Over 1300 Dead in Sectarian Violence
Mortar Strike on Sunni Mosque Kills 4
Violence Subsides

Ellen Knickmeyer and Bassam Sebti of the WaPo reports that since last Wednesday rioters and militiamen have killed over 1300 Iraqis on a sectarian basis. They add,

' Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. '

The pace of killing slowed on Monday despite the end of the curfew, but there was still some violence.

Reuters reports that on Monday in Iraq, guerrillas fired a mortar shell on Shola, a Shiite district in West Baghdad, killing 4 and wounding 17.

In Nahravan, police commandos from the Interior Ministry fought a battle with Sunni Arab guerrillas. The guerrillas killed 8 police and wounded 6. The police killed 6 guerrillas and said they captured 25.

In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, Iraqi police captured three men planting bombs near the shrine of al-Hurr al-Riyahi.

Robert Worth of the NYT reports, "South of the capital, in Mahmudiya, nine bodies were found blindfolded and shot in the head, police officials said. Four more bodies were found to the north, in Baquba."

The Iraqi Army deployed a few of its 77 tanks in northern Baghdad.

The LA Times reports that the recent violence in Iraq has provoked a debate in the Pentagon about planned troop draw-downs in Iraq. Some officers think it is crazy to reduce the number now. Others believe that the Iraqis will never step up to the plate as long as they can call in US soldiers. The article quotes Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute (Likud Branch), who is a civilian chickenhawk even though he is young enough so that he could have joined the military and served in Iraq, as saying that it is not the right time to bring home the troops.

Someone should explain to me why last week's events are an argument for keeping US troops in Iraq. What did they do? Did we hear about any US military units guarding Sunni mosques as they were being attacked by Shiite mobs? The LA Times reports on how US troops were caught between two sides in the rioting, and because they could not enter mosques, were often not able to investigate violent attacks against them.

Al-Zaman/ AFP report that [Ar.] hundreds of Iraqis from both the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam prayed in unison at the Grand Mosque of Tikrit, responding to a call by clergymen. Worshippers streamed to the service from all over Salahuddin Province, including the cities of Baiji, Samarra, Blad, Dujail and Sharqat. Representatives of the Sadr Movement attended, as did those of the Association of Muslim Scholars.

The governor of Salahuddin hailed the joint service as a moment of national unity, and blamed the destruction of the golden-domed Askariyah Shrine in Samarra last Wednesday on "outside forces."

Sadrist cleric Shaikh Muhammad Taqi pledged that this service was just the beginning of many coming such joint worship sessions. He complained, "It is wrong for us to say, this one is a Sunni and that one is a Shiite. We are all Muslims and we are all children of this nation."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Violence Kills 29 Despite Curfew in Iraq
British Embassy in Tehran Torched

Despite the daytime curfew, violence killed 29 in Iraq on Sunday and wounded dozens. A series of eight mortar shells slammed into Shiite neighborhoods, killing 16 persons and wounding some 45. Many women and children were among the victims. There was other violence in Baghdad, as well as in Baqubah, Hillah, Basra and elsewhere, prompting former British envoy in Iraq to characterize the country as already in a state of low-level civil war. Iraqi officials have nevertheless lifted the curfew for Monday, in part because food stocks in stores are running low and there is danger of widespread hunger if people are not allowed to restock and shop.

Angry Iranians threw Molotov cocktails at the British embassy in Tehran on Sunday. Over 1,000 students maintained that Coalition forces in Iraq were responsible for the bombing last Wednesday of the Askariyah Shrine in Samarra.
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Afghanistan Prison Riot
25000 Protest in Pakistan

The Bush administration cannot even control the al-Qaeda operatives it has in prison! Much less the many walking around free because Bush wasted our resources on an Iraq War instead of polishing off al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, the furor over the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad has not died down. Some 25,000 pretested in Karachi on Sunday.

Many Muslims are convinced that the caricatures of the Prophet and the attack on the Askariyah Shrine in Samarra were both US plots against Islam.
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Muqtada calls for Sunni-Shiite Marches, Prayers
Wants Pan-Islamic Resolution for US Withdrawal

Al-Zaman / AFP report that [Ar.] young Shiite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr, having arrived at Basra on Sunday from Iran, called for a joint peaceful demonstration involving both Shiites and Sunnis that demands the departure of US, British and other foreign troops from Iraq and calls for concord between Sunnis and Shiites.

Muqtada once again blamed the United States for the destruction of the Askariyah Shrine at Samarra.

Sadr said before a big crowd of his supporters in the southern Gulf port, "I call for a united, peaceful demonstration in the capital, Baghdad, which you will organize at a specific time, involving Shiites, Sunnis and others, in which you will demand the withdrawal of the Occupying forces, and call for mutual love among you." He made an attempt to rein in the Mahdi Army militias [plural in the original Arabic report], whom Sunnis accuse of burning Sunni mosques in Baghdad after the Samarra attack.

Muqtada said, "The leaders of Friday prayers throughout Iraq, from the north to the south and from east to west, must call for this peaceful demonstration among all sections of the Iraqi population, who much not be divided as to battle cry. The Iraqi people is one, from north to south."

Muqtada also called for holding "joint Friday communal prayers with both Sunnis and Shiites in the mosques," affirming that "there are no Sunni or Shiite mosques; you are a single people." He added, "We want the Occupation forces out, even if on their own timetable, in an objective fashion, as they say." He said, "Our Iraq is passing through a big crisis, insofar as enemies are entering among brethren, and spreading turmoil among you."

Muqtada wondered aloud, "Do you want to give aid to the enemy? Do you want to render the Occupier victorious? Do you wish to make Satan triumphant, or do you wish to help the Truth?" He added, "If you burn down mosques, are you helping falsehood or the truth? Do you wish to help falsehood?" He shouted, "No, no to falsehood!"

Al-Sadr said, "Do not forget the plotting of the Occupation, for if we forget its plots, it will kill us all without exception." He went on, "Sometimes they curse the Messenger of God [Muhammad] and defame him [with their cartoons], and sometimes they blow up our Imams. This series of attacks is not the first and it will not be the last. The attacks will continue. Beware, and be responsible. Religion is your responsibility, mosques are your responsibility, the Muslim people is your responsibility, so do not attack the secure houses of God. Love one another and be brethren of one another so that our Iraq will be secure and stable and independent. We want the expulsion of the Occupier and not the American ambassador."

A spokesman for Sadr in Najaf, Sahib al-`Ameeri, said that Muqtada's primary mission is to restore order so as to preserve the unity of the Muslims and to protect their holy places.

Another Sadr spokesman, Aws al-Khafaji, said that he had decided to appoint a committee to oversee his supporters. He forbade the Mahdi Army from wearing black, the symbol of their sectarian commitment to the messianic Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, whom many of them expect to return momentarily. (The Askariyah Shrine in Samarra, blown up last Wednesday, is associated with the Twelfth Imam and his father and grandfather.)

Some Sunni Arabs were not mollified. A spokesman for the (fundamentalist) Iraqi Accord Front, Abdul Salam al-Zawbai, said that what had happened was a shock, since no one had believed that elements of the [Shiite] Mahdi Army [of Muqtada al-Sadr] were capable of committing such deeds. He stressed that no one can at the same time participate in the political process and at the same time carry a weapon and possess a militia. This contradicts the first principles of democracy and the rule of law. He said that Muqtada al-Sadr now has an obligation to conduct himself like the other parties and become a power within the government. He called on al-Sadr to transform his militia into a political organization.

With regard to the issue of the Mahdi Army, Sadr spokesman Sahib al-`Ameeri said that some supporters carried arms as individuals, not as an organized armed militia that has received training. He said those Sadr supporters carried arms to protect their own homes. He added that the "Mahdi Army" represents a school of thought, not a political party. It tries to spread the ideas of Muqtada al-Sadr. He denied that it held regular meetings, rather said it held occasional gatherings.

On Sunday, Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP reported that representatives of Muqtada met with the Sunni hardliners of the Association of Muslim Scholars in the Abu Hanifa mosque in Adhamiyah, north Baghdad. Representing Muqtada was Shaikh Fadil al-Shara along with other Sadrist leaders. AMS was represented by Shaikh Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi and others. The two sides decided on a number of points aimed at calming the situation in the aftermath of Sunni-Shiite riots. They condemned all attacks on mosques such as might lead to civil war.

In Cairo, the Grand Shaikh of al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid al-Tantawi, offered to go to Iraq to mediate the dispute between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites. He called on them to stand united against the conspiracies against them.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

More Shrines Destroyed, 60 Killed
Sistani forms Militia

KarbalaNews.net reports that [Ar.] guerrillas blew up a Shiite shrine in Bashir, south of Tuz Khurmato. This Turkmen region near Kirkuk is largely Shiite. It was not clear how much damage was done to the shrine. The people of the region formed units to guard the shrines and places of worship from any further destruction.

The same source says that [Ar.] Iraqi officers announced that 20 guerrillas attacked the shrine of Salman the Persian. They killed the guards and placed explosives at the tomb, then blew it up, destroying it.

US military sources have later denied that the shrine was destroyed, though they said it did take rocket fire. The rocket was a dud, and did no damage, they say.



Salman al-Farisi was a companion of the Prophet Muhammad who advised the early Muslims on military tactics, and is said to have introduced the technique of digging a trench to trip charging enemy cavalry. Because he was from Iran, and because the Iranians largely became Shiites after 1500, Salman is especially beloved by Shiites. The desecration took place 24 hours after 48 Shiites were killed in the same region. They had been on their way to a peaceful demonstration against Wednesday's destruction of the Askariyah Shrine at Samarra.

Guerrillas also set off a bomb in the Shiite shrine city of Karbala, killing 8 and wounding 31.

In response to these further attacks on Islamic and Shiite shrines, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called for the establishment of tribal levies to protect tsuch holy sites. He received a delegation of tribesmen from Kufa. Most of the rural clans of the Middle Euphrates are devoted to Sistani and woul be willing to provide such a militia. This proliferation of militias is however extremely worrisome.

In some of the best reporting on the role of the Shiite clerics in this crisis, Robert Worth and Ed Wong of the NYT reveal that the Americans in Iraq initially were powerless when the crisis broke out on Wednesday, and could only hope that the Shiite clerics would calm people down. They only gradually realized that the clerics were equally capable of stirring people up, and that the clerics themselves were under enormous pressure from enraged followers to do something.

This last point is why it is so dangerous for Sistani to form his tribal levies into a militia. He will be hostage in some ways to their enthusiasms.

The Iraqi army and American forces have stopped hundreds of pilgrims who had been in Karbala from heading north to Samarra.

NPR reported eyewitness accounts, corroborated by other reports, that the Mahdi Army took over several Sunni mosques in Baghdad and hung black banners from them. These banners signify the Twelfth Imam, who is associated with the tomb destroyed at Samarra. That is, the Mahdi Army took over Sunni mosques and rededicated them to the messiah of the Shiite branch of Islam, which is highly provocative.

Young Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr reached an agreement with a hard line Sunni organization to work to tamp down the communal violence.

Al-Hayat [Ar.] says that Bush called the major Iraqi politicians on Sunday to encourage them to go back to working on the government of national unity. He appears to have convinced the Sunni Arab leaders to come back to the bargaining table.
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Violence in Baghdad, Samarra
Curfew Partially Observed

There was more violence on Friday in Iraq amid calls by clerical leaders for peace. The daytime curfew called for earlier was widely ignored, especially in East Baghdad or Sadr City, where the Mahdi Army militiamen were out in force, driving around in heavy vehicles.

*Samarra:
Borzou Daragahi of the LA Times reports,

' violence broke out in Samarra, home of the destroyed Shiite shrine. Two police officers were killed and two civilians injured in clashes and a vital oil pipeline set ablaze by saboteurs. '

*Baghdad:

Daragahi adds, 'Iraqi police today found at least 29 bodies scattered in Baghdad. Each corpse was handcuffed and had single gunshots to the head, in the style often attributed to Shiite death squads believed attached to the Ministry of Interior. '

Ed Wong of the NYT reports on the role of the militias in the recent violence in Iraq. The Shiites will certainly now insist on keeping them, after the bombing of the Askariyah shrine, but the Sunni Arabs fear them and are threatening to form their own.

Al-Zaman says that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called for calm on Friday, as did his Sunni Arab counterparts.

The daytime curfew called for Baghdad and some heavily Sunni Arab provinces was only partially effective. There were clashes in several districts of Baghdad, including Al-Sayyidiyah and al-Durah, but no details were forthcoming. Some clashes were said to be between Mahdi Army militiamen and Sunni Arab guerrillas.

Tariq al-Hashimi of the Iraqi Islamic Party said the security situation had improved somewhat, but expressed concern about streams of Shiite pilgrims headed from Karbala to Baghdad and then Samarra'.

Ayatollah Muhammad Ya`qubi, the spiritual leader of the Fadhilah Party, forbade his followers from marching to Samarra as they had originally planed. [The same thing is true of Muqtada al-Sadr.]

I gave an interview to Jim Lobe of Interpress Service in which I raised the possibility that there might now be a hung parliament in Iraq, with no group able to form a government, forcing new elections and further political gridlock. The Sunni Arab party, the National Accord Front, has pulled out of negotiations on the formation of a new government.

The daytime curfew in the central Sunni Arab provinces has been extended another day, through Saturday.

AP points to the way in which the Askariyah Shrine crisis points to the great authority and power of the clergy in contemporary Iraq.

NPR reported that on Wednesday and Thursday, many Iraqi policemen and soldiers either stepped aside for Shiite mobs who attacked Sunni mosques, and that some even joined in the attacks.

It just goes to show how inadequate this report for the Pentagon is. It says that 53 battalions can fight with US help, and that none can do so on their own, and that Sunni attacks have not yet produced sectarian violence. In comedy and in politics, timing is everything.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Suicide Bombing of Saudi Oil Complex Foiled

We all just dodged a bullet. But for how long?

The good news is that the suicide bombing by unidentified radicals against the Saudi oil processing center in largely Shiite Abqaiq (Baqiq) was foiled, though bombs did go off.

Saudi Arabia, dominated by hard line Wahhabi Sunnis, produces about 9.5 million barrels a day of petroleum, and exports over 7 million barrels a day.

Folks, the world only produces about 85 million barrels a day. And most of that is used up by the producers so it isn't available for export. The US, for instance, produces 5.5 million barrels a day, but it uses about 20 million barrels a day. It uses all of its production and then 3 times that from other countries.

So the Saudi production is 11 percent of the world total, but it is far more than that of the amount of petroleum available for anyone else to buy.

If you took out the facility at Abqaiq, it would be very bad news for world transportation systems.

Iraqi production is already down 38% from pre-War levels. Nigerian production is off 20 percent because of political strife there. There haven't been any big new strikes, and China and India and others are using more and more.

While it is desirable that the world be weaned off petroleum in favor of renewable energy like solar that do not contribute to global warming, it is also desirable that that process happen gradually. You don't want the world thrown into a sort of Depression that would reduce research and development monies and effort for green energy.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Dozens of Mosques Attacked, Over 100 Dead, Thousands Protest

CNN reports that 7 US GIs were killed in Iraq on Wednesday.

There will be a curfew in the core Sunni Arab areas, including Baghdad, to prevent the worshippers from rioting afer the Friday prayers ceremony.

Sunni Arabs in Iraq blamed US troops for not protecting Sunni mosques and worshippers from violence. The US military ordered the US soldiers in Baghdad to stay in their barracks and not to circulate if it could be helped. [Later reports said some US patrols has been stepped up.] This situation underlines how useless the American ground forces are in Iraq. They can't stop the guerrilla war and may be making it worst. Last I knew, there were 10,000 US troops in Anbar Province with a population of 1.1 million. What could you do with that small force, when the vast majority of the people support the guerrillas? US troops would be useless if they hcad to fight in alleyways against sectarian rioters. If they tried to guard the Sunni mosques, they'd have to shoot into Shiite mobs, which would just raise the level of violence they face from Shiites in the south.

Reuters reports that ' The main Sunni religious group said 184 Sunni mosques had been damaged, some destroyed; 10 clerics had been killed and 15 abducted. The Muslim Clerics Association accused Shi'ite religious leaders of stoking the anger by calling for protests. '

Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi of the [Sunni] Association of Muslim Scholars slammed grand ayatollah Sistani for calling for demonstrations, and implied that Shiite trouble makers were coming over from Iran:

“They are all fully aware that the Iraqi borders are open, and the streets are penetrated with those who want to create strife among Iraqis,” Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi said at a news briefing. Al-Kubaisi said US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad may also have enflamed the situation when he warned on Monday that the US would not continue to support institutions run by sectarian groups with links to armed militias.

In Diyala province, guerrillas set up a phony checkpoint and pulled 47 largely Shiite factory workers off a bus and summarily executed them. Other bodies showed up in the streets of Baghdad and other cities. Guerrillas set off two bombs in Baghdad, causing casualties.

Guerrillas used a bomb to kill 16 persons and wound 20 in Baqubah.

Thousands of Shiites marched in Baghdad, Tal Afar, Kut, Karbala and Najaf.

Young Shiite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr charged that the Iraqi government and the US had failed to protect the Askariyah shrine in Samarra, and commanded his Mahdi Army militiamen to guard Shiite shrines throughout Iraq.

In Mahmoudiyah to the south of Baghdad, Muqtada's Mahdi Army militiamen fought a pitched battle with Sunni guerrillas, killing two civilians and wounding 5 militiament.

Muqtada issued a statement:

“If the government had real sovereignty, then nothing like this would have happened,” al-Sadr said in a statement. “Brothers in the Mahdi Army must protect all Shiite shrines and mosques, especially in Samara.”

Al-Hayat [Ar.] says that Muqtaada al-Sadr had originally called on his followers to go to Samarra for Friday prayers, but cancelled this call later when it became clear that there might be riots.

Pakistani Shiites demonstrated against the destruction of the Askariyah shrine.

Likewise, tens of thousands of Shiite protesters came out to rally in Beirut against the bombing on Thursday. In both Lebanon and Pakistan, the demonstrations turned anti-American.

I am interviewed at the Metro Times by by Curt Guyette & W. Kim Heron about Iraq and the war on terror.
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Sistani threatens to turn to Militia
Sadr Calls for Calm

The shoe seems to be on the other foot now, with Muqtada al-Sadr attempting to cool Iraq's Shiites down and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani threatening to create a paramilitary to protect Shiites.

Al-=Hayat says that [Ar.] the Sunni cleric Abdul Ghafur al-Samarra'i led a demonstration of Sunnis in Samarra' in protest against the "Excommunicators" for having attempted to set off a sectarian civil war in Iraq by bombing the shrine. They also blamed "the Americans". Al-Samarra'i asked for restraint and the avoidance of civil war. Sunni and Shiite demonstrators in the city (but presumably mostly Shiite) chanted "With our spirits and our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, O Imam!" [Bi'r-ruh wa'd-dam nufdika ya Imam!]

The ministers of defense and the interior made a joint announcement that the Iraqi armed forces had been put on alert for any contingency.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani was shown on Iraqiyah television meeting with the other 3 grand ayatollahs in Najaf, among whom he is first among equals. They include Bashir Najafi, Muhammad Ishaq Fayyad and Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim. Sistani called for self-discipline and for peaceful demonstrations. He said Shiites must not attack Sunni mosques, but called for them to demonstrate peacefully. He laid responsibility for security on the Iraqi government, saying that it "is called today more than at any time in the past to shoulder its full responsibilities in stopping the series of criminal actions that have targeted holy spaces. If the security apparatuses are unable to safeguard against this crisis, the believers are able to do so, by the aid of God."

Astonishingly, Sistani seems to be threatening to deploy his own militia, Ansar Sistani, if the Iraqi government doesn't do a better job of protecting Shiites and their holy sites. One lesson Sistani will have taken from the bombing of the Askariyah shrine in Samarra is that he is not very secure in Najaf, either. But all we need in Iraq is yet another powerful private sectarian militia!

Muqtada al-Sadr had been in Lebanon. He cut short his trip and went overland to Iraq. He told the Syrian news agency that he condemns this "despicable crime" and called the Iraqi people to "unity and solidarity so as to deny any opportunity to those who wish to ignite public turmoil."

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim said during a press conference in Baghdad that the statements of the US ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, had "contributed to greater pressure [on the Shiites] and gave a green light to terrorist groups, and he therefore bears a part of the responsibility." Al-Hakim has long wanted to unleash the Badr Corps, his Shiite paramilitary, the Badr Corps, but has been checked by the Americans so far.

The Association of Muslim Scholars [hardline Sunni] called for calm but then blamed the Americans for the downward spiral of conditions.

After Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei blamed the US and Israel for the bombing on Wednesday, Shiites all over the world staged demonstrations in some of which they burned US and Israeli flags.

On the other hand, the thousands of protester in Bahrain blamed Sunni "excommunicators" instead.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iran Blames Bush
Sunni Shiite Clashes

Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor has an excellent piece interpreting the significance of the turmoil over the bombing of the Askariyah shrine in Samarra.

Shiites came out in the thousands all over the Shiite south on Wednesday to protest. Quoting Sunni Arab spokesmen, the wire services are saying 75 Sunni mosques have been attacked, with two burned to the ground and 3 Sunni clergymen assassinated, with 6 Sunni Arabs dead altoghether in the violence.

In the southern city of Kut, AP says, 3,000 protesters came out to rally against the United States and Israel.

AFP says that 10,000 people in East Baghdad converged on the office of Muqtada al-Sadr, chanting against "Wahhabis" and America.

AP also describes some of the other violence:

' Large protests erupted in Shiite parts of Baghdad and in cities throughout the Shiite heartland to the south. In Basra, Shiite militants traded rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire with guards at the office of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Smoke billowed from the building.

Shiite protesters later set fire to a Sunni shrine containing the seventh century tomb of Talha bin Obeid-Allah, companion of the Prophet Muhammad, on the outskirts of the southern city. Police found 11 bodies of Sunni Muslims, most of them shot in the head, in two neighborhoods of Basra, police Capt. Mushtaq Kadhim said. Two of the dead were Egyptians, Kadhim said.

Protesters in Najaf, Kut and Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City also marched through the streets by the hundreds and thousands, many shouting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans and burning those nations' flags. '

The hardline Shiite Mahdi Army has come out of Sadr City and is all over Baghdad. They are clashing with Sunnis in Basra.

Sunni leader Tariq al- Hashimi threatened reprisals for reprisal killings.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim blamed the US for holding back the Badr Corps.

Grand Ayatollah Sistani called for nonviolent street protests that he must know won't be nonviolent.

Iran is blaming Bush and the Israelis, which is ridiculous but already widely believed in Iraq and Iran.

The threat of terrorism and attacks on Americans just went way up.

---

Postscript:

A reader writes in:

' An hour ago [my Iraqi Shiite fried] recieved a call from Najaf. You know the Najaf boys are losing their heads over what happened.

No wonder. 80 years or so ago their relatives bought some land up there [at Samarra] and established Shia communities around the mosque and in Samarra. So the boys had been working there living there from time to time and some really settled down for good. A month or two ago lots of Shia were expelled, thrown out of town or scared off.

And now this.

They told B. how the demolition was carried out. You see, it was nothing like
a hipshot sneaking up bombing by night. It was meticulous, skilful piece of work,
taking a lot of time, the guards knowing all about what was going on. At least that´s what they told him today.

So now they all gather downtown Nejef rallying, preparing a gruesome revenge.
Sistani tries hard to stop them, they told him, but the boys won´t listen. They´re heading for Samarra. '

[Revised].
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Shiite protests Roil Iraq

Tuesday was an apocalyptic day in Iraq. I am not normally exactly sanguine about the situation there. But the atmospherics are very, very bad, in a way that most Western observers will miss.

The day started out with a protest by ten thousand people in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, against the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. These days, Shiites are weeping, mourning and flagellating in commemoration of the martyrdom of the Prophet's grandson, Imam Husayn. So it is an emotional time in the ritual calendar. when feelings can easily be whipped up about issues like insults to the Prophet. An anti-Danish demonstration in Karbala is a surrogate for anti-American and anti-occupation sentiment. The US won't be able to stay in Iraq withiut increasing trouble of this sort.

Then guerrillas set off a huge bomb in a Shiite corner of the mostly Sunni Arab Dura quarter of Baghdad, killing 22 and wounding 28. Another 9 were killed in other violence around Iraq. These attacks are manifestations of an unconventional civil war.

Then real disaster struck. The guerriillas blew up the domed Askariyah shrine in Samarra. The shrine, sacred to Shiiites, honors 3 Imams or holy descendants of the Prophet. They are Ali al-Hadi, Hasan al-Askari, and his disappeared son Muhammad al-Mahdi. Thousands of Shiiites demonnstrated in Samarra and in East Baghdad, against this desecration.

