Informed Comment

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

New Orleans as a Casualty of Iraq

Bob Harris's take on the story of how resources for levees and floodworks for New Orleans, along with the Louisiana National Guard, were diverted to Iraq, strikes me as balanced and right. The nation made a decision about priorities. Tax cuts and the Iraq War came first. In a world of finite resources, that decision had real-world consequences.

It is so sad to see a city die. Those poor, poor people. I had earlier hoped New Orleans had been spared, but as Billmon explains in the end Lake Pontchartrain was blown into the city and apparently there is no reason to think it will drain back away any time soon. (Last I knew, Bourbon Street was still largely spared, because being the old part of the city it was built on relatively high ground. The water at Bourbon and Canal street was still only knee deep. But the French Quarter without the rest of the city might soon become more of an antiquarian curiosity than a living set of traditions.)

Now there is looting. Maybe Americans can imagine now what Iraqis felt like when US troops stood aside and allowed massive looting, including of precious national heirlooms and the documentary history of the country in modern times. And imagine how mean it was in the midst of such chaos to just dissolve the military and send it home, as though Bush should now dissolve the national guards and send them home.

Events such as the collapse of some Antarctic ice shelves will contribute to a rising of sea levels over the next century.

Spenser Weart explains:


"At least one thing was certain. If temperatures climbed a few degrees, as most climate scientists now considered likely, the sea level would rise simply because water expands when heated. This is almost the only thing about global change that can be calculated directly from basic physics. The additional effects of glacier melting are highly uncertain (scientists were still arguing over how much of the 20th century’s sea level rise was due to heat expansion and how much to ice melting). The rough best guess for the total rise in the 21st century was perhaps half a meter

While such a rise will not be a world disaster, by the late 21st century it will bring significant everyday problems, and occasional storm-surge catastrophes, to populous coastal areas from New Orleans to Bangladesh. More likely than not, low-lying areas where tens of millions of people live will be obliterated. Entire island nations are at risk. Then it will get worse. Even if humanity controls greenhouse emissions enough to halt global warming, the heat already in the air will work its way gradually deeper into the oceans, so the tides will continue to creep higher, century after century."


Global warming is what is causing the seas to rise. Burning carbon-based fuels adds to global warming as surely as smoking leads to lung cancer. Some of your friendly corporations will deny both things to you.

Science fiction is "good to think with" (in the phrase of anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss) on these issues. Look at Kim Stanley Robinson's Forty Signs of Rain, which is reviewed here.

Less elegiac than Robinson's thoughtful novel, and more of an adventure story, John Barnes' Mother of Storms paints a graphic and unforgettable picture of what is likely to happen to the Carribean islands if warming waters produce more and bigger hurricanes.
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Seven Questions: Framing Iraq’s Constitution

My interview on the Iraqi Constitution with Foreign Policy magazine is up at their web site.
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Weblogging Liability

The question of whether Weblog owners are legally liable for comments made by readers could be settled by a current lawsuit.

A lot of forces in US society are very upset about the emergence of an Information Democracy on the Web, and I think the courts will increasingly be invoked to close down free discourse. As regular readers know, rightwing Zionists have tried this tactic with me. The case discussed by the WSJ is complicated by a charge of revealing trade secrets, but that charge may be easy to trump up.
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1000 May be Dead in Kadhimiyah Stampede

The mortar attack by guerrillas on the Shiite worshippers heading for the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim made the crowd nervous and suggestible. Later on, it appears that someone shouted that there was a suicide bomber in the crowd. A stampede ensued that has killed some 800 persons and the death toll is expected to rise to 1000.

The stampede was a highly unfortunate result of nerves, rumor and mob behavior, and this incident is certainly an outcome of the guerrilla strategy of spreading fear and terror in Iraq.
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Zalmay Urges Further Revisions of Constitution
Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Government of Massacre
US Bombings Kill 56


The BBC is reporting Wednesday morning that guerrillas fired mortar shells at Shiite worshippers in Kadhimiyah who were going to the shrine of the seventh Imam, Musa al-Kadhim, to commemorate his death. Early reports are that they killed seven and wounded 36.

The guerrillas are attempting to provoke the Shiites to commit violence in turn on Sunni Arabs, in hopes that a civil war will ensue. Such a communal war could make it impossible for the US to remain in Iraq, and impossible for the new government to establish itself, opening the way for a coup by the guerrillas.

The top police officials of the cities of Kirkuk and Baghdad were assassinated on Tuesday. This is not a good sign.

Al-Hayat: U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad held a news conference Tuesday with Sunni politician Adnan Dulaimi, in which he alleged that it was still possible to introduce amendments into the text of the constitution presented to parliament by the drafting committee, before it is voted on in a national referendum on October 15. He said it was up to the Iraqis to discuss whether amendments could still be made.

Shiite politicians on the drafting committee disagreed vehemently with Khalilzad: "Influential Shiite lawmaker Khaled al-Attiyah, a member of the constitution drafting committee, insisted Tuesday that ``no changes are allowed'' to the draft ``except for minor edits for the language."

Dulaimi himself renewed his rejection of the constitution as presented, saying it did not reflect the aspirations of the Iraqi people. He said the Sunni Arabs would make every effort to see that it went down to defeat in the referendum. He also called for the dismissal of the Minister of the Interior [something like our director of the FBI], Bayan Jabr, because of his political affiliations (he is a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq). He alleged that the police commandos of the interior ministry were led by "political parties" (i.e. SCIRI). He also accused these security forces of committing massacres against the Sunni Arabs. Khalilzad stood there at the podium while Dulaimi made these serious accusations against the government to which Khalilzad is an envoy.

This event is truly extraordinary, and I am afraid that it does not reflect well on the job Khalilzad is doing in Baghdad.

What would Americans think about it if the British ambassador in Washington held a joint press conference with an American politician; if the ambassador alleged that the US constitution could be tinkered with by himself, Bush and Hilary Clinton; and stood there while that politician accused Attorney General Alberto Gonzales of having 36 political enemies kidnapped and shot in the head?

Dulaimi had been the head of the Sunni Pious Endowments Board, a governmental body that oversees the religioius properties of Sunnis in Iraq. He became too outspoken for the elected government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite, so Jaafari summarily dismissed him in July. In the Saddam period, Sunnis appointed the members of the Shiite pious endowments board, so I suppose it was delicious for Jaafari to put the shoe on the other foot. All this is to say that Dulaimi's objectivity could possibly be compromised.

Al-Jazeera reported pro-constitution demonstrations by Shiite followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani on Tuesday. (One big risk of Khalilzad's tampering is that if he does succeed in removing the clause that says that parliament may not pass civil legislation contrary to Islamic law [not "rules" or "standards" as the wire service translations have it, but "Law"]-- then Sistani may turn against the constitution. If he ordered the Shiites to reject it, they would, to a person.

Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawir, the highest-ranking Sunni politician in Iraq, has criticized the new constitution and warned that it could strengthen ethnic sub-nationalism. He said he has not decided yet whether to ask his own supporters to oppose it in the October 15 referendum.

The official spokesman for the (Sunni) National Dialogue Council, Salih Mutlak, revealed efforts to form a united front to fight the constitution, which would include the nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He said, "We are trying to meet with all those who oppose federalism, since the issue cannot be considered solely a Sunni one. It concerns all, including the Shiites who do not want to see Iraq partitioned."

The more secular-leaning politicians in parliament began a new drive to form a secular front, in an attempt to bring down the Shiite religious parties that dominate the government, charging that they had "failed to fulfill the aspirations of the citizens."

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari criticized the Arab League for having neglected Iraq. (The Arab League consists mainly of Sunni Arab nationalists, many of whom had a soft spot for the Iraqi Baath Party. Behind the scenes, Arab League member governments are extremely disturbed that the new constitution does not specify Iraq as an Arab state any more. Many probably blame this development on Iranian, Shiite influence on Dawa and SCIRI, as well as on US/Israeli pressure [Sunni Arab protesters against the constitution in Iraq are calling it a "Jewish" constitution because they believe it serves the interests of Israel in breaking up and weakening Iraq].

An source in Iraqi security said Tuesday that US bombardment of houses in the Qaim area had left at least 56 persons dead. The US was attempting to target safe houses used by Monotheism and Holy War, the terrorist organization.

Pepe Escobar explores the influence of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and his Qom context.

Timur Kuran suggests that the theocratic socialist policies of the Shiite Dawa Party are at the root of some of the disputes over the constitution in Iraq.

Al-Sabah: Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rejected the behavior some of his followers in Najaf, who made inappropriate comments to shopkeepers there. He said that these Shiites were brethren of his followers and should be treated well. He went on to criticize the governor of Najaf for failing properly to provide security to the shrine of Imam Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. The governor belongs to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a party that is rival to the Sadrists.

Iraqis are still suffering from severe power shortages.

The general in charge of the US Air Force says that he expects US warplanes to remain in Iraq even after the ground forces are withdrawn.
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New Orleans and Iraq

Nabil Tikriti writes



' This is a posting written by a native New Orleanian and Middle East History professor, Nabil Al-Tikriti:

New Orleans is in awful shape, and it frankly resembles Dhaka, Bangladesh after a cyclone (looting, refugees stranded on highway bridges, air rescues, flooded housing, lack of social order). Much of the damage happened after the hurricane had long passed. The 17th Street Canal levee opened up a 300 ft long breach, and Lake Pontchartrain water is streaming into Lakeview, Mid-City, and points beyond. That breach appears to have been gradually filling the city up with water all day today. The other breach, in the Lower Ninth Ward, appears to have opened up somewhere in the Industrial Canal near Holy Cross, and has completely flooded the Lower Ninth (east of the Industrial Canal) and Arabi. Chalmette was flooded throughout during the hurricane itself, and there were reports that Bywater, Kenner, NO East, Metairie between I-10 and the Lake all got flooded during the storm itself. However, a lot of this flooding news has since been surpassed after the huge breach on the 17th St. Canal. Just in the last hour another report predicted more breaches to come. These are causing flooding up to rooftops, which may mean the end of entire neighborhoods full of old wooden houses.

