Kabul Bombing Kills at Least 10
Zawahiri Condemns Pope

At least 10 are dead and 54 wounded in a bombing at the Ministry of the Interior on Saturday in Kabul. (Update: The death toll is rising. Karzai blamed it on foreign elements.

For those who want to read more about what has gone wrong in Afghanistan, the well thought of Senlis Council report on the return of the Taliban is here.

In a separate incident a guerrilla bomb killed a Canadian soldier. This was the tenth killing of a Canadian soldier this month.

A new videotape of Ayman al-Zawahiri has surfaced on the internet. He taunts Bush and dismissed Pope Benedict as ntothing more than a crusader.
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Sudden Curfew in Baghdad

The Iraqi government has imposed a curfew on Baghdad. Some reports say it is for 24 hours. This one maintains that it is for 3 days. For those who haven't lived through them, it is worth noting that such curfews can be huge inconveniences. If you haven't stocked enough food and water, too bad. And, for people who need the money, missing work is a catastrophe. The move was abrupt and caught some Iraqi and US officials by surprise. Several hundred bodies have shown up dead in Baghdad's streets in the past week.

Congress placed restrictions on the Bush administration in its Defense Department appropriations bill, forbidding permanent bases in Iraq or trying to control the Iraqi petroleum sector. Many in Congress feel that the guerrilla movement is fueled in part by anxieties over American intentions with regard to these two issues.

16 died in guerrilla war violence in Iraq on Friday. Among the deaths, 10 bodies were found, mostly in Baghdad but some in Suwayra.

The prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government has threatened to secede from Iraq if the federal government will not recognize the oil contracts signed by the regional confederacy with Western petroleum companies. Baghdad was not consulted on these deals, and Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani has begun insisting that the central government does have some prerogatives in this regard.
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100 Dead in Iraq on Thursday;
Including 60 Bodies found in Baghdad

Reuters reports almost 40 persons killed in political violence as a result of Iraq's civil war on Thursday. Guerrillas set off several bomb attacks and fired mortars inside Baghdad, accounting for a number of the deaths.

In addition, Police found 60 bodies in various parts of Baghdad, showing signs of torture. They were victims of Sunni-Shiite sectarian reprisal killings. The inability of the current "Forward Together" campaign by the US and Iraqi militaries in Baghdad to deter this widespread murder and lawlessness suggests that the problem is long-term and intractable now.

The US military is complaining that the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is impeding their efforts to take on the Shiite militias that are behind many of these death squad attacks. Al-Maliki came to power with the support of the Sadr Movement and the Mahdi Army, which are prime suspects in the deaths of Sunni Arabs. The US is convinced that the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, both Shiite militias are behind a lot of the "war of the corpses" in Baghdad.

Two thirds of Americans say that Iraq is in civil war. Nearly 40 percent of the public said that they did not have a clear idea why the US was in Iraq in the first place.

A new University of Maryland poll found that 71 percent of Iraqis want US troops out by September, 2007. Some 60 percent of Iraqis support attacks on US troops. Since the Sunni Arabs are about 20 percent of the populations, and since the Kurds are very positive toward the US, I figure that this poll result means that the other 40% of Iraqis who support attacks on US troops are Shiites. Shiites make up around 60 percent of the Iraqi population, which means that two-thirds of Shiites support attacks on Americans!

Another recent poll found that 90 percent of Iraqis say that they would not want an American for a neighbor.

If counter-insurgency is about winning hearts and minds, then the US has lost Iraq pretty definitively, if these polling results are at all accurate.

Bob Woodward points out that Iraqis attack US troops on an average once every 15 minutes. There are 900 attacks a week, and it is expected to get worse in 2007. Woodward says that the Bush administration routinely hides from the US public the severity of the problems in Iraq.

Bush accused the Democrats of being the party of "cut and run," on Thursday. But when you are losing a guerrilla war, you should begin considering an orderly retreat. Otherwise you will be stuck in an ever worsening quagmire.

Look at when the British withdrew from Kenya. The Mau Mau revolt and other political violence sudddenly went away. Likewise in the 60s when the French withdrew from Algeria. The longer the US is the military occupier in Iraq, the more likely it is that American lives will be endangered.

Guerrilla sabotage of petroleum facilities has cost Iraq $16 billion in the past two years. Iraq has only been able to pump 1.7 million barrels per day in September, suggesting that the Kirkuk pipeline is closed again and that even down south at Basra something is impeding exports. In August, they did 2.2 million barrels a day, but that apparently could not be sustained. Under the old Baath government, Iraq used to pum 2.8 to 3 mn. barrels per day.

Senior British military officers have been arguing for a British withdrawal from southern Iraq in favor of concentrating on the mission in Afghanistan. It is rare for senior officers to challenge an entire mission. In my view, British impatience to leave southern Iraq reflects a realization that the Shiite south is likely to go on being dominated by Shiite religious parties and militias, and nothing they do is likely to change that outcome. Moreover, since those parties dominate the central government, they are allies on paper, at least, and it is difficult to take them on even if they misbehave (as the Mahdi Army often does).

China says it is interested in resuming oil cooperation with Iraq. You betcha. China has been growing at 10 percent a year and is extremely oil and gas hungry. Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani has signalled that Iraq will honor the deal the Baath government struck with China for development of the small al-Ahdab field.

The news that the Iraqi government seems willing to forge ahead with oil deals, even if they are with China, was said to give heart to the US oil majors, suggesting that they might not be far froms striking some new deals themselves.

The civilian contracting companies that were supposed to do reconstruction in Iraq often did not do it very well, even though they were very well paid for it.

Tom Engelhardt has George W. Bush's Iraq in 21 questions.
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3 GIs Killed;
Over 80 Dead in Violence;
Poll: Iraqis want US out Now

WaPo reports on new polls in Iraq that find that a clear majority of Iraqis want US troops to leave, and to leave by the end of the year. Even among Sunni Arabs, who have begun to feel vulnerable to attacks from Shiite death squads, 57 percent still said that they wanted the US out-- a majority. The general numbers outside Kurdistan are much higher, as high as 70 to 80 percent.

Now the United Nations has issued a report that sees Iraq as a major generator of anti-Western terrorism.

The UN report stressed the negative impact of the Iraq War on developments in Afghanistan:

' The report by terrorism experts working for the UN Security Council said al Qaeda was playing a central role in the fighting in Iraq as well as inspiring a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, several hundred miles (km) away.

"New explosive devices are now used in Afghanistan within a month of their first appearing in Iraq," said the report. "And while the Taliban have not been found fighting outside Afghanistan/Pakistan, there have been reports of them training in both Iraq and Somalia." '

Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defense think tank commissioned a study that has now been leaked, which called the Bush-Blair Iraq War a "'recruiting sergeant' for extremists across the Muslim world." The Guardian reports:

' "The war in Iraq ... has acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists across the Muslim world ... Iraq has served to radicalise an already disillusioned youth and al-Qaida has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act."

On Afghanistan, the paper said Britain went in "with its eyes closed". It claims that a secret deal to extricate UK troops from Iraq so they could focus on Afghanistan failed when British military leaders were overruled. '

So that's what happened to those plans to deploy British troops in south Iraq instead to Afghanistan. You wonder who exactly did the over-ruling. Dick Cheney?

The report, which MoD says doesn't reflect its own views, is harsh toward the Pakistani government and the Inter-Services Intelligence which had in the 1990s and early zeroes been dominated by radical fundamentalists in the mold of Hamid Gul. It is widely believed that Musharraf has purged those elements by now.

Back to Iraq. A top US general implicitly criticized the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for not having dealt with the problem of Shiite militias:

' "We have to fix this militia issue. We can't have armed militias competing with Iraq's security forces. But I have to trust the prime minister to decide when it is that we do that," said Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the second-highest-ranking American military official in Baghdad.

Chiarelli's comments to a gathering of reporters were a part of a growing chorus of concerns from U.S. political and military leaders about the Iraqi government's ability and willingness to tackle corruption and militia-run death squads. They suggest that top American leaders are growing frustrated with the pace of reforms and may even be starting to argue for eventual U.S. withdrawal. '

Reuters reports 83 persons killed and dozens wounded in political violence throughout Iraq. Major incidents:

Sabrina Tavernise of the NYT reports on how Muqtada al-Sadr has lost control of about 1/3 of his fighters. They are upset at Sadr's joining the political process and moderating his actions toward the Americans.

' ANBAR PROVINCE - A U.S. marine and a soldier died on Monday in separate combat incidents in the restive western province of Anbar, the U.S. military said in statements.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier died after being shot in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. . .

BAGHDAD - Ten people were killed and 11 wounded when gunmen opened fire near the Sunni Mashaada mosque in the Hurriya district of northwestern Baghdad as people were going to evening prayers at the end of the daily Ramadan fast . . .

BAGHDAD - Police recovered a total of 35 bodies, mostly bound and tortured, in Baghdad in the 24 hours to Wednesday evening . . .

SUWAYRA - Nine bodies were recovered from the Tigris river at Suwayra, 45 km (30 miles) downstream of Baghdad, police said. . .

BAQUBA - A U.S. raid and air strike killed eight people [four of them women], including seven members of one family , and wounded two others in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military and police said. The U.S. said the four men in the family of seven were suspected of having links to al Qaeda.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded near a busy market in the mostly Shi'ite district of Bayaa, southwestern Baghdad, killing five people and wounding eight others . . .

BAGHDAD - Nima al-Yaseen, the sister of Shi'ite member of parliament Liqaa al-Yaseen, was shot dead on Tuesday as she headed to work in western Baghdad, a spokesman from the politician's party said.

Al-Zaman [Ar.] has more on the bombing of the family in Baqubah. "A young girl said, weeping, 'I was inside preparing the meal to break the Ramadan fast. I heard explosions and gunfire, and I ran. When I returned, I found all of my family killed. My father, four women and three men. All of them, including my brother and his pregnant wife. They took to members of our family, a man and a woman, who were wounded.

WaPo says that the new police academy building is a huge disaster and so poorly built that parts may have to be torn down. Sewage is leaking so cadets get feces and urine raining on them.
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Some 60 Dead in Country-Wide Violence
Najaf Assassinations Called Personal, Not Terrorism

al-Hayat reports that [Ar.] the police chief of the Shiite shrine city of Najaf is admitting a high rate of assassinations in the city. But he says that after investigation, they mostly appear to be a matter of personal feuds and score-settling and are not terror-related (i.e. Sunni Arab infiltrators are not coming in to kill Shiites.)

Some of the assassinations reported in Najaf and Karbala have been of ex-Baathist officials, so that is part of the score-settling.

The increase in the murder rate in Najaf has not been reported in the Western press or wire services.

Reuters reports nearly 60 deaths from political violence in Iraq on Tuesday. Major incidents:

' BAGHDAD - The bodies of five people, shot in the head and bearing signs of torture, were found in different areas of Baghdad, a source in the Interior Ministry said. . .

BAGHDAD - A motorcycle exploded near restaurants in al-Andalus square in central Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 18, a source in the Interior Ministry said.

BAGHDAD - Three civilians were killed and 21 wounded, including 12 policemen, when a car bomb and a roadside bomb exploded in quick succession in eastern Zayouna district of Baghdad, a source in the Interior Ministry said.

MAHMUDIYA - A roadside bomb killed five people and wounded eight in Mahmudiya, police said. . .

KUT - A spokesman for the political movement of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Wasit province said seven of its Mehdi Army militiamen were killed and 18 posted as missing, along with nine wounded, after an airstrike on the village of Sayafiya, west of Suwayra and 50 km (30 miles) south of Baghdad early on Tuesday. The spokesman, Hameed al-Zargani, said the Mehdi Army was engaged in a gunbattle with unidentified gunmen when bombs fell on the village. The U.S. military, the only force with such air power in Iraq, had no immediate comment. '

The al-Qaeda figure Omar Faruq, killed in Basra by British troops, had come there to see his sick mother, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat.
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Partially Declassified NIE

Bush became indignant on Tuesday during his news conference with Afghan President Karzai over the leaking of passages from the National Intelligence Estimate on trends in terrorism to the press. He said that in response he was going to have some of its key judgments declassified.

I want to make 4 basic points about this controversy, and also provide the declassified text in HTML at the end.

1) The real scandal is that the NIE was classified at all. This is the best judgment of the 16 intelligence units of the US government. Even senators and congressmen had been denied access to it by the secrecy-obsessed Bush administration. How can our democratic system work if the legislature cannot get access to such key documents? And, why shouldn't the whole public have seen this estimate? Doesn't terrorism affect us all?

Larry Johnson and Ray Close, retired CIA officers, make these points.

In fact, it is not enough that the key judgments have been declassified. They should do the whole thing.

2) The NIE clearly says that the Iraq War is now the main generator of terrorism against the US and its allies. It certainly caused the Madrid train bombings of March, 2004 and the London subway bombings of July 2005. The reaction against the US attack on and occupation of a major Arab Muslim country like Iraq has been anger throughout the Muslim world.

You can see the rise of anti-US sentiments under Bush most starkly in non-Arab countries such as Turkey and Indonesia which used to like us, believe it or not. In 2002, 52 percent of Turks had a favorable view of the US. In 2006, 12 percent of Turks have a favorable view of the US. In 2000, 75 percent of Indonesians had a favorable view of the US. In 2006, 30 percent of Indonesians have a favorable view of the US.

Even in major European countries such as France, Germany, Spain and the UK, Bush has cut the approval rating for the US in half or nearly so. Isn't that a bad sign, when the publics in our NATO allies rethink their view of us so radically? Won't we need the support of those publics at some point?

Bush by his Iraq misadventure has made us hated in much of the world, and especially in the Muslim world. Communist China is now widely viewed as mush less dangerous than the democratic United States. Don't you think that might turn into actual consequences?

3) Critics have pointed out that although the NIE said that Bush's Iraq War has generated more terror against the US and its allies, not less, it also does not urge an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Indeed, the text says hopefully that defeating the terrorists in Iraq would have a good effect in discouraging the movement worldwide.

But the NIE does not in fact urge "staying the course" as Bush and others imply. It says that the Salafi Jihadis in Iraq should ideally be defeated. Bush is not defeating them with his current policies. The Pentagon's polling has revealed that between 2003 and summer 2006 the percentage of Sunni Arabs in Iraq who support attacks on US forces has gone from 14 percent to 70 percent. Bush's policies are making things worse, not better. There is no early prospect that his imposition of search and destroy tactics on 5 million Sunni Arabs will reduce the amount of terrorism.

But the other thing to say is that if the NIE is implying that the foreign jihadi volunteers constitute the leading edge of the Iraq "insurgency," then it is just wrong. The death of Zarqawi, which has been followed by continued bombings and killings, demonstrates that Zarqawi and his followers are just not generating most of the violence.

It is mostly local Iraqis fighting for the end of the foreign military occupation of their country. That isn't international terrorism and it is highly unlikely to spill over on the US mainland in the short term. If the US went on doing what it is doing in Ramadi for several years, however, I am afraid that eventually the guerrillas will decide to try to pull off an operation against the US itself.

4) Bush repeated at the news conference his statement that the US was not in Iraq in the 1990s when the US embassies in Africa and the USS Cole were hit by al-Qaeda or in 2001 when al-Qaeda hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

This meme is so stupid and even Bush should be ashamed for trotting it out. First of all, al-Qaeda had other grievances at that time, including the US military presence in Saudi Arabia and the Israeli occupation of the Muslim holy city of Jerusalem and its mistreatment of Muslim Palestinians. They were also angry about the US propping up the governments they were trying to overthrow, including Egypt and Algeria.

But that al-Qaeda had these grievances does not mean that Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq cannot now generate more terrorism. If a few thousand Muslims were upset about the al-Qaeda grievances of 1996 through 2001, many millions of Muslims are upset about US actions in Iraq.

But the other thing to say is that the US was in fact "in Iraq" in the 1990s in some ways. The US had the presence in Saudi Arabia in part to fly surveillance and sometimes bombing raids on Iraq. And the US had gotten the UN to impose a n economic boycott on Iraq that excluded many medicines from the country. For a while they could not get chlorine for water purification. It is estimated that the US/UN sanctions killed 500,000 Iraqi children. This was something that radical Muslim terrorists of the late 1990s were definitely exercised about. They have revealed this in their interrogations.

So it isn't true that the US wasn't in Iraq during the earlier terror attacks nor is the implication true, that it doesn't matter what the US does, the same number of terrorists will always be out their trying to cause the US harm. In fact, the number of those who want to do us harm fluctuates over time. If Bush hadn't invaded Iraq, the number would have shrunk drastically after 2001. Instead, Bush has arranged for the number to expand considerably.

Larry Johnson writes,

' # 2004 marked the single, largest increase in terrorist activity ever recorded since the CIA started keeping records dating back to 1968.
# The four fold increase in significant terrorist incidents (attacks in which people were killed and wounded) was a direct consequence of the war in Iraq. All you have to do is look at the attacks recorded and the people killed and wounded in those attacks. Iraq and India were the big targets in 2004. '

I don't like pdf format for most Web purposes, so I downloaded the declassified text and saved it as text. The result may have some punctuation and formatting problems, but I think it is readable enough.

'Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States" dated April 2006

Key Judgments

United States-led counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa’ida and disrupted its operations; however, we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization. We also assess that the global jihadist movement—which includes al- Qa’ida, affiliated and independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells—is spreading and adapting to counterterrorism efforts.

• Although we cannot measure the extent of the spread with precision, a large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.

• If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide.

• Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim majority nations would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit. Over time, such progress, together with sustained, multifaceted programs targeting the vulnerabilities of the jihadist movement and continued pressure on al-Qa’ida, could erode support for the jihadists.

We assess that the global jihadist movement is decentralized, lacks a coherent global strategy, and is becoming more diffuse. New jihadist networks and cells, with anti- American agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge. The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups.

• We assess that the operational threat from self-radicalized cells will grow in importance to US counterterrorism efforts, particularly abroad but also in the Homeland.

• The jihadists regard Europe as an important venue for attacking Western interests. Extremist networks inside the extensive Muslim diasporas in Europe facilitate recruitment and staging for urban attacks, as illustrated by the 2004 Madrid and 2005 London bombings.

We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere.

• The Iraq conflict has become the cause celebre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

We assess that the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the timeframe of this Estimate.

• Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement: (1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; (2) the Iraq jihad; (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims, all of which jihadists exploit.

Concomitant vulnerabilities in the jihadist movement have emerged that, if fully exposed and exploited, could begin to slow the spread of the movement. They include dependence on the continuation of Muslim-related conflicts, the limited appeal of the jihadists. radical ideology, the emergence of respected voices of moderation, and criticism of the violent tactics employed against mostly Muslim citizens.

• The jihadists. greatest vulnerability is that their ultimate political solution.an ultra-conservative interpretation of shari.a-based governance spanning the Muslim world.is unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims. Exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists. propaganda would help to divide them from the audiences they seek to persuade.

• Recent condemnations of violence and extremist religious interpretations by a few notable Muslim clerics signal a trend that could facilitate the growth of a constructive alternative to jihadist ideology: peaceful political activism. This also could lead to the consistent and dynamic participation of broader Muslim communities in rejecting violence, reducing the ability of radicals to capitalize on passive community support. In this way, the Muslim mainstream emerges as the most powerful weapon in the war on terror.

• Countering the spread of the jihadist movement will require coordinated multilateral efforts that go well beyond operations to capture or kill terrorist leaders.

If democratic reform efforts in Muslim majority nations progress over the next five years, political participation probably would drive a wedge between intransigent extremists and groups willing to use the political process to achieve their local objectives. Nonetheless, attendant reforms and potentially destabilizing transitions will create new opportunities for jihadists to exploit.

Al-Qa’ida, now merged with Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s network, is exploiting the situation in Iraq to attract new recruits and donors and to maintain its leadership role.

• The loss of key leaders, particularly Usama Bin Ladin, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and al-Zarqawi, in rapid succession, probably would cause the group to fracture into smaller groups. Although like-minded individuals would endeavor to carry on the mission, the loss of these key leaders would exacerbate strains and disagreements. We assess that the resulting splinter groups would, at least for a time, pose a less serious threat to US interests than does al-Qa.ida.

• Should al-Zarqawi continue to evade capture and scale back attacks against Muslims, we assess he could broaden his popular appeal and present a global threat.

• The increased role of Iraqis in managing the operations of al-Qa.ida in Iraq might lead veteran foreign jihadists to focus their efforts on external operations. Other affiliated Sunni extremist organizations, such as Jemaah Islamiya, Ansar al- Sunnah, and several North African groups, unless countered, are likely to expand their reach and become more capable of multiple and/or mass-casualty attacks outside their traditional areas of operation.

• We assess that such groups pose less of a danger to the Homeland than does al- Qa.ida but will pose varying degrees of threat to our allies and to US interests abroad. The focus of their attacks is likely to ebb and flow between local regime targets and regional or global ones.

• We judge that most jihadist groups, both well-known and newly formed, will use improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks focused primarily on soft targets to implement their asymmetric warfare strategy, and that they will attempt to conduct sustained terrorist attacks in urban environments. Fighters with experience in Iraq are a potential source of leadership for jihadists pursuing these tactics.

• CBRN capabilities will continue to be sought by jihadist groups, While Iran, and to a lesser extent Syria, remain the most active state sponsors of terrorism, many other states will be unable to prevent territory or resources from being exploited by terrorists.

• Anti-US and anti-globalization sentiment is on the rise and fueling other radical ideologies. This could prompt some leftist, nationalist, or separatist groups to adopt terrorist methods to attack US interests. The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely, and more anonymously in the Internet age, raising the likelihood of surprise attacks by unknown groups whose members and supporters may be difficult to pinpoint.

• We judge that groups of all stripes will increasingly use the Internet to communicate, propagandize, recruit, train, and obtain logistical and financial support. '

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Generals: Iraq War Has Fueled Terrorism;
Iraqi Politicians Attack Talabani
For his Call for US Bases

Prominent retired US general bitterly criticized the conduct of the Iraq war by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Monday at an open meeting sponsored by Congressional Democrats. Excerpts:

' The Iraq conflict, which began in March 2003, made "America arguably less safe now than it was on September 11, 2001," Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, told a hearing on the war called by U.S. Senate Democrats.

"If we had seriously laid out and considered the full range of requirements for the war in Iraq, we would likely have taken a different course of action that would have maintained a clear focus on our main effort in Afghanistan, not fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were insurgents," Batiste said.