The Twelfh Imam or Mahdi is believed by Shiites to have disappeared into a supernatural realm (just as Christians believe in the ascension of Christ) from which he will someday return.

Some Shiites think his second coming is imminent. Muqtada all-Sadr and his followers are among them. They are livid about this attack on the shrine of the Mahdi's father.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also a firm believer in the imminent coming of the Mahdi. I worry that Iranian anger will boil over as a result of this bombing of a Shiite millenarian symbol.

Both Sunnis and Americans will be blamed. Very bad
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bringing the United Nations Back In

There will be anti-War protests in the coming month, as the 3-year anniversary of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq approaches.

I think it is time to demand a timetable for US withdrawal from Iraq. I suspect a majority of Iraqi parliamentarians want that. The Sunni Arabs demand it. The Sadrists demand it. It is time. Saying that the guerrillas would take advantage of a timetable, given the carnage we saw on Monday (see below) is frankly silly. They are taking advantage of the current situation. We have to create a new situation, with which they might be happier so that they stop blowing things up. Staying this course is untenable.

But that step will not necessarily resolve the crisis.





I think the peace movement has a real opportunity here to make a push for much heavier United Nations involvement in Iraq. I say, let's make up placards calling on Kofi Annan to get involved, and calling on Bush to let the UN come in in a big way, with proper protection.

Here are the advantages:

1. The United Nations has political legitimacy in the Middle East. American unilateralism does not. The guerrillas would be humiliated to deal with Bush, who crushed them and marginalized them. They would be more likely to treat with the UN.

2. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has demanded greater UN involvement, and he has enormous authority with the Shiite majority.

3. No country is going to send troops to Iraq under a United States military command. There has to be a United Nations peace-enforcing command. Once that exists, it might become an umbrella for Arab League troops, e.g. Cheney was told as much when he was in Cairo, according to the Arabic press.

I.e., by keeping out the UN, the Bush administration is guaranteeing that it is mainly American (and British) blood and treasure that is spilt in Iraq for years to come.

4. If the United Nations could be mobilized to help Iraq through the coming years of instability and help shepherd it to independence from the US and UK, it would help to strengthen international, multilateral organizations generally and contribute to an institutionalization of international law.

5. The permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as all UN member states, have a keen interest in the fate of Iraq and the Gulf. They should be encouraged to deploy some of their treasure (and probably some blood) for the common benefit of Iraqis and the world.

6. The peace movement will be more credible if it has a program other than simple US withdrawal from Iraq. The US public is aware that an Iraq in flames at the head of the oil-rich Gulf could have a horrible impact on the US itself. A demand that the Iraq situation be internationalized is a responsible way of getting the US out, getting Iraq out of Bush's incompetent hands, and helping Iraqis move forward.

7. Bush invaded Iraq in part in order to destroy the United Nations. Forcing him to bring it in to Iraq would be a blow against American unilateralism and rightwing American aggression for decades to come.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Thinking about Suing

If among my loyal readers there are any attorneys with expertise in libel law, in the US or UK, who might be willing to consult on a possible series of lawsuits for reckless defamation of character resulting in professional harm--done on a contingency basis-- I'd much appreciate hearing from you.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The Ambassador Versus the Ayatollah
: Khalilzad to Iraq: No Shiite Control of Interior, Defense
Sistani Contradicts Him

On Monday, the stage was set for an epic struggle between the two forces behind the scenes in Iraqi politics, US Ambassadro in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf, the spiritual leader of Iraq's majority Shiites. In every previous such contest, Sistani has handily won against his American opponent.

Nancy Youssef of Knight Ridder reports on the press conference in Baghdad on Monday in which Khalilzad publicly threatened to cut off funding for the training of Iraqi troops if the ministries of defense and the interior are under "sectarian" control.

In plain English, Khalilzad was saying that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) may not retain control of Interior (which in Iraq is a security organization) and continue to pack it with members of the paramilitary Badr Corps, most of them trained originally by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Sunni Arabs have charged that Interior Ministry police commandos have functioned as death squads, conducting reprisal killings against Sunnis.

It is in fact important for the recovery of social peace in Iraq that SCIRI and Badr be gotten away from Interior. The problem is that the Shiite religious parties have 132 MPs who will vote with them in a parliament of 275. Barring an unforeseen and substantial defection from among their ranks, they will almost certainly form the government. SCIRI has made it clear that it wants Interior, i.e. federal domestic policing and surveillance, under its control.

So Khalilzad does not have a lot of options. He appears to be attempting to undermine the Shiite government by encouraging the Kurds to ally with the Sunni Arabs. Some theorize that a Kurdish-Sunni alliance could outmaneuver the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. They argue that the two main Kurdistan parties have 53 seats, the two main Sunni Arab coalitions have 55, and Iyad Allawi's National Iraqi List has 25, for a total of 133. If they could get the 5 Kurdish Islamists to join them, they would have 138, or 51 percent. There are also 3 Sunni Arab seats of the list of Mishaan Juburi, who had to flee the country in fear of being prosecuted as a Baathist agent; I'm not sure what will happen to his three seats, though.

The Kurdish-Sunni alliance scenario, however, makes no sense. First, it cannot provide the 184 seats needed to select a president, who appoints the prime minister. Only a Shiite alliance with Kurds or Sunnis could accomplish that. And, whoever selects the president will set things up to be sure that the president will ask them to form a government. So the Shiite MPs could strike and refuse to allow a president to be seated unless they were allowed to form the government.

Second, the Kurds want loose federalism. The Sunni Arabs are die-hard opposed to it. Both have their own plans for oil-rich Kirkuk. The 11 neo-Baathists around Salih Mutlak would be absolutely despised by most Kurds. Mutlak praised the Baath as the best party Iraq could have! The Kurds don't have fond memories of Baathism. A government coalition between Kurds and Sunni Arab Islamists and neo-Baathists wouldn't last longer than the first cabinet meeting.

Third, the Constitution absolutely requires the president to offer the prime minister post to the party that has the largest number of seats in parliament. It would would be unconstitutional to ask the Kurdistan Alliance with 53 seats to form a minority government with support from other parties, unless the largest party had already tried and failed to form a government.

It should also be remembered that the leading party in parliament controls Iraq's petroleum profits, of some $17 billion a year, and that this money becomes political patronage for members of the government. That's a big incentive to any group to stay with a sure thing rather than pulling out in favor of possible role in another, unstable, coalition.

Like it or not, it is the Shiite religious parties that have the cohesion to form a relatively stable government. They would only need to be joined by the Yazidi MP and the 5 Kurdish Islamists to have a majority. (It is also not impossible that some Shiite members of the Allawi list could jump ship and join with the religious Shiites). If Khalilzad goes too far in undermining them, he risks throwing Iraq into complete political instability and hot civil war.

Although there has been talk of the Fadhila or Virtue Party of the United Iraqi Alliance breaking off and going its own way, there has also been talk of Virtue getting one of the vice-presidencies so as to keep it in.

There is another thing. Al-Zaman/ AFP reports that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has called for all due speed in the formation of a new Iraqi government. A source close to Sistani said after the visit to him Monday of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said that the new government should not only be formed quickly but should "ensure the provision of services to the people. It should be a government based on competence, spotlessness and transparency." He added, "Sistani also affirmed during the visit the necessity to hew to the perogatives explicitly stated in the constitution with regard to powerful cabinet positions."

Jaafari said, "My visit to Sistani was so as to get his opinion insofar as he is the shepherd of the political process in Iraq." He added, "I came to listen to his views, and he affirms the necessity of haste in forming a government that is competent, spotless and transparent, and which acts in accordance with the constitution and the law, and takes an interest in the people and their demands." Jaafari said he hoped it would not take the three months to form a government that it took the last time. He said Kurdistan would be handled as specified in the constitution (i.e. there will be a popular referendum there in 2007 to decide if it will join the Kurdistan Regional Confederacy of Dahuk, Irbil and Sulaymaniyah).

Sistani, it should be remembered, has resources and authority that might be useful in keeping the Virtue Party from leaving the Shiite coalition. Most Shiites in Basra would not like to be denounced personally by the Grand Ayatollah.

Sistani appears to believe that since the leading party in parliament gets to choose the prime minister, and since the prime minister gets to choose the cabinet members, that it would be wrong for the United Iraqi Alliance to give away its right to powerful cabinet posts such as Defense and Interior, under American pressue.

There is one way for Khalilzad to avoid a debilitating and destructive contest with Sistani on this issue. It is for Khalilzad to identify a member of the United Iraqi Alliance in parliament who is not tied to the militias and who could be minister of the interior. That is, Sistani isn't demanding that the post go to SCIRI and Badr. He is demanding that it go to the UIA if the UIA wants it. Not all the parliamentarians in the UIA are tied to militias!


------
Appendix:

Provisions of the Iraqi Constitution on the Formation of a Cabinet:

' Article 73:

First: The President of the Republic shall name the nominee of the Council of Representatives bloc with the largest number to form the Cabinet within fifteen days from the date of the election of the president of the republic.

Second: The Prime Minister-designate shall undertake the naming of the members of his Cabinet within a period not to exceed thirty days from the date of his designation.

Third: In case the Prime Minister-designate fails to form the cabinet during the period specified in clause "Second," the President of the Republic shall name a new nominee for the post of Prime Minister within fifteen days.

Fourth: The Prime Minister-designate shall present the names of his Cabinet members and the ministerial program to the Council of Representatives. He is deemed to have gained its confidence upon the approval, by an absolute majority of the Council of Representatives, of the individual Ministers and the ministerial program.

Fifth: The President of the Republic shall name another nominee to form the cabinet within fifteen days in case the Cabinet did not gain the confidence. '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Guerrilla War Still Going Strong:
Guerrillas kill 26, Wound 74 in Seven bombings, Other Attacks

Al-Zaman [Ar.]: The Iraqi governent says that during the seven days ending on Sunday, guerrillas launched 111 attacks on Iraqi army and police and on US and Coalition forces. These attacks left over 100 Iraqis dead and over 200 wounded.

The bloody totals for victims of guerrilla violence in Iraq on Monday can only be arrived at by combining press reports. Even then, I'm sure not all the wounded are accounted for, since wire services tend to report mainly deaths. The limitations of those Western sites that count casualties according to Western reports are suggested by how limited a lot of the reporting is. And, surely a fair number of those wounded in these attacks later die, and these are never reported in the Western press.

What follows is drawn from this AFP report, and another one from Reuters., and finally this CNN article. Here is what the whole sanguinary thing looks like at the end of Monday:

*A suicide bomber on a bus in Shiite Kadhimiyah killed 12 and wounded 9.

*Also in Baghdad, guerrillas set off a car bomb in the Diyala Bridge area in an attempt to assassinate the district head of that municipality, killing 2 and wounding 11. The politician escaped, but two of his security guards were the ones killed.

*Guerrillas set off a bomb near a group of laborers in Baghdad, wounding at least 19.

*Guerrillas set off two roadside bombs in East Baghdad as a Western convoy went by, wounding 11 persons, including two foreign contractros.

*A roadside bomb in central Baghdad wounded 2 policemen.

*About an hour's drive north of Baghdad, guerrillas in 15 cars attacked a truck convoy bearing supplies to a US military base, firing rockets and spraying machine gun fire. They killed 5 Iraqis. [This is a big, brazen attack near the capital.]

*In Mosul, a bomber left behind his payload at the Abu Ali Restaurant, killing 5 and wounding 21.

* Guerrillas ambushed a civilian motorist in Balad, killing him.

*Guerrillas near the Shiite holy city of Karbala used a roadside bomb to kill a US soldier.

*A roadside bomb in Iskandariyah south of Baghdad wounded yet another policeman.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

17 Dead in Guerrilla Violence
Fadhilah Defends Constitution

Robert worth of the NYT reports that some 17 persons were killed in guerrilla violence in Iraq on Sunday.

Guerrillas used an explosive device to kill the police chief of Kirkuk and two aides. The Sunni Arab fighters are resisting a take-over of the city by the Kurds, who dominate its police force.

Al-Zaman/AFP report that Baghdad is without electricity 20 hours a day. The guerrilla movement has waged a concerted campaign to starve the capital of fuel and power.

Al-Hayat reports that the Americans have given up attempting to dialogue with the Sunni Arab Resistance, preferring instead to deal with the tribes. This attempt has not gone well. The Americans paid $20 million to set up something called "tribal militias," money that appears to have simply been embezzled.

Iraqi Accord Front member Shaikh Khalaf al-`Ulyan called on the US government to direct its efforts toward the Iraqi resistance groups, saying that it had been a huge error to focuse in Ramadi on tribal chieftains who in fact have no influence, and some of whom had not even been in Anbar province for years. Shaikh Farhan al-Sadid also emphasized that the Americans would get nowhere with security in Anbar until they talked directly to the armed resistance.

King Abdullah II of Jordan met Sunday with young Shiite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr. King Abdullah II called on Iraqis to participate in the political process so as to safegurad the future and the territorial integrity of Iraq. He said that Iraq's recovery and return to an active role in the region would benefit Jordan.

Muqtada al-Sadr thanked the king for the aid he had given to the people of Iraq, and for having defended the Prophet Muhammad when the king visited Washington, DC.

Muqtada said he had come to Jordan to meet his people and brethern and to strengthen ties between them and Iraq. He also wanted to represent the Jordanian public to his own constituencies back in Iraq.

Nadim Jabiri, a leader of the Shiite Virtue Party [Ar.] responded to the interview given Saturday to Aljazeera, in which Sadr rejected the new constitution because he feared it might break up Iraq. Jabiri's party has 15 seats in the new parliament, nominally as part of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance to which Sadr's deputies also belong. But Virtue is uneasy within the UIA, and mostly opposed the selection of Ibrahim Jaafari as candidate for prime minister, something the Sadrists supported.

Jabiri said that the constitution had been accepted by 75 percent of Iraqis and therefore could not be rejected. He said, "Federalism is a fixed text in the constitution, and cannot be challenged." He said that the constitution had been fashioned via consensus and that many of its articles were still subjects of contention. He said that it is not permissible to go back on a document with such broad support from the public. As for the possibility that the Sadrists might introduce a measure to abrogate the constitution in parliament, Jabiri replied that an agreement already exists among the various parties to amend a number of the constitution's articles during the next four months. He said it was permissible for the Sadrists to work within that framework. He allowed that the political forces might settle on some limited amendments, but said that the principle of provincial confederacies could not be touched. But he said that since the confederacies were to be formed by provincial referendums, they could be forestalled by simply waging campaigns to convince people in the provinces not to take that step.

The elected provincial council of Maysan province in the South has cut off relations with the British military that polices the province in protest over the filmed beating of Iraqi youths there. Maysan is dominated by the Sadr Movement, which in any case is eager to see foreign troops out of the country. The Basra provincial council had already cut off the British, putting them in an increasingly difficult position. The central government wants the British troops to stay, but the provincial governments do not feel the same way about it.

The Associated Press reports on the continued fight in Ramadi and Anbar Province, which has lost 4 governors so far. One was assassinated, one resigned after an attack, and two had sons kidnapped. The central government building in Ramadi is a frequent target of attacks.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

What if Cheney had Apologized for Iraq?

Satire alert for the humorless. What would it have looked like if Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney had apologized for Iraq the way he apologized for shooting a hunting buddy?


This is the original link

[Imaginary] Transcript of Vice President Dick Cheney's interview Wednesday with Brit Hume of Fox News Channel, as released by the White House. Cheney addresses his illegal invasion of Iraq on false pretences, resulting in tens of thousands of dead.

Question: Mr. Vice President, how are the Iraqis?

Answer: Well, the good news is they are doing very well today. I talked to their leaders yesterday after they discovered how many we had killed and tortured . . . But we've stopped the very worst torture, so the reporting today is very good.

Q: How did you feel when you heard about that?

A: Well, it's a great relief. But I won't be, obviously, totally at ease until there is no torture and no one dies from US bombing raids. They are at home. They'll be in turmoil apparently, for a few more years. And the problem, obviously, is that there's always the possibility of complications in a population reduced to a very bad situation by years of sanctons.

Q: How long have you known about Iraq?

A: I first encountered it during the Gulf War, and 2003 was the first time I'd actually invaded the country.

Q: Would you describe Iraq as a close friend, friendly acquaintance, what?

A: No, I knew absolutely nothing about the place.

Q: Tell me what happened?

A: Well, basically, we were conducting an invasion late in the day ...

Q: Describe the setting.

A: It's in south Iraq near Kuwait, wide open spaces, a lot of brush cover, fairly shallow. But it's wild Iraqi conscripts. It's some of the best conscript hunting anyplace in the region. I've gone there, for years. ...

Q: How many?

A: Oh, probably 100,000 troops. We weren't all together . . .

Q: There was just two of you then?

A: Just two of us at that point. The guide or outrider between us, and of course, there's this entourage behind us, all the cars and so forth that follow me around when I'm out there. But the Baath Army flushed and went to my right, off to the west. I turned and shot at the soldiers, and at that second, saw them standing there. Didn't know they were there ...

Q: You had pulled the trigger and you saw them?

A: Well, I saw them mown down, basically. It had happened so fast.

Q: What were the Iraqis wearing?

A: They were dressed in orange, they were dressed properly, but they were also ... There was a little bit of a gully there, so they were down a little ways before land level, although I could see the upper part of their bodies when ... I didn't see it at the time I shot, until after I'd fired. And the sun was directly behind them — that affected the vision, too, I'm sure.

But the image of Iraq falling is something I'll never be able to get out of my mind. I started a war, and there's Iraqis falling in the thousands. And it was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life, at that moment.

Satire

END '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraqi Press Highlights for Feb. 19

Key bits of information from the Iraqi press, selected from a mass of such articles in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service report for Sunday, Feb. 19. A reader asked me if I was deliberately repositing nuggets of key information down in the text, with an eye to giving an exam later. The answer is yes, and the nation's test is coming. I'd read carefully if I were you.

Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Highlights: Iraqi Press 19 Feb 06
Iraq
Sunday, February 19, 2006

Al-Bayan carries on the front page a 250-word follow-up report citing Unified Iraqi Coalition candidate Abbas al-Bayyati confirming fruitful negotiations with Kurdistan Coalition and the coalition's persistence to retain the interior ministry. . .

Al-Bayyinah publishes on the front page a 900-word report entitled "Al-Fadilah Party Supports Al-Ja'fari, Demands Appointment of Al-Jabiri as Deputy Speaker of Parliament. . .

Al-Bayyinah publishes on the front page a 230-word report citing Talabani confirming
alliance with Unified Iraqi Coalition. . .

Al-Adalah carries on page 1 a 500-word report citing Unified Iraqi Coalition member Hamid Mu'allah al-Sa'idi commenting on a recent meeting by SCIRI to discuss the formation of the next Iraqi government. The report also cites coalition member Abbas al-Bayati saying that the coalition insists on occupying the Interior Ministry. . .

Al-Adalah runs page 6 a 700-word article by Ahmad Mahdi al-Yasiri commenting on the "suspect movements" by various Iraqi groups to "abort" the democratic process by depriving Unified Iraqi Coalition of its electoral entitlement. . .

Al-Hawzah publishes on page 1 a 100-word citing Unified Iraqi Coalition member Nasir al-Sa'idi, Al-Sadr Bloc member, saying that Al-Sadr trend followers cannot forget the "crimes" committed by Iyad Allawi against them, but will respect the coalition's decision to allow Allawi to participate in the next government. . .

Ishraqat al-Sadr runs on page 1 an 800-word editorial criticizing Iraqi political entities for being "deceived" into participating in the political process by the "false" promises of democracy and freedom. . .

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on the front page a 1,100-word report citing Jalal Talabani calling for the involvement of all winning electoral entities in the formation of the next government. The report cites reliable sources at Unified Iraqi Coalit ion saying that the formation of the next government will take a long time because Al-Ja'fari was elected as prime minister. The report cites the Rida Jawad Taqi expressing the coalition's refusal to amend the constitution. The report cites Abbas al-Bayati, Unified Iraqi Coalition, saying that negotiations with Kurdistan Coalition are being conducted and that the coalition will not give up Interior Ministry. . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on the front page a 300-word report that Al-Fadilah Party demands British forces to get out of Al-Amarah. . .

Al-Mada publishes on page 3 a 200-word report that Al-Wahdah Party has dismissed Nuri Al-Rawi for forming political blocs out of the frame of the party, during the elections. . .

Al-Furat publishes on the front page a 240-word report citing Unified Iraqi Coalition candidate Khudayyir al-Khuza'i confirming that the coalition will agree to the Russian proposal for an international conference on Iraq, if it enhances the political process. . .

Al-Furat publishes on the front page a 300-word report citing Defense Ministry Spokesman Muhammad al-Askari announcing that Iraq seeks to join NATO. . .

Al-Furat publishes on the front page a 600-word report on the survey conducted by the newspaper showing that 76 percent of polled citizens were not happy with the changes in Iraq following the downfall of the former regime. . .

Al-Furat runs on page 2 a 300-word report citing Al-Sadr aide Abd-al-Zahrah al-Suway'idi denying major changes in Al-Sadr trend's structure. . .

Al-Da'wah publishes on the front page a 200-word report citing Qasim al-Sahlani, chairman of Al-Da'wah Party, Iraq Organization's Central Bureau, calling for improved public services in Al-Sadr City. . .

Al-Da'wah runs on the front page a 300-word report citing Unified Iraqi Coalition candidate Jalal al-Din al-Saghir praising Al-Anbar tribal chiefs and emphasizing the
importance of de-Ba'thification in the next stage. . .

Al-Da'wah publishes on the front page a 250-word report on the demonstration organized by Al-Sadr trend in Diyala and Al-Nasiriyah to protest the insulting cartoons.

Al-Da'wah runs on the front page a 300-word report citing Sadr al-Din al-Qubbanchi, SCIRI leader in Al-Najaf and imam of Imam Ali holy shrine, condemning the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees by US and British forces.

Al-Da'wah publishes on page 3 a 300-word report citing SCIRI leader Ammar al-Hakim condemning Prophet Muhammad's cartoons during Friday's prayer sermon in Buratha Mosque in Baghdad.

Al-Da'wah publishes on page 5 a 600-word column by Rasim Qasim calling for the expulsion of Mujahidin-e-Khalq Organization from Iraq.

Al-Bayyinah publishes on the front page a 100-word report citing well-informed sources confirming that Al-Ja'fari demanded Britain to hand over Iraqi detainees, through British Ambassador Patey. . .

Al-Bayyinah carries on the front page a 130-word report entitled "Diyala Tribal Chiefs Refuse To Attend Mujahidin-e-Khalq's Conference. . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on the front page a 500-word report citing Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr confirming that relations between Iraq and Jordan are good but the west is "trying to create sedition between them." Al-Sadr was also quoted as saying upon his arrival in Amman on Thursday, that his party's participation in the Iraqi government will pave the way towards "the withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq." . .

Al-Zaman carries on page 2 a 250-word report saying that a meeting was held in Tikrit recommending that the responsibility of security in Balad will be handed over to Iraqis next month . . .

Al-Zaman carries on page 4 a 400-word citing Iraqi social and economic circles calling on Interior and Defense Ministries to exert efforts to reveal the abduction of Businessman Ghalib Abd-al-Husayn Kubbah and his son. The report cites industry and minerals minister confirming the importance of the private sector in developing the industrial sector. The report cites the ministry's Undersecretary Sami al-A'raji saying that investment opportunities have been agreed upon with Iran in seven big projects.

Dar al-Salam carries on page 2 a 75-word report that US planes raided a village in Al-Yusifiyah. The report adds that unidentified gunmen assassinated a doctor at Al-Hawijah Hospital . . .

Al-Furat runs on page 2 a 160-word report citing Al-Amal Women's Association Chairman Hana Idwar praising Talabani for his recent call for a larger role for Iraqi women in the government.

Al-Furat carries on page 2 a 700-word column by Khalid Isa Taha on the problems faced by Iraqi children due to lack of security and basic public services. . .

Al-Da'wah carries on page 3 a 1,500-word report citing citizens complaining about high prices and deteriorating services in private clinics. . .

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on page 2 a 200-word report on a statement by Health Professions Association calling for a sit-in today, 19 February. . .

Al-Manarah carries on the front page and on page 6 a 250-word report saying that doctors and pharmacists in Mosul staged a demonstration threatening a civil rebellion if the government does not protect them. The report cites eyewitnesses saying that unidentified gunmen assassinated inspection director of banks in the north. . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on the front page a report on the execution of 200,000 birds in Dahuk to prevent bird flu . . .

Al-Furat carries on page 10 a 1,200-word report on the advantages and drawbacks of Iraq's current open and unrestricted import policy.

Al-Bayan runs on page 4 a 1,300-word report on the problems faced by postgraduate students in Iraq . . .