For those New Orleanian readers, detailed news about various neighborhoods can be obtained at these two websites that I've found most helpful: WWLTV-- and Nola. Each of these has "neighborhood forums" with hundreds of postings about various areas in the region. That's where the real news is, and that's also where the real rumors are flying. Nola.com also has a "breaking news" section which is frequently updated.

Here are some situations, and they are due for change, revision, and correction. Slidell and the MS Gulf Coast (Ocean Springs, Gulfport, Biloxi) seem to have been completely obliterated. Mandeville, St. John's Parish, St. Charles Parish, West Bank, and Grand Isle seem to have been largely spared. Mobile got hit, but not nearly as badly as Mississippi and Louisiana.

I'm personally quite worried about all those wonderful crunchies, service staff, 9th Ward marching band members, drinking buddies, and ragamuffins from Leo's, Mimi's, Frenchman St, the John etc. I'm worried that some of those lovely folks were naive, young, or poor enough to stick it out and get caught in something awful. Time will tell, although I'll always wonder about folks I'll never see again who just happened to move away, or disappeared without anyone knowing why or how.

Other points of interest in New Orleans: Entergy warns that there may be no electricity for some for a month. Local officials don't want evacuees (refugees?) returning for another week. Even if they wanted to come back, it'd be difficult as the only way in or out at the moment seems to be the GNO Mississippi River Bridge. Slidell I-10 twin spans looks like the Florida I-10 bridge last year. No news about I-10 over the spillway, and there was a rumor that the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway was (miraculously) intact.

The Southern Yacht Club has burned down, surreally on an island surrounded completely by water with wrecked boats all around it. The Fair Grounds lost half of its grandstands roof. CBD windows were all blown out, along with building panels. The Superdome roof coating was half peeled off, with a couple of holes opened up in it (that must have been an awful place to wait the storm, without air conditioning and herded into the stands).

The looting has begun. There were crowds swarming over Roberts at Elysian Fields and St. Claude, and legions more at the brand new Wall Mart on Tchoupitoulas (maybe they were all Magazine St. small business owners, but that's a local joke). I remember a couple of years back when righteous folks in the US kept asking me how Iraqis could possibly loot their own facilities. Well, perhaps some might now wonder how Americans can possibly loot their own facilities -- except that somehow it's not surprising at all when order completely breaks down. Even cops are doing it, but then that's a specifically New Orleans touch, if you know what I mean.

It sure is a good thing the Louisiana National Guard is there (in Iraq) to maintain order. A few months back, 6 boys from Houma -- all members of Louisiana's National Guard -- died when their Bradley Armored Vehicle hit a massive IED and flipped over into a canal not unlike the bayous whence they hailed (a nasty corpse recovery detail if ever there was one). Yesterday their own town was nearly crushed by Katrina, and were they around to help? Wouldn't their unit be of use as New Orleans gradually descends into civil chaos? What about strengthening levees? Cutting trees off of the roads? Repairing bridges? We need our guard HERE, NOW -- not killing and getting killed halfway around the world.

Of course, we're all ever proud of our Great Leader's decision to end his precious vacation early to "take command" over relief efforts. That's reassuring, that is. Considering the bankruptcy of the Federal Government (bled dry by -- Iraq and the tax cuts), and the fact that our military response units are away (in Iraq), he's got nothing to play with. Yet play he must. We're a "red" state, and it's put up or shut up time, W.

Since we're on the topic of W and his contributions to local developments, let's ask a couple of further questions. Is global warming really just a figment of liberals' imagination? Are the Kyoto Accords -- designed to slow global warming by slowing emissions -- really such a ridiculous idea? After last year's and this year's (not yet finished!) hurricane seasons, folks from the Gulf Coast had better ask themselves again about the significance of global warming -- that's what they've just lost their houses to. Katrina was not just any hurricane, it set records -- and the warm water temperature of the Gulf fed the monster. The proliferation of hurricanes last year and this year? Same cause. DC policy does matter. Get used to it.

Another policy issue -- locals have heard in recent months that Southern Louisiana is literally sinking into the Gulf, due to the levee system which directs Mississippi river silt further out into the Gulf. Imagine a coastline finger that grow ever longer, but thinner and lower. That's meant to be the buffer region between New Orleans and the Gulf -- and New Orleans is sinking too. Add that to global warming's rising of ocean levels, and you can see where New Orleans is ultimately headed -- underwater. Perhaps that day has arrived. Just before the collapse of the Howard Dean campaign last year, the local contingent was negotiating a statement in support of Louisiana coastal restoration as a campaign plank. Dean's campaign collapsed, and the issue never re-surfaced.

I heard estimates that it would cost something like 16 billion USD to initiate a credible coastal restoration program, as it involves redesigning the whole levee system and river routings throughout Southeast Louisiana. One could rightfully ask whether it's worth so much funding, which would obviously have to be federal-backed due to its scale. It's even more than Boston's "Big Dig", which I think cost just over 10 billion USD when all was said and done (and it leaks!). We've all sat around the past decade and watched Boston suck down all those tax dollars without so much as a peep of complaint. However, it's our turn now America -- quoting the slogan that REALLY built this country, namely "where's mine"? While we're at it, let's compare the figure to another amount -- it costs 4 billion USD every week to keep US troops in Iraq. So, which would you prefer? A month more in Iraq? Or saving New Orleans? For me, the choice is easy -- which would you prefer?

Perhaps the time has come to organize a "Getting Gay With Kids" choirs to "save the swamp" [South Park reference, I recommend it], because Southeastern Louisiana needs its swamps and coastal lands restored. It'll take years, but it needs to be started.

Finally, Mayor Ray Nagin, Senator Mary Landrieu, and Governor Kathleen Blanco all seem to be doing well enough. Nagin's doing his best "every man" imitation, and actually seems to be more worried about the city than his own image. Ditto Blanco -- sensible, sensitive, involved, and quite the grizzled matron. Landrieu seemed like a scared kitten on TV, but she's still young. Meanwhile, Senator David Vitter was quoted saying something to the effect that while he feels pain for everyone's losses, he was relieved to find his own house in Old Metairie is still in good shape. Perhaps that was a bit too honest on his part.

New Orleans is never going to be the same. Are there any bright spots? Well, even they don't seem so bright: contractor jobs as far as the eye can see, jobs for native-born architects, federal funding about to wash over NO's corrupt patronage system, real estate prices to plummet, fewer tourists -- at least in the short term. New Orleans will emerge out of this smaller, poorer, and newer (with awful housing). The party continues, but without the beautiful props. '

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Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Bourbon Street Unscathed
Christian Terrorists Proved Wrong


Bourbon Street in New Orleans is relatively unscathed. Amid so much death and destruction, that New Orleans did not take the full fury of the storm, and so many lives were spared, is one small consolation.

But let us consider what this means in light of the twisted logic of notorious Christian terrorists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell (I once saw Falwell advocate assassinating Muammar Qadhafi). Their shameful attack on the United States and its values is below.

In the terms of their logic, and given today's news about Bourbon Street being saved from destruction, only three conclusions are possible.

1. God does not exist.

Or:

2. God does not use natural or man-made catastrophes to punish people for moral failings.

Or:

3. God does not actually object to people having a good time occasionally.




Robertson and Fallwell on 9/11:

" JERRY FALWELL: And I agree totally with you that the Lord has protected us so wonderfully these 225 years. And since 1812, this is the first time that we've been attacked on our soil and by far the worst results. And I fear, as Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, said yesterday, that this is only the beginning. And with biological warfare available to these monsters - the Husseins, the Bin Ladens, the Arafats - what we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact - God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.

PAT ROBERTSON: Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population.

JERRY FALWELL: The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, yes.

JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.

JERRY FALWELL: Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time - calling upon God.

PAT ROBERTSON: Amen."

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Nussseibeh: Israel Wall Bars Education in Jerusalem

URGENT APPEAL by Sari Nusseibeh, East Jerusalem



THE "SECURITY" WALL BARS EDUCATION IN JERUSALEM



As Arab schools in East Jerusalem prepare to start the new academic year in early September, nearly seven hundred teachers employed by those schools will be unable to reach their classrooms. With the "security" wall around Jerusalem now reaching its completion, cutting off East Jerusalem from its natural Arab surroundings, and entry restrictions becoming more stringent, teachers who neither have Israeli IDs or special permits will no longer be able to reach their places of work. Many pupils living in those areas will also be prevented from being able to reach their schools.

Privately-run Arab schools in East Jerusalem provide an indispensable venue for the education of Arab pupils, as Israel's government-supported school system in this area hardly covers 20% of education needs. If teachers are not allowed to reach the classrooms, more than eighteen thousand school-aged children will be unable to continue their education in some fifty schools in the area. The social and political implications of such an eventuality speak for themselves.

The Israeli Government has thus far processed and approved the applications of about a hundred teachers, mostly through a "selective" procedure discriminating between some schools and others. This discriminatory policy flies in the face of academic and religious freedom. All schools applying for permits for their teachers should be provided with those permits, without prejudicing real "security" considerations possibly affecting a specific individual.

