for the Islamofascists protest:  the Sunnis fight to free themselves from foreign "occupation!"  Really?  Think for a moment what would happen if America were to do as the Sunnis claim they wish:  withdraw from Iraq.  Into the vacuum would pour Shia and Kurdish militias, eager to avenge decades of oppression and the death of hundreds of thousands of their kinsmen--and the continuing violence the Sunni "insurgents" inflict upon their people  Shia and Kurdish memories are long and they are drenched in blood.  The Sunni's make up 20 percent of the population.  Who would win? 

This fundamental fact is missed by all who blame the U.S. for the "insurgent" violence:  the Americans stand between the Sunnis and the militias of those whom they oppressed for decades.  Or, to put it another--bleaker--way:  it is the American presence that protects the Sunnis, even as it allows them to attack and kill our troops.  This is tribal warfare at its most tragic, most pointless, most nihilistic.  The Sunni leadership brought it on and they have maintained it for no rational or legitimate purpose.  And now, when the end is apparent and the futility of the cause is upon them--they want a place at the constitutional table.

And they will get one.  They should get one. The majority of Sunni Arabs may not love America or even support the newly-elected government, but they do not wish to condemn themselves to a Palestinian-like hell of perpetual violence.  They want peace, they want democracy.  They want a united Iraq.  And their "leaders" are listening.   

But will these Sunni clerics and tribal sheiks ever be held accountable for their obscene and criminal "insurgency?" Probably not.  For all their suffering--perhaps because of their suffering--the Iraqis have a kind of tragic maturity.  Rivers of blood have flown too deep and wide in their land; they know that more death, more excuses for revenge, will not move them to a better, safer place.

But we, who do live in a better, safer place, should not forget, either.  I'm thinking here of the Michael Moores and Ted Ralls of our society--those who profess to care so much about our troops, yet do their best to legitimize the nihilistic gunmen who seek to murder them.  Let us remember those who supported--and continue to support--the fascists as they went about torturing, murdering, lynching people like Margaret Hassan, Hadi Saleh and thousands of other innocents.  Let us remember those who did nothing as a nation trying to build a democracy bore assaults that are equivalent to a 9-11 attack per week.  And let us ask them on the eve of elections in Iraq:  if you do not support democracy here, now--when and where will you support it?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Certainly because we withdrew from the elections, that doesn't mean we won't be part of the drafting of the constitution.  The elections are one matter:  the constitution is another...All the Sunnis must take part in drafting the constitution.

-- Sheik Ibrahim al-Adhami, senior member of the Muslim Scholars Association

(Edward Wong, New York Times)

And there you have it, coming on the heels of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's declaration of "fierce war" against democracy:  the beginnings of an open split between the leaders of the Iraqi paramilitaries and the foreign jihadists.  The first have suddenly awoke to the fact that the Shia-Kurdish Democracy Train is indeed leaving the station and that Sunnis will have to get on board at a later stop; the second want to destroy the engine, tracks and passengers just as surely as their allies slaughtered hundreds in the stations of Madrid.  Both wings of Islamofascism realize they face a more potent threat than even the U.S. military:  a democratic constitution.  And one side is buckling.

Wong reports that this talk of participating in the political process does not emanate from leaders of the "Sunni-dominated insurgency," but rather

powerful clerics [who] have considerable influence with the guerrillas and could act as a bridge between the new government...and the insurgency.

Fine.  Good.  But let us not forget what these "powerful clerics" and their "insurgent" allies have wreaked upon the people of Iraq and our soldiers.  And let us note what their ridiculous distinction between "elections" and "constitutions" reveals:  the political and moral bankruptcy of the so-called "resistance."  And let us brand them, the "guerrillas" and all who support them either by deeds or words as history surely will:  despicable.

Would the Viet Cong have so readily abandoned their struggle and leaped into constitutional talks with the Saigon regime?  Would the FLN have stopped fighting the French colonialists and entered into a power-sharing agreement?  Never--because their objectives were fundamentally at odds with their enemies'.  But what do the Sunni "insurgents" stand for?  What is their economic policy, their education plan, their vision for the future?  What do they propose to replace the American-led liberation of their country?  I was in Ramadi, Falluja, Tikrit; I asked people these questions.  Their answer?  "Saddam."

By this time, Saddam was in custody, awaiting the war crimes tribunal that will most condemn him to death.  The inhabitants of the Sunni Triangle knew this full well:  for them "Saddam" was not a man, but a symbol of the patronage machine that rewarded their families, tribes and clans with jobs, money, prestige--even irrigation water from the Euphrates River.  "Saddam" represented their tribal supremacy over the Shia and Kurds--populations imprisoned, beaten, executed and when that wasn't enough, gassed into submission. "Saddam" embodied their own pride and self-esteem--lost, obliterated, stripped away in a pitifully few number of weeks by the American military machine.  How would these suddenly-diminished Sunni Arabs regain the honor, the patriarchal "face" they deem necessary to act in the world?  By killing those who shamed them:  Americans, and their Iraqi allies.

No, no, apologists for the Islamofascists protest:  the Sunnis fight to free themselves from foreign "occupation!"  Really?  Think for a moment what would happen if America were to do as the Sunnis claim they wish:  withdraw from Iraq.  Into the vacuum would pour Shia and Kurdish militias, eager to avenge decades of oppression and the death of hundreds of thousands of their kinsmen--and the continuing violence the Sunni "insurgents" inflict upon their people  Shia and Kurdish memories are long and they are drenched in blood.  The Sunni's make up 20 percent of the population.  Who would win? 

This fundamental fact is missed by all who blame the U.S. for the "insurgent" violence:  the Americans stand between the Sunnis and the militias of those whom they oppressed for decades.  Or, to put it another--bleaker--way:  it is the American presence that protects the Sunnis, even as it allows them to attack and kill our troops.  This is tribal warfare at its most tragic, most pointless, most nihilistic.  The Sunni leadership brought it on and they have maintained it for no rational or legitimate purpose.  And now, when the end is apparent and the futility of the cause is upon them--they want a place at the constitutional table.

And they will get one.  They should get one. The majority of Sunni Arabs may not love America or even support the newly-elected government, but they do not wish to condemn themselves to a Palestinian-like hell of perpetual violence.  They want peace, they want democracy.  They want a united Iraq.  And their "leaders" are listening.   

But will these Sunni clerics and tribal sheiks ever be held accountable for their obscene and criminal "insurgency?" Probably not.  For all their suffering--perhaps because of their suffering--the Iraqis have a kind of tragic maturity.  Rivers of blood have flown too deep and wide in their land; they know that more death, more excuses for revenge, will not move them to a better, safer place.

But we, who do live in a better, safer place, should not forget, either.  I'm thinking here of the Michael Moores and Ted Ralls of our society--those who profess to care so much about our troops, yet do their best to legitimize the nihilistic gunmen who seek to murder them.  Let us remember those who supported--and continue to support--the fascists as they went about torturing, murdering, lynching people like Margaret Hassan, Hadi Saleh and thousands of other innocents.  Let us remember those who did nothing as a nation trying to build a democracy bore assaults that are equivalent to a 9-11 attack per week.  And let us ask them on the eve of elections in Iraq:  if you do not support democracy here, now--when and where will you support it?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There will be no turbans in the government.

--  Adnan Ali, senior leader of the Shia Dawa Party

(Dexter Filkins, New York Times)

It's a question of luck.   A small group of [terrorists] can't target all the voting stations.  I'm going because [Ayatollah] Al-Sistani said that whoever doesn't vote is going to hell.  If the station I'm voting at is attacked then, God willing, I'll die a martyr.

--  Baghdad resident Haider Al-Maliki

(Nermeen Al-Mufti, Al-Ahram Weekly)

[T]he Iraqis do not feel that these elections will lead to the fulfillment of their main demand, which is the end of the U.S. occupation.  They simply do not see a light at the end of the dark tunnel.

-- Harith Al-Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Associations, a Sunni group opposed to holding the elections on January 30. 

Unfortunately, Mohammad Al-Anwar, who interviewed Al-Dhari for the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Weekly failed to ask the obvious follow-up questions:  If the Sunnis' main demand is the departure of U.S. troops, why do so many support the "insurgency?"  Why not simply help form a democratic government and ask American forces to leave?  The Sunni leadership, such as it is, has no answer to these questions--for their true goal in their fascist counter-insurgency is to reclaim lost honor and the perquisites of power by re-instating a dictatorial Baath regime.  But that hardly makes good copy, especially when compared to Shia like Al-Maliki, does it?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There will be no turbans in the government.

--  Adnan Ali, senior leader of the Shia Dawa Party

(Dexter Filkins, New York Times)

It's a question of luck.   A small group of [terrorists] can't target all the voting stations.  I'm going because [Ayatollah] Al-Sistani said that whoever doesn't vote is going to hell.  If the station I'm voting at is attacked then, God willing, I'll die a martyr.

--  Baghdad resident Haider Al-Maliki

(Nermeen Al-Mufti, Al-Ahram Weekly)

[T]he Iraqis do not feel that these elections will lead to the fulfillment of their main demand, which is the end of the U.S. occupation.  They simply do not see a light at the end of the dark tunnel.

-- Harith Al-Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Associations, a Sunni group opposed to holding the elections on January 30. 

Unfortunately, Mohammad Al-Anwar, who interviewed Al-Dhari for the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Weekly failed to ask the obvious follow-up questions:  If the Sunnis' main demand is the departure of U.S. troops, why do so many support the "insurgency?"  Why not simply help form a democratic government and ask American forces to leave?  The Sunni leadership, such as it is, has no answer to these questions--for their true goal in their fascist counter-insurgency is to reclaim lost honor and the perquisites of power by re-instating a dictatorial Baath regime.  But that hardly makes good copy, especially when compared to Shia like Al-Maliki, does it?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dunno what predicament Desperate Housewives' Terri Hatcher has got herself in here, but I do know that this image from an early episode contains at least two elements that supposedly did not sit well with the Prophet Mohammad:  dogs and women who aren't swaddled in clothing.  What's the connection between Islam's founder and ABC's hit TV show?  Nothing--unless you're a puritanical-minded British Muslim. 

According to Agence France-Presse, (credit: Chrenkoff) a Birmingham-based group calling itself Muslims Against Advertising (MAAD) have taken to defacing "ads for perfume, hair dye, bras and television programs"--including a poster for Desperate Housewives which apparently showed "two scantily-clad actresses."  MAAD, the article continues,

gives an index of defaced ads in the city, including Levis, Wonderbra, PaddyPower, a radio station and a strip club.

The group said on its website that it believed in "direct action" and "has paint and isn't afraid to use it ... there is no longer any need to cringe as you walk past a sleazy poster, well improve it".

Interesting use of the word "cringe."  In any case, the campaign, which has also defaced ads in Glasgow, Bradford and Luton, has had some success:  advertisers are now placing "few such billboards close to mosques."

Is this a problem?  Many of us, I wager, possess no love for inane, exploitative and generally insulting billboard advertising.  And yes, there are Christian groups which also object to licentious imagery--just try to buy a Playboy at a 7-11.  But let's not excuse the cultural critics of MAAD just yet.  As I argued in an earlier post discussing a plot by radical Muslims in Amsterdam to blow up the city's Red Light district (as well as the Dutch Parliament--interesting combination) there is a worrisome trajectory to Islamic ire.  The standard definition of jihad is to defend Islam from attack, based largely on this Koranic verse:

Permission to take up arms is hereby given to those who are attacked, because they have been wronged. (22:39)

Increasingly, it seems, Muslims' sense of being "wronged" is expanding into areas which have no direct connection with Islam.  Or, as I wrote last December,

it matters not if an outrage perpetrated by unbelievers has a connection with Islam at all--if some local mutawwa'in find it offends their morality, it deserves destruction.  Logically, this potential jihad-list can now include anything that Western cultures do that affronts Muslim sensibilities--which is another way of saying just about anything we do.  Drink alcohol?  Walk about with your "finery" exposed?  Fly the American flag?  Watch Desperate Housewives? 

And here I thought I was exaggerating to make a point.  On the other hand, radical Islam had its own long-running version of Desperate Housewives, directed and produced by Afghanistan's Taliban regime.  It was canceled in 2002.

UPDATE:  Far less amusing is this London Times Online report about Brit Muslims boycotting Holocaust remembrances.  (credit:  Andrew Sullivan)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dunno what predicament Desperate Housewives' Terri Hatcher has got herself in here, but I do know that this image from an early episode contains at least two elements that supposedly did not sit well with the Prophet Mohammad:  dogs and women who aren't swaddled in clothing.  What's the connection between Islam's founder and ABC's hit TV show?  Nothing--unless you're a puritanical-minded British Muslim. 

According to Agence France-Presse, (credit: Chrenkoff) a Birmingham-based group calling itself Muslims Against Advertising (MAAD) have taken to defacing "ads for perfume, hair dye, bras and television programs"--including a poster for Desperate Housewives which apparently showed "two scantily-clad actresses."  MAAD, the article continues,

gives an index of defaced ads in the city, including Levis, Wonderbra, PaddyPower, a radio station and a strip club.

The group said on its website that it believed in "direct action" and "has paint and isn't afraid to use it ... there is no longer any need to cringe as you walk past a sleazy poster, well improve it".

Interesting use of the word "cringe."  In any case, the campaign, which has also defaced ads in Glasgow, Bradford and Luton, has had some success:  advertisers are now placing "few such billboards close to mosques."

Is this a problem?  Many of us, I wager, possess no love for inane, exploitative and generally insulting billboard advertising.  And yes, there are Christian groups which also object to licentious imagery--just try to buy a Playboy at a 7-11.  But let's not excuse the cultural critics of MAAD just yet.  As I argued in an earlier post discussing a plot by radical Muslims in Amsterdam to blow up the city's Red Light district (as well as the Dutch Parliament--interesting combination) there is a worrisome trajectory to Islamic ire.  The standard definition of jihad is to defend Islam from attack, based largely on this Koranic verse:

Permission to take up arms is hereby given to those who are attacked, because they have been wronged. (22:39)

Increasingly, it seems, Muslims' sense of being "wronged" is expanding into areas which have no direct connection with Islam.  Or, as I wrote last December,

it matters not if an outrage perpetrated by unbelievers has a connection with Islam at all--if some local mutawwa'in find it offends their morality, it deserves destruction.  Logically, this potential jihad-list can now include anything that Western cultures do that affronts Muslim sensibilities--which is another way of saying just about anything we do.  Drink alcohol?  Walk about with your "finery" exposed?  Fly the American flag?  Watch Desperate Housewives? 

And here I thought I was exaggerating to make a point.  On the other hand, radical Islam had its own long-running version of Desperate Housewives, directed and produced by Afghanistan's Taliban regime.  It was canceled in 2002.

UPDATE:  Far less amusing is this London Times Online report about Brit Muslims boycotting Holocaust remembrances.  (credit:  Andrew Sullivan)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The dispute between Ahmad Chalabi, Iraqi defense minister Hazim Shaalan and a missing $300 million (see "Death of a Whistle Blower" below) took another strange and thoroughly Iraqi-style turn yesterday, as reported by the New York Sun's Eli Lake (no web link). 

According to Lake, Al-Hayat reported that the Central Bank of Iraq has taken back $200 million of the money Shaalan apparently deposited in a Lebanese bank.  Meanwhile, a spokesman for the United Iraqi Alliance--the slate expected to win a majority of seats on January 30--will look into embezzlement charges against the defense minister. 

Meanwhile, mysteries surrounding the death of American arms dealer Dale Stoffel--who may have been murdered for complaining about graft in the Iraqi defense ministry--remain.

So let's review.  In mid-January, Chalabi--a leading candidate on the United Iraq Alliance ticket--accuses Shaalan of corruption involving a $300 million deal to purchase equipment for the Iraqi army.  On January 21, Shaalan responds by threatening Chalabi's arrest for defaming his reputation.  Interestingly, Shaalan, a figure accused of having served with Saddam's intelligence service, levels his threat against Chalabi on Al-Jazeera--otherwise known as Air bin Laden--from Amman, Jordan--a favorite hangout for ex-Baathists and Saddamite officials.  Almost immediately, Iraqi president, and Shaalan ally, Ghazi al-Yawar denied the government planned to arrest Chalabi.

According to the Sun's editorial page, a month ago, Shaalan and Prime Minister Ayad Allawi urged Bush to delay the elections.  When Bush refused, "Shaalan threatened to arrest those who are poised to defeat him with the ballot"--among whom, it seems, is Chalabi.

One of the background issues here is the de- (or re-) Baathification of the Iraqi government.  a frequent complaint of neo-cons like Reuben Marc Gerecht about Allawi is that his "overtures" to the Baath party only "emboldened the Sunni insurgents in the field" and "introduced into the fledgling Iraqi government Baathist and Sunni fundamentalist moles."  By contrast, Chalabi once headed up Iraq's De-Baathification Commission, and was instrumental in convincing Washington to disband the Baath-infested Iraqi army (a correct decision, in my estimation).  Complicating Chalabi's role, however, is the U.S. accusation that he--and his security chief Abas Habib--are, or have been, in the pay of the Iran. 

Meanwhile, there is Stoffel.  As we recall, the American arms dealer was in Iraq to purchase weapons for the Iraqi military.  In a letter to U.S. officials dated December 3, he complained of graft among Iraqi Defense Ministry officials and of "problems" with a "Lebanese businessman" acting as a go-between.  On December 8, a previously unknown group calling itself Brigades of the Islamic Jihad ambushed and killed Stoffel and another American.  Now, however, some investigators believe the murderers may have wanted their actions to appear like a terrorist attack in order to hide their real--but so far undisclosed--motive for killing Stoffel.

So let's review:

On December 3, Stoffel--an arms dealer with extensive experience in Eastern Europe--complains of graft among Defense Ministry officials involved a multi-million dollar weapons deal.  On December 8 he is murdered under mysterious circumstances.

On January 22, one day after the Los Angeles Times breaks the story about investigations into Stoffel's murder, the New York Times reveals that earlier this month Shaalan transferred $300 million dollars to a Lebanese bank supposedly to buy equipment from Eastern European sources.  Chalabi then accuses the Defense Minister of graft--echoing Stoffel's charges weeks before.

The Sun, which expresses a neo-con dislike for Allawi and his allies (as opposed to the "realists" among the CIA and State Department), excoriates the Bush Administration over the Shaalan affair. 

The fact that large sums of money are now going missing from Iraq's treasury before these elections is part of an intelligence failure of a higher order of magnitude than anything yet investigated by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.   Did the president's best and brightest advisers choose thugs and thieves to steer Iraq from occupation to democracy?

Perhaps Dale Stoffel had an answer to this question.  Let us urge further investigation into his death.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 04:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The dispute between Ahmad Chalabi, Iraqi defense minister Hazim Shaalan and a missing $300 million (see "Death of a Whistle Blower" below) took another strange and thoroughly Iraqi-style turn yesterday, as reported by the New York Sun's Eli Lake (no web link). 

According to Lake, Al-Hayat reported that the Central Bank of Iraq has taken back $200 million of the money Shaalan apparently deposited in a Lebanese bank.  Meanwhile, a spokesman for the United Iraqi Alliance--the slate expected to win a majority of seats on January 30--will look into embezzlement charges against the defense minister. 

Meanwhile, mysteries surrounding the death of American arms dealer Dale Stoffel--who may have been murdered for complaining about graft in the Iraqi defense ministry--remain.

So let's review.  In mid-January, Chalabi--a leading candidate on the United Iraq Alliance ticket--accuses Shaalan of corruption involving a $300 million deal to purchase equipment for the Iraqi army.  On January 21, Shaalan responds by threatening Chalabi's arrest for defaming his reputation.  Interestingly, Shaalan, a figure accused of having served with Saddam's intelligence service, levels his threat against Chalabi on Al-Jazeera--otherwise known as Air bin Laden--from Amman, Jordan--a favorite hangout for ex-Baathists and Saddamite officials.  Almost immediately, Iraqi president, and Shaalan ally, Ghazi al-Yawar denied the government planned to arrest Chalabi.

According to the Sun's editorial page, a month ago, Shaalan and Prime Minister Ayad Allawi urged Bush to delay the elections.  When Bush refused, "Shaalan threatened to arrest those who are poised to defeat him with the ballot"--among whom, it seems, is Chalabi.

One of the background issues here is the de- (or re-) Baathification of the Iraqi government.  a frequent complaint of neo-cons like Reuben Marc Gerecht about Allawi is that his "overtures" to the Baath party only "emboldened the Sunni insurgents in the field" and "introduced into the fledgling Iraqi government Baathist and Sunni fundamentalist moles."  By contrast, Chalabi once headed up Iraq's De-Baathification Commission, and was instrumental in convincing Washington to disband the Baath-infested Iraqi army (a correct decision, in my estimation).  Complicating Chalabi's role, however, is the U.S. accusation that he--and his security chief Abas Habib--are, or have been, in the pay of the Iran. 

Meanwhile, there is Stoffel.  As we recall, the American arms dealer was in Iraq to purchase weapons for the Iraqi military.  In a letter to U.S. officials dated December 3, he complained of graft among Iraqi Defense Ministry officials and of "problems" with a "Lebanese businessman" acting as a go-between.  On December 8, a previously unknown group calling itself Brigades of the Islamic Jihad ambushed and killed Stoffel and another American.  Now, however, some investigators believe the murderers may have wanted their actions to appear like a terrorist attack in order to hide their real--but so far undisclosed--motive for killing Stoffel.

So let's review:

On December 3, Stoffel--an arms dealer with extensive experience in Eastern Europe--complains of graft among Defense Ministry officials involved a multi-million dollar weapons deal.  On December 8 he is murdered under mysterious circumstances.