Al-Da'wah runs on the front page a 100-word report citing Oil Ministry Spokesman Asim Jihad denying that the ministry is planning to annul previous contracts. . .

Al-Bayyinah devotes all of page 5 to a report on deteriorating public and health services in Hay Tariq district in Baghdad. . .

Al-Adalah carries on page 3 a 300-word report citing Displacement and Migration Minister Suhaylah Abd Ja'far commenting on the efforts to provide houses for displaced Iraqis.

Al-Sabah al-Jadid runs on page 1 a 300-word report citing a source at Finance Ministry denying the news that the ministry is behind the current fuel crisis, and saying that the ministry has "fulfilled its financial obligations" towards the Oil Ministry.

Al-Sabah al-Jadid publishes on page 5 a 1,000-word report on the fuel crisis.

Al-Sabah al-Jadid runs on page 5 an 800-word report on fuel crisis in Mosul Governor
ate.

Al-Sabah al-Jadid publishes on page 10 a 2,000-word report on the negative influence of migration of Iraqis [abroad] on the Iraqi economy. . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on page 4 a 400-word report citing Ministry of Trade announcing that it has no intention to cancel the food rationing system. . .

Al-Furat publishes on page 11 a 1,700-word unattributed report entitled "Crime of the Century, How a 7,000 Year Old Civilization Disappeared?"Al-Furat carries on page 11 a 700-word unattributed report entitled "Who looted Baghdad's museum?" . . .

Al-Hawzah runs on page 2 a 900-word article by Ali Qasim Mahdi discussing the "negative" role of United States in establishing democracy in Iraq. Al-Hawzah publishes on page 8 a 600-word article by Abd-al-Karim Abd-al-Hamid commenting on the "atrocities" committed by British "crusaders" against Iraqis, and calling on Al-Sadr trend followers to rise against the British troops. Al-Hawzah carries on page 8 a 600-word article by Dr Nadia Shkarah commenting on the deterioration in security, economic, and political situations in Iraq. . .

Ishraqat al-Sadr runs on page 6 a 2,000-word article by Dr Adil Rida discussing the role of United States and the clash between Iraqi political and sectarian groups in leading Iraq toward "chaos." The writer suggests establishing a religious state in Iraq to end this. '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

20 Dead in Bombings, Gunfights Including GI

Guerrillas set off several bombs in Baghdad on Saturday, targetting policemen. They also bombed Tikrit, Baqubah and Fallujah. Deaths in these bombings and in other gunfights came to at least 20. One American soldier was among those killed. Four bodies of persons killed execution-style showed up in Baghdad streets, probably the victims of sectarian reprisal killings.

Guerrilla attacks and sabotage cost the Iraqi petroleum industry $6.25 billion in lost revenues in 2005. They launched 186 assaults on petroleum facilities, killing 47 engineers & technicians & workers, along with 100 police guarding pipelines and other installations. The guerrillas directed most of the sabotage and attacks at the northern facilities centered at Kirkuk. They took offline some 400,000 barrels a day. Iraq only produced an average of 1.8 million barrels a day in 2005, mostly from the southern Rumaila fields and exported through the southern port of Basra. This amount was down from 2.8 million barrels a day before the 2003 Bush invasion of the country. (The US press continues to give the average production in 2005 as "about 2 million" barrels a day, magically adding an imaginary 200,000 barrels a day to the real average. At $65 a barrel, that is $13 million at day! I'd suggest they stop rounding up in this case.)

Guerrillas are undermining US overtures to Sunni clan leaders in Ramadi and government officials in Anbar province by killing them or their relatives.

As regular readers know, I find the idea that a large coalition of Kurds, Sunnis, Secularists and religious Shiites could be formed that outmaneuvered the United Iraqi Alliance implausible. It would require that secular Kurds dedicated to taking over Kurkuk cooperate with fundamentalist Sunni Arabs only one step away from al-Qaeda (and who object to Kirkuk joining Kurdistan) and with unreconstructed Baathists. That would go over well in Halabja. And then they have to draw in a big bloc of religious Shiites, as well. If all Sunni Arabs and all Kurds voted together with the Allawi list,they'd need some 45 Shiites to defect to have the 2/3s needed to elect a president.[revised 2/19/06].

I can't imagine in what universe Saleh Mutlak, the Baathist with 11 seats, dreams of marginalizing the religious Shiites (130 seats) and installing Iyad Allawi (with 25 seats) as prime minister! Except as a way of putting pressure on Ibrahim Jaafari to compromise on some issues, I can't even imagine why anyone takes this talk seriously.

The intrepid Nir Rosen profiles the Jordanian jihadis.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Muqtada al-Sadr on Aljazeera
"Ready to attack the Americans if they Attack Iran or Syria"
"In a Democratic Iraq, Kurds will not need Own Region"

Muqtada al-Sadr gave an extended interview on Saturday on Aljazeera, which I am going to blog here. What follows is a quick paraphrase of the interview done while watching it.

He began by explaining to the interviewer what was meant by the "Sadr Movement," which he said is not a political party. He described it as simply consisting of anyone who strictly follows [yuqallid] the teachings of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (d. 1999), Muqtada's father (known as "the second martyr"). He said that in a wider sense, anyone who honored the "Speaking Hawzah" or religious authority, including those who follow Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (d. 1980) ("the first martyr"), could be counted as part of the Sadr Movement. They call for the Islamization of society and the spread of Islam in the world, so that it will become a base for the advent of the Imam Mahdi [the Muslim messiah to come at the end of time].

[Since Muhammad Baqir was a major theorist of the Dawa Party, Muqtada by including both figures is suggesting that all Da`wa Party members are also a kind of Sadrist, thus greatly expanding the scope of the movement. The Sadrists make a distinction between the "Speaking Hawzah", which comprises ayatollahs who speak truth to power, and the "Silent Hawzah," which consists of Shiite clerics who stick to religion and are too timid to enter politics.]

He distinguished between the Speaking religious authority and the silent religious authority in the time of Saddam. He pointed out that the Sadrists held Friday prayers in the time of the Dictator [Saddam], while others said they were not necessary under conditions of tyranny. [This is a dig at Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who was known to be cautious under Saddam.] Muqtada says with pride that he continues to hold Friday prayers in Kufa, and now those who once said they were unnecessary have begun holding them again. But the Speaking religious authority has been consistent.

Muqtada says that the Sadr Movement has passed through three stages of resistance [to the American occupation of Iraq]. The first was peaceful resistance (demonstrations). The second was military resistance. And the third and present stage is political resistance. He admits that the religious authority [Sistani et al.] when it called for political participation in January 2005 was engaged in political resistance, since Iraqi voters going to the polls was seen as a prologue to the departure of occupation troops from Iraq. Thus, he suggests, the Sadr Movement has its own rhythm and tactics, but that does not define the present religious leadership as a Silent authority. [The interviewer is attempting to get Muqtada to differentiate the Sadrists as the speakers from Sistani and colleagues as silent, but Muqtada dodged that question.]

Muqtada defends having tried all three tactics to get the ocupiers out, each in accordance with the specific requirements of the time. He denied the interviewer's implication that Sistani had been right to go for political resistance all along, and Muqtada had finally caught up with him. Muqtada says that he has knocked at every door, and that if he had begun with the political, he would be being asked why he never tried the military option. He admits that the latter failed, but says that it paved the way for the next, political, stage.

Pressed as to whether the military stage is over completely, Muqtada replies that it is. He says that the Sadr Movement is committed to a political struggle to see that the foreign military occupation ends. "Whether it is an immediate or a gradual withdrawal, that is a matter for discussion," he adds. [This is significant. It is the first time I can remember Muqtada even entertaining the option of a gradual timetable for US withdrawal. -JC]

Muqtada says that the goal of the Sadr Movement is the creation of an Islamic society. "For an 'Islamic government' without an Islamic society cannot in any way be considered actually an Islamic government." He rejects any separation of religion and state. "I say that religion is complete and all-encompassing, extending to politics." Since religion issues from God, who is perfect and complete, religion itself must be complete, and therefore must encompass all aspects of life. Religion is a part of politics, but politics must not dictate religion.

The interviewer says that the United Iraqi Alliance, supported by Sistani, was criticized by many for removing the element of political competition and choice from the public by depending on a religious instruction. The interviewer mentions Iyad Allawi as one of these critics. Muqtada instists that there is political competition, and that not everyone even follows the same grand ayatollah. He says that competition has to be for service to the Iraqi people, not for private benefit. [This is a slam at Allawi, whose government is accused of being extremely corrupt, with billions embezzled by some ministers.]

Muqtada says that he is not himself interested in holding political office. He says that each member of parliament represents all Iraqis. He says he only offers advice to the Sadrist bloc in parliament, which is responsible to the Iraqi people generally.

The thirty Sadrist delegates must follow their own conscience. He said that each of the Sadrist MPs was free to support either Ibrahim Jaafari or Adil Abdul Mahdi. the important things was that they should support someone who insists on the departure of the occupation army.

[Is Muqtada letting it slip that Ibrahim Jaafari gave the Sadrists private assurances that he would work toward withdrawal of US troops from Iraq?]

He says that last year he gathered 130 signatures from parliamentarians asking for a US withdrawal.

Muqtada says that one basis for the closeness between the Sadr representatives and Jaafari was that Jaafari had demanded the release of imprisoned Sadrists.

The interviewer asks him if by entering the United Iraqi Alliance he hasn't given up a pan-Islamic identification in favor of being known as a Shiite leader. He replies that he is honored to be a follower of the Prophet and of Ali b. Abi Talib, and that he did not want to introduce a division into the ranks of the Shiites. He therefore joined with the UIA to maintain Shiite unity. How the Sadrists got elected, however, does not dictate whom they represent. Each parliamentarian, he says, represents all Iraqis, and can serve Sunnis and Christians and Turkmen as well as Shiites. He asks that the Sadrist MPs cooperate with Sunnis and Kurds, with all forces who want the independence of Iraq, as long as they are not either Baathists [he then corrects himself and says 'Saddamists'--suggesting that he might in fact cooperate with mere Baathists] or takfiris [i.e. hardline Salafis who say that Shiites are not really Muslims at all].

Asked why he doesn't meet with the Sunni politicians, Muqtada says that he is stuck in Kufa for reasons of security and does not have the luxury of visits to Baghdad to consult politicians there. But he says he is allied with Sunni politicians who demand the withdrawal of the occupiers and the trial of Saddam.

He says that by an end to occupation and an opposition to the presence of foreign troops, he does not just mean US troops. He rejects Arab League troops, as well, saying that they would be even worse. Such a situation, he warns, might lead to Muslim on Muslim violence, which would be the worst possible outcome.

He implies that the US is not allowing the Iraqi police and army to strengthen themselves and is blocking their acquisition of heavy weaponry so as to make its own presence seem necessary. He says that Iraq is capable of defending itself if properly armed.

He calls Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an imaginary figure, and says that he is a dagger in the hands of America. He says there are three such intertwining threats, the occupiers, the takfiris [excommunicators] and the Saddamis.

He is asked about the Iranian demand that British troops leave Basra. Muqtada replies that this does not concern him. He says what is important is that the fate of the Iraqi teenagers beaten by British troops be determined. Are they even alive? Then he says, the troops must be investigated. There must be investigations also of Abu Ghraib and the prison at Mosul where Iraqis have been tortured.

He says that the Mahdi Army is still present in Iraq, but has become a "cultural army" rather than a military one, and is serving the Iraqi people in various ways. He says that it is the "base" of the Imam Mahdi and that such a base for the promised one cannot be abolished. He denies that Ayatollah Kadhim al-Ha'iri or Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani asked him to dissolve it. [Elsewhere he had acknowledged that al-Ha'iri [Haeri] had been indicated by his father as the source of relgious-legal guidance for Sadrists, but he says that the Sadr Movement has other dimensions and that he does not mean to take away from the principle that each Shiite must follow the legal rulings of a great ayatollah.]

He says that he advises the Sadrists in parliament to seek as cabinet posts those that involve service to the people. He is especially interested in the ministry of electricity going to a Sadrist.

He denies that he opposes the principle of provincial confederacies and loose federalism. In fact, he says, it is a principle approved by the Prophet Muhammad. He is worried, however, that establishing this sort of federalism under foreign military occupation could lead to a very bad outcome. One is that there is a danger that the foreigners will take advantage of it to partition Iraq. They will also just take advantage to intervene more heavily in Iraqi affairs. And if there were a partition, he asks, what would happen to the Turkmen or the Christians or the Sabeans (groups too small to have their on provincial confederacies). He says he opposes sectarian confederacies and rejects the idea of a big Shiite provincial confederacy in the south of the country.

Asked about Kirkuk, Muqtada says that the Kurdistan Confederacy was established in the north because of the then dictatorship. He says that when the foreign occupation ends, and a democratic state is established in Iraq, with freedom of belief and freedom of peoples, there will be no reason to maintain a separate provincial confederacy. And it won't need to demand Kirkuk. Kirkuk belongs to all of Iraq and all must equally benefit from it. He suggests that it be kept as a province and an example of communal harmony, rather than being partitioned by ethnic group.

As for his recent visits to neighboring heads of state, he argues that the US has attempted to create tensions between Iraq and each of its neighbors. Muqtada says that he urged the neighboring heads of state to be balanced in their statements. He says that Iran must not be a partisan of the Shiites, but must rather help all Muslims. There should be no fear of a Shiite crescent, and no fear of a Sunni triangle. All must live peaceably alongside one another.

Asked where he stands in the conflict between the United States on the one side and Iran and Syria on the other, and what he would do if open conflict broke out, Muqtada replied "I am in the service of Islam. Whatever they need in their difficulties, I will provide it. . . I will defend all Islamic and Arab states." But, he said, he would have to be asked by those states to intervene. He wouldn't just volunteer to do it whether they wanted it or not. That, he said, is what is wrong with volunteers coming to Iraq unasked to fight the occupation, and then staying to kill Iraqi civilians.

What, he is asked, if Iran or Syria requested that he help them by attacking American troops inside Iraq. He replies, "If I have the capability, I will do it. I am here to serve Islam. Why wouldn't I do them this favor?"

He says he hopes that the Muslims states will stand by Hamas and help form a Palestinian state with sovereignty. He complains that in the past some Muslim powers have not served the Palestinians well. He says he hopes the Palestinians will be enabled to build their state.

Asked about the trial of Saddam, Muqtada says that his greatest fear is that the trial will be conducted in such a way that he will be found innocent. He says that whoever was killed in Iraq was killed by Saddam, directly or indirectly. He killed Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr with his own hands, but killed Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr through others. He deserves death.

On the Danish caricatures of the Prophet, Muqtada says that the reaction has been a spontaneous reaction of the outraged masses. It is an assault not by Christians but by Crusaders against Islam. We want, he says, a condemnation of Bush's solidarity with Denmark over this issue. He recalls the outcry and solidarity against Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir when he made remarks interpreted as antisemitic. Why is there not now a similar outcry and solidarity with Muslims over these bigotted caricatures? There should be a bigger outcry, Muqtada says.

Al-Zaman reports on some of Muqtada al-Sadr's other comments in Amman, where he will meet Sunday with Jordan's King Abdullah II, after having held talks on Saturday with Jordan's Prime Minister, Ma`ruf al-Bakhit. It reports, Muqtada al-Sadr said that he does not intend at the present time to establish any relationship with the United States before it withdraws its troops from Iraq. He explained in comments distributed on Saturday in Ammand that the Sadr Movement Will have no relations with Washington "unless it withdraws from our land, or sets a timetable for withdrawal."

Al-Sadr warned against a civil war in Iraq, but affirmed that he is sure that the Iraqi people will not fall into a protracted internal struggle. He denied that growing Iranian influence in the country is the only threat it faces, saying that the menace of neighboring powers using Iraq for their own purposes is present on all sides. He called on Iraq's neighbors to cooperate with Iraq rather than intervening in it.

Hamza Hendawi explores the continued anti-Americanism of Muqtada al-Sadr, as expressed in his trips to Damascus and Amman.

Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune examines the position of Muqtada in Iraqi politics now that his supporters played such a central role in choosing Ibrahim Jaafari as candidate for prime minister. She points to his commitment to a strong central government and his deep dislike of former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi.

Cole: Muqtada hates Iyad Allawi on many grounds (he is an ex-Baathist who organized Baath officers for a coup against Saddam), but most of all because Allawi is known to have wanted to send a SWAT team into the shrine of Ali at Najaf in August 2004 to attempt to kill Muqtada and his key aides, even at the risk of destroying the shrine. Cooler heads (especially Sistani's) prevailed.

On the other hand, Muqtada has no difficulty dealing with Dulaimi's Iraqi Accord Front, the Sunni religious parties; many of them had also been on the outs with Saddam.

The Da`wa Party has long been dedicated to a unified central government. In 1996 in London Da`wa left Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress because Chalabi accepted in principle the Kurdistan model for Iraq, of loose federalism and provincial confederacies.

One dimension that Sly doesn't deal with is the provincial politics. SCIRI tends to be the leading party in 9 of the 11 provinces where there are substantial Shiite populations, including in the South. A system where provincial governments own new oil finds and their profits is a system that funnels billions to SCIRI. Muqtada only has Maysan province, so far not rich in such resources. It isn't that Muqtada is defending Baghdad interests per se. SCIRI rules Baghdad. It is that he heads a movement, not a party, and so far has been outmaneuvered in provincial politics by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. For the moment at least, Muqtada is likely to have more influence on and gain more resources from the federal government than from the provincial governments. The opposite is true for SCIRI.

Muqtada has other constituencies that drive him in this direction. About half the Turkmen, including a lot in Kirkuk, are Shiite and were recruited into Sadrism by Muqtada's father. They hate the Kurdish model, and Muqtada tries to be a player up north.

Likewise, Muqtada wants to pick up disgruntled Sunni fundamentalists in places like Anbar, who also hate the loose federalism model.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iranians Demand British Withdrawal from Basra

Bombs in Baghdad and Yusufiyah; reprisal killings in Baghdad; and major pipeline sabotage targeting fuel supplies to the capital. Also, the audacious kidnapping of one of the wealthiest bankers in Iraq which leaves 5 of his bodyguards dead.

Al-Zaman / AFP report that guerrillas fired five rockets at the biggest US base in Anbar province (Sunni, western Iraq). An ex-Baathist and his son were assassinated in Mosul.


Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki [Muttaqi] called Friday for Britain to withdraw its troops from the southern Iraqi city of Basra (pop. 1.3 million), which is only 20 miles from the Iranian border. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the call, saying that the British were in Basra at the invitation of the Iraqi government and as authorized by a United Nations Security Council resolution. (Blair, who tossed the UNSC in the trash can when it suited him before the war, obviously has no shame).

Nadim al-Jabiri of the Basra provincial council said that the British troops were still needed for the moment. But it is not clear that he was speaking for a majority on the council, since it is currently boycotting the British.

Al-Zaman [Ar.] reports that Mutakki also called on the new Iraqi government to demand an immediate departure of US troops.

Sabrina Tavernise of the NYT shows that Sunni-Shiite intermarriage in Baghdad has fallen from 3-5% in 2002 to virtually 0% today, as sectarian rancor has increased and broken up past such marriages.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Further Abu Ghraib Photos
US Constitution RIP

Salon.com has gotten hold of a complete set of images of torture from Abu Ghraib. This is the material that the US government has been declining to release. The pictures are not of new abuse, though it is clear that many of the same sorts of torture as were pictured in 2003 have continued-- including stress positions, hooding, etc.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has called on the United States to try the detainees at Guantanamo or release them, rejecting the notion that they can simply be held extrajudicially forever.

Sort of sad that the rest of the world has to lecture us about things that at least used to be in our own constitution.

'Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraq Seethes over Abu Ghraib
11 Dead, 30 Wounded in guerrilla Violence

Three major bombings in Baghdad and shootings there and elsewhere killed 11 persons in Iraq on Thursday and left 30 wounded.

Bush is seeking another $68 billion for Iraq (and a little for Afghanistan). This thing is costing each American thousands of dollars. And it is certainly making the US less secure over time.
Bush's terrorism incubator in Iraq has already produced an increase in the sophistication of guerrilla attacks in Afghanistan. Now UPI says that the more canny techniques are even showing up among rebels in southern Thailand! The world will be living with the aftermath of Fallujah and Abu Ghraib for decades.

Iraqis are livid about the new Abu Ghraib photos that have surfaced.

The elected governor of Maysan province [Ar.] has filed a court case against the British soldiers who were depicted in a video beating Iraqi teenagers who had attacked their barracks.

Tom Lasseter reports on the lack of progress the US military has made in fighting the "insurgency" in Samarra, a largely Sunni Arab city north of Baghdad. I think we may conclude that this lack of "progress" derives from most people in Samarra being "insurgents" or the cousins of "insurgents."

After the revelation of new photos of torture from Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi Human Rights minister is demanding that the US turn over control of all prisons in Iraq to Iraqis.

But after the revelations about Shiite death squads inside the Iraqi police, the Americans think it is the Iraqi prison and police system that needs American supervision.

Reuters reports that a new Iraqi government is unlikely to be formed any time soon, since there will be difficult negotiations over key ministries, and since the Americans have inserted themselves into the negotiations.

The NYT reports on the rising political power of nationalist young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who swung the prime minister position to Ibrahim Jaafari of the Dawa Party. Muqtada has a complex relationship to Iran, resenting Iranian influence in Iraqi Shiite Islam, but pledging to defend Iran from any American attack.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

New Abu Ghuraib Photos Published
Bombs in Baghdad

A series of bombings killed at least 8 persons and wounded over a dozen in Baghdad on Wednesday. Four guerrillas were killed in running street battles with US forces. Four bodies showing signs of torture were discovered in the Shula district of the capital.

The revelation of previously unreleased pictures of torture by Americans from Abu Ghraib prison is worsening US relations with Muslim publics. Some of these pictures show corpses.

Paul Rogers argues that Iraq is a great gift to al-Qaeda, providing jihadis with a perfect urban training ground.

Iraq's human rights minister, a Kurdish woman from her name, wants at least lower-level officials of the Interior and Justice ministries prosecuted over the secret prisons and torture discovered last summer.

Kathleen Ridolfo of the Voice of America does a good round-up of the reaction to the selection of Ibrahim Jaafari as the candidate for prime minister of the religious Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. The upshot is that the Americans don't like it. The Kurds don't like it. The Sunni Arabs think they probably won't like it. The Americans and the Kurds still hope somehow to shoehorn secular ex-Baathist and old-time CIA asset Iyad Allawi into a position of power, even though his list received only 9 percent of seats.

Jaafari's program right now appears to be to form a more inclusive government and to demand more ministerial accountability.

The bad news is that the English service of the Voice of America is set to be virtually abolished by the Bush administration. Because now is a time that the US just does not need public diplomacy, apparently.

Most of the Japanese Self Defense Force troops in Iraq will be withdrawn by May. They were working on things like water purification in the southern Shiite city of Samawah. Now that the British and Australians are withdrawing from Samawah in favor of local security forces, the Japanese have decided they are too exposed to remain. Samawah security is probably run by elements from the Badr Corps, the Iran-trained paramilitary.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sunni Guerrilla Movement Consolidating, Implacable: ICG

The International Crisi Group has released a study of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement in Iraq, using internet posting, videos and other sources over the past two years.

Reuters discusses the report here.

While ICG stresses the importance of the internet, some observers fear that Abu Ghuraib prison itself may have become a sort of university for terrorists.


The report's main conclusions:

' *
The insurgency increasingly is dominated by a few large groups with sophisticated communications. It no longer is a scattered, erratic, chaotic phenomenon. Groups are well organised, produce regular publications, react rapidly to political developments and appear surprisingly centralised.
*
There has been gradual convergence around more unified practices and discourse, and predominantly Sunni Arab identity. A year ago groups appeared divided over practices and ideology but most debates have been settled through convergence around Sunni Islamic jurisprudence and Sunni Arab grievances. For now virtually all adhere publicly to a blend of Salafism and patriotism, diluting distinctions between foreign jihadis and Iraqi combatants – though that unity is unlikely to outlast the occupation.
*
Despite recurring contrary reports, there is little sign of willingness by any significant insurgent element to join the political process or negotiate with the U.S. While covert talks cannot be excluded, the publicly accessible discourse remains uniformly and relentlessly hostile to the occupation and its “collaborators”.
*
The groups appear acutely aware of public opinion and increasingly mindful of their image. Fearful of a backlash, they systematically and promptly respond to accusations of moral corruption or blind violence, reject accusations of a sectarian campaign and publicise efforts to protect civilians or compensate their losses. Some gruesome and locally controversial practices – beheading hostages, attacking people going to the polls – have been abandoned. The groups underscore the enemy’s brutality and paint the U.S. and its Iraqi allies in the worst possible light: waging dirty war in coordination with sectarian militias, engaging in torture, fostering the country’s division and being impervious to civilian losses.
*
The insurgents have yet to put forward a clear political program or long-term vision for Iraq. Focused on operations, they acknowledge this would be premature and potentially divisive. That said, developments have compelled the largest groups to articulate a more coherent position on elections, and the prospect of an earlier U.S. withdrawal than anticipated is gradually leading them to address other political issues.
*
The insurgency is increasingly optimistic about victory. Such self-confidence was not there when the war was conceived as an open-ended jihad against an occupier they believed was determined to stay. Optimism stems from a conviction the legitimacy of jihad is now beyond doubt, institutions established under the occupation are fragile and irreparably illegitimate, and the war of attrition against U.S. forces is succeeding. '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Top Ten Ways Iraq is like Harry Whittington

1. Cheney attacked secular Iraq, mistaking it for an ally of Usamah Bin Laden. Cheney attacked Harry Whittington, mistaking him for a small bird.