The present crisis facing education in East Jerusalem is a test for what "the Wall" is about. In opposing the boycott to Israeli academic institutions our principle was that educational institutions should be allowed to flourish and discrimination to learning on political grounds be opposed. Today all those who uphold these principles have the opportunity for positive action. Your support is urgently needed to ensure that this Wall will not cause an education system to collapse. Address your appeal to Israel's Prime Minister and Israel's Minister of Interior to ensure free access to East Jerusalem's schools.

LET THE WALL NOT STAND IN THE FACE OF A CHILD'S EDUCATION.

Jerusalem/25th August 2005


Take a stand. Send your appeal to:

Prime Minister's Office


Ministry of Interior Office '



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Is the US Still Tinkering with the Iraqi Constitution?

A closer observer of the Iraq scene writes in outrage:



Filed at 9:43 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. ambassador suggested Tuesday there may be further changes to the draft constitution to win Sunni Arab approval, saying he believed a final edited draft had not been presented.


' For God’s and our sake, please someone tell them (and yell, if necessary) to leave it alone for now.

The President, for God’s sake, blessed the process to the world and it is over, there being nothing in the TAL, any other law or in common political or jurisprudential sense, which justifies or even remotely supports reopening the document, which, anyway, may already be printed in 5-6 million copies.

They could be on the way to screwing this all up (again), and this time around it WOULD BE VERY CONSEQUENTIAL, if they do. It is they who did not postpone the elections, held under not “free and fair” conditions in parts of several Provinces. It is they who said that The Schedule must be maintained at all costs. So STICK TO YOUR BLOODY SCHEDULE NOW.

What, if anything, is he thinking?

They panicked in the White House in November 2003 and produced the “Agreement on Political Process,” which included the non-starter caucuses and was not an agreement, and the faux sovereignty, which is causing so much of the trouble. They seem to be panicking again. Leaders of “world’s only super-powers” do not panic for all the world to see.

This could now be beyond even nuts. '


COLE: There are indeed rumors flying around of continued changes in the draft of the constitution. All sorts of key issues, from Iraq's Arab identity to human rights are still in flux. Major politicians have left or are leaving the country, which means any tinkering is being done in their absence!

It is the damnedest thing.

Al-Watan (Riyadh) [Arabic link] reports that one Sunni member of the parliamentary drafting committee told it that Washington at one point promised $5 million apiece to tthe Sunnis on the committee if they would sign off on the constitution.

Sy Hersh has also alleged bribery.

It is certainly the case that a lot of money is being spread around for cooperativeness. I was told that one high Iraqi official received one million dollars a month for serving in the interim government of Iyad Allawi, and recently went on a shopping spree at Harrod's in London where he spent $1 million on gifts for his second wife. [We guys object to this sort of thing on two grounds. First, it gives the impression of corruption or at the least overly high living on the part of a public servant. Second, the expectations of wives just shouldn't be raised this way, especially those of second wives.] This politician supports the constitution.
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Sunnis Charge Interior Ministry in Killings
2000 Sunnis Protest
More Corpses Found


Al-Zaman/ AFP: The Iraqi Islamic Party accused elements in the Iraqi ministry of the interior on Monday of having kidnapped 36 citizens from Hurriyah Township in Baghdad and then throwing them in the Tigris after they were bound and shot in the head. The party called on the United Nations, the Arab League and human rights organizations to intervene immediately to protect innocents "in this wounded land." The IIP charges are incendiary and will inflame feelings between Sunnis and Shiites. (The Ministry of Interior is controlled by the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq [SCIRI]). The charges echo similar ones made weeks ago by the hard line Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars against the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of SCIRI. That crisis only passed when Muqtada al-Sadr mediated between the two.

2,000 Sunni protesters came out against the Constitution in Tikrit on Monday. On more than one occasion Sunni protesters in recent weeks have chanted their devotion to Saddam Hussein, a step that is probably unwise, but which underlines their rejection of the new, American-installed government.

Iran on the other hand is pleased as punch with the new constitution. Its spokesman hoped for its passage in the October 15 referendum and the formation of a new government in December. In other words, on this issue the Iranians sound eerily like the Bush administration. (The constitution was shepherded through by Grand Ayatollah Sistani, whom the Iranians consider one of their club, despite the friction in the relationship.) Despite a poorly sourced English-language report from an Iraqi newspaper, it is certain that Sistani strongly supports the new constitution, which says that the parliament may pass no civil legislation that contravenes Islamic law.

The police announced Monday that guerrillas had executed 15 Iraqis who were traveling from Samarra to Ramadi. They also found 13 bodies in Fallujah, Saqlawiyah and Karamah in Western Iraq. The US military announced that they had detained 17 persons in sweeps in the troubled northern city of Mosul. There was fierce fighting in one quarter of Mosul on Monday.

Another four were arrested near the largely Sunni Turkmen city of Tel Afar. Tel Afar is now witnessing the most vigorous uprising against the Americans in a year.

Reuters reports further violence on Monday.

"It is to laugh, it is to weep Department": The Iraqi parliament attempted to legislate sanctions against perpetually absent members of parliament on Monday. But they could not legislate on the issue because there were too many absentees.

Apparently the session on Sunday where the drafting committee presented the new constitution to the parliament was only sparsely attended.
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Arab World Concerned about Iraqi Constitution

Arab leaders on Monday expressed consternation that the Iraqi constitution does not identify Iraq as part of the Arab world. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa echoed these concerns but also said that the present constitution is a "recipe for chaos."

The diction in the constitution is that Iraq is part of the "Muslim world" but then it says that "its Arabs form part of the Arab world." The Kurds objected to Iraq being called part of the Arab world, since they deeply resent the Baath Party's attempt to Arabize them. I figure Iraq is about 74 percent Arab. Given their performance in the Jan. 30 elections, the Kurds must be at least 20 percent of the population. Then Turkmen are about 3 percent, and Chaldean/Assyrian Christians are another 3 percent (many speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus, at home). The rest are Arabs, whether Sunnis or Shiites. You could have called Iraq an Arab country with that profile.

Morocco is probably 33 percent Berber and it identifies itself as an Arab state (I've met Moroccan Berbers who felt like second-class citizens, but I'm not sure they would object to their country's status the way the Kurds do). Algeria is 25 percent Berber.

There are other member states of the Arab League that do not say in their constitutions that they are Arab states. I found an Arabic text for the 1998 Sudanese constitution on the Web, and although it says Arabic is the official language, it doesn't say Sudan is part of the Arab world. Sudan is only 39 percent "Arab" (i.e. Africans who are native Arabic speakers; some Almanacs contrast the "Arabs" with the "Blacks" in Sudan, but I'm damned if I can see any difference. I'm told that the Sudanese make a distinction between the Yellows and the Blues, but I think a lot of it is ascriptive rather than any obvious racial difference).

Iraqi thinkers such as Sati al-Husri helped to invent the whole idea of Arab nationalism. But it has always been in competition with Iraqi nationalism (often favored by Shiites). And, of course, the Kurds have all along had problems with Arab nationalism, since they speak an Indo-European language.

President Jalal Talabani promised Monday that Iraq would continue to play a vital role in the Arab League.

Most educated Arabs have a map in their minds of the Arab world. It has a hole in it at Palestine, and another at Iraq, because-- from the point of view of Arab nationalists-- these bits of the larger homeland have been put under foreign military occupation. I heard a lower-class Lebanese woman say in a "person in the street" interview on al-Jazeera some time ago, "First Palestine went. Now Iraq is gone." What did she mean by Iraq being "gone?" That it is not truly sovereign and is under occupation.

A lot of people in the Arab world believe that the erasure of an Arab identity for the Iraqi state is part of an American (and Israeli) plot to detach Iraq from the Arab world, thereby much weakening the latter.
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Monday, August 29, 2005

Schenkman: If Bush had been President in 1861

After Ft. Sumter: "There is much that we can be grateful for. No lives were lost during the attack. And as our vice president has indicated already, this attack indicates that the rebellion against federal authority is in its final throes." [click the link for more at the History News Network.]
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Constitution born by Caesarian Section

So they had the ceremony, and the drafting committee (minus Sunni Arab members) presented the final draft of the permanent Iraqi constitution to parliament on Sunday. But parliament did not vote on it. The Sunni Arabs did not attend. Parliament has abdicated its responsibilities toward the constitution and put it in the lap of the October 15 national referendum. Al-Hayat aptly said that the Iraqi constitution has been delivered by caesarian section. It was plucked from the womb of the drafting committee before the latter could give birth to it naturally. Sunni negotiator Salih Mutlak called it "a minefield."

Al-Hayat: Another member of the drafting committee, Sunni politician Abd al-Nasir al-Janabi, called for international intervention to prevent its being passed into law. He particularly asked for the Arab League and the United Nations to intervene. The Sunni Arab delegates noted that they were promised that the constitution drafting process would be based on consensus, and that this pledge had been the precondition for their involvement in it last June. On Sunday the Shiites and the Kurds reneged dramatically on that promise. Husain al-Falluji said that this constitution contains the seeds of Iraq's bloody partition, something, he said, that would "serve American interests."

US Ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad got carried away and called the Iraqi constitution the best in the Muslim world. Well, we could exclude Turkey's constitution because it is just a slightly reworked version of the Swiss, and so not very indigenous to the Muslim world. But what about, say, Indonesia? He should look at these powerpoint slides on the Indonesian constitution. The latter also guarantees civil liberties and equality before the law, but the Indonesian government, unlike Khalilzad, resisted demands by adherents of political Islam that Islamic law be recognized in it. The new Iraqi constitution contains a provision that no legislation may be passed that contradicts Islamic law. That provision makes the Iraqi constitution read as self-contradictory (since it also celebrates human rights and democracy), and puts it in contrast with that of Indonesia, which contains no such provision. Since 1998 democracy has flourished in Indonesia.