Batiste, who was among retired generals who called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier this year, poured scorn on the war plan along with two other retired military men at the Democrat-sponsored session.

They said the Pentagon let the insurgency grow by not sending enough U.S. troops and made enemies by abusing Iraqis.

"Probably 99 percent of those people were guilty of absolutely nothing," Batiste said of thousands of Iraqis that U.S. forces held at Abu Ghraib prison. "But the way we treated them, the way we abused them, turned them against the effort in Iraq forever." '

Bush told Wolf Blitzer he thought Iraq was a comma (hat tip to Wonkette). But Iraq is very clearly an exclamation point. Now you know why the whole policy has been wrong. Bush has been trying to close off a dependent clause, not realizing he was forcefully making a declarative statement.

Al-Hayat reports that [Ar.] Iraqi political figures criticized Iraqi President Jalal Talabani Monday for having called for a permanent American military presence in Iraq, and for having said that the country needs two American air bases to prevent "foreign interventions in Iraq." Talabani's remarks were reported in the Washington Post.

Shaikh Khalaf al-`Ulyan, a member of the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, emphasized that "The American presence in the country is dependent on the security situation. A timetable for withdrawal has become an urgent need at the present moment, even if some of the political blocs do not support an immediate withdrawal." He added, "The request by the president of the republic for a long-term American presence contravenes the prerogatives of the president of the state, which are guaranteed by the text of the Iraqi constitution, since the question of whether the US troops stay or go must be debated in parliament." He insisted that the Iraqi Accord Front "will never permit the establishment of permanent bases on Iraqi soil on the pretext of protecting it." He accused unnamed political forces of deliberately provoking a security crisis in Iraq in order to keep the American presence.

Qusay Abdul Wahhab of the Sadr Movement said that Talabani's statements contradict the express desires of the parliamentary blocs that are demanding the departure of the Occupation forces from the country. He pointed to the joint coordination among these blocs to arrive at a specific instrumentality for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq in the shortest time possible. He added that the plan was being worked on, and that "the parliamentary blocs will not permit the government to make [unilateral] decisions on this matter, especially since the al-Malik government promised to study the document signed by 140 MPs asking for a timetable for withdrawal and for no futher extenstion of the American military presence in the country."

Salih Mutlak of the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue (secular Sunni) called Talabani's request "a new political game" intended to strike at Iraq's sovereignty and to concentrate on promulgating plans for partition [of Iraq]." He said that the failure of the government to deal with the security situation in the country had pushed it to depend on the American forces, but that the latter had also failed in finding deeprooted solutions to the question of security in the country.

These Sunni Arab MPs in parliament, at least, do not want a long-term US presence, contrary to what Talabani implied about a change of mind on this issue among the country's Sunni Arabs.

British troops in Basra have killed Omar al-Faruq, a major al-Qaeda terrorist. Faruq had been brought up in Kuwait and was said to have had Iraqi parents. But somehow he ended up in Indonesia, which was his major base of operations after he fough the Soviets in Afghanistan. He was in an Afghnistan prison when he escaped last year. Nobody knows why he was in Basra, a largely Shiite city inhospitable to al-Qaeda. Some Shiites have charged that Gulf Sunni states are funding Sunni terrorism in Basra . . .

Reuters reviews major political violence in Iraq on Monday. Although it reports 8 dead, other reports give 12 or more.
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Cole on Democracy Now

Streaming video of my appearance on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" today, as well as a transcript, is now available. Thanks to Amy for provocative and highly informed questions! What would we do without her? Send money.
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2 GIs Killed in Fallujah
Sunni Fundamentalists Take Diyala Province
36 Dead in Civil War Violence

Despite Bush's media blitz and a number of speeches attempting to tie the Iraq War to September 11, the percentage of Americans who think the war was not worth it actually increased slightly between June and September, from 54 percent to 55 percent. On the other hand, Bush did achieve a slight increase in the percentage who thought it was worth it, from 38 to 40 percent. None of these changes is statistically significant, but the numbers do suggest that dissatisfaction is proving tenacious.

Bush's own church, the United Methodists, has urged an immediate withdrawal of US troops.

Patrick Cockburn does a highly courageous and clear-eyed report on the situation of Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. He quotes the head of the provincial council as saying that 100 Iraqis are killed every week in Diyala. That is 14 or so a day. We don't see those statistics in the deaths reported daily by the wire services. At most a handful of people from Diyala are reported dead several times a week.

Cockburn also reports that the Salafi Jihadis (militant fundamentalists) among the Sunni Arabs have taken over much of Diyala Province and are imposing Taliban-like religious rules on everyone. They are killing people for smoking in Baqubah. They are systematically ethnically cleansing the Kurdish and Shiite minorities in the province.

Reuters reports on political violence on Sunday in Iraq. I count 36 dead, including two GIs killed in Fallujah, where, in adddition, 10 bodies showed up dead. Also in Fallujah, guerrillas burst into the home of the chairman of the municipal council, killing him and his son. Typically the "war of the corpses" has been between Sunni and Shiite militias in Baghdad, Diyala and other mixed regions. But in Fallujah this is likely Sunni on Sunni violence, a case of committed guerrillas killing other Sunni Arabs whom they consider collaborators with the Americans. The US military invested Fallujah in November of 2004, killing hundreds if not thousands of civilians along with one to two thousand guerrillas, and damaging 2/3s of the buildings in the city. Only gradually has the population drifted back in, under severe security controls by the US. It is therefore a particularly bad sign that guerrillas in Fallujah managed to kill 13 people Sunday, 2 of them GIs and one of them the head of the municipal council. That was the sort of thing that was going on in 2004 that provoked the US military to think it needed to invade in the first place. That was when we lost the hearts and minds of the Sunni Arabs of Iraq decisively. You have a sense now that it was all for naught.

Major incidents in Baghdad:

' BAGHDAD - A car bomb targeting a police patrol killed four people and wounded 10 others in Bab al-Muadham district of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed two soldiers and wounded three, including two civilians, in northern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb targeting a police patrol killed two people and wounded 17 in southeastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Five people were wounded when several mortar rounds landed in Bab al-Muadham district of Baghdad, police said. . .

Iraqi parliamentarians defused a looming crisis that could have broken apart their national unity government on Sunday, but only managed to do so by postponing the crisis. The Sunni Arab members of parliament had threatened to boycott the legislature if the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq continued to push its plan for a huge 8-province confederacy in the Shiite south. The agreement created a committee that would report out a legislative framework for the confederacies that would be voted on in mid-October. If the plan passed, it would still take 18 months to two years to implement. Another committee will look into revising the constitution. That it would be revised is a promise that the Sunni Arabs are counting on, but it is hard to see how it will happen.

Meanwhile, work is also continuing on the constitution of Kurdistan, with the current draft insisting that parts of Ninevah, Kirkuk, Diyala and Wasit provinces be incorporated into the Kurdistan confederacy. The constitution even claims the Sunni Turkoman stronghold of Tal Afar. If the Kurds try to grab all this territory for their greater Kurdistan, it will cause a lot of trouble for decades to come.

Update. Ambassador Peter Galbraith writes by email from Irbil:

"The proposed Kurdistan Constitution has two clauses in Article 2 regarding territory.

The first states what is Kurdistan geographically and is based on their view of history. The second clause, however, is the operative one. It states the boundary of Kurdistan Region (ie the territory governed from Erbil) will be determined by Article 140 of the federal constitution. This would certainly exclude Tal Afar, as well locations in Wasit such as Badra. Clause One is geographic; clause 2 political and operative. Thus a territory could be geographically part of Kurdistan but not part of the Kurdistan Region. I attach my version of what Article 2 says in English."

Article Two

Article Two

First: Iraqi Kurdistan comprises the Governorate of Duhok within its present boundary, and the governorates of Kirkuk, Sulaimani, and Arbil with the 1968 borders and the districts (kaza) of Akre, Shaikhan, Sinjar, Tel Afar, Tilkef, Qaragosh and the sub districts (nahiya) of Zamar, Ba’shiqa, Aski Kalak in the Governorate of Nineveh and the districts of Khanaqin and Mandali in the Governorate of Diyali and the district of Badra and the subdistrict of Jassan in the Governorate of Wasit.

Second: Article 140 of the Federal Constitution will determine the borders of the Kurdistan Region.

"I do hope you will point out this very important distinction to your readers. The last thing Iraq needs now is a further inflammation of ethnic tensions."

Peter Galbraith
(from Erbil)

A recent US ambassador to Turkey explains what a calamity it would be for Iraq to be partitioned.

The more I look into it, the more I think this sort of thing may be the underlying reason for which Cheney launched the Iraq War:

'Iraq is planning to tap the small Ahdab oil field, in central southern Iraq, with development work starting soon, reported TradeArabia. Initial output would be about 30,000 bpd, rising to 90,000 bpd within two years. The field had previously been awarded to the China National Petroleum Corporation and the Chinese arms manufacturer Norinco by Saddam Hussein but an Iraqi official said the contract could be renegotiated. '

The question during the next 50 years is who would get the good proprietary oil and gas contracts in the Persian Gulf region. If it is China and India and to a lesser extent Russia, then the 21st century looks one way. If it is the US, it looks another.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Wallace, Bin Laden, Republicans and Clinton

Here is the video of President Clinton on Fox Cable News.

Wallace maintained that he also asked tough questions about failure to tackle Bin Laden of Republican politicians.

Here is Wallace interviewing Republican Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney on Bin Laden in February, 2005. Compare these softballs to the hatchet job he did on Clinton:

' WALLACE: President Bush did not mention Osama bin Laden in his State of the Union address.

Do you have any idea where he is, even what country he's in?

CHENEY: That would be just speculation. And if I did know, I obviously couldn't talk about it.

WALLACE: I mean, the current speculation is that he's somewhere in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

CHENEY: I don't want to elaborate on where he might or might not be.

WALLACE: How much operational control do you believe he still has over al Qaeda? And 3 1/2 years after 9/11, why haven't we still caught him?

CHENEY: Well, we have done enormous damage to al Qaeda. The attacks that we've been able to mount, the work we've done with other nations, the Pakistanis, the Saudis and others, we've had an enormous and, I think, devastating impact on the organization -- captured or killed literally thousands of them around the world.

The organization, at this point, is, I think, very diffused. I don't think there's a hierarchical chain of command there; there never was much of one.

But I think nonetheless the threat's still out there. You see the kind of attacks that we had in Madrid, in Casablanca and elsewhere, Istanbul.

These oftentimes are attacks that are launched by what you might call affiliated, al Qaeda-affiliated groups, but they work on their own timetable, plan their own attacks. Some of them have been trained in Afghanistan and then go back, as is true of the group in Indonesia, Jemaah Islamiyah. Then they go out, and sometimes with financial resources, but launch their own attacks.

In other words, attacks can occur without Osama bin Laden giving the order that an attack occur.

I think he is in hiding. I think he finds it very difficult to communicate with his organization.

WALLACE: Why can't we catch him?

CHENEY: Well, we're doing our level best, and I think eventually we will. But he's very good on his operational security, obviously. He's found good places to hide. And so far it's been a difficult task. But I think eventually we will get him.

WALLACE: Let me switch to another troubled part of that world.

Do you believe that the government of Iran has stopped its nuclear uranium-enrichment program, as it says it has?

CHENEY: I don't know '

Wallace let Cheney get away with murder in this interview. He let him walk all over him and then asked him to do it again wearing spike heels.

In Lexis Nexis, I could only find one place where Wallace's name even came up in connection with Bush's own failure to capture Bin Laden, at Tora Bora in December of 2001. And that was where he gave Brit Hume an opportunity to dismiss the importance of that lapse:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY 9:00 AM EST
September 10, 2006 Sunday . . .

' HUME: There's a very interesting new book out called, "The Looming Tower"...

WALLACE: I'm reading that right now.

HUME: ... by Lawrence Wright, who makes, I think persuasively, the argument that after the initial conflict in Afghanistan, and after Tora Bora indeed, even though Osama and key lieutenants escaped, that Al Qaida was essentially dead, finished, washed up as a major force in the world terror movement.

And he goes on to argue that the war in Iraq has given what he would call the progeny of Al Qaida new life, but that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida has essentially been weakened to the point of not being very important anymore.

And I think that's probably true. I think what we learn as we go here is that this is more a terror movement than it is a network, and that where you can defeat or destroy one terror operation -- to wit, bin Laden's Al Qaida in and around Afghanistan -- that others will form and emerge to take its place.

I'm struck to hear Juan and others say, as they do, that we need to be focusing all our energies on Al Qaida. Well, who's been the big troublemaker more recently? Well, you look in the Middle East; it's Hezbollah who's been tremendously important. Hezbollah is the sworn enemy of the United States, funded by Iran.

Do we then chase around the mountains of Afghanistan in an effort to catch one or two or three Al Qaida leaders now weakened, or do we go after Hezbollah?

Now, those are the kinds of questions, it seems to me, you need to ask. And simply talking endlessly about Osama bin Laden being on the loose or, as I think it's more likely, on the lam, it seems to me, goes nowhere. '

So on Wallace's discussion show, Bin Laden is not important. But when he confronts Bill Clinton, suddenly Bin Laden is the end-all and be-all.

The one place I found where Wallace did press an Administration official a little about the Bush cabinet's complete inaction with regard to al-Qaeda for its first nine months in office was in his interview with Donald Rumsfeld. You decide if this looks anything like what he did to Clinton:

' FOX NEWS SUNDAY (09:00)
March 28, 2004 Sunday . . .

' WALLACE: I think a lot of people in Washington are trying to figure out, to understand Richard Clarke, to make sense of what he has said and of apparent contradictions in his story -- is he telling the truth, or is he pushing an agenda.

What do you make of his basic charge that, pre-9/11, that this government, the Bush administration, largely ignored the threat from al Qaeda?

RUMSFELD: Well, I don't know the man. I've probably met him, been in meetings with him two or three times. But it seems to me that apparently he was there for 10 years.

And the reality is that terrorists can attack any time at any minute, 24 hours a day, using a variety of techniques, in any place at all.

And it's not possible to defend in every place, against every technique, against every conceivable approach.

Now, what does that mean? It means that you can't stop every terrorist attack. We know that throughout history. Innocent men, women and children are going to be killed if terrorists are determined to do it.

What you must do, then, is to go after the terrorists where they are and get them before they have that opportunity to have the advantage of an attack.

WALLACE: But let be follow up on that, if I can, sir, because you talked to the 9/11 Commission in private before you talked to them in public, in your public testimony this week. And according to the commission, the staff, this is what you told them in private.

Let's put it up here if we can: "He," Rumsfeld, "did not recall any particular counterterrorism issue that engaged his attention before 9/11, other than the development of the Predator unmanned aircraft system for possible use against bin Laden." He said that, "DOD, the Department of Defense, before 9/11, was not organized or trained adequately to deal with asymmetric threats."

Mr. Secretary, it sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority.

RUMSFELD: Well, Chris, if you look at how our government is organized historically, the Department of Justice has the responsibility for law enforcement in the United States. The Department of Defense is, in fact, by law, under the Posse Comitatus law, prohibited from engaging in front- line, law-enforcement, police- type activities.

WALLACE: But the terrorists were based overseas. These are...

RUMSFELD: The terrorists were in the United States. They used a U.S. airplane, and they attacked a U.S. target. And those are things that outside the purview of the Department of Defense.

WALLACE: But what about...

RUMSFELD: Let me just make sure you understand this.

The way the government instructions were laid out, the Department of State had the responsibility for the diplomatic side of it; the Department of Justice has the responsibility for the law enforcement side and for domestic intelligence; Central Intelligence Agency has responsibility for foreign intelligence; and the Department of Defense has responsibility for external threats and force protection.

Now, it was not something that the Department of Defense historically, in our history, was organized, trained and equipped to do. We were organized, trained and equipped to fight armies and navies and air forces, not to do individual manhunts. In fact, there have been occasions in the history of the department, when the department was chastised for investigating things locally, if you'll recall, during the Army investigations back in the '60s in the Vietnam War period.

WALLACE: But looking back, sir -- and I understand this is 20/20 hindsight -- it's more than an individual manhunt. I mean, what you ended up doing, in the end, was going after al Qaeda where it lived.

RUMSFELD: Which is the only way to do it, in my view. I think you simply have to go after...

WALLACE: And the question is, pre-9/11, should you have been thinking more about that?

RUMSFELD: Well, we were thinking about what to do about al Qaeda. Any suggestion that the administration was not would just be incorrect.

Now, as I think it was Rich Armitage said, were we able to stop that attack? The answer is no. Were we ahead of those particular terrorists and what they were doing? Obviously not.

George Tenet put it well, I thought, when he said, "Look" -- they said, "Why'd it happen?" He said, "Because we didn't have a source inside that particular terrorist cell." That would have enabled it to have been stopped. '

President Clinton refers to Richard Clarke's book several times. Here is CBS 60 Minutes' summary and quotation of what Clarke had to say about the first months of the Bush administration and its unconcern with Bin Laden:

' Clarke was the president's chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn't until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn't take the threat seriously.

"We had a terrorist organization that was going after us! Al Qaeda. That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months.

"There's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too. But on January 24th, 2001, I wrote a memo to Condoleezza Rice asking for, urgently -- underlined urgently -- a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo-- wasn't acted on.

"I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years."

Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn't with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department.

For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz.

Clarke relates, "I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'

"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."

Clarke went on to add, "There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever."

When Stahl pointed out that some administration officials say it's still an open issue, Clarke responded, "Well, they'll say that until hell freezes over." By June 2001, there still hadn't been a Cabinet-level meeting on terrorism, even though U.S. intelligence was picking up an unprecedented level of ominous chatter.

The CIA director warned the White House, Clarke points out. "George Tenet was saying to the White House, saying to the president - because he briefed him every morning - a major al Qaeda attack is going to happen against the United States somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. He said that in June, July, August." '

Wolfowitz, who dismissed Clarke's and Clinton's obsession with "one little guy," Bin Laden, was Deputy Secretary of Defense at that time, in spring of 2001. And Wolfowitz's attitude epitomized that of the Republicans in the Bush administration.

So then of course it is Clinton's fault.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

40 Dead in Tikrit Bombing
Iraq conflict creating Terror Threat for US: NIE

Bombings in Baghdad's Sadr City region killed at least 40 and wounded a similar number on Saturday.

9 bodies of Iraqi policemen and members of security forces were found in Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

3 US GIs were announced killed.

In the south, a roadside bomb killed a Danish soldier and wounded 7 others.

It turns out that Iraq isn't the central front in the 'war on terror.' It is instead now the principal incubator of anti-American terrorism, because people in the Sunni world are so furious at what Bush is doing there. That is the conclusion I draw from this report on the conclusions of US intelligence analysts.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that high monetary inflation is dampening spirits in Najaf.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bin Laden Report Denied

The report in a provincial French newspaper that Usamah bin Laden had a tropical disease that killed him in August makes no sense. It said that his disease led to paralysis of the legs. It would have to be polio! Unlikely except in East Africa.

This report appears to be based on a single source. Single sources are famously unreliable.

The report was denied by Saudi Intelligence, which said that UBL was alive and well. It was also denied by Pakistani intelligence. US intelligence said that it didn't have any such information.

In other reasons, there is no reason to believe this report whatsoever, as Peter Bergen on CNN also concluded.

I don't think al-Qaeda woud disappear if UBL did. But it would be weakened for a while, and would lose a compelling symbol. Both would be all to the good.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Negroponte, Lebanon and al-Qaeda

US intelligence chief John Negroponte says he is worried about al-Qaeda getting a foothold in Lebanon. Reuters quotes him as saying,

' "He [Ayman al-Zawahiri] talked about the priority attached to being successful in Iraq so it could then be used as a platform to extend their activities into the Levant, meaning Jordan, Syria and Lebanon," Negroponte told Reuters and the International Herald Tribune in an interview on Friday.

"It's not clear to me whether or not they've got a basis for successful activity in Lebanon, since the stronger Muslim sect in Lebanon is Shia. But I wouldn't rule that out. And there's been some evidence of al Qaeda activity in Lebanon . . . " '

Radical Salafi Jihadis are rare in Lebanon, where the Sunni population is probably about 20 percent of the 3.8 million population (i.e. 760,000 persons). Ziad Jarrah, one of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, was Lebanese. There have been a handful of religious radicals among the Palestinians in the camps, one of whom appears to have assassinated former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri after having fought the Americans in Iraq. Sunnis who attacked the Danish embassy in Beirut over the caricatures of the Prophet may have included some Salafi Jihadis, though that was probably a relatively spontaneous act of an urban crowd.

But for the most part, Sunnis in Lebanon are urban and urbane, have nearly universal literacy, and many are professionals. (Prime Minister Fuad Siniora is an example of that community.) Also, there aren't actually very many of them, maybe half a million adults, and they are in a political system dominated in different ways by Christians and Shiites.

How would you avoid the radicalization of the Lebanese Sunnis, if that was really a high priority?

Uh, like, don't let the Israelis bomb the country intensively for over a month, destroying its infrastructure and setting back its economy twenty years. And don't openly block a ceasefire if you are America.

Just a guess, that kind of thing could make people angry and unemployed and more easily recruited into al-Qaeda.

Getting out of Iraq and halting the assaults on Sunni Arabs there would help. Lebanese Sunnis tend to empathize with Iraqi Sunnis, and operations like Fallujah angered them.

Then, settling the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on terms that are just to the Palestinians would also be important in halting radicalization.

I don't see any sign whatsoever that the Bush administration is practically committed to acting in ways that forestall the radicalization of the Levant. This is a political question, and the politics of it are not being done right.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Nasrullah's Speech

Here is the BBC World Monitoring translation of Hasan Nasrullah's speech on Friday to an enormous crowd in bombed-out South Beirut.

' BBC Monitoring International Reports September 23, 2006 Saturday

LENGTH: 7402 words HEADLINE: HEZBOLLAH LEADER ADDRESSES "VICTORY RALLY" IN LEBANON - TEXT

Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has addressed in person a rally in Lebanon in which he stressed that the secret to the "victory" of the resistance was that it depended upon "reason, planning, organization and armament". He said that the "steadfastness" of the resistance had foiled the US plan for a "new Middle East" and instead provided a model for "liberation". He said that although disarming was not possible under this regime and situation, "we do not want to keep the weapons forever". The following is the text of the speech by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah, during a rally in Beirut celebrating the "victory" in the latest hostilities with Israel - live; broadcast by Lebanese Hezbollah TV Al-Manar on 22 September, subheadings inserted editorially:

I seek God's protection against the cursed Satan; in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate; praise be to almighty God; blessings and peace be upon our master and prophet, the last of the prophets, Muhammad; his good, righteous, infallible family members; his noble companions; and upon all the prophets and messengers;

O beloved and honourable ones; O most honourable, pure, and generous people, may God's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you; [applause].