2. Iraq has been peppered with Cheney's munitions. Whittington has been peppered with Cheney's munitions.

3. Cheney did not have a legal license to hunt quail on the trip that saw Whittingon wounded. Cheney did not have a United Nations license to invade Iraq or reduce it to rubble.

4. Cheney tried to blame Iraq for getting itself invaded by not signalling hard enough that it really did not have weapons of mass destruction. Cheney tried to blame Whittington for getting himself shot by not signalling hard enough that he was not a small bird.

5. Cheney thought Iraq's insurgency was in its last throes nearly a year ago. Cheney was deathly afraid that Whittington might be in his last throes.

6. Whittington thought Cheney as hunting partner would keep him secure. Iraqis thought that after the fall of Saddam, Cheney would make them secure.

7. Cheney gave Whittington a heart attack by shooting him in the heart. Cheney gave Iraqis a heart attack by having them bombed relentlessly.

8. Cheney tried to cover up how bad Whittington's condition was after he shot him. Cheney tried to cover up how bad Iraq's situation is after he had it invaded.

9. Cheney thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Cheney thought Whittington was a small bird.

10. Cheney shot Whittington while hunting in the dark. Cheney invaded Iraq while being in the dark.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Basra Province Boycotts British, demands Danish Withdrawal
Thousands of Islamist Kurds demonstrate against Caricatures

Guerrillas at Balad, a largely Shiite town north of Baghdad, killed a local clan leader and his family at his farm on Tuesday, leaving 8 dead. There were other killings in various places.

The elected provincial government of Basra has ended all official relations with the British command in Iraq, to protest the beating of Iraqi teenagers by British troops in nearby Maysan province. This step, which has been threatened several times over other issues, helps delegitimize the presence of British troops in southern Iraq in the eyes of a lot of local people.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP report [Ar.] that the Basra provincial council also demanded on Tuesday that the 550 Danish troops in southern Iraq be withdrawn, in the wake of the publication in Denmark of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Thousands of Islamist Kurds demonstrated against the caricatures in Irbil on Tuesday, burning Danish flags. Over 5,000 demonstrators walked past the Ministry of Justice and went to the Kurdistan parliament building, carrying copies of the Qur'an. They shouted "Yes, yes, to Islam, Yes to the Prophet." The Kurdish Islamists won 5 seats in the new parliament, and have clashed with the secular-leaning Kurdistan Democratic Party. The speaker of the Kurdistan parliament delivered a note to the demonstrators saying that while he believed in freedom of the press, publishing the caricatures had not advanced the civilizational dialogue nor had it served humanity.

Meanwhile, a Kurdish women's group presented a white paper to the Kurdistan regional parliament, demanding legal and political equality with men.

[Ar. .pdf] Al-Zaman says that Nadim al-Jabiri, the secretary general of the fundamentalist Shiite Virtue Party (Fadhila), has threatened to break with the United Iraqi Alliance if it did not sign off on his 9-point plan. It includes a concentration on ending the growing sectarian hatred and the poor security in the country. Al-Jaberi intimated that if the UIA was not careful, an alternative alliance might form on parliament to provide a prime minister. (In fact, Viture only has 15 seats, and while its departure would hurt the UIA, in and of itself that would not necessarily stop it from forming a government, assuming it could find alternative partners. The likelihood that a hodgepodge of Kurds, Sunni Arabs, secular Shiites, and Virtue could form a stable government is very low, and my guess is that the threat to leave the UIA is bluster.

al-Zaman also says that followers of Ayatollah Jawad al-Khalisi are charging that the holy Shiite shrine in Kadhimiyah is being looted of its precious treasure. Generations of pious Shiites have given gifts and bequests to the shrines, but in the current poor security environment, those riches are easily stolen. They said that the shrine of Ali in Najaf and the shrine of Husayn at Karbala are likewise facing extensive pilfering.

Some Baghdad communities are forming neighborhood protection committees to fight crime and kidnapping. The problem with such local paramilitaries is that they can grown to the point where they fight other paramilitaries. And then you have even less security. (I have seen it happen with my own eyes.)

Tom Engelhardt, with his typical eloquence and wisdom, considers the issue of long-term US bases in Iraq.

From BBC World Monitoring of Iraqi press for Feb. 13:

' Al-Ittijah al-Akhar publishes on page 10 a 200-word report citing Salih al-Mutlaq accusing Iraqi National Guards of attempting to assassinate him . . .

Al-Mashriq runs on page 4 a 300-word report citing Human Rights Ministry confirming that the number of detainees in Interior Ministry's prisons in Baghdad is over 2,000. . .

Al-Zaman carries on page 2 a 600-word report citing Wasit Human Rights Watch Chairman Majid Ahmad Munshid confirming human rights violations in Wasit Prison. . .

Al-Furat carries on page 2 a 100-word report citing immigrants and displaced persons minister calling on the Danish government to stop sending back Iraqi refugees by force. . .

Al-Bayan carries on page 2 a 220-word report citing industry and minerals minister saying that a contract will be signed between State Company for Manufacturing Medicines in Samarra and an Indian company in the field of pharmaceuticals.

Al-Bayan carries on page 2 a 200-word report citing an official source at Health Ministry saying that WHO has provided 70,000 doses to treat bird flu patients in Iraq.

Al-Mu'tamar carries on page 2 a 350-word article by Faruq al-Khal calling on Health Ministry to solve the problem of shortage in medicines in health and medical centres.

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on page 2 a 100-word report citing Ninawah governor saying that he and the police commander raided stores and confiscated expired chicken and meat and arrested the owners. . .

Al-Dustur carries on page 2 a 200-word report citing Muhammad Ahmad Zebari, director of Northern Oil products Distribution State Company, confirming negotiations with Turkey on resolving the current fuel crisis.

Al-Dustur publishes on page 5 a 200-word report on Agriculture Minister Dr Ali Husayn al-Bahadili's meeting with Iraqi Clerics Association to discuss problems facing the agricultural sector in Iraq. . .

Al-Mada runs on page 4 a 200-word report citing Agriculture Minister Ali Husayn al-Bahadili saying that the ministry has signed a contract with a Russian company, and will sign a similar one with a Turkish company, to provide the ministry with a number of helicopters to protect crops from pests. . .

Al-Mada carries on page 13 an 800-word article by Husam al-Samuk calling on the Iraqi government to "save" dates crops. . .

Al-Furat carries on page 2 a 100-word report citing an official source at Basra Governorate Council saying that Economic Development Committee has proposed the allocation of part of the money from the increase in fuel prices towards Basra's reconstruction.

Al-Furat carries on page 2 a 60-word report citing media spokesman for Basra Governorate council saying that the Religious Committee has allocated 1.5m dinars to poor families. . .

Al-Mu'tamar carries on page 3 a 100-word report on a statement by South Oil Company calling on the government to adopt a new mechanism to solve the problems faced by the south oil sector.

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on the front page a 300-word report saying that drivers of vehicles in Wasit Governorate staged a demonstration calling on the government to provide fuel.

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on page 2 a 450-word report citing Al-Ramadi inhabitants complaining about the complete deterioration in public services in their city.

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on page 2 a 120-word report that taxi drivers staged a demonstration in Sulaymaniyah protesting the shortage in fuel. . .

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Plame Wilson Had worked on Iran Anti-Proliferation

Valerie Plame Wilson and her team at the CIA were working on Iran counter-prolifetation efforts, according to Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story. It has been known for some time that she was involved in anti-proliferation activities, but that her main concern was Iran is new.

Plame Wilson was outed to the US press by Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney, his staffer Irving Lewis Libby, and George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove.

There has for some time been speculation among bloggers that Cheney et al. wanted to shoot down :-) Plame Wilson for reasons other than that she is the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, who blew the whistle on intelligence failures concerning alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

If she was working specifically on Iran, this theory becomes more plausible. We know that Cheney, the Neocons and other factions in the Bush administration desperately wanted to get up a war against Iran so as to overthrow its government.

If the CIA was successful in a measurable way in preventing proliferation to Iran of technology required for making a nuclear weapon, and could certify as much to Congress, that very success would make it harder to justify a war on Iran.

We know that someone among the Neoconservatives also let Ahmad Chalabi know that the US had broken Iranian codes and could read that country's secret diplomatic correspondence. As anyone could have expected, Chalabi immediately told the Iranians about the US spying. The Iranians will have immediately changed their codes.

Note: The crime here was letting the Iranians know we could listen in on them at will. As a third world country, Iran was presumably using fairly primitive encryption then, which our NSA had broken. Once the Iranians were tipped by Chalabi that we were listening, it would have been easy for them either to feed us some disinformation or to just close us out all together. More on the case is in this CBS report from 2004.

So between disrupting the work of Plame Wilson's unit at the CIA and letting the Iranians know about the broken codes, the pro-war party managed to make Iran's actual progress on nuclear research opaque to the US government. It was necessary that it be opaque if there was to be a war. Iran is actually a decade or two away from having a bomb even if everything went well. But US intelligence agencies must be less confident they know what is going on in Iran now than before the Neocons destroyed so much of the effort against Iranian proliferation. It was the US withdrawal of inspectors from Ira[q] in 1998 that created the uncertainties that allowed Bush to invade Iraq. For warmongers, good intelligence on the enemy's capabilities is undesirable if that intelligence would get in the way of launching a war.

Still, it is just speculation.

If the speculation were true, the scale of treason emanating from Rove and Cheney and his staff is scarcely imaginable.

Even if they did not set out to create a more plausible cause for war, Rove, Cheney, Libby and the others have either through duplicity or cupidity or stupidity set the stage for even more loss of life and violent conflict.
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Guerrilla Violence Kills 26, Wounds 47
Negotiations on New Government Begin

A suicide bomber detonated his belt at a line of persons in Shiite East Baghdad waiting for government checks on Monday, killing at least 15 and wounding 30. Guerrillas shot to death 5 members of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq in Baqubah. There was an assassination in Ramadi and roadside bombs in Baghdad. On Sunday, 3 US troops were wounded and their Pakistani driver killed by such a bomb. All together, the violence killed 26 and left at least 47 (-al-Zaman) wounded.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP report that the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdistan Alliance have begun have begun official maneuvering to form a new government and to distribute cabinet posts. AFP's source within the UIA, Sami al-Askari, said, "The [Shiite] Alliance will never back down from its rightful claim on the ministry of defense." The religious Shiites stipulate that any of their coalition partners must accept the articles of the constitution accepted by the Iraqi people on October 15, and must have a strong and clear stance against terrorism. The UIA is also insisting that cabinet posts will go to the members of the parties that won big in the elections. Al-Askari would not rule out a priori participation by former interim PM Iyad Allawi, but he said all coalition partners would have to sign on to the government's program.

Kurdish politician Mahmud Uthman [Mahmoud Osman] said that any new alliance with Jaafari would require mechanisms to avoid the negative aspects of his previous term, in which the Kurds often felt marginalized. He also insisted on a role in the government for all 4 of the leading parties [i.e. including Iyad Allawi]. And, he said it is important to Kurds that the referendum be held in Kirkuk in 2007 on whether the province wishes to join the Kurdistan regional confederacy.

The UIA has also asked the fundamentalist Sunni list, the Iraqi Accord Front, to name negotiators so that the two can begin exploring a place for Sunnis in the new government.

Reuters reports on the discontents with the nomination of Ibrahim Jaafari to be prime minister of Iraq. Many Shiites feel he did not bring security in his last term. Kurds felt that he was inattentive to their needs. And Sunni Arabs blamed him for being too close to Iran and for winking at Shiite death squads.

Paul McGeough of the Sydney Morning Herald discusses the video techniques used by the guerrillas in Iraq. Mahan Abedin discusses divsions within the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement.

The BBC surveys Arab press reaction to the savage beating of some Iraqi teens by British soldiers, caught on videotape. The US press doesn't do round-ups of Arab press reaction to things, mostly. Is it because the British care and the Americans don't?

British authorities have made one arrest in the case already.

This piece argues that the US occupation of Iraq is brutal and corrupt. It especially focuses on the air war, which is invisible to US television.

An Iranian embassy official in Baghdad pledged Monday that Iran would never use Iraq to settle scores with the West. He points out that no (Shiite) Iranians have been arrested among the Sunni Arab guerrillas, even though thousands of persons suspected of being guerrillas or of working with them have been through US prisons in Iraq.

Diane Farrell, a Democratic candidate for Congress, is making a stand against the Iraq War central to her campaign. The WSJ discusses the difficulties this tack poses for her.

Winter floods have made over 30,000 Iraqis homeless. The Iraqis can't win for losing.

Historians Against the Iraq War will convene for a conference this weekend in Austin, Texas.

There is a new biography of Iraq traveler Wilfred Thesiger. His own books are very much worth reading for anyone interested in Iraq and the Middle East.
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Hunting Accidents


Oooops.
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Jaafari Wins on Basis of Dawa, Sadrist Vote
Some Question Stability of United Iraqi Alliance in Aftermath

Al-Zaman/AFP reports that the internal vote of the fundamentalist United Iraqi Alliance that elected Ibrahim Jaafari their candidate for prime minister in the next government was conducted by secret ballot. It appears that the two MPs who ran on the Message list, who have said they will vote with the UIA, were allowed to take part in this vote, so there could have been 130 votes cast. But only 129 of the 130 MPs voted. The absent MP was Hasan al-Rubay`i from the Sadr Movement, who arrived late for the vote. Since the Sadrists voted for Jaafari, he probably would have had 65 to his rival Adil Abdul Mahdi's 63 votes if al-Rubay`i had been punctual. Two other MPs put blank pieces of paper into the ballot box.

Al-Zaman says that some Iraqi observers in London believe that Jaafari is more likely to form a government with the fundamentalist Sunni Iraqi Accord Front of Adnan Dulaimi than with the Kurdistan Alliance.

(The UIA can count on 132 votes at present. The Sunni relgious parties have 44. If they could get the Kurdish Islamists to vote with them, they'd have another 5. That would give them 181, and they only need 184 for a two-thirds majority. They could surely pick up 3 independents for this purpose. This scenario, however, would require that the Sunni fundamentalists desert their ex-Baathist and neo-Baathist allies, since Salih Mutlak's National Dialogue Council and Iyad Allawi of the National Iraqi List are both unacceptable to the Sadr Movement within the United Iraqi Alliance.)

Nadim al-Jabiri of the Virtue (Fadhila) Party (fundamentalist Shiite, popular in the southern port city of Basra), and the independent Hussein Shahristani both withdrew their candidacies before the vote.

Informed sources in Bagdad told al-Zaman that al-Jabiri and Shahristani favored Abdul Mahdi and that they could have instructed their supporters to vote for him when they withdrew their names. Instead, both released their supporter to vote for whoever they thought most appropriate to the post of prime minister.

Between them, the two branches of the Dawa Party and the Sadr Movement have 60 seats in parliament ([I initially thought that] this counts Fadhilah/Virtue [but it seems to have largely voted with SCIRI; it does include] the independents who lean toward one or the other and the two Risaliyun MPs), and it is thought that all but one of them went to Jaafari. He is said to have actively courted the independents and members of the Fadhilah or Virtue Party. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Badr Organization (its paramilitary), along with their close sympathizers [and apparently including Fadhila] also have 60 seats, and most of them voted for Abdul Mahdi. (Presumably, though, the two blank ballots came from independents that al-Zaman is counting as SCIRI supporters, which made the difference). [revised 2/19/06.]

The observers who talked to al-Zaman thought that the divisive vote suggested that the United Iraqi Alliance could well split sometime in the next 4 years, which in turn could bring down the Jaafari government.

Many MPs feel that Jaafari will be better able to keep a balance between the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Sadr Movement, which have had conflicts in the past.

A member of the Kurdistan Alliance said that it would insist that Jaafari pledge to support article 58 of the constitution, which provides for a referendum in Kirkuk on whether it wishes to accede to the Kurdistan confederacy. He said that the Kurds will also insist that the negative aspects of the last Jaafari government not be repeated. (The Kurds thought that Jaafari tended to run the executive in a high-handed manner despite his supposed coalition with the Kurds, whom he apparently seldom consulted on policy.)

Although the Kurds are now saying that they want Iyad Allawi and his Iraqi National List to be part of the national unity government, the Sadr Movement is demanding that Allawi be excluded. My guess is that there are things the Kurds want from Muqtada more than they want Allawi (especially Kirkuk), and that they will pretty quickly bargain Allawi away. In the last parliament, what determined whether you got a cabinet post was how well you did in the election, and a similar dynamic is likely to play out again this year.
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Jaafari Prime Minister 2006-2010
But is not Allowed on US Television

Breaking news: The United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of Shiite fundamentalist parties, has chosen Ibrahim Jaafari to be prime minister of Iraq for the next four years. The UIA had hoped to avoid going to an up and down vote, but was forced into one on Sunday when it was unable to decide by consensus. Jaafari of the Dawa Party got 64 votes, while his rival, Adil Abdul Mahdi of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, received 63.


Jaafari


The UIA has 128 seats in parliament, so presumably someone abstained or was absent, otherwise it would have been a tie or Jaafari would have won by a two-vote margin. Jaafari won in large part because of the backing of Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc, which is larger than that of the Dawa Party's two factions. The narrowness of Jaafari's victory weakens him, his coalition, and the new Iraqi government.


Muqtada al-Sadr


I scanned the US cable news channels and only CNN Headline News was making much of this development, and then only briefly. It raises the question for me of whether US television news has unspoken racist undertones. There are exceptions. Wolf Blitzer's Sunday show on CNN, actually allows real live Middle Easterners to speak to the US public. Fine reporters such as Nic Roberts at CNN will set up brief clips of a Jaafari press conference or a short Q & A on a particular issue with an Iraqi official. But on the hour-long t.v. news magazines, or even just with the anchors during the day, we never see so much as an extended interview with Ibrahim Jaafari. Isn't that weird? The real UK BBC will do an hour-long interview with an Iraqi cabinet minister like Ali Allawi. But our television news almost never talks to anyone among important Iraqi politicians, with the possible exception of the Kurdish politician Jalal Talabani, the mostly ceremonial president of Iraq. Aren't the Iraqi politicians who have come to power in the celebrated purple-thumb Iraqi elections worth talking to? Don't Americans care what they think? Or are they just a blank set of canvases on which Kansas gets to paint its own preconceptions and prejudices (a process made all the easier if real Iraqis are not allowed to speak on camera to Americans)? And, with all these cable channels and satellite capabilities, why can't we see the real BBC in America? I mean, I can watch French and Italian and Egyptian and Lebanese channels. I'm not even being offered by my satellite company the possibility of the real BBC. Isn't that weird? There are so many weird things. The upshot is that if you don't have Joe Scarborough's profile, you don't get seen or heard much on US television.

In contrast, the much-maligned (in the US) Aljazeerah just had an excellent wide-ranging 45-minute discussion of Jaafari's election with several Iraqi observers of different persuasions. Can't we here expect to be at least as well served by our television news as the Arab world is by theirs?

Back to Iraq. Jaafari is disliked by the Kurdistan Alliance, with which he will have to form a coalition in order to have the president chosen. Jaafari's backers, the Sadrists have declared a "red line" in that they will not entertain a cabinet post for secular ex-Baathist Iyad Allawi, whose list fared poorly in the elections, but who is backed by the Americans and has old links to the Kurds. Aljazeera says that Jalal Talabani, a key member of the Kurdistan Alliance, is saying he draws a red line against red lines. I.e., he will not back down on the Allawi issue just because the Sadrists have taken a stand. But Jaafari owes the Sadrists, so I suspect Allawi gets bupkes.

Jaafari's election is also perhaps bad news in another way. If SCIRI had gotten the prime minister position, it might have been willing to see the Ministry of the Interior go to a technocrat or to the Dawa Party, which doesn't have as big a paramilitary. I suspect that now, SCIRI will insist on Interior (the equivalent of the US FBI). It had the post in the past, interim government, and is accused of packing it with commandos from its paramilitary, the Badr Corps, many of whom were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Interior police commandos are accused by Sunni Arabs of acting as death squads, as well as of keeping secret torture prisons.

As Reuters notes, Jaafari is widely considered indecisive and he has not been able to make a dent in the guerrilla war.
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Bombings, Assassinations Continue
As Political Process Stalls

A bomb rigged to a motorcycle exploded outside a restaurant in Baghdad on Sunday morning, wounding at least 9 persons.

Political assassinations and bombings were carried out by guerrillas on Saturday in Basra, Baghdad, Baquba, Balad and Fallujah, among other places. Army and police figures were the main victims, though guerrillas kidnapped 5 civilians near Balad north of the capital.

Video footage of British soldiers kicking and beating Iraqi teenagers has surfaced. I saw it on Aljazeerah. It was taken by a British corporal who appears to have thought the whole thing a hoot. The teenagers had been demonstrating outside the British barracks, apparently. The soldiers landed 41 blows in a minute of tape, and also beat up on a corpse. Although the British government maintains that the incident is unrepresentative, one can only imagine that tens of thousands of Iraqis have been beaten by foreign troops (US, UK and others) during the past nearly 3 years. There are 15,000 in custody at any one time, and there have been lots of home invasions and repressions of demonstrations and of militia activity. Since the clannish Iraqis almost all have 24 first cousins who would die to defend their honor, the number of persons deeply affected by the beatings is in the millions. Imperialism requires brutality, but brutality weakens imperialism over the long run.

Riverbend describes a raid by Iraq's mostly Shiite special police commandos in her aunt's Sunni Muslim area of Baghdad. For more on the aftermath of such raids, see the items from the Iraqi press at the end of this posting.

Reuters reports that Sunni Arab guerrillas kidnapped 12 Iranian pilgrims at Samarra north of Baghdad on Saturday night. It says that Iraqi security forces found and freed 3 of them, but the other nine are still missing. The Iranian newspaper Baztab tells a different story. Baztab says that the pilgrims had been kidnapped some time ago, and that the last 4 were just released as a result of successful Iranian negotiations with the Sunni guerrllas. The newspaper maintains that this incident shows that Iran not only has enormous influence with Iraq's Shiites, but that it can reach out to the Sunni Arabs, as well. (If this argument had any merit, the guerrillas would not have taken Iranians hostage to begin with; the "influence" of Tehran here. if there was any, almost certainly consisted of petrodollars laid on a guerrilla's palm). I am sorry to say that I do not know if Reuters and Baztab are contradicting one another or reporting two different incidents, or what. We're fair and balanced here at IC--we report, you decide.

Whenever they did it, these Iranian pilgrims had traveled north toward Samarra as part of their pilgrimage itinerary. Although it is now a largely Sunni city of 200,000, Samarra has a significant Shiite quarter clustered around shrines. They are the burial places of the tenth and 11th Imams, Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-Askari. There is also a shrine at the place where the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, is said to have gone into supernatural realm from which he will one day return (rather as Christians believe in the ascent and return of Christ). The capture of the Iranian pilgrims wouldn't make much sense if Iran was, as Mr. Rumsfeld keeps charging, backing the Sunni guerrillas, now would it?

The political news out of Baghdad on Saturday was the failure of the Shiite fundamentalist coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, to choose a prime minister.

Nancy Youssef of Knight Ridder does a good job of explaining what is at stake. One candidate, Ibrahim Jaafari, is from a conservative background in the holy city of Karbala. When he fled Iraq in 1980, he spent some time studying in seminary at Qom in Iran. As prime minister, he raised eyebrows when he declined to shake hands with women. Jaafari is from the Dawa Party, some branches of which stayed in Iraq under Saddam. It is the oldest Shiite fundamentalist party, and dreams of a sort of lay Islamic state (i.e. with Islamic law but not run by clerics). Jaafari's record as prime minister is mixed. The Kurdish president Jalal Talabani accused him of being high-handed. Others have accused him of being indecisive. (Can both charges be true?) On his watch, the security situation has continued to deteriorate. But it is his rival, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, that has the effective paramilitary force, the Badr Corps. As Badr has been recruited into the Ministry of the Interior special police commandos, Sunnis charged that they kidnapped suspected guerrillas and killed them, and they developed secret prisons where they tortured the mostly Sunni inmates. Again, Jaafari is accused both of laxness and severity at once.