On January 22, one day after the Los Angeles Times breaks the story about investigations into Stoffel's murder, the New York Times reveals that earlier this month Shaalan transferred $300 million dollars to a Lebanese bank supposedly to buy equipment from Eastern European sources.  Chalabi then accuses the Defense Minister of graft--echoing Stoffel's charges weeks before.

The Sun, which expresses a neo-con dislike for Allawi and his allies (as opposed to the "realists" among the CIA and State Department), excoriates the Bush Administration over the Shaalan affair. 

The fact that large sums of money are now going missing from Iraq's treasury before these elections is part of an intelligence failure of a higher order of magnitude than anything yet investigated by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.   Did the president's best and brightest advisers choose thugs and thieves to steer Iraq from occupation to democracy?

Perhaps Dale Stoffel had an answer to this question.  Let us urge further investigation into his death.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 04:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe you saw it on television, but it bears repeating nonetheless.  ABC's poll of 1,300 Iraqis in over 20 cities and towns revealed some surprisingly good news.  You can read a report on the survey here, but one passage in particular bears quoting:

Perhaps the most remarkable finding is a positive one:  Iraqis are hopeful and optimistic despite the profound difficulties they face in their daily lives.  The surveys and the anecdotal interviews are filled with example of people who told us "We feel less safe," "We have less money," "We have less electricity," etc.--and then closed by saying, "We believe our lives are getting better."

Optimists and pessimists alike seem to hold out hope for the elections.  Nationwide, more than three-quarters of our respondents said (a) they plan to vote and (b) they believe in democracy.  Jan. 30 is seen as a watershed--even by those who say they intend to boycott the vote.  One is certainly left with the impression that people will be less likely to tolerate problems after the election.

And that's what democracy is all about, right?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe you saw it on television, but it bears repeating nonetheless.  ABC's poll of 1,300 Iraqis in over 20 cities and towns revealed some surprisingly good news.  You can read a report on the survey here, but one passage in particular bears quoting:

Perhaps the most remarkable finding is a positive one:  Iraqis are hopeful and optimistic despite the profound difficulties they face in their daily lives.  The surveys and the anecdotal interviews are filled with example of people who told us "We feel less safe," "We have less money," "We have less electricity," etc.--and then closed by saying, "We believe our lives are getting better."

Optimists and pessimists alike seem to hold out hope for the elections.  Nationwide, more than three-quarters of our respondents said (a) they plan to vote and (b) they believe in democracy.  Jan. 30 is seen as a watershed--even by those who say they intend to boycott the vote.  One is certainly left with the impression that people will be less likely to tolerate problems after the election.

And that's what democracy is all about, right?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

No, this rumor won't go away, either.  Also, check out Z-Man's mug--he looks a lot less formidable here than in that grainy black and white headshot the media always uses.  It's just a suggestion, but perhaps we should be trying to dispell the mystique of this murderer.  (Where's Spike Jones when we need him?)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

No, this rumor won't go away, either.  Also, check out Z-Man's mug--he looks a lot less formidable here than in that grainy black and white headshot the media always uses.  It's just a suggestion, but perhaps we should be trying to dispell the mystique of this murderer.  (Where's Spike Jones when we need him?)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My piece about the war in Iraq and the struggle for civil rights is up on NRO today.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My piece about the war in Iraq and the struggle for civil rights is up on NRO today.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology. 

-- Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Used to be, only the bad guys in melodramatic fiction justified their malevolence in the name of "evil"--as when the cackling supervillain waves his clenched fist and shouts, "Now, let evil reign!"  And yet, Osama's man in Iraq has essentially done just that, announcing that he and his followers fight to prevent the "evil principle" of democracy from taking root in Iraq--a position so extreme and illiberal that even leftist critics of the war may feel compelled to re-examine their position.  If not their consciences.

And indeed, that reappraisal may in fact be happening, especially in light of Iraqi labor leader Hadi Salih's brutal murder earlier this month.  (See "Wrong Left Turns" below).  Here's Andrew Grice of U.K.'s Independent, hardly a bastion of neo-conservative ideology, quoting Labor MP Harry Barnes:

I was very proud to support the Stop the War Coalition but its leadership has now degenerated into an unrepresentative and totalitarian rump.  For me, the war was wrong but we just have to recognise that things have changed and now give increased and active solidarity to all those forces within Iraq who are desperately trying to rebuild civil society, make the elections work, preserve the unity of their country and see the withdrawal of foreign troops.

This, of course, is excellent news.  The Iraqis need the support of the progressive elements of both the Left and the Right to help make their democracy work. 

Speaking of Zarqawi, has he been captured?  Rumors have circulated for weeks, and they don't seem to be going away.  January Surprise, anyone?

(For more on the "Z-Man's" Cobra Commander imitation, with various and sundry links to other commentators, see Austin Bay.)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology. 

-- Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Used to be, only the bad guys in melodramatic fiction justified their malevolence in the name of "evil"--as when the cackling supervillain waves his clenched fist and shouts, "Now, let evil reign!"  And yet, Osama's man in Iraq has essentially done just that, announcing that he and his followers fight to prevent the "evil principle" of democracy from taking root in Iraq--a position so extreme and illiberal that even leftist critics of the war may feel compelled to re-examine their position.  If not their consciences.

And indeed, that reappraisal may in fact be happening, especially in light of Iraqi labor leader Hadi Salih's brutal murder earlier this month.  (See "Wrong Left Turns" below).  Here's Andrew Grice of U.K.'s Independent, hardly a bastion of neo-conservative ideology, quoting Labor MP Harry Barnes:

I was very proud to support the Stop the War Coalition but its leadership has now degenerated into an unrepresentative and totalitarian rump.  For me, the war was wrong but we just have to recognise that things have changed and now give increased and active solidarity to all those forces within Iraq who are desperately trying to rebuild civil society, make the elections work, preserve the unity of their country and see the withdrawal of foreign troops.

This, of course, is excellent news.  The Iraqis need the support of the progressive elements of both the Left and the Right to help make their democracy work. 

Speaking of Zarqawi, has he been captured?  Rumors have circulated for weeks, and they don't seem to be going away.  January Surprise, anyone?

(For more on the "Z-Man's" Cobra Commander imitation, with various and sundry links to other commentators, see Austin Bay.)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BUSH PROCLAIMS THE FIRE OF FREEDOM

-- Headline, New York Sun, January 21-21, 2005

[O]ne day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of the world.

-- President George W. Bush, January 20, 2005

What follows is a short letter from a dear friend in Baghdad named Esam.  Esam is a phenomenon you often encounter in Iraq:  the polymath.  Tall, bearded, with onyx-black eyes (he looks a bit like a Mesopotamian king of old), the twentysomething is a painter and national judo champion who speaks at least four languages.  He also served the U.S. in the highly dangerous job of military translator.  (Despite that fact, he can't get a visa to travel to America.)  During the time we hung out together in Baghdad, Esam possessed a cocky sang-froid and irrepressible air of self-confidence.  For that reason, his report from Iraq's capital city is particularly distressing.    [Note:  for another take on Iraq, check out my friend Nasir Hasan's essay on Frontpage Magazine.]

Steven, you ask about life in Baghdad these days.  Well, as you know, I have lived all my life in this city, watching it closely from the inside (I do wish I may someday have the chance to see how it looks from the outside for a change.)  Before, no one cared how Baghdad was doing--not until my beautiful city turned into a trap where people are killed and soldiers fight every day... 

...I don't care what journalists say or what is happening in the "Green Zone" (which is now called the "International Zone").  I don't care about names, governments and official statements.  I only know about what I am facing here and now. 

You want to know about my days?  My studio is freezing cold as I am writing these lines.  Now, it's 11:30 pm.  The electricity is off.  It has never been good over the last 15 years.  No day went by without a cut-off now and then.  There were a few days--no more than four or five, I can barely remember--when we got 24 hours of electricity.  We got used to doing without the basic necessities that everyone enjoys.  You Americans are confident that no one can put you into the frozen darkness--and if it did happen, you would complain and someone would do something.  For us, though, we could never complain because in the days of Saddam you could never talk.  Today, however, you can cry your lungs out, but nobody listens.

Actually, it was a bit better today, because we received two hours of electricity for every four hours of darkness.  And this is better than the last few weeks, when we only got an hour and half of electricity, which went off at 10:30...

My room feels like a cold prison.  I look through the window and everything sinks into darkness.  Only a few houses have generators, you can see dim light through their windows.  But the loud sound of the generator engines drives me crazy.  The streets are empty now.  The curfew starts at 10:00 pm.  That's an hour ago.  I still have some gas left to feed my gas lamp, but I can't use it for my gas heater because it expends too much fuel, more than I have saved.  I have an electric heater, but it can do nothing.  The water is not good either.  In the morning, the water pump cannot bring the water up to the second floor.  So when I want to fill the tank or take a bath, I have to wait till after midnight when the electricity comes back on so I can turn on my water pump.

So--no lights...so cold.  No music...noises of generators and fighting jets and tanks fill the air.  I feel like a homeless man with my many blankets I cover myself with in the night so I can stay warm when I sleep.  In the streets of Baghdad I see many smiling faces as I walk.  But they are on buildings and walls where they put up huge posters of people smiling happily, wearing nice clothes, clean, bright colors.  And underneath that, there are promising words and slogans of brilliant life and a great future.  And if you look further down you see real people in the streets.  They have no smiles, no bright colors, only a frightened look in their eyes.  I would smile if I got the electricity that the people in posters get, and have my clothes well-ironed like theirs.  And then, when I reach that brilliant future, I would smile, too. 

But until then, I am just going to keep the grim look on my face until further notice.  After all, I am good at it.  I have been using it ever since I opened my eyes as a child and found out that I live in Saddam's time.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, of course.  America was to bring peace and democracy to the people of Iraq.  And, God willing, those promises will come true.  Until that day, however, let us pray that some flickers of the "fire of freedom" find their way to the "darkest corners" of Iraqi homes, if only to give the inhabitants some light and heat as they wait for the day, so long deferred, of their deliverance.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 04:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BUSH PROCLAIMS THE FIRE OF FREEDOM

-- Headline, New York Sun, January 21-21, 2005

[O]ne day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of the world.

-- President George W. Bush, January 20, 2005

What follows is a short letter from a dear friend in Baghdad named Esam.  Esam is a phenomenon you often encounter in Iraq:  the polymath.  Tall, bearded, with onyx-black eyes (he looks a bit like a Mesopotamian king of old), the twentysomething is a painter and national judo champion who speaks at least four languages.  He also served the U.S. in the highly dangerous job of military translator.  (Despite that fact, he can't get a visa to travel to America.)  During the time we hung out together in Baghdad, Esam possessed a cocky sang-froid and irrepressible air of self-confidence.  For that reason, his report from Iraq's capital city is particularly distressing.    [Note:  for another take on Iraq, check out my friend Nasir Hasan's essay on Frontpage Magazine.]

Steven, you ask about life in Baghdad these days.  Well, as you know, I have lived all my life in this city, watching it closely from the inside (I do wish I may someday have the chance to see how it looks from the outside for a change.)  Before, no one cared how Baghdad was doing--not until my beautiful city turned into a trap where people are killed and soldiers fight every day... 

...I don't care what journalists say or what is happening in the "Green Zone" (which is now called the "International Zone").  I don't care about names, governments and official statements.  I only know about what I am facing here and now. 

You want to know about my days?  My studio is freezing cold as I am writing these lines.  Now, it's 11:30 pm.  The electricity is off.  It has never been good over the last 15 years.  No day went by without a cut-off now and then.  There were a few days--no more than four or five, I can barely remember--when we got 24 hours of electricity.  We got used to doing without the basic necessities that everyone enjoys.  You Americans are confident that no one can put you into the frozen darkness--and if it did happen, you would complain and someone would do something.  For us, though, we could never complain because in the days of Saddam you could never talk.  Today, however, you can cry your lungs out, but nobody listens.

Actually, it was a bit better today, because we received two hours of electricity for every four hours of darkness.  And this is better than the last few weeks, when we only got an hour and half of electricity, which went off at 10:30...

My room feels like a cold prison.  I look through the window and everything sinks into darkness.  Only a few houses have generators, you can see dim light through their windows.  But the loud sound of the generator engines drives me crazy.  The streets are empty now.  The curfew starts at 10:00 pm.  That's an hour ago.  I still have some gas left to feed my gas lamp, but I can't use it for my gas heater because it expends too much fuel, more than I have saved.  I have an electric heater, but it can do nothing.  The water is not good either.  In the morning, the water pump cannot bring the water up to the second floor.  So when I want to fill the tank or take a bath, I have to wait till after midnight when the electricity comes back on so I can turn on my water pump.

So--no lights...so cold.  No music...noises of generators and fighting jets and tanks fill the air.  I feel like a homeless man with my many blankets I cover myself with in the night so I can stay warm when I sleep.  In the streets of Baghdad I see many smiling faces as I walk.  But they are on buildings and walls where they put up huge posters of people smiling happily, wearing nice clothes, clean, bright colors.  And underneath that, there are promising words and slogans of brilliant life and a great future.  And if you look further down you see real people in the streets.  They have no smiles, no bright colors, only a frightened look in their eyes.  I would smile if I got the electricity that the people in posters get, and have my clothes well-ironed like theirs.  And then, when I reach that brilliant future, I would smile, too. 

But until then, I am just going to keep the grim look on my face until further notice.  After all, I am good at it.  I have been using it ever since I opened my eyes as a child and found out that I live in Saddam's time.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, of course.  America was to bring peace and democracy to the people of Iraq.  And, God willing, those promises will come true.  Until that day, however, let us pray that some flickers of the "fire of freedom" find their way to the "darkest corners" of Iraqi homes, if only to give the inhabitants some light and heat as they wait for the day, so long deferred, of their deliverance.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 04:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 22:  headline and first two grafs of a Guardian story by Ewen MacAskill, Richard Norton-Taylor and Rory McCarthy

US and UK look for early way out of Iraq

Private memos are circulating in Washington, Baghdad and London setting out detailed scenarios for withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq as early as possible, a Foreign Office source said yesterday.

The policy papers have added urgency because a new Iraq government, to be elected next week if the election goes ahead on January 30 as planned, could set a target date for withdrawal.

Well, that's it then.  Game's over.  Reading the insurgents' handwriting on the wall, Bush and Blair obviously realize Iraq's a lost cause--and soon it'll be helicopter time off the roof of the U.S. embassy.   So sorry about the civil war, the fresh mass graves, bin Laden's declaration of Baghdad as the capital of his newly-restored caliphate...

But wait.  As the story progresses we read:

from American Ambassador John Negroponte:  We have not been approached [by Iraqi leaders]  on this issue;

from  Britain's Foreign Office:  Of course we think about leaving Iraq...There are continually plans in Whitehall, Washington and Baghdad to leave when we can..But there is no document saying we will leave in July 2005 or any such date;

from a source in the British defense department:  We are not there by a long chalk; and .

from the writers themselves:  Senior British military figures want to reduce the number of troops in Iraq as quickly as possible.  But they also recognize that substantial numbers are likely to be there well into next year, and possibly longer.

Nor are there any quotes or facts supporting the writers' contention that the U.S. and England are in any "urgent" hurry to withdraw from the country.

Bias is one thing.  But when a story's facts contradict not only its headline (from which most newspaper readers derive their news) but the very premise of the story itself, we are beyond mere journalistic bias and into the realm of journalistic... irresponsibility. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 02:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 22:  headline and first two grafs of a Guardian story by Ewen MacAskill, Richard Norton-Taylor and Rory McCarthy

US and UK look for early way out of Iraq

Private memos are circulating in Washington, Baghdad and London setting out detailed scenarios for withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq as early as possible, a Foreign Office source said yesterday.

The policy papers have added urgency because a new Iraq government, to be elected next week if the election goes ahead on January 30 as planned, could set a target date for withdrawal.

Well, that's it then.  Game's over.  Reading the insurgents' handwriting on the wall, Bush and Blair obviously realize Iraq's a lost cause--and soon it'll be helicopter time off the roof of the U.S. embassy.   So sorry about the civil war, the fresh mass graves, bin Laden's declaration of Baghdad as the capital of his newly-restored caliphate...

But wait.  As the story progresses we read:

from American Ambassador John Negroponte:  We have not been approached [by Iraqi leaders]  on this issue;

from  Britain's Foreign Office:  Of course we think about leaving Iraq...There are continually plans in Whitehall, Washington and Baghdad to leave when we can..But there is no document saying we will leave in July 2005 or any such date;

from a source in the British defense department:  We are not there by a long chalk; and .

from the writers themselves:  Senior British military figures want to reduce the number of troops in Iraq as quickly as possible.  But they also recognize that substantial numbers are likely to be there well into next year, and possibly longer.

Nor are there any quotes or facts supporting the writers' contention that the U.S. and England are in any "urgent" hurry to withdraw from the country.

Bias is one thing.  But when a story's facts contradict not only its headline (from which most newspaper readers derive their news) but the very premise of the story itself, we are beyond mere journalistic bias and into the realm of journalistic... irresponsibility. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 02:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We are strongly standing in the face of this evil plan and any sectarian sedition.

-- Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq speaking to Reuter's Mariam Karouny about Zarqawi's attempts to pitch the Shia and Sunni into civil war.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We are strongly standing in the face of this evil plan and any sectarian sedition.

-- Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq speaking to Reuter's Mariam Karouny about Zarqawi's attempts to pitch the Shia and Sunni into civil war.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Los Angeles Times broke a disturbing story yesterday (and see Update below) that highlights yet another problem facing Iraq's fledgling democracy:  corruption.  As Ken Silverstein, T. Christian Miller and Patrick J. McDonnell write,

An American contractor gunned down last month in Iraq had accused Iraqi Defense Ministry officials of corruption days before his death.

The difficulties apparently involved "payment problems" with a "mysterious Lebanese businessman" who was acting as a middleman. in a mulit-million dollar arms deal  (See update below).

As the article notes, a week after the killings, a video appeared on the internet purportedly from a heretofore unknown terrorist group called Brigades of the Islamic Jihad which showed photographs and identity documents of the slain men.  Reports the Times,

The timing and the unusual details of the killings have raised suspicions in the U.S. and Iraq that the video was a ruse to disguise an assassination.

Stoffel was not your normal businessman.  Apparently he worked in the 1990s on a "top-secret" U.S. project "to buy Russian, Chinese and foreign-made weapons for testing for the U.S. military.  His particular expertise was Eastern Europe and the Ukraine.  For more on his past activites, go here. 

In a tantalizing, but vague, element to the story, the Times reporters write that shortly before his death, Shaw met and corresponded with John A. "Jack" Shaw, then deputy undersecretary of Defense for international technology security, "whose office monitored weapons sales to Iraq."  Evidently, Stoffel warned Shaw about Iraqi "corruption and self-dealing" involved in his contract to refurbish Soviet T-55 tanks and artillery for the new Iraqi army. 

Shaw, you may recall, was one of the loudest voices last October claiming that the Russians had helped transport munitions from the Al-Quaqaa weapons facility into Syria.  In July, 2004, he raised the Pentagon's ire by launching unauthorized and ethically clouded probes into cellphone licensing agreements.  According to the Times' Miller, Shaw--who seems to be something of a loose cannon--claimed that he had

uncovered serious, credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing by U.S. government employees pertaining to taking official acts in exchange for bribes. 

He also claimed to have uncovered a conspiracy by London-based Egyptian tycoon Nadhmi Auchi to take over Iraq's cellphone service (see my post "Iraq, Disconnected").  He himself fell under suspicion of attempting to line his own pockets with cell phone licensing agreements.

In a letter written to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on December 3, 2004--the same day that Stoffel's raised his official warnings about graft--Shaw accused senior Pentagon officials of over $265 million in bribes, missing and misappropriated funds pertaining to Iraq's cellphone service.  According to Shaw's letter, figures involved in the scandal included Douglas Feith, his former law partner Mark Zell, Ahmed Chalabi and others.  On December 10, the Defense Department dismissed Shaw from his position. 

According to the Times a investigation into Stoffel and Wemple's deaths is "ongoing."

Update:  Dexter Filkins in the New York Times reports today that early this month, $US 300 million was withdrawn from Iraq's Central Bank and put on a charter jet for Lebanon.  Apparently, the money was intended for "international arms dealers" to buy "tanks and other weapons" manufactured in Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States.  In short, the very activities that brought Stoffel to Iraq.

The current whereabouts of the money is a mystery, Filkins writes.  He adds that the deal--which involved no public bidding, nor approval by the Iraqi cabinet--may have been set up to avoid financial controls which America established in order to help Iraq's international credit. 

Reverberations have gone to the top of the Iraqi totem-pole.  Last week, Chalabi accused Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim al-Sha'alan of corruption involving the arms deal. Yesterday, al-Shaalan said he would order Chalabi's arrest on charges of "maligning" him and his ministry.

The arms deal was approved by four senior members of the Iraqi government, including Prime Minister Allawi and al-Sha'alan.  The idea, according to Iraqi Defense Ministry officials, was to expedite purchases of armaments to fight the fascist paramilitaries. 

Still, questions remain.  Is Stoffel correct, and Defense Ministery officials are involved in corruption involved in this arms deal?  Was Stoffel cut out of the proceedings, and, after threatening to expose what he knew, assassinated?  Why did he contact Shaw?  What happened to the money?  How corrupt is the new Iraqi government?