Praise be to God, who fulfilled His promise to us and who granted us, Lebanon, and the people of Lebanon victory over the enemy of Lebanon. Praise be to God who made us proud, enabled us to hold fast, and gave us security. Praise be to God, on whom we relied and to whom we turned repentantly. As He promised, He has always been the best protector. Praise be to God for His victory, assistance, and support.

Brothers and sisters, Ladies and Gentlemen.

On 22 September, you once again surprised the world and truly proved that you are a great, proud, loyal, and courageous people. [Applause]

Rally involves risks

For some days now, many people have been waging a psychological war on this rally, just as they waged a psychological war on the Resistance. [Boos] They said that this square would be bombed and that this podium would be destroyed in order to scare people and keep them from coming. On 22 September, you prove, by crowning the victory rally, that you are more courageous than [you were on] 12 July and 14 August. [Applause]

Standing before you and amongst you involves risk for you and me. There were other choices, up until just half an hour ago, we were discussing [my participation]. However, my heart, mind, and soul did not allow me to address you from afar nor through a screen. [Applause]

The utmost one expects is for the enemy to make a mistake or commit a crime. However, does this enemy not know who we are? We are the sons of that imam, who said: Are you threatening me with death? We are used to death and our dignity is derived from the martyrdom God grants us. [Applause]

You are all welcome - from the fighting and resisting south, to the steadfast Al-Biqa, to the loyal north, to the proud mountain, to the Beirut of Arabism, to the [southern] suburb of loftiness and dignity. You are all welcome - from the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon; you are all welcome - from Syria, Iran, Kuwait, Bahrain, and every country that came to us to celebrate and rejoice.

God's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you; peace be upon your martyrs and the families of your martyrs; peace be upon your wounded people and their bleeding wounds; peace be upon your prisoners; peace be upon your blood and tears; peace be upon your orphans and widows; peace be upon your demolished houses; peace be upon your burnt property; peace be upon your souls and strong will, which is stronger than the mountains of Lebanon.

"Strategic, historic, divine victory"

Brothers and sisters,

We are today celebrating a big strategic, historic, and divine victory. How can the human mind imagine that a few thousand of your Lebanese resistance sons - if I wanted, I would give the exact number - held out for 23 days in a land exposed to the skies against the strongest air force in the Middle East, which had an air bridge transporting smart bombs from America, through Britain, to Israel; against 40,000 officers and soldiers - four brigades of elite forces, three reserve army divisions; against the strongest tank in the world; and against the strongest army in the region? How could only a few thousand people hold out and fight under such harsh conditions, and [how could] their fighting force the naval warships out of our territorial waters? By the way, the army and the resistance are capable of protecting the territorial waters from being desecrated by any Zionist. [Applause] [And how could their fighting] also lead to the destruction of the Mirkava tanks, which are an object of pride for the Israeli industry; damage Israeli helicopters day and night; and turn the elite brigades - I am not exaggerating, and you can watch and read the Israeli media - into rats frightened by your sons? [How did this happen] while you were relinquished by the Arabs and the world and in light of the political (human solidarity was profound though) division around you?

How could this group of mujahidin defeat this army without the support and assistance of almighty God?

Resistance depends on planning, organization

This resistance experience, which should be conveyed to the world, depends - on the moral and spiritual level - on faith, certainty, reliance [on God], and readiness to make sacrifices. It also depends on reason, planning, organization, armament, and, as is said, on taking all possible protective procedures.

We are neither a disorganized and sophistic resistance, nor a resistance pulled to the ground that sees before it nothing but soil, nor a resistance of chaos. The pious, God-reliant, loving, and knowledgeable resistance is also the conscious, wise, trained, and equipped resistance that has plans. This is the secret of the victory we are today celebrating, brothers and sisters.

This victory requires a courageous stand like your stand today. You are today sending an extremely important and serious political and moral message to the Lebanese, the Arabs, and the entire world - friends and foes. You amazed the world when you, as a people in Lebanon, held fast from 12 July to 14 August. They wagered on our division. You - the displaced and those who sheltered [the displaced] - remained fast throughout this stage. When 14 August came, their wager was that the presence of the displaced in the areas to which they were displaced would put pressure on the resistance to impose more conditions on it. The resistance did not submit to any conditions.

Once again, you amazed the world when the displaced returned in their cars and trucks, and some on foot. At 0800, the southern suburb of Beirut, the south of Lebanon, and Al-Biqa were full of their proud and honourable residents, who returned with raised heads.

You are today amazing the world and telling the American, who a few days said, "we received good signs from Lebanon that the popularity of the resistance has receded, and it has started to weaken", that this is the people of resistance. [Applause] These are the masses of the Resistance.

I tell this American: You should address a message of slander to the lying writers of reports, who sends you wrong information on which you build wrong calculations.

Brothers and sisters, we should today stress that this war was an American war in terms of decision, weapons, planning, and desire, and by giving several deadlines for the Zionists; one, two, three, and four weeks. What stopped the war is the failure of the Zionists. If you recall the last days, the largest number of tanks was destroyed on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; the largest number of the occupation soldiers was killed on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; the helicopters crashed on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Therefore, the Zionists realized that if they had continued [the war], it would have been a disaster. The Americans intervened and even accepted the drafts [of resolutions] for the war to stop. They stopped the war not for the sake of Lebanon, not for the sake of the children of Lebanon, not for the sake of the blood of women in Lebanon, and not for the sake of beautiful Lebanon. They stopped the war only for the sake of Israel. They came to peddle it to us in Lebanon; namely, that our American friends stopped the war. [Applause]

In the first two and three days, our American friends did not agree to stop the war, and they refused [to stop it] on the first, second, third, and fourth weeks. Could they not see the beauty of Lebanon for a month? They wagered [changes thought] - this statement was used in some diplomatic channels - the decision was to crush Hezbollah, and after crushing Hezbollah, accounts would be settled with all its friends, allies, and those who follow the nationalist, truly sovereign and independent line in Lebanon. What stopped the war - after the help of Almighty God - were your resisting sons and these loyal, proud, and courageous people, who supported the resistance from the border to the border, and who sheltered it in their mosques, churches, monasteries, and schools. This is what stopped the war. If anyone deserves to celebrate the victory, then it is you who are present here. You deserve it because you made the victory.

"We feel that we won"

We sometimes differ and ask: Was what happened in Lebanon a victory or a defeat? I do not want to go into semantics, but I tell you: Whoever feels that his option, plan, line, and vision has triumphed, feels the victory and speaks about it. And, whoever feels that he has been defeated and has fallen, speaks about defeat.

We feel that we won; Lebanon won; Palestine won; the Arab nation won, and every oppressed, aggrieved person in this world also won.

Our victory is not the victory of a party. I repeat what I said in Bint Jubayl on 25 May 2000: It is not the victory of a party or a community; rather it is a victory for true Lebanon, the true Lebanese people, and every free person in the world.

Don't distort this big historic victory. Do not contain it in party, sectarian, communal, or regional cans. This victory is too big to be comprehended by us. The next weeks, months, and years will confirm this.

Resistance dealt a blow to New Middle East plan

It is enough to say, on the basis of the direct results, that your resistance and steadfastness foiled all the aims of the aggression, and that this is a victory. Our resistance and steadfastness dealt a severe blow to the New Middle East plan, which Condoleezza Rice said would be born in the July War [Boos]. But it was stillborn because it was an illegitimate child. Your resistance and steadfastness exposed the deceptive US policies that speak about human rights, freedoms, democracy, and respect. Your steadfastness and resistance exposed the United States and raised the level of awareness before the level of hostility - the main thing is awareness rather than hostility. It raised the level of awareness and hostility not only in the Arab and Islamic world, but in the whole world.

Thanks to your steadfastness and resistance, Chavez, a man about whom I can say that he is a great Arab indeed, made that statement in the United Nations yesterday. [Cheers] The Lebanese resistance today inspires all resistance men, all free men, and all honourable people in the world, as well as all those who reject US subjugation and degradation of the world. This is our victory and this is the result of our battle.

Resistance is model for "steadfastness"

Moreover, your resistance, which offered in the 2000 victory a model for liberation, offered in the year 2006 a model for steadfastness; legendary steadfastness and miraculous steadfastness. It is strong proof for all Arabs and Muslims, and all rulers, armies, and peoples.

Yesterday, a group of Arab states went to the Security Council to beg for peace and a settlement. I tell them: I am not speaking to you about removing Israel, I am speaking to you about the settlement you want. How can you obtain an honourable settlement, while you announce day and night that you will not fight? You do not want to fight for Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, or even Jerusalem. How then can you obtain a reasonable settlement, while you announce every day that you will not use the oil weapon? In fact, even if anyone comes to speak to you about the oil weapon, you deride him, saying: This is backwardness. You do not want to fight, boycott, use the oil weapon, or even allow the people to come out in the street, or the resistance in Palestine to be equipped. You are besieging it and withholding funds from it. In fact, you are starving it and cutting off salaries for the sake of Condoleezza Rice [Boos].

How can these states secure a just and honourable settlement between quotes? Does the Israeli recognize them in the first place? I tell you: The Israelis today view the Resistance and the resistance men in Lebanon with great respect. As to all those lowly ones, they are not worth anything. Even the Arab initiative calls for a stand. It calls for men and power. If you can't use power, you can at least threaten with it. The talk that we are weak will not do.

The people of Lebanon gave strong proof to all the peoples of the world. The Lebanese resistance provided strong proof to all Arab and Islamic armies. Arab armies and peoples are not only able to liberate Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem, they are simply capable of regaining Palestine from sea to river by one small decision and with some determination. The problem is that when one is torn between two choices and is asked to choose between his people and his throne, he chooses his throne. When he is asked to choose between Jerusalem and his throne, he chooses his throne. When he is asked to choose between the dignity of his homeland and his throne, he chooses his throne.

What is distinct about the resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine is that they chose the dignity of their people, holy places, and freedom and offer their leaders, sons, and dear ones as sacrifices to join the throne of God Almighty.

This is the equation. Today, your resistance broke the image of Israel. We have done away with the invincible army. We have also done away with the invincible state. Indeed, we have done away with it. I am not exaggerating or voicing slogans. It is enough for you to read what is going on in occupied Palestine, what the Zionists are saying, and what is going on between the Israeli generals and commanders.

Olmert protested again today because we are holding a victory rally. Yediot Aharanot published the results of an Israeli poll today that asks: Who do you think is suitable to be prime minister in Israel? How much did Olmert get? He got seven per cent. [Boos] As for the heroic War Minister Amir Peretz, he got one per cent. [Boos]

The image of this Israel, which is shaken in its political entity and military establishments and defeated in its intelligence, has changed today. No Arab ruler or regime can make further concessions to it, submit to its humiliating terms, or tell the nation: There is nothing we can do with Israel.

Once, an old man, who knew his time, place, and era, said: If every one of us carried a bucket of water and threw it on occupied Palestine, Israel would disappear from existence; yes, just a bucket of water. Two or three hundred million people standing up to Israel can defeat it, especially when a few thousand in Lebanon defeated Israel. This argument has fallen. We should enter a new phase and a new time; namely, the time when we dictate our conditions and restore our dignity, freedom, sovereignty, and holy shrines.

Support for Palestinians

Brothers and sisters: On this day, the day of divine victory, there are those who expect an internal talk about Lebanon, and I will certainly do that. But before I switch to internal talk, I would like, as on 12 July, emphasize two points: Our hearts, feelings, grief, and pain are today in Palestine. They are in Gaza, Rama
llah, and Nablus. They are in Jenin, Jerusalem, and every Palestinian town, village, and camp that are being bombed daily. The Palestinian people are being killed every day and Palestinian houses are being destroyed every day while the whole world is silent; the Arab world before the world at large.

Until when will this silence continue? Until when will we endure this shame? Nobody is asking you to deploy your armies to defend the Palestinian people. Let us just give support to these people, be it moral, political , financial, or armament. In Palestine, there are leaders, scholars, factions, movements, youths, men, women, and children who can repeat the divine miracle on the land of Palestine.

The second message is, before speaking about Lebanon, we as Lebanese should see Iraq as a model. Had the war in Lebanon succeeded, the Americans would have applied this model in Lebanon. They wanted to apply this model in Lebanon. In the war, we the Lebanese offered martyrs from the Resistance, the army, the security forces, the civil defence, the Red Cross, the news media, the establishments, the different parties, and all our beloved people. But how many were martyrs? Never mind, were they 1,000 or 1,200 martyrs? In Iraq, some 10,000 to 15,000 people are killed every month in a chaotic war that is administered, financed, and incited by the Americans and the Mosad. The resistance in Lebanon protected Lebanon from civil war. [Cheers]

Some say that the resistance in Lebanon pushes for civil war. Never! Had Israel won, Lebanon would have been pushed to civil war, and you would have heard voices calling for federalism, cantons, and division. The Israeli language would have become current anew.

Message to Iraq - patience, calm, unity

Iraq is a model, which we must always ponder. Our message to our people in Iraq must always be: Patience, calm, unity, wisdom, communication, avoid sedition, and don't wager on the enemy.

As to Lebanon, our message in Lebanon today is: Come all. No one should outbid anyone on this subject. We all believe that our salvation and hope is in building a capable, strong, just, proud, and clear state. This is the hope. And this is supposed to be the issue of unanimity among the Lebanese.

We announce from this place, with the blood of our martyrs; we announce, precede matters, and say, any talk in Lebanon about partition is an Israeli talk, any talk in Lebanon about federalism is Israeli talk, and any talk in Lebanon about cantons is Israeli talk. We the Lebanese, our fate, decision, and wish to God should be to live together in one state. We are against its partition and division. We are against its federalism and division into cantons.

What will protect Lebanese unity is a strong, capable, and just state. What will protect Lebanon's sovereignty from Zionist greed is a strong, capable, and just state.

What will tackle social and livelihood crises for the Lebanese and the residents in Lebanon is a strong, capable, just, clean and proud state. This is what we all aspire to. A strong and capable state means a state that can proudly regain every inch of its occupied territory and protect every drop of water from Al-Wazzani River to Al-Litani River and Al-Hasbani River; that can stop the enemy from encroaching on its sovereignty daily; and that can assure its people that it is truly protecting them with arms, power, reason, unity, organization, planning, and national will. As for tears, they do not protect anyone.

We want a strong, capable, just, clear, and independent state that rejects any foreign trusteeship or hegemony; a noble and proud state that does not succumb to any humiliating terms; and a clean state where there is no room for theft or waste. This is the state that we need.

I tell you, while we are in the resistance festival, that this is the natural key to tackling the issue of the resistance. Here we come to the issue of the weapons and to those who are dying to resolve this issue. I tell them: Don't tackle the results. Come and let us tackle the causes. I am not after slogans, but logic. Argue with us on the basis of logic.

The resistance is the result of several causes - the occupation, the arrest of prisoners, the plunder of waters, the threat to Lebanon, and the attack on Lebanese sovereignty. These are the causes. Tackle the causes and the results will be tackled easily.

"We do not want to keep the weapons forever"

When we build a strong, capable, and just state that protects Lebanon and the Lebanese, it will be easy to find an honourable solution to the question of the resistance and its weapons. I would like the Lebanese to hear clearly. I and my brothers get excited sometimes and say all kinds of things. Let us speak with some responsibility. We do not say that these weapons will remain forever. And, it is not logical for these weapons to remain forever. There is bound to be an end to them. The natural key is to tackle the causes and the results will disappear.

Come and build a strong and just state, protecting the country and the citizens and their livelihoods, waters, and dignity, and you will find that the resolution of the resistance issue will not need even a negotiation table. It is a great deal easier than that.

But, what is happening now? Instead of the Israeli leaving Shab'a Farms, he is extending the strip northward. Instead of the Israeli resolving the problem of the border points, he moves forward to Al-Khiyam and Marwahin. Instead of our benefiting from our legal right to the Al-Wazzani River, the Israeli builds pipes to steal the water. Is this how to protect the country and its resources?

Therefore, any talk about disarming the Resistance - to some people the word "disarming" is a bit heavy; fine, how about surrendering the resistance weapons? Any talk about surrendering the resistance weapons under this state, this authority, this regime, and the existing situation means keeping Lebanon exposed to Israel so it can kill as it wants, arrest as it wants, bomb as it wants, and plunder our land and waters. We certainly cannot accept that.

We did not fight since 1982 so that ... [change of thought] You know the youth in the Resistance. They spent their entire youthful years in the Resistance. They did not live a life of prosperity, ease, extravagance, or calm. Some of them spent 24 to 25 years in the Resistance. The Resistance will not end while Israel is still occupying our land, violating our honour, undermining our security, and plundering our waters and resources. Never! I swear to God.

This is the only natural, logical, reasonable, responsible, and patriotic option. As for the other options, I want this big rally, which is attended by these good and kind faces, and this public that comes from all of Lebanon's communities and areas and many political trends and parties; I want to tell them: Wagering on ending the resistance through pressure, threats, and siege is a losing wager. Wagering on ending the resistance by dragging the Resistance into sedition with the Lebanese army, as some people think, is a losing wager. The army and the Resistance are two dear, loving brothers that no one can separate. Those who wager - and I am not talking about the inside; it can be the outside or the inside, take it as you like, whoever is behind the wager - on disarming the resistance through a new war, Israeli or otherwise, I refer them to Livni, [addressing the audience] you know Livni, right, and Peretz. I refer them to these two persons; the foreign minister and the war minister, to hear from them, as well as from former Defence Minister Moshe Arens, the strategist, a clear sentence, and I repeat it for them to hear. They say: We wanted to dismantle Hezbollah as a whole, but we have found out that there is no army in the world that can dismantle such an organization. [Cheers]

I tell them: No army in the world can make us lay down our arms. No one can do that, so long as these loyal and brave people believe in this Resistance. I am not threatening with arms. I am wagering on this people who embrace the Resistance. I am wagering on that old, noble woman, who stood among the debris and said: My house in Beirut was destroyed and my house in the south was destroyed, but we are for the Resistance and the Resistance weapons. Several others said: if Al-Sayyid Hasan surrendered the weapons, he would be a traitor. I tell you: I pledge you, O our brave, loyal, and great people, I do not aspire to end my life with treason, but with martyrdom. [Cheers]

Therefore, all these wagers are losers, because there are people in Lebanon and a resistance in Lebanon that reject occupation, humiliation, and despotism and are ready to sacrifice themselves and their beloved sons for the sake of their country. Yes, today, Lebanon, and without exaggeration, is no longer small in the Middle East. It is a great power with your support. The West and Israel take it seriously and the oppressed in the world view it with respect, appreciation, and pride.

Therefore, let me end this point by saying - so that no one will continue to worry - we do not want to keep the weapons forever. I reiterate, as in the past 25 years, these weapons are not for the interior. They were not used in the interior and they will not be used in the interior. This is not a Shi'i weapon... [words indistinct] and the Christians. This weapon is for the Sunni, Druze, and Shi'i. This weapon is for all the Lebanese. It seeks to protect Lebanon, its sovereignty and independence. I pledge you that the identity and endowment of this weapon shall remain as it is. This is a pledge before God, the nation, and the martyrs.

Therefore, the key is, come and let us build a just, strong, resisting, proud, honourable, and clean state. If this objective is too big, and so that we will not remain in theory, let us go straight to the subject. We will not stand today and say: Whoever has failed in the test has failed and whoever has succeeded has succeeded. We will not speak this way. I will say: Come all, no matter how we differed, competed, and matters were difficult between us on the psychological and political level. We are in a real impasse in Lebanon now. No one can say, we are a majority, nothing has changed, the country is proceeding well, and everything is fine. This is not correct.

Impasse in Lebanon - political, not sectarian dispute

There is a real impasse in Lebanon today, especially after the war. There is sharp national division and not sectarian division. What exists now is not a dispute between Shi'is and Sunnis, or between Muslims and Christians, or among Druze, Sunnis, Shi'is, and Christians. There is a national political division. There are major strategic and political options, on which Shi'i, Sunni, Druze, and Christian political forces agree and others, on which Shi'i, Sunni, Druze, and Christian political forces disagree. When some Shi'is said things different from Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, they thought that we would grieve. We were happy when others came forth in supporting the other stand, which proved that the dispute here is not sectarian, but political. [Cheers]

Look at the miscalculations. Even when they want to hurt us, they benefit us. Therefore, we are before a national division. And, my appeal today in the rally of the victory, which was created by Lebanese from all communities and areas, I would like to warn and say: Do not allow anyone to transform political divisions into sectarian or communal divisions. It is forbidden to manipulate sects and communities in defence of political options. This is playing with fire. This is sabotaging the country. This is destroying the country. Yes, we are split by political divisions. We compete, discuss, and differ. We attack each other in the news media. We turn to the street and to the elections. All these peaceful and democratic mechanisms are legitimate and allowable. This is what we would like to emphasize.

National unity government is solution to political division

Therefore, as long as there is a political division and serious challenges - and I will return to these shortly - to confront these challenges, I say that the team currently ruling in Lebanon cannot continue in power, cannot work. It cannot. [Applause] The natural solution is to form a national unity government. When I speak about a national unity government, I do not mean bringing down anyone, cancelling anyone, or dismissing anyone but as I said on 25 May: Come and let us close our ranks and stand side by side to defend Lebanon, to protect Lebanon, to build and construct Lebanon, and to preserve Lebanon and unify it.

With all frankness, the current government is not able to protect Lebanon, reconstruct Lebanon, or unify Lebanon. [Applause] However, when we say the current government we do not mean that we want to cancel, remove, or erase anyone at all. We say: Come, all of you, and let us protect, reconstruct, and defend.

Therefore, building a strong, just, and capable state begins first by a serious national unity government. Here I am not raising a slogan for local consumption. Let them hear me. I am not raising a slogan for local consumption, or to gain time, or to appease allies or friends. This is our serious project and we will work for it with the utmost strength during the next stage. [Applause]

Drafting a fair electoral law

The second measure in building the just, capable, and strong state begins by drafting a fair electoral law in which all communities and all political currents will have a realistic opportunity to have a genuine representation, and in which no community will feel that it has become a follower of another community. That is how we can build the just, strong, and capable state. That is the way to solve all our problems.

