Informed Comment

Afghan Convert Released

The Afghan authorities have released Abdul Rahman, a convert from Islam to Christianity who was facing a death sentence for apostacy. Apparently the grounds for the release were procedural– questions linger about the man’s mental health, and there are gaps in the prosecution’s evidence.

That this travesty is being ended is a great good thing. But it is unfortunate that it is being ended on these narrow grounds. The next convert will face the same charges.

The episode underlines the falsehood of the Bush administration’s empty boast that it is spreading democracy in the Middle East and that “50 million” persons have been liberated. In fact, Bush has been spreading Muslim fundamentalism. In Afghanistan, he just replaced the Taliban with the Jami`at al-Islam, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was the major element in what the American called the “Northern Alliance.” Karzaid did not even bother to change the Taliban chief justice when he came in; no doubt the chief justice was strict enough for the Northern Alliance, which contained this strong fundamentalist tendency. Everywhere Bush has intervened – Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, etc., it has helped the fundamentalists.

The doctrine that apostacy deserves the death penalty comes out of medieval Islamic canon law rather than from the Quran itself. If Islam is to survive into the next century, its adherents need to rethink all those medieval legal doctrines to which modern fundamentalists are so attached. It is monstrous, and is the height of hypocrisy for Saudis and others to fund the conversion of Americans to Islam while threatening Saudi converts to Christianity with death.

Some modern Pakistani jurists have written reformist books that dispute the legitimacy of executing people for apostasy in Islamic law. But their books are in English and although they might have been members of the Pakistan supreme court, they are laypersons rather than clerics.

As for the Quran itself, it says “la ikraha fi’d-din”– there is no compulsion in religion.

[2:256] There is no compulsion in religion: the right way has been distinguished from the wrong way. Anyone who denounces the idol Taghut and believes in God has grasped the strongest handle; one that never breaks. God is the Hearing, the Knowing.

The Quran is forthright that the wages of unbelief and idolatry in this life are damnation in the next. But it does not permit coercion of the conscience in this life.

There is also Chapter 109, with its implication that the Prophet left the choice of religion, even unbelieving religion, to the individual:

109

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Say, “O unbelievers.
I do not worship what you worship.
Nor do you worship what I worship.
Nor will I ever worship what you worship.
Nor will you ever worship what I worship.
To you, your religion; and to me, my religion.”

Since the Quran recognizes the God of the Bible, these verses refer to the Meccan polytheists. And even they are being offered their own free will. To you yours, to me mine. Nothing about killing anyone about these matters of conscience.

Unfortunately, Abdul Rahman was not going to be judged by the Quran, but by the cruelty of the medieval jurists.

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Cole on Television

I’ll be interviewed in the ABC Evening News Monday evening.

Also I’ll be a guest on the Lehrer Show, PBS.

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69 Killed in Separate Outbreaks of Violence

All hell broke loose in Iraq on Sunday, but I’m darned if I can figure out most of what happened or why. It seems possible that the US committed two major military blunders that will worsen its relationship with Iraqi political forces.

So they found 30 decapitated bodies near Buhriz, an old Baath stronghold in Diyala northeast of Baghdad. Those killed were a mix of Shiites and Sunnis.

Then a mortar shell landed near the house in Najaf of Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist Shiite cleric whose followers are already upset with Sunnis over the blowing up of the Askariyah Shrine in Samarra. There were casualties, but Muqtada wasn’t harmed. Everyone just dodged a bullet along with Muqtada, since if the mortar had killed him, Iraq would have been thrown into even greater chaos.

As it is, Muqtada implied that the US was responsible. He called on his followers, according to al-Hayat, to “exercise self-restraint and to remain calm, so as to foil the plots of the Occupation authorities to provoke armed conflict, and rather to practice political resistance in order to expel the foreigners from Iraq.”

Then the US and Iraqi forces say they raided a terror cell in Adhamiyah. Adhamiyah is a Sunni district of Baghdad and is still Baath territory.

But somehow the joint US-Iraqi force ended up north, at the Shiite Shaab district. They say that they took fire from Mahdi Army militiamen. But there aren’t any such Mahdi Army men in Adhamiyah. I have a sinking feeling that instead of raiding a Sunni Arab building in Adhamiyah, they got disoriented and attacked a Shiite religious center in nearby Shaab instead. Iraqi television angrily showed twenty unarmed corpses on the floor of the religious center, denouncing the US for killing innocent worshippers. The US military is now saying it did not enter any mosques and that anyone killed was killed by Iraqi special ops.

The Mustafa Husayniyah, however, is not a mosque and may not have been distinguishable as a religious edifice to non-Shiites. Shiites mourn their martyred Imams, the descendants of the Prophet, in centers called Husayniyahs after the Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. As for the killing being done by Iraqi troops, if it was a joint mission, then the US forces are going to take some of the blame.

At least one of the dead was a member of the Dawa Party, the party headed by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari. Official Iraqi television coverage was also uncharacteristically anti-American.