Second Update:  January 22:  CNN reports that Iraqi officials are denying that the government will arrest Chalabi, claiming Sha'alan's threat was mere "electioneering."  Also Juan Cole notes bad blood has long existed between Sha'alan and Chalabi, and offers a good run-down on the man Dick Cheney sought to groom for Iraq's Prime Minister.  The matter of the missing $300 million is still unresolved, however, as is Stoffel's murder.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Los Angeles Times broke a disturbing story yesterday (and see Update below) that highlights yet another problem facing Iraq's fledgling democracy:  corruption.  As Ken Silverstein, T. Christian Miller and Patrick J. McDonnell write,

An American contractor gunned down last month in Iraq had accused Iraqi Defense Ministry officials of corruption days before his death.

The difficulties apparently involved "payment problems" with a "mysterious Lebanese businessman" who was acting as a middleman. in a mulit-million dollar arms deal  (See update below).

As the article notes, a week after the killings, a video appeared on the internet purportedly from a heretofore unknown terrorist group called Brigades of the Islamic Jihad which showed photographs and identity documents of the slain men.  Reports the Times,

The timing and the unusual details of the killings have raised suspicions in the U.S. and Iraq that the video was a ruse to disguise an assassination.

Stoffel was not your normal businessman.  Apparently he worked in the 1990s on a "top-secret" U.S. project "to buy Russian, Chinese and foreign-made weapons for testing for the U.S. military.  His particular expertise was Eastern Europe and the Ukraine.  For more on his past activites, go here. 

In a tantalizing, but vague, element to the story, the Times reporters write that shortly before his death, Shaw met and corresponded with John A. "Jack" Shaw, then deputy undersecretary of Defense for international technology security, "whose office monitored weapons sales to Iraq."  Evidently, Stoffel warned Shaw about Iraqi "corruption and self-dealing" involved in his contract to refurbish Soviet T-55 tanks and artillery for the new Iraqi army. 

Shaw, you may recall, was one of the loudest voices last October claiming that the Russians had helped transport munitions from the Al-Quaqaa weapons facility into Syria.  In July, 2004, he raised the Pentagon's ire by launching unauthorized and ethically clouded probes into cellphone licensing agreements.  According to the Times' Miller, Shaw--who seems to be something of a loose cannon--claimed that he had

uncovered serious, credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing by U.S. government employees pertaining to taking official acts in exchange for bribes. 

He also claimed to have uncovered a conspiracy by London-based Egyptian tycoon Nadhmi Auchi to take over Iraq's cellphone service (see my post "Iraq, Disconnected").  He himself fell under suspicion of attempting to line his own pockets with cell phone licensing agreements.

In a letter written to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on December 3, 2004--the same day that Stoffel's raised his official warnings about graft--Shaw accused senior Pentagon officials of over $265 million in bribes, missing and misappropriated funds pertaining to Iraq's cellphone service.  According to Shaw's letter, figures involved in the scandal included Douglas Feith, his former law partner Mark Zell, Ahmed Chalabi and others.  On December 10, the Defense Department dismissed Shaw from his position. 

According to the Times a investigation into Stoffel and Wemple's deaths is "ongoing."

Update:  Dexter Filkins in the New York Times reports today that early this month, $US 300 million was withdrawn from Iraq's Central Bank and put on a charter jet for Lebanon.  Apparently, the money was intended for "international arms dealers" to buy "tanks and other weapons" manufactured in Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States.  In short, the very activities that brought Stoffel to Iraq.

The current whereabouts of the money is a mystery, Filkins writes.  He adds that the deal--which involved no public bidding, nor approval by the Iraqi cabinet--may have been set up to avoid financial controls which America established in order to help Iraq's international credit. 

Reverberations have gone to the top of the Iraqi totem-pole.  Last week, Chalabi accused Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim al-Sha'alan of corruption involving the arms deal. Yesterday, al-Shaalan said he would order Chalabi's arrest on charges of "maligning" him and his ministry.

The arms deal was approved by four senior members of the Iraqi government, including Prime Minister Allawi and al-Sha'alan.  The idea, according to Iraqi Defense Ministry officials, was to expedite purchases of armaments to fight the fascist paramilitaries. 

Still, questions remain.  Is Stoffel correct, and Defense Ministery officials are involved in corruption involved in this arms deal?  Was Stoffel cut out of the proceedings, and, after threatening to expose what he knew, assassinated?  Why did he contact Shaw?  What happened to the money?  How corrupt is the new Iraqi government?

Second Update:  January 22:  CNN reports that Iraqi officials are denying that the government will arrest Chalabi, claiming Sha'alan's threat was mere "electioneering."  Also Juan Cole notes bad blood has long existed between Sha'alan and Chalabi, and offers a good run-down on the man Dick Cheney sought to groom for Iraq's Prime Minister.  The matter of the missing $300 million is still unresolved, however, as is Stoffel's murder.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Iraqi Bloggers Central calls ITRZ "the best general analysis I have read so far."

Posted by Mitchell Muncy at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Iraqi Bloggers Central calls ITRZ "the best general analysis I have read so far."

Posted by Mitchell Muncy at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From President  George W. Bush's Second Inaugural Address.

The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did:  "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."

*

From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.

*

When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now" - they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.   

*

Other voices were heard yesterday, too.  From a communiqué purportedly issued by Al Qaeda executioner, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

Fighters who have taken the path of jihad have to realize the nature and the demands of the battle toward the required goal...This group has to be patient in the path that it has taken and ... not to hurry victory. The promise of God will be fulfilled no matter what.

But back to Washington.  People concerned by the overt religiosity and Crusade-like tones in political discourse would probably find offensive this bit of Presidential rhetoric:

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil. Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen

And yes, I'm cheating here again.  This passage was actually delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt on June 6, 1944, the day of the Allied invasion of Normandy and the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe. 

(thanks to Lane Core)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From President  George W. Bush's Second Inaugural Address.

The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did:  "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."

*

From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.

*

When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now" - they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.   

*

Other voices were heard yesterday, too.  From a communiqué purportedly issued by Al Qaeda executioner, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

Fighters who have taken the path of jihad have to realize the nature and the demands of the battle toward the required goal...This group has to be patient in the path that it has taken and ... not to hurry victory. The promise of God will be fulfilled no matter what.

But back to Washington.  People concerned by the overt religiosity and Crusade-like tones in political discourse would probably find offensive this bit of Presidential rhetoric:

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil. Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen

And yes, I'm cheating here again.  This passage was actually delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt on June 6, 1944, the day of the Allied invasion of Normandy and the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe. 

(thanks to Lane Core)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 20-21: AP headline

Tape Urges Iraqis to Prepare for Struggle

ABC.com added this deck:

Alleged al-Zarqawi Tape Urges Iraqis to Prepare for Struggle; Troops kill Five Suspected Militants

Well, that's certainly clear, right?  A leader is exhorting The People (always good) to prepare themselves for battle against "troops" (ours, of course) who have killed five "suspected" (hmmm, could be civilians) "militants" (neutral term implying legitimate cause).

But the lede sentence Mariam Fam's story contradicts the headline:  "Iraq's most feared terror leader called on his followers to prepare...for a long struggle against the Americans..." (my emphasis).  Hello, AP editors!  There's a huge and lethal difference between Iraqis and Zarqawi's followers.  And while we at it:  Ms. Fam, as you undoubtedly know, Zarqawi is not an Iraqi "terror leader"--he is a Jordanian who is operating in Iraq.  Why does this make a difference?  Because the Iraqis--Shia, Kurds and even many of the criminal ex-Baathists and Saddamites--hate Zarqawi and his tactics of murdering hundreds of innocent civilians. 

In other words, despite the insinuations of the misleading headline, Zarqawi is not calling upon the Iraqi people, but a tiny minority of the population who have dedicated themselves to his nihilistic cause.  How could AP editors use the collective noun Iraqis and thus imply that Zarqawi has a broader base of support than, in fact, he does?  Perhaps someone should lay down their copy of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and look again at this conflict.

Nor is Zarqawi (oh, that rumors of his capture--seen here on Al-Jazeera this month--were true!) rallying his fascist supporters to fight just "the Americans."  As the Jordanian butcher stated in his tape, the Shia are also targets: 

They broke into the safe houses of God.  They defiled them and they hung the photos of their Satan, al-Sistani, on the walls and they spitefully wrote:  "Today, your land, tomorrow it will be your honor." 

(Notice the pitch to the "shame-honor" dynamic--the driving psychological engine of the fascist counter-liberation.)

Obviously, Zarqawi can't be "urging Iraqis" for a long struggle when he's just called the spiritual leader of 16 million of them "Satan."  Perhaps a more accurate headline and deck for Fam's AP article would be: 

Terror Master Urges Followers to Fight Iraqi People

Alleged al-Zarqawi Tape Urges Terrorists to Prepare for Long Struggle against Democracy; Troops kill 5 suspected Paramilitaries

Why is this important?  Because people get their news largely from headlines.  And through laziness or ideological malice, AP editors allowed this particular headline to reflect the outdated (but beloved by many leftists) Vietnam-Nicaragua-"Star Wars"  paradigm.  You know the story:  plucky, resourceful and historically-favored indigenous people fight against a brutal, seemingly all-powerful but historically-doomed oppressor.  Guess who we root for?  Guess who wins?  Guess who needs to be told over and over again, this not the 1960s?  Why, it's not even Holllywood. 

*

Someone who grasps this point--and is rapidly becoming one of my favorite commentators on Iraq--is ex-pat Nibras Kazimi, who regularly appears in the must-read New York Sun.  Here's his take on language and the fight against Islamofascism.

The greatest victory so far in the war on terror occurred last week.  The evil-doers have ceded the press and broadcast industry battleground and are now scrambling for legitimacy in fending off democracy.  Their rhetoric is no longer riddled with loaded catch-phrases like "Zionism" and "colonial occupation" or even the "new crusades." No, today's talking points for the jihadists go something like this:  Democracy is a Greek word that means power through the people and not God, which is a heresy that must be eradicated.

Continuing on, Kazimi asserts that the terrorists "are quickly losing the battle of ideas and visions for the future of the Arab and Islamic world."  Taking up the Sunni threat to "boycott" (subvert is a better word) the elections, he utilizes one of my favorite metaphors for the reconstruction of Iraq.

In 1864, America had an election during its Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln won a second term through a landslide while most of the secessionist South did not participate.  Is anyone today going to make the argument that these results were illegitimate?  [Today] elementary school children across America are learning that there was no moral equivalency between slave owners and the unionists.  In 20 years time, Iraqi children will also be taught that, during the height of an undeclared civil war that is currently ravishing the country, there was no moral equivalency between the democrats and the beheaders.

Michael Moore, take note.

On a related topic, Kazimi observes that last week, the "much-maligned" Al-Hurra TV, America's Arab-speaking broadcast network in the Middle East, aired a segment that exposed some nasty connections between Saddam and Al-Jazeera.  It seems that some footage captured from the dictator's archives that showed Al-Jazeera's former director, Jassim Al-Ali, thanking the Saddam's maniac son Uday for all the help the regime has given Osama bin Laden's favorite TV outlet over the years--and even asking for more instructions. 

According to Kazimi, the Arab CNN dumped Al-Ali soon after the invasion of Iraq when his dealings with the Baathists came to light.  Still, it reminds me of how my poet friend Nasser Hasan described Al-Jazeera:  "Part of the same dark kingdom as Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda."  Score another for Naseer.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 20-21: AP headline

Tape Urges Iraqis to Prepare for Struggle

ABC.com added this deck:

Alleged al-Zarqawi Tape Urges Iraqis to Prepare for Struggle; Troops kill Five Suspected Militants

Well, that's certainly clear, right?  A leader is exhorting The People (always good) to prepare themselves for battle against "troops" (ours, of course) who have killed five "suspected" (hmmm, could be civilians) "militants" (neutral term implying legitimate cause).

But the lede sentence Mariam Fam's story contradicts the headline:  "Iraq's most feared terror leader called on his followers to prepare...for a long struggle against the Americans..." (my emphasis).  Hello, AP editors!  There's a huge and lethal difference between Iraqis and Zarqawi's followers.  And while we at it:  Ms. Fam, as you undoubtedly know, Zarqawi is not an Iraqi "terror leader"--he is a Jordanian who is operating in Iraq.  Why does this make a difference?  Because the Iraqis--Shia, Kurds and even many of the criminal ex-Baathists and Saddamites--hate Zarqawi and his tactics of murdering hundreds of innocent civilians. 

In other words, despite the insinuations of the misleading headline, Zarqawi is not calling upon the Iraqi people, but a tiny minority of the population who have dedicated themselves to his nihilistic cause.  How could AP editors use the collective noun Iraqis and thus imply that Zarqawi has a broader base of support than, in fact, he does?  Perhaps someone should lay down their copy of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and look again at this conflict.

Nor is Zarqawi (oh, that rumors of his capture--seen here on Al-Jazeera this month--were true!) rallying his fascist supporters to fight just "the Americans."  As the Jordanian butcher stated in his tape, the Shia are also targets: 

They broke into the safe houses of God.  They defiled them and they hung the photos of their Satan, al-Sistani, on the walls and they spitefully wrote:  "Today, your land, tomorrow it will be your honor." 

(Notice the pitch to the "shame-honor" dynamic--the driving psychological engine of the fascist counter-liberation.)

Obviously, Zarqawi can't be "urging Iraqis" for a long struggle when he's just called the spiritual leader of 16 million of them "Satan."  Perhaps a more accurate headline and deck for Fam's AP article would be: 

Terror Master Urges Followers to Fight Iraqi People

Alleged al-Zarqawi Tape Urges Terrorists to Prepare for Long Struggle against Democracy; Troops kill 5 suspected Paramilitaries

Why is this important?  Because people get their news largely from headlines.  And through laziness or ideological malice, AP editors allowed this particular headline to reflect the outdated (but beloved by many leftists) Vietnam-Nicaragua-"Star Wars"  paradigm.  You know the story:  plucky, resourceful and historically-favored indigenous people fight against a brutal, seemingly all-powerful but historically-doomed oppressor.  Guess who we root for?  Guess who wins?  Guess who needs to be told over and over again, this not the 1960s?  Why, it's not even Holllywood. 

*

Someone who grasps this point--and is rapidly becoming one of my favorite commentators on Iraq--is ex-pat Nibras Kazimi, who regularly appears in the must-read New York Sun.  Here's his take on language and the fight against Islamofascism.

The greatest victory so far in the war on terror occurred last week.  The evil-doers have ceded the press and broadcast industry battleground and are now scrambling for legitimacy in fending off democracy.  Their rhetoric is no longer riddled with loaded catch-phrases like "Zionism" and "colonial occupation" or even the "new crusades." No, today's talking points for the jihadists go something like this:  Democracy is a Greek word that means power through the people and not God, which is a heresy that must be eradicated.

Continuing on, Kazimi asserts that the terrorists "are quickly losing the battle of ideas and visions for the future of the Arab and Islamic world."  Taking up the Sunni threat to "boycott" (subvert is a better word) the elections, he utilizes one of my favorite metaphors for the reconstruction of Iraq.

In 1864, America had an election during its Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln won a second term through a landslide while most of the secessionist South did not participate.  Is anyone today going to make the argument that these results were illegitimate?  [Today] elementary school children across America are learning that there was no moral equivalency between slave owners and the unionists.  In 20 years time, Iraqi children will also be taught that, during the height of an undeclared civil war that is currently ravishing the country, there was no moral equivalency between the democrats and the beheaders.

Michael Moore, take note.

On a related topic, Kazimi observes that last week, the "much-maligned" Al-Hurra TV, America's Arab-speaking broadcast network in the Middle East, aired a segment that exposed some nasty connections between Saddam and Al-Jazeera.  It seems that some footage captured from the dictator's archives that showed Al-Jazeera's former director, Jassim Al-Ali, thanking the Saddam's maniac son Uday for all the help the regime has given Osama bin Laden's favorite TV outlet over the years--and even asking for more instructions. 

According to Kazimi, the Arab CNN dumped Al-Ali soon after the invasion of Iraq when his dealings with the Baathists came to light.  Still, it reminds me of how my poet friend Nasser Hasan described Al-Jazeera:  "Part of the same dark kingdom as Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda."  Score another for Naseer.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arthur Chrenkoff writes:

If you're not reading Steve Vincent's In the Red Zone blog, why not? Where else are you going to find consistently excellent commentary (often from a first-hand experience) about Iraq and the Middle East?

Posted by Mitchell Muncy at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arthur Chrenkoff writes:

If you're not reading Steve Vincent's In the Red Zone blog, why not? Where else are you going to find consistently excellent commentary (often from a first-hand experience) about Iraq and the Middle East?

Posted by Mitchell Muncy at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Providing the planned assistance will bolster the Jordanian government in its commitment to participate in...co-operation with the U.S. in supporting our regional security and stability, co-operating with Israel...and promotoing democratic reforms.

-- a 2002 letter signed by President Bush explaining why the U.S would contine to turn a blind eye to Jordan's importation of oil from Iraq in violation of U.N. sanctions  (reported in yesterday's Financial Times).

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Providing the planned assistance will bolster the Jordanian government in its commitment to participate in...co-operation with the U.S. in supporting our regional security and stability, co-operating with Israel...and promotoing democratic reforms.

-- a 2002 letter signed by President Bush explaining why the U.S would contine to turn a blind eye to Jordan's importation of oil from Iraq in violation of U.N. sanctions  (reported in yesterday's Financial Times).

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I.  If this were anywhere but Iraq...

The fascists are making good on their word to ratchet up violence as election day approaches.  On Tuesday, a homicidal martyr killed two people and wounded nine in front of the Baghdad headquarters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.   On Monday, gunmen killed two candidates for the National Assembly--Shaker Jabar Sahlia in Baghdad and Alaa Hamid in Basra.  Also killed in Basra on Monday was Riad Radi, running for the city's provincial council.

Meanwhile, as the New York Times' Dexter Filkins reports from Baghdad:

candidates are often too terrified to say their names, instead of holding rallies, they meet voters in secret, if they see them at all.

Of the 7,471 people who have filed to run, only a handful outside the relatively safe Kurdish areas have publicly identified themselves.  The locations for the 5,776 polling places have not been announced.

"I call it the secret election," Filkins quotes one Iraqi official.

On Sunday, Filkins reported on one Iraqi who dared to stand up to the fascists, Wijdan al-Khuzai.  "Ms. Khuzai, a 40-year old mother of five," he writes,  "saw in the elections on Jan. 30 a rare moment to steer her country in a more humane direction."  In the 1990s, Khuzai worked on behalf of women, helping to establish a center in Hilla where she distributed aid to "widows and mothers."   In 1996, Saddam "suggested" she become an informant for the Baath Party;  she refused.  Asked last year by the Independent Progressive Movement to run on its slate, Khuzai traveled about the country openly discussing her plans, refusing to use bodyguards.

On December 24, Americans troops found her body on the highway to the Baghdad airport.  Writes Filkins,

Ms. Khuzai had been shot five times, once in the face.  Her shoulder blades had been broken, and her hands had been cuffed behind her back so tightly that her wrists bled.

Why would a mother of five risk her life to bring democracy to Iraq?  Says her sibling, Nada Khuzai, "My sister figured that if she didn't do it, then no one would." 

...the Left would be roiling in outrage

especially if democracy were under threat in places activists really care about. 

II.  Once upon a time they fought fascists in the name of organized labor...

On January 4, a "masked gang" broke into the Baghdad home of Hadi Salih.  His crime had been to serve as a leading figure in the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), one of 12 labor organizations formed in Iraq over the last two years.  According to Johann Hari, the IFTU had already recruited some 300,000 Sunnis, Shias and Christians.  As Hari reports, the Islamofascists grabbed Salih and

bound him hand and foot and they blindfolded him.  They beat and they burned his flesh.  Once they had finished torturing him, they strangled him with an electric cord.  As a final touch, they riddled his body with bullets.

..now many fight against labor in the name of fascism...

Numerous organizations--from Occupation Watch to U.S. Labor Against the War to the AFL-CIO--denounced Salih's murder.  But do they really think this sort of assassination never took place under Saddam--and won't continue to do so if the Islamofascists succeed in destroying democracy?  Argues Hari, a leftist based in England,

The murder of Salih bears all the hallmarks of Saddam's Mukhabarat--the Baathist KGB.  Whatever you thought about the justice of the recent war in Iraq--and there were plenty of good reasons to oppose it--the only decent path now is to stand with a majority of Iraqis against the murderers of Salih and dozens of other Iraqi trade unionists.

There's a leftist sentiment we can rally around.  Unfortunately, as Hari observes, it is not universally shared among his colleagues.  He writes that well-known radical Brit journalist John Pilger

who says he has 'seldom felt as safe in any country' as when he visited Saddam's Iraq--now openly supports the resistance on the grounds that 'we can't afford to be choosey.'  The Stop the War Coalition passed a resolution recently saying the resistance should use 'any means necessary...[Scottish MP] George Galloway has attacked the IFTU as 'quislings' and described the tearful descriptions of one of their members of life under Saddam as a 'party trick.'

A few months ago, Hari continues, Subdhi al-Mashadani, an IFTU representative, spoke at London's European Social Forum, a collection of internationally-minded activist groups.  If al-Mashadani was looking for support, he went about the wrong way:

[He] didn't restrict his comments to the need for occupation troops to leave once a democratic election has been held.  He also insisted on talking about the nature of the Sunni 'resistance'--one of the most reactionary political forces anywhere on earth...The audience at the Social Forum booed and hissed him so loudly that he had to leave the stage.

...or they simply don't seem to care at all.

I was curious about how the better-known lefty blogs were reporting the recent Islamofascist attacks on Iraqi's fledgling democracy.  After all, we can imagine the turmoil they'd been in if this battle took place in Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras, areas with attractive (preferably Native American) indigenous peoples where the U.S., and not Syria, Iran or Saddam Hussein is the bad guy. This is what I found.