Resistance has more than 20,000 rockets

Here I will briefly discuss the remaining issues and challenges. Now, the issue of the Resistance. I said a short while ago that there is something related to the current reality. They have come to blockade the sea. Why? To protect Lebanon? No. The German chancellor, God's peace be upon her [laughter by the crowd], said that the German navy was playing a historic role in protecting Israel's right to exist. I like some of these stands and I will talk about them later. They come from the sea and they want to blockade the airspace and the borders. I tell them: Blockade and close the borders, the sea, and the skies. This will neither weaken the will nor the arms of the Resistance. [Applause] We have engaged in war for 33 days. This is not mere rhetoric. We had been prepared for a long war. What we offered in the war was a very small part of our resources. In Bint Jubayl I said that we had more than 12,000 rockets and the poor ones [Israelis] started calculating, based on 12,000. Then we explained things and said that 12,000 does not mean 13,000. [As heard] There might be more. Today, I say to those who want to close the seas, the sky, the deserts, and the borders, and I say to the enemy as well, that the resistance today has more - pay attention, underline the word "more" - than 20,000 rockets. [Applause]

Within a very few days and after emerging from a fierce war, the Resistance restored its entire military and organizational structure and its armaments. [Applause] The Resistance today is stronger that it was on the eve of 12 July because during the war it added to its experience fresh experience and acquired new wisdom and new resolve and determination. I tell those who wager on the weakness of the Resistance that they are making a miscalculation.

Today, 22 September 2006, the Resistance is stronger than at any time since 1982. [Applause] Concerning the resistance, its strength, and its weapons, we say: Rest completely assured.

Prisoners only to be released as an exchange

The second issue is the prisoners. Your prisoners and children will return, God willing. All of them will return, God willing. [Applause] In the name of the resistance, I promised you on 12 July and I told you in the name of the men of God and not in my name and the name of my father but in the name of the resistance men that if the entire universe comes it will not be able to save these two pri
soners except through indirect negotiations and an exchange process. [Applause] After 12 July, the entire universe came and you remained steadfast and the prisoners remained in our hands and they will not be released except with the return of the prisoners whose release and return we are demanding. [A man among the crowd utters indistinct words and Nasrallah responds] "God willing". So we ask the world to be certain about this.

Shab'a Farms will not be relinquished

Thirdly, there is the issue of Shab'a Farms and Kfar Shuba Hills. Delegations from these good and steadfast towns have been worried of late as a result of the new arrangements in the border region. I assure them that the Shab'a Farms and Kfar Shuba Hills will not be relinquished. Nobody will relinquish a single inch of the occupied Lebanese territories. Never. [Applause] I tell you that during the war and the political negotiations there was a genuine opportunity to liberate the Shab'a Farms, and the Americans were about to agree, and indeed they agreed, but they went back on their promises, as is their wont, and said: We cannot return the Shab'a Farms to Lebanon now. Why, because we do not want to offer a victory to Hezbollah. I tell them: Return them to whomever you want and offer a victory to whomever you want, but return them, return them. [Applause]

We could have regained the Shab'a Farms and the Kfar Shuba hills during the war if there had been a serious political will, a serious political unity, and an integrated political resistance. But I stress to you that these are on their way to liberation. All current violations will then end. The state is the one currently present there. The Lebanese Army, which is our national army, is present there and the UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] has risen to 5,000 in number. In the past when the Resistance was on the borders, any bulldozer advancing even 10 meters would be hit and forced to retreat, and none dared to enter. Now our border is open and they enter here and there every now and then. What happened has happened but what about the future? This issue is not linked to the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army has courage, will, and determination. Its officers and soldiers are the brothers of these resistance men. There is no difference between them. The issue is linked to political decision.

Will the Lebanese government turn the Lebanese army into a unit in charge of counting complaints and recording violations? This will be humiliating to the Lebanese army. Neither the army nor the Lebanese people accept this. Our army's task is not sitting in the border area and counting the Israeli violations as the United Nations did in 1972. The task for which our army went to the south upon a decision from the current government was defending the country and protecting the citizens and their livelihood and security. The country's sovereignty and territory are now violated and the citizens are kidnapped and assaulted every now and then and their farms are attacked. What is the government's political decision? We have thus far been patient because we do not want to commit any violation of Resolution 1701, which is not sacred, of course, because we know that any simple violation by us even if it is done in legitimate defence of ourselves, a hue and cry will be raised. Israel has been committing violations, attacks, and transgressions all the time but the world remains silent. Be assured that we will not be patient for long. Hear me well. If the state and government fail to carry out their responsibility towards protecting the land and citizens, the Lebanese people will assume this responsibility as they have done since 1982. [Applause] I tell the Zionists: If someone gives you security assurances from above or under the table, these will concern him and not the resistance in Lebanon or the people of Lebanon. [Applause]

What we are required to do then is sharpen our national zeal and stand behind and support our national army so that it will be equipped with the best equipment in order to guard the homeland - villages, towns, farms, farmers, churches, and mosques - and not protect anyone else.

UNIFIL to support Lebanese army, not to spy on Hezbollah

To the UNIFIL, which they turned into something that is much larger than a reinforced UNFIL, we say: We welcomed you and I reiterate our welcome of you within the framework of your clear mission, which is supporting the Lebanese army. Your mission is not to spy on Hezbollah or disarm the Resistance. This is what UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and several officials said. Thus far, I have not heard any country participating in the UNIFIL say that it sent its sons and soldiers to defend Lebanon and the Lebanese. They are ashamed of us, brothers and sisters. They are ashamed of saying they came to defend us, but they talk about defending Israel. Well, the UNIFIL forces are welcomed as long as they abide by their mission. I call on the UNIFIL command in Lebanon to be alert because I have received information that there are some who want to drag these UN forces to collision with the Resistance. I heard that it was said at some meetings that the presence of the UN forces will restore the internal balance of power in Lebanon. This is serious talk. The UN forces came for a specific goal and they should not interfere in Lebanon's internal affairs or be involved in such things.

The point before the last is about political arguments and counterarguments. We did not seek political rivalry with anyone. We heard much harmful talk during the war and we remained silent and were patient. Political and media rivalry and attack on the resistance and on us continued after the war. Things reached an unbearable limit in recent statements. The almighty God wants believers to have broad minds, patience, and great hearts. But He at the same time does not accept humiliation for them. The media and political attacks on the resistance in Lebanon after the war - we put up with this during the war - reached a limit that could be tolerated only by prophets and we are not prophets. My brothers and I are not prophets. [Applause]

Pride in relationship with Iraq, Syria

We understand things if one or two persons stand up and say things. If three persons say them, we will continue to comprehend what they say. Entire political forces met at Bristol [Hotel]. They brought their deputies, leaders, and members of political bureaus to show that the rally was big. They then issued a statement in which they said the war which took place in Lebanon was an Iranian war for the sake of the Iranian nuclear file, or a Syrian war to obstruct the international tribunal. Actually, we did not tolerate that although we - and I repeat this on the day of victory - take pride in our relationship and friendship with the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of His Eminence Imam leader Al-Sayyid Khamene'i, may God keep his shadow. [Applause] We also take pride in our relationship with Syria - leadership and people. Yes, leadership and people under the leadership of President Bashar al-Asad. [Applause]

We are independent and sovereign and our history testifies to this more than their history. [Applause] But to say that this war - which America and Israel launched and which Condoleezza Rice said was hard labour for the birth of a new Middle East and about which Olmert, Peretz, and others said all sorts of things, and which the Arabs said was the sixth war while the Zionists said was the first in the history of Israel - was fought by us for the sake of the nuclear issue and international tribunal is both shameful and insulting. Our houses were destroyed and our children and women were killed but we continued to fight. I care for all those who care for me and for my turban and beard and those who tell me not to engage in an argument. The party's youth and leadership can engage in such an argument. But there is a limit. Even I and my turban and beard are not more honourable than this resistance and these people. [Applause] If my turban and beard have honour, it is then an honour bestowed by you and this resistance and the blood of martyrs. [Applause] I call for stopping these arguments and avoiding silly, harmful, and harsh phrases. We must remain within the framework of logical and reasonable political competition because we have a common destiny and we must finally build Lebanon together. But I, Hasan Nasrallah, will not remain silent over any insult to the people of the resistance. [Applause]

A few days ago, a big leader in the 14 February forces said - I know some people will ask me why I should say this but I will tell you [changes thought]. None is allowed to stand up and say even calmly that the Resistance masses are thoughtless. Are you thoughtless? [Chants] Who accepts this insult? No, no, no, I respect his masses. I, however, respect their masses and their youth and women. I respect their options if they are national. But we will never accept any insult to the masses of the resistance by anyone. He has to apologize. Yes, he has to apologize. [Applause and chants] We are not a totalitarian party, regime, or faction. Neither my father nor grandfather was a Bek [originally a Turkish title given to rulers of tribal groups; currently used with the name of Lebanese Druze leader Walid Junblatt]. Also my son will not be a Bek. [Chants and applause]

We do not seek political arguments and counterarguments. We are keen to get out of political division in the country through any dialogue formula. We are committed and are advocates of the state, the state project, the building of the state, and the establishment of the state, but we have dignity. Our dignity is above anything else. We cannot allow anyone to squander our dignity in return for building us a house. The house was destroyed for the sake of our dignity. [Applause] None should imagine that he can satisfy our hunger at the expense of our dignity. We sacrificed our blood for the sake of our dignity. This is how we are. What else can we do? This is how things are for us in Lebanon.

Call for return to calm, reason

Within this context, I call for a return to calm and reason. We are on the threshold of the blessed month of Ramadan. May God return the happy occasion to all Lebanese. We pray to the almighty God to grant us success this month so that we can fast and pray for Him. I hope that the blessed month of Ramadan will be an opportunity for meditation and reflection and return to one's self and to seeing facts. Get out and see facts and do not let things become dubious to you. Do not build things on miscalculations.

Brothers and sisters, once again I greet the martyrs, the families of the chaste martyrs among all the Lebanese, the wounded, the detainees, all communities, movements, and regions which embraced and helped the resistance. I greet every Arab and Muslim people in the world. I greet every person, faction, and party. I will not get into names because the list is long and the ones I forget are more than those whom I remember. Therefore, we will be satisfied with this generalization.

Thanks to all. As we said during the war: May God grant you victory and God has granted your victory. We said may God help you and He has done so. I will conclude as I did in Bint Jubayl on 25 May 2000. I told you: O people of Lebanon, O people of Palestine, O peoples of our Arab nation. The era of victories began on 25 May 2000 and the era of defeats came to an end. There will absolutely be no defeat. Happy Ramadan and I wish you well on every historic and strategic victory. You are the most honourable, generous, and pure among people. God's peace and blessings be upon you. [Applause and chants]

Source: Al-Manar Television, Beirut, in Arabic 1400 gmt 22 Sep 06 '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

3,000 Demonstrate in Tikrit for Saddam Return
Muqtada: US DoD has File on Shiite Messiah

The Associated Press reports Friday's major events in Iraq:

' In the city of Tikrit north of Baghdad, 3,000 persons came out on Friday to demonstrate for the return of Saddam Hussein to power. Tikrit is his birthplace. '

In the mixed Hurriyah district of Baghdad, guerrillas attacked Sunni Arab homes and mosques. The guerrillas shot down 4 persons.

Muqtada al-Sadr called for a joint Sunni-Shiite nonviolent campaign against the presence of US troops in Iraq.

In a worrisome sign that Muqtada al-Sadr has gone deep into an apocalyptic sense of the end of the world [Ar.], al-Zaman reports that the young nationalist Shiite cleric maintained that the US Department of Defense has compiled an enormous file on the hidden Twelfth Imam, that is virtually complete save that it lacks his photograph.

[For Shiite Muslims, the Twelfth Imam or Imam Mahdi is a little like Jesus Christ for evangelical Christians. Shiites believe that the Imam was translated by God into a supernatural realm, from which he secretly rules the world and from which he will one day return to restore the world to justice.]

Al-Sadr said during his Friday prayer sermon in Kufa that "The United States has been preparing for ten years a rapid reaction force against the awaited Imam Mahdi and the US provoked the Gulf War so as to fill the region with military outposts for this purpose."

He said that he had not stood against the elections held under conditions of foreign military occupation, because he wanted to see a political opposition to the Occupation develop. He said that nevertheless, conflicts between him and the Americans had continued and would continue.

He added, "I want it to be a peaceful war against them. I do not want a single drop of blood to be spilled, since [Iraqi lives] are dear to me. Fight them with a popular, nonviolent, political war."

Of the recent arrest in Najaf by the US forces of his lieutenant, Salah al-Ubaidi, Muqtada alleged, "This is an extension of the attacks on Islam."

He added, "Have you asked yourselves what the US has given the Iraqi people save the killing and destruction that you see? . . . That is only a preparation for the advent of the Imam Mahdi."

Oliver Poole reports from Baghdad that the Mahdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr had taken over gasoline stations in Baghdad and were smuggling petroleum from them, earning $1 mn. a day. Apparently the US considers the Sadrists' control of the Ministry of Transportation worrisome in this regard. Muqtada seems to be losing control of local branches of the Mahdi Army, often to Shiite clerics who have taken a more radical position vis-a-vis the new government and the Americans than has he. An example is Abu Dara' in Baghdad, said to be extremely violent


In addition, Reuters reports 18 killed and dozens wounded in Iraq's civil war. One of the dead was a US GI. Among the major incidents:

' BAGHDAD - Two car bombs in Shi'ite districts of southern Baghdad wounded 16 people late on Friday, an Interior Ministry source said. Five were hurt in a market in the Abu Chehr district and 11 in a street near an Agriculture Ministy office in Zaafaraniya . . .

BAGHDAD - Police found 10 bodies [AP says 17], including those of two women, in different parts of Baghdad. Most bore signs of torture and had been shot, police said. The two women were found in the western Shi'ite district of Shula. None of the bodies was immediately identified. '

US military commanders in Baghdad want 3,000 more Iraq troops to join the current operation, but have been unable to get them because Iraqi soldiers refuse to leave their regional posts for the capital.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Nasrullah's Divine Victory

Hasan Nasrullah gave his "Divine Victory" speech on Friday to thousands of followers in South Beirut, which was heavily bombed by Israel during the Lebanon War.

The Daily Star reports that he said:

' "There is no army in the world capable of making us drop our weapons as long as there will be people who believe in this resistance," he said. "We don't want to keep our weapons forever and they will never be used against anyone inside Lebanon. These are not Shiite weapons but the weapons of all the religions and the Lebanese and will protect Lebanon's independence and sovereignty."

Nasrallah said disarming Hizbullah "under this government ... means leaving Lebanon exposed before Israel to kill and detain and bomb whoever they want, and clearly we will not accept that."

"When we build a strong and just state that is capable of protecting the nation and the citizens, we will easily find an honorable solution to the resistance issue and its arms," he added.

"Tears don't protect anyone," Nasrallah said in a barbed refer-ence to Siniora, who openly wept several times when describing the destruction of Lebanon during the war. '

Worrisome fissures have increasingly appeared between Hizbullah and the Lebanese government headed by PM Fuad Siniora. Israeli political strategy during the war was to attempt to set the Christian-Sunni reformist bloc against Hizballah as a way of blunting the latter. During the war, Lebanese leaders largely resisted the temptation to turn on one another as the Kadima government of Ehud Olmert intended. It may be that if Tel Aviv's political plan fails, it is mostly because the Lebanese government is not in fact capable of taking on Hizbullah's paramilitary.

Helena Cobban has more.

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said that Hizballah should have no missiles. He did not say anything about the hundreds of thousands of cluster bombs that Israel dropped on Lebanon, many of them as the war was ending. Cluster bombs often don't explode immediately, and therefore South Lebanon is littered now with deadly bomblets attractic to children and deadly to farmers. Several people have already been killed by them. This Israeli action was a war crime on a vast scale and rather damages Israeli credibility in condemning Hizbullah's rockets.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bombing Pakistan back to the Stone Age

A controversy has broken out over US threats against Pakistan in the wake of September 11, 2001.

Pakistani opposition politicians are taking advantage of it to attack Gen. Musharraf for having folded in the face of US threats. In fact, Musharraf met with all the major political figures at the time and they appear largely to have concurred with him that they had to turn on the Taliban. Musharraf's big worry was that if Pakistan did not accede to Bush's demands, the US would make an alliance with India against Pakistan. That might well have finished the country off, and most in the Pakistani elite at the time understood that. Aside from the fundamentalist Jama'at-i Islami, almost no one even complained.

I am here reprinting one of my widely circulated emails on this issue, sent by email on September 17,2001 to an academic and journalistic discussion list. The posting and the newspaper article appended to it show that the US threat to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age if it did not turn on the Taliban was known to the Pakistani press at that time.

' Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 07:19:48 -0400 (EDT)
To: gulf2000 list

Pakistan About-Face

From: Juan Cole

The United States demanded last week that Pakistan close the borders with Pakistan, cut off fuel to the Taliban, open its air space to the US for an attack on Afghanistan, and indicate a willingness to have US and allied troops stationed on its soil.

The response from the right wing (the old ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] officers e.g.) of the Pakistani military was quite defiant. In an interview with Deutche-Welle's Urdu service broadcast on Saturday 9-15, former chief of staff Aslam Beg rejected the demands as the sort that would be made on a "slave country" (ghulam mulk), and confidently predicted that neither Pakistani air space nor its soil would be opened to US forces. He complained that Pakistan had given enormous support to the US both during the anti-Soviet struggle and the Gulf War, and had been left in the lurch each time (the US cut off aid to Pakistan after the Russians left, citing the nuclear weapons program--though that existed in the 80s, too). Former Inter-Services Intelligence chief Hamid Gul spoke in a similarly defiant manner, though he said he said he realistically expected the US to be able to use Pakistani air space, given that it was a superpower. Gul attended the All-Parties conference on Saturday, held under the auspices of the fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami, that issued a call for non-cooperation with US moves against Afghanistan (all parties did not actually attend). It is hard to imagine that current ISI Chief Lt-Gen Mehmud, who reportedly is hand in hand with the Taliban, felt any differently.

By now, Pakistan has acceded to virtually all explicit US demands, and President Musharraf appears to be troubled and puzzled that he is also being pressured to accede to many as yet unstated demands without knowing what they are. As I write, Lt.-Gen. Mehmud is in Qandahar trying to impress on Mulla Muhammad `Umar, head of the Taliban, that he should hand over Usama Bin Ladin immediately.

The Pakistan military and what is left of its civilian bureaucracy has therefore acquiesced in President Bush's demands, even though Pakistan has declined to involve its own troops in fighting outside the country.

What accounts for the alacrity with which Musharraf has moved on this issue? First of all, he appears to have been bluntly threatened. Dawn quotes Pakistani officials as saying, that " 'Pakistan has the option to live in the 21st century or the Stone Age' is roughly how US officials are putting their case." It is astonishing that the US is talking like this behind the scenes, if true, though presumably the blunt language is coming from aides & lower-level bureaucrats. If Aslam Beg took umbrage at Pakistanis being ordered around like servants, what does he think of them being threatened as though by mafiosi? It shows that in some senses we are already in a war, that a Manichean lining up of assets and enemies is going on, with all countries being the one or the other, willy nilly. It also reveals what those US officials think lies in store for Afghanistan (though as many have pointed out, Afghanistan doesn't have far to go in that direction anyway).

In addition, Musharraf himself is a moderate to secular man. Early on after making his coup against Nawaz Sharif, he announced that he thought Turkey would be an excellent model for Pakistan. This remark provoked a firestorm of protest and he subsequently gave in to the enormous influence of the religious right. But having had to give in may have chafed, and he has plenty of potential allies in civil politics in Pakistan who deeply dislike the religious Right, including much of the Pakistan People's Party (which pointedly did not attend Saturday's All-Parties Conference). Musharraf may in part see this episode as a way of reducing the power of the religious right and reviving his mildly Ataturkist vision.

Finally, he clearly wants, and told Bush so, a resolution of the Kashmir issue under the good auspices of the US, though he was careful not to make anything a quid pro quo (people with one foot in the Stone Age are apparently anyway not in a position to present any quids). Musharraf must hope that the US will finally be eager to invest diplomatic efforts to quieten any situation that inflames Muslim political passions, and that after inflicting substantial attrition on the Bin Ladin network, the US will turn to being an honest broker on Kashmir.

Monday morning in Pakistan, the Peshawar-based Frontier Post was reporting that the Taliban had already set up anti-aircraft batteries on their side of the Khyber Pass, aiming them for the first time in Pakistan's direction. It speculates that will be given the use of the Budbher air force base, which it once used to spy on the Soviet Union. It also reported that 50 US military personnel had already landed at Peshawar on Saturday. If true, this report suggests that Musharraf's actual decision-making took place even faster than his tentative public statements of Friday would have suggested.

Juan Cole History University of Michigan

-------------------------------------------------
Dawn (Karachi), 9-17-01 But the most immediate concern for the Musharraf government is the US pressure. Close associates of President General Pervez Musharraf say that he is under tremendous pressure because "events are moving at a bewildering pace." Saturday night's telephone call from the US President George Bush was not just to thank him on his support but to also ask what has Pakistan decided on providing logistical assistance to the military operation. The US is not keeping according to the schedule of Pakistan's final decision; it wants a decision and a final detailed yes according to its own plans - not all of which have been shared with Pakistan.

Pakistan according to some officials wants the US to also provide it with some incentives: economic and military assistance, removal of sanctions, debt relief, active role in helping it to solve the Kashmir problem and no role of India and Israel in this military operation.

However, the signals from Washington are that while these demands will be considered sympathetically, at this point in time the only incentive that is available to Pakistan is negative. "Pakistan has the option to live in the 21st century or the Stone Age" is roughly how US officials are putting their case. '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

70 Killed, including 3 GIs;
Return of Republic of Fear

Reuters reports 77 killed in Iraq's civil war on Thursday. That total includes 38 bodies found in the streets of Baghdad. Also included are 3 GIs k.i.a.

Al-Hayat reports that in Najaf on Weds.-Thurs. night, 4 members of the Sadr Movement loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr were arrested, including one of his aides. Muqtada al-Sadr's office said that the arrests were based on a misunderstanding and called for calm. The elected head of the Najaf provincial governing council complained that the arrests had been made without any prior contact with the council.