So why must an indigenous achievement such as the 1998-2002 amendments to the Indonesian Constitution be devalued in favor of a deeply flawed and fatally self-contradictory constitution produced in Iraq under twin Iranian and American auspices? Does everything have to be about George Bush?

Why isn't the Indonesian constitution the most progressive in the Muslim world?

Jim Carroll of the Christian Science monitor points out that the Sadr Movement of nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rejects the provisions for federalism in the new constitution, as do the Sunni Arabs. He writes:


' "It's not the time for federalism under occupation. It will draw a lot of troubles," says Abbas Rubaie, the political director of the Sadr movement. This stance puts them at odds with the ruling Islamist Shiite parties like the Dawa Party and the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq . . . '


Al-Zaman also reports that Shaikh Hasan al-Zarkani, an aide of al-Sadr, said on Voice of Beirut radio that the constitution's provisions for federalism, since they were enacted under conditions of foreign occupation, would lead to the partition of the country. Therefore, he said, the Sadr Movement rejects the constitution.

The reemergence of Muqada al-Sadr as a force to reckon with is explored by Salih al-Qaisi and Oliver Poole of the Telegraph. They note that, Hizbullah-style, he has concentrated on having his organization provide aid to the people, especially Shiite refugees from the north who come down to Najaf. They say he has denounced federalism as "an Iranian plot" to divide up Iraq (i.e. he is saying that The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is an agent of Iran in the breakup of Iraq for Iranian purposes.)

The Associated Press discusses the last-minute changes in the draft of the Iraqi constitution, which were aimed at mollifying the Sunnis Arabs (they failed.) The Sunni Arab clans that opposed Saddam and were punished were mentioned alongside his Shiite and Kurdish victims. "The Saddamist Baath" is condemned but not "the Baath Party". The issue of provincial confederations other than Kurdistan is postponed, and will be dealt with by a statute passed by a simple majority of parliament. (Since Shiites will probably be able to get a simple majority all on their own, this clause postpones a Shiite issue until a Shiite majority can accomplish its will. The Sunni Arabs, being no fools, had wanted a 2/3s majority required on any law authorizing further provincial confederacies.

Reuters reminds us that the guerrilla war continued apace on Sunday, with a major carbombing in Mosul and shootings elsewhere in the country.

Luciana Bohne takes umbrage at the assertion by Mark Reuel Gerecht that women's rights are not crucial to the evolution of democracy. She wonders if ex-CIA white guys' rights are critical to democracy, either, especially in other peoples' countries. (The only thing I would correct is that the new Iraqi constitution does not abolish secular personal status laws for women. It gives every Iraqi the choice of whether to be under civil law in this regard or religious law. The Iraqi parliament has not yet enacted the civil personal status law, but the old one was not so bad for women.)

Basra's academics face a wave of assassination in the southern city of Basra, probably at the hands of Shiite religious militias. You wonder if David Horowitz is happy that more "balance" is being achieved in Iraq history departments, what with the rubbing out of those secular liberal humanist professors.
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Sunday, August 28, 2005

Some Sunnis

I just heard Bush's audio on CNN concerning the situation in Iraq. I don't know if all the news programs had the same bad feed, but the poor quality of the transmission made Bush sound like Darth Vader, with a faint electronic echo. Sounding like a science fiction villain did not help the credibility of his typically panglossian screed on Iraq.

The pro-War talking point on the collapse of the negotiations over the constitution is that "some Sunnis" oppose the new constitution.

But Reuters says this:


' A Sunni Arab delegate on the drafting committee said all his colleagues on the panel objected to the draft presented to parliament.

"We have not agreed on this constitution. We have objections which are the same as we had from day one," Hussein al-Falluji, the Sunni Arab delegate, told Reuters. '


All of his colleagues. These "colleagues" are the Sunni Arabs who risked their lives to cooperate with the Americans and the new government by serving on the constitution drafting committee. (Bush can't get a break in Iraq; he drew a delegate from Fallujah as the Sunni spokesman?) They are a small minority of a small minority. Most Sunni Arabs support the guerrilla movement. A minority has doubts about it and is more neutral. Sunni Arabs who are actively involved in negotiating with the Shiite/Kurdish/American government can be counted on the fingers of two hands. And even they reject this constitution.

So I think Sunni opposition to the constitution may be considered more or less unanimous. The division is between those who want to fight it at the ballot box and those who want to fight it with bombs.

It isn't just "some Sunnis" who are opposed.

Bush also trotted out his completely wrong version of American history to suggest a parallel to the dissension over the adoption of the American constitution in 1789. Delegates representing twenty percent of the population did not refuse to sign (a number of the delegates who did not sign had just drifted away for business or other reasons, not because of opposition). And a handful who did explicitly refuse, including Elbridge Gerry and George Mason, did so to protest the lack of a Bill of Rights. Their stance was vindicated when one was added later. (I.e. even they were ultimately brought on board).

A sitting president is a kind of historian for the nation. In this regard Bush has gone from being a "C" student to an "F" one.

[Billmon has more on the idiotic parallels being made to the Philadelphia process. His postings on Iraq in recent days are strewn with pearls of insight (scroll down). And he is the first commentator I have seen to understand my worst case scenario for the war in Iraq spinning out of control and taking 20 percent of the world's petroleum off the market.
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Gilliard Shoots Down the Iraq/ Malaya Trope

Steve Gilliard drives a silver stake through the persistent hope of some that Iraq's "insurgency" can be defeated as the communists were defeated by the British in colonial Malaya (Malaysia). This comparison always neglects to note that the British had been the colonial power in Malaya since the nineteenth century, with a brief interregnum. They hadn't just shown up suddenly in 1952. They had enormous logistical and intelligence advantages deriving from this long presence. Moreover, the defeat of the mostly Chinese communists in a largely Malay country came just before the British were forced to give the country independence. I was on a radio show with John Mearsheimer and Max Boot one time, and Boot (inevitably and tritely) brought up the British success in counter-insurgency in Malaya. Mearsheimer witheringly pointed out "The British aren't in Malaysia anymore."

See also Bulloch, who points out that the British achieved a 20 to 1 military superiority over the guerrillas in Malaya!
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Arato Guest Editorial

Andrew Arato writes:



' [Il]Legality and [Il]Legitmacy in Iraqi Constitution Making

The constitution being submitted to the Iraqi people for ratification is a product of illegality. It was in my view legal to amend the Transitional Administrative Law to change the date of “writing” a final text from August 15 to August 22. It was however fully illegal on that latter date neither to adopt a completed text, nor to again amend the TAL, nor to dissolve the National Assembly and call for new elections. It is an absurd idea, and probably a novelty in the history of constitution making (allowed by careless drafting of the TAL) that a constitutional assembly need not vote at all, i.e. adopt a draft that is submitted to a population for confirmation. Who is submitting the text to the population and by what right? We don’t know that the National Assembly is submitting or even writing anything until it agrees to something, i.e. votes. Neither a Commission nor a Committee, not its officers, are the National Assembly.

It will be said that revolutionary constitution making, also in the U.S. in 1787 involves illegality. But the work of the U.S. Federal Convention stayed within the rules that body itself established. Moreover, it worked within a legitimate even if not fully legal process. Neither has happened here. It was decided early that the Constitutional Commission expanded by 15 Sunni members will decide by consensus. There was no consensus, and yet the product was submitted to the Assembly. So much for the processes' own, internal legality. As to legitimacy, that could only be achieved through fair compromise and open, accountable voting of duly elected officials, preceded or followed by genuine public discussion. Here there was only secret, elite bargaining, deformed by the exaggerated role of the American ambassador. Even if both were in fact necessary, they had to be redeemed i.e. made legitimate by the fairness of the result, and the public assent of duly elected officials. As to the latter this was considered entirely unnecessary.

As to the former issue, the result is not fair. The reader should make no mistake here. In the Iraqi story in the long term I am most attracted by the plight and the faith of the Kurds. In the middle term, as several articles testify, I was literally inspired by the struggle of the Grand Ayatollah Sistani for his freely elected constituent assembly, which now his own side dared to reduce to a rubber stamp! But in the short term I find the behavior of the Sunni 15 to have been courageous (3 are already dead!) and principled and defensible on abstract grounds, as well as their own interests of course. First, it is irrelevant that they have sympathies for one or another incarnation of the Ba’ath. You make peace with your enemies, and blanket deBaathification in any case was always a huge mistake feeding the insurrection. Second, it is not true that they have not shown readiness to compromise. Before Hakim’s monkey wrench concerning the 9 province mega veto was thrown in, they were ready to agree to a federalism based on provinces (and not ethnicities), and a second chamber, i.e. federalism as the places where such a thing works tend to understand it. They have come to agree, very reluctantly, to the special quasi-confedral status of the Kurd Region as presently constituted. And, as Juan Cole demonstrated, they have a gradualist and constructive attitude on American withdrawal.