His main rival, the cosmopolitan French-speaking Adil Abdul Mahdi, has been a Marxist, a Baathist, a Shiite fundamentalist, and more recently a free marketeer, and is reputedly favored (for the latter reason) by Washington.

Interestingly, the two branches of the hard line Sadr movement are split on this issue. Muqtada al-Sadr favors Jaafari. The Virtue Party led by Mustafa Yaqubi, a disciple of Muqtada's revered father, seems to like Abdul Mahdi better. The Sadrists together have some 45 seats, but they do not form a united bloc because Muqtada and Yaqubi don't get along. It is their disagreement that postponed a decision on Saturday. The coalition is attempting to reach a decision by consensus, since that would help keep them strong within the coalition and also in dealing with the Kurds and Sunni Arabs.

Also interesting is that the relatively hard line Iranian newspaper Baztab is backing Abdul Mahdi, and all but unilaterally awarded him the post in its Sunday edition. It said that Abdul Mahdi is close to the Islamic Republic, and that relations between Tehran and Baghdad would be even closer under his prime ministership than under that of Ibrahim Jaafari.

Now that the election results have been certified, parliament must meet within 15 days. But it needn't immediately form a government or actually do anything while in early session. Once the UIA decides on its prime minister, they will attempt to cobble together a cabinet from the various parties in parliament in such a way as to give themselves a majority with their coalition partners. Four MPs have said they will vote with the Shiite UIA, so they only need 6 to have a slim 51 percent. Once the promises are made about the cabinet, they can settle with the Kurds the appointment of Jalal Talabani as president again, and he will appoint the prime minister. All this could stretch on for weeks or even months.

The final distribution of seats within the United Iraqi Alliance, as certified by the electoral commission, is analyzed by Reidar Vissar. He finds that a disproportionate number of the unapportioned seats went to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, bringing its representation up to levels similar to those of the Sadr Bloc and the two Dawa Parties. These proportions were decided before the election, when each of the three was promised roughly 30 seats each, and the party leadership knew that it was likely to have the unapportioned seats to play with.

Vissar finds, though, that the leadership sometimes reached down in the lists to promote candidates into parliament that had not received many votes. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq appears to have wanted a representative in parliament on its list from the mostly Sunni Arab province of Anbar, a major center of the anti-US guerrilla movement. I presume this move is an attempt to outflank Muqtada al-Sadr, who had been attempting to make a pan-Islamic anti-American alliance with Anbar Sunnis.

That $8.8 billion that is unaccounted for from the Coalition Provisional Authority is still and probably forever will be unaccounted for, according to an auditor who spoke to CBS news. Abramoffocracy was too good to confine it only to the US--it had to be exported to Iraq.

Surprise! War is good for . . . defense contractors!"

Paul Pillar's indictment of the Bush administration for its politicization of intelligence before the Iraq war is well worth reading. But the most important thing about the piece is the suggestion for how to improve things in the future. The problem is that all the major intelligence units are essentially part of the Executive. When the executive decides to use intelligence to go to war, the agencies have no independence and no way of effectively demurring. Pillar suggests an oversight board like the Federal Reserve with appointed members who cannot just be dismissed at will. If our economy is important enough to warrant a firewall between key decisions and the president, isn't the intelligence base for taking the country to war? Pillar writes:

"The intelligence community should be repositioned to reflect the fact that influence and relevance flow not just from face time in the Oval Office, but also from credibility with Congress and, most of all, with the American public. The community needs to remain in the executive branch but be given greater independence and a greater ability to communicate with those other constituencies (fettered only by security considerations, rather than by policy agendas). An appropriate model is the Federal Reserve, which is structured as a quasi-autonomous body overseen by a board of governors with long fixed terms."

Hear, hear!

Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's Shin Bet domestic intelligence branch was caught on tape saying that the chaos in Iraq is likely a greater threat to Israel than was the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. He also admitted that Israeli courts and police discriminate against Arabs. He called West Bank colonists who threaten violence "terrorists" and "worse than Arab attackers." Gee, Diskin and Cole agree 3 for 3 here. No doubt David Horowitz and the other American Likudniks will now consider him "dangerous."

Tidbits from BBC World Monitoring of the Arabic Press for Feb. 7:

'Al-Zaman runs on the front page a 120-word report on the statement issued by Electricity Ministry yesterday, 6 February, confirming that the high voltage power line linking Al-Nasiriyah and Khur al-Zubayr was sabotaged. An official source at the ministry attributed the current decline in electricity production to lack of fuel.

Al-Zaman carries on page 4 a 400-word report citing an official source at Mosul University confirming unrest in the university for the second consecutive day due to sexual harassment . . .

Dar al-Salam carries on the front page a 150-word report citing secretary general of Iraqi Islamic Party saying that Dr Ibrahim al-Ja'fari has rejected the call by Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front to stop random arrests and raids by Interior Ministry.

Dar al-Salam carries on the front page a 250-word report citing in-charge of Iraqi Islamic Party's Human Rights Committee saying that 300 persons were assassinated and 1659 others are missing from Interior Ministry's and US prisons.

Dar al-Salam carries on the front page a 50-word report citing in-charge of British Seventh Brigade's media in Basra saying that three mortar shells were fired at Shat al-Arab Hotel.

Dar al-Salam carries on the front page a 200-word report citing eyewitnesses saying that US forces have started withdrawing from Al-Anbar Governorate and will hand over the responsibility of security to local forces . . .

Dar al-Salam carries on page 2 a 200-word report citing eyewitnesses saying that commando forces broke into Al-Aqsa Sunni Mosque in Sab' al-Bur and arrested nine persons who were found killed in different areas of Baghdad.

Dar al-Salam carries on page 2 a 120-word report saying that the National Guards checkpoint arrested a citizen whose body was found later.

Dar al-Salam carries on page 2 a 75-word report that US and commando forces arrested an Iraqi Islamic Party member and his son in Al-Jihad.

Dar al-Salam carries on page 2 a 60-word report that Interior Ministry forces arrested an Association of Muslim Scholars member in Karbala. . .

Al-Zaman runs on page 3 a 500-word report on the sharp increase in the consumption and prices of red meat and fish due to avian flu.

Al-Zaman carries on page 3 a 300-word report on the statement issued by Health Workers Federal Union yesterday, 6 February, announcing a new sit-in in Baghdad and other governorates on 18 February, demanding improvement in their living standards. . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on page 4 a 550-word report that UAE Red Crescent office in Iraq has started a big campaign to help poor Iraqi families all over Iraq. . .

Al-Sabah al-Jadid publishes on page 11 a 1,000-word report on the deterioration of public services in Al-Husayniyah district in Baghdad.

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on page 4 a 2,000-word report surveying the comments of Diyala's inhabitants on internet services in the governorate.

Tariq al-Sha'b runs on page 4 a 1,600-word report on the need to organize the work of peddlers in Basra. . .

Al-Zaman runs on page 8 a 1,000-word column by Muthanna al-Tabaqchali on Iraq journalists' sufferings and fear to express their true opinions and views.

Al-Zaman publishes on page 8 a 1,000-word article by Jasim Murad entitled "Stop killing children", on Iraqi children's human rights and sufferings. . . .

Al-Adalah carries on page 6 an 800-word article by Muhsin Jawamir criticizing the insulting cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, and calling on Westerners to analyze Islam without confusing it with terrorism. The writer also calls on Muslims to "forgive" those who insulted Prophet Muhammad. . .

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on page 3 a 300-word article by Abu-Ali al-Saffar criticizing the attacks against Iraqi university professors by students.

Tariq al-Sha'b runs on page 3 a 400-word article by Raysan Husayn commenting on the deterioration of electricity supply in Kirkuk.

Tariq al-Sha'b publishes on page 9 a 1,200-word article by Rida al-Zahir commenting on President Bush's recent speech, saying that it was "confused" and did not present clear solutions for the US "failure" in Iraq. The writer also criticizes the "monopolistic discourse" of Iraqi politicians, calling on Iraqis to "tame" themselves according to democratic principles . . .

Al-Dustur publishes on the front page a 900-word editorial that many writers have abandoned their daily columns in protest of the daily threats against journalists and media. '

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18 Dead, 60 Wounded in bombings
Sunni Mosque Targeted

Al-Zaman/ AFP reports that on Friday guerrilla violence left 18 Iraqis dead and 60 wounded. The first car bomb in the Dora section of southern Baghdad killed at least 11 and wounded 38, according to Iraqi medical sources. Guerrillas then detonated a car bomb in Dora outside the Iskan Mosque (Sunni) while the worshippers were filing out, which killed 7 and wounded 22, according to the Iraqi ministry of the interior. On Thursday, a bomb killed two US Marines at Fallujah.

Muqtada al-Sadr spoke in Damascus on Friday with cadres of Palestinian youths. His interview, carried by Reuters, is part of his continued attempt to remake himself as a political mover and shaker in Iraq. In his speech to the Palestinians, he called for US and British troops to leave Iraq.

1. Muslims should unite across the sectarian divide of Sunni and Shiite to protest the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

2. But targeting Christians would be a mistake.

3. Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors need have no fear of the rise of the Shiites to power in that country. "I am here to dispel fear Arab countries have of the Shi'ites."

4. The Sadr Movement bears a resemblance to the Hizbullah of Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine: ' "Our ideas are similar as far as standing to oppression and occupation and against the corruption that the entire West wants to spread in the region and in Islamic countries."

5. For stability to return to Iraq, US troops must leave. ' "What is causing instability to Iraq is the occupation," he said. "The exit of the occupier will be a victory for Iraq and not as it is said a victory for the terrorists." '

The French ambassador in Baghdad announced in a letter to Muqtada that he "understands Muslim rejection" of "the caricatures that inflict injuriy," and he acknowledged that they had been widely printed in Europe. He said, however, that they did not in any way represent the views of the French state.
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Cheney Authorized Libby to Disclose Classified Documents

Once upon a time, a former agent of Italian military intelligence named
Rocco Martino, who had had some experience in the African country of Niger, came into possession of some forged, fraudulent documents.
These alleged Iraqi purchases of yellowcake uranium in 1999. In fact, the signatures were of Nigerien officials who had been in power a decade earlier, in the late 1980s.



So they were clumsy forgeries. Martino passed them on to the Italian magazine Panorama, which passed them to the US embassy.

Tantalizingly, President George W. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, has an indirect connection to Italian intelligence.


Rove's chief adviser on Iran policy is Neoconservative wildman and notorious warmonger Michael Ledeen,

who has a longstanding connection to the darker corners of Italian intelligence.

Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney heard of the alleged uranium purchase.



Cheney asked George Tenet to look into the allegation.


The issue went to the Directorate of Operations secret unit on counter-proliferation. Among the field officers there was Valerie Plame Wilson, who had spent her life fighting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction under cover of a dummy corporation.



Valerie Plame Wilson was married to former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, who had served bravely as acting ambassador in Iraq in 1990, and when threatened by Saddam he showed up to a press conference wearing a hanging noose instead of a necktie. President George H. W. Bush highly praised him.




Joe Wilson had not only served in Iraq, he also had been ambassador to the West African countries of Gabon and Sao Tome, and spoke fluent French. When Plame Wilson's superiors brought up the possibility of sending him as a private citizen to look into the plausibility of the report that Saddam had bought Nigerien uranium, she was consulted and agreed (she was not part of the decision loop).

He went, and soon saw that the uranium industry in Niger was actually under the control of French companies and was strictly monitored.


There was no possibility of corrupt Nigerien officials selling it off under the table.

A separate military mission led by Marine General Carlton Fulford, Jr, deputy commander of the United States European Command (EUCOM), went to Niger the same month, February 2002.


Fulford quickly came to the same conclusion as Wilson, that it was implausible that al-Qaeda or anyone else could secretly buy uranium from Niger.

Wilson came back and was orally debriefed by people who wrote a report for Tenet, expecting that Tenet would pass it on to the high officials of the Bush administration.

Wilson was amazed when the Niger uranium story was put into Bush's State of the Union address.

Then Libby


wanted Secretary of State Colin Powell to make allegations about Saddam and al-Qaeda before the United Nations Security Council. Powell was also pressed by someone to bring up the Niger uranium story.

Powell is said to have exclaimed, "I'm not reading this bullshit!"

Libby appears to have been a big influence on the speech Powell gave, almost every detail of which was inaccurate, and at which United Nations officials who heard it openly laughed.



After the war, Wilson wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in which he revealed his mission and again called into question the Bush administration assertion that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program.

Cheney was extremely upset by Wilson's op-ed. He saw it as an allegation that he had personally sent Wilson and then ignored Wilson's report. Or at least that was the spin. But Wilson had said no such thing in the article. He simply said that Cheney had asked Tenet to look into the story, which Cheney probably did.

Cheney was afraid that if the American public became convinced that there had been no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the war effort would collapse, along with all those billions of no-bid uncompetitive contracts for Halliburton.

Cheney, it has now come out, then authorized Libby to leak the classified 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to the press.


The NIE, which may have been produced under pressure from Cheney himself, had incorrectly suggested that Iraq was only a few years from having a nuclear weapon. In fact, Iraq did not have an active weapons program at all after the early 1990s when it was dismantled by the UN inspectors. The pre-war NIE in any case was just old bad intelligence, which was contradicted by David Kay's team on the ground in post-war Iraq, which just wasn't finding much.



Libby now began telling reporters that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative, itself classified information, since she was an undercover operative.


Karl Rove engaged in the same routine. Apparently Cheney, Rove and Libby (and Bush?) believed that Wilson's credibility would be undermined if the Washington press corps could have it intimated to them that his story was a CIA plant.



Robert Novak used the information given him by the White House staff to out Valerie Plame Wilson as an undercover operative. Her career was ruined. All her contacts in the global South were burned, and their lives put in danger. The CIA's careful project combating weapons of mass destruction collapsed.



The same administration that alleges it should be able to listen to our phone calls at will for national security purposes deliberately undermined US security for petty political purposes, making us all much less safe.

The likelihood is that the crimes of Bush, Cheney, Libby and Rove so far revealed are only the tip of the iceberg.




------
*The iceberg artwork, signed "Monk," is mirrored on several sites on the internet; I can't find any that seems the original but am glad to give credit if it is sought. It easily comes up on a google.images search.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cole on Danish Caricatures in Salon.com

My article on cartoongate is out over at Salon.com.

Excerpt:

' After the cartoons were published on Sept. 30, right-wing Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen reacted to the angry response by refusing to meet with ambassadors from Muslim countries and sternly lecturing Muslims on their need to put up with the caricatures. He finally sounded a more conciliatory note this week, complaining of a global crisis. He was clearly worried, like another Dane, Prince Hamlet, about what would happen "if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me."

Muslim touchiness about Western insults to the prophet Mohammed must be understood in historical context. Most Muslim societies have spent the past two centuries either under European rule or heavy European influence, and most colonial masters and their helpmeets among the missionaries were not shy about letting local people know exactly how barbaric they thought the Muslim faith was. The colonized still smart from the notorious signs outside European clubs in the colonial era, such as the one in Calcutta that said, "Dogs and Indians not allowed."

Indeed, the same themes of Aryan superiority and Semitic backwardness in the European "scientific racism" of the 19th and early 20th centuries that led to the Holocaust against the Jews also often colored the language of colonial administrators in places like Algeria about their subjects. A caricature of a Semitic prophet like Mohammed with a bomb in his turban replicates these racist themes of a century and a half ago, wherein Semites were depicted as violent and irrational and therefore as needing a firm white colonial master for their own good.

(It is worth noting that in 2004 the Danish editor who commissioned the drawings, Flemming Rose, conducted an uncritical interview with the American neoconservative and Islamophobe Daniel Pipes. Pipes, an extreme right-wing supporter of the Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, has warned of the dangers of Muslim immigration into Denmark, claiming that "many of them show little desire to fit into their adopted country" and that male Muslim immigrants made up a majority of the country's rapists.) '

An English translation of Flemming Rose's interview with Pipes is here. Rose deliberately sought the caricatures.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Everything the West and the Middle East Need Could have been Learned in Kindergarten

1. Don't make fun of people for things they were born with, like big noses, skin color or their religion.

Danish newspaper carries caricatures offensive to Muslims.

2. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Iranian newspaper plans to run caricatures about the Holocaust.

3. You can't just take toys you want from the children who own them.

Ehud Olmert announces that Israel will unilaterally retain 40% of the West Bank, Palestinian territory captured by the Israelis in the 1967 War.

4. Don't take your anger with one person out on another child.

Radical elements in Lebanese Muslim crowd attack Christian church.

5. Don't tell fibs about the other children.

Rice blames secular, Alawi-dominated Syria Baath Party for instigating religious protests. In fact, Syria did no such thing (see below.)

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Condaleeza Rice is a Liar
Blames Syria, Iran for Inciting Violence over Caricatures of Prophet

Secretary of State Condi Rice on Wednesday blamed Iran and Syria for inciting violence over the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The problem is that she is lying, and this irresponsible charge is another in a long series of propaganda ploys whereby the Bush administration manipulates public opinion in the United States. Reuters reports,

' US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran and Syria, both at loggerheads with the west, of inciting violence over the cartoons for their own purposes.

Speaking at a Washington news conference with Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Rice said: “Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes — and the world ought to call them on it.”

She said nothing justified the violence and appealed to governments to urge calm.

“There are governments that have used this opportunity to incite violence,” she added, referring to Syria and Iran. '

I have done keyword searches in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the CIA, which translates radio broadcasts and newspaper articles, for all of 2005 and 2006, using "Denmark and Syria." I found nothing from 2005 mentioning the caricatures in FBIS transcriptions of the Syrian press. The only things there for 2006 concerned the past week, which saw a violent demonstration in downtown Damascus.

I then did a similar keyword search in Lexis Nexis, which includes the BBC World Monitoring of the Arab press. I again found nothing for 2005. I print below what I found for 2006; the record begins only on January 31.

In short, it simply is not true that Syria has whipped up sentiments in the Arab world about the Danish caricatures. Neither the CIA, nor the BBC monitoring, nor any of the wire services, noticed any Syrian official saying anything at all about this matter until the past week! Since Syria is ruled by a secular Arab nationalist Baath regime, this finding is not surprising. And what influence would Bashar al-Asad, a heterodox Alawite Shiite and a secular Baathist, have with his Sunni Muslim or orthodox Twelver Shiite neighbors?

It is being alleged that the Baath regime was behind the burning of the Danish embassy in Damascus, on the grounds that it could not have happened unless the police state allowed it. But things have gotten out of hand before in Syria, sometimes on a large scale. It is likely that the regime allowed the initial demonstration, which radical Sunni Muslims took advantage of to torch the embassy. The Syrian regime hates radical Islam and doesn't like disorder, either. We cannot assume that the embassy burning was directed by the Syrian state. There is no evidence for it, and it actually doesn't make any sense. What would Bashar have to gain from that?

Rice and Bush have decided to get Syria, and are using the current crisis as a stick with which to beat it, and are lying shamelessly to the American public.

As for Iran, its embassy was active in Copenhagen pushing for an apology in fall of 2005, but I can't find in Lexis evidence of inflammatory statements until the past week. As I've said before, the Middle East official most concerned with whipping up this issue seems to be the Egyptian foreign minister.

In the past week, some Iranian officials have called for calm on the issue, rather than inciting it. Other officials, such as Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, have in fact said harsh things, but only very recently. Despite wild charges that the Iranian protege Hizbullah was behind the Beirut embassy burning, in fact the demonstration on Sunday was a Sunni demonstration. The Shiites don't seem to have been part of it. Robert Fisk speculates that Sunni fundamentalist forces from Tripoli and the Palestinian camps too advantage of it to push their own agenda, and the Syrian regime was taken by surprise.

You can only imagine the Karl Rove memo: "Anythin' happens in the Middle East, blame it on Syria and Iran. Works every time!"

' Associated Press Worldstream

January 29, 2006 Sunday 11:49 AM GMT

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS

LENGTH: 289 words

HEADLINE: Syria joins chorus condemning caricatures of Islam's prophet in Danish newspaper

DATELINE: DAMASCUS Syria

BODY:


Syria on Sunday joined the chorus of Arab and Islamic countries condemning caricatures published in a Danish newspaper deemed insulting to Islam's prophet.

"Syria strongly condemns this insult against the supreme token of the Arab and Islamic nations," the Syrian news agency SANA quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry official as saying.

The official said the Danish government should punish the offenders.

The 12 drawings published Sept. 30, 2005, by Jyllands-Posten included one showing Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Another portrayed him with a bushy gray beard and holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle.

Politicians and Muslim leaders across the Islamic world have denounced the caricatures as insulting to the faith and its prophet. Islam bars any depiction of the prophet, even respectful ones, out of concern that such images could lead to idolatry. Jyllands-Posten has refused to apologize for the drawings, citing freedom of speech.

The Syrian official said Damascus was "shocked" by the caricatures and called on the Danish government to take the "necessary measures to punish the offenders so that such offenses may not be repeated in the future."

On Saturday, Kuwait's state-supported supermarkets announced a boycott of Danish products, and the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry called in a regional Danish ambassador to protest the caricatures while hundreds of Kuwaitis protested outside the Danish consulate.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Denmark to protest the drawings. In Jiddah, the secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference criticized the Danish government for failing to deal with the issue in a "serious way."

-----------------

BBC Monitoring International Reports

February 1, 2006 Wednesday

ACC-NO: A20060201C-FF27-GNW

LENGTH: 110 words

HEADLINE: SYRIA RECALLS AMBASSADOR TO DENMARK

BODY:


Text of report by Danish radio website on 1 February

Syria is recalling its ambassador from Denmark for consultations in Damascus.

According to the Ritzaus news agency the ambassador is to provide information on Danish efforts to defuse the crisis over the controversial Muhammad drawings published by Jyllands-Posten.

Syria is therefore taking the same measure as Saudi Arabia did recently. Libya has gone a stage further and has announced that it is closing down its embassy in Denmark completely.

The Syrian embassy in Stockholm will take care of representation in Denmark.

Source: Danmarks Radio website, Copenhagen, in Danish 1501 gmt 1 Feb 06 '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The Politics of Race and Religion in Denmark

A reader living in Denmark writes:

' I was most surprised to hear that there had been a demonstration of "as many as" 5000 Muslims here in Denmark. I do recall a demonstration, but 5000? That's a darn big demonstration here! We didn't a much bigger turnout here when we had to suffer the ignominy of a visit here by Bush this last summer. Perhaps there was one too many zeroes?

Your point that the Saudi gov't or parts of it have not been responsible for the inflammation is correct. However, the source you draw on is ignorant or ignoring the local political and social situation in Denmark. That and the activity of a few Imams here who represent a very small percentage of the Muslim population of 180,000 are essential to understanding what the Danes are now experiencing as practically a 911 event.

The Venstre party of Mr. Fogh-Rasmussen is about as far right as you can get in Danish politics. The only party to the right of them represented in the Folketing is the Danske Folkeparti, run by Pia Kjærsgaard. The DF has quite a few seats and although not in the gov't it's support is absolutely necessary for Fogh's gov't. The DF is a right-wing populist party, which split off from the even more right Fremskridts (Progress) party some 10-15 years. Pia is a damn talented politician, sort of a Maggie Thatcher type. She and her party have been hammering away in particular using (and increasing) the tensions between the "Danes", the "new-Danes" and "second-generation immigrants" (these are of course all code words -- if I refer to myself as a "new-Dane" or my sin as a "second-generation", people find it funny -- has something to do with the fact that I don't have brownish or dark skin, I guess... ).

The Jyllandsposten is a right-wing paper -- but it's the two tabloids, BT and Ekstra Bladet, who along with the help of Pia K's DF who been stoking the fires of racial/ethnic tension. There among the Danes a perceived anxiety and mistrust because of murders, "honor" murders, general criminality, gang rapes, arranged marriages, female circumcision, sending youngsters to madrasses and so on. The fact is, of course is that entire Muslim community, to a certain degree, is getting tarred with the same brush because of a few.

There are approx. 180,000 Muslims in Denmark. A very small number, from congregations composing 2-3% have been very visible the past couple of years -- in particular a handful of imams, two of which I should name, Abu Laban and Mohammad Fouad Albarazi have been very visible. What can I say of them? Sort of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell wannabes, I guess. Anyway they sent delegations to the Middleeast -- and misrepresented the character of the drawings. Supposedly, Mohammed was shown in sexual encounters of some sort, and was shown with a pigs nose, among other things. Also, people in the M.E. were told that the Koran was being burned. (To be fair, there was some talk of it when the Danebrog (the Danish flag) was burned -- but nothing came of it.