Patrick Cockburn argues that the Republic of Fear is back in Iraq, with widespread torture by death squads of their victims. Some of his interviewees in Baghdad are saying that the situation is worse than under Saddam.

Guerrillas are kidnapping drivers, then booby-trapping their cars and letting them go, then following them until they pass a checkpoint, at which point they hit the detonator button and . . . kablooie. I don't think this can work for very long; the victims will find out about their predecessors and ditch the car.

The Italians have handed over military duties to the Iraqi army in Dhi Qar province, with its capital at Nasiriyah. The Italians will continue to contribute economic development assistance, but their military mission is over.

Australian troops will perform back-up and emergency duties in the area, but will not patrol the capital of Nasiriyah, which has largely gone over to Muqtada al-Sadr.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Democracy Now

Look for me on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now Show on Monday, however and whenever you get it.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Over 6,000 Killed in July-August;
75% Sunnis Support Insurgency;
50 Killed on Weds. including 2 GIs

Two US soldiers were announced killed on Wednesday, as the US military admitted that attacks against US personnel have risen during the past month. Typically about 70 percent of the roadside bombings in Iraq are aimed at US troops.

Altogether, Reuters reports about 50 dead in civil war violence. 35 bodies were found in Baghdad on Wednesday. Two significant bombings were:

' BAGHDAD - A suicide truck bomber blew up his explosives near a police checkpoint in the southern Doura district of Baghdad, killing seven police commandos and wounding 11 people, including three civilians, an Interior Ministry source said.

SAMARRA - A suicide car bomber rammed his car into the house of Khalid al-Fulalli, a Sunni leader of the Bazi tribe, in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, police and a Reuters cameraman at the scene said. Police major Saadoun Mohammed said that one child was killed and 26 people, mostly women and children, were wounded in the attack. '

(The Samarra attack killed 6-year-old child and may have wounded 60 members of the sheikh's family, mostly women and children. This sort of thing is why I couldn't understand the US announcing on Tuesday that it was turning Salahuddin Province, where Samarra is located, over to the Iraqi 4th Division. I presume that the sheikh was viewed by the guerrillas as being too friendly to the Americans.)

This account in the LA Times of everyday life in Baghdad explains how dangerous it would be just to help a wounded person lying in the street.

The United Nations, which has access to statistics from Iraqi morgues and the Ministery of Health, reported that 6,599 persons were killed in political violence in Iraq in July and August--a 13% increase over the previous two months. Reuters says:

' The July total of 3,590 deaths was unprecedented, it said, while the August figure of 3,009, though lower, was also among the worst yet.

In its previous report two months ago, it gave a combined figure of 5,818 for the two months of May and June. The latest two-month figure shows an increase of more than 13 percent over that number, which it described as a sharp surge at the time . . .

"Bodies found at the Medico-legal Institute often bear signs of severe torture including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances, missing skin, broken bones, missing eyes, missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails." '

The US Department of Defense has done some opinion polling that indicates that 3/4s of Iraqi Sunnis now support what the Pentagon calls the "insurgency". When the DoD started doing polling on the subject in 2003, they found that 14 percent of Sunni Arabs supported the insurgency. If there are 5 million Sunni Arabs, let us say that 1.5 million are less than 15 years of age. Of the 3.5 million left, half are women and less likely to actually engage in violence, though they might offer support for it. So that is 1.75 million men. At 75%, that is 1.3 million male supporters of the guerrilla movement.

Of the 147,000 US troops in Iraq, a very large number of which now seem to be in and around Baghdad itself, I don't know exactly how many are fighters. The traditional rule of thumb is 10%, but I read somewhere that the percentage is much higher in this war. A reader who served over there challenged the latter assertion and said that no, it is just 10%.

If we really just have 14,700 fighters facing 1.3 million Sunni guerrilla supporters, it isn't any mystery why things in Iraq are as they are and why Gen. Casey openly admits that we are not there to win, just to keep a lid on. I can't imagine how they could hope even to keep a lid on. Given the figures released today, I'd say it isn't much of a lid (though remember that the death figures could easily be twice or ten times as bad.)

The other thing to remember is that the Sunni Arab areas have been under US military occupation for the past over 3 years, and that this vast increase in support for the guerrilla movement is therefore in some large part the fault of bad counter-insurgency tactics by the US military. They were all reading that stupid, racist tract, Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind, which says you can control Arabs by humiliating them. What Patai didn't tell them is that yes, you can for a short while, but then in order to recover his self-respect, the humiliated Arab has to spend the rest of his life trying to kill you, and so do his 5 brothers and 25 cousins.

There are probably also at least a couple million Shiite mem who support guerrilla action to get the multinational forces out of their country.

A UAE newspaper reports that the vast majority of guerrilla fighters in Iraq are not international terrorists but rather Iraq Sunni Arabs worried about their position in the new Iraq.

Iranian shelling of PEJAK terrorist bases in Iraqi Kurdistan has driven 900 Iraqi families from their homes along the border, leaving them in dire straits.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Chavez and the Devil:
Bush's Use of 'Evil' Comes Home to Roost

'Railing and praising were his usual themes,
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;
So over-violent, or over-civil,
That every man with him was god or devil'
- John Dryden

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez referred to US President George W. Bush as "the devil" in his speech before the UN general assembly on Wednesday, complaining that the stench of sulphur still hung in the air at the podium. Chavez crossed himself at the mention of Bush, a folk Catholic way of fending off Satan.

Bush himself opened the way for these sorts of comments with his 2002 State of the Union address, where he mysteriously allowed the Neoconservative lightweight David Frum to put into his mouth the phrase "the axis of evil" in referring to Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Critics at the time complained that they weren't an axis.

But the real problem is that "evil" is not a political term, it is a theological one. The president of a civil republic has no business trafficking in the rhetoric of evil. Besides, the best ethical theory sees evil as an attribute of acts, not of persons or countries. "Iran" is not "evil." Iran's governing officials may occasionally do evil things, but they are actions, not essences. If you call a person or a country "evil" you are demonizing them.

Having made Iran a demon, Bush refused to talk to it. At the time he put Iran in the axis of evil, reform President Mohammad Khatami had presided over candlelight vigils in Iran for the United States in the aftermath of the al-Qaeda attacks, and had called for people to people diplomacy and a "dialogue of civilizations." President Khatami has his flaws, but he was not and is not "evil."

So, having theologized international relations and turned them into moral absolutes, it is natural that Bush is subsequently paralyzed.

Bush started it. He started talking about other countries and leaders as "evil." He bears the responsibility for this importation of the absolute into our political discourse.

And having set up these theological absolutes, Bush became bound by them. He had to invade "evil" Iraq, because it was . . . evil. Bush keeps saying that Saddam Hussein was "dangerous" even if he did not have weapons of mass destruction. Apparently he was "dangerous" because he is "evil." His dangerousness was not related to actual capability to accomplish anything (which was low). He was intrinsically evil and dangerous.

Contrast Bush's theological crusade against "evil" to the speech of then president John Quincy Adams:

' America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. '

Bush, having identified other countries as "monsters" had to go in search of them to destroy them. Hence the quagmire in Iraq.

And it was predictable that once he began calling others "evil," someone in the global south would respond by calling George W. Bush "evil" himself.

So now in Bushworld we have all these "evil" politicians and regimes in the world, with whom we won't talk and whom we wish we could just overthrow.

Bush and Chavez aren't qualified to decide that others are evil.

And the whole point of the United Nations was to foster dialogue and understanding. We had enough demonization of people after 1933. Bush's rhetoric has impeded that dialogue, and seems likely to go on doing so.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

4 GIs Killed; at least 64 Iraqis Killed
Massive Bomb Near Mosul

Ed Wong of the New York Times reports on increasing American and Iraqi dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, given that he has not reversed the slide into worse and worse security.

We historians don't approve of great man theories of history, and I don't think the main problem is Maliki. He very decisively sent the 10th Army Division down to Basra to impose security when the city was slipping into faction fighting late last spring. What I heard was that the army manned checkpoints for a while, but took fire and eventually wasn't so visible. Is that Maliki's fault?

(There was a firefight between British forces and the Mahdi Army on Tuesday in Basra, in which Habib Jasim al-`Ibadi, a Sadrist leader, was killed, and a British soldier was wounded. Thereafter, guerrillas launched mortar attacks on the Iranian and British consulates. On Tuesday, DPA reports, Iraqi police began implementing a new security program in Basra, beginning by arresting 130 persons. )

And, how come Iraq only has one armored division, and how come its army only has 78 old Hungarian tanks? How can you control Iraq with lightly armed and poorly trained infantry? Saddam had 8,000 tanks at his height.

And, nobody can get elected prime minister in today's Iraq except by getting the support of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Sadr Movement, both of which have militias. So then how can the PM crack down on the paramilitaries that brought him to power, with an army that doesn't seem willing or able to take them on? (The Wong article depicts the Iraqi army and police as eager to take on the militias and just waiting for the order, but I fear that on the basis of what happened in Basra, I don't buy it.)

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group also said that the Iraqi government must act quickly and decisively to prevent the crisis from deteriorating.

So, I fear I think that the American officials in Baghdad are trying to make Maliki a scapegoat and take the spotlight off their own failures. They are the ones with the tanks and helicopter gunships and trained troops, and they haven't been able to restore security. How can Maliki?

Speaking of the Mahdi Army militia, AP says that it is now using children against US troops in Sadr City.

Upset members of parliament demanded Tuesday that the ministers of defense and the interior explain what practical steps were being taken to stem the tide of faith-based killings. Over two hundred bodies have been found in Iraq in the past week by my count.

Reuters reports 65 killed or announced dead in civil war violence in Iraq on Tuesday, including 4 US troops. AP reports another 3 bodies found in Baghdad, for a total of at least 68.

AFP reports that 4 US soldiers were announced killed by Iraqi guerrillas on Tuesday:

'A soldier with the 89th Military Police brigade was killed and two others wounded when their vehicle was struck on Tuesday by a suicide car bomb in the northern city of Mosul.

In Baghdad, a soldier died when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in northeast Baghdad while shortly afterwards another was killed by small arms in north-central Baghdad, both on Sunday. '

Reuters reports 61 other deaths in Iraq on Tuesday. In addition, AP reported that 3 bodies were found in Baghdad, for a total of at least 64 Iraqis and 4 Americans dead. The biggest attacks were these:

MOSUL - A car bomb followed by a suicide blast killed 18 people and wounded 11 in Sherqat, a town near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, police said.

BAGHDAD - Mortars slammed into residential homes in southern Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 20, an Interior Ministry source said. A police source gave an initial toll of two people killed and 19 wounded, adding the numbers could change.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed 11 people across Baquba, north of Baghdad, including a former army officer and his wife, police said.

MAHMUDIYA - A total of 11 bodies, with bullet holes and signs of torture, were found in different areas in the town of Mahmudiya, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. '

Former Israeli special ops personnel had contracts in 2004 to train Kurdish peshmerga to guard the airport at Irbil. The way the report is worded, this sounds like a private company contract where some personnel happened to be Israel.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said that the Middle East could not bear the problems that would ensue from a break-up of Iraq. He said that if the country did move further toward a breakdown in security, Turkey would protect the Iraqi Kurds.

I can't figure out whether that is an overture or a threat.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bush v. Ahmadinejad
Egypt's Jamal Mubarak Rejects "New Middle East"
Announces Nuclear Quest

The speeches given at the UN by US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were mirror images of one another.

Bush accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons and of supporting terrorism.

Ahmadinejad said that his own country's nuclear research program is purely civilian and that Iran is not seeking a bomb and remains committed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But he said that the real threat anyway was from countries that already possessed nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and who insisted on continually increasing their stockpiles of these weapons and their sophistication. What, he asked, do they intend to do with these ever expanding arsenals? Why do they need them?

Bush said that the problem in the Middle East is authoritarian government, which breeds despair and terrorism.

Ahmadinejad said that the problem in the Middle East is the meddling in its affairs of a neo-imperialist power, which worked by dividing and ruling.

Bush said that Afghanistan and Iraq were great success stories and beacons of democracy.

Ahmadinejad said that Iraq is a mess and that he suspects that the US is deliberately keeping it that way so as to have a pretext to stay and dominate it. He said that Iraqi forces turned captured terrorists over to the US, but that the US often just released them after a few months.

Bush said Saudi Arabia's municipal elections were a step toward democracy. (Only half of the municipal councils are elected, the other half are appointed by the monarchy, as are the mayors).

Iran, for all the substantial faults of its electoral system, is far more democratic than Saudi Arabia.

Bush said that the Lebanon war came out of an unprovoked attack on Israel by Hizbullah.

Ahmadinejad said an aggressive Israel was a constant source of instability in the region.

But it is clear which speech resonated best in the Middle East itself, where Bush is extremely unpopular and deeply distrusted. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Jamal Mubarak of Egypt paid a very sincere compliment to Ahmadinejad Tuesday.

While Bush and Ahmadinejad were wrangling, Egypt's Jamal Mubarak unexpectedly entered the arena. He is the son and likely successor of President Hosni Mubarak.

Bush did not mention Egypt in his speech, but it is a soft military dictatorship in which the liveliest challenger to the government is the Muslim Brotherhood, which has authoritarian Islamist tendencies. Egypt is a close US military ally and receives $2 bn a year in US aid.

Jamal Mubarak announced that Egypt is trying to fill its energy gap with nuclear power plants. It was the first public admission that Egypt has a civilian nuclear powere research program. He said that the question of energy is pivotal to his country's economic development. (Egypt has had a small and desultory nuclear energy research program for many years, and has been criticized by the IAEA for trying to hide it.)

He rejected the "Greater Middle East" plan for Iraq of the Bush administration, which Washington says involves democratization but which many Middle Easterners view as a pretext for US dominance of the region. Jamal Mubarak said, "We do not accept initiatives that come to us every day from outside."

For more see New York Times reporting on the issue.

Even Bush's friends in the region are imitating Ahmadinejad.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

70 Dead, Bombings in Ramadi, Tal Afar
Virtue Party Proposes Provinces as Regions

Kofi Annan says that Iraq is sliding into sectarian civil war. He called for urgent action, warning, " . . . if current patterns of alienation and violence persist much longer, there is a grave danger that the Iraqi state will break down, possibly in the midst of a full-scale civil war."

He said that despite elections, ' it was "heartbreaking" that "the everyday life of Iraqi people is dominated by the constant threat of sectarian violence and civil strife". '

Saudi Arabia is afraid that the Iraq violence will spill over onto the neighbors in the region.

The US military handed operational control for central Salahuddin Province, north of Baghdad, over to the 4th Iraqi Division. (The new Iraq has 10 divisions, only one of them lightly armored). This news item just mystifies me. Samarra is in Salahuddin and has been a consistent center of the guerrilla movement. In fact, guerrillas virtually blew up the country when they attacked the Askariyah Shrine there in February. Likewise, Tikrit is there. A Dyncorp security man was killed there by sniper fire on Sunday. Salahuddin is largely Sunni Arab and just is not in control. So how could the Iraqi 4th Division hope to handle it? Is this just an announcement that the Americans have given up on Salahuddin? Is it a sign that Sunni federal troops will be put in charge of it, in hopes of mollifying the guerrillas? Is it actually meaningless and the US military is still more or less in control?

Al-Hayat says that the new command structure does not apply to the huge US military base in Salahuddin.

Reuters reports 70 dead in civil war violence in Iraq on Monday. Combined with deaths reported by AP, the actual total is over 80.

Late reports said that a big bombing in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar killed 20 and wounded 17.

A suicide bombing at a police recruitment station in Ramadi killed 13 and wounded 10.

AP says that perpetually troubled Baqubah also saw 12 persons die in shootings and other violence. (Reuters only reported 4 of these).

14 bodies were found in Baghdad, and 4 were found in Mosul (the ones up north were all women, one tortured.)

4 persons were killed in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. What is that about? They don't have Sunnis or Kurds, so they are killing each other?

In Basra, the police officer in charge of security was assassinated.

al-Zaman reports that parliamentary leaders continued to meet Monday in an attempt to resolve the impasse over passing legislation on the formation of provincial confederacies. The whole parliament is supposed to take it up Tuesday.

An MP from the Fadhila (Virtue) Party said that his party had put forward a plan whereby each province would have the prerogatives of a federated region, as a way of ending the stalemate. Karim al-Yaqubi, spokesman for the party, said that the plan had the advantage of not promoting sectarianism. It would give each province the opportunity to manage its own affairs, and give people the feeling that its provinces belong to its residents. (The plan excludes Kurdistan, which already groups 3 provinces into a single administrative framework).

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq continued to insist on its own plan, for an 8-province confederacy in the Shiite South.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki put forward a peace plan for Diwaniyah. It has been accepted by the Sadr Movement, which had clashed with the provincial government. It requires that no party appear in public armed and that attacks on American troops in the residential districts cease.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat says [Ar.] that the 32 Sadrist members of parliament have gone on strike to protest a US raid on the guards of female MP Zaynab Karim Juburi. Four of her bodyguards were arrested and the weapons of her security team were confiscated. The Sadrist MPs are demanding that the four bodyguards be released.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cobban and Cole

Check out Helena Cobban's "Just World News" for an account of our program together on Sunday in Ann Arbor on Iraq, and her comments on Trudy Rubin and Jim Webb on Iraq.

As for her critique of my present lack of policy prescriptions for Iraq, I'm just being realistic. It is increasingly silly to dream up ten point plans to resolve the Iraq crisis. It would be nice to see a multilateral approach, but we should not fool ourselves that the Bangladeshis can succeed in al-Anbar where the Marines couldn't. It would be nice to see Maliki's reconciliation program broadened to include neo-Baathist guerrillas and Salafis, as it must if it is to succeed. But that isn't going to happen because Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and the Kurds would veto it, as would the US Congress. I actually think that offering glib solutions like "Complete US withdrawal in 3 months" is the cop-out, because they seem to offer hope but are no more substantial than a desert mirage and about as likely to quench any existential thirst.

It is better just to admit to people when there are not good options, and be honest with them about the various likely scenarios that would ensue from what realistic options there are. That is what I try to do. It is not a cop-out.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Khamenei's Conspiracy Theory Links Pope to Bush's Crusade

Kayhan reports in Persian on remarks of Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran on the Pope's Regensburg lecture.

Khamenei expressed profound regret at the Pope's statements about Islam. He said that the first aspect of these remarks was the accusations that had been made against Islam. The second is more important, which is the help such remarks give to the policies of the hegemonic powers in the world, in creating religious strife between Muslims and Christians.

He said that the accusation that Islam lacks an attention to reason is like denying the light of the sun. No scripture, he said, more vigorously urged reasoning than the Quran. Muslims had established a glorious scientific civilization precisely on the basis of this attention to the precepts of Islam concerning the importance of rational thought and knowledge.

With regard to the Pope's allegations concerning holy war in Islam, Khamenei said, it is the height of unfairness for someone to misunderstand jihad in Islam and to incorrectly describe it. He said, "Islamic holy war [jihad] is not for the purpose of imposing a belief on others." He said it is for freeing people from the shackles of injustice.

He said in reference to the requirement that Muslims honor persons with differing beliefs, that from the point of view of Islam, human beings, by virtue of their status as human beings, are deserving of being honored. He said that numerous Quran verses attest these values.

He regretted that the Pope had leant aid and comfort to the policies of arrogant, hegemonic powers that wish to create religious turmoil, cause religious leaders to differ, and prevent the cooperation of religious communities and leaders.

He alleged that America wishes to sow mistrust and hatred between Muslims and Christians, to distort the image of Muslim minorities in the West, and to create a pretext of protecting itself from terrorism in order to oppress Muslim societies.

He accused the Pope of having, by his remarks, aided these policies. He said that the Pope had been deceived, and did not realize where his remarks would lead.

Khamenei recalled a conversation with a European some years ago in which the Westerner spoke of a coming war between Christians and Muslims. Khamenei says he was amazed. "But when the towers in New York came down, and the president of the American Republic spoke of a Crusade, and then when the American-Zionist project of attacking Iraq began, the meaning of the words of that European, which entered directly into the Iraq war, became perfectly clear."

He described the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, dismissive remarks about Islam by prominent Western politicians, and remarks in American and European newspapers, as part of a series of actions in a broader American-Zionist conspiracy against Islam.

He added, "We don't have any expectations of Bush, since he works for powers and global munitions corporations." But, he said, for a respected spiritual source such as the Pope to make such comments is highly disappointing.

Here is another account of the speech.

The positives in Khamenei's speech are his affirmation of the role of reason in Islam; his stress on an almost humanistic conception of human beings as owed respect and autonomy of conscience by virtue of being human beings; and his insistence that jihad has nothing to do with imposing beliefs on others.

Ironically, given his defense of reason and Islamic scientific contributions, Khamenei's unfortunate departure into conspiracy theory and conflating his opponents (the Pope and Bush and even "Zionism") shows a paranoid mindset incompatible with a reasoned, open society.

While what he said about Islam and reason is correct historically, one also has to point out that Khamenei himself has not stood for freedom of conscience and thought, nor for unfettered scientific research. In fact, Iran's universities are being purged of liberal professors. (Apparently David Horowitz is a secret adviser to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.]

And, Khamenei has repeatedly interfered with freedom of thought and speech on religious grounds. He crushed the 2nd of Khordad reform movement, closed newspapers, and barred candidates from running for office on the basis of their beliefs. I don't know whether his hypocrisy is a result of his not being able to see the contradictions in his stated values, or whether it is just cynicism.

But it is worth noting that Khamenei makes excuses for the Pope, saying that he was deceived and did not realize the likely impact of his words; and note that Khamenei did not call for any sort of violent response.

In fact, I don't know of any major mainstream Muslim leader or institution that has called for a violent response. The tiny guerrilla cells in Iraq don't count. This point is worth stressing, because of the false allegation that Muslims have in some normative way responded with violence. There has been almost none of that, despite a handful of regrettable incidents, and even the peaceful demonstrations have been tiny for a community of 1.4 billion. 150 people came out in Basra, a city of over a million.
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At least 26 Dead in Kirkuk Bombings
32 Bodies Found in Baghdad

Early reports said that a massive truck bombing downtown Kirkuk killed 19 and wounded 65. With three other bombings and other acts of violence, altogether 26 were said to have been killed and nearly 100 wounded in the northern oil city on Sunday. (The death toll is likely to rise, and al-Zaman is reporting three times this rate). Kirkuk is an object of rivalry among Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen (and Sunnis and Shiites). The bombing took place near the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the two major Kurdish parties, which suffered damage. The Kurds are trying to annex Kirkuk province to their regional confederacy, which already groups the provinces of Irbil, Dohuk and Sulaymaniyah. Most Arabs and Turkmen reject this prospect. Kurdistan has also provoked anger among other Iraqis by refusing to fly the Iraqi national flag.