They do however have a bottom line and it is this. No deBaathification mandated by the constitution, and the adoption of “federalism” in the sense of new confederal arrangements must be by consensus. If we think deBaathification based on membership and not on criminal liability was always a huge mistake we should have no problem with the first. The analogy here should be, because of the time and sociological dimensions of the regimes to deCommunization (always a bad idea) and not deNazification. As to the second, a shift among state structures is pre-eminently a constitutional matter, or even the primary constitutional matter. It is thus quite wrong to allow a parliament to determine the rules of federation by simple majority, and not by using its constitutional amendment rule requiring consensus (2/3 in the case of the given draft). The latter is what the Sunni delegates demanded. It would have been better in my view to establish and enshrine provincial rather than ethnic federalism right now. But a fair compromise would have been keeping the term federal republic, and deciding latter among the options using the constitutional amendment rule. In fact, even the Sunnis would have been still running a great risk under such a compromise against a Kurdish – Shi’a alliance that could again perhaps get 2/3 of the parliamentary seats.

So now the Iraqis get a result, with the American imprimatur, that is neither legal nor legitimate. As almost everyone among us (see the last three beautiful editorials by the NY Times), with the exception of a few special pleaders for Kurdish and Sh’a interests realizes, this result is also a disaster for the United States. We have openly and demonstratively intervened in someone else’s constitution making, and that is bad in itself. And we did not get the result we wanted, namely consensus, Sunni approval, splitting the insurgency, and that makes our intervention even worse. Worse than a crime: colossal stupidity. The pathetic phone call of the President could not work, because he has nothing over Hakim, as his advisors should have known. Since he announced that he is staying no matter what, what can he threaten this man who has both a mass movement and Iranian support behind him? On the contrary he could threaten Bush with opening up another front against the occupation, but of course he does not have to go so far. Because the Americans insisted on speed, only Hakim can give it to them with his majority in the Assembly. The others can only delay, so it does not matter that the Sunni ideas would be more suited for the American generals trying to deal with the occupation. The politicians in Washington needed something quick, and the Constitution is it.

The only thing the Iraqi voters can do is to vote it down (two out of three Sunni provinces plus Baghdad should have the 2/3 if the vote is fair), elect a new assembly and hope nationalist parties and that assembly can do better, under guess what, the TAL. It is a terrible, precarious road, but alternative, an exclusionary Constitution, with Khalilzad’s impotent marks on it, product of an illegal and illegitimate procedure, aiming at the break-up of Iraq is even worse. '


Andrew Arato

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Sullivan and Tantalus in Baghdad

Reuters Correspondent Luke Baker draws the curtain back on the horrific circumstances in Iraq. Reporters are clearly demoralized, and Western reporters are depending more and more on local staff, who are losing family members and friends to the bombings and shootings. One reporter recently in Baghdad told me that the local journalists are beginning to talk of fleeing, even ones originally very committed to building a new Iraq. I remember the gleeful email I received in May from Yasser Salihee of Knight Ridder--thanking me for linking to one of his excellent articles--and then he went out to buy gas and a US bullet accidentally killed him. From all accounts he had a great deal of promise (he had begun as an academic). His death stands as symbol for the current debacle. The irony is that the worse things get in Iraq, the less we know about how truly bad they are. With the journalists so devastated and little able to move around, we are reduced to listening to Bush administration propaganda.

Andrew Sullivan, who does not have Luke Baker's experience on the ground in Iraq, bizarrely believes that the carbombings, bodies floating in the river, assassinations, ethnic militias, poisoned watermelons, bomb-scarred ice cream shops, shuttered video and liquor stores, and Swiss cheese architecture of Iraq present a "tantalizing" prospect of "success."

It should be remembered where the word "tantalizing" came from. Odysseus describes a scene in Hades in Homer's Odyssey:


'"I also saw the awful agonies that Tantalus has to bear. The old man was standing in a pool of water which nearly reached his chin, and his thirst drove him to unceasing efforts; but he could never get a drop to drink. For whenever he stooped in his eagerness to lap the water, it disappeared. The pool was swallowed up, and all he saw at his feet was the dark earth, which some mysterious power had parched. Trees spread their foliage high over the pool and dangle fruits above his head—pear-trees and pomegranates, apple-trees with their glossy burden, sweet figs and luxuriant olives. But whenever the old man tried to grasp them in his hands, the wind would toss them up towards the shadowy clouds." '


The American Right playing Tantalus, and Iraq as their punishment in Hades, is a more appropriate comparison than Mr. Sullivan perhaps realized. Tantalus was notorious for ever wanting more, for wanting to be god-like, just as the Bushies think that they are manufacturers of reality and the rest of wretched humanity is clay in their divine hands. It should also be remembered that some say Tantalus was punished by the gods for having invited them to a banquet and having served them food into which the remains of his son, whom he had killed, had been ground up. The warmongers' sacrifice of Americans' children for their aggressive policies is a similar sin.

Sullivan says that given US and British forces on the ground, the "insurgency" "cannot win." The problem is that the "insurgency" doesn't have to win in order to succeed. All it has to do is spoil everyone else's successes.

By sabotaging the oil pipelines and the electricity grid that supports them, the guerrillas have reduced Iraqi government revenue by a third to a half of what it otherwise would be. They can go on doing that a very long time. They have put the lives of every senior member of the new government in danger, and have managed to assassinate a whole roster of high-ranking officials, even two members of the new parliament and two members of the constitution drafting committee.

They have kept the new government, and even the US military, from truly controlling the major Sunni Arab cities, and have even made mixed cities such as Baqubah big security problems.

They have increasingly succeeded in provoking deep hatred between Sunni and Shiite Arabs, contributing to a low-intensity, uncoventional war between the two that seemed unlikely as recently as a year ago.

These tactics are proving successful and can be maintained for a very long time. At present troop levels, to use Sullivan's phrase, there is no prospect of the United States military defeating the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. From all accounts, as well, the British military cannot hope effectively to curb the Mahdi Army in Maysan Province, a province in which the political arm of the Sadrists came to power in the January 30 elections.

This point is important because the Sunni guerrillas' ability to keep Iraq from moving forward-- their ability to act as spoilers-- is a key political asset. The US and British publics are brave and determined, but they deeply dislike spending blood and treasure when there is no visible progress on the ground. And by "progress" they do not mean putting down some words on paper.

Sullivan's twin convictions that Bush will not draw down US troops during the next 3 years, and that Democrats will be afraid to run against the Republicans on the Iraq War are both likely incorrect.

One way or another there will be another round of elections in Iraq in December. US and British troop levels must be maintained until then, because they are needed to lock down the country and keep the guerrillas from disrupting the polling. But after that, leaked British Ministry of Defense documents suggest that both the US and the UK will begin a significant withdrawal of ground troops, going down perhaps to half their current levels by next summer. Bush will do this to take the edge off the Iraq issue in the 06 elections. Of course, a big outbreak of fighting could derail any such plans. But the plans are demonstrably there.

If Iraq still looks much as it does today in September of 2006, and if there are still tens of thousands of US troops there, then Democrats will run against the Iraq war all over the country. And many of them will likely win. By then the US troop death toll could very well be 3,000 or more, with 20,000 wounded. There will be a proliferation of Cindy Sheehans. The Democrats and Independents have already turned against the war. Bush's ability to keep the Republicans aboard is in severe doubt. The distaste for the war will be even stronger if any series of dramatic bombings or assassinations occurs that deeply affects the new government, or if the guerrillas get lucky and take out (God forbid) a large number of US troops in a single strike.

To sum up: The guerrillas "win" simply by keeping the Anglo-American forces and the new elected government from winning. And, no one in the US or the UK is going to put up with the current situation for 3 more years, and Mr. Sullivan is fooling himself if he thinks they will.

Iraq's future is a question mark. In 15 years it could be a rich country recovering from the violence, having retained basic democratic institutions, with a bright future. But it could also be a basket case like the Sudan (which also has petroleum, but couldn't develop it because of a decades-long civil war). Or it could undergo a painful partition, highly expensive in lives and displaced persons. Or a civil war could draw in neighbors like Iran and Turkey and destabilize the eastern reaches of the Middle East for decades, with disastrous consequences for the world economy because of the potential for disruption of oil supplies.

Sullivan's hope is for the long run. John Maynard Keynes said it best. In the long run, we are all dead. Until then, Iraq will go on tantalizing everyone, in the bad, Hades-bound sense of the term.
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Sunni Counter-Proposals Appear to Fail
Parliamentary Vote on Constitution Sunday?


Rory Carroll & colleagues at the Guardian reveal that behind the rosy talk, British and American officials are asking "how do you know when you are on the brink of civil war?" and privately comparing the unfolding catastrophe in Iraq to the Lebanese Civil War.

Al-Hayat: Sunni Arab politicians presented their objections to the submitted draft of the constitution on Saturday, as momentum grew among Shiites and Kurds to simply ram it through parliament over the objections of the Sunnis. The Sunni Arabs asked for a rejection of federalism for any group but the Kurds. The revised draft allows parliament to legislate on the issue of provincial confederations, by a simple majority. Since the Shiites probably can keep a simple majority in parliament, this provision just gives them freedom to do as they please.

The Sunni Arabs wanted the issue to require a 2/3s vote. The Sunni Arabs also asked that Islam be the source of law rather than only "a fundamental" source of law. Not all Sunni Arabs involved in the negotiations take this position (Adnan Pachachi does not, e.g.), but apparently a majority of the 17 members of the constitution drafting committee has. It was the Kurds and the Americans who forced the change to Islam being "a fundamental" source for Iraqi law, and the religious Shiite parties only reluctantly gave in. The Kurds and the Americans would not back down on this one.

The Sunni Arabs want an affirmation in the constitution that Iraq is "part of both the Arab and Muslim worlds." At the moment, the constitution says that Iraq is part of the Islamic world, but that only Iraq's Arab community is part of the Arab world. (The Kurds, some 20 percent of the population, are not native Arabic-speakers, but rather speak an Indo-European language).