The Danebrog differs from most flags in that it was not designed -- it fell down from heaven in Estland in 1219!

Also, to be fair, the Imams I mention don't know Danish, some of this group, not even English. On the other hand, this is also a source of irritation and tension -- how are they supposed to guide people on how to live as good Muslims in Denmark when they know little of our culture here?

One of the parliament members here, Nasar Kharder, has made quite a stink about Abu Laban saying one thing to the Danish media and the complete opposite to Arab media. A concrete case is that he thought the boycott wrong (to the Danish media) but to the Arab press, that it was good and that he was very happy about it . . .

Nasar Kharder is from the "Radikal Venstre" (Venstre means "Left", but it is usually translated as "Liberal"). The RV party is one that pretty much defines the center in Danish politics and has been in many governments over the years -- both to the right and to the left of center. They are not in the government at the moment, which for the past 5 years has been Konservativ / Venstre (with the support of the DF, as I mentioned before. The RV has made a point of attracting "people of other ethnic background" (code for people with Arab/Muslim/ origins into their party work -- both on the national as well as the local level.

Nasar Kharder was born in Damascus of Palestinian parents. The tabloids are making a big deal over threats being made against him and the fact that he is (again) under police protection. He's long made a lot of effort to activate the moderate Muslims in Denmark. '

Charles E. Cliff

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Guerrilla Violence Leaves 9 Iraqis, 4 GIs Dead
Shiites Targeted during Festival

CBS says that Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq is increasing, as is Sunni frustration with Shiite death squads.

Bombings and other violence in Iraq killed 9 Iraqis on Tuesday. The head of the Fallujah city council was shot dead, as was a clerical follower of Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad.

Four American GIs were also killed.

On Monday, guerrillas had attacked Shiites in Baqubah and then in the shrine center of Kahdimiyah in northeast Baghdad. The country is tense because Thursday is Ashura, a big day of processions and mourning sessions commemorated the martyred grandson of the Prophet, Husayn. Since the American invasion, Ashura has often seen bloody violence from Sunni guerrillas targeting Shiites in hopes of provoking a civil war.

Guerrillas targeted the Iraqi minister of education with a roadside bomb, but the assassination attempt failed.

Senator John Warner upbraided Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld over the mistakes made in Iraqi reconstruction. Rumsfeld now says that rebuilding Iraq's infrastructue could take decades and that the US should not make Iraqis "dependent" (apparently by helping them out of the mess Bush and Rumsfeld have made of the country).

Rumsfeld, whose administration of Iraq has been the most corrupt Western government of a colony since King Leopold of Belgium looted the Congo, had the gall to blame Iraqi problems on Iraqi corruption.

Al-Zaman alleges that a secret agreement between the Iraqi government and the International Monetary fund provides for at least some private sector involvement in the Iraqi petroleum industry (state-owned since 1971), as well as the end of the UN oil for food deliveries to families. The latter have kept many Iraqis from feeling the worst effects of the horrible economy.

The US invasion and the subsequent guerrilla war has been damaging to the mental health of Iraq's children.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that the United Iraqi Alliance now won't try to choose a prime minister until Saturday. The Virtue Party (Fadhila) says that it was offered a powerful cabinet post if its candidate for prime minister would withdraw.

Kurdish independent politician Mahmoud Othman is alleging that the US encouraged the foreign jihadis to come to Iraq, so that it could fight them there. He blamed the US and the Iraqi governments for the deteriorating security situation in the country. Othman, a member of parliament, once served on the Interim Governing Council, but seems to be becoming more and more anti-American. You wonder if it is a larger trend. (-Al-Sharq al-Awsat)
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

5,000 Sadrists Demonstrate Against Denmark in Kut
Sadr Pledges Solidarity with Syria against 'Israel, UK, US'

AP reports that the young Shiite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr has been behind many of the street protests held in Iraq during the past week against the Danish caricatures of Muhammad. It says that a big crowd of 5,000 came out in the southern Shiite city of Kut on Monday, protesting the caricatures and demanding that the over 500 Danish troops in Iraq be expelled from the country.

' Some 5,000 protesters rallied outside a government building Monday in the southern city of Kut, burning Danish flags and calling for the 530-member Danish military contingent to be booted out of Iraq. The demonstration came a day after a gunman shot at Danish soldiers, children hurled stones at another patrol and a homemade bomb was defused near their base in Qurnah, 300 miles southeast of Baghdad.

"All these things add up to the idea that we might not be as popular as we have been as a result of the Prophet Muhammad drawings," said Capt. Filip Ulrichsen of the Danish contingent. '

Al-Zaman reports that al-Sadr during a visit to Damascus expressed his solidarity with Syria and Iran after his discussions with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad. He also held discussions with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa. He said he talked with the latter about "both the Iraqi and the Syrian situation for the sake of establishing security in Syria and Iraq and to end American pressure against Syria and against Iraq."

He described Syrian-Iraqi relations as "good," and argued that they should be strengthened in all areas, thus embodying the mutual bonds between the two countries. He said at a news conference attended by a reporter from al-Zaman that Syria and Iraq both face common challenges, and that he had discussed with Sharaa ways of improving security in both countries and of bringing stability to the region.

Al-Hayat/ AFP report that Muqtada accused "the common enemy, Israel, Britain and America" of being "the ill-omened trinity that sows turmoil among us."

Al-Zaman asked Sadr about the close relations to Iran of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Muqtada dodged the question, saying, "I hope to be a bridge among all, and among everyone who has an interest in building Iraq or the region of the Middle East-- I will work to serve him, defending the Islamic states." Sadr arrived in Damascus on Sunday.

Sadr's bloc has at least 32 seats in parliament, about 12%, and they are demanding the service ministries in hopes of improving their standing with the people.

Meanwhile, Al-Zaman also reports that negotiations over who the prime minister will be and who will get what ministries have been put off until after the Shiite religious commemoration of Ashura', honoring the death of Imam Husain, the martyred grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at Karbala in 681 C.E. The United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite fundamentalist parties of which Muqtada's Sadrists form a part, says that they will make another attempt to come to a consensus on their candidate for prime minister. They are reluctant to settle the issue with an up or down vote within the party coalition, presumably for fear it will break the coalition apart if the decision is made that way.
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More on the Hypocrisy of the West and Cartoongate

The Danish newspaper that published the caricatures of Muhammad refused to carry cartoons lampooning Jesus of Nazareth, The Guardian revealed on Monday.

' In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten.

Zieler received an email back from the paper's Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, which said: "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them."

The illustrator told the Norwegian daily Dagbladet, which saw the email: "I see the cartoons as an innocent joke, of the type that my Christian grandfather would enjoy."

"I showed them to a few pastors and they thought they were funny." '

I've gotten a lot of comments by email which have the structure, "Yes Europeans would be offended by X, but would it cause violence?" I presume these readers somehow consider the Irish not really Europeans.

As late as last September, we have an item like this from Belfast:

September 14, 2005
' Priest says Catholics live in fear after Protestant riots

After successive nights of extensive rioting by Protestant mobs in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland, Catholics are living in fear, said Fr Aidan Troy of Holy Cross Parish in Belfast.

CLICK HERE"When rioting is taking place, members of this parish can't leave the area, because access to the main roads is blocked. We're supposed to be having a novena here this week, but speakers can't get in to us because of the violence," he told Catholic News Service.

Northern Ireland Chief Constable Hugh Orde said the rioting was organised by Protestant paramilitaries - the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force - with disturbances breaking out in seven different locations in Belfast and five different locations outside the city in an effort to stretch police and army resources to the maximum. Protestant leaders deny the charge.

Rioting started last Saturday after the Independent Parades Commission ruled that a parade by the Orange Order, a Protestant fraternity, could not pass through a Catholic district.

SOURCE
Priest says Catholics live in fear after Protestant riots (Catholic News Service 14/9/05)

ARCHIVE
Irish Church leaders respond to renewed violence in Belfast (CathNews 13/9/05) '

Or let's just consider this BBC item from 1986:

'
1986: Orange Parade sparks riots in Northern Ireland
Dozens have been injured in the second consecutive night of violence in Portadown, County Armagh.

Violence flared when Orangemen converged on the town yesterday evening after their annual marches to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne.

Protestant youths began throwing missiles at the police as they attempted to section off Catholic areas.

Disturbances are expected into the night with nationalist and loyalist rioters directing their anger against the security forces and each other.

Vehicles have been overturned and police have been attacked with darts, bottles and stones. Four were seriously injured including one who was dragged from his car and stabbed in the neck.

Dozens of casualties

RUC officers responded with baton charges and about 150 plastic bullets. A total of 127 police and civilians have been injured over the two nights.

Yesterday evening there were skirmishes between Catholic and Protestant factions as they hurled petrol bombs over wasteland in anticipation of today's parade.

The march in the Portadown area passed off peacefully this afternoon after the Orangemen accepted a compromise from the RUC late last night.

The authorities expected trouble after sealing off the Tunnel section of Obins Street yesterday. This is the traditional outward route of the Portadown parade to Drumcree church.

When the RUC allowed Orangemen down Obins Street last Sunday there were angry scenes between police, loyalist marchers and Catholic residents.

Today, hundreds of troops joined the 1,000-strong force of officers lining the re-routed parade.

It took the 400 Orangemen from eight lodges 25 minutes to walk down the mainly Catholic Garvaghy Road. '

And that was over a Protestant Pride parade with reference to a historical battle, not something sacred like scripture! (And, yes, the Protestants were being deliberately provocative.)

There have also been clashes over rightwing religion in Europe. How about a riot at the Vatican in 1999 over the Pope meeting with a far rightwing Austrian politician, which left dozens injured?

' Riot breaks out as pope greets Haider - Pope John Paul II - Jorg Haider - Brief Article
National Catholic Reporter, Jan 5, 2001 by John L. Jr. Allen

Protesters, police clash, ending Holy Year in blast of teargas

When Pope John Paul II opened this Holy Year on Dec. 24, 1999, in St. Peter's Basilica, no one anticipated it would end in a hail of smoke bombs and tear gas canisters a few hundred yards away. As it turned out, while the Jubilee year officially ends Jan. 6, many Romans will remember Dec. 16 as the day the year's holiness evaporated in two hours of ferocious urban warfare.

The late afternoon melee on the Via della Conciliazione, the broad avenue that leads into St. Peter's Square, was triggered by the pope's welcome of Jorg Haider, Austria's enfant terrible on the far right. By far the most violent protest directed at the Vatican in modern times, it left more than 30 protesters, 26 police and two journalists injured.

Haider, unofficial leader of Austria's far-right "Freedom Party," is Europe's most controversial figure, in part for ambiguous statements about Nazism, in part for championing an anti-immigrant platform that many consider xenophobic. His party's entry into the Austrian government nine months ago sparked wide international outrage and sanctions from the European Union, lifted only in September (NCR, Feb. 18).

The pope received Haider as governor of the southern Austrian province of Carinthia, whose turn it was to present the annual Christmas tree for St. Peter's Square.

While Haider's visit was the immediate cause of the tumult, participants insisted that it had deeper roots, reflecting mounting anger at the Vatican among some Italians who see it as an oppressive force. Many of the demonstrators believe the Jubilee Year of 2000 will be remembered more for a string of controversial political and theological moves from the Vatican than for any spiritual uplift.

In the moments before the violence exploded, many of the approximately 3,000 protesters, the majority in their 20s and 30s, voiced their anger in conversations with NCR. Some spoke of the Vatican's staunch opposition to this summer's world Gay Pride festival, which the pope called an "insult to the Grand Jubilee of the Year 2000." Others said they regarded the Sept. 3 beatification of Pope Pius IX, controversial for his treatment of Italy's Jewish minority in the 19th century, as a revival of Catholic anti-Semitism.

Still others voiced outrage over the treatment of women by the church, targeting especially the church's opposition to the so-called "morning after" pill, which prevents implantation of a fertilized ovum. The Vatican has recently attempted to overturn the Italian government's decision to make the pill available in pharmacies. Many objected also to what they see as high-level Vatican support for proposed immigration policies that would exclude Muslims. Such policies, proposed by Cardinal Giacomo Biffi of Bologna, have received support from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state.

Some protesters pointed to the recent Vatican document Dominus Iesus, which stressed Christ as the unique savior of the world, as an example of religious intolerance.

"The visit of Haider to Rome is the logical conclusion to this Jubilee year, that has seen the Vatican embrace the right and discriminate against homosexuals, against immigrants, against women, against other religions," said a young woman who addressed the crowd.

The protesters, a mixture of communists, university students, Jews, Greens and progressives, had planned to carry a large portrait of Auschwitz detainees with the slogan "never again" up the Via della Conciliazione to place it next to Haider's tree. They were interrupted by a police line at the beginning of the avenue, in a small space named for John XXIII.

The violence broke out when a group of the protesters attempted to break through police barricades, using the portrait as a battering ram. The response was swift, with teargas blasts followed by waves of police swinging nightsticks moving into the crowd.

Some observers claimed the force was excessive. One man bleeding from a head wound told NCR he had been ordered by police to stop and had complied, only to be clubbed anyway. '

For those waxing holier than thou over the Muslim caricature riots, it is worth looking at the (very incomplete) Wikipedia list of riots for the late 20th century and early 21st century. The answer is obviously "yes" to the question of whether Westerners riot. Mostly over race.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Caricatures Roil Muslim World
Beirut Embassy Torched
Iraq Demonstrations, Threats against Danish Troops

Before I launch into this report, I want to underline that few places in the Muslim world have seen violence over the caricatures, so far mainly Damascus and Beirut (which are unexpected in this regard.) Protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere have been nonviolent. This is not to play down the seriousness of what happened in Damascus and Beirut over the weekend--acts which can only inspire horror and condemnation--only to set it in context. There are 1.5 billion Muslims. A lot of Muslim countries saw no protests at all. In some places, as in Pakistan, they were anemic. The caricature protests are resonating with local politics and anti-imperialism in ways distinctive to each Muslim country. The protests therefore are probably not mostly purely about religion.

Beirut's Daily Star reports that he Sunni Muslim clerics of Lebanon intended to call a peaceful demonstration in downtown Beirut on Sunday. It began that way as 20,000 protesters gathered, but spiralled out of control when a small group of militants set fire to the Danish embassy and then attacked a church in Ashrafiyah. The Sunni clerics were seen attempting to head the crowd off from the church, shouting that the issue had nothing to do with Christians. They were drowned out by gunfire from the Lebanese security forces.

Sectarian tensions have risen dramatically in Lebanon, as the society has been polarized over relations with Syria and intervention in local affairs by the Bush administration. The Sunni Muslims themselves have been divided, between those who suspect Syria of assassinating Sunni former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, and those who support Syria. Anger at the Bush administration over the ongoing occupation of Iraq also fuelled some of the protesters' anger, according to handbills circulating in Beirut before the demonstrations. Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that Saad Hariri, the leading Sunni politician, condemned the attacks from Paris, saying that an attack on churches is an attack on Muslims.

Lebanon is probably about 45 percent Shiite, 20 percent Sunni, 5 percent Druze, and 30 percent Christian, if we count the entire population (among adults, Christians are more like 40 percent). In reaction to the on-going dispossession of the Palestinians in Lebanon, and to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, a few Sunni Lebanese and Palestinians have joined radical jihadi currents. The assassin of Rafiq Hariri was from this group, though he may have been working for someone else, and it is likely a handful of jihadis who pushed the mob toward violence on Sunday.

The Washington Post has further details.

The Beirut violence follows that of Damascus on Saturday, where a mob attacked the Danish and Norwegian embassies and attempted to go after the Swedish and French embassies. The Baath government in Syria is secular, and normally rules with a heavy hand. But the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is extremely powerful among the 80 percent of the population that is Sunni Muslim, and it forms an underground dissident opposition. It seems to me more likely that Muslim radicals took advantage of the protest to incite a mob than that the Syrian Baath deliberately unleashed arsons on the Danes. Washington and other anti-Syrian Western powers cynically played power politics with the incident, accusing the Syrian government of having the embassies torched, something that seems unlikely and for which there is no proof.

Reuters reports, ' Syria's grand Mufti Badr Eddine Hassoun, told government newspaper al-Thawra that the attackers did their country harm. "We feel sorrow that these people who were driven by passion reached the stage where they have undermined our dialogue with the Norwegian and Danes," he said. '

The Grand Mufti is the country's chief religious authority on Islamic law.

In Afghanistan the main protest was by 800 villagers in an obscure town outside Kabul. President Karzai called for calm. Since Kabul, a city of 2 million, is full of Muslims, that the demonstration happened in some small town suggests that local dynamics were at play.

In Pakistan, the Jama'at-i Islami called for nationwide protests, but few Pakistanis seem interested.

About 1,000 demonstrators came out in Ramadi in Western Iraq to protest the Danish caricatures. Leaflets circulated among Sunni Muslim militants calling for attacks on the Danish troops in south Iraq.

They weren't covered in the US press very much, but there were lots of small demonstrations over the caricatures throughout Iraq last Friday.

The Iraq Transportation Ministry has cancelled contracts with Denmark. The country has 500 troops in Iraq. Iraqi press reaction to the issue is appended below.

Some 3,000 protesters gathered in Cairo on Sunday to demand that Egypt break diplomatic relations with Denmark and Norway. The Egyptian foreign minister has been an important player in creating the crisis, I believe in order to take pressure off his secular government at home by wrapping it in the mantle of defender of the Prophet abroad. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is eager not to leave the field to him. Most of the caricature protests are a mixture of local politics and standard post-colonial anti-imperialism.

Evidence for my theory of the Muslim protests over the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, published in the Jyllands-Posten daily last Sept. 30 is offered by Iran, which has been remarkably calm. Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called for a continued calm reaction. The Iranian public does not feel itself under neocolonial domination, and many Iranian young people are not interested in Islam, since it has become associated in their minds with a hopelessly fuddy-duddy mulla-dominated Establishment.

The controversy has provoked lively debates on freedom of expression versus restrictions on hate speech throughout the world, especially in multi-cultural, partly Muslim societies such as South Africa.

In Jordan, an editor who published the caricature of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban in a weekly tabloid was fired and has now been jailed.

I wish Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen had said this last October (see the fact file below). He went on Arab satellite television to give a statement:

' "I have a very important message for you: the Danish people have defended freedom of expression and religious freedom for generations. We deeply respect all religions including Islam and it is important for me to tell you that the Danish people have no intention to offend Muslims.

"On the contrary we will do our utmost to continue our historic tradition of dialogue and mutual respect. And therefore I am deeply distressed that many Muslims have seen the drawings in a Danish newspaper as a defamation of the Prophet Mohammed," Rasmussen said.

The Danish leader said he would do his "utmost to solve that problem" and noted that the Danish newspaper had already apologized for the offence caused by the drawings.

But Rasmussen defended his country's tradition of freedom, saying, "We have a free press and this freedom of expression is a vital and indispensable part of our democracy and this is the reason why I cannot control what is published in the media.

"But on the other hand neither the Danish government nor the Danish people can be held responsible for what is published in the media," he said. '

BBC World Monitoring sums up the past week's Iraqi press reaction to the Danish caricatures and other issues:

' BBC Monitoring Middle East - Political
Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring

February 5, 2006 Sunday

LENGTH: 1275 words

HEADLINE: BBC Monitoring weekly roundup of Iraqi press 30 Jan-5 Feb 06

BODY:


Main stories

Reactions to the European newspapers' publishing of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. First Bird Flu death announced in Kurdistan.

1- Reactions to the European newspapers' publishing

of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad

The Iraqi newspapers' reaction to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by Danish and Norwegian newspapers was varied. The Shi'i newspapers, while denouncing the publishing of the caricatures, condemned the burning of Iraqi Christian churches, whereas the Sunni papers concentrated on the calling for political and economic boycott and adding that "any insult directed at Israel is never seen as case of freedom of expression, and the perpetrator is usually punished for being anti-Semitic". The independent newspapers, however, concentrated on the fact that "what has happened in Denmark could threaten the dialogue between civilizations project, which Islamic and Christian personalities who believed in dialogue worked together on".

The Dar-al-Salam Sunni newspaper, in its 31 January edition, said that the Islamic Party, which it represents, and the endowment office have issued statements condemning the offence caused by the Danish and Norwegian newspapers The Islamic Party demanded the ambassadors of Denmark and Norway be declared personae non gratae, called on Iraqi political parties not to receive them and also called for a boycott of products, airlines and anything to do with the two countries, vowing to escalate the protests until those countries apologize to Arabs and Muslims, and promise not to insult Islam and its religious figures.

Another Sunni newspaper. Al-Basa'ir, in its 2 February edition issued an article by the Association of Muslim Scholars' spokesman condemning the publishing of the caricatures and calling for a diplomatic and commercial boycott until an apology has been granted to Muslims. He added that "this is the west's civilization and which they are proud of. It is, as you can see, a cause for ridicule and pity, and revulsion and disgust at the same time".

Shi'i newspapers condemned the publishing of the caricatures and also condemned the attacks on Iraqi Christian Churches. The Al-Sadr Movement mouthpiece, Al-Hawzah, reported on Wednesday 1 February a demand made by the Movement's leader Muqtada al-Sadr for the Pope to condemn the publishing of the caricatures. While condemning the publishing of the caricatures, Al-Hawzah reported that the followers of the Al-Sadr Movement "strongly condemned" the attacks which "targeted churches in Baghdad and Kirkuk" adding that "the Christians are our brothers and partners in this country. They coexist with us and any attack on them is seen as an attack on us".

Al-Bayyinah which represents Shi'i Hezbollah Movement in Iraq [an Iraqi offshoot of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, unrelated to the Lebanese party of this name] said in its 1 February editorial that the calls for condemnation and political and economic boycott were a civilized way of dealing with this matter, unlike the "offence committed by the Danish newspaper against more than a billion Muslims". The editorial added that it was also important to condemn the attacks on Christian churches in Baghdad and Kirkuk, likening the perpetrators of these attacks to those who published the caricatures in Danish newspapers.

The Al-Adalah, which represents the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI, published on the same day a request made by prominent Shi'i cleric Al-Sistani to the Danish authorities to punish those who deliberately offended Prophet Muhammad. The paper added that Al-Sistani "instructed Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja'fari (Shi'i) to summon the Danish ambassador in Baghdad to pass onto him the condemnation of the authority in Al-Najaf and that of the Iraqi people, for the offence caused to the Muslim Prophet" adding that the presence of the Danish forces in Iraq on the pretext that they were helping the Iraqi people is in contradiction with the insult directed at someone who is held in the highest regard by these people".

The Al-Adalah, in its issue on Thursday 2 February, condemned the attacks on Churches in Iraq, saying that it was wrong to link the two issues together as Iraqi Christians had nothing to do with the Danish newspaper.

The independent newspapers concentrated on the effect of this scandal on the Dialogue of Civilizations. Al-Mada newspaper, in a 1 February opinion column, highlighted "the united Islamic and Christian stance in condemning the crime and considering it an act that should not go unpunished". The writer called for looking closely at the great results achieved by the dialogue of civilizations and religions, especially between Muslims and Christian.

Another independent newspaper, Al-Zaman, said in a Saturday 4 February opinion column that the terrible position taken by the Danish media against the prophet was a negative position which came into conflict with the serious Arab Muslim call for dialogue between civilizations. The writer added that the media which was paid by known groups which opposed dialogue between East and West played a part in misleading the public and causing the conflict.

Al-Sabah al-Jadid independent newspaper, in the 5 February edition, published excerpts form a statement made by the Vatican spokesman, in which he said that "coexistence between humans requires a climate of mutual respect in order to encourage peace between people and states" adding that "the freedom of speech does not mean insulting the feelings of religious people".

Al-Sabah newspaper which is government sponsored, said that "if the law in a country allowed a writer or an artist to express their opinion any way they liked, then there was an unwritten law which made it necessary to respect the feelings and beliefs of others, among many other things which may not be covered by the legal system, but should be understood under the moral system". The writer added that "you may have the right to deny the existence of God, but you do not have the right, under any circumstances, to ridicule those who believe in Him". '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Fact File on Reaction to Danish Caricatures

It is being alleged in some quarters that the controversy over the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad is somehow artificial or whipped up months later by the Saudis. This is not true. The controversy began in Denmark itself among the 180,000 Danish Muslims. It was taken up by the ambassadors of Muslim states in Copenhagen. Then the Egyptian foreign minister began making a big deal of it, as did Islamist parties in Turkey and Pakistan. The crisis has unfolded along precisely the sort of networks one would have expected, and become intertwined with all the post-colonial crises of the region, from the foreign military occupation of Iraq to the new instability in Syria and Lebanon.