One of the bombers targeted the "Organization for Tolerance and Love" in Kirkuk, killing one woman and wounding other persons.

Al-Hayat says [Ar.] that Arab tribes in Kirkuk and its environs had renewed their calls for Saddam Hussein to be released from imprisonment as part of an over-all reconciliation program. Shaikh Abdul Rahman of the al-`Ubayd tribe said a number of Arab tribal leaders in Kirkuk had been targeted for assassination attempts, but that they were undeterred.

Another 34 bodies were found in Iraq on Sunday, 32 of them in Baghdad. They were victims of sectarian reprisal killings. The guerrilla groups battling in the capital appear to have switched to nighttime kidnappings and killings because car bombings are harder to pull off in the face of a big sweep by US and Iraqi troops. It is not clear that the death toll from the two tactics is different.

In Fallujah, a bombing and mortar strikes killed four and wounded 10.

Reuters notes some other incidents.

Stories about Sunni Arab tribes in al-Anbar province taking on the radical Muslim fundamentalists began surfacing in al-Hayat newspaper last January. I didn't find them plausible then and don't much find them plausible now. Some tribes may develop feuds with some fundamentalists, but the likelihood of it amounting to much on a province-wide scale strikes me as low. Most Sunni Arab tribes are as opposed to the US presence as the fundamentalists. And most "tribes" aren't any longer that well organized, efficient or powerful. Iraq is an urban country, where urban formations such as political parties are the leading forces. And, yes, secret cells and intelligence tradecraft are also urban.

Two armed Iraqi Sunni Arab groups threatened reprisals against Pope Benedict for his citation of a medieval Byzantine ruler's negative remarks about the Prophet Muhammad. Grandstanding.

Iraq's famed al-Mutanabbi Street, named after a great medieval poet, was once the center of bookbuying and intellectual life in Baghdad. WaPo says it is a shadow of its former self.

Veteran Middle East reporter and commentator Trudy Rubin makes impressive sense in her estimation of the dangers facing the US in Iraq and what Democrats might say about them.
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Pope: Manuel II's Views of Muhammad are not My Own
Muslim Brotherhood Optimistic about end of Crisis

Pope Benedict said on Sunday that the quote he had cited from Byzantine emperor Manuel II, which said that the Prophet Muhammd brought only evil and conversion by the sword, did not reflect his own views.

He said,

"I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims . . . These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought. I hope this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with mutual respect."

Although there were protests in Iran and some scattered acts of violence, mostly in already-violent areas, this statement seemed to mollify some Muslim leaders.

A Muslim Brotherhood official in Egypt initially said that the statement was a clear retraction and sufficient as an apology, but apparently under popular pressure, he backed off that stance slightly, saying that the Pope hadn't actually clearly apologized, though he had taken a good step toward an apology. But the Brotherhood clearly was looking for a way to defuse the crisis, and that it initially latched on to the Pope's relatively impenitent remarks so eagerly, shows that it is eager to see things calmed down. The Egyptian MB thought the controversy was now likely to subside, and I hope they are right about that.

Some Western observers think that this episode was the Pope's play for moral authority at a time of a clash between Islam and the West.

I think that is right. Benedict was trying to stake out a position that Western godless atheism is actually unreasonable, and that hard line coercive religion that disregards reason is wrong (he incorrectly identified this position as that of Muhammad and the Quran). Thus, the Catholic Church, with its reasoned faith, becomes the ideal, avoiding the errors of the two extremes (Western secularism and Islam). To accomplish this positioning, Benedict XVI had to reduce to cardboard figures all three traditions-- Western rationalism, Roman Catholicism, and Islam.

Christianity hasn't always stood for sweet reasonableness and the harmony of faith and science and the primacy of the individual conscience. One of the reasons we know so little about Mayan history is that Catholic authorities had Mayan papyrus rolls, which contained extensive hieroglyphic records, burned as works of the devil. It wasn't as if the Mayans were given a choice about remaining pagan or converting to Christianity. And there was the forcible conversion to Christianity of large numbers of Muslims and Jews in Spain after the Reconquista from 1492.

Nor have all Christian theological streams concluded that human reason can comprehend God's reason.

There have been times and places where Islam was more tolerant than Christianity. And significant Muslim theological traditions, though not the majority, have held a vision of God as in accord with human reason very similar to the one embraced by the Pope. Look at the Mu'tazili school, which has been extremely influential in Shiite Islam, and which has been favored by modernist reformers such as the Egyptian Muhammad `Abduh (d. 1905).

The problem with the Pope's Regensburg lecture is that it laid out three intellectual traditions as unchanging, undifferentiated essences and then contrasted them with one another, to the edification of his own position. There aren't any essences.

It is always better to put forward the virtues of your tradition on their own, without attempting invidious comparisons with, and put-downs, of others. If Christianity is superior, that can be perceived without it being necessary to brand Islam inferior.

Religious traditions are complex and multiple and often self-contradictory. Trying to play politics with them by putting down the founder of a religion with false accusations will always cause trouble, of course. But what is worse is that the allegation causing the trouble is simply inaccurate.
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Scholl Guest Editorial: Response to Amis

Response to Amis

Steven Scholl

'In his Sept 10 op-ed piece for The Observer, Martin Amis provides what is becoming the stump speech for secularists who are sick of religion and the suffering it generates and who find Islam especially dangerous to civilization. I share some of Amis’s concerns but find his analysis of Islam and Islamism rather mixed up. Like so many other pundits Amis shifts from Islamist extremists to all Muslims without blinking an eye, sliding without hesitation or clarification from some undefined “okay Islam” to jihadist “Islamism.”

This slight of hand leaves the reader with the impression that some great titanic struggle has been taking place within the Muslim world between moderates and radicals, that recently the radical jihadists won a decisive victory, and now all Islam is under their sway. Here is a typical Amis slide:

“Until recently it was being said that what we are confronted with, here, is 'a civil war' within Islam. That's what all this was supposed to be: not a clash of civilisations or anything like that, but a civil war within Islam. Well, the civil war appears to be over. And Islamism won it. The loser, moderate Islam, is always deceptively well-represented on the level of the op-ed page and the public debate; elsewhere, it is supine and inaudible. We are not hearing from moderate Islam. Whereas Islamism, as a mover and shaper of world events, is pretty well all there is.”

This is stunning. I am sure the 1.2 billion Muslims of the world will be startled to find out that they have all converted to Wahhabism or are committed members of al-Qaeda. Amis is uttering pure nonsense. Islam remains a big tent with many competing worldviews and the internal debate for the soul of Islam will no doubt continue well into the future. This debate is reflected in a robust fashion within the Arab world, which Amis and most other secularist pundits remains deaf to for some reason.

This past summer I led a group of Americans to Morocco to learn more about Islam and to meet with Muslims. While there I watched the Arab and international media available in nearly every Morooccan home (satellite dishes appear on even the most humble shanty town homes). I watched a debate held in Doha, Qatar between Muslim liberals and fundamentalists on the role of women in society. In these debates, which are beamed throughout the Arab and Muslim world, the fundamentalists always appear as backward looking and inarticulate, and the Muslim liberals passionately advocate for serious reforms based on a more enlightened and liberal interpretation of the Koran and Islamic traditions. Liberal Muslim reformers have not won the day but neither have the fundamentalists. Fundamentalist Islam is not all that is going on in the Muslim world, and a strong case can be made that it is the radical fundamentalists who are in the minority position among Muslims.

What Amis and his mentors on Islam (Sam Harris especially) seem, astonishingly enough, to miss, is that Osama bin Laden and Sayyid Qutb, the founder of the Muslim brotherhood, are just not representative of the 1.2 billion Muslims on the planet. Ahmadinajad in Iran along with his mulla backers is not representative of Iranian Shi'a en masse. My experiences in the Middle East are limited (living in Egypt 1983-84 and travels in Morocco in 2005 and 2006), but I can tell you that after living and traveling among Arabs my view of the Arab world is different from the picture painted by armchair analysts like Amis. The picture that Amis and others paint of Muslim culture (wife beating, anti-intellectual, not curious about the world beyond their borders, militant and religious authoritarian in style) just doesn't jive with what I have experienced. What Amis does is not very subtle but no doubt effective for many of his readers. After asserting without any proof that radical Islamism has won the day, Amis informs us what this actually means when he provides a lengthy and often perceptive description of Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual force behind radical Islam:

“. . . [Sayyid] Qutb is the father of Islamism. Here are the chief tenets he inspired: that America, and its clients, are jahiliyya (the word classically applied to pre-Muhammadan Arabia - barbarous and benighted); that America is controlled by Jews; that Americans are infidels, that they are animals, and, worse, arrogant animals, and are unworthy of life; that America promotes pride and promiscuity in the service of human degradation; that America seeks to 'exterminate' Islam - and that it will accomplish this not by conquest, not by colonial annexation, but by example.”

The implications of Amis’s deceptive rhetoric is that since Islamism won the Muslim civil war and is now the guiding force behind what we now know as Islam, which means that the majority of Muslims believe that Americans are “infidels” and therefore “unworthy of life.” This is pure racial and religious prejudice of the extreme kind.

I have spent endless hours talking with Muslims on the streets of Arab towns and never felt threatened or in harms way as an American visiting a Arab country; I have never spoken with Sunnis or Shi’is who feel that it is their religious duty to kill me or all non-Muslims because we are worse than animals. Muslims, from mosque preachers to garbage collectors, have never shown me the kinds of fanaticism that Amis leads us to believe are now pandemic in the Arab Muslim world. In my visits to the Arab world I have always been showered with kindness, hospitality, and enjoyed vigorous debates on religion.

Amis runs out a true but deceptive fact to try and make a supporting point that Muslims are divorced from the modern world Muslims today due to a lack of curiosity of all things non-Islamic. Amis observes that, “Present-day Spain translates as many books into Spanish, annually, as the Arab world has translated into Arabic in the past 1,100 years.”

I agree with Amis that the Arab world needs to open up to the West in many ways. However, my observation is that Americans seem much more insular and lacking in curiosity than Middle Eastern Muslims. In Morocco, everyone I spoke with was more informed about world affairs than most college grads here in the US. This whole issue about lack of translations into Arabic is just one part of the story. While in Fes, Morocco this past June attending the celebration of the World Sacred Music Festival put on by Muslims to celebrate the beauty and diversity of spiritual tradtions, I told my 15-year-old son that I wanted him to watch the news. We flipped through the channels and were able to view news from French, German, BBC, Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, and Moroccan services. In Morocco I saw more news and information about Sri Lanka and Thailand in 7 days than I have seen in 40 years on American television. My teenager son was blown away not only by the breadth of information that was available on the Moroccan news but by the warmth and joie de vivre of the Moroccans. He plans to return to Morocco to study French and Arabic and to learn more about the world beyond the monolingual perspective of insular America. Typical were my conversations with Abdu’llah, who helped guide me through the maze of old Fes. Although he is dirt poor and has only a fifth grade education, Abdu’llah speaks 5 languages and could no doubt hold his own in political dialogue with Mr. Amis.

What I do agree with Amis and others is that the Islamic fundamentalists need to be addressed constantly, that their views must be confronted and shown to be harmful to all. Islam stands in need of constant reform, as do all religious traditions. This is happening and what writers like Amis and Harris always ignore is the moderate and liberal mainstream of Islam.

I agree with Amis that Islam is too often presented as a totalalizing and authoritarian system beyond reason. But, again, this is not universally so or even the predominate view. Furthermore, how different is that from Catholicism? Just as I don't see Pope Benedict as the true voice of Catholicism vs. Hans Kung or Sister Joan Chittister, I don't see Osama or the fundamentalist preachers as the true voice of Islam vs. people like Queen Noor, Hamza Yusuf, Omid Safi, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Sheikh Ahmed Abaadi, and all the other moderate and liberal Muslim voices that can be heard around the world.

What Amis in London and most Americans need to begin to understand is that battle for the soul of Islam is not over but just beginning. Moderate and liberal Muslims are engaged in creating an alternative to fundamentalist visions of Islam. It is happening in groups like Progressive Muslim Union, at the historic meetings of World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace, and at countless events and in books and web sites where Muslims seek to bring about an Islamic renewal movement that sees no contradiction between belief in the Koran while opposing theocracy, supporting democracy, defense of the rights of women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies, defense of freedom of thought, and belief in the potential for human progress. These Muslims need the support of non-Muslims rather than the kind of distortions about what Islam is that Amis has offered. '

____________

Steven Scholl is a writer and film maker living in Ashland, Oregon. He also leads tours to the Middle East with his company Imagine Adventures.
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48 Bodies found in Baghdad
US Officials Impatient with Maliki

Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times discusses the frustrations of American officials in Baghdad with the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki opposed Israel's war on Lebanon, and has sought good relations with neighboring Iran, neither move synchronizing with US policy. He has also been slow off the mark to get the process of national reconciliation going among Sunni Arabs and Shiites, has seemed helpless in the face of militia activity, and has not been able to get a handle on the security situation.

Richter reports that some Americans in the Green Zone are beginning to think they'd be better off with a traditional Middle Eastern strong man than a weak elected prime minister. But they admit that support for al-Maliki remains Washington's policy for now.

The CPA, America's government of Iraq for a year, supposedly stood for "Coalition Provisional Authority. Locally, it became known as "Can't Provide Anything." The astonishingly poor performance of the CPA is explained by WaPo journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran: the criteria for selection of the personnel was personal loyaltly to George W. Bush, and a lot of snot-nosed kids were sent off with big responsibilities and no experience. Some candidates were asked about Roe v. Wade. There was never any legal authority for the CPA in American law, and its procedures were irregular, sometimes corrupt, and mostly criminally incompetent. (As with any big group of people, there were some highly competent persons in the group; but they were not allowed to accomplish anything.) The cronyism of the CPA should have been a warning as to what was going on in Washington DC itself, e.g. Brownie at FEMA or Douglas Feith at the Department of Defense.

Police found 48 bodies in various places in Baghdad on Saturday.

Reuters reports civil war violence on Saturday:

. . . KIRKUK - Iraqi police killed two insurgents after they repelled an attack by them on their checkpoint, just south of Kirkuk, police said. Two policemen were also wounded in the attack. . .

MOSUL - Three policemen were wounded when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul, police said. . . .

SAMARRA - Iraqi police said four members of the Albu Baz tribe were killed along with a gunman who attacked them on Friday after they clashed in the city of Samarra, police said. The Albu Baz tribe blamed al Qaeda militants for the attack. . .

BAGHDAD - Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and three wounded when a bomb exploded inside a car they approached that contained a body, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomb killed one civilian and wounded 22 when the attacker detonated his vehicle outside a well-fortified police station in southern Baghdad's Doura district, police said. . . .

BAGHDAD - A Sunni member of Iraq's parliament escaped a bomb attack on his convoy unhurt as he travelled through western Baghdad, police said. Two of Mohammed al-Dani's guards were lightly wounded in the attack. . . .

BAQUBA - A roadside bomb killed three policemen and wounded another when it blew up as a police patrol was passing in the restive town of Baquba, police said. . . .

RAMADI - A suicide car bomb targeting a U.S. military patrol killed four civilians and wounded eight, police said.

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The Pope's non-Apology

The Pope stopped short of an apology on Saturday. He did say he was sorry that Muslims took offense to his quotation of a medieval authority who alleged that the Prophet Muhammad had brought only evil.

Morocco withdrew its ambassador to the Vatican as a result of the speech. The Iraqi government, with its half a million strong Chaldean population, uniate Catholics, asked for clarifications.

The pope will say something on the issue later today. Will blog it.
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Pope's Trip to Turkey in Doubt
Protests Grow

Turkish officials are becoming skittish about Pope Benedict XVI's planned November trip to Turkey, an almost entirely Muslim country where feelings have been hurt by the pope's quotation of a medieval Byzantine emperor to the effect that the Prophet Muhammad brought nothing but evil.

Protests grew on Friday, from Muslim clerics, from lay politicians,a nd from Muslim crowds demonstrating. The Pakistani parliament passed a resolution condemning the Pope's remarks. (Since the Pakistani parliament has been fighting Muslim fundamentalists and trying to avoid implementing Islamic law, this was an easy way to stress their Muslim bonafides even as they pursue secular policies). Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir took time out from worrying about the Kashmir issue to protest the Pope. Likewise there were protests by Palestinians in Gaza.

The Vatican continues to decline to apologize, only saying that no offense was meant by the Pope's remarks.

Some commentators have complained about Muslim sensibilities in this regard. But in my view, this sensitivity is a feature of postcolonialism. Muslims were colonized by Western powers, often for centuries, and all that period they were told that their religion was inferior and barbaric. They are independent now, though often they have gained independence only a couple of generations (less if you consider neocolonialism). As independent, they are finally liberated to protest when Westerners put them down.

There is an analogy to African-Americans, who suffered hundreds of years of slavery and then a century of Jim Crow. They are understandably sensitive about white people putting them down, and every time one uses the "n" word, you can expect a strong reaction. In the remarks the pope quoted about Muhammad, he essentially did the equivalent of using the "n" word for Muslims. It is no mystery that people are protesting.

This issue is not going to go away until the Pope comes out and clarifies and apologizes. All he has to do is quote Vatican II on Islam, which is still Catholic doctrine last I knew, and the whole issue would blow over. It will be a huge error if he sticks to his guns.

All he has to do is say he is sorry if it appeared he was slamming Muhammad and Islam, and that this is what the Catholic Church actually feels about the issue:

' The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ, "the way the truth, and the life" (John 14, 6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself (4).

The Church therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself, merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth (5), who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes great pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgement when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this Sacred Synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom. '

Since it is Catholic doctrine, there is nothing wrong with repeating it to the Muslims now, and the whole thing would immediately blow over.
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50 Bodies Found
Baghdad Ditch called Impractical

Brain injuries are the signature debility of wounded Iraq War vets.

Reuters reports civil war violence in Iraq on Friday.

A third soldier is missing and presumed dead in a late-Thursday suicide bombing that had killed 2 and was said to wound 25. It now turns out that actualy 30 were wounded.

Also late Thursday, another US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in northwest Baghdad.

Another 50 bodies were found in Baghdad on Friday. They had been tortured and shot in the head. They are typically victims of sectarian death squads (Shiites killing Sunnis, Sunnis killing Shiites). The killers appear to be aiming at ethnically cleansing some mixed districts in Baghdad, though in some instances they may be taking revenge for the deaths caused by one side to the other.

Car bombings were impeded but not stopped on Friday by a ban on vehicular traffic. This tactic stops most attacks on Friday prayers congregations, which are inflammatory. But Al-Sharq al-Awsat points out that the down side is the end of the institution of the Friday market. It saids that even on ordinary weekdays, many shops are closed and those that are open close up at 2 pm for security reasons. Baghdad used to have lively evening shopping and even a nightlife at cafes.

Al-Hayat reports that 45 of the bodies were found in the Karkh district, a Sunni area of the capital, while 15 were discovered in Rusafah, which has a Shiite majority. The distribution points to the sectarian character of the killings. One official at the morgue said that of the bodies brought in on Wednesday, most were recovered by next of kin and that they were pretty evenly divided between Sunnis and Shiites. Baghdad health authorities said that a majority of the bodies were reclaimed by families. But some number stayed at the morgue, whether because they were disfigured beyond recognition, or because their relatives had fled the area, or because their relatives were afraid to go to the morgue for fear of further reprisals.

A police official said that these bodies thrown in the street were unrelated to the death squads that used to dress up in ministry of interior or police uniforms and kidnap members of the opposite branch of Islam. He said that there had been no complaints of persons dressed as police being involved in these killings. An anonymous officials charged that the militias and gangs used to rent cars belonging to the ministry of the interior for $500 per car, from police officers or from ministry chauffeurs. Sometimes police or army units actually took part in the death squads. The crack down on the circulation of police cars has aided attempts to end this problem.

Al-Hayat said that the large numbers of bodies discovered this week raised doubts about the current security program. Preachers at the Friday prayers raised the issue. Shaikh Mahmud al-Sumaidaie, imam of the Umm al-Qura mosque, said that the Occupation daily comes out with lies about its inability to restore order, at the same time (he alleged) that it was supporting "forces opposed to the people" that kill its children within sight and hearing of its troops, and just a stone's throw from its tanks.

Reuters adds:

. . . MOSUL - A car bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy exploded in the outskirts of the northern city of Mosul, wounding nine civilians, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - One person was killed and five others were wounded in clashes between gunmen and residents in al -Fadhl area, north-central Baghdad, police said.

MUSSAYAB - A police convoy was struck by a roadside bomb late on Thursday in the town of Mussayab, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. Three policemen were wounded in the attack, they said.

MUSSAYAB - The body of an unidentified man, with a missing head and amputated legs, was retrieved on Thursday from a river in Mussayab, police said. . .

DHI QAR PROVINCE - Dhi Qar's police killed two members of the Mehdi Army militias who were attempting to launch mortar rounds at an Italian military base in Dhi Qar, south of Baghdad, police sources said. They said the two men were killed in clashes with police.

[Deleted comment about Abu Naji base because a reader said it was inaccurate.]

On Thursday, a bomb blast had killed 8 at a soccer match at Fallujah.

The US and the Iraqi government are going to block off all but 28 roads into Baghdad, ensuring that all incoming traffic is properly searched. The blocked roads will be cut off in part by a ditch that is planned to encircle the city. I don't know if Harun al-Rashid had a moat built around the original round city of Baghdad. I think it was more secure back then.

Al-Hayat said that Baghdad security experts believed that the trench plan was impractical and could not be implemented. They said that political efforts alongside military ones would be more effective than a trench. They said the trench would stretch through agricultural and tribal land, and that people would just build informal bridges over it.
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Clemons on Bolton

Steve Clemons at the Washington Note predicted two days ago that the Bolton nomination was dead, given Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee's opposition. The Washington Post has come around to the same conclusion.