Since the US has been trying to unseat Jaafari, in concert with the Kurds and Sunni Arabs, he responded to the attack testily.

The incident has yet again postponed negotiations on the formation of a new government, since the Iraqi Shiites are universally extremely angry over it. Member of parliament and aide ot Prime Minister Jaafari, Jawad al-Maliki, demanded a full investigation of “this crime,” according to al-Hayat.

If the US/Iraq force actually did accidentally hit a Shiite Husayniyah instead of a Sunni Arab terrorist cell, it was a horrible mistake.

Then US forces raided a secret prison of the Ministry of the Interior.

They captured 17 Sudanese inmates. After an investigation, the US finally acknowledged that the assault had made a mistake. The 17 Sudanese really were guerrillas or in any case legitimately held.

In other words, the jail raid was based on poor information and false premises. It is possible that our troops also messed up indirectly.

Al-Hayat reports that Hazim al-Araji, a Sadrist leader of nearby Kadhimiyah, said [Ar.]: “American forces attacked the Mustafa Husayniyah, which belongs to the Sadr Movement, and killed approximately 20 persons inside it . . . An American force surrounded the Mustafa Husayniyah in the Ur district and opened fire on more than 20 persons, killing them.”

Jalal Talabani, president of Iraq, and other high politicians have succeeded in putting on hold direct US-Iran talks on Iraq. The Iraqi politicians complained about two foreign countries discussing Iraq with no Iraqi government representative present. But the problem is that there is no Iraqi government, since the haggling elected politicians haven’t formed one. So, upshot: US-Iran talks are postponed until after there is a new Iraqi government.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Iraqi Shiite cleric who heads the largest bloc in the elected parliament, denied Sunday that Iran is directly intervening in Iraq. He said that no proof has ever been presented of these allegations. It doesn’t help Condi Rice to make her case when a close US ally like al-Hakim directly contradicts her.

Some 20% of Iraqis are living below the poverty line and their access to food has declined in the past 3 years, according to the Iraqi government.

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40 Casualties in Mahdi Army clash with Sunni Arab guerrillas

AP reports that major clashes were fought Saturday at Mahmudiyah south of Baghdad between Mahdi Army militiamen (puritanical Shiites) and local Sunni Arab guerrillas killed or wounded about 50 persons late on Saturday. AP writes, ‘ Some 40 persons reportedly were killed or injured — no breakdown was immediately available — in the clash between forces of the Shia Mehdi Army militia and Sunni militants near Mahmoudiya, 30 km south of the capital, police reported. ‘

Six other Iraqis were killed in separate incidents, and the deaths of two US marines were announced. Police found 10 more corpses in Iraq on Saturday. These are typically young men targetted for reprisal killings because of their religious sect.

The poorly named Islamic Army of Iraq, a neo-Baathist guerrilla group, announced Saturday that it is watching journalists in that country and will act against those it [arbitrarily] deems spies.

Knight Ridder reports that even Iraqi politicians are admitting that their inability so far to form a government after the December 15 elections is making the situation in the country worse and giving an opening to the guerrillas.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports [Ar.] that Member of Parliament and Sadrist leader Shaikh Nasir al-Saaedi [al-Sa`idi] said Saturday that two knotty issues confront the attempt to form a government in Iraq. The first is the position of the blocs in parliament on the constitution, and respect for the electoral achievement of the political blocs that make up parliament. He said that the attempt to curb the prerogatives of those parties that actually won the election constitutes a voiding of the election outcomes and an insult to the Iraqi people who risked all to come out and vote. (Fears are being raised that the proposed “national security council” will form an unconstitutional brake on the powers of the elected government.)

He said that he and the other Sadrists are committed to Dawa Party leader Ibrahim Jaafar as the United Iraqi Alliance candidate for prime minister. He said that setting aside Jaafari risked breaking up the UIA and betraying the trust of the Iraqi people.

The Kurdistan Alliance has led a charge, supported by the Sunni Arab parties and by the Kurds to unseat Jaafari.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that US-Iran talks on Iraq will be conditional and limited. He told IRNA, “We essentially do not trust the Americans but we will conditionally negotiate with them about Iraq while taking into account the interests of Iraqis and the world of Islam.”

I hear behind the scenes from people on the ground in Iraq. Little mainstream reporting gives a sense of the grittiness, grimness, death and destruction that they discern behind the traffic jams and the frantic shopping/ hoarding of everyday life. Kudos to Jeffrey Gettleman for telling it like it is. One remembers what a controversy it caused when Farnaz Fassihi of the Wall Street Journal let it be known in October of 2004 via an email how bad things were in Baghdad, how shocking her first-hand account seemed to many Americans who were not being given the full story by their government or their press (sometimes the latter is stenographer for the former). Gettleman’s thoughtful and hard-hitting piece is sort of like Fassihi 2, except that the NYT published it and the Wall Street Journal never published Fassihi’s backgrounder.