Below is a press record on the controversy, drawn from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a translation service of the CIA that is later released under various commercial auspices, including BBC World Monitoring and World News Connection.


The Caricatures were published on 30 September in Copenhagen.

They provoked a protest of 5,000 Muslims there soon thereafter.

----------------
"FBIS Analysis Oct 05: Danish Media Back Publication of Cartoons of Mohammad
For assistance with multimedia elements, contact FBIS at 1-800-205-8615 Correction: correcting formatting
Denmark -- FBIS Analysis
Wednesday, October 26, 2005

. . . The media reported on 16 September that a Danish author was unable to find an illustrator for her book on the Prophet Muhammad, since Islam forbids pictorial representations of the prophet and illustrators were afraid of a Muslim backlash.

The conservative daily then asked 40 cartoonists to provide such pictures and it subsequently published all 12 cartoons received in response, some of which depicted the prophet in an unflattering manner. Various Muslim organizations and clerics condemned the daily for this and on 20 October several embassies of Arab and other Muslim states protested to Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen. Meanwhile, an Islamic group called "Holy Brigades in Northern Europe" threatened both and Denmark in general with terrorist retaliation. Both the editor and cultural editor of the newspaper explained their reasons for publishing the cartoons and refused to accept that they had done anything inappropriate.

-- cited editor Carsten Juste saying the publication was a "journalistic project" about self-censorship. Expressing surprise at the Muslim reaction, he denied intending to offend anyone's religious beliefs. The English-language independent daily cited Juste as saying satire and caricature were accepted in Denmark and there should be no "barriers" against such expression. Danish Radio's website quoted him as saying he "could never dream of retracting the pictures" (15, 12, 10 October).

-- cited Jyllands-Posten cultural editor as describing the publication as a reaction to artists and writers censoring their work out of fear of "radical Islamists." She said religious beliefs could not demand special treatment in a secular society (6 October). Other Danish newspapers backed right to publish, but some suggested the cartoons were provocative. One editorial pointed to the possible danger created and urged calm on all sides.

-- Backing the publication of the cartoons, an editorial in the center-right daily described the fear of criticizing Islam as "really destructive" to society, warning "freedom of speech dies from self-censorship." Another editorial called freedom of speech the "fundamental core of Danish democracy" (4, 22 October). . .

--------

Danish Prime Minister Backs Press's Right To Caricature Prophet Muhammad
"Danish PM Touts Freedom of Expression in Muhammad Cartoons Row" -- AFP headline
AFP (North European Service)

Friday, October 21, 2005 T18:26:26Z

COPENHAGEN, Oct 21 (AFP) -- Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Friday ( 21 October) told Muslim diplomats in the country he would not intervene in a row over newspaper caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, citing freedom of expression.
Ambassadors from Arab countries and Pakistan, Iran, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Indonesia wrote a letter to Rasmussen earlier this week, saying they were offended by the 12 cartoons published in Denmark's largest circulation daily on September 30 and demanding an apology from the paper.

Images of the prophet are considered blasphemous under Islam.

Rasmussen said in a written reply, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, that he would not intervene in the affairs but said the diplomats were free to undertake legal proceedings.

"The freedom of expression is the very foundation of the Danish democracy . . . (and) the Danish government has no means of influencing the press," he said.

"However, Danish legislation prohibits acts or expressions of a blasphemous or discriminatory nature. The offended party may bring such acts or expressions to court, and it is for the courts to decide in individual cases," he wrote.

Last week, as many as 5,000 Muslims demonstrated in Copenhagen against the newspaper and the drawings, which depicted Muhammad in different settings. In one of the drawings, he appeared with a turban shaped like a bomb strapped to his head.

The editors of have stood by their cartoons and rejected the demand for an apology.
"We live in a democracy where satire and caricature are generally accepted, and religion should not set limits on that," chief editor Carsten Juste said on Thursday.
Islam is the second religion in Denmark after the Evangelical-Lutheran state church, with some 180,000 members or three percent of the population.
-----------------------

The issue became quickly internationalized, with the embassies of Muslim countries demanding a retraction. by mid-October. PM Fogh-Rasmussen continues to refuse to entertain the complaints. Indeed, he went on the offensive, threatening Danish Muslims with heightened penalites for harassing persons who wrote on religion.

-----------------------------

Danish Prime Minister To Seek Harsher Penalties for Threats to Freedom of Speech
Excerpt from report by Line Prasz: "Harsher Penalties Will Protect Freedom of Speech"
Politiken (Internet Version-WWW)
Tuesday, October 25, 2005 T18:36:27Z

There should be harsher penalties for those who threaten and harass people who exercise their legal rights to make statements about topics such as religion. That is what Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Liberal Party) said in the wake of the trouble over the drawings of the prophet Muhammad.

The government wants to institute harsher penalties for crimes and threats against people who exercise their legal rights to make statements about topics such as religion.

That is what Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a press conference.

"We want to protect freedom of speech in Denmark. We have seen examples of how people have been assaulted and threatened if they expressed themselves, and that is unacceptable," said Fogh Rasmussen.

The specific details of the bill are still uncertain.

Newspaper illustrators threatened with their lives

The bill comes in the wake of the case involving a group of newspaper illustrators who were threatened with their lives after they drew pictures of the prophet Muhammad in.

"It is unacceptable that legal statements can lead to violence and threats," said the prime minister.

Since the drawings were made public on 30 September, 's name has appeared on at least two web sites that glorify violence, which also have pictures of terrorist targets in Denmark with a message stating that "you will soon regret all of this." . . .

(Description of Source: Copenhagen Politiken (Internet Version-WWW) in Danish -- nationwide centrist daily)

----------------------

Then the Danish Muslims tried to invoke Danish law, as Rasmussen initially suggested they do if they thought they had a case.

---------

Danish Muslim Groups Make Complaint to Police Over Mohamed Cartoons
Ritzau Bureau report: "Jyllands-Posten Reported for Racial Discrimination"
Politiken (Internet Version-WWW)
Tuesday, November 1, 2005 T00:57:57Z
Journal Code: 771 Language: ENGLISH Record Type: FULLTEXT
Document Type: FBIS Translated Text
Word Count: 159

Eleven Muslim organizations in Denmark have reported [Jyllands-Posten] to the police for blasphemy and racial discrimination.

The complaint was made to the police in Odense on Thursday ( 27 October) after the paper published 12 cartoons of the prophet Mohamed on 30 September. According to Islam, pictorial representations of Mohamed are not permitted.

Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, the 23-year-old spokesperson for the organizations that made the complaint, told Ritzau Bureau that the complaint to the police is based on the context in which the drawings were published.

"We have based our action on the article that the drawings were published alongside, and the intention of the article. We believe that it was the newspaper's intention to mock and ridicule," Asmaa Abdol-Hamid says.

She refers to the fact that the newspaper's arts editor wrote that Muslims in Denmark must be prepared for insult, mockery, and ridicule.

(Description of Source: Copenhagen Politiken (Internet Version-WWW) in Danish -- nationwide centrist daily)

------------
We have this from Turkey on Nov. 5:

"In a 650-word article entitled "Everything Fine so far But ..." on page 17, Zaman columnist Ahmet Turan Alkan comments on Denmark's reaction to criticisms from some 11 countries including Turkey of a Danish daily's publication of "inappropriate" cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammad. Alkan argues that while Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen is right "on paper" in citing freedom of the press as justification for Jyllands-Posten's publication of the said cartoons because the freedom of religious conviction as described in the EU acquis includes the liberty to practice "sarcasm" as well as the liberty to exercise religious faith, "the problem is not how Rasmussen and those who are of the same opinion as Rasmussen are acting but how we should act in the face of this situation. Such disagreements, which appear to be negligible now, will bring Turkey to a dramatic crossroads at one point in a negotiation process that is projected to last 10-12 years." (Istanbul Zaman (Ankara Edition) in Turkish -- moderate pro-Islamic daily supportive of Nurcu Sect leader Fethullah Gulen -- Root URL: http://www.zaman.com/ http://www.zaman.com)"

-----------

Then other nations besides Pakistan, Iran, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Indonesia got involved, including Egypt. Egypt's government was cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood in the lead-up to the Egyptian elections, so this was a freebie for the secular Mubarak regime. They could pose as defenders of Islam abroad with no domestic cost.

-----------

Egyptian Foreign Minister Says Danish Paper's Cartoons of Prophet 'Disgraceful'
MENA
Monday, November 14, 2005 T18:39:38Z
Journal Code: 659 Language: ENGLISH Record Type: FULLTEXT
Document Type: FBIS Transcribed Text
Word Count: 203

CAIRO, Nov 14 (MENA) - Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit rejected anti-Islam approaches in Denmark, branding them as a scandal.

The foreign minister said that Egypt had confronted this disgraceful act and will continue to confront such insults.

Abul-Gheit said he was keen, during the Future Forum foreign ministerial conference in Bahrain Sunday, on stressing the importance of dialogue among civilisations to avoid what had taken place in Denmark.

Twelve cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad in different settings appeared in Denmark's largest circulation daily Jyllands-Posten on September 30.

The images have drawn criticism across the Muslim minority in Denmark, with religious leaders insisting they are an insult to the prophet and calling for an official apology.

On October 20, Muslim diplomats in Denmark protested against the newspaper caricatures in a letter to Danish Premier Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Egypt is leading a diplomatic movement to prevent repeating such a scandal, said Abul-Gheit, reiterating the importance of dialogue.

Egypt ambassador to Denmark Mona Omar, as well as Arab and Muslim ambassadors, had protested over the drawings, but the Danish government rejected the protest and considered them as part of freedom of expression.
(Description of Source: Cairo MENA in English -- government news agency)

----------

By mid-November it hit Iraq. Al-Najaf al-Balagh, a Shiite newspaper, demanded that the Danish newspaper apologize.

"A 270-word front-page report says that Islamic organizations in Denmark have condemned a Danish newspaper for vilifying the Prophet Muhammad and urged the newspaper to apologize."

----------

Egypt's foreign minister kept the story going in November. This is important because Egypt is a big press center and very influential.

Then it was alleged that a member of the fundamentalist Jama'at-i Islami in Pakistan got into the action, offering a reward to whoever assassinated one of the cartoonists. The Jama'at, which is generally not this radical, denied the report, saying that it believed in a democratic society and so would never do such a thing.

----------

AFP: Denmark Envoy Warns of Pakistani Threat Over Mohammed Cartoons
" Denmark Warns of Pakistani Threat Over Mohammed Cartoons" - AFP headline
AFP
Friday, December 2, 2005 T14:01:45Z
Journal Code: 1001 Language: ENGLISH Record Type: FULLTEXT
Document Type: FBIS Transcribed Text
Word Count: 396

ISLAMABAD, Dec 2 (AFP) - Denmark said Friday it had issued a warning to travellers to Pakistan after fundamentalists reportedly offered a reward for the deaths of cartoonists who drew the prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

Copenhagen altered its travel advisory for the Muslim country after an official from Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami religious party allegedly offered the 500,000-rupee (8,333-dollar) bounty, said Denmark's ambassador to Islamabad, Bent Wigotski.

"We changed our travel advisory on November 17. It mentions the fact that cartoons were printed by a Danish newspaper in September and many Muslims consider them blasphemous and against Islam," Wigotski told AFP.

"We mentioned that the cartoons have been mentioned in Pakistani papers and they have generated death threats against the cartoonists," the envoy added. . . .

The Danish ambassador said the change in the travel advisory was based on a report published in Pakistan's influential Urdu language newspaper Nawa-i-waqt on November 15.

The report said that a member of Jamaat-e-Islami's youth wing named Shahid Pervez Gilani told a rally in Islamabad on November 14 that "anyone who kills the cartoonists will be given a reward of 500,000 rupees (8,333 dollars)."

The party's secretary general Syed Munawar Hassan also addressed the rally, urging Pakistan to "lodge a protest with Denmark and expel its ambassador from the country over the publication of the insulting cartoon".

A spokesman for Jamaat-e-Islami denied offering any reward for the deaths of the cartoonists.

"This is absolutely foolish and baseless news. We do not believe in violence and we never had any such policy because we are a democratic party," spokesman Shahid Shamsi told AFP.

"However, we are strongly against drawing sketches of our Holy Prophet," Shamsi said.
Images of the prophet Mohammed are considered blasphemous under Islam.
Ambassadors of Muslim countries to Denmark protested against the cartoons in October in a letter to the Danish prime minister.

A previously unknown Islamic group called Glory Brigades in Northern Europe also threatened to carry out attacks in the Scandinavian country over the affair, media reported at the time.

(Description of Source: Hong Kong AFP in English -- Hong Kong service of the independent French press agency Agence France-Presse)

------------

Anyway, the allegation that this thing was fanned by Saudi Arabia does not seem to be substantiated by the FBIS record, which shows Egypt's secular foreign minister to have been among the main fanners of the flame. Minor members of youth wings of Islamist parties in places like Pakistan then got into the action. Nor is it true that things were quiet after the immediate publication of the cartoons. Nor is it true that the Danish prime minister or the Jyllands-Posten expressed any sympathy for the hurt feelings of Muslims early on. Indeed, they lectured them on being uncivilized for objecting.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Nearly 2 Dozen Dead in Attacks
US, UK to Seek Long-Term Bases

Bush is asking for yet another commitment of $120 billion for Iraq (and a little of it is for Afghanistan). He does this twice a year, off the regular Federal budget, which has swollen to $2.7 trillion under Bush, hundreds of billions of it borrowed. I.e. our children and grandchildren will be tax slaves paying for Bush's military-industrial establishment. Just to add a little insult to injury, he is cutting back medicare and other domestic programs.

The discovery of 14 dead Sunnis in Baghdad on Saturday prompted warnings of civil war from Sunni clerical authorities and politicians. A prominent member of the (neo-Baathist) National Dialogue Council, Khalaf al-Ilyan, said, ‘The government is pushing hard toward a civil war.’’ The Sunni Arabs believe the young men are being kidnapped by Shiite militias, and sometimes by militiamen who have infiltrated the Interior Ministry's police commando units. A member of the Iraqi Islamic Party (an Iraqi offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood) renewed the threat of a campaign of civil disobedience by Sunnis.
[Correction: Some in Baghdad are saying that these 14 bodies were not newly discovered on Saturday but were the ones that turned up on Thursday, but the NDC and other Muslim parties kicked up a big fuss about it on Saturday.]

The Washington Post has more details on the 14 deaths, and also on a deadly jailbreak by guerrillas at Tikrit.

A Shiite mosque north of Baghdad took mortar fire, killing one and wounding 12.

Also in Iraq on Saturday, a guerrilla opened fire on a crowd of Shiites in Nasiriyah engaged in a religious procession, killing 3. I should signal that this incident is far more serious than it appears on the surface. For a Sunni guerrilla to kill Shiites during this particular religious ritual will inflame passions. A roadside bomb in Kirkuk wounded 5 Iraqi policemen. It can never be pointed out too often Kirkuk is a cauldron of ethnic tensions and a powderkeg in the midst of flying sparks. Incidentally, the Kurds are continuing to invite in foreign companies for oil exploration and development without bothering to check with the federal government in Baghdad.

The London Times reveals that a tribal sheikh in Ramadi who agreed to meet and negotiate with the Americans in December was killed soon after, and that this fate has befallen 2 other tribal leaders. Some of the man's tribe had become supporters of "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" and felt that he was too soft on the Americans.

Scotland on Sunday reports that there are secret British plans to keep a small base near Baghdad with a few hundred troops. It says that the US plans a base outside Baghdad. Some fear that the US and the UK plan to use the bases as leverage for their longterm involvement in the Iraqi petroleum industry. The British base would have a fig leaf as a training facility, it is suggested.

Bases can be important pivots for foreign intervention. The RAF base at Habbaniyah was used that way by Britain in the early twentieth century, and it spearheaded the British recolonization of Iraq during World War II when it successfully resisted an attack by officers who had made a pro-Axis coup.

But I personally doubt that there will still be a US or UK base in Iraq in 10 years. I have probably said this before, but there are no such things as permanent military bases in other countries (the referenced report has "permanent" in its headline). One country can keep a base in another country only by mutual consent. None of the army bases I grew up on still exists, in France or Eritrea. Wheelus Air Force base in Libya is a dim memory. The US naval bases in the Philippines, which seemed eternal, are gone. If the Iraqi parliament asks the UK and the US to leave, they will have to. Japan and South Korea have not done so mainly because of fear of powerful neighbors. No similar dynamic now exists in the Gulf region; Iraqi politicians are not afraid of their neighbors and don't think they need the UK and the US to protect them. Even if Grand Ayatollah Sistani just gave a fatwa against US/UK bases, that would probably be the end of them.

And, think about the composition of the new parliament. The Sadr bloc has at least 32, and the Sadrist Virtue Party has 15, for 47. These Shiite hardliners all want the US and UK out on a short timetable. Then you have 58 Sunni Arabs (National Dialogue Council, Iraqi Accord Front, and Conciliation), who want the US out, as well. That is 105, only 33 seats short of a simple parliamentary majority. There are surely 33 parliamentarians from among the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Dawa Party, or other small Shiite religious parties who want the US out. A parliamentary resolution calling for an early US/UK withdrawal could come within the year. It is also rumored that Sistani's patience with the foreign presence is running out.

Al-Adalah reports that [Ar.] Mithal al-Alusi, who just has one seat in parliament, has explained his reasoning in announcing that he will vote with the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite fundamentalist coalition. He says that the UIA won the largest bloc of seats in parliament, and therefore deserves to form the government. He admits that some aspects of their program are objectionable, but says the objections do not nullify the coalition's victory. Alusi is a sort of Sunni humanist and pluralist, so it is a little unexpected that he says he will vote with the Shiites. One suspects that he hopes thereby to exercise a moderating influence, which is not impossible given that the UIA will be hard pressed to maintain a cobbled-together majority. With Alusi and three seats from other small parties, the UIA has 132. They need 138 for a simple majority.

The NYT reports that petroleum smuggling and control of petroleum are key to funding the guerrilla movement in Iraq. The report also alleges the involvement in high-level oil graft of Mishaan Juburi, a prominent Iraqi Sunni Arab parliamentarian whose small list, the Conciliation and Liberation Bloc, has 3 seats in parliament. Juburi had once been in the running to be speaker of Iraq's new parliament, but was excluded on the grounds that the had once been close to Saddam and was suspected of being currently close to the Syrian Baath Party. He and his son have fled to Syria. The internal Iraqi petroleum wars are the background to the mortar attack last Thursday on processing facilities at Kirkuk, which has further hurt hopes for a turnaround in Iraqi production this year.

The NYT's report draws the veil away from an important and little-reported corner of the guerrilla movement-- its connections to prominent Sunni Arabs behind the scenes and its access to revenues from smuggled petroleum. One reason the Jaafari government gave for tripling fuel prices was that it would reduce the revenues the guerrillas could raise from smuggling petroleum products abroad.

The Washington Post is more cautious about the allegations against Juburi than the NYT, pointing out that the condemnation was led by Dawa Party apparatchik Jawad al-Maliki.* Ellen Knickmeyer quotes a US military official saying he did not think Juburi was heavily involved with the tribal levies that had been raised to guard pipelines, and she keeps an open mind as to whether the charges against Juburi are trumped up.

The good news is that Yemen is trying 14 men accused of going off to Iraq to join jihadis and kill Americans. The bad news is that fourteen dangerous al-Qaeda operatives were among the 23 inmates who staged a jailbreak. Among those who fled are the perpetrators of the attack on the USS Cole. This one, for me, is personal. Al-Hayat worries that the escape will damage security relations between Yemen and the US.

A UN study of post-conflict situations suggests that the Americans are not doing it right in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iran is pursuing industrial cooperation with Iraq, even to the point of planning factories there. I doubt Iraq could afford to join in a UN economic boycott of Iran if any such thing materializes.

Iraq is plagued by a cement shortage, according to the SF Chronicle. The problems in production come in part from guerrilla sabotage of fuel and electricity.

Henry T. Azzam discusses the investment climate in the Middle East in the light of the Hamas win in Palestine, the continued instability in Iraq, and the prospect of economic sanctions on Iran. He brings up the possibility of $90 a barrel petroleum. Ouch.


------

*I had written in the first draft "pointing out that the arrest warrant for him was issued by" which was a misreading. The warrant was issued by a judge.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Muslim Protests Against Anti-Muhammad Caricatures

Several readers have asked what I think about the protests among Muslims against the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper.

Of course people are upset when their sacred figures are attacked! But the hurt is magnified many times when the party doing the injuring is first-world, and the injured have a long history of being ruled, oppressed and marginalized. Moreover, most Muslims live in societies with strong traditions of state censorship, so they often assume that if something appears in the press, the government allowed it to do so and is therefore culpable.

Westerners cannot feel the pain of Muslims in this instance. First, Westerners mostly live in secular societies where religious sentiments have themselves been marginalized. Second, the Muslims honor Moses and Jesus, so there is no symmetry between Christian attacks on Muhammad and Muslim critiques of the West. No Muslim cartoonist would ever lampoon the Jewish and Christian holy figures in sacred history, since Muslims believe in them, too, even if they see them all as human prophets. Third, Westerners have the security of being the first world, with their culture coded as "universal," and widely respected and imitated. Cultures like that of the Muslims in the global South receive far less respect. Finally, societies in the global South are less policed and have less security than in Western Europe or North America, allowing greater space to violent vigilateism, which would just be stopped if it were tried in the industrialized democracies. (Even wearing a t-shirt with the wrong message can get you arrested over here.)

What Muslims are saying is that depicting Muhammad with a bomb in his turban is insupportable. It is often assumed that in the West we believe in free speech, so there is nothing that is insupportable.

But that simply is not true. Muslims mind caricatures of Muhammad because they view him as the exemplar of all that is good in human beings. Most Western taboos are instead negative ones, not disallowal of attacks on symbols of goodness but the questioning of symbols of evil.

Thus, it is insupportable to say that the Nazi ideology was right and to praise Hitler. In Germany if one took that sort of thing too far one would be breaking the law. Even in France, Bernard Lewis was fined for playing down the Armenian holocaust. It is insupportable to say that slavery was right, and if you proclaimed that in the wrong urban neighborhoods, you could count on a violent response.

So once you admit that there are things that can be said that are insupportable, then the Muslim feelings about the caricatures become one reaction in an entire set of such reactions.

But you don't have to look far for other issues that would exercise Westerners just as much as attacks on Muhammad do Muslims. In secular societies, a keen concern with race often underlies ideas of social hierarchy. Thus, any act that might bring into question the superiority of so-called white people in their own territory can provoke demonstrations and even violence such as lynchings. consider the recent Australian race riots, which were in part about keeping the world ordered with whites on top.

Had the Danish newspaper published antisemitic cartoons that showed, e.g., Moses as an exploitative money lender and brought into question the Holocaust, there would also have been a firestorm of protest. For the secular world, the injuries and unspoken hierarchies of race are what cannot be attacked.

Muslims are not, as you will be told, the only community that is touchy about attacks on its holy figures or even just ordinary heros. Thousands of Muslims were killed in the early 1990s by enraged Hindus in India over the Ayodhya Mosque, which Hindus insisted was built on the site of a shrine to a Hindu holy figure. No one accuses Hindus in general of being unusually narrowminded and aggressive as a result. Or, the Likudniks in Israel protested the withdrawal from Gaza, and there were dark mutterings about what happened to Rabin recurring in the case of Sharon. The "sacred" principle at stake there is just not one most people in the outsider world would agree with the Likudniks about.

Human beings are all alike. Where they are distinctive, it comes out of a special set of historical circumstances. The Muslims are protesting this incident vigorously, and consider the caricatures insupportable. We would protest other things, and consider them insupportable.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

George "Gen. Jack Ripper" Bush

Another leaked British memo ("everywhere you dig you find a body") reveals that Bush and Blair sat around on January 31, 2003, thinking up crazy schemes to provoke a war with Saddam since they didn't have any real casus belli.

What is worse, the memo confirms that our genius president knew about the dangers of messing with Iraq's internal stability and did it anyway.

'There was also a discussion of what might happen in Iraq after Saddam had been overthrown. President Bush said that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups". '

So this means someone could make a lot of money by finding out on which team Bush is betting to win the Superbowl, and putting a bundle on the other team.