January 19th, 7:10 p.m.  Daily Kos: a RAND report on "avoiding a draft;" social conservative dissatisfaction with Bush; Howard Dean; political problems for Senator Lincoln Chafee; something about "red state governors;" an attack on Condoleezza Rice; Bush's Social Security plans; Bush's Social Security plans (again); Senator Boxer's opposition to Gonzales; something about Martin Frost.

7:15 p.m.  Talking Points Memo:  Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas; Bush's Social Security plans; Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); John Kerry's opposition to Rice; Martin Frost; Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); Patty Murray; a table of Social Security beneficiaries; Bush's Social Security plans (again); Martin Frost (again); Bush's personal finances; Cheney and Social Security; disability benefits; social security (again) (again) (again).

7:25 p.m. Eschaton (Atrios):  social security; Lou Dobbs; Lawrence Summers' comments on women; Bill O'Reilly; social security (again); an attack on Hugh Hewiit; social security (again); social security (again); Bill Thomas; social security (again); social security (again); Condi; Martin Frost; a story about a G.I. accused of torturing Iraqis (finally!); parent notification laws; Bill O'Reilly (again)

To be fair, there are left-wing blogs that do cover the conflict--such as Juan Cole's often useful but relentlessly anti-war Informed Comment.  And indeed, this blog does not cover important issues like social security and Alberto Gonzales or the latest Howard Dean up-date.  But then again, I don't purport to cover a wide range of issues, just Iraq and the War against Islamofascism. 

7:30 p.m.  Wonkette:  don't anyone miss the exciting post about Social Security!

III.  Meanwhile, abandoned by much of the world, Iraqi democracy struggles on...

The headline of Christine Hauser's front-page Times article last Saturday says it all:

Under Fire, Election Workers In Iraq Are Scared but Resolute

She goes on to write about thousands of Iraqi election workers who have formed a veritable "clandestine political movement" involved in

organizing voting boxes for polling centers, drawing up leaflets about how to vote, distributing posters promoting the elections, working on designs for ballots and sending out resignation forms...

all under great risk to their lives.

Threatened, attacked, kidnapped and killed, Iraqi's election workers are finding that being at the forefront of the electoral process means surviving the frontlines of an insurgency determined to stop it.

Listen to these men and women--quoted by Hauser--who are hazarding all to fight fascism.

There are a lot of people who also would fight for what I do.  I believe in democracy.

There will always be that possibility of a car bomb or gunmen, but we have got to vote anyway.  This is what our religious leaders say we must do, because it will empower us.

All I need is for at least one person to know what I believe in, in case I lose my life.

January 20, 5:35 a.m., Lean Left:  the cost of the Bush inauguration; Social Security; re-districting; children's science fiction; lefty blog contest; the Armstrong Williams controversy; something about liberal politics and judges; Bush's troubles with the religious right.

...especially the Iraqi Communists.

It should come as no surprise that the first public democracy rally was held December 17 by 2,000 Communist Party members at the Baghdad sports stadium.  Not only that, but they have continued to campaign in a remarkably open fashion.  As Filkins reported on January 16:

When workers for the Iraqi Communist Party drove a caravan with loudspeakers into Shoula, a neighborhood in northern Baghdad, on Friday, many of the residents looked on dumbfounded with their mouths agape.

"We will lift up the poor!" the young Communist shouted into the bullhorn.

Filkins continues,

The Communists, for instance, now espousing free elections and religious tolerance, are among the few Iraqi parties that send candidates into the streets.  Two of its members have been gunned down in the past month.

As I write in In the Red Zone, of all the democratic activists I met in Iraq, the Communists impressed me the most.  Not because of their ideology, but because their program was stridently secular, non-nationalistic and pro-democratic.  Moreover, unlike many Iraqi democrats, who seemed to believe democracy consisted of meetings and publicity and press releases, the Communists knew how to build small grassroots institutions and to mobilize followers.  Not only that, but they're saying all the right things these days.

As Samir Adil, head of Baghdad's Worker-Communist party told me, "We oppose religious and ethnic parties seeking to divide Iraq.  Our enemies are not Shia, Sunnis or Kurds, but Islamic terrorists."  Another WCP member is Yanar Mohammad, a firebrand leftist who, at least when I saw her last, was speaking openly about the need for Iraqis, and the world, to fight "political Islam." 

Interestingly, in a recent interview WCP spokesman Khasro Saya expressed deep disappointment with the Western left: 

Assigning the struggle against political Islam to the communists in the East alone and not participating in this struggle, apart from being an absolutely wrong understanding of communism and the communist struggle, removes the Western anti-imperialist Left from the front of the internationalist struggle and puts it in the front of bourgeois reaction beside the criminal policies of Islam.  (my emphasis)

Unfortunately, the WCP maintains the Marxist-Lenin preoccupation with world domination:  "The objective the WCP struggles for will only come true through a socialist revolution of the working class." 

By contrast, the older Iraqi Communist Party seems dedicated to a more moderate vision of social change in Iraq.   In Basra, I spoke to ICP head Ali Mehdi, who told me, "We want to establish labor unions, an independent judiciary, and participate in democratic elections, where we can put forth reasonable demands--we have no interest in a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' or setting ourselves up as an alternative to the government or the police."  As for capitalism, Mehdi struck a surprising note of accommodation.  "Our country is in need of private enterprise and the skills and capabilities it can bring to Iraq."

No wonder an NGO official in Basra told me, "If I were the Americans and wanted to spread democracy through Iraq, I'd pour money into its Communist parties."

Don't get me wrong:  personally, I find the red flag as abhorrent as the black or green.  But the idea is intriguing:  if the U.S. used radical Islam to hep defeat communism, why not use communism to help defeat radical Islam?

IV.  Meanwhile, the carnage continues.

January 19, 2004:  four big explosions erupt in Baghdad as fascist thugs continue their attempts to strangle Iraq's nascent democracy.  Twenty-six people were killed and 50 wounded.

But never mind that--did you read Matthew Yglesias' fascinating take on Social Security?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I.  If this were anywhere but Iraq...

The fascists are making good on their word to ratchet up violence as election day approaches.  On Tuesday, a homicidal martyr killed two people and wounded nine in front of the Baghdad headquarters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.   On Monday, gunmen killed two candidates for the National Assembly--Shaker Jabar Sahlia in Baghdad and Alaa Hamid in Basra.  Also killed in Basra on Monday was Riad Radi, running for the city's provincial council.

Meanwhile, as the New York Times' Dexter Filkins reports from Baghdad:

candidates are often too terrified to say their names, instead of holding rallies, they meet voters in secret, if they see them at all.

Of the 7,471 people who have filed to run, only a handful outside the relatively safe Kurdish areas have publicly identified themselves.  The locations for the 5,776 polling places have not been announced.

"I call it the secret election," Filkins quotes one Iraqi official.

On Sunday, Filkins reported on one Iraqi who dared to stand up to the fascists, Wijdan al-Khuzai.  "Ms. Khuzai, a 40-year old mother of five," he writes,  "saw in the elections on Jan. 30 a rare moment to steer her country in a more humane direction."  In the 1990s, Khuzai worked on behalf of women, helping to establish a center in Hilla where she distributed aid to "widows and mothers."   In 1996, Saddam "suggested" she become an informant for the Baath Party;  she refused.  Asked last year by the Independent Progressive Movement to run on its slate, Khuzai traveled about the country openly discussing her plans, refusing to use bodyguards.

On December 24, Americans troops found her body on the highway to the Baghdad airport.  Writes Filkins,

Ms. Khuzai had been shot five times, once in the face.  Her shoulder blades had been broken, and her hands had been cuffed behind her back so tightly that her wrists bled.

Why would a mother of five risk her life to bring democracy to Iraq?  Says her sibling, Nada Khuzai, "My sister figured that if she didn't do it, then no one would." 

...the Left would be roiling in outrage

especially if democracy were under threat in places activists really care about. 

II.  Once upon a time they fought fascists in the name of organized labor...

On January 4, a "masked gang" broke into the Baghdad home of Hadi Salih.  His crime had been to serve as a leading figure in the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), one of 12 labor organizations formed in Iraq over the last two years.  According to Johann Hari, the IFTU had already recruited some 300,000 Sunnis, Shias and Christians.  As Hari reports, the Islamofascists grabbed Salih and

bound him hand and foot and they blindfolded him.  They beat and they burned his flesh.  Once they had finished torturing him, they strangled him with an electric cord.  As a final touch, they riddled his body with bullets.

..now many fight against labor in the name of fascism...

Numerous organizations--from Occupation Watch to U.S. Labor Against the War to the AFL-CIO--denounced Salih's murder.  But do they really think this sort of assassination never took place under Saddam--and won't continue to do so if the Islamofascists succeed in destroying democracy?  Argues Hari, a leftist based in England,

The murder of Salih bears all the hallmarks of Saddam's Mukhabarat--the Baathist KGB.  Whatever you thought about the justice of the recent war in Iraq--and there were plenty of good reasons to oppose it--the only decent path now is to stand with a majority of Iraqis against the murderers of Salih and dozens of other Iraqi trade unionists.

There's a leftist sentiment we can rally around.  Unfortunately, as Hari observes, it is not universally shared among his colleagues.  He writes that well-known radical Brit journalist John Pilger

who says he has 'seldom felt as safe in any country' as when he visited Saddam's Iraq--now openly supports the resistance on the grounds that 'we can't afford to be choosey.'  The Stop the War Coalition passed a resolution recently saying the resistance should use 'any means necessary...[Scottish MP] George Galloway has attacked the IFTU as 'quislings' and described the tearful descriptions of one of their members of life under Saddam as a 'party trick.'

A few months ago, Hari continues, Subdhi al-Mashadani, an IFTU representative, spoke at London's European Social Forum, a collection of internationally-minded activist groups.  If al-Mashadani was looking for support, he went about the wrong way:

[He] didn't restrict his comments to the need for occupation troops to leave once a democratic election has been held.  He also insisted on talking about the nature of the Sunni 'resistance'--one of the most reactionary political forces anywhere on earth...The audience at the Social Forum booed and hissed him so loudly that he had to leave the stage.

...or they simply don't seem to care at all.

I was curious about how the better-known lefty blogs were reporting the recent Islamofascist attacks on Iraqi's fledgling democracy.  After all, we can imagine the turmoil they'd been in if this battle took place in Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras, areas with attractive (preferably Native American) indigenous peoples where the U.S., and not Syria, Iran or Saddam Hussein is the bad guy. This is what I found.

January 19th, 7:10 p.m.  Daily Kos: a RAND report on "avoiding a draft;" social conservative dissatisfaction with Bush; Howard Dean; political problems for Senator Lincoln Chafee; something about "red state governors;" an attack on Condoleezza Rice; Bush's Social Security plans; Bush's Social Security plans (again); Senator Boxer's opposition to Gonzales; something about Martin Frost.

7:15 p.m.  Talking Points Memo:  Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas; Bush's Social Security plans; Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); John Kerry's opposition to Rice; Martin Frost; Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); Patty Murray; a table of Social Security beneficiaries; Bush's Social Security plans (again); Martin Frost (again); Bush's personal finances; Cheney and Social Security; disability benefits; social security (again) (again) (again).

7:25 p.m. Eschaton (Atrios):  social security; Lou Dobbs; Lawrence Summers' comments on women; Bill O'Reilly; social security (again); an attack on Hugh Hewiit; social security (again); social security (again); Bill Thomas; social security (again); social security (again); Condi; Martin Frost; a story about a G.I. accused of torturing Iraqis (finally!); parent notification laws; Bill O'Reilly (again)

To be fair, there are left-wing blogs that do cover the conflict--such as Juan Cole's often useful but relentlessly anti-war Informed Comment.  And indeed, this blog does not cover important issues like social security and Alberto Gonzales or the latest Howard Dean up-date.  But then again, I don't purport to cover a wide range of issues, just Iraq and the War against Islamofascism. 

7:30 p.m.  Wonkette:  don't anyone miss the exciting post about Social Security!

III.  Meanwhile, abandoned by much of the world, Iraqi democracy struggles on...

The headline of Christine Hauser's front-page Times article last Saturday says it all:

Under Fire, Election Workers In Iraq Are Scared but Resolute

She goes on to write about thousands of Iraqi election workers who have formed a veritable "clandestine political movement" involved in

organizing voting boxes for polling centers, drawing up leaflets about how to vote, distributing posters promoting the elections, working on designs for ballots and sending out resignation forms...

all under great risk to their lives.

Threatened, attacked, kidnapped and killed, Iraqi's election workers are finding that being at the forefront of the electoral process means surviving the frontlines of an insurgency determined to stop it.

Listen to these men and women--quoted by Hauser--who are hazarding all to fight fascism.

There are a lot of people who also would fight for what I do.  I believe in democracy.

There will always be that possibility of a car bomb or gunmen, but we have got to vote anyway.  This is what our religious leaders say we must do, because it will empower us.

All I need is for at least one person to know what I believe in, in case I lose my life.

January 20, 5:35 a.m., Lean Left:  the cost of the Bush inauguration; Social Security; re-districting; children's science fiction; lefty blog contest; the Armstrong Williams controversy; something about liberal politics and judges; Bush's troubles with the religious right.

...especially the Iraqi Communists.

It should come as no surprise that the first public democracy rally was held December 17 by 2,000 Communist Party members at the Baghdad sports stadium.  Not only that, but they have continued to campaign in a remarkably open fashion.  As Filkins reported on January 16:

When workers for the Iraqi Communist Party drove a caravan with loudspeakers into Shoula, a neighborhood in northern Baghdad, on Friday, many of the residents looked on dumbfounded with their mouths agape.

"We will lift up the poor!" the young Communist shouted into the bullhorn.

Filkins continues,

The Communists, for instance, now espousing free elections and religious tolerance, are among the few Iraqi parties that send candidates into the streets.  Two of its members have been gunned down in the past month.

As I write in In the Red Zone, of all the democratic activists I met in Iraq, the Communists impressed me the most.  Not because of their ideology, but because their program was stridently secular, non-nationalistic and pro-democratic.  Moreover, unlike many Iraqi democrats, who seemed to believe democracy consisted of meetings and publicity and press releases, the Communists knew how to build small grassroots institutions and to mobilize followers.  Not only that, but they're saying all the right things these days.

As Samir Adil, head of Baghdad's Worker-Communist party told me, "We oppose religious and ethnic parties seeking to divide Iraq.  Our enemies are not Shia, Sunnis or Kurds, but Islamic terrorists."  Another WCP member is Yanar Mohammad, a firebrand leftist who, at least when I saw her last, was speaking openly about the need for Iraqis, and the world, to fight "political Islam." 

Interestingly, in a recent interview WCP spokesman Khasro Saya expressed deep disappointment with the Western left: 

Assigning the struggle against political Islam to the communists in the East alone and not participating in this struggle, apart from being an absolutely wrong understanding of communism and the communist struggle, removes the Western anti-imperialist Left from the front of the internationalist struggle and puts it in the front of bourgeois reaction beside the criminal policies of Islam.  (my emphasis)

Unfortunately, the WCP maintains the Marxist-Lenin preoccupation with world domination:  "The objective the WCP struggles for will only come true through a socialist revolution of the working class." 

By contrast, the older Iraqi Communist Party seems dedicated to a more moderate vision of social change in Iraq.   In Basra, I spoke to ICP head Ali Mehdi, who told me, "We want to establish labor unions, an independent judiciary, and participate in democratic elections, where we can put forth reasonable demands--we have no interest in a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' or setting ourselves up as an alternative to the government or the police."  As for capitalism, Mehdi struck a surprising note of accommodation.  "Our country is in need of private enterprise and the skills and capabilities it can bring to Iraq."

No wonder an NGO official in Basra told me, "If I were the Americans and wanted to spread democracy through Iraq, I'd pour money into its Communist parties."

Don't get me wrong:  personally, I find the red flag as abhorrent as the black or green.  But the idea is intriguing:  if the U.S. used radical Islam to hep defeat communism, why not use communism to help defeat radical Islam?

IV.  Meanwhile, the carnage continues.

January 19, 2004:  four big explosions erupt in Baghdad as fascist thugs continue their attempts to strangle Iraq's nascent democracy.  Twenty-six people were killed and 50 wounded.

But never mind that--did you read Matthew Yglesias' fascinating take on Social Security?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

No compromise I have yet seen made by Afghan or Iraqi leaders has been as bad as that made by the Founding Fathers in 1789 when they declared that my ancestors were three-fifths of a man.

-- Condoleezza Rice, during yesterday's Senate confirmation hearing

Posted by Steven Vincent at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

No compromise I have yet seen made by Afghan or Iraqi leaders has been as bad as that made by the Founding Fathers in 1789 when they declared that my ancestors were three-fifths of a man.

-- Condoleezza Rice, during yesterday's Senate confirmation hearing

Posted by Steven Vincent at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is how it starts.

According to the New York Times' Andrea Elliott, 20 clergymen dressed in white robes and crashing cymbals led a procession through the streets of Jersey City, as Bishop David, the main Coptic leader in the northeast United States, chanted a dirge asking for God's mercy.  Behind them poured hundreds of wailing mourners, many holding signs depicting black crosses, others slapping their faces or the sides of the four copper coffins, each casket bearing a photograph of the victim inside.  "Even the pallbearers wept," Elliott wrote.

The funeral was for Hossam Armanious, 46; his wife, Amal Gargas, 36; and their daughters Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8.  On January 15, the Egyptian Christians were found in their Jersey City home bound and gagged, their throats and heads bearing multiple stab wounds.  Local police, joined by the FBI, have stressed that robbery may have motivated the killers:  according to some press report, the house was so stripped of cash and valuables, that authorities found only one penny.

Not everyone believed mere criminals murdered the Coptic family.  Rumors spread that Armanious' anti-Islamic comments on an Internet chat room may have enraged some religious fundamentalists.  Others speculated the murderers had targeted the family because a distant relative served as a government translator in the case of lawyer Lynne F. Stewart, accused of aiding terrorists.  Others noted the problems that have long existed between Egypt's Christian--or Coptic--community and its Muslim majority (see my post, Did the Priest's Wife Convert?).  Although sectarian tensions have largely not spilled over into the U.S., it soon became apparent that they exist beneath the surface. 

As AP's Wayne Parry reported, skirmishes broke out between Copts carrying anti-Muslim signs and chanting anti-Islamic slogans and mourners who demanded more respect for the dead.  As Parry notes,

One sign, above a photograph of the smiling family, read, "American Family Beheaded on American Soil.  Welcome bin Laden."  Another read, "Terrorists Reach Our Home."

He goes on to quote mourner Ashaf Baul.  "Muslims as a group kill people." 

Around 2,000 people attended the funeral held at St. George and St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church.  Among the mourners were Sheik Tarek Yousef Saleh, the imam of Brooklyn's Oulei Albab Mosque, and around 10 other Muslims, including the editor of a local Arabic-speaking paper and Ahmed Sheded, president of the Islamic Center for Jersey City.  When the cleric--who was wearing a distinctive white abayya--entered the church, people shouted "Out!  Out!"  A man screamed "Muslim is the killer!  Muslim is the killer!" before police dragged him away.  One of the victim's brothers cried out in Arabic for calm, followed by Bishop David's plea to the crowd to "show the teachings of Christ, of love."

Upon leaving the service, however, angry mourners again accosted the Muslims, who by now were under police guard.  One woman, Elliott wrote, cried out "Animals!  Animals!"  Another shouted "Those are the killers!  We don't want them in the church!"  Others yelled, "Bring a stick to his head.  Beat him, take him away!"  Elliott quotes one Nadia Sourrial, "echoing a sentiment expressed by numerous other people,

We tell the Muslim people, 'Don't come here.'  We don't like them and they come.  They like to show us we're dead."

"I didn't come to hurt anyone, I came to support them," Sheik Saleh told Elliott.  His presence, in fact, came as a response to an editorial in an Arabic newspaper to attend the funeral and show support for the grieving Coptic community.  "I don't blame any one of them," the Sheik added.  "Emotionally, they are not happy right now."

We can sympathize.  Grief, fear, anger are powerful emotions, especially when stoked by particularly gruesome murders, the horror which merges with centuries of sectarian tensions in Egypt and the Middle East.   We can sympathize and --like Sheik Saleh--understand.  But we must not excuse.  For this is America, the New World, where every person has an opportunity to start his or her life afresh, unburdened by debilitating antagonisms of the past.  It doesn't work out that way in practice, of course--one only has to look at the Metro section of any newspaper.  But the ideal is one of the greatest gifts America has given the world, one worth stressing and, when necessary, defending.

As the Armanious family is laid to rest, it's that last point that needs emphasizing now, I think.  The anti-Muslim sentiments of the Copts--whether it represented a majority of the mourners or not--clearly comes from the experience of newcomers to this country, for whose hearts the alembic of American life has yet to distill ancient hatreds.  But how many of us are free from such reactions, especially when under stress?  A friend of mine who spent time in jail once told me, "You can get along fine with everyone in the prison, but as soon as trouble breaks out--you run to your color for protection."

As trouble breaks out around the world, people are increasingly running for protection to religion, rather than ethnicity (or, in the case of many Arab Salafists, both).  And indeed, the murder of the Armanious family put pressure on a wound many immigrants Copts still bear, resulting in yesterday's spasm of anti-Muslim bigotry.  Credit must go to those Copts who attempted to calm the mourners, but the point is clear:  we as Americans, as conscientious people, must take pains to differentiate, when we can, between Muslims and religious extremists.  They are not the same.  It should be self-evident to everyone that the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, nor are all terrorists Muslim.