The Sunni Arabs also object to Kurdish being one of two official languages (including Arabic) for all of Iraq. They want the official status of Kurdish to be recognized only in the Kurdistan confederacy.

Several Sunni Arab cabinet ministers weighed in Saturday with similar demands.

Speaker of the Parliament Hajim al-Hasani, himself a Sunni, said that the draft constitution would be voted on by parliament on Sunday whether the Sunni Arabs accepted it or not. The Sunnis only have 17 seats in the 275-member parliament, despite being up to a fifth of the population of Iraq, and so in an up and down vote they can be steam-rollered by the Shiites and the Kurds. But the bad feelings engendered by this way of proceeding will probably deepen and prolong the guerrilla war, waged largely by Sunni Arabs.

Abbas al-Bayati, a Shiite member of the constitution drafting committee, said Saturday that the US and British ambassadors had put pressure on the (Shiite) United Iraqi Alliance list tochange its position on several pending issues, in order to accommodate Sunni demands.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry arrested Shaikh Ahmad Salman, a member of the Association for Muslim Scholars, on Saturday. The AMS is among the more popular and influential Sunni Arab parties, but it is suspected of links to the guerrilla movement and several of its members have been arrested, while others have been assassinated. The Ministry of the Interior is controlled by the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which many Sunni Arabs see as a proxy for Iranian influence in Iraq.

Usamah Abdul Aziz (al-Najafi), the Minister of Industry, announced a plan for privatizing Iraq's state-owned industries on Saturday. Is this really the right time to be concentrating on this issue?

The US military released a thousand prisoners from Abu Ghuraib on Saturday, apparently as a good faith gesture to encourage the Sunni Arab politicians to compromise on the issue of the constitution.

Craig Smith of the New York Times confirms what had been obvious to close observers-- that the US is denying the new Iraqi army heavy arms for fear they might be turned eventually on US forces. The way the Iraqi army used to keep order in the fractious country was with tanks and helicopter gunships. But the new Iraqi army just has Toyota trucks and Kalashnikov machine guns (and then is blamed by the Americans for not fighting very well!) The sooner we get US ground troops out of Iraq, the better; and then there will be no reason to stop the Iraqi army from ordering proper tanks.
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A Letter from an Iraqi Reader
An acute Iraqi-American observer writes:



' I agree with much of what you wrote in your latest article in Salon.com. However, I think that your genuine good wishes for the iraqi people are superceded by the selfish interest of different groups in Iraq.

Here are a few selfish interests that will play big:

1) Shiites are probably the majority even in Baghdad, or at minimum 50% of the Baghdad population (especially with sadr city's 2 million shiites, and other prominent shiite districts like Sha'ab, Shu'la, Khadhimiya). Almost certainly Baghdad would NOT be included in the shiite federation of the south as envisioned by Al-Hakim and others because then the concept of a federation really doesnt make much sense when you pretty much include all the major cities except for Anbar and provinces to the north. Shiites in Baghdad will not want to be left to being a minority in a "Sunni" federation, and Sunnis in Baghdad will not want to be part of a "shiite" federation. There is a strong possibility then that most shiites in Baghdad would vote AGAINST the constitution over the federalism issue. That would most certainly seal the constitution's fate when combined with votes from Anbar, Sallahudin, and Mosul.

2) You and I might agree that SCIRI is under the thumbs of the mullahs of Iran, but the bottom line is that they do have huge influence in the south. Ironically, in a way it is like the Christian Coalition's over reaching power in US politics. Here you have whackos like Pat Robertson who may not be representative of American Christians in general, but still has influence with the Bush administration. Al-Hakim does NOT represent all shiites, but he does have that kind of influence because he is very well organized in terms of political, social, and security services. While the Christian coalition does not have a militia, they did exploit their superb organizational skills to help bush win the last election. For al-Hakim's supporters, there is no compelling reason for them to give up their selfish interests in the south. So, with regards to your article, I would like to see what you would propose as an incentive for Shiites like al-Hakim to compromise?

3) Baathists....I am all for allowing former Baathists who did not commit major crimes to work in the new Iraqi government, but I think it is quite unreasonable to be forced into letting the baathist party re-establish itself. Baathism was brutal to most Iraqis. For Saleh al-Mutlak to say that the Baathist party is the "best party we ever had" and expect people like me to be sympathetic to him, he has another think coming. When it comes to the Sunnis, they need to get over their feelings that they should be ruling Iraq. In truth, I think most Sunnis simply do not even respect Shiites or Kurds as being worthy of leading iraq. The Sunni view is that Shiites and Kurds did not achieve power independently and are just holding on to the coat-tails of the americans. Why should the Sunnis then take the Shiites seriously. The Sunnis probably think that when America leaves, they can re-assert themselves and rule iraq once again. That is why they are determined to maintain control over the whole of Iraq through a strong central government. That central government will be the vehicle by which they regain their power over the whole of iraq once america is gone. How do you propose to bring them back to reality where they understand that they cannot rule iraq while being less than 20% and not having tanks and helicopters?

4) Iraqis like me are stuck between all these groups. I am religous, but I don't want religion in the constitution. I think federalism is ok as long as it doesnt lead to the break up of Iraq . . . While my wife does wear hijab, I don't want laws in place that force her to. Baathists can go back to work, but I am sickened by people who are heartless and carry the picture of Saddam with pride and forget the suffering he has caused to millions of people. Unfortunately, people with my types of views tend never to be able to hold the same level of influence as the al-Hakim or Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars types. How do you enable moderates to have a stronger say at the table? '

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Saturday, August 27, 2005

Baathists Protest in Baqubah

About 5,000 Sunni Baathists demonstrated in Baqubah on Friday against the new constitution, condemning its provisions for loose federalism as a threat to the unity of the country. They also chanted to Bush that they love Saddam Hussein.

Baqubah is about an hour's drive northeast of Baghdad (in normal circumstances) near the Iranian border. It is in the mixed province of Diyala, which has Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Shiite Arabs. Being near to Iran, it is under the influence of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which used to be based in Tehran and which infiltrated Iraq from that side. Sunni Arabs in Baqubah are therefore a formerly powerful minority elite that has been reduced to being a powerless and despised minority all of a sudden.

Reuters reports that in Diwaniyah on Friday, supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr who demonstrated, carried posters showing Iraq being violently carved up, as a protest against the constitution.
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100,000 Sadrists March Against Constitution

Reuters reports that Muqtada al-Sadr's supporters rallied in 8 cities on Friday, totaling a hundred thousand demonstrators in all. They chanted against the new constitution, which they characterized as an American-authored document. They also complained about lack of electricity and other services. Al-Sadr's followers rallied in Kufa, Najaf,Baghdad (Sadr City), Nasiriyah, Amarah, Basra and elsewhere.

I saw the demonstrations on al-Jazeera and they were in fact just enormous. I have all along said that I think Muqtada al-Sadr is formidable, that those who underestimate him are making a mistake. But these demonstrations are evidence of a quantum leap in Muqtada's organizational capability. He has never been able to bring out more than 5,000 to 10,000 demonstrators before. It is obvious his group has continued to do underground recruiting and networking while he has been relatively quiet and his Mahdi Army mostly put their guns in the closet. This impressive display suggests that it might well be possible for Muqtada to bring out 2/3s of Maysan Province, where he is very influential, against the constitution.

Al-Zaman/ AFP/ DPA: The situation in Karbala grew tense on Friday after one of the aides of Muqtada al-Sadr was killed and four others were wounded in clashes with the Iraqi police in the Qarshi district of the city, near the shrine of Imam Husain (the martyred grandson of the Prophet).

In the city of Kifl, unknown persons burned down the HQ of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). SCIRI is a rival to the Sadr movement. Pro-SCIRI crowds in Najaf had recently burned down the office of the Sadr Movement in that city.

In Najaf, the al-Zaman correspondent reports only light movement in the streets, with heavy Iraqi police and army presence. American helicopters circled overhead. The city gates have been completely closed and no one is allowed to enter except funeral processions. The gates of the shrine of Imam Ali (son-in-law of the Prophet) had also been locked.
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Constitution's Fate Unclear

Al-Jazeera early Saturday morning is reporting that some sort of deal has been reached with the Sunni Arabs on the constitution, but the situation is so muddled that I cannot be sure it is a firm agreement. [It was just talk, coming from speaker of the parliament, Hajim al-Hasani. The saga goes on.]

Dexter Filkins and James Glanz of the NYT reported that at the close of business, Iraq time, on Friday, the Shiites and the Kurds had effectively given up on trying to reach a consensus with the Sunni Arab members of the constitution drafting committee. The Shiites and the Kurds have reached compromises with one another, but were unwilling to mollify the Sunni Arabs. The big sticking points were a Sunni Arab demand for an end to the placing of disabilities on former Baath Party members, and the Sunni Arab opposition to allowing regional confederations to form that had an a priori claim on national resources. I continue to be disturbed at the big place the NYT coverage gives to Ahmad Chalabi and his perspectives. If anyone has been discredited, it is he.

As I said in my Salon.com article on Friday, I do not accept the narrative of the unreasonable Sunnis who would never compromise under any circumstances, or who are just dusted-off Baathists, as some Shiites charge. The criteria being proposed for sharing the oil wealth are that a) the recipients have oil wells in their territory; b) that the recipient is traditionally poverty-stricken or c) that the recipient was injured by Baath Party policies. Under these criteria, the Sunni Arabs are 0 for 3. So instead of getting, say, 20 percent of the petroleum revenues as redistributed by the central government, they are being offered 10 percent. Who could accept such a deal?