Revised: For all the world like a latter day Gen. Jack Ripper as depicted in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, Bush was going to fly a US spy plane over Iraq painted in UN colors, in hopes Saddam would have it shot down, so as to provoke a war (and 'protect our precious bodily fluids?'). This crackpot idea suggests the truth of the rumors that Bush never really did give up drinking heavily (or maybe it can only be explained by doing lines). Its context is explained by a kind reader who wrote in about my initial puzzlement to say:

' The Bush administration did get Saddam to agree to allow U2 flyovers under the nominal control of UNMOVIC in February. It seems likely that they expected Saddam to refuse, thus provide a suitable excuse for war. When he didn't, they upped the ante by sending two at once in mid-March. The Iraqis still refused to shoot at them and instead complained through official channels. '

Bush also still hoped that Scooter Libby and Ahmad Chalabi could produce a defector out of a hat who would testify to Saddam's weapons of mass destruction stockpile. I suppose this desperate measure was made unnecessary by the discovery that Colin Powell would be willing just to read out Libby's science fiction novel about sinister aluminum tubes and an Iraq armed to the teeth before the UN Security Council.

The memo also makes clear that Bush and Blair had already decided to go to war no matter what, regardless of the United Nations Security Council. Bush had "pencilled in" March 10 (was it an item in his social calendar?) Blair committed to the plan, though he preferred a second UNSC resolution. That he committed in advance is embarrassing to him, since he only received British parliamentary approval to so commit on March 18, a month and a half later. Blair's office refused to comment on the memo, discussed in a new edition of Philippe Sands's Lawless World.

According to The Independent:

' George Bush considered provoking a war with Saddam Hussein's regime by flying a United States spyplane over Iraq bearing UN colours, enticing the Iraqis to take a shot at it, according to a leaked memo of a meeting between the US President and Tony Blair.

The two leaders were worried by the lack of hard evidence that Saddam Hussein had broken UN resolutions, though privately they were convinced that he had. According to the memorandum, Mr Bush said: "The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

He added: "It was also possible that a defector could be brought out who would give a public presentation about Saddam's WMD, and there was also a small possibility that Saddam would be assassinated." The memo damningly suggests the decision to invade Iraq had already been made when Mr Blair and the US President met in Washington on 31 January 2003 ­ when the British Government was still working on obtaining a second UN resolution to legitimise the conflict.

The leaders discussed the prospects for a second resolution, but Mr Bush said: "The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'. But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway." He added that he had a date, 10 March, pencilled in for the start of military action. The war actually began on 20 March.

Mr Blair replied that he was "solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam." But he also insisted that " a second Security Council resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected, and international cover, including with the Arabs" .

Andy McSmith notes that the memo contradicts the allegation in the memoirs of Christopher Meyers, the British ambassador in Washington at that time, that Blair had missed an opportunity to convince Bush to seek a second UNSC resolution. Obviously, Bush's mind and long before been made up.

The parade of leaked British memos that have gradually emerged paint an increasingly detailed picture of Bush and Blair as Machiavellian warmongers-- fully aware of the illegal character of their enterprise, cynical about the United Nations Security Council, and fully apprised of the profound dangers that might ensue, but determined to attack aggressively nevertheless, and to propagandize and to twist the truth until neither any longer knew where it lay.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Shiite control of Interior a Red Line

Al-Zaman reports [Ar.] that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is still determined to try to obtain for his faction of the Shiite religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, the prime ministership. His candidate is Adil Abdul Mahdi, who is running against Dawa Party leader Ibrahim Jaafari, the current prime minister. The two will lobby parliamentarians this weekend with dueling, lavish banquets. There will likely be an up and down vote by the UIA on the nomination, though its exact details have yet to be worked out. The formation of a new government is moving at a glacial pace, and it may take months.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat [Ar.] says that its sources in the Kurdistan Alliance say that the Kurds are tilting toward Abdul Mahdi as prime minister. The Kurds would also prefer that powerful cabinet posts such as Interior and Defense go to technocrats not affiliated with a party or militia.

The problem is that, as noted below, the Shiites are saying that their control of Interior is a "red line" that cannot be crossed.

Revised: The Shiites can probably retain the Interior Ministry if they bargain hard with the Kurds, although in this parliament and for the next 4 years it is necessary to get a 2/3s majority to elect a president who will then appoint a prime minister. (In 2009, it will be possible to elect a president on a second round with just 51 percent; sorry to have gotten this wrong in the first edition of this posting today, and thanks to Andrew Arato for the correction.) The Shiite religious coalition just needs 138 parliamentarians to vote with them to run the government on their own, which is itself a bargaining chip in the formation of an initial government. They have 132 (128 UIA, 2 Sadrist Risaliyun, 1 Christian and 1 other). If they can make a sufficiently sweet offer to the Yazidi MP and to the 5 Kurdish Islamists, they'd have their 51%. The Kurdish Islamists are apparently saying that they won't vote with the Kurdistan Alliance (see below), which suggests that they are available for a deal with the Shiite religious parties. It would be a mere marriage of convenience, but couldn't be ruled out.

Al-Zaman also reports that guerrillas detonated a bomb in Mosul aimed at a passing American convoy, but missed and killed a number of civilians instead, as well as badly damaging buildings. Two bodies were discovered in Mosul, those of a student and an unidentified civilian. A former Baath military commander was assassinated.

There is some sort of deep dark conspiracy involved in the stationing of 120 Bulgarian troops at the Ashraf base in Iraq to guard 4000 members of the Iranian dissident terrorist cult, the Mojahedin-e Khalq [MEK]. The group was used by Saddam to blow things up in Iran, and has been defended by Neocons in the US such as Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson. The Iraqi Shiites want it out of Iraq, but instead the Pentagon has kept it in place. A lot of the phony intelligence about alleged Iranian nuclear weapons programs is manufactured by the MEK, which has bought a number of powerful US senators and congressmen.

Scroll down at the link above and read the article about the UPI article about the Lord's Resistance Army, a Christian cult that has terrorized Uganda and kidnapped 20,000 children. People keep asking me why Muslim movements are more destructive than those in other religions. But the people who ask that have never bothered to read about groups such as the LRA, which is as "Christian" as al-Qaeda is "Muslim" or Aum Shinrikyo is "Buddhist."

From BBC World Monitoring of the Iraqi Press for Jan. 31:

' Al-Bayyinah on 29 January carries on the front page a 700-word exclusive report citing well-informed sources confirming that Iraqi National Bloc candidates Rasim al-Awwadi and Asim al-Janabi have requested Talabani to exclude them from the de-Ba'thification process. The report cites Adil al-Lami confirming that IECI is obliged to follow De-Ba'thification Committee's decisions in this regard.

Al-Bayyinah on 29 January runs on the front page a 340-word exclusive report citing Unified Iraqi Coalition Candidate Jawad al-Maliki confirming that the coalition will announce the mechanism for the nomination of the next prime minister during its meeting today. When asked about Zalmay Khalilzad's recent statement, Al-Maliki said: "We reject all forms of interference." . . .

Al-Bayyinah on 29 January publishes on page two a 270-word exclusive report citing Unified Iraqi Coalition Candidate Hasan al-Sari confirming that parliament's opening session will be held within 15 days after the endorsement of the election results . . .

Al-Adalah carries on the front page a 120-word report citing Interior Minister Baqir Jabr Sulagh confirming that Unified Iraqi Coalition will retain more than half the ministerial posts in the next government . . .

Al-Zaman publishes on the front page a 350-word exclusive report citing Unified Iraqi Coalition Candidate Hadi al-Amiri confirming that the coalition regards Interior Ministry as a "red line". . .

Dar al-Salam on 29 January carries on the front page a 120-word report citing Kurdistan Islamic Union member Hamid Muhammad Ali refusing to join Kurdistan Coalition . . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on page two a 1,200-word report that Al-Sadr Trend rejects federalism in south and central regions, and has asserted the necessity of respecting the honour document signed earlier. . .

Al-Mashriq devotes all of page six to the survey conducted by the newspaper regarding the religious fatwa that encouraged Iraqis to participate in the elections. The survey shows that 80 per cent of Iraqis were affected by these fatwas, 15 per cent were secular, and the remaining 5 per cent took part because they wanted to be part of this political process . . .

Al-Bayyinah on 29 January devotes all of pages eight and nine to an interview with Women's Affairs Minister Dr Azhar al-Shaykhli on the ministry's activities and goals and women's role in the political process. . .

Al-Ittijah al-Akhar on 28 January runs on page four an 800-word report entitled "Unprecedented Deterioration in Iraq's Security Situation".

Al-Ittijah al-Akhar on 28 January publishes on page eight a 400-word report on the postponement of National Conciliation Conference. . .

Al-Bayyinah on 29 January publishes on the front page a 130-word report citing well-informed sources accusing local and foreign parties of financing Islamic Army, a newly formed militia responsible for the assassination of Shi'is in Iraq. The report accuses former Defence Minister Hazim al-Sha'lan's followers of selling conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction to unknown parties . . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page three a 500-word report citing Al-Najaf Artifacts Director Muhammad Hadi Bidan confirming the arrest of seven smugglers and the seizure of 174 historical artifacts. He explained that they were planning to sell the artifacts to multinational troops in Al-Diwaniyah. . .

Al-Zaman runs on page five a 400-word report on the demonstration organized by Wasit Advisory Council today, 30 January, to protest the random killings by multinational forces . . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on the front page a 50-word report that USAID has predicted serious deterioration in the security situation in Iraq despite optimism of Iraqi officials in Ministry of Interior. . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page three a 400-word report citi ng Basra environment director confirming that 70 per cent of Basra's untreated sewage goes into Shat al-Arab, which is the main source for drinking water.

Al-Zaman carries on page three a 300-word report citing Ninawah Jurists Union Chairman Abd-al-Sattar al-Baku'a praising Al-Karkh Court's decision to rule out Justice Ministry's decision to dissolve Iraqi Lawyers Association. . .

Al-Furat carries on the front page a 250-word report citing chairman of Pro-Children's Rights Association in Basra saying that his association conducted a symposium on the shortage in medicines in Basra at Basra Public Hospital. . .

Tariq al-Sha'b devotes all of page four to a report citing pharmacists commenting on medicines being sold on roads and drug addiction.

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on page nine a 700-word report citing pharmacists in Basra complaining about the shortage in medicines because some gangs smuggle them to neighbouring countries. . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on page four a 200-word report that 200,000 poor families in Baghdad are being covered by the social care system. . . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page two a 300-word report citing Deputy Governor Abd-al-Husayn Abtan confirming 90 per cent completion of the construction of Al-Najaf Airport. The report cites Al-Najaf Governor As'ad Abu Kalal outlining the results of his recent visit to India. . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page three a 1,000-word report entitled "Diyala University's Students and Professors: We Live between the Hammer of Deteriorating Security and Anvil of Electricity Outages." . . .

Al-Ittijah al-Akhar on 28 January devotes all of pages 34 and 35 to an article by Dr Rif'at Sayyid Ahmad on the deteriorating Iraqi economy due to "occupation."

Al-Mu'tamar carries on page two a 500-word report citing Industry and Minerals Ministry's Undersecretary Adil Karim Ahmad saying that the ministry has prepared plans to privatize its companies and factories. He added that the ministry will construct 20 cement factories. . .

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on page two a 230-word report citing director general of Integrity Commission in Ninawah saying that the increase in crude oil transport costs from Bayji refineries to Ibrahim al-Khalil Complex is because terrorists take their shares from drivers.

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on page two an 80-word report citing a press source saying that Karbala is devoid of electricity since Friday. . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on page five a 350-word report that Iraq's oil exports are expected to drop to 1.1m barrels per day, the lowest since the latest war. . .

Al-Bayyinah on 29 January publishes on page three a 1,400-word article by Salman al-Shammari entitled "Effective Parliament and Strong Parliamentary Opposition," saying that it is not wise for all forces to participate in the government. . .

Al-Bayyinah on 29 January publishes on page four a 750-word unattributed article criticizing Sunni clerics and religious organizations for not condemning terrorist attacks against Shi'is.

Al-Bayyinah on 29 January runs on page four a 1,000-word article by Arif al-Jawahiri entitled "Unified Iraqi Coalition Rejects Maram Front's Call for Sectarian Proportional Power Sharing Government." . . .

Al-Bayyinah on 29 January runs on page 10 a 1,000-word article by Nadir al-Khazraji discussing federalism and proposing the formation of two federal blocs in Iraq: Kurdistan and Arab federal bloc. . .

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Guerrillas Kill 37 Iraqis wound 90; 5 GIs Killed
Muqtada Threatens "The Most Violent Response" to US Attack

Guerrillas set off two bombs in the al-Amin quarter of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 16 persons and wounding 90 others at a market and near a gas station. Al-Hayat [Ar.] reports that violence killed altogether 37 Iraqis in a "Bloody Thursday." It is not clear whether that number includes 19 bodies, three of them police,and most discovered yesterday in East Baghdad. Also, the woman who is general director in the Ministry of Industry was kidnapped.

A US helicopter gunship fired a rocket into Sadr City on Thursday, killing a young woman and wounding 5 others. The US military maintains that the helicopter had taken fire from the ground. Sadr City is a stronghold of Muqtada al-Sadr, who is calling for US military withdrawal from Iraq and who has a substantial bloc of delegates in the new parliament. Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that [Ar.] Muqtada threatened the Americans with "the most violent of responses" over the incident. The fighting lasted 2 hours. Aside from the death and injuries, several houses were damaged. The Sadr movement issued a communique condemned the "terrorist US attacks." It spoke of several women and children being hurt and then added, "these operations will be met with the most violent response if they continue, from the oppressed masses . . ."

Nir Rosen, who has actually met Muqtada al-Sadr, assesses his new role as kingmaker in Iraq at Salon.com.

Guerrillas had used small arms fire and roadside bombs to kill 5 GIs on Wednesday in separate incidents, one at Fallujah. Wasn't the slogan that Fallujah was the safest place in Iraq after the US reduced it to rubble?

AP says that there is still no sign of a new Iraqi government, even though it is February and the election was held last December. Such long periods of political gridlock have in the past given an opening to the guerrillas, and this phenomenon seems to be repeating itself.

An official in the Coalition Provisional Authority, Robert Stein, has admitted to stealing $2 million, and to taking bribes for giving out contracts. Some $8.8 billion is unaccounted for from the CPA period, so only 8.798 billion is left to clear up.

The US military really should avoid shooting up the cars of ambassadors in Iraq, more particularly those of allies like Canada. The Canadians are taking over security duties in Qandahar in AFghanistan, and really are allies.

Christiane Amanpour thinks things are getting "worse and worse" in Iraq. Given that daily attacks are up from 55 per day to 77 per day over a year ago, and given that Baghdad (1/4 of the population) is being starved of fuel and electricity, and given that the Sunni Arabs rejected the constitution and are threatening to launch a civil disobedience campaign on top of the guerrilla war, I don't see in what way her statement is controversial.

It is a measure of the fantasy world in which about 40 percent of Americans live that her statement is even a matter for comment. As for the charge that her views might affect her reporting, no one on the right is complaining about all those gung ho reporters who went to Iraq in 2003 believing it was a noble endeavor. Wouldn't that philosophy have affected their reporting of the war? In fact, don't Fox Cable News reporters get pressure from their editors and from Rupert to constantly downplay the guerrilla war in Iraq and to find silver linings in this mess? And Christiane, who has reported on wars all over the world and knows the Middle East like the back of her hand is the one who is out of line?
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sunni Arab Politicians threaten Civil Disobedience

At least 14 were killed in bombings and violence in Iraq on Wednesday. One bomb targeting Shiites killed 8 in Baghdad. Two Iraqi television journalists were kidnapped.

Sunni Arab politicians in Iraq demanded on Wednesday that the Shiite minister of interior be sacked, and threatened to mount a campaign of civil disobedience if their community does not cease being attacked. The BBC summarizes the demands of the Iraqi Islamic Party (an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood):

'* Deployment of the Iraqi army to protect the citizens of Baghdad
* Dismissal of the interior minister and his senior aides
* Suspension of the tasks of the Interior Ministry security units, "which target innocent people on the pretext of pursuing terrorists"
* Disbanding of militias
* End of "random" arrest campaigns
* Release of all prisoners at prisons run by the Iraqi government
* Release of all prisoners in the prisons run by multi-national forces, "especially women"
* Publication of the findings of the investigation conducted into the Jadiriya detention facility, where 170 prisoners, some showing signs of apparent torture, were found by US troops in November.'

On the other hand, the Sunni Arabs have produced people who blow up Iraqis, and thre may be a sense in which a civil disobedience campaign would be an improvement.

This article in a Bahrain daily argues that a lot of Iraqis were dismayed by Bush's pledge to stay the course, since they feel that the situation would be better if US troops withdrew. (This view is supported by opinion polls. A majority of Iraqis wanted US troops out after the Dec. 15 elections.)

This article talks about proliferation of Iraqi satellite channels, many of which have a strong sectarian or ethnic agenda and which are accused of spreading hatred of other groups.

Jim Krane of AP explores the ways in which the Iraqi guerrilla movement succeeded in stopping a majority of some kinds of reconstruction projects, and in scaring away civilian contractors.

Ferry Biederman of the Financial Times discusses the isolation of the US military and officials from the real Iraq, and the unrealistic expectations it breeds.

But, in response to one of the US officers, I have to say that it is not fair to speak of "age-old" conflicts in Iraq. There wasn't a lot of Sunni-Shiite violence in modern Iraq until recently.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Arguing with Bush

The Middle East portion of Bush's State of the Union address was a real disappointment. Here is some of the text, with my comments.

' In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today there are 122.

And we are writing a new chapter in the story of self-government, with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink, and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom . . .'

It is the height of hubris to speak about "self-government" in Iraq. The US is running the place and this is "self-government"? The US puts enormous pressure on them about who is acceptable as prime minister and how they have to write their constitution, and has 136,000 troops running around with tanks and constant aerial bombing. This is "self-government"? Moreover, elections in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lebanon and Egypt are not a "new chapter." They've had parliamentary elections before. Lebanon has been having them for decades, and they've often been pretty representative. In Iraq and Afghanistan foreign interference had a lot to do with the rise of subsequent dictatorships. This idea that the Middle East is a blank slate that never knew what a parliament was before Bush and Cheney showed up is insulting. And, calling the government set up under imperial auspices after an illegal invasion "self-government" is laughable.

Finally, the elections that Bush trumpets in all four countries, and in Palestine, which he did not mention in this regard, were rebukes to Bush, not affirmations of him. The Afghans elected warlords, the Iraqis put in the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Muqtada al-Sadr's people (the ones who killed Cindy Sheehan's son) along with the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood and some Baathists. The Shiite parties of Hizbullah and Amal have new weight in Lebanon. The fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt got 88 seats, an unprecedentedly large number.

These elections were Middle Eastern referendums on Bush, and he lost every one hands down. Bush's main accomplishment in the Middle East since 9/11 has been to strengthen Muslim fundamentalist parties everywhere in the region.

' BUSH: And one of the main sources of reaction and opposition is radical Islam; the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death.

Terrorists like bin Laden are serious about mass murder and all of us must take their declared intentions seriously.

They seek to impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder.

Their aim is to seize power in Iraq and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world. '

Bin Laden can't seize any part of Iraq. That is ridiculous.

more later . . .
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

How to Tell if Bush is Serious about Ending US Dependence on Foreign Petroleum

Bush said last night he wanted to end the dependence of the United States on foreign petroleum. That is not the right goal, since if we just burned coal and ran electric cars we could be independent. But we'd accelerate global warming and give ourselves black lung.

The goal should be vastly reducing our use of hydrocarbons. Global warming is going to drown a lot of our coastal areas and send hurricanes on more of our cities if it keeps accelerating this way. Once the arctic shelves go into the drink and the ocean heats up sufficiently, you could have a rise in sea level of 20 feet. New Orleans, as bad as it was, would look like a picnic in comparison with this level of catastrophe.

The way you could tell Bush was serious would be if he ordered the Pentagon to use green sources of energy where possible. If a major US bureacracy spent even a few billions on things like solar power and electric vehicles, there would be technological breakthroughs and prices would plummet.

Or Bush could rescind some of his tax cuts for the super-rich and use the money as incentive for green energy.

But as long as Bush, who is as he keeps reminding us, the chief executive officer of the US government, doesn't even require his own employees to try to use less petroleum, then all he is doing is mouthing plattitudes he stole from Al Gore and John Kerry, without intending to do more than flap his lips.

In the old SPD/Green government in Germany, substantial strides were made toward profitable solar power companies, because of government investment and support. That is what a real energy policy would look like, Mr. Bush. Get one.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

14 Bodies in Baghdad
US Talks with Guerrillas Halted

Altogether 14 dead bodies showed up in the capital of Baghdad on Tuesday, all shot in what were probably sectarian reprisals. Four Iraqi troops were killed in a clash with guerrillas. A British soldier was killed.

A new poll shows that nearly half of Iraqis approve of attacks on US troops, and almost all Sunni Arabs do. Most Iraqis want the US military out of their country within 6 months to 2 years. Over 70 percent of Sunni Arabs want them out within 6 months. Most Iraqis fear that the US seeks permanent bases in Iraq. Most feel, however, that if the US withdrew, the new Iraqi government could govern the country.

Al-Zaman reports that its sources in Damascus tell it that the secret negotiations [Ar.] between the US military and the Sunni Arab guerrilla leaders, conducted via intermediaries, have broken down and been suspended. The guerrillas made an unalterable demand that the US set a timetable for withdrawing its troops from Iraq. The US, which had offered them a place in the new government if they would lay down their arms, refused to set such a timetable.

The negotiations never had a chance to widen to the whole guerrilla movement. The persons to whom the US was speaking said that would cease their attacks if the US would sign a binding treaty guaranteeing the unity, sovereignty and independence of Iraq, in addition to a withdrawal timetable. They also demanded that the old Iraqi army be completely reconstituted and rearmed just as it had been. They also wanted compensation for damages. They said it would not be involved in politics. They wanted elections supervised directly by the United Nations. They demanded that all laws be abrogated that reflected foreign influence or contributed to a possible break-up of the country. They demanded that all militias of the religious parties be dissolved, especially those in the Shiite south.

Al-Hayat maintains [Ar.] that the Scorpion Brigade, a unit of the Shiite-dominated ministry of the interior, has made a deal with the chiefs of the major clans in northern Babil province, a guerrilla hotspot. They will be guaranteed the sanctity of their property if they cooperate in curbing guerrilla actions in that area. They have formed popular committees for this purpose. The tribes or clans include Al-Gharir, al-Shujayriyah, al-Sa`id, al-Janabiyin, Humayyir, Al-Bu `Alwan, Al-Bu Mustafa, Khafajah, al-`Awadiyin, Al-Shibl, and al-Kuray`at. Most of them are heavily Sunni.

Al-Zaman reports the death of Idris al-Hajj Da'ud, a member of the Iraqi Accord Front in Mosul, of a heart attack. Born in that city in 1934, he was the founder of the Mosul Muslim Brotherhood with Shaikh Muhammad Mahmud al-Sawaf. The Iraqi Islamic Party, of which he was a leading member after the fall of Saddam, is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had been founded in Egypt. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has done well in recent elections. In Palestine, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood is known as Hamas, and recently swept to power in parliament. The latter development is decried by the Bush administration, but it welcomed Sunni Muslim fundamentalists' participation in the recent elections in Iraq.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari yesterday appointed Hashim al-Hashimi (Virtue Party) the interim Petroleum Minister, adding it to his earlier portfolio as ministry of tourism. (I suppose he must have had time on his hands.)

Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, who resigned as petroleum minister, told al-Zaman [the Times of Baghdad] [Ar.] that the oil ministry has become an object of competition among the rivals for the post of prime minister. Al-Zaman asked him if the Sadrist Virtue [Fadhilah] Party had tried so hard to get the ministry of petroleum--despite the short time any new ministry would have to serve-- because it hoped to keep the portfolio in the next government. Bahr al-Ulum said he would not rule it out. The ministry of petroleum is the backbone of the Iraqi state, he said, and decried the lively competition for it within the UIA.

Al-Zaman asked Bahr al-Ulum if Jaafari gave the interim minister of petroleum portfolio to the Virtue Party in a bid to seal its support of his own candidacy to be prime minister. Virtue or Fadhila has 15 seats in the religious Shiite alliance that will dominate parliament. Again, Bahr al-Ulum said that the state of Iraqi politics is such that it is plausible that Jaafari made this move (i.e. used the advantages of incumbency for influence peddling).

Bahr al-Ulum had originally been a member of the Virtue Party, but resigned as minister of petroleum in protest against last December's decision to triple the price of petroleum for Iraqis, removing some government price supports. The Virtue Party leadership, an associate of Bahr al-Ulum's charged, deeply disliked this move. After Bahr al-Ulum had been removed and then reinstated, Fadhilah asked him to resign yet again. They feared Jaafari would appoint an interim minister from some other party and Virtue would forfeit its claim on the post. He said that Ahmad Chalabi was perhaps one beneficiary of the shake-up.

He decried the lack of vision among the Iraqi political parties, which led them to squabble over such positions.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.