Anyone reading these words knows this already.  And we pride ourselves in our own open mindedness and tolerance, our ability to judge between friend and foe.  But what happens if--and, should our experts prove correct--when Al Qaeda launches a successful attack on the U.S.?  An attack, we can be sure, will come with the banners of Islam unfurled and proud of whatever devastation has ensued.  Will we still engage in the same kind of lucid thinking and unemotional judgments regarding Muslims--or will we run to our religion, our nationalism, our fears?  Will the spasm of anti-Islamic feeling we saw in New Jersey turn into a blind, reflexive blow against millions of innocent people?

This is not to say that there are not Salafists in this country who bear us ill will.  There are.  Nor am I engaging in the kind of empty "peace and tolerance" talk exhibited by naive civil liberties advocates and multiculturalists.  America's future as the nation we know and admire is at stake.  In this month's Atlantic Monthly, Richard Clarke depicts the consequences of a U.S. defeat in the War against Islamofascism.  Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Clarke's scenario is the siege state of fear such a defeat would entail and the inexorable shrinking of our constitutional freedoms (a possibility underscored by the Patriot missile batteries currently stationed in Washington).  Our enemy does not have to occupy our cities and towns to destroy the Republic.  Rather, he only need frighten us into occupying ourselves with the atavistic impulses of ethnic and religious tribalism and undermining our own civil liberties. And this is how it starts--in the streets, amidst the cries of an angry, grieving, terrified people.   It ends when, by our own actions, our own lack of nerve, fortitude and faith, the slogan ceases to become inflammatory rhetoric but rather a sad statement of fact.

Terrorism has reached our homes.  Welcome bin Laden.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is how it starts.

According to the New York Times' Andrea Elliott, 20 clergymen dressed in white robes and crashing cymbals led a procession through the streets of Jersey City, as Bishop David, the main Coptic leader in the northeast United States, chanted a dirge asking for God's mercy.  Behind them poured hundreds of wailing mourners, many holding signs depicting black crosses, others slapping their faces or the sides of the four copper coffins, each casket bearing a photograph of the victim inside.  "Even the pallbearers wept," Elliott wrote.

The funeral was for Hossam Armanious, 46; his wife, Amal Gargas, 36; and their daughters Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8.  On January 15, the Egyptian Christians were found in their Jersey City home bound and gagged, their throats and heads bearing multiple stab wounds.  Local police, joined by the FBI, have stressed that robbery may have motivated the killers:  according to some press report, the house was so stripped of cash and valuables, that authorities found only one penny.

Not everyone believed mere criminals murdered the Coptic family.  Rumors spread that Armanious' anti-Islamic comments on an Internet chat room may have enraged some religious fundamentalists.  Others speculated the murderers had targeted the family because a distant relative served as a government translator in the case of lawyer Lynne F. Stewart, accused of aiding terrorists.  Others noted the problems that have long existed between Egypt's Christian--or Coptic--community and its Muslim majority (see my post, Did the Priest's Wife Convert?).  Although sectarian tensions have largely not spilled over into the U.S., it soon became apparent that they exist beneath the surface. 

As AP's Wayne Parry reported, skirmishes broke out between Copts carrying anti-Muslim signs and chanting anti-Islamic slogans and mourners who demanded more respect for the dead.  As Parry notes,

One sign, above a photograph of the smiling family, read, "American Family Beheaded on American Soil.  Welcome bin Laden."  Another read, "Terrorists Reach Our Home."

He goes on to quote mourner Ashaf Baul.  "Muslims as a group kill people." 

Around 2,000 people attended the funeral held at St. George and St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church.  Among the mourners were Sheik Tarek Yousef Saleh, the imam of Brooklyn's Oulei Albab Mosque, and around 10 other Muslims, including the editor of a local Arabic-speaking paper and Ahmed Sheded, president of the Islamic Center for Jersey City.  When the cleric--who was wearing a distinctive white abayya--entered the church, people shouted "Out!  Out!"  A man screamed "Muslim is the killer!  Muslim is the killer!" before police dragged him away.  One of the victim's brothers cried out in Arabic for calm, followed by Bishop David's plea to the crowd to "show the teachings of Christ, of love."

Upon leaving the service, however, angry mourners again accosted the Muslims, who by now were under police guard.  One woman, Elliott wrote, cried out "Animals!  Animals!"  Another shouted "Those are the killers!  We don't want them in the church!"  Others yelled, "Bring a stick to his head.  Beat him, take him away!"  Elliott quotes one Nadia Sourrial, "echoing a sentiment expressed by numerous other people,

We tell the Muslim people, 'Don't come here.'  We don't like them and they come.  They like to show us we're dead."

"I didn't come to hurt anyone, I came to support them," Sheik Saleh told Elliott.  His presence, in fact, came as a response to an editorial in an Arabic newspaper to attend the funeral and show support for the grieving Coptic community.  "I don't blame any one of them," the Sheik added.  "Emotionally, they are not happy right now."

We can sympathize.  Grief, fear, anger are powerful emotions, especially when stoked by particularly gruesome murders, the horror which merges with centuries of sectarian tensions in Egypt and the Middle East.   We can sympathize and --like Sheik Saleh--understand.  But we must not excuse.  For this is America, the New World, where every person has an opportunity to start his or her life afresh, unburdened by debilitating antagonisms of the past.  It doesn't work out that way in practice, of course--one only has to look at the Metro section of any newspaper.  But the ideal is one of the greatest gifts America has given the world, one worth stressing and, when necessary, defending.

As the Armanious family is laid to rest, it's that last point that needs emphasizing now, I think.  The anti-Muslim sentiments of the Copts--whether it represented a majority of the mourners or not--clearly comes from the experience of newcomers to this country, for whose hearts the alembic of American life has yet to distill ancient hatreds.  But how many of us are free from such reactions, especially when under stress?  A friend of mine who spent time in jail once told me, "You can get along fine with everyone in the prison, but as soon as trouble breaks out--you run to your color for protection."

As trouble breaks out around the world, people are increasingly running for protection to religion, rather than ethnicity (or, in the case of many Arab Salafists, both).  And indeed, the murder of the Armanious family put pressure on a wound many immigrants Copts still bear, resulting in yesterday's spasm of anti-Muslim bigotry.  Credit must go to those Copts who attempted to calm the mourners, but the point is clear:  we as Americans, as conscientious people, must take pains to differentiate, when we can, between Muslims and religious extremists.  They are not the same.  It should be self-evident to everyone that the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, nor are all terrorists Muslim.

Anyone reading these words knows this already.  And we pride ourselves in our own open mindedness and tolerance, our ability to judge between friend and foe.  But what happens if--and, should our experts prove correct--when Al Qaeda launches a successful attack on the U.S.?  An attack, we can be sure, will come with the banners of Islam unfurled and proud of whatever devastation has ensued.  Will we still engage in the same kind of lucid thinking and unemotional judgments regarding Muslims--or will we run to our religion, our nationalism, our fears?  Will the spasm of anti-Islamic feeling we saw in New Jersey turn into a blind, reflexive blow against millions of innocent people?

This is not to say that there are not Salafists in this country who bear us ill will.  There are.  Nor am I engaging in the kind of empty "peace and tolerance" talk exhibited by naive civil liberties advocates and multiculturalists.  America's future as the nation we know and admire is at stake.  In this month's Atlantic Monthly, Richard Clarke depicts the consequences of a U.S. defeat in the War against Islamofascism.  Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Clarke's scenario is the siege state of fear such a defeat would entail and the inexorable shrinking of our constitutional freedoms (a possibility underscored by the Patriot missile batteries currently stationed in Washington).  Our enemy does not have to occupy our cities and towns to destroy the Republic.  Rather, he only need frighten us into occupying ourselves with the atavistic impulses of ethnic and religious tribalism and undermining our own civil liberties. And this is how it starts--in the streets, amidst the cries of an angry, grieving, terrified people.   It ends when, by our own actions, our own lack of nerve, fortitude and faith, the slogan ceases to become inflammatory rhetoric but rather a sad statement of fact.

Terrorism has reached our homes.  Welcome bin Laden.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Iraq's new constitution, to be drafted by the newly elected national assembly, will not be inspired by sectarian considerations and...the voice of all Iraqis must be heard in the debate on the constitution

-- Ayatollah Sistani spokesman Hamid Al-Khafaf, speaking in Cairo

Iraq's Sunnis must be represented in any future government regardless of the election results.

-- Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and a front-runner for Iraq's new Prime Minister

We will accept and give full support to a Shia-dominated government provided that it draws a timeline for the withdrawal of occupation troops.

-- Harith Al-Dhari, head of the Muslims Cleric's Association, the main Sunni political organization, speaking to Al-Hayat newspaper

Elections should not be the endgame but only the beginning of a long process...In the end, what we want is a government that represents the interests of all Iraqis and not those of a sect or ethnic group.  Our judgment will be based on the agenda of the government rather than its composition.

-- Iyad Al-Samarrai, spokesperson for the Iraqi Islamist Party, a Sunni group

(Omayma Abdel-Latif, Al-Ahram Weekly)

The elections aim to separate the Iraqi from his religion.  When people vote for politicians, secularists, those who co-operate with the occupation--they will not think of God.

-- Moqtada al-Sadr

(Steve Negus/Dhiya Rasan, Financial Times)

Beware of henchman who speak in the name of Islamic parties and urge people to participate in the election.

-- Osama bin Laden

Lastly, consider this comment from the New York Times about the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

[F]or the ordinary people of Iraq...it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the American gone

Actually, I'm cheating here.  That last quote is from Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg and he was not talking about Iraq, but Indochina.  Schanberg expressed the sentiment that life would improve for the people of that region once the U.S. pulled out in a front-page article dated April 13, 1975.

Four days later, Cambodia fell to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Iraq's new constitution, to be drafted by the newly elected national assembly, will not be inspired by sectarian considerations and...the voice of all Iraqis must be heard in the debate on the constitution

-- Ayatollah Sistani spokesman Hamid Al-Khafaf, speaking in Cairo

Iraq's Sunnis must be represented in any future government regardless of the election results.

-- Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and a front-runner for Iraq's new Prime Minister

We will accept and give full support to a Shia-dominated government provided that it draws a timeline for the withdrawal of occupation troops.

-- Harith Al-Dhari, head of the Muslims Cleric's Association, the main Sunni political organization, speaking to Al-Hayat newspaper

Elections should not be the endgame but only the beginning of a long process...In the end, what we want is a government that represents the interests of all Iraqis and not those of a sect or ethnic group.  Our judgment will be based on the agenda of the government rather than its composition.

-- Iyad Al-Samarrai, spokesperson for the Iraqi Islamist Party, a Sunni group

(Omayma Abdel-Latif, Al-Ahram Weekly)

The elections aim to separate the Iraqi from his religion.  When people vote for politicians, secularists, those who co-operate with the occupation--they will not think of God.

-- Moqtada al-Sadr

(Steve Negus/Dhiya Rasan, Financial Times)

Beware of henchman who speak in the name of Islamic parties and urge people to participate in the election.

-- Osama bin Laden

Lastly, consider this comment from the New York Times about the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

[F]or the ordinary people of Iraq...it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the American gone

Actually, I'm cheating here.  That last quote is from Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg and he was not talking about Iraq, but Indochina.  Schanberg expressed the sentiment that life would improve for the people of that region once the U.S. pulled out in a front-page article dated April 13, 1975.

Four days later, Cambodia fell to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We'll start with an e-mail I recently received from Xena, a Baghdadi housewife with three children.  Among other news, she writes

Winter arrived here over a month ago, and now it's really cold, hard to imagine after such hot weather.  Life here is at its toughest.  The lines for petrol are unbelievable and for us girls no hope at all [note:  women used to receive preferential treatment in gas lines, but no longer]. 

We have electricity maybe one to two hours a day.  The private generators for which we pay massive amounts are not working as we have no diesel fuel.  Kerosene for heaters is 3,000 dinars [$2.05] for a three liter container (the usual cost is 300 dinars).  But it's not available anyway.  The cooking gas cylinders are now 7,000 dinars [$4.79], when at most they used to be 1,000 dinars. 

It's doom and gloom for the next few months.  The election is fast approaching and the incidents of insurgency are still happening very frequently.  Lots of explosions and mortars, car bombs.

Thus the situation in Baghdad from one woman's perspective.

Still, given Xena's downbeat communication, it's downright amazing what we find in a recent report issued by the Baghdad group Women for Women.  Entitled "Windows of Opportunity:  the Pursuit of Gender Equality in Post-war Iraq" ,  the report, based on a survey of 1,000 women in seven Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, Mosul and Basra, revealed that 90.6% of respondents viewed the future of Iraq with optimism.  (So much for the terror campaigns of the fascist counter-liberation.)  Other highlights included these findings:

84.3% of Iraqi women want the right to vote on the final constitution.

Nearly 80% believe in unlimited participation in local and national councils. 

56.8% felt that women should have no restrictions on employment.  Of the respondents who thought restrictions should exist, only 15% based their opinion on "custom or tradition," while the vast majority cited security concerns as reason to limit female participation in the workplace.

95.1% believe there should be no restrictions on women's education.  Of those who thought there should be restrictions, 55% cited security concerns. 

Some of the findings bear further exploration (or perhaps explanation); for example

16% felt that the government had done something to make their lives "much worse" in the past year, while only 5.5% thought the government had improved their lives.  By the same token, 8.4% blamed "worsening conditions" on religious institutions, while  12.7% believed religious groups had made their lives better.

Then there were these statistics that showed the kind of privations Iraqis endure:

95% felt their families did not receive enough electricity.

63.5% claimed insufficient access to water.

39.5% believed they received insufficient food.

57.1% claimed inadequate health care.

49% complained of poor or inadequate housing.

Xena, I know, views her future prospects with a kind of grim optimism.  (It's an Iraqi thing.)  And when you consider that despite the difficulties these people endure--and no survey can quantify the degree of fear, uncertainty, anxiety, frustration, sorrow and rage they experience--over 90 percent believe their lives will improve, it is truly inspiring.  A lesson in the unquenchable hope of human beings.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We'll start with an e-mail I recently received from Xena, a Baghdadi housewife with three children.  Among other news, she writes

Winter arrived here over a month ago, and now it's really cold, hard to imagine after such hot weather.  Life here is at its toughest.  The lines for petrol are unbelievable and for us girls no hope at all [note:  women used to receive preferential treatment in gas lines, but no longer]. 

We have electricity maybe one to two hours a day.  The private generators for which we pay massive amounts are not working as we have no diesel fuel.  Kerosene for heaters is 3,000 dinars [$2.05] for a three liter container (the usual cost is 300 dinars).  But it's not available anyway.  The cooking gas cylinders are now 7,000 dinars [$4.79], when at most they used to be 1,000 dinars. 

It's doom and gloom for the next few months.  The election is fast approaching and the incidents of insurgency are still happening very frequently.  Lots of explosions and mortars, car bombs.

Thus the situation in Baghdad from one woman's perspective.

Still, given Xena's downbeat communication, it's downright amazing what we find in a recent report issued by the Baghdad group Women for Women.  Entitled "Windows of Opportunity:  the Pursuit of Gender Equality in Post-war Iraq" ,  the report, based on a survey of 1,000 women in seven Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, Mosul and Basra, revealed that 90.6% of respondents viewed the future of Iraq with optimism.  (So much for the terror campaigns of the fascist counter-liberation.)  Other highlights included these findings:

84.3% of Iraqi women want the right to vote on the final constitution.

Nearly 80% believe in unlimited participation in local and national councils. 

56.8% felt that women should have no restrictions on employment.  Of the respondents who thought restrictions should exist, only 15% based their opinion on "custom or tradition," while the vast majority cited security concerns as reason to limit female participation in the workplace.

95.1% believe there should be no restrictions on women's education.  Of those who thought there should be restrictions, 55% cited security concerns. 

Some of the findings bear further exploration (or perhaps explanation); for example

16% felt that the government had done something to make their lives "much worse" in the past year, while only 5.5% thought the government had improved their lives.  By the same token, 8.4% blamed "worsening conditions" on religious institutions, while  12.7% believed religious groups had made their lives better.

Then there were these statistics that showed the kind of privations Iraqis endure:

95% felt their families did not receive enough electricity.

63.5% claimed insufficient access to water.

39.5% believed they received insufficient food.

57.1% claimed inadequate health care.

49% complained of poor or inadequate housing.

Xena, I know, views her future prospects with a kind of grim optimism.  (It's an Iraqi thing.)  And when you consider that despite the difficulties these people endure--and no survey can quantify the degree of fear, uncertainty, anxiety, frustration, sorrow and rage they experience--over 90 percent believe their lives will improve, it is truly inspiring.  A lesson in the unquenchable hope of human beings.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Justin Bogdanovich at "The Meatriarchy" reviews ITRZ:

. . . a ballsy book. . . . he connects with and lives with Iraqi's. He isn't living in a cocoon in a fancy hotel with a bunch of reporters. He actually goes out among the people.

Read the rest here.

Posted by Mitchell Muncy at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Justin Bogdanovich at "The Meatriarchy" reviews ITRZ:

. . . a ballsy book. . . . he connects with and lives with Iraqi's. He isn't living in a cocoon in a fancy hotel with a bunch of reporters. He actually goes out among the people.

Read the rest here.

Posted by Mitchell Muncy at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Michael Luther King was born on April 15, 1929.  Nowadays, in order to provide their citizens with a three-day week-end, many municipalities and states commemorate the life of this man--who later changed his name to Martin--on the Monday nearest to his birthday.  So it is today we observe the semi-holiday of one of America's greatest figures, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and martyr to the cause of human rights.

Few of us, I wager, commemorate "President's Day" by imitating Washington's nobility or Lincoln's patient compassion--let alone Christmas by emulating the behavior of its natal figure--so it's no wonder that for many Americans, Martin Luther King Day has become little more than an extra day off work.  Either that, or time for media pundits, politicians, academics and the myrmidons of the "diversity" industry to mouth bromides about "peace" and "tolerance" and "respect" for the "Other's" own "special identity."  (The quotation marks seem necessary.)

Of the two, I think lazing in front of the flat-screen with remote in hand seems less harmful to the legacy of Dr. King. After all, it was--as many right wing observers note--the civil rights leader himself who stated in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" oration:

I have a dream that one day my four children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character.

Multiculturalism, identity politics, essentialism, resentment, segregated college campuses, the self-loathing misogynistic culture of Hip-Hop--all this, and more, is antithetical to King's vision.  Antithetical because at their base lies tribalism, the reactionary mindset that lures mankind back to the primitive cult of blood and soil and biological determinism.  All  of man's advancements--from a vision of an ethical god to the supremacy of law over patriarchal custom--have come contra tribalism.  Many, if not most, of man's defeats have occurred when the bigotry of tribalism has extinguished the light of civilization and human rights.

King knew this threat all too well, yet maintained faith that justice would always prevail. 

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.  I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

As indeed, the assassin who took his life in 1968 has not--and could never--have the final say in the legacy of this true American hero.

Who speaks, who acts, and who doesn't was vital to King's vision of human rights.  From his 1963 letter rebuking the pastors of Birmingham for their objections to his activism ("Was not Jesus an extremist in love?") to such oft-quoted statements as "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter," King enjoined his listeners to abjure cowardice, expedience and vanity to follow the call of conscience.  Fifty years ago, American liberals did just that:  riding, for example, with the Freedom Riders, or working for voting rights in the South.  Many lost their lives:  just recently, we read about how Mississippi authorities re-arrested Edgar Ray Killen for the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Today, however, in the greatest civil rights issue to confront America since the 1960s, the Left remains silent, or even hostile.  I mean, of course, Iraq.  Before our eyes, we see people struggling to achieve self-determination and freedom beset by the same reactionary tribal forces that Killen and his night-riding terrorists represented forty years ago.  Only this time, it is largely the neo-conservative right, joined by some courageous liberals--as well as American soldiers of every political persuasion--who are answering Dr. King's call to conscience.  The left has simply checked itself out of the fight. 

Is this war any different than other struggles for human rights?  On a lonely road in Iraq last March, terrorists ambushed and murdered Americans Fern Holland, Robert Zangas and their Iraqi translator Salwa Ali.  Their crime was to attempt to establish women's centers in the central part of the country.  Their lives were spent in the identical cause that Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman--as well as Medgar Evers and so many others--gave theirs, as well:  democracy.  When paramilitary death-squads target and assassinate Iraqis who were cooperating with the government, is that not similar to an old-fashioned lynching?  When gunmen stalk the Iraqi countryside, murdering civilians in the name of "defending their homeland," can we not see a modern-day Ku Klux Klan?  When a car bomb explodes, killing innocent Iraqis--do the victims not join hands across the years with the four teenage girls killed in the Birmingham church bombings? 

As Dr. King once stated,

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

On a personal level, of course, it doesn't matter who speaks out for democracy and human rights in Iraq--the issue is larger than any single one of us.  And it is true that reasonable people can differ reasonably on many issues involving this war.  Still, for many of us who hold within our hearts a combination of fear and hope for the future of the Iraq, we can think of no greater tribute to Dr. King than to stand beside those tortured people--and the Coalition soldiers who seek to protect them--as they struggle toward a better future.  On this Martin Luther King Day, then, let us pray for the Iraqis and our soldiers, and so honor the legacy of the the man whom we reflect upon and honor. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Luther King was born on April 15, 1929.  Nowadays, in order to provide their citizens with a three-day week-end, many municipalities and states commemorate the life of this man--who later changed his name to Martin--on the Monday nearest to his birthday.  So it is today we observe the semi-holiday of one of America's greatest figures, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and martyr to the cause of human rights.