Bolton is a slippery character who has made all kinds of scurrilous and unsupported charges over the years. He once said, "There is no United Nations." He denied that that US invasion of Iraq, with no United Nations Security Council authorization and no casus belli, violated the UN Charter. Then there is this: the International Atomic Energy Agency has said repeatedly that it cannot find good evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program as opposed to a civilian nuclear energy research program. The IAEA has also said that the situation is not completely transparent. Bolton recently charged that after years of investigation, it still cannot be ruled out that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, implying that therefore it did. But it is much more likely that there is no clandestine program, since IAEA inspections would likely have turned it up by now.

The IAEA has slammed an error-riddled report written by a Bolton associate for the Republicans in Congress that made false allegations about Iran's program.

Informed Comment called the report "riddled with errors" when it first came out.
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5 US Troops Killed, 25 Injured

A suicide bomber in Baghdad killed 2 US troops and wounded 25, 3 of them seriously. 16 were hospitalized but not in serious condition. 5 US troops have been killed since Wednesday. AP adds: "Also in Baghdad, one soldier died from wounds early Thursday after his unit came under attack by small arms fire. Another soldier died after his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad. A soldier attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division died from wounds received Wednesday by enemy fire near Mosul."

12 bodies were found in Baghdad on Thursday, bringing the two-day total to 100. This time some Shiites were among the victims. Reuters adds, "A car bomb struck a police patrol outside an orphanage near the busy Karrada district of central Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 26. Another, outside a photography studio in the northwest of the city, killed one and wounded 13."

Sunni fundamentalist MP Adnan Dulaimi warned that death squads could destroy Iraqi politics altogether if the killings continue.

Reuters reported further trouble in Diwaniyah: "In Diwaniya, south of the capital where Shi'ite militia and U.S.-backed Iraqi forces fought a battle two weeks ago, U.S. troops raided a local headquarters of followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. One man was killed and 10 wounded in subsequent disturbances. A daytime curfew was imposed." More details are here.

Guerrillas murdered two more journalists in Iraq on Thursday.

Gunmen assassinated the leader of the Al-Bu Muhammad tribe, Shaikh Abdullah Khalaf Ibrahim al-`Izzi, days after he called for Saddam Hussein to be released from captivity. He had also called for an end to sanctions on Baathists, dissolution of the militias, and an end to the foreign military presence. His tribe is located south of Kirkuk in a mixed Arab and Turkoman area.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that a new security plan has begun to be implemented in the troubled southern port city of Basra. An official from the provincial administration, which is controlled by the Fadhila or Virtue Party (a Sadrist offshoot led by Shaikh Muhammad Yaqubi) told journalists the plan would be implemented by the three-party security committee. This committee had been created by the Iraqi cabinet the Coalition forces, and it divides Basra province into 14 units. The Iraqi army will take responsibility for the city proper, while other forces will have responsibility for the northern part of the province.

The plan calls for incarceration of anyone committing violence or criminal acts, or opposing the British military. It also involves confiscating weapons. The British military announced Thursday that it had found a major cache of bomb-making materials apparently intended to be used in the al-Qurna district to the north of the city.

Prime Minister Maliki deployed the Iraqi 10th Army Division in Basra earlier in the summer in an attempt to tamp down growing militia violence, but it has not apparently had much success.

Al-Zaman reports that representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf are engaged in talks with Shaikh Mahmud Sarkhi al-Hasani of Karbala about sharing with him some of the proceeds from the pilgrimage traffic to the Shrine of Imam Husayn in Karbala.

Imam Husayn was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was killed by the Umayyad armies in 680 AD as he led an uprising against that empire. His shrine is among the holiest objects of pilgrimage for Shiites throughout the world, and pilgrims coming to Karbala make donations to the shrine and buy things from shops around it. A good deal of this money goes to the leading clerics. Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala'i, Sistani's agent in Karbala, is General Secretary of the Husayn Shrine Board, which oversees these funds.

Al-Karbala'i was apparently instructed by Sistani to share a small portion of these shrine proceeds with al-Hasani as a way of convincing him to stop making trouble.

Al-Hasani's followers clashed with Karbala security forces recently. Al-Zaman's sources say that they are being transported at night in trucks out to the desert between Najaf and Karbala to do military drills, carrying medium and light weapons.

War in Iraq or War on Terror? A revealing debate among Iowa's senators, with Tom Harkin expressing confidence that the Bush administration tactic of trying to scare the American public will not work again.

Nick Turse on misfits in the US military at Tomdispatch.com.
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Pope Gets it Wrong on Islam

Pope Benedict's speech at Regensburg University, which mentioned Islam and jihad, has provoked a firestorm of controversy.

The address is more complex and subtle than the press on it represents. But let me just signal that what is most troubling of all is that the Pope gets several things about Islam wrong, just as a matter of fact.

He notes that the text he discusses, a polemic against Islam by a Byzantine emperor, cites Qur'an 2:256: "There is no compulsion in religion." Benedict maintains that this is an early verse, when Muhammad was without power.

His allegation is incorrect. Surah 2 is a Medinan surah revealed when Muhammad was already established as the leader of the city of Yathrib (later known as Medina or "the city" of the Prophet). The pope imagines that a young Muhammad in Mecca before 622 (lacking power) permitted freedom of conscience, but later in life ordered that his religion be spread by the sword. But since Surah 2 is in fact from the Medina period when Muhammad was in power, that theory does not hold water.

In fact, the Qur'an at no point urges that religious faith be imposed on anyone by force. This is what it says about the religions:

' [2:62] Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians-- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. '

See my comments On the Quran and peace.

The idea of holy war or jihad (which is about defending the community or at most about establishing rule by Muslims, not about imposing the faith on individuals by force) is also not a Quranic doctrine. The doctrine was elaborated much later, on the Umayyad-Byzantine frontier, long after the Prophet's death. In fact, in early Islam it was hard to join, and Christians who asked to become Muslim were routinely turned away. The tyrannical governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj, was notorious for this rejection of applicants, because he got higher taxes on non-Muslims. Arab Muslims had conquered Iraq, which was then largely pagan, Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish. But they weren't seeking converts and certainly weren't imposing their religion.

The pope was trying to make the point that coercion of conscience is incompatible with genuine, reasoned faith. He used Islam as a symbol of the coercive demand for unreasoned faith.

But he has been misled by the medieval polemic on which he depended.

In fact, the Quran also urges reasoned faith and also forbids coercion in religion. The only violence urged in the Quran is in self-defense of the Muslim community against the attempts of the pagan Meccans to wipe it out.

The pope says that in Islam, God is so transcendant that he is beyond reason and therefore cannot be expected to act reasonably. He contrasts this conception of God with that of the Gospel of John, where God is the Logos, the Reason inherent in the universe.

But there have been many schools of Islamic theology and philosophy. The Mu'tazilite school maintained exactly what the Pope is saying, that God must act in accordance with reason and the good as humans know them. The Mu'tazilite approach is still popular in Zaidism and in Twelver Shiism of the Iraqi and Iranian sort. The Ash'ari school, in contrast, insisted that God was beyond human reason and therefore could not be judged rationally. (I think the Pope would find that Tertullian and perhaps also John Calvin would be more sympathetic to this view within Christianity than he is).

As for the Quran, it constantly appeals to reason in knowing God, and in refuting idolatry and paganism, and asks, "do you not reason?" "do you not understand?" (a fala ta`qilun?)

Of course, Christianity itself has a long history of imposing coerced faith on people, including on pagans in the late Roman Empire, who were forcibly converted. And then there were the episodes of the Crusades.

Another irony is that reasoned, scholastic Christianity has an important heritage from Islam itself. In the 10th century, there was little scholasticism in Christian theology. The influence of Muslim thinkers such as Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) reemphasized the use of Aristotle and Plato in Christian theology. Indeed, there was a point where Christian theologians in Paris had divided into partisans of Averroes or of Avicenna, and they conducted vigorous polemics with one another.

Finally, that Byzantine emperor that the Pope quoted, Manuel II? The Byzantines had been weakened by Latin predations during the fourth Crusade, so it was in a way Rome that had sought coercion first. And, he ended his days as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire.

The Pope was wrong on the facts. He should apologize to the Muslims and get better advisers on Christian-Muslim relations.
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Khamenei calls for US to Depart Iraq
US Troop Levels Rise to 147,000

US troop levels in Iraq have jumped to 147,000. You have to wonder whether this big runup of troop commitments is related to an attempt to calm the country in the run-up to midterm elections in the US.

2 more US soldiers were announced killed on Wednesday. Over 30 Iraqis were killed in bombings in Baghdad or assassinations there and in other cities on Wednesday.

Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran told visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Wednesday that Iraq's suffering derives from elements of the old Baathist regime and from the presence of US troops in the country. AP reports,

' Khamenei told al-Maliki that Iran "considers it an obligation to support the Iraqi government in practical ways," Iran's state news agency said.

But Khamenei - who holds the final word in all political matters in Iran - made clear Iran wants to see the withdrawal of U.S. troops, which he blamed in part for the turmoil plaguing Iraq.

"Part of (Iraq's) sufferings have been due to the actions of the former regime and part is due to the presence of occupiers in Iraq," Khamenei told al-Maliki, according to the Iranian state news agency and state television.

"We hope a day will come when the Iraqi people reach the stage they deserve and that, by cutting the hands of the foreigners, its wealth will come to serve the Iraqi people," Khamenei said. '

This is the Tehran Times version.

In addition to joint oil operations, Iran and Iraq have announced cooperation in agricultural projects.

Martin Sieff points out that the US has decapitated "al-Qaeda in Iraq,", having killed Zarqawi and then captured his number 2 (a capture not announced for months after it happened). Sieff then points out that the capture of scores of Zarqawi's lieutenants has made no dent in the level of violence in Iraq.

I conclude that Zarqawi and his organization (which was never 'al-Qaeda" in any technical sense of the word) were a relatively small part of the Iraqi guerrilla movement, and most of the violence is being planned out by Iraqis.

Oliver Poole has more on the discovery of 65 bodies in Baghdad and environs on Wednesday morning.. Here is about the saddest passage I've read in a while:

' The United Nations has estimated that around 100 people a day are being killed in this sectarian dirty war. Many of these, however, are never found and disappear into the Tigris or Baghdad's sewage pipes. Last month, the 4th Infantry Division, the US force responsible for the capital, started repairing exposed holes in the city's antiquated sewage system. Officers admitted that this would not cut the number of murders but might help families locate missing relatives. '

Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune reveals that most of the bodies recovered in the past 48 hours have been Sunni Arabs in Sunni districts of West Baghdad, who presumably were killed by Shiite death squads attempting to ethnically cleanse those neighborhoods.

Sly also reports that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has declined to support Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq in their attempt to introduce legislation in parliament allowing the formation of an 8-province super-region in the Shiite south. The plan is opposed by Sunni Arabs and some Shiites. Sistani said it was better to concentrate at this time on providing services to the people.

Al-Hayat reports that SCIRI agreed Wednesday [Ar.] to postpone the consideration of the issue of regional confederacies.

If you want to know what leaders who actually live in the Middle East think of the Bush administration's Iraq War, they are happy to tell you. It is a "real disaster" that has "destabilized the region." The only think they can't agree on is whether it would be a greater catastrophe for the US to pull out abruptly or for it to stay.

The plight of the 34,000 Palestinians in Iraq.

War is bad for children and other living things. But is is very good for the profits of the weapons manufacturers. If we could follow the money flows from that industry to the Washington pundits that keep demanding more wars, it would be very illuminating.
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Maliki in Tehran for Oil Deal
60 Bodies found; 24 Dead in Bombings

A bombing Wednesday morning killed 3, and 60 bodies were found in various parts of Baghdad the previous 24 hours.


Courtesy of Mehr.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad had something of a lovefest at their press conference on Tuesday. Ahmadinejad expressed his complete support for the Iraqi parliament, political process and government. The Iranians always sound just like the Bush administration when they talk about political progress in Iraq. Ahmadinejad also offered help with security affairs.

Al-Maliki declined to associate himself with American charges that Iran is fomenting turmoil in Iraq, saying that there were no obstacles to security cooperation between the two countries.

Iran and Iraq will cooperate in pumping petroleum from oil fields traversed by their common border, and in its refining. One such project could be online within a year. These fields are far from the Sunni Arab areas, and Iran would help with security, so that they could help the government escape the economic blockade the guerrilla movement has placed on the northern Kirkuk fields, which generally cannot export through Turkey because of pipeline sabotage.

AP reports that a member of Maliki's Da`wa Party in the Iraqi parliament, Haidar al-Obadi, maintain that radical Sunni fundamentalists did infiltrate Iraq via Iran, though he admitted that it was probably without Iranian government knowledge and support. Iran is three times the size of France and its border with Iraq is hundreds of miles long, running through rugged mountainous regions. (It is actually more likely that most radicals coming to Iraq infiltrate from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. And there aren't very many such foreign fighters in Iraq anyway, and nor are they the main source of violence.) It is ridiculous to think that Iran is supporting or supplying radical or neo-Baathist Sunnis to blow up Iraqi Shiites, more especially their clients, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its Badr Corps paramilitary, which was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

AP reports that 24 were killed in civil war violence in Iraq, including bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere and a rash of assassinations. AP also reports an effort in parliament to get a resolution going calling for the withdrawal of US troops.

'A group of lawmakers tried Tuesday to take advantage of the unpopularity of U.S. troops among many Shiite and Sunni legislators to seek approval of a resolution setting a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops _ something the Shiite-dominated government has refused to do.

Sponsored by supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and some Sunni Arabs, the resolution managed to gather 104 signatures in the 275-member parliament before it was effectively shelved by being sent to a committee for review.

That committee will need at least six months to examine the resolution and present its findings to parliament. If it were to be approved, such a resolution would be binding on the government.

"We do not want another kitchen in which decisions are cooked away from the representatives of the people and away from the hearing of the Iraqi people," complained Falah al-Mishaal, the Shiite legislator who presented the resolution. '

102 signatures was enough to get the resolution broached if it is reported back out of committee. Typically a good 80 MPs haven't actually been coming to the sessions, so it is possible that the resolution gained the support of over 50 percent of the members present on the floor. That is, if it had not been sent to committee for review, the resolution could well have just passed on Tuesday. The Iraqi government would be bound by such a majority vote. Apparently the Maliki government has found a parliamentary maneuver allowing it to postpone the resolution for at least 6 months.

Reuters has more details on the violence.

The Iraqi government estimates that 40,000 internally displaced persons have recnetly returned home to districts such as Kadhimiyah, after 170,000 had been displaced by sectarian violence after the Samarra shrine bombing in late February. There are still districts too dangerous to go back to, such as the Sunni al-Jadidah quarter and the Shiite slum of Sadr City in east Baghdad, to which Sunnis are not moving back.

The top Marine commander denies that his forces have lost al-Anbar province. He admits, however, that their mission is not to defeat the insurgency and that all they are doing is "stifling" it. He said that the war would be won politically, when services and goods are provided in sufficient numbers to woo away the Sunni Arabs from the insurgency.

The problem with this set of statements is that they don't contradict the intelligence report that said that al-Anbar had been lost politically. It wasn't being alleged that the Marines couldn't go on "stifling" the insurgency. The allegation is that there are no functioning government institutions in the Sunni Arab areas. The allegation is that hearts and minds have been decisively lost. What the American commanders either don't understand or don't dare say is that the process of stifling has driven more and more and more Sunni Arabs into opposition to the US presence and the new government. In summer of 2004, when David Petraeus was running Mosul, Ninevah province was relatively quiet. Now there are bombs, killings, trouble. Mosul became a problem with the Fallujah assault, and it has never since stopped being a problem. Samarra is a problem. Tikrit is a problem. Baqubah is a problem. Kirkuk is a problem. Ramadi is a problem. If you just keep a lid on the problems, "stifling" them and driving ever more people into opposition, someday you will wake up and find that you really have lost, and not just politically.

The reason, moreover, that the Marines have not "won" is because they cannot. If winning means doing to Ramadi what they did to Fallujah, well that would just drive even more Sunnis to insurgency and further radicalize everyone from Ramadi, wherever they scatter. You could de-urbanize the whole Sunni Arab heartland, but then you'd have large numbers of mobile angry refugees, another Palestinian problem that would last decades and be destabilizing. There is no military solution.

Stifling is very bad. If that is all they can do, they should leave. Who cares who the mayor of Ramadi is? And, if they organize to try to overthrow the Maliki government, well, then they can be fought when they begin to march. They would not get very far if the US air force did not want them to.

Tom Engelhardt on the real link between 9/11 and Iraq.

My reconsideration of the significance of 9/11 for Foreign Policy is reprinted here.
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Bush and Rockefeller

Two controversies are swirling. One regards President Bush's address to the nation on the anniversary of September 11, which Democrats say was too nakedly political for that solemn occasion.

The other concerns remarks by Jay Rockefeller that seemed to say it would have been better to leave Saddam in power.

With regard to the second controversy, I have a suggestion for war opponents in this debate. It is to make war the issue. The question is not whether the Saddam regime should have been neutralized. The question is the best method to achieve that goal without destabilizing the Middle East. War was clearly a mistake. It was too blunt an instrument, and it sent Iraq into shock, making the United States inevitably less secure since as an oil-dependent superpower it is negatively affected by instability in the Persian Gulf.

Should Saddam have been defanged and if possible removed? Yes. But it is now obvious that he had been defanged. The weapons inspection regime and the sanctions had destroyed his weapons' programs and thrown the Iraqi economy down to fourth world status. In fact, it is clear in retrospect that the economic sanctions were too stringent (even after the ban on chlorine was lifted, allowing water purification). Saddam was being attacked, constrained, and ever increasingly diminished as a threat, by sanctions and inspections, which needed to be extended and turned into smart sanctions.

War as a tactic was the wrong tactic for Iraq. It is not that any of us in retrospect wish Saddam had not been overthrown. It is a fool's errand to compare Iraq in 2002 and Iraq now. The question is war. War was not the answer. It has not produced stability or security.

As for Bush, his speech was in fact a shameless appropriation of the tragedy of September 11 for partisan political purposes. But what was really strange was the key contradiction it contained. He maintained that the Iraq War had made Americans more secure. But then he said that if they lose the battle in Iraq, "the terrorists" will come after them.

But we never had a beef with the people of Ramadi, ever in our history. If Bush is saying that he has induced a feud between the US and the people of Ramadi so vicious that if we don't spend the rest of the century keeping that city behind barbed wire, they will find a way to blow up something on the US mainland-- if that is what he is saying, then the only logical conclusion is that by invading Iraq, Bush has made us less secure and has created enemies for us where none existed before.

But in fact, the US in the Sunni Arab heartland of Iraq is not fighting "terrorists" mostly. Bush has started to believe his own propaganda. The US is fighting Iraqi nationalists and nativists, secular, tribal or religious. If the Iraqi Sunni nationalists could take over their own territory, they would not put up with the few hundred foreign volunteers blowing things up, and would send them away or slit their throats.

This is Washington's classical Vietnam error. They thought they were fighting international communism in Vietnam, when they were actually fighting Vietnamese nationalists with a leftist cast. Not so long after the end of the war, the Vietnamese were fighting with Communist China. That makes no sense if they were international communists. It makes perfect sense if they were nationalists.

Just as there was no grand global domino effect from our losing the Vietnam War, so there would be no grand terror effect if we left Ramadi. We left Saudi Arabia, which some might see as an enormous concession to al-Qaeda, and nothing bad happened to us. Al-Qaeda cannot control Sunni Iraq because there are too many Iraqi claimants on power and authority, whether Sunni or other. Nor would Turkey and Jordan put up with an al-Qaeda state on their borders, and both have proved that they can intervene effectively if they want to.

Ramadi is not going to follow the US troops back to Ft. Bragg if they leave. Ramadi will celebrate and then go about its business.

As for al-Qaeda, we cannot make policy on the basis of what it thinks of us. Al-Qaeda is stalking America. It is tiny and disrupted, but still dangerous. But an American withdrawal from Iraq would not change a key fact: Al-Qaeda wants to hit us, whether we are in Iraq or not. On the other hand, our being in Iraq is enraging the Muslim world and making it easier for al-Qaeda to recruit and plot against us. If we leave, all that will immediately settle down. When the French left Algeria in 1962, within a year the Franco-Algerian struggle was completely gone from the newspapers of both countries. The French Right kept saying that France could not leave Algeria. But it could, and did, and everything was all right. It will be all right if we get our ground troops out of Ramadi. They aren't winning there, and the occupation is causing more trouble than it is worth. As for who takes over Ramadi when we leave, well, the Iraqis can work that out among themselves. We don't care who runs Rangoon. Why should we care who runs Ramadi?
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Damascus Foils Attack
Israel & Lebanon

Syrian security foiled an attack on the US embassy in Damascus by elements of the radical Jund al-Sham (Army of Syria), which has radical Sunni fundamentalist views. US Secretary of State Condi Rice expressed her government's gratitude for Syria's prompt and effective intervention. Syria has been a US ally twice in the past 20 years, first in the Gulf War and again after 2001 when it cooperated in the struggle against al-Qaeda. Since 2003 or so, anti-Syria hawks such as David Wurmser, a national security adviser to VP Richard Bruce Cheney, have managed to turn administration policy toward enmity with Damascus.

David Wearing on Britain's role in the Israeli-Hizbullah War.
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US Soldier Killed, among 28 Others
Sadrists Reject Draft Law on Confederacies

Guerrillas bombed a minivan carrying recruits for the Iraqi army, killing 16.

Other Sunni Arab guerrillas staged a a mortar attack on a Shiite mosque Monday in Bani Saad, Diyala Province, killing 7 persons.

Altogether, wire services reported 29 dead in civil war violence on Monday, including one US soldier who fell victim to guerrilla sniper fire.

Al-Zaman / AFP report that [Ar.] Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr called Monday for a postponement of the subject of regional confederacies to some other time. The call came during a visit to the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the United Iraqi Alliance, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

Ahmad al-Hasani al-Baghdadi, a Shiite religious leader, gave a fatwa or formal ruling that it is impermissible in any way to implement the project of regional confederacies in Iraq. He wrote, "This system of regional confederacies contains political, economic and social ills that serve the American-Zionist project in the region . . ." He also insisted that there is a duty "to boycott whoever calls for it."

Sheikh Muhammad Yaqubi, spiritual leader of the Fadhila (Virtue) Party, said that parliament is impotent to carry out its legislative and supervisory role. In a veiled reference to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Yaqubi alleged that the heads of the big political blocs had dragged the country into these bloody conflicts by their egoism, and said that they were dictating to others. The FAdhila Party announced that it rejected the draft law on provincial confederacies.