The Telegraph's Oliver Poole reports from Baghdad that Sunni negotiator Salih Mutlak said, "The Iraqi people have to give their word now and reject the constitution because this constitution is the beginning of the division of the country and the beginning of creating disturbance in the country." He called on Iraqis to reject the constitution at the polls.

Poole also reminds us that the squabbling over the constitution is an inside- the- green- zone issue. What are ordinary Iraqis exercised about? The heat, lack of electricity, gasoline so dirty and substandard that it ruins automobiles.
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Friday, August 26, 2005

The Iraqi Constitution and the Sunni Arabs

My article in Salon.com is

"The Iraqi constitution: DOA?" Angry and marginalized, Sunnis are threatening to torpedo Iraq's constitution. Disaster looms, and the Bush administration's blunders are largely to blame.


See also Phillip Robertson's touching article in Salon on the death of culture in Baghdad in the conditions of guerrilla war.

And Joe Conason's "Iraq's Unhealthy Constitution, also at Salon.

It is a 21st century irony that a virtual magazine reflects the realities of Iraq, whereas many "real" magazines and newspapers carry Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld fantasies.
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Death Toll of 52 as Constitution Talks Fizzle

The Iraqi Parliament did not actually meet Thursday to vote on the draft constitution.

Edmund Sanders of the LA Times reports

" Thursday's talks at the Green Zone residence of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani broke down around 10 p.m. when Sunni negotiators walked out, according to participants. The Sunnis had been waiting for the powerful Shiite parliamentary bloc to present a counterproposal on federalism but left when the top Shiite leaders didn't show. "What negotiations? There were no negotiations," said Iyad Samaraie, a senior Sunni negotiator. '


Sunni Arabs object to Shiite plans for a provincial confederation in southern Iraq that would lay special claim to that region's oil resources, reducing the Sunni Arab share (Anbar, Salah al-Din and Ninevah lack developed oil fields).

One of my readers noted that some press reports were saying that the national assembly postponed discussion. But since it never met, that cannot be correct. The further discussion of the constitution was postponed by fiat, by the Iraqi executive, in contradiction to a pledge made Monday. As I argued Tuesday, this high-handed way of proceeding, without parliamentary approval or constitutional sanction, suggests that the Iraqi executive has made a kind of coup and is just making it up as they go along.

The New York Times says that President Bush called Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite leader. But the call seems to have been to no avail if the Shiites did not come to Barzani's home for negotiations. The Americans are annoyed that the Shiites recently came up with this demand for a southern confederation and are urging them to compromise with the Sunni Arabs, fearful that any other course will prolong and exacerbate the guerrilla war. Poor Bush, who once ordered mighty armies into war and tampered with the US Constitution through his Draconian "PATRIOT" act, now is reduced to pleading with a pro-Iranian cleric to please make nice with the ex-Baathists. And he isn't even succeeding in the plea!

The Los Angeles Times says that the Shiites and Kurds may just send the constitution to a national referendum on October 15 and forego a parliamentary vote on it. The precise language of the Transitional Administrative Law does not technically call for a parliamentary vote on the text, saying only that the parliament "shall write" the constitution by August 15 (amended to August 22). The Iraqi government now considers that the constitution has "been written" and so the parliament has discharged its duty. The next step is the popular referendum. I give the text of the TAL on this issue below.

I cannot imagine that the framers of the TAL intended that there be no parliamentary vote on the constitution. In fact, the full "National Assembly" or "Parliament" has not written the constitution. A committee of parliament wrote it in conjunction with 15 Sunni Arab appointees. Especially given the presence of extra-parliamentary members on the committee, I wouldn't consider that the parliament had "written" the constitution unless it formally adopted it. Moreover, the text submitted on August 22 was incomplete. How does that fulfill the constitutional requirements?

In a bizarre twist, the Kurdistan parliament went ahead and approved the text on Thursday. Was that necessary? How can it be desirable that a regional parliament vote on it but not the federal parliament?

The whole procedure bears no resemblance to the rule of law. But as I have noted, if the prime minister, the president and two vice-presidents, and parliament agree on this interpretation, there is currently no institution that could gainsay them. So the interim constitution means what they say it means.

Guerrillas attacked a convoy of cars belonging to President Jalal Talabani about an hour's drive south of Kirkuk on Thursday, killing 8 bodyguards and wounding 15 others. Talabani of course was safe in the Green Zone far to the south. But aside from the tragedy of the bodyguards' deaths and injuries, this incident is likely a deliberate signal to Talabani that he is not beyond the reach of the Sunni Arab guerrillas. I.e. it is like when the Mafia visits your restaurant and leaves a couple of bullets on the table top.

36 bodies were discovered in a shallow river at Aredo, just west of Kut near the Iranian border. The men had all been shot in the head. Mass executions of this sort have been a feature of the unconventional guerrilla war that grips the country.

Guerrillas killed 6 civilians and wounded 15 others in the small town of Abu Sayda just north of Baghdad, when they burst into a cafe and sprayed the people inside with machine gun fire. It was a popular breakfast spot.

A roadside bomb in Hawija killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded three civilians, including a child.

In Baquba, two cars pulled up next to the automobile of a local Shiite caller to prayer (muezzin) and killed him.

Katsuya Okada, president of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) says that if his party defeats Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in the upcoming elections, he will pull the 500 Self Defense Forces contingent from Samawah in Iraq. He said, ''The Self-Defense Force is doing nothing in Iraq. The most important mission of the Self-Defense Force, supplying water to local communities, is over . . . They are remaining in Iraq only for the political consideration of the Japan-US relationship.' '

Timothy Phelps at Newsday reports on the insecurities of religious minorities in the southern port city of Basra in the face of the rise of puritanical Shiite parties and militias.

Andrew Hammond and Fuad Seif explore the mystical Kasnazani Sufi order, characterized by social tolerance but a cult of body piercing (don't let California find out about it). Kasnazani members have been targeted by Salafi (fundamentalist) guerrillas because they have supported the overthrow of Saddam, though once the order had a relationship to Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, a high-ranking Baathist who is probably behind much of the violence in Iraq today.

-----


' Article 61.

(A) The National Assembly shall write the draft of the permanent constitution by no later than 15 August 2005.

(B) The draft permanent constitution shall be presented to the Iraqi people for approval in a general referendum to be held no later than 15 October 2005. In the period leading up to the referendum, the draft constitution shall be published and widely distributed to encourage a public debate about it among the people.

(C) The general referendum will be successful and the draft constitution ratified if a majority of the voters in Iraq approve and if two-thirds of the voters in three or more governorates do not reject it.

(D) If the permanent constitution is approved in the referendum, elections for a permanent government shall be held no later than 15 December 2005 and the new government shall assume office no later than 31 December 2005.

(E) If the referendum rejects the draft permanent constitution, the National Assembly shall be dissolved. Elections for a new National Assembly shall be held no later than 15 December 2005. The new National Assembly and new Iraqi Transitional Government shall then assume office no later than 31 December 2005, and shall continue to operate under this Law, except that the final deadlines for preparing a new draft may be changed to make it possible to draft a permanent constitution within a period not to exceed one year. The new National Assembly shall be entrusted with writing another draft permanent constitution. '

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Thursday, August 25, 2005

At Least 34 Dead, Dozens Wounded
Guerilla Platoon Attacks Police in Baghdad
Bloody Shiite on Shiite Clashes in the South


Forty guerrillas in Baghdad launched a coordinated attack on police that included suicide bombings, killing 15 and wounding 56. It is always worrisome when you see a whole platoon of guerrillas operating openly in daylight in the capital. It appears that the guerrillas were targeting a visiting high level police commando from Samarra, but missed him.

In Samarra, guerrillas blew up the house of a police commando and executed one of his relatives. I'd guess this is the guy who was visiting Baghdad, and who was targeted there. I don't know exactly what a "police commando" is, but I suspect he is actually a member of one of the elite Interior Ministry security forces, which have recruited especially from the Badr Corps, a Shiite militia.

In Baquba, guerrillas attacked three sites and killed 8.

As if the problems with the Sunni guerrilla movement weren't serious enough, fighting broke out in six southern cities on Wednesday between followers of Muqtada al-Sadr and those of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

In Najaf, Sadrists attempted to reestablish a political office in the city, from which they were expelled by the US Marines last August. Angry crowds of Najafis gathered and attacked the infiltrating Sadrists. The crowd may have included Badr Corps fighters, the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a rival Shiite party. Sadrists are claiming that 8 persons were killed inside the new offices. Another report said that the building had been burned down. Dozens of persons suffered injuries.

Muqtada is threatening to pull the 20 members of parliament who are loyal to him from the national assembly. He is also threatening violence.

In Nasiriyah to the south, clashes between Sadrists and SCIRI left one person dead and 13 wounded.

In Amara, Sadrists occupied the SCIRI offices. When the police came to expel them, they clashed, and a policeman was killed.

There was also Sadrist/SCIRI violence in Basra, Hilla, Samawa and Diwaniyah.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari condemned the violence in Najaf and called for an end to the politics of the gun. He said that the attack on the Sadr offices was "unacceptable" and deplored violence in the holy city of Najaf. Al-Jazeerah says he is sending vice-premier Ahmad Chalabi to Najaf to calm the situation. Chalabi has a good relationship with Sadr and has a long working relationship with SCIRI from expatriate days when they were trying to overthrow Saddam.