Few of us, I wager, commemorate "President's Day" by imitating Washington's nobility or Lincoln's patient compassion--let alone Christmas by emulating the behavior of its natal figure--so it's no wonder that for many Americans, Martin Luther King Day has become little more than an extra day off work.  Either that, or time for media pundits, politicians, academics and the myrmidons of the "diversity" industry to mouth bromides about "peace" and "tolerance" and "respect" for the "Other's" own "special identity."  (The quotation marks seem necessary.)

Of the two, I think lazing in front of the flat-screen with remote in hand seems less harmful to the legacy of Dr. King. After all, it was--as many right wing observers note--the civil rights leader himself who stated in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" oration:

I have a dream that one day my four children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character.

Multiculturalism, identity politics, essentialism, resentment, segregated college campuses, the self-loathing misogynistic culture of Hip-Hop--all this, and more, is antithetical to King's vision.  Antithetical because at their base lies tribalism, the reactionary mindset that lures mankind back to the primitive cult of blood and soil and biological determinism.  All  of man's advancements--from a vision of an ethical god to the supremacy of law over patriarchal custom--have come contra tribalism.  Many, if not most, of man's defeats have occurred when the bigotry of tribalism has extinguished the light of civilization and human rights.

King knew this threat all too well, yet maintained faith that justice would always prevail. 

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.  I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

As indeed, the assassin who took his life in 1968 has not--and could never--have the final say in the legacy of this true American hero.

Who speaks, who acts, and who doesn't was vital to King's vision of human rights.  From his 1963 letter rebuking the pastors of Birmingham for their objections to his activism ("Was not Jesus an extremist in love?") to such oft-quoted statements as "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter," King enjoined his listeners to abjure cowardice, expedience and vanity to follow the call of conscience.  Fifty years ago, American liberals did just that:  riding, for example, with the Freedom Riders, or working for voting rights in the South.  Many lost their lives:  just recently, we read about how Mississippi authorities re-arrested Edgar Ray Killen for the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Today, however, in the greatest civil rights issue to confront America since the 1960s, the Left remains silent, or even hostile.  I mean, of course, Iraq.  Before our eyes, we see people struggling to achieve self-determination and freedom beset by the same reactionary tribal forces that Killen and his night-riding terrorists represented forty years ago.  Only this time, it is largely the neo-conservative right, joined by some courageous liberals--as well as American soldiers of every political persuasion--who are answering Dr. King's call to conscience.  The left has simply checked itself out of the fight. 

Is this war any different than other struggles for human rights?  On a lonely road in Iraq last March, terrorists ambushed and murdered Americans Fern Holland, Robert Zangas and their Iraqi translator Salwa Ali.  Their crime was to attempt to establish women's centers in the central part of the country.  Their lives were spent in the identical cause that Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman--as well as Medgar Evers and so many others--gave theirs, as well:  democracy.  When paramilitary death-squads target and assassinate Iraqis who were cooperating with the government, is that not similar to an old-fashioned lynching?  When gunmen stalk the Iraqi countryside, murdering civilians in the name of "defending their homeland," can we not see a modern-day Ku Klux Klan?  When a car bomb explodes, killing innocent Iraqis--do the victims not join hands across the years with the four teenage girls killed in the Birmingham church bombings? 

As Dr. King once stated,

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

On a personal level, of course, it doesn't matter who speaks out for democracy and human rights in Iraq--the issue is larger than any single one of us.  And it is true that reasonable people can differ reasonably on many issues involving this war.  Still, for many of us who hold within our hearts a combination of fear and hope for the future of the Iraq, we can think of no greater tribute to Dr. King than to stand beside those tortured people--and the Coalition soldiers who seek to protect them--as they struggle toward a better future.  On this Martin Luther King Day, then, let us pray for the Iraqis and our soldiers, and so honor the legacy of the the man whom we reflect upon and honor. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Luther King was born on April 15, 1929.  Nowadays, in order to provide their citizens with a three-day week-end, many municipalities and states commemorate the life of this man--who later changed his name to Martin--on the Monday nearest to his birthday.  So it is today we observe the semi-holiday of one of America's greatest figures, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and martyr to the cause of human rights.

Few of us, I wager, commemorate "President's Day" by imitating Washington's nobility or Lincoln's patient compassion--let alone Christmas by emulating the behavior of its natal figure--so it's no wonder that for many Americans, Martin Luther King Day has become little more than an extra day off work.  Either that, or time for media pundits, politicians, academics and the myrmidons of the "diversity" industry to mouth bromides about "peace" and "tolerance" and "respect" for the "Other's" own "special identity."  (The quotation marks seem necessary.)

Of the two, I think lazing in front of the flat-screen with remote in hand seems less harmful to the legacy of Dr. King. After all, it was--as many right wing observers note--the civil rights leader himself who stated in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" oration:

I have a dream that one day my four children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character.

Multiculturalism, identity politics, essentialism, resentment, segregated college campuses, the self-loathing misogynistic culture of Hip-Hop--all this, and more, is antithetical to King's vision.  Antithetical because at their base lies tribalism, the reactionary mindset that lures mankind back to the primitive cult of blood and soil and biological determinism.  All  of man's advancements--from a vision of an ethical god to the supremacy of law over patriarchal custom--have come contra tribalism.  Many, if not most, of man's defeats have occurred when the bigotry of tribalism has extinguished the light of civilization and human rights.

King knew this threat all too well, yet maintained faith that justice would always prevail. 

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.  I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

As indeed, the assassin who took his life in 1968 has not--and could never--have the final say in the legacy of this true American hero.

Who speaks, who acts, and who doesn't was vital to King's vision of human rights.  From his 1963 letter rebuking the pastors of Birmingham for their objections to his activism ("Was not Jesus an extremist in love?") to such oft-quoted statements as "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter," King enjoined his listeners to abjure cowardice, expedience and vanity to follow the call of conscience.  Fifty years ago, American liberals did just that:  riding, for example, with the Freedom Riders, or working for voting rights in the South.  Many lost their lives:  just recently, we read about how Mississippi authorities re-arrested Edgar Ray Killen for the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Today, however, in the greatest civil rights issue to confront America since the 1960s, the Left remains silent, or even hostile.  I mean, of course, Iraq.  Before our eyes, we see people struggling to achieve self-determination and freedom beset by the same reactionary tribal forces that Killen and his night-riding terrorists represented forty years ago.  Only this time, it is largely the neo-conservative right, joined by some courageous liberals--as well as American soldiers of every political persuasion--who are answering Dr. King's call to conscience.  The left has simply checked itself out of the fight. 

Is this war any different than other struggles for human rights?  On a lonely road in Iraq last March, terrorists ambushed and murdered Americans Fern Holland, Robert Zangas and their Iraqi translator Salwa Ali.  Their crime was to attempt to establish women's centers in the central part of the country.  Their lives were spent in the identical cause that Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman--as well as Medgar Evers and so many others--gave theirs, as well:  democracy.  When paramilitary death-squads target and assassinate Iraqis who were cooperating with the government, is that not similar to an old-fashioned lynching?  When gunmen stalk the Iraqi countryside, murdering civilians in the name of "defending their homeland," can we not see a modern-day Ku Klux Klan?  When a car bomb explodes, killing innocent Iraqis--do the victims not join hands across the years with the four teenage girls killed in the Birmingham church bombings? 

As Dr. King once stated,

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

On a personal level, of course, it doesn't matter who speaks out for democracy and human rights in Iraq--the issue is larger than any single one of us.  And it is true that reasonable people can differ reasonably on many issues involving this war.  Still, for many of us who hold within our hearts a combination of fear and hope for the future of the Iraq, we can think of no greater tribute to Dr. King than to stand beside those tortured people--and the Coalition soldiers who seek to protect them--as they struggle toward a better future.  On this Martin Luther King Day, then, let us pray for the Iraqis and our soldiers, and so honor the legacy of the the man whom we reflect upon and honor. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cultural slavery is far more harmful than political domination.  Yet in practice, they are inseparable.

                                     -- Ibn Khaldun

Consistently brilliant, Paul Wretchard of Belmont Club was never more so when he noted on January 13 how

Middle Eastern warfare, beginning in modern times from the Franco-Algerian war in the 1960s favored a strategic withdrawal by its militarily weaker forces into social redoubts, defended not by concrete fortifications but by nearly impenetrable barriers of kinship, language and religion. America might deploy a million men to Iraq and physically control every inch of ground, but unless it could reach into this social fortress it could never successfully engage the enemy.

Bullseye, Mr. Wretchard.  Mabrook.

Today across the globe, we witness Muslims erecting "social redoubts" wherever their culture is under stress.  In places like Falluja, Samarra and Baghdad, leaders utilize the politics of grievance and the terror of assassination to prevent their followers from participating in Iraq's democratic future.  In working-class neighborhoods across Europe, first-generation immigrants and alienated Muslim youths are refusing to assimilate, even as they increasingly demand that the majority culture tolerates their beliefs--or else.  In madrases across the Middle East, students receive education in religious studies rather than science and world literature (this is a culture, let us recall, that in a millennium has translated less books into Arabic than Spain translates into Spanish each year), even as wild and irrational conspiracy theories further limit and sequester their imaginations.

"Muslims everywhere live in slavery to fundamentalist Islam," says Hasan Mahmoud, a member of the Muslim Canadian Congress.  "Their leaders force them to live in an unreal world where they are told they are the greatest nation on earth."

As Wretchard notes, the Muslim Redoubt is a deliberate--if not always articulated and conscious--strategy of non-cooperation, or as little cooperation as possible, with unbelievers.  Its enforcers are clerics, academics, politicians and family patriarchs; its ideology is fundamentalism, shari'a, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, "honor" codes and misogyny.  Its symbol is the cave, that magical space of concealment and defense, which appears in multiple forms in Islamic culture:  from the inner glories of mosques to the proverbial "hideout" of Osama bin Laden to the linen dungeons of hejab.  And its goal is to regiment, isolate and preserve the strength of Muslims for the inevitable triumph of dar-al-Islam over those who dwell in jahilliya--darkness, ignorance, sin. 

Most Muslims do not subscribe to this weaponized passive-aggressiveness--indeed, Islam's history of cultural interaction has bestowed incalculable benefits to mankind.  But we cannot ignore the spiritual introversion and defensiveness spreading across the umma.  "It is like a virus, spreading throughout world Islam, sickening and corrupting it," remarked Senad Agic, a Bornian cleric now living in Chicago.

Indeed, the main, the great exception to those who would imprison their hearts and minds in social fortresses are, of course, believers in North America.  As I talk with Muslims who are interested--indeed, desperate--to rescue their beliefs from fundamentalism and archaic tradition, I am struck by the hope they place in this continent.  Here, they tell me, the revolution will begin.  Here, amidst a confident, free, intellectually curious and spiritually adventurous Islamic community will they find their faith revitalized by the energies of modernism.  Here, as writer Irshad Manji said last fall during a talk at New York's 92nd Street Y,

at no other time can Muslims say we live in a place where we can speak freely without fear of state reprisal or torture.  I ask other Muslims, what in God's name are you doing with that freedom?

But even here, where the shining medina on the hill beckons Muslim hopes, clouds gather.  According to the great Sufi moderate Sheik Hisham al-Kabbani, 80 percent of the mosques in North America have fallen under the sway of Wahhabism, the puritanical form of Islam that is Saudi Arabia's second fossilized export to the world.  Recently, Asra Nomani, writer of Tantrika and the up-coming Standing Alone in Mecca, told me how, over the last quarter-century, she has seen American mosques change from easygoing places where men and women intermingled, to increasingly segregated and spiritually insular religious camps.  A member of the Muslim Student Association at Princeton related how the president of his organization is demanding that men and women sit separately during meetings, and is pushing for a curtain to divide the sexes. 

Worse, progressives must endure non-Muslim "allies," who, in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism refuse to criticize Islam--and even yield to its harsher, more irrational and dangerous elements.  Thus we have school textbooks that elide the concept of jihad (while slamming Israel), and national feminist organizations more concerned about Wal-Mart, silicon implants and the Bush inauguration than hejab, honor killings and the 70 percent illiteracy rate of Muslim women.  We have nine states that allow Muslims to appear veiled on their driver's license.  And most shamefully, Canada now allows shari'a courts to adjudicate certain issues between couples--a concession that outrages even Islamic groups and other Muslims.   

"When I look at shari'a law and how it treats women, I cry," confides Mahmoud.  "These are laws that men have framed for their own women, sisters, mothers.  How can men be so cruel--and with such cheerfulness?"  Even worse, he continues, is the message Canada is sending to progressive Muslims in other countries.  "Where Islamic culture is engaged in a life and death struggle against political Islam, this will demoralize the moderates, and set back their efforts.  'Look what Canada is doing,' fundamentalists will say.  'If it they accept shari'a why shouldn't the Muslim world?"

As Manji writes in The Trouble With Islam.

Non-Muslims do the world no favors by pushing the moral mute button as soon as Muslims start speaking.  Dare to ruin the moment.

Unlike an actual fortification, however, the Muslim Redoubt cannot be taken by storm:  direct assaults will only cause its battlements to grow higher, narrower, its inhabitants more prone to self-destructive behavior.  I quail when, during radio interviews for In the Red Zone, hosts jocularly refer to Islam as "the religion of hate," or callers ask me how can anyone can believe in a "terrible god like Allah."  That sort of talk only benefits fundamentalists, Muslim and Christian alike.

Nor will sentiments of "tolerance" and multi-cultural piety dissolve the Muslims' ideological ramparts:  appeasement leads only to further demands from the aggrieved, as the citizens of Amsterdam discovered to their shock. Rather, in the social struggle that confronts us, we must engage "hardened Islam" as we might an individual whose alternating projections of aggression and victimhood conceal feelings of deep inferiority co-existing with a barely-restrainable power complex.  Our approach must include, along with knowledge of Islamic and Muslim history and tradition, concepts of the fetish, the cult, psychic grandiosity and malignant narcissism. 

In short, we must balance knowledge and admiration of Islam with a clear understanding of its many weaknesses, and an unyielding commitment to our own imperfect traditions of democracy, human rights, individualism and scientific thinking.  There are allies who exist behind the walls of the Burning Crescent and the All-Seeing Eye; it is they who will open its gates to the world.  But only if they are assured that we who stand beyond the ramparts will welcome them with respect and understanding of their beliefs and an equal respect and understanding for our own.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the New York Times, January 13:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- In a rare public display, the Saudi government announced on Tuesday that a religious court had sentenced 15 demonstrators, including one woman, to public lashings and prison terms for taking part in demonstrations against the government.

Read the rest--including a brief description of how, exactly, Saudi authorities regulate the whipping of malefactors--here.  Note, too, the possible Al Qaeda connection.

Reader Ron Gustavson sends in this story about yet one more indignity women must endure living under the House of Saud.  And lastly,

Tribal Christianity Watch

As most of us know, on January 7, Mississippi authorities arrested 79-year-old Edgar Ray Killen for his connection in the 1964 murders of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney.  According to testimony at the time, Killen had organized a gang of Klansman who executed the three men, burying their bodies in a levy.  (The 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning" was based on this incident.)  Killen, we should note, is a preacher.  His gang of masked "insurgents" assassinated Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney for the same reason gunmen kill people in Iraq today--because the activists were attempting to spread the gospel of freedom.  Islam is not the only creed whose devotionalists are stained by the sin of tribal and religious supremacy. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Light blogging today--I'm on "Fox & Friends" tomorrow at the caffeine-necessitating hour of 6:45 a.m. EDT, so I'm going to need my sleep.  Hope some of you folks can tune in!

Posted by Steven Vincent at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a throat-clearing opening paragraph, yesterday's New York Times editorial--entitled "Facing Facts About Iraq's Elections"--got to the point:

It's time to talk about postponing the elections.

The Gray Lady's pronouncement--delivered with the gravity of a principle calling the parents of a disobedient child failing in school--is in keeping with the paper's disapproving attitude toward the war, which in turn reflects the prevailing opinion of northeastern liberal elites, including the CIA, State Department and other "realist" critics of neo-conservative idealism.  The editorial, in short, represents the reasonable, cautious, non-ideological side of American foreign policy--the side Europeans prefer--which, while not entirely wrong, is dangerously misguided when it comes to the January 30th elections and, more importantly, the nature of the Sunni "insurgency" that threatens them. 

After noting that violence is likely to depress turnout in Iraq's western, and predominately Sunni, provinces, the Times calls for a postponement of voting for a "fixed period of only two or three months," during which time the Allawi government "should convene an emergency meeting" to develop a "revised election timetable."  In return, Sunni leaders "would have to promise to take part in the elections that followed."  In other words, the Times and the "realist" establishment it represents, counsels the Iraqi government to answer the fascist insurgency by delaying elections, calling a meeting and holding Sunnis to their word.  We've witnessed this sort of "realistic" betrayal of democracy and reliance on paper agreements and the pledges of criminal thugs before, only it didn't take place in Baghdad--but in Munich. 

The Times is aware of the specter of appeasement. 

Worrying about whether the Sunnis will be included in the government does not mean sympathizing will their baser resentments...the Sunnis simply have to accept the fact that they will never again enjoy their old enormous share of the [Iraqi] pie.

Right.  And as soon as Hitler sees the light and realizes his bellicose policies will only pitch the continent into war, he'll come `round to being a good European...Placed in the Middle East, this same "realistic" thinking is as dangerously naive as Neville Chamberlain's 70 years ago.  Bottom line:  the Sunni radicals are not going to accept defeat and they are not going to permit elections.  If their participation in the democratic process hinged upon their acknowledgment that the days of Saddam's patronage was gone, they would have already come to the negotiating table.  This is the weakness of the Times' school of "reasonable" thinking:  it cannot conceive of an enemy who does not also act reasonably, rationally and in it's own self-interest.  The irrational power of Fascism paralyzes the realist.

As I've argued many times before, the Sunni counter-liberation is not based in a clear-eyed assessment of needs, goals or realistic objectives:  rather, driven by fear, tribalism and grandiosity, it is a plunge into the suicidal vortex of the shame-honor dynamic, increasingly fueled by religious fantasy.  And while not all Sunnis are infected with this malignant narcissism, the more radical leaders are--and these men will never negotiate, never surrender and never allow their fellow Sunnis to submit to a Shia-dominated government no matter how many postponements of elections take place.  For their own precious honor--and that of their families, clans and tribes--they would rather kill and be killed.  If they can't run Iraq--then Iraq will cease to exist.

Recently, Jawad Hashim, an Iraqi intellectual and writer who advised Saddam during the 1970s told me a chilling story.  "The dictator would often say to me, 'If there ever comes a time when my regime goes down, I will make sure that not a single stone in Iraq remains intact.'"   

The "realist" school can't grasp such frightening irrationality; rather, it must find rational reasons for Sunni intransigence.  Thus the Times notes how the U.S. made a grave error in disbanding the Iraqi army (a charge Paul Bremer deftly refuted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed which also ran on January 12, surely no coincidence) and failed to protect decent, law-abiding Sunnis from criminals and terrorists.  It also criticizes the U.N.'s "mistake" (for which the Times ultimately censures the Bush Administration) of designing elections for national candidates, rather than for local district or provincial representatives, thus allowing the Sunnis more representation in the government.  In the end, many of the Sunni grievances

could have been avoided if the American invasion had been conducted more wisely...

No doubt.  But the Times overlooks one dreadful irony of the Sunni counter-liberation:  America's successful liberation and "occupation" of Iraq has allowed it to exist and flourish.  If U.S. troops had never patrolled the streets of Ramadi, Falluja and Baghdad, never stood as a shield between the Sunni minority and a vengeful Shia and Kurdish population, what would have happened?  Peshmerga and Badr Brigade militiamen would have flooded the Sunni Triangle and done what the American army cannot bring itself to do--search out and destroy insurgent leaders, along with thousands of innocent civilians.  For all their "hatred" of the American "occupation," Sunnis know full well that without the G.I.s they castigate, denounce and murder, they themselves would fall prey to a worse enemy, enraged by decades of political and religious oppression, unconstrained by public opinion or the nightly newscasts of Al Jazeera.  The Sunnis get it both ways:  an enemy to despise, a reason to remain aggrieved and Americans to kill to reclaim their honor.

This is why the "realist" school is wrong and elections must proceed on schedule, even with the risks of civil war.  At base, the Sunni counter-liberation is not a rational struggle that politics can mitigate or end.  It has only one true goal:  to kill American soldiers and their allies.  It can only be met by force (and the Sunnis better pray to Allah that such force remains under American control).  As we see in Europe today, concession to the radical Arab tactics of insularity, non-cooperation and grievance only leads to further demands, further weakening of democracy, further danger to the world.  We must draw a line in the sand and say, you either cooperate with us on our terms, or you will be lost. 

The Times understands this, but in typical fashion, can't draw the hard conclusion. 

Many Americans--and many Iraqis--worry that if the elections were postponed, the terrorists would feel empowered by having won.  That might indeed be the case for a few months.

A few months?  And after experiencing the intoxications of bringing to naught the plans of the hated Shia and Kurds, and more importantly, the all-powerful United States, Sunni radicals are then supposed to discard their mujaheddin robes for the business suits of statesman?  Can the Times be this naive?  Not quite: 

[T]hat outcome would be far outweighed by the danger that would come from a civil war.

Perhaps.  More likely, though, postponing elections will not delay such a conflict.  Instead, it will only empower the Sunni radicals to increase their demands, raise the level of the insurgency and force a second, and a third delay, until the election process collapses.  The slim hope we have of saving Iraq from deeper misery is to present the Sunnis with an unyielding option:  either get on board the democracy train now, or be forever left at the station.  If they need an object lesson, we should direct their attention a few hundred miles to the west to see what happened to the Palestinians when they made their choice in the matter. 