Jeffrey Gettleman also explains the practical difference between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq.

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Year Four of Iraq Civil War: 51 Killed

AP reports that guerrilla violence in Iraq killed 51 on Friday. In addition to bombings and drive-by shootings, police discovered 25 bodies, killed execution-style, in Kadhimiyah and Binok districts. (Kadhimiyah is largely Shiite). AP adds, “The rising death toll among Iraqis on Friday included five worshippers killed in a bombing outside a Sunni Muslim mosque after Friday prayers. At least 15 were wounded in the blast in Khalis, northeast of Baghdad.”

The bomb blast outside a Sunni mosque is especially disturbing, since it fits a pattern of recent escalation in Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence. This week, over a dozen Shiite pilgrims were killed in Sunni areas of the capital, on their way to and from the holy city of Karbala.

A Danish soldier was killed in the south, and two US troops were killed by guerrillas in Anbar province.

AFP/ Al-Zaman report that the Iraq political blocs in parliament failed in their Friday discussions to agree on the powers and constitutionality of a “national security council.” The mechanism of such a national security council has been used in Pakistan and Turkey to circumscribe the power of elected politicians in parliament. But in both of those countries there is a strong military, unlike Iraq. Why elected members of parliament would agree to such an institution is obscure, and, indeed, they may not in the end.

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Police Strike in Fallujah
Tal Afar Success Questioned

Alzaman/Reuters report that the police in Fallujah went on strike. They are protesting excesses committed by the largely Shiite Iraqi army troops installed in Sunni Fallujah by the Americans.

A military spokesman in Baghdad maintained that any excesses were isolated incidents.

It seems that even after the US emptied and destroyed the city, the problems are not resolved. Now even the police hand picked by the US are on strike because of sectarianism. Meanwhile, some violence is back, too.

Meanwhile, an intreped Reuters reporter actually visited Tal Afar, the northern Turkmen city that the US emptied and assaulted last August. Bush has been pointing to it as a success story. But Reuters finds that locals feel insecure, even the Shiites among them, and wouldn’t exactly call the whole thing a success.

Money quote: ” ‘I say that Bush is 100 percent a liar because the city of Tal Afar has become a ghost town rather than the example Bush spoke about,’ said Ali Ibrahim, a Shi’ite Turkmen laborer. “

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Guerrilla Violence Kills 58
Khalilzad Accuses Iranians

A suicide bomber detonated his payload outside the major crime unit of the Ministry of the Interior on Thursday, killing 15 policemen and 10 civilians and wounding 35 others.

Then guerrillas blew up a market outside a Shiite mosque, killing 6 and wounding 20, with women and children among the victims.

Six bodies were found in Baghdad, and 8 were found in Fallujah, victims of night-time raids, kidnappings and killings.

There were other bombings of and firefights with Iraqi police in Baghdad that killed several people.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr announced on Thursday that only a few hundred foreign jihadis (he called them “al-Qaeda”) are left in Iraq, down from as many as 2000 in late 2005. The foreign element in the Iraqi guerrilla movement has long been over-estimated. Most of the violence is committed by Iraqi insurgents.

Thousands of Iraqi families have been internally displaced by sectarian violence or the threat of it.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari called on Thursday for the US and Iran to expedite the holding of joint talks on Iraq. He clearly believes that these bilateral negotiations on the limited subject of Iraq might lead to better US-Iranian relations on other issues, including the nuclear one. He said, ‘ “I hope the US and Iran will start their meetings and talks as soon as possible and the knot in relations between the two countries would be untied through the negotiations.” ‘

US Ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad accused Iran on Thursday of training and supplying both the Mahdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr and elements of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. Neither allegation is plausible in context. Muqtada’s men are mostly nativist Iraqi ghetto youth who often do not like Persians. The major force in Iraq trained by the Iranians is the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a relative American ally. It is bizarre that Khalilzad should tie Iran to the Mahdi militia but not bring up Badr. Then to turn around and say that Iran is helping the Sunni Arab guerrillas who are blowing up Shiite Iraqis is just self-contradictory and wholly implausible.

Worse, I can’t see why Khalilzad thinks the Iranians will talk with him while he is badmouthing them.

Al-Hayat reports that [Ar.] Adnan Dulaimi of the (Sunni fundamentalist) Iraqi Accord Front has pushed the dissolution of Shiite militias as a key issue in his negotiations with the (Shiite fundamentalist) United Iraqi Alliance on the formation of a national unity government. He says that American information suggests that entire units of the Interior Ministry are composed of militias. He said that the Americans have a responsibility to shut down the militias.

In response, Sadrist leader Amir al-Husayni said that the existence of the Mahdi Army militia is tied to the issue of the terrorist groups.”

Abdul Karim Muhammadawi, an old-time fighter against Saddam, warned that the existence of such organized militias is paving the way to civil war.

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