Bayan Jabr, the Interior Minister, declared a curfew in Najaf and said he was sending security forces. But he is SCIRI and his intervention will be seen as supporting the Badr Corps against the Sadrists.
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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Steven Vincent Case

I am reposting here with commentary my comments of 8 August about Colin Freeman's story in the Telegraph concerning the murder of art journalist Stephen Vincent in Basra. Below, I also reprint part of the Freeman article. I am clarifying my remarks because Vincent's widow is circulating a misleading characterization of them. I understand the grief of a bereaved widow, and I am not interested in arguing with her. But Vincent does not get a pass on being criticized simply because he is dead (the entire historical profession would collapse in this case). Most of her beefs seem to me to have to do with Mr. Freeman's article, which I referred to as part of the "news consolidation" aspect of this blog.

A recent, informed discussion of the case by David Enders, who is in Basra, makes many of the same points as I did.

The wingnuts are going crazy over this contretemps, which is what is really interesting. I think it is because Vincent is a symbol for the pro-War American Right. He was inspired to his journalism in Iraq by September 11. That was his first mistake. The poor Iraqis had nothing to do with September 11. He was a defender of the Bush administration policies in Iraq, and he was killed in the course of reporting on Shiite religious parties' and militias' influence in Basra. But that influence was a direct result of Coalition policies! The Bush administration appointed the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI, a pro-Iranian Shiite party) to the Interim Governing Council, in July of 2003. The Bush administration decided to allow the Badr Corps militia (SCIRI's paramilitary) to operate as long as its members did not carry heavy weapons in public. How can the US Right then complain that SCIRI is taking over Basra? They already certified the legitimacy of SCIRI and the Badr Corps (both of which fielded candidates in the Jan. 30 elections, winning 9 of 11 provinces with substantial Shiite populations)! I think Vincent is such a controversial figure because he and his death can be read on the left as symbols for the failures of Bush administration policies in Iraq. For the Right, he is a sort of martyr, now beatified and beyond criticism.

So here is the commentary:


Was American journalist Steve Vincent killed in Basra as part of an honor killing? He was romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter, who was shot 4 times.


Note that I did not say, as Mrs. Vincent assumes, that he was sleeping with his interpreter, Nur al-Khal. That he was romantically involved with her is obvious from his blog, where he calls her "Leyla". I don't have any interest in their personal lives per se, but this relationship may have had something to do with his death and so is fair game for mention.


'If her clan thought she was shaming them by appearing to be having an affair outside wedlock with an American male, they might well have decided to end it. In Mediterranean culture, a man's honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men. Where a woman of the family sleeps around, it brings enormous shame on her father, brothers and cousins, and it is not unknown for them to kill her. These sentiments and this sort of behavior tend to be rural and to hold among the uneducated, but are not unknown in urban areas.


Everything I have said here is true. Clueless Americans don't understand the principle of gender segregation for the most part, and if they do understand it they are horrified by it. But in large swathes of the world, it just is not considered right for a male to be in the company of an unrelated female. It isn't just a matter of sleeping around, as my wingnut correspondents assume. It is being alone in the company of an unrelated man or woman, and having that be known publicly. Male honor is invested in the protection of the virginity of female relatives, and a conviction that something improper may have occurred would be enough in some instances to cause a vendetta. It is not just a Muslim thing. Many Orthodox Jews and Middle Eastern and Balkan Christians feel the same way.

Clueless Americans don't understand gender segregation, and they don't understand clan honor as practiced in most Arab societies. We American men aren't dishonored in particular if our sisters sleep around, though I suppose in high school it can't be pleasant for a guy to have everyone taunt him that his sister is a slut. But in Arab culture, a brother can't show his face in public if his sister is known to be a slut. He is enraged by this loss of honor, and sometimes he will kill her to wipe out the shame. And, by the way, her father and male first cousins are also shamed, and might conspire in taking action to restore their honor.

It is in fact an extension of a general Greater Mediterranean (please read Fernand Braudel) ethos of honor and honor killings. Mostly we in the West know about the issue of furious husbands killing their wives for sleeping around. In many Mediterranean and Mediterranean-influenced societies (e.g. Latin America), such a "crime of honor" was not even typically punished by the courts in the past. The reason the husband behaves this way is not just, as many Americans imagine, insane jealousy. It is because he believes his honor has been irretrievably damaged.

There is a large literature on honor killings. Look up the phrase at amazon.com if you want to dip into it. The whole system of clans, clan honor, and the investment of male honor in the protection of the chastity of females may be horrific. But it is the norm in much of the world (it operates to some extent in parts of Africa, in South Asia and in Central Asia, as well). Not understanding and respecting it can get you killed when you are out there.

By the way, the US military in Iraq understands all this perfectly well, and has forbidden troops from fraternizing with Iraqi women, and has punished some who did. That is, if you asked a US officer in Iraq about this issue, he will tell you the same thing I have. So how can I be criticized for articulating it?

Finally, the politics of honor and the body of the woman has been inscribed on nationalist politics in the Middle East for decades. Colonialism and foreign conquest has been spoken of as a kind of rape. Having foreign troops in one's country fooling around with its women is seen as symbolic of the humiliation of imperial subjection. This theme is central to the novel Midaq Alley, by Nobel prize winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz. In the novel, a young Egyptian man kills his girlfriend for consorting with Western troops in Cairo during World War II. The incident is a symbol of Egyptian resentment at having been recolonized by Churchill during the war.

Vincent, as an American male going about in public and private with an unrelated Iraqi woman, put himself in the position of being seen as symbolizing this joint sexual and colonial humiliation. It may well have been part of the reason he was killed.

Some correspondents have said it was odd that Vincent was killed but Ms. al-Khal survived. Uh, you can't shoot someone 4 times without intending to kill the person. Her survival is welcome and piece of good fortune, but the intent of the shooters is obvious.


Vincent did not know anything serious about Middle Eastern culture


There are kinds of knowing. Vincent could not read a book about the Middle East written by a Middle Easterner in Arabic. He did not understand Shiite religious law. He saw the surface of things because he was there. He did not know their depths. How many of us would accept an art critic's claim to be an expert on French politics and culture when he could not read French literature and had only been in France off and on for 18 months? When the person could not read President Chirac's speeches in the original when reprinted in the press, could not read French literature or legal writings, and the extent of his knowledge of Catholicism was that he had attended some masses at the Notre Dame? Of course if he was in Paris when a riot occurred, he could describe what he saw, and could interview English-speaking French or use an interpreter to interview some rioters and politicians. He could write knowledgeably about the riot, and could add to our knowledge. But he wouldn't be a France expert.


and was aggressive about criticizing what he could see of it on the surface,


Read his blog.


' and if he was behaving in the way the Telegraph article describes, he was acting in an extremely dangerous manner. '


I.e. he was egregiously breaking the rules of gender segregation and female honor. He should have had a male interpreter.

His death was most unfortunate, and I felt it. He was a colleague of sorts. But he behaved foolishly and frankly ignorantly.



-------

The Telegraph
* Murder of US reporter in Iraq may be linked to marriage pledge
By Colin Freeman
(Filed: 07/08/2005)

British officials hunting the killers of an American journalist in Basra are investigating the possibility that he may have been targeted over his relationship with his Iraqi translator, whom he had pledged to marry.

Investigators believe that Steven Vincent, a freelance reporter who was abducted and shot last Tuesday, may have angered local religious hardliners with his conduct.

The interpreter, Nour Weidi, who was shot four times in the attack, has told investigators from her hospital bed that Mr Vincent planned to marry her so she could settle in the United States.

The investigation is being led by Iraqi police, with British and US officials playing a strong supervisory role.

Speculation over the murder initially focused on the possibility that Mr Vincent was killed after writing articles alleging that Basra's police had been infiltrated by Shia death squads.

The pair were abducted soon after midnight in central Basra. Mr Vincent's body was later found nearby with multiple bullet wounds.

The murder was unusual in that was no attempt was made by his attackers to hold him hostage or make political capital out of his nationality. No group has claimed responsibility, suggesting that terrorist involvement is unlikely, say investigators.

Staff at the Basra hotel where Mr Vincent had lived for three months say the couple's relationship had drawn disapproval and warnings of retribution. But investigators have not commented publicly on whether they think the relationship was sexual, and believe that the case has hidden complexities.

"There is a straight-line connection that people have drawn between Steven Vincent criticising the Iraq police and therefore being murdered," said one investigator.

"But from the evidence so far, including accounts we have had from the Iraqi interpreter, that is not the immediate conclusion we are drawing. It appears to be quite a complex case.

"There is the possibility that this was an attempted 'honour killing', related in some way to the relationship he had with his interpreter. But it does not fit the pattern of honour killings as it is usually the woman who dies."

Mr Vincent, 49, a former art critic who turned to journalism after witnessing the September 11 attacks, had been married to his American wife for 13 years. She is understood to have been aware of his plans to marry Ms Weidi for visa purposes.

Police are now examining Mr Vincent's articles and weblog to trace people he interviewed and wrote about.

He was not afraid to voice pro-US views or get into rows with locals. In one weblog entry, he describes a heated exchange with an Iraqi who looked disapprovingly at his translator because she was not wearing a headscarf.

He seemed relaxed about his personal security. He had no bodyguards, travelled in taxis and made no secret of his disapproval of local Iran-backed Shia militias.

In an opinion piece published in the New York Times the day before his murder, he alleged the existence of a "death car", a white Toyota full of off-duty police who killed political opponents. He also claimed to have received death threats and to have unearthed political scandals.'

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