As Times columnist David Brooks wrote yesterday, "The U.S. tried to hand a new Iraq back to the Iraqis.  We failed."  Yes, we did.  Badly.  But so did the Iraqis.  The unwritten story of this conflict is how each side expected the other to take up the bulk of the responsibility for reconstructing the country, and when neither did, chaos ensued.  Because of those mutual failures, the nation is embroiled in an incipient civil war.  While elections may not save Iraq, postponing them will almost certainly doom it.  The Sunnis must understand that they either come to the democratic table, or face a perpetual Palestian-like hell with only a ever-diminishing line of American troops standing between their people and the Kurdish and Shia militias, whose knives are as long as their memories. 

UPDATE:  The NRO's James Robbins weighs in on the issue.  (Credit:  Arthur Chrenkoff)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 04:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Oswald Spengler wrote in The Decline of the West that it was Napoleon's tragedy that each of his victories utlimately advanced the economic and political power of his nemesis, England.  One wonders if Osama bin Laden isn't, at least in some ways, serving America as the same sort of convenient enemy:  one whose apparently growing power and successes in the field actually work to favor the strategic interests of the very forces he is ranged against.

Counter-intuitive?  Perhaps.  But take Osama's most successful operation to date:  the World Trade Center attack.  As Christopher Hitchens once noted, if the terrorist had resisted his exhibitionistic tendences and instead mounted a slow, silent and covert take-over of Pakistan, Al Qaeda would now be an irresistible enemy possessing nuclear weapons.  Instead, succumbing to his malignant narcissism, ObL slaughtered thousands of innocent people in a grand theatrical gesture that alerted America and the world about the threat he posed to civilization.  The death of every sailor at Pearl Harbor gained some measure of meaning from the fact that the attack propelled us into World War II; some day, God willing, we will see that the losses of 9-11 were the price our generation had to pay to rouse ourselves to defeat Islamofascism. 

Secondly, if you lay a map of oil regions in the Middle East and Asia over one showing American bases and military presence in the War on Terror, you'd find they roughly overlap.  Coincidence?  Right, and Mullah Omar's the next guest host on SNL.  Under the rubric of fighting Al Qaeda, the U.S. has moved assets around the Caspian Sea and into Central and South Asia, where they will eventually serve to check Chinese penetration into those regions in search of oil.  America and the PRC are on a collision course similar to Britain and Germany before World War I.   What we can hope is that the liberation of Iraq, Afghanistan and (to anticipate my argument) Iran will, in the long run, create good will toward the U.S. and gain us allies in a coming conflict with Beijing. 

More recently--December 27, to be exact--the "pious, charismatic, gentle, generous Muslim" (to quote ObL-mesmerized Michael Scheuer; see Redzone's The Trouble with Hubris) issued a communique denouncing Iraq's elections and declaring support for Zarqawi.  A curious piece of work it was, too--ominous and chilling in the inimitable bin Laden style--yet at the same time awkward and emotionally clumsy.  In fact, it may have been a tactical mistake, a clue to the next phase of the War against Islamofascism--and an inadvertent boon to America. 

Let's go to the videotape.  Donning the guise of that peculiarly Islamic phenomenon, the terrorist/imam/politician, Osama branded Iraqis who participate in January's elections as "infidels," guilty of "apostasy."  While these denunciations sound like bad De Millian dialogue to us, they are, in Muslim circles, serious business:  many conservatives and radicals consider apostasy a crime punishable by death.  Exuding further holiday cheer, bin Laden anointed Zarqawi as the "emir" of Al Qaeda's Iraqi operations--and even requested donations, noting that terror operations in Iraq cost "200,000 euros a week."  (A Terror Telethon? Make your GSM encryption-call today, 800-257-2332.)

As a ploy to win Iraqi hearts and minds, this can't be a winner.  Iraqis hate foreign jihadists.  "Who do they think they are, coming here to kill our people?" is a typical comment.  Even those who despise the U.S. castigate non-Iraqi terrorists.  As one Fallujan policeman told me, "American soldiers are here with fighters from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia--all to steal from Iraq!"  For bin Laden to ally himself with Zarqawi is tantamount to saying, Al Qaeda to Iraq:  Drop Dead.

Moreover, if he's championing a man the Iraqis loathe, he's attacking one they love:  Ali al-Sistani.  Not only has the Grand Ayatollah pushed hard for elections, he has declared it a Muslim's "duty" to vote and--in the Shia's idea of a get-out-the-vote technique--warned that those who abstain will "go to hell" (Karl Rove, eat your heart out).  By condemning the election process, bin Laden--who, as far we know, is no aalim, not even a talib ilm--is opposing Sistani politically, while accusing the marjah of apostasy.  Add to this the fact that he's appointed as his "emir" a man who has made a point of killing as many Shia as he can, and you have to wonder whassup with Mr. Terror Master.  Why is he so determined to alienate the Shia?  What does he hope to gain--and how does this affect American interests?

The answer may lie in the conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims for the leadership of Islam--a civil war that has raged ever since Yazid's troops decapitated Hussain and brought his head back to Damascus in the 7th century.  Among certain radical Sunnis--and their Havana-cigar-smoking, yacht-sailing, "royal family" allies getting petro-rich off America's obscene addiciton to SUVs--elections in Iraq will mean the Shia dominate, or have influential power, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran, forming a veritable crescent that, joined with Bahrain, will nearly encircle Saudi Arabia.  It can't be lost on the House of Saud that the Shia will control Iraq and Iran's substantial resources--not to mention the fact that the Saudi's 200,000 Shia sit atop the richest oil fields of the kingdom.  Nor should we forget that Iran may soon have its Shia Bomb.

What's a Sunni radical to do?  Enter bin Laden, with his skill in harnessing the tensions of the Muslim world.  By condemning Iraq's elections, he is declaring his opposition to Shia interests across the Middle East--something the decadent royal Saudi family with their connections to the U.S. cannot do.  In this way, he hopes to position himself as the most effective challenge to a potential American-Shia alliance.  Creating a civil war in Iraq--hence his support for his Shia-hating "emir"--is perhaps the best way to prevent the balance of power shifting from Riyadh to Tehran.

What's in this for America?  To begin with, bin Laden's intervention can help cement the functional, and perhaps operational, ties between the U.S. and Iran that have formed to shepherd Iraq's elections past the teeth of Sunni opposition.  In addition, bringing Zarqawi on board the Al Qaeda team can only convince Iraqis--if further convincing is necessary--of the monstrousness of the so-called "insurgency."  It might also induce the mainstream media to underscore, rather than legitimize, the obscenity of the "resistance"--but such miracles are few and far between.

On a larger scale, the Shia may ultimately prove our best allies in the Muslim Middle East.  Iran's revolution is played out, its people perhaps the most pro-U.S. in the region.   A nuclear Iran seems all but inevitable, as does our necessity of accepting Shihab IIIs with Tel Aviv and Riyadh in range.  Let us pray to all our gods for the rapid arrival of what everyone expects:  a second, truly democratic, Iranian revolution.

As for Iraq, if--I find myself unable to add "and when"--democracy takes root there, the country's people will someday see beyond their current resentments and come to honor U.S. sacrifices in liberating them.  Spread that gratitude across the Shia crescent and bin Laden's efforts to mount the white horse of Sunni supremacy will backfire, drawing Washington and the Hawza closer together and isolating Saudi Arabia.  Which is another way of saying, advancing U.S. interests by wresting the Middle East away from Our Friends the Saudis and their pernicious Wahhabi ideology.  Then we can begin the epochal task of helping Shia moderates wean their religion from the mind-numbing, spirit-dulling, woman-oppressing strictures of shari'a--but that's for my next post.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 11:  "Faced with a losing war against Salvadorian rebels," Newsweek's Michael Hersh and John Barry remind us,

the U.S. funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death-squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.

Once again, the same media phenomenon:  take a "nationalist" gunman, put a mask on him and set him in some Spanish speaking country and he becomes a "paramilitary"--or, as Newsweek has it, a member of a "death-squad."  Take the same masked killer, place him in Iraq and he becomes an "insurgent," a "guerrilla," a "Minuteman."  Which of the two sets of terms has a better claim on our sympathies?

Now we have a new wrinkle.  If ex-Baathists, or Syria, or Iran, or Al Qaeda or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi trains men to target leaders for assassination, they create insurgents.  If the United States does the same--we unleash death-squads.   The first description evokes assistance to some heroic anti-colonial guerrilla struggle; the second, support for terror in the name of some reactionary regime.  Which stands the best chances of winning people's hearts and minds?

Fascists, hiding in the plain view of the media spotlight--how did it come to this?

(Credit:  Instapundit)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

TiVo alert!  I'll be discussing ITRZ and Iraq with the Rev. Pat Robertson on the 700 Club tommorrow at 9:00 a.m.   And this Friday, I'll be appearing on Fox News' "Fox & Friends" (thanks Pat!)--I'll let you know the time when we confirm it.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In his penetrating new book What We Owe Iraq (which I'm reviewing for American Enterprise Magazine) writer Noah Feldman observes that if the U.S. had operated in Iraq like traditional imperialists, Washington would have replaced the deposed Baath party with a military junta run by a "strong-man" general--in other words, the kind of "Saddam-lite" many Sunnis claim they want today--and turned the country into an American puppet-state.  Instead, we took a riskier--and more ethical--course by letting the Iraqis decide their government for themselves through elections, and the eventual drafting of a constitution. 

But what kind of government, what kind of constitution?  So far, most of us are focused on the elections and terrorist attempts to derail them.  Directing our attention beyond the January 30 horizon is an op-ed piece in Friday's WaPo by Brett H. McGurk, former Associate General Counsel to the CPA and someone who helped fashion Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), which established this month's elections.  In his piece, McGurk presents a succinct and authoritative analysis of what exactly Iraqis are voting for, and how these elections are only the beginning of the laborious process of the power-sharing and compromise needed to construct a constitution.  Accompanying his op-ed is an informative online conversation with WaPo readers, which you can find here.

I'll let Mr. McGurk--who has taught Occupation Law at the University of Virginia Law School--instruct us on this subject.  But a number of his points bear highlighting. 

Any elected majority must share power to govern post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.  The country is simply too diverse and intermingled for one group to peacefully control more than a small fraction of territory.

Many observers believe that Iraq's quarrelsome ethnic and confessional groups mean democracy is impossible.  But McGurk suggests the opposite could also be true:  any attempts to govern a variegated population must involve deal-making, horse-trading, going along to get along--in short, politics, not the fiats of a megalomaniacal tyrant. 

Do the Iraqis want democracy?  McGurk sees a development the media has all but ignored.

Local governmental structures with broad powers of control have already formed in every province of Iraq.  They are an unsung success of the post-occuption period.

He relates a story told by an Iraqi friend, one of those inspiring occurances that--as I learned firsthand--you have be in the country to discover, since the press so rarely reports them.

On the day the two electoral workers were killed on Haifa Street (the picture everyone saw) other workers immediately went out to Haifa Street to continue with their work.  That, to me, is the story of Iraq--a resiliency and confidence in the long-term future that we cannot appreciate stateside.

So true.

McGurk goes on to downplay talk of civil war as "overblown."  He then expresses his views of the fascist insurgency with refreshing candor. 

IThe paramilitaries] have no coherent agenda and lack widespread support.  How do I know they lack widespread support?  Because they are murdering and torturing Iraqis--hardly the sign of a popular movement.  Look at what our Marines found in Fallujah:  torture chambers, execution cells, every mosque a fortress and ammunition depot.  This is not a resistance movement.

In my mind, however, McGurk gives short shrift to the greatest danger facing Iraq, one which threatens its future more than even the Islamofascists:  the possible splintering of the Shia-Kurd alliance over Shia insistence on shari'a (see  my post Left Behind).  As McGurk notes, the TAL

allows two-thirds of voters in three or more provinces to reject the constitution in the referendum, even if it carries a majority nationwide.  [Ayatollah] Sistani has said he rejects that provision.  But the Kurds see it as necessary insurance for their role in the permanent framework.  This will need to be worked out in the coming months.

That's a little like saying antebellum America had to "work out" the free or slave status of border states, but let's hope matters don't come to such a successionist head in Iraq.  The Sunni Triangle is too much like "Bleeding Kansas" as it is.

Balancing McGurk's generally upbeat assessment of the elections was the grumpy and overstuffed Sunday Times.  In an article headlined "U.S. is Haunted by Intital Plan for Iraqi Voting" Steven Weisman broaches a subject that's been floating around for weeks:  the fact that Iraqis must choose the members of the new assembly from nationwide lists of candidates, rather than by electing representatives from districts and provinces.  The "haunting":problem, of course, is that this all-Iraq system prevents certain provinces--say, Anbar or Nineveh--from postponing the vote until Iraqi-Coalition forces can dampen the fascist counter-liberation.  As one of the leading proponents of local elections, the Hoover Institute's Larry Diamond, put it: 

It's clear now that one of the major concerns motivating the Sunni boycott is their fear that they'll wind up severely underrepresented under this system.

Yes, and whose fault is that?  As Secretary of State Powell said yesterday in Nairobi, "Who's shutting out the Sunnis?  It's the insurgents themselves."  Sunni leaders threatening to boycott the elections because of violence are like inner city drug dealers refusing to send their kids to school because of neighborhood crime. 

Clearly, though, Weisman and the Times side with Diamond in the local vs. national elections dispute, since the article failed to mention the best, most compelling reason why Iraqis on January 30 will not elect assembly members from their local towns, cities and underground terrorist camps: any other system would almost certainly have insured that hardcore Baathists retained political control of at least three western provinces, and a heavy influence over Baghdad.  Average Iraqis detest Baath Party members and often refuse to cooperate with them, even in mundane office settings.  Picture the U.S. allowing seats in Germany's post-war Bundestag to unapologetic Nazis and you'll get a rough idea of the problems local elections would bequeath in Iraq.

Incidentally, McGurk notes that election rules established by the TAL and U.N. advisors require that roughly one-third of each slate's candidates be women.  In other words, if a party gains10 seats in the new Iraqi assembly, three will be female.  That seems remarkable given the misogyny that acts as an organizing principle for much of Iraqi society--even more so when you consider that out of the U.S Congress' 535 members, 82 are female. 

Well, if 43rd Street see fits to rain on the Iraqi election parade, other news sources do not.  Red Zone reader (and good friend) Ron Gustavson sends over a link from that bastion of republican passion and popular sovereignty, Iran.  The Tehran Times--a newspaper so conservative it believes that Al Jazeera is a Zionist conspiracy--voices its approval of elections.

The Iraqis must realize the importance of restoring national sovereignty and must turn out massively for the election to establish a new Iraqi government.

Despite the obstacles some Baathists and foreign elements have put in the way of the electoral process, after three decades of dictatorship, the time is ripe for the Iraqi people to determine their own destiny.

Of course, this is all a little suspicious--like the fox arguing that chickens should have free run of the farm--but at least Tehran isn't denouncing the new Iraqi government as an American puppet.  The article also provides interesting news:

The deputy governor of the Sunni majority city of Tikrit is said to have negotiated with Iraq’s most influential Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, revealing that the election is a common issue that links all ethnic and religious groups, since the establishment of the future government could help to end the occupation.

If true, this development, combined with the possible wavering of the Assocation of Muslim Scholars regarding their opposition to elections, underscore what many observes, like Ali at Free Iraq (thanks to Iraqi Bloggers Central) assert:

I've heard it from many of my Sunni friends that they are concerned about the possibility that the constitution might be written by Shi'a and Kurds mainly, and to be more accurate they are concerned with the Shi'a part more...my belief is that the percentage of Sunnis who will vote will be considerably lower than that of any other group, but it will be still high enough to contradict the analysis of most experts, and we only have to wait for few days to see.

In other words, insha'allah.

Lastly, reader Peter Regas sends a link to a fascinating transcript of a January 5 press conference with General Thomas Metz, commander of the Coalition forces in Iraq.  In this excerpt, Metz responds to a question about recent remarks made by the head of Iraqi intelligence, General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, that the "resistance" numbers "more than 200,000 people," 40,000 of which are "hard-core fighters."

At the 8,000 or 10,000 level, it's certainly a lot more understanding to me, in the metrics and the things that I see, the number of attacks per week, the number of IEDs that are put out, and go through some kind of equation that could come up with a number in the range that General Abizaid talked about.

He then goes on to make more general comments about the composition of the fascist counter-liberation, and its methods and goals for Iraq.

But I quite--as a corps commander, I don't do much with that number, because the insurgency has so many different flavors.  There are hard-core terrorists that are fighting for an ideology.  There are, on the other end of the spectrum, young impoverished men that need to make some money, and so that they periodically join for the only reason to feed their family.  And so there can be differences--and it would change by province...[so] the number of insurgents to me is not necessarily the metric.

The thing that I find so key to this entire fight is that it is not a popular insurgency.  It is not--the tools that they are using--murder, torture, kidnapping indiscriminately children, women--those are tools of someone who is not popularly supported--and that the majority of Iraqis do not want whatever they have as a strategy. 

And that gets me into your--the second part of your question.  What is their strategy?  Other than warning the Coalition to go away, very few of these groups have a common objective, and they certainly don't articulate them.  I do not know of an articulation of a better Iraq via murder, torture, intimidation.  I see a better Iraq via reconstruction, free elections, an economy, using the resources of this great country to its benefit.  So I have a hard time understanding their--now, their strategy, their fighting strategy is to get as much publicity out of each attack as they possibly can...and it is clearly just to intimidate, to make people so fearful that they would rather give up their rights of freedom.  And that is exactly what the Iraqi security forces and the Coalition are fighting against.

May they be victorious.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anyone interested in what I look and sound like--on camera, at least--might want to check out Fox News Live this Sunday at 2:30 EDT.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

He's young, Shia and pro-American.  As profiled in a recent Wall  Street Journal article, Farqad Qizwini is a moderate, Thomas Jefferson-loving cleric who runs a radio station that broadcasts election information and a university for "humanistic studies" in central Iraq.  In short, he's everything America yearns to see arise from the ranks of Iraq's Shia leadership.  There's just one hitch:  he's against women's rights.

As the Journal notes, Qizwini opposes U.S. efforts to ensure more female participation in Iraq's new government, and once declared that women judges are "unacceptable under Islamic law."  He's not alone--most members of the Shia religious establishment reject Western-style notions of women's equality.  "Islam is specific on men's authority: man leads and women follow," Sheik Ahmed Darwash al-Kinani told me over tea one afternoon in Baghdad.  Ayatollah Sistani himself has decreed such unfeminist judgments--for example, forbidding women from shaking mens' hands, leaving home without male permission, or forming friendships with non-family-related men.  Even secular Shia profess "unprogressive" beliefs.  As an Oxford-educated academic in Basra informed me, "Man's task is to work in the outside world.  Woman's is to keep house and raise children to be good Muslim citizens."

As Iraq's Shia slowly assume power, Western observers are scrutinizing their leaders' comments about America, the role of religion in government and relations with Iran.  Missing from that analysis, however, is concern about Shia attitudes toward women.  Unlike their apparently moderate positions on political matters, their stance on gender equality remains rooted in shari'a, or Islamic law.  In Basra, Sheikh Aodha al-Obaydi, of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) told me, "We believe women's rights must follow shari'a."  It's for their own good, al Kinani emphasized:  "Under shari'a, women are treated like precious gems in a jewel box."

More like prisoners in a theocratic cage.  From the Western perspective, shari'a is thoroughly anti-feminist.  For instance, the code permits men polygamy, divorce by repudiation and the right to inherit twice as much as females; the Shia version even allows religiously-sanctioned adultery, or muta'a ("temporary marriages"), in which married Muslim men can enjoy the conjugal benefits of another woman in return for furnishing her with money or property.  (Most cultures have another name for this arrangement.)  Conversely, the same code denies women the ability to choose husbands, travel freely, or wear anything but cloaks to cover their bodies.  "Shari'a oppresses women, it is against human rights," Iraqi feminist firebrand Yanar Mohammad once told me.

How serious are Shia leaders about imposing shari'a?  Serious enough to have nearly accomplished it.  On December 29, 2003, the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council passed Resolution 137, which would have replaced Iraq's relatively progressive 1959 "Family Law" regarding women with shari'a.  Fortunately. Paul Bremer refused to sign the measure, preventing its implementation.

But the story is not over. A major instigator behind Resolution 137 was SCIRI leader Abdul al-Hakim, who served at the time as the GC's chairman.  As I've noted before, SCIRI wields major influence in southern Iraq, where women are increasingly covering themselves, and conservatives frequently post signs with such exhortations as "Hejab is the most beautiful accessory for women."  Moreover, Hakim himself is the frontrunner to become Iraq's next prime minister after the January elections.  His postion on women's rights, the role of shari'a and whether he will agree to U.S. pressures to set aside 25 percent of Iraq's new parliament for women in ominously vague.

Many observers--such as myself--glean what little optimism we can about the upcoming elections mainly from Shia assurances of moderation.  These assurances, however, encourage us to perceive men like Qizwini, Sistani and Hakim as Western-style democrats.  They are not.  Especially when it comes to feminism, Shia leaders are products of their male-dominated religion   Modern democracy, however, transcends religion to include all men and women--something the West must stress to the January victors.

In the wake of the Civil War, the North found itself "occupying"--or reconstructing--the shattered Confederacy.  Weary of the cost, and eager to withdraw its troops, the Union ended its efforts to establish the rule of civil rights throughout the south with the so-called "Compromise of 1877."  Abandoned to white supremacy--a form of tribalism often supported from the pulpit--blacks had to struggle another century to achieve equality.  We must not repeat that mistake in Iraq.  Gender equality is the key to victory in the war against political Islam, from Baghdad to Jakarta to Riyadh.  In our rush to patch up a government and end the reconstruction of Iraq, we cannot abandon that nation's 16 million women, whose inferior status and second-class citizenship may worsen under the Shias' new "moderate" leadership.

Next:  shari'a in Canada--and what are those Islamic laws anyway?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are two generous reviews of ITRZ at Solomonia and Enter Stage Right.

Amy Ridenour comments on Jeff Harrell's interview.

The excerpt from ITRZ that appeared on National Review Online has been making the rounds (Little Green Footballs, Ed Driscoll, Logomachon).

ITRZ is on the current reading list at King of Fools.

The book has been mentioned on a number of blogs, and further roundups (and some reciprocal links) are forthcoming.

Posted by Mitchell Muncy at 05:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Readers who would like to receive notices of publications and major media appearances by Steven Vincent may sign up for the ITRZ email list here. We will not share email addresses with anyone for any reason.

Posted by Mitchell Muncy at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No pretext

Sometime this fall, I realized John Kerry was in trouble when I heard an NPR  report about a pro-Bush rally somewhere in the midwest.  During the course of the rally, Kerry supporters began shouting at the crowd, causing the Republicans to chant--not "FOUR MORE YEARS" or "GEORGE W. BUSH," like you might expect--but "USA!  USA!  USA!"  I tried to imagine the situation reversed:  would Democrats at a Kerry rally attempt to drown out hecklers by booming "USA!  USA!"?  The idea seemed oddly ridiculous--like a Belgian street-gang--and therein lay the problem.  Bush supporters felt comfortable identifying their man with a gut-level sense of America; Kerry people did not.  (Remember "nuance?")  This, in turn, energized Republicans to claim the patriotic high-ground and frame the campaign so that, in their own minds, an attack on Bush was an attack on America itself.  In warfare, politics and rhetoric, such esprit and belief in the cause means the difference between victory and defeat.

I thought of this incident yesterday as I read Thomas Friedman's column in the New York Times.  As usual succinct, informal and dead-on the money, Friedman laid out the importance of Iraq's January elections.  The current war, he wrote, pits

Sunni and Islamic militants against the U.S. and its Iraqi allies, many of whom do not seem comfortable fighting with, and seemingly for, the U.S.  America cannot win that war...That is a civil war in which the murderous insurgents appear to be on the side of ending the U.S. "occupation of Iraq" and the U.S. and its allies appear to be about sustaining that occupation.

Rather, Friedman continues, we want a situation where the terms of engagement are more favorable to us--in short, a war that ranges

a democratically elected Iraqi government against the Baathist and Islamist militants.  It needs to be clear that these so-called insurgents are not fighting to liberate Iraq from America, but rather to reassert the tyranny of a Sunni-Baathist minority over the majority there.  The insurgents are clearly desperate that they not be cast as fighting a democratically elected Iraqi government--which is why they are desperately trying to scuttle the elections. 

It comes down to legitimacy and justification. At this point in the conflict, the paramilitaries feel they can still make a valid claim--to their followers, the Arab world and "useful idiots" like Michael "Minuteman" Moore and Ted "Collaborator" Rall--that they are the true Iraqi patriots.  God willing, after the elections their lie will prove impossible to maintain.  They will appear to the world--and increasingly themselves--for what they are:  paramilitary gunmen seeking to launch a fascist coup against an elected government.

Of course, that is how many of us saw them from the first day of the war.  Nothing has changed, except which each moment, the hope of democracy in Iraq comes closer to some realization.  Sharing our understanding of the significance of this possibility is none other than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.  In February, Coalition authorities intercepted a letter that the terror-master wrote to unknown confederates where, among other topics, he addressed the biggest danger facing the terrorist cause.

How can we kill [Iraqi] cousins and sons and under what pretext, after the American start withdrawing?  The Americans will continue to control from their bases, but the sons of this land will be the authority.  This is the democracy, we will have no pretext.

Pretext.  In other words, a legitimization, a plausible reason, a fig-leaf of morality to justify the unjustifiable slaughter of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.  That pretext is nonexistent.  Surely he doesn't think Allah will provide it for him? 

Moqtada al-Sadr does--or at least wants to appear so.  Braying from the other side of the terrorist junkyard, the renegade Shia cleric has been issuing futile declarations attempting to brand the elections as part of the "occupation"--and unIslamic, to boot. 

The elections aim to separate the Iraqi from his religion.  When people vote for politicians, secularists, those who cooperate with the occupation -- they will not think of God.

Unfortunately for him, Ayatollah Sistani has proclaimed the opposite:  that Allah demands each of the 16 million Shia go to the polls, with refusal bringing eternal damnation.

This voting is still weeks away, but already its effects are visible in the ethereal realm of memes.  Slowly, the notion of an "Iraqi government" is taking root in public awareness.  Press reports now speak of the "guerrillas"--not, as before, "resisting the occupation"--but  "trying to derail upcoming elections."  With each suicide bomb or IED, increasing numbers of people are beginning to ask themselves--if they haven't already--why are the Sunnis doing this?  What do they hope to gain?  Why do they fear democracy?  In the answers to those questions lies the ruin of the so-called "insurgency."

Assuming the elections take place and are perceived as reasonably legitimate, this ruin, this moral bankruptcy, will be all but apparent.  Only in the hotels and villas of Amman and Damascus will ex-Baathist leaders continue to view their drugged-up mercenaries as "resistance" fighters ("resisting" what?  Peace? A decent future for Iraqi families?).  Only in the backstreets of Ramadi or the caves of Waziristan will jihadists laud Zarqawi as a hero.  And when bin Laden's "emir" is caught--as he will be, betrayed by an Iraqi who has lost faith in the "cause"--we can hang this sign around his neck: 

This is democracy.  You have no pretext.

Lastly, after the elections, the Left will no longer escape the dilemma that has confronted them from the moment the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1441:  in opposing the war, they have opposed the fight of democratic forces against fascism.  No longer will they be able to justify their unwillingness to act, their desire to remain cocooned in apathy, ignorance and self-reinforcing Bush-hatred by claiming that the war and "occupation" are "immoral."  A question will haunt their actions, as it has from the onset of this conflict:  if you do not support democracy in Iraq, where will you support it?

None of this means we are winning this war.  In fact, we--the U.S. and the Iraqis--are perilously close to losing.  As Reuel Marc Gerecht points out in this week's Weekly Standard, how can we claim momentum toward victory when our forces cannot even keep the road from the Baghdad airport free of terrorist ambushes? 

No, the tide has not yet turned.  We have horrific weeks to endure before ballots are cast.  And even after the elections, the bloodletting will not stop, Iraq will not become a democratic-minded polity overnight--nor will American mistakes and crimes find magic absolution.  The war will continue.  But if events on January 30 go reasonably well, the difference could be stark:  the enemy, finally, will have exhausted the lies they have used to justify their nihilistic murders.  At the same time, the Iraqis who have sided with the future will find their morale boosted, their courage fortified.  They will be fighting for their homeland, a legitimate democracy.  And that is a moral high-ground from where few dedicated combatants have ever failed.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the world reaches deep into its collective pocket to contribute money (latest count, $5 billion) to the relief of the South Asian tsunami victims, it's interesting to note who's doing the giving, and who's not.  While these statistics are fairly well known--especially amidst the blogosphere--they bear repeating, if only to expose some rank hypocrisy among our Saracen friends. 

As of today, the top five government donors are, in millions:  Australia ($765); Germany ($680); Japan ($500); the U.S. ($350); and the World Bank ($250).  Among private donations, however, America leads the pack with $1 billion--the next closest being Germany with $200 million.  These figures show that "stingy" Uncle Sam is by far the most generous nation on the planet, especially when it comes to aiding the largely Muslim survivors of last month's natural disaster.

And who's not pulling their charitable weight?  Our Friends the Saudis, for one, diverting some of the petro-dollars they usually use to fund Wahhabi-based clerics and anti-Semitic literature to kick in a paltry $30 million.  As for other Arab states, in millions:  Qatar (25); United Arab Emirates (20); Kuwait (10); and from Algeria, Libya and Bahrain, $2 million each--less than a sheik's nightly baccarat droppings at Semiramis Casino in Cairo.  Speaking of Egypt--and Jordan--and Iran--has anyone heard from those fine Muslim nations?

Indeed, inquiring minds among the Arab press want to know.  A December 30 editorial in Beirut's Daily Star throws down the gauntlet: 

Long-established images--nay, caricatures--of white-robed sheiks sailing their luxury yachts on seas of oil and using $100 bills to light their Havana cigars will only be reinforced in the face of collective miserliness in this hour of human need, especially if the petroleum-rich Gulf states do not dig a bit deeper into pockets that have become quite deep indeed over the last few years of high oil prices.

According to today's Seattle Times, an editorial in the Kuwaiti newspaper Qabas slammed the government's parsimony, reminding officials that Kuwait relies on South Asian workers to carry out menial tasks  The New York Sun's Benny Avni reports that a Saudi columnist writing for another Kuwaiti daily, Al-Watan complained that extremists have "hijacked" Islam and Saudi charities must return to "moderation and tolerance" rather than terrorism.

One reason that Islamic nations have been relatively tight-fisted is that Thailand and Sri Lanka are not predominately Muslim.  "They are focused on religious solidarity rather than global society," the Times quotes Cairo University professor Heba Raouf.  Moreover, Sri Lanka's Muslim minority have long claimed persecution, particularly at the hands of the so-called Tamil Tigers, who in 1990 drove 16,000 Muslim  families out of rebel-controlled areas. 

Still, there's Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, which suffered at least 94,000 dead.  With a tragedy of this magnitude, you'd think the umma would be rushing to Jakarta with bushels of zakaah to disburse.  But you'd be wrong, as Jon Alterman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies told the Times:  "there's sort of a second-class Muslim idea in much of the Middle East."  Or, as the paper explains,

Many Arabs, whose lands gave birth to Islam and in whose language the Koran is written, look down on their brethren in Asia.

So much for "religious solidarity."

As for the U.S. winning Muslim hearts and minds through red, white and blue beneficence--sooner we'll see an NBA franchise in Riyadh.  Arthur Chrenkoff quotes an article appearing in Egypt's al-Ahkbar newspaper,

[Washington] uses all occasions and circumstances to consolidate its hegemony, and through all legitimate and illegitimate means...No one is convinced that U.S. motivations are surrounded by humanitarian and moral principles...[The primary American objective is to] consolidate itself as the superpower of the world.

Remind us again of Egypt's contribution to relief efforts?  Oh, that's right...

Meanwhile, the Sun's Avni informs us of a rumor bouncing around the Muslim world that the tsunami was the result of a nuclear experiment in the Indian Ocean.  Or, as the headline of Egypt's Al Osboa newspaper read: "Was it American, Israeli, Indian Nuclear Tests that caused the earthquakes?"  The Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak printed similar speculations. 

The conservative Iranian daily Kayhan contended that the U.S. knew about the tsunami but failed to act. 

We have to consider that an earthquake of this scale is very important for American satellites, since it may [have been caused by] a nuclear explosion by India in the middle of the Indian Ocean...how can it be accepted that Americans with their super-modern equipment could not [warn people]?.

Despite the lack of apparent urgency from the Islamic community, some Muslim groups are active in Indonesia, especially in the predominately Arab province of Aceh.  One of these, according to the Financial Times' Shawn Donnan, is the conservative Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) which has "charted airliners to ferry more than 1,300 volunteers from around Indonesia to Aceh, helicopters to reach remote areas and a fleet of trucks to distribute aid."  A rising political force--last year it won 48 seats in Indonesia's 500-seat parliament--the PKS believes that Islamic law should govern the nation's largely secular population.

Another group is the Indonesian Mujaheddin Council, which has linked to Jemaah Islamiyyah, the group responsible for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, among others in Indonesia.   As for its opinion of U.S. relief efforts, Donnan quotes a 26 year-old Council member.

The problem is America came here and helped us just to show its power...America uses the country [sic] they help as a toy.

Nothing the U.S. does or does not do will ever appear positive to these ideologues.  If it weren't so tragically apparent in Iraq, the old saw might seem mordantly amusing amidst the devastation of this Arab region:  no good deed goes unpunished.

UPDATE:  Arthur Chrenkoff provides the latest on the relief figures.  (My question is:  doesn't the combination of private and public monies make the U.S. the single largest donor?)  Arthur also provides some refreshingly positive comments from local Muslims about America's efforts to ameliorate their suffering.  Along with a round-up of further conspiracy theories explaining how the U.S. is either responsible for, or benefiting from, the disaster.  Sigh.

UPDATE AGAIN:  Prof. Cole at Informed Comment posts this tid-bit about OFTS--perhaps I had judged them wrong

Saudi Arabia Television held a fundraising drive for the victims of the tsunami and raised a little over $30 million on the first day. Saudi Arabia's per capita income is about $8500 per year according to the Atlas method, and there are about 15 million Saudi citizens. The one-day donation total equals $2 per citizen in absolute terms. Given the difference in per capita income and population, it is as though private US donors gave over $3 billion in a single day.

Still, $30 million compared to the relative wealth of the nation?  Better mathematical minds than mine will have to decide if that that figure means a lot--me, I have trouble balancing my checkbook.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

She is tall, glamorous, speaks Mandarin Chinese and for nearly 20 years served as a case officer for the CIA.  No, she's not the model for "Alias'" Sydney Bristow--but my friend Martha Sutherland, who a few years back retired from the Agency to become a Manhattan-based dealer of contemporary Chinese art.  Why do I bring her up--besides introducing you to a fascinating person?  Because when the New York Sun asked her last week to nominate her favorite books of the year, one of her choices was--you guessed it--In the Red Zone.  Xie, xie, Martha.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last month, a religious controversy shook the Land of the Pharaohs involving what for us would be a minor, or perhaps local, matter:  the apparent conversion of a Christian woman to Islam.  But seeing that the country was Egypt and the woman was the wife of a Coptic priest, the issue led to street demonstrations, arrests, accusations of religious discrimination, the "seclusion" of the Coptic Pope and the eventual intervention of President Hosni Mubarak.  Although this story has received fairly wide coverage, it's worth re-examining, if only to see how sensitive a role religion plays in the Muslim world and the dangers--all-too-apparent in Iraq--that occur when societies divide themselves along sectarian lines. 

The problem started on November 27, when Father Joseph Moawad, living in the village of Abul-Matameer, about 90 miles north of Cairo, reported that his wife, Wafaa Constantine, 48, was missing.  At the time, Father Moawad was in Alexandria, seeking medical treatment for diabetes.  On December 1, Constantine showed up in a Cairo police station and announced that she had left home and wanted to change her religion, according to Egyptian authorities, "of her own free will and without anybody's interference."

But interference is what she got.  The police informed Constantine that she had to first consult a priest before her conversion became official.  She agreed, and on December 2, the provincial governor of Beheira--where Abul-Matameer is located-- informed the regional archbishop of her decision and that she was ready for questioning by the church.  Nevertheless, Egyptian police did not release her, claiming that her life was endangered by angered Copts.

Copts make up between five to ten percent of Egypt's population, and relations between the nation's Christian minority and Muslim majority have generally been calm.  In the December 10 edition of FrontPage magazine, however, Robert Spencer quotes a spokesman for Jubilee Campaign, a U.K.-based Christian human rights group that  "attempts to force Christians to convert to Islam in Egypt are on the increase and the methods are getting increasingly varied and well organized."  (It should be noted that under shari'a, Muslims who leave their faith are guilty of apostasy, the penalty for which is death.)

When Constantine did not show up at Abul-Matameer, many Copts grew alarmed.  Rumors spread that Muslim radicals had kidnapped and drugged the woman, forcing her to convert.  Others said she had fallen in love with a Muslim colleague at work who had convinced her the only way she could continue the affair was to embrace Islam.  Still more began talking about a "clash of religions" and airing long-standing grievances with the Egyptian government.  At the same time, more reasonable voices argued that the woman's decision was purely a personal matter.  One bishop told Cairo's Al-Ahram Weekly that it involved a "crisis in her marital life" stemming from the fact that her husband had lost both his legs to diabetes:  Egyptian law forbids divorce in cases of adultery or conversion, so Constantine may have felt that "becoming a Muslim would be the only solution."

No matter.  On December 7, 1,000 Copts gathered at the main Cairo cathedral and a riot ensued.  Stone throwers injured 21 policemen, who in turn arrested 34 people.  In the upper Egyptian village of Munqateen, clashes between Christians and Muslims in which crowds attacked Christian homes and businesses and torched police cars led to the arrest of 25.  Concerned by the rising tensions, the Coptic leader Pope Shenouda III contacted Hosni Mubarak's office to ask for the President's intervention.  Soon afterwards, the police contacted the church and informed the Copts they would present the woman for an interview the following day. 

On December 8, Constantine, under police supervision and in the care of nuns, moved to a monastery in Cairo where a committee of priests questioned her.  That day, however, Pope Shenouda went into "seclusion," declaring his intention not to resume his duties until the government resolved "problems relating to the Copts"--specifically, as one bishop told Al-Ahram, "discrimination against Copts, restrictions on church construction and the forced conversion of Christian girls." On December 14, Constantine appeared before an Egyptian prosecutor accompanied by two lawyers from the church and announced her intention to remain a Christian.

Now it was the Muslims' turn to be outraged.  Noting that the Copts had refused to let the woman leave their custody, and even gave her job in the monastery, many charged that  the church had forced her to remain a Christian.  The fact that she appeared before the prosecutor-general in the company of lawyers added fuel to their suspicions.  An Egyptian judge accused the state of violating Constantine's freedoms by holding her "captive" in the monastery.  Others accused Pope Shenouda of using Constantine's marital confusion to put pressure on the government to accede to the Copts' demands. 

If so, the Pope was at least partially successful.  On December 22, the Egyptians released 13 rioters, mainly because they were young students who needed to take their exams.  This in turn mollified the Pope, who emerged from his "seclusion" in a Cairo monastery. 

Recriminations, however, are still flying.  Al-Ahram quotes a "prominent Coptic thinker" named Rafiq Habib who criticizes the both the government and the church for their dealings over the Constantine situation.  At a time when Islamist movements threaten Egyptian society, he argued, the fact that secular authorities yielded to the Copts when they used religion to cudgel the authorities "will have dangerous repercussions"--not the least of which will be to stir up sectarian anger among Muslims.  "All should be equal before the law, without any distinction," he said.

Thus ended l'affaire Constantine.  There's no word of her reunion--if there was one--with Father Moawad, or why, exactly, she sought to convert, and then re-convert.  "I was born a Christian," she reportedly told authorities, "and I will live and die a Christian."  If nothing else, she discovered that for a priest's wife, it's difficult to do anything else. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Headline:  London Times Online, January 4, 2005: 

Iraq insurgents now outnumber Coalition forces

Headline:  Fox News, January 5, 2005:

Iraqi Intel Head Sees End to Violence

Same story, opposite slants.  Once again, we detect the presence of two axioms of today's war reporting:

Truth is not found in Iraq, it is made.  And:  facts are facts--but perceptions are reality.  (thanks to antimedia)

UPDATE:  Via Iraqi Bloggers Central, I'll let Michael Totten do the talking on this one.  But check out the photo of the "insurgent" caught planting a bomb under civillian vehicles.  Contempt hardly expresses one's reaction.   

Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm usually in agreement with Andrew Sullivan, and no more so than today when he confides that it has been a long time since he's read anything "more depressing" than this assessment by the director of Iraq's intellgence service, General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, that the "resistance" numbers "more than 200,000 people," 40,000 of which are "hard-core fighters."  Speaking to the London Times, the General explains,

People are fed up after two years without improvement. People are fed up with no security, no electricity, people feel they have to do something. The army (dissolved by the American occupation authority) was hundreds of thousands. You’d expect some veterans would join with their relatives, each one has sons and brothers

Bleak, indeed.  To this, I can only add as slight comfort this e-mail received from an Iraqi friend named Hassan.  Hassan is a journalist in Basra and from his message, you can see that the concerns of people in southern Iraq involve religious fundamentalism, rather than ex-Baathist paramilitaries and bloodthirsty jihadists.  They also enjoy a greater degree of freedom--although, as Hassan notes, it is a tenuous freedom indeed.

Actually, the best ways I can describe the differences between Saddam's dark days and the present are the following:

1) Politically speaking.  Any Iraqi citizen can speak loudly to refuse any opinion wihtout fear and nobody will arrest you because of your political orientations, writings or opinions.

But at the same time, there is still phobia inside people's hearts regarding the religious parties.  Step by step, these parties are trying to control everything, especially politics and the economy.  Elections are very important for this reason because those Iraqis who do not belong to a religious party or movement are powerless.  What I hope (but I know it is impossible) is that the country becomes free of parties and the people's loyalty is only to their homeland.

But the truth is, it is very difficult for a chaotic country like ours to become ideal within 10 years.  We need to change the very roots of our thinking to start a new life.

2) Economically speaking.  In spite of the daily smuggling of oil, life is getting better.  I can now buy a new shirt and shoes, or lunch and dinner with chicken.  I can buy books, newspaper and magazines.

But the question remains:  in the future, will we ever become like other people or will the disease of killing, arresting and poverty return in the guise of a new dictatorship chosen, at least in part, by--the United States?

Really, the only thing we are looking for is a peaceful life without shooting or cheating or political lies.

Hope, fear, cynicism, a touch of irony and a last-minute jab at the U.S.--in many ways, this e-mail typifies the Iraqi mindset.  However we feel about Hassan's comments, though, we should realize this:  many Iraqis know that they face a turning point in their nation's history, and their personal destinies, as well.  They are willing--and