On another front, yet another fissure appeared Monday in the United Iraqi Alliance (religious Shiite parties). The Sadr Movement announced formally that it rejected the draft law for the formation of regional confederacies and for voting on them. Falah Hasan Shanshal, the head of the Sadrist parliamentary delegation, said that it was impossible to establish regional confederacies under the shadow of occupation, since it would lead to Iraq's partition.
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Zawahiri threatens Gulf, Israel

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports [Ar.] that Ayman al-Zawahir threatened Monday in a videotape aired on Aljazeera to launch "new attacks" in Israel and the Gulf. He also announced that the biggest Algerian armed group would join "Qaeda al-Jihad in Mesopotamia [Iraq]." A prominent member of the Salafiyah Group for Mission and Battle confirmed that the organization had been negotiating to join the group founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for some time.

Al-Zawahiri promised defeat and withdrawal to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that the Americans would then be expelled from "the Gulf." The US has military facilities at al-Udaid, Qatar and uses Manama, Bahrain, as a naval base. Al-Zawahiri seemed to be pledging to hit such facilities.

>Al-Hayat says that he also complained that the UN resolution authorizing UN peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon had the effect of cutting the Hizbullah fighters off from the Palestinian ones.

Zawahiri seems aware that Hizbullah has grown in popularity for fighting Israel in the Lebanon War, and that al-Qaeda has been contrasted as having never fought the Israelis.
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The War with al-Qaeda

The war with al-Qaeda has many dimensions. There is the war with the organization itself. There is the struggle against its offshoots and copycats. There is cooperation with Muslim governments and communities in derailing the threat. There is the question of the strength of Sunni fundamentalist parties that might support al-Qaeda. And there is winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world.

The war with the organization itself largely succeeded by 2003 and no further progress seems to have been made since that time. Some 600 al-Qaeda operatives were captured in Pakistan, many of them through a sting arranged inside the Karachi Western Union office, according to Ron Susskind. The original al-Qaeda has been badly disrupted as to command and control.

It is not, however, dead. Every evidence is that the London subway bombings of a little over a year ago had a strong connection to Ayman al-Zawahiri. He appears to have worked with a Pakistani terrorist group such as Jaish-i Muhammad or Lashkar-i Tayyibah or whatever they are calling themselves these days to recruit the young Britons that carried out the attack. Al-Zawahiri had in his possession their suicide tapes, and broadcast them on Aljazeera. It is urgent that Usamah Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri be captured. Declan Walsh explains why this is is difficult.

It may well be that the Egyptian Islamic Jihad offshoot operating in the Sinai, which conducted the Sharm El Shaikh and Taba bombings of tourist hotels, has a link to Zawahiri.

Al-Qaeda's popularity is declining in some quarters. A Pew poll in 2005 found that significantly fewer numbers of Moroccans, Turks and Indonesians were confident in Bin Laden that year than the two previous years. On the other hand, a majority of Jordanians and Pakistanis continued to have a high regard for his competency.

The Madrid train bombings show the severe challenge posed by local copycat groups that do not have a direct connection to al-Qaeda, but take up one of its calls to action and learn techniques from the internet. If a group has at least some email connections to a known terror group or individual already under surveillance, at least there is a chance of cracking the plot. If they are all "newskins," that makes them invisible.

US cooperation with Middle Eastern governments is at a high level, from all accounts. The operation against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appears to have been very significantly a Jordanian operation. Egypt and the US conduct joint military exercises. I have a sense that the relationship with Morocco has deepened. Algeria's government fought a decade-long civil war against Islamist political forces, some of them very violent, and has reason to cooperate.

On the negative side, the Sunni Arabs of Iraq appear ever increasingly to be organized by radical Muslim fundamentalist forces of various sorts. This population of some 5 million had been among the bulwarks of secular Arab nationalism in the past, but those days are long gone.

The Islamic Action Council in Pakistan, some members of which sympathize with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, continues to rule the Northwest Frontier Province. The central government, however, which is more secular, has stopped it from implementing Islamic law and hisbah (measures that give anyone standing in enforcing morality on others). Parliament has even moved to rewrite Pakistan's flawed rape law, which is based on Gen. Zia ul-Haq's Islamization measures and is so poorly framed that it often ends up allowing the victims to be punished!

Four MPs from the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan went to mourn Zarqawi's death with his family, triggering sanctions against them. The incident raised questions about how much distance there is between the Salafi Jihadis, the violent revivalists, and the conservative religious parties that seem to eschew violence and pursue ordinary politics.

The US pressured Egypt to open up its parliamentary elections last fall, and the Mubarak regime took revenge by letting 88 Muslim Brother delegates be seated in a chanber with a little over 400 members. These supported Hizbullah in the recent Israel-Lebanon War and have demanded that the Camp David Accords be revoked.

Hamas won the elections in the Palestine Authority. The Israelis have taken many of the elected Hamas representatives and officials into custody, however, and have repeatedly bombed the Interior Ministry in Gaza. These developments have added to the popularity of Hamas and radical fundamentalism while making a mockery of the Bush administration's stated commitment to democratization.

Hizbullah itself achieved enormous popularity, and enhanced the prestige of radical Muslim fundamentalism, by its ability to make a stand before the Israeli military machine. This development will ripple through the region, to the disadvantage of more secular, moderate forces.

The evidence with regard to hearts and minds is mixed. The Pew Global Attitudes Project reports on Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, with a population of 224 mn. In 2000, 70 percent of Indonesians viewed the United States favorably. (Such numbers were typical for US Muslim allies in areas not consumed by the Arab-Israeli conflict). In 2002 as a result of the Afghanistan war, the number fell to 60 percent. Then in 2003 after Bush invaded Iraq, it fell to 15 percent. After Bush sent the US Navy to help Indonesia in the aftermath of the tsunami, the numbers rebounded in 2005 to 38 percent. In 2006 they have fallen again, down to 30 percent.

So since 2000, we have fallen from 70 percent approval in Indonesia to only 30 percent, and at some points we were way down. This story contains a caution and also some encouraging news. The caution is that we are losing the Indonesia public because of this Iraq occupation. It is true in Turkey, as well, and lots of other places. The good news is that it is not irreversible. Do some nice things for someone, and the numbers go up. (The numbers also went up in Pakistan after we diverted some military helicopters to help the victims of the Kashmir earthquake). If we ended our Iraq presence, there is a chance we could repair these relationships with some munificent gestures.

In Turkey, the favorability rating of the US in 2002 was 52 percent. It is now 15 percent. That is a scary plummet! I suspect it is all about Iraq, and particularly the feeling that the US is letting the Iraqi Kurds harbor the PKK terrorists, who are blowing things up in Turkey.

The only really good news in the Pew findings is that the US has grown in popularity in Morocco, to nearly 50%, and is especially popular with youth and women. Moroccans have said they are worried about terrorism and about too much influence of religion in politics. I don't entirely understand what is driving the Morocco numbers, since they were pretty upset about Iraq, but the change should be studied for what it can tell us about doing things right. One thing that helps is that Morocco is a long way from the Arab-Israeli conflict, and, in fact, has good behind the scenes relations with Israel.

The Arab world mostly just dislikes US policy, mainly because of kneejerk support for Israeli depredations against Palestinians. The dislike doesn't change that much, though we reached a nadir in 2003-2004. In 2002 76 percent of the Egyptian public disapproved of us. In 2004 that rose to 98 percent. It has fallen down to 86 percent in 2006. Very few Egyptians approve of US foreign policy. They don't even like US intervention to open up the Egyptian political system.

To the extent that small terrorist groups benefit in their recruitment and in motivating recruits from deeply negative attitudes to the United States, these polling numbers are extremely disturbing. The main things driving a polarization between Muslim publics and the US are not al-Qaeda or terrorism, however. They are Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. It is the policy. The policy can provoke anger and engender threat, and that is why it had better be a damn good policy. It can also make for friendships, which is what we should be aiming at.

It wouldn't take much now to settle the Israel-Palestine thing, and the time is ripe to have Israel give back the Golan to Syria and the Shebaa Farms to Lebanon in return for a genuine peace process. The Israelis are not made more secure by crowding into the West Bank or bombing Gaza daily. South Lebanon has demonstrated the dangers of ever more sophisticated microwars over rugged territory. It is time for Israel, and for the United States, to do the right thing and rescue the Palestinians from the curse of statelessness, the slavery of the 21st century. Ending this debilitating struggle would also be the very best thing for the Israelis themselves. In one fell swoop, the US would have solved 80 percent of its problems with the Muslim world and vastly reduced the threat of terrorism.

But of all the things this administration has done badly, it has been worst of all at making friends in the region. That could end up hurting us most of all, and playing into Bin Laden's increasingly ghostly hands.
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US "Defeated Politically" in al-Anbar: Marine Report
1 US Soldier, 42 Others Dead in Violence

58% of Americans say the Iraq War has not been worth the loss of American lives.

A confidential Marine Corps intelligence report on al-Anbar Province concludes that there are no functioning governmental institutions there, that the vacuum is filled by groups such as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and that the US has been defeated politically even if not militarily.

These conclusions have long been obvious to any close observer of the situation there. There was significant violence in Fallujah on Sunday, and it had even been destroyed by the US. Ramadi saw a firefight Saturday, and the whole city appears to be under constant siege by US forces. The Sunni Arab tribes of Anbar are openly agitating for Saddam Hussein to be released! There is no point in keeping all those US troops there. They will just steadily be blown up or picked off. Hold provincial elections, hand the keys of the cities to the new govenors, and withdraw over the horizon. The Shiites and Kurds will have to reach an accommodation with them, and it would be all to the good if they knew that the Americans were no longer going to try to keep the Sunni Arabs down for them.

The NYT says that the attempt of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shiite bloc in parliament to fast-track through parliament approval of an 8-province southern confederacy is in danger of toppling the national unity government. Sunni MPs say they only signed on to the political process because they were promised that the constitution would be open to review and such issues as regional confederacies reconsidered. The revision of the constitution has not even begun, and al-Hakim seems to them to be side-stepping that process with his proposal.

Al-Hayat says that [Ar.] the 32 MPs of the Sadr Movement in parliament and members of the Fadhila (Virtue) Party all defected Sunday from the position of their coalition leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. They joined the opposition to a system of loose federal government presiding over big super-Regions cobbled together from several existing provinces. Al-Hayat maintains that their rebellion halted progress of a bill introduced by al-Hakim that would recognize an 8-province Shiite confederal region in the South. They joined a boycott of the parliamentary session staged also by other, mainly Sunni parties: The Iraqi Accord Front, the National Dialogue Front, the Iraqi National List, the Reconciliation list, and the Liberation list. This protest caused the speaker of the house and his two deputies to postpone the broaching of the plan until two parliamentary committees-- the legislation committee and the committee on regions and provinces-- had a chance to study it.

An anonymous Kurdish MP told al-Hayat that the issue of federalism was decided with regard to Kurdistan, and any attempt to go back to centralized government would provoke the break-up of Iraq.

A painful realization is setting in that it is more and more likely that Iraq is going to be partitioned. Like Adnan Pachachi, I continue to resist it. I think Barzani will be reined in, and I think al-Hakim will be, too. But I have to admit that things don't look good.

US and Iraqi troops are trying to crack down on militiamen posing as police in Baghdad.

Guerrillas killed a US soldier Sunday evening, north of Baghdad.

Six bodies turned up in the river at Kut, victims of political violence. Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that altogether 14 bodies were found throughout Iraq.

Reuters reports on civil war violence on Sunday in Iraq, with at least 28 killed. (For a total of at least 43). Major incidents:

TUZ KHURMATO - Four oil workers from Iraq's biggest refinery at Baiji were killed by gunmen as they drove close to the northern town of Tuz Khurmato, hospital and police sources said. A fifth man was wounded. . .

BAGHDAD A car bomb exploded in the street as police were leaving [Karrada where they found an explosives cache], killing three and wounding 14 people, mostly policemen.

BAGHDAD - Three people were killed and 15 wounded when a bomb exploded in a popular market in Bab al-Sharji in central Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA - Clashes between two Sunni and Shi'ite districts in the town of Baquba 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad killed five people and wounded 14, police said, adding that mortars had been fired during the violence.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed police General Majeed al-Mani and two of his bodyguards while he was on a shopping trip in Baquba, police said.

FATHA - Iraqi soldiers killed four insurgents when they repelled an ambush on a road near the town of Fatha southwest of Kirkuk on Saturday, the Iraqi army said. . .

Samuel Bostaph on Bush's "Monsters, Inc.".
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US Military Numbers brought into Question
40 Dead in Saturday Violence
Al-Hakim Demans 8-Province Region

The McClatchy News Service has cast doubt on the numbers of killed in Baghdad for August as announced by the US military. The report finds that the "count" of declining "murders" in Baghdad for August had been intended to exclude victims of suicide bombings and mortar attacks!

Some may conclude that since the US miltiary is not making any real progress in stopping the civil war, they have now begun attempting to manipulate the numbers.

If the allegation is true, it is a further detraction from the credibility of the Pentagon in Iraq. Since it would be much better for the US war effort if what the Department of Defense said about things was generally found to be true and credible, this development is actually quite sinister.

The murders the Pentagon did report, for July, were increasingly cold-blooded political executions.

The LA Times gives more bad news about death statistics in Baghdad:

' One of the most reliable barometers of the bloodshed here has been the monthly numbers from the Baghdad morgue, where coffins strapped to car roofs arrive hourly, and residents trying to identify loved ones look through gruesome autopsy photos.

Just last week, health officials unveiled a change in morgue policy: All requests for statistics henceforth would be routed through the Health Ministry. Morgue officials who previously provided details have abruptly "retired" or left the country.

Iraqis worry about a sinister turn. Al-Sadr loyalists head the ministry. In effect, then, al-Sadr controls an agency in charge of putting out accurate information on killings reportedly committed by his own gunmen.

Even as information sources have been squeezed, Iraqi authorities have cracked down on the media, threatening to close newspapers and TV stations whose reporting falls afoul of the government line. Last week, the Iraqi government closed the widely watched, U.S.-style satellite network station Al-Arabiya for a month, dispatching police to the network's Baghdad offices. The Shiite government charged that the station, based in Sunni-dominated United Arab Emirates, had aired "sectarian" reports. '

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will visit Iran on Monday. His Islamic Da'wa Party was hosted in Tehran during the Saddam years, when being a member was a capital crime, and some branches of the party have good relations with the clerics that rule Iran. Al-Maliki's predecessor, Ibrahim Jaafari, received a very warm welcome in Iran during his visit of early summer, 2005, and at that time Tehran pledged $1 bn. in foreign aid and help with refining Iraqi petroleum.

There are rumors that Iran was behind the closing of al-Arabiyah offices in Baghdad.

The most pro-Iranian politician in Iraq, Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, is the titular leader of the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament. He issued a communique Saturday underlining two main points. First, national reconciliation could not include forgiveness for Baathists. Second, it is illogical to allow the Kurds to have a provincial confederacy but to deny it to other groups. Al-Hakim is seeking a huge 8-province union that would have its own parliament, prime minister, and security forces, but would owe some sort of vague, light loyalty to Baghdad, to which it would cede a few duties such as foreign policy. The Shiite confederacy would also have a special claim on all new oil and gas finds in the south, which is probably rich in such commodities.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports [Ar.] al-Hakim demanded a superprovince stretching from Kut to Basra, encompassing 8 provinces. He said this arrangement constitutes "a guarantee that there will be no return to the dictatorship."

Adnan Pachachi, an old time Sunni Arab nationalist and member of parliament in the National Iraqi List, condemned the plan as "inappropriate to the present circumstances." Salih Mutlak, leader of 11 secular Sunni MPs in parliament, warned that "insisting on achieving this confederacy means civil war." Adnan Dulaimi, a leader of the religious Sunnis in the Iraqi Accord Front (44 seats) said that "there is no justification for it save sectarianism."

Al-Hakim spoke on the occasion of the birthday of the Twelfth Imam, saying, "Whoever accepts the Kurdistan Region must accept the Region of the Middle Euphrates and the South, and that of Baghdad, and other regions . . . Federalism is a demand of the masses that we strongly support, for it is a guarantee that there will be no return to the dictatorship and everyone will enjoy this right. Federalism leads to stability in Iraq, and is the hope of Iraqis . . . The example of federalism in Kurdistan, which is witnessing a big renaissance, is a proof of the success of this form of government."

[Iraqis do not mean just "federalism" when they use the word, but rather the erection of provincial confederacies where you take several provinces and make a superprovince with its own parliament and prime minister.]

Al-Hakim continued, "Reconciliation has become necessary, but its signposts must be known. It must not become a bridgehead for the return of killers [i.e. Baathists] to Iraq."

Pachachi said that unlike the Kurds,w ho had had their own Region for a decade and a half, the Shiites in the south had no experience in administering themselves. He warned that a federal region "like the region of Kurdistan would mean that they would have armed forces and foreign relations and control over petroleum resources, and that means the partition of Iraq into weak statelets that will be threats from large, powerful neighboring states. He said it would be a matter of great regret "if a great and powerful country such as Iraq should become weak statelets when the age of the modern state is about a century. It has lived through a distinguished experience of national unity. We see today how Europe is uniting to become a single entity, while a country such as Iraq is dividing up. It is a shame, and utterly regrettable."

Al-Hakim is among the more powerful politicians in Iraq. He has become among the more pernicious, as well. You'll never get social peace as long as the ex-Baathists are discriminated against so badly. And Iraq will not survive as a country if the Shiite super-province is created-- it is just too overwhelming to any central government to have a rival prime minister in charge of half of its provinces.

Reuters reports at least 40 dead in civil war violence on Saturday, with 14 bodies found in Mahmudiyah, a mixed Sunni-Shiite area south of Baghdad, and another 16 in Baghdad itself. There were in addition numerous bombings, mortar strikes and shootings all over the country, including Baghdad and Kirkuk, as well as a firefight in Samarra.

The Sunni tribes of Fallujah are saying that a recognition of the Resistance [Ar.] is a prerequisite to their joining any process of national reconciliation.

Rupert Murdoch's hyping of the imaginary Iraq-al-Qaeda connection: David Cole once caught Bill O'Reilly in the act.

The Independent estimates that "the War on Terror" has cost over 60,000 lives. The bulk of the deaths have been in Iraq.

Joseph Nye argues that a combination of hard and soft power is necessary to win the war on terror, and that Bush erred in resorting to main force as his primary tool.
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36 Killed in Civil War Violence
Al- Karbala'i Backs Militias

The small foreign Salafi terror group in Iraq had called on Thursday for more attacks on Americans in Iraq. Many Iraqi Sunni sermonizers distanced themselves from that call at Friday prayers. In Baghdad, a traffic ban was instituted to forestall car bombings of mosques while congregations were worshipping. AFP adds,

In his sermon, though, [Sunni Shaikh Zakariya] Tamimi [of the Ibn Taymiyah Mosque] railed against an Iraqi government that could not be trusted while Shia militias roamed the streets killing Sunnis, asking the administration “to heal itself”.

For his part, the Shia cleric Ahmed al-Safi al-Karbalayi said in his sermon at Karbala’s Imam Hussein shrine that militias would remain necessary as long as the government could not protect its own people.

“Arms should be put in the hands of the state and the state should be able to protect the citizen, otherwise popular organizations shall be formed to defend themselves,” he said.

Al-Karbala'i is an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and if he is talking this way about militias, it is a bad, bad sign.

The Al-Arabiyah satellite channel protested its banning from Iraq, and the move was generally condemned by Arab publics outside Iraq. The Khalij Times reports:

' “Initially they banned Al Jazeera, and now Al Arabiya. It shows that the Americans want to keep what goes on in Iraq a hush-hush affair. The Iraqi government seems like just a tool in the hands of Americans. Now the Arab world lost the chance to know what is exactly happening in Iraq,” said Ali Muhammed, an Iraqi national.

“When a Danish daily published blasphemous cartoons, the Western media branded it as freedom of expression. Why all of them shut their mouth now?” he asked.

Ahmed Rafeeq, a Lebanese national, said: “I am sure the Iraqi government closed down Al Arabiya office as part of a US plan. They do not want the truth to come out.

“The best way they found is to close down the Arabic channels which talk against them.”

“The Arab world definitely lost the chance to get the true stories on Iraq war now. All the Western media which report pro-US stories have no ban imposed on them,” he pointed out. '

Oliver Poole discusses the dangers to Iraqi national unity in Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's proposal for a nine-province superstate in the Iraqi south.

Sheikh Muhammad Baqir Nasiri of Nasiriyah in the Iraqi south said Friday that federalism (setting up big federated regions rather than having smaller states) is permitted in Islam. He is identified as connected to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who is reported to be unhappy with the move toward federal regions.

14 bodies showed up dead in Baghdad streets on Friday.

Civil War violence as reported by Reuter.

I count 22 dead in political violence (the toll from the mortar attack on Shiite pilgrims has risen to 8) on Friday, and another 14 showing up at dead bodies, for 36 dead.

A major Sunni tribal leader was assassinated Friday near Hawija. He had announced support of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's project for national reconciliation.

Iran captured some Iraqi troops on the border Friday. The Iraqi account is that they were trying to stop an Iranian officer from engaging in weapons smuggling.

A Senate intelligence report reconfirms that there was no relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, nor between him and Abu Musab Zarqawi.

Actually, the US Government released a document showing that Iraqi intelligence became positively alarmed about reports that al-Qaeda might be in Iraq, and put out an APB on them! (The URL for that document set at Ft. Leavenworth no longer works; I'd appreciate it if any reader has an update).

Senator Pat Roberts, chair of the intelligence committee, actually went so far as to say of his own committee's report that there was no evidence that Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress knowingly provided false information to the US government, nor that it was acted on. Roberts' philosophy seems to be that you might as well deny it all, there is no percentage in admitting the truth.

Intriguingly, the report says that the Defense Intelligence Agency warned the Pentagon off the INC on the grounds that it had been penetrated by a foreign intelligence agency, which might be using it to play the US.

The foreign country that had penetrated Chalabi's group? Iran.

What is really delicious is that it suggests that the influential Neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute who ceaselessly promoted Chalabi, like Richard Perle, David Rhode, and Michael Rubin, were duped by Tehran into doing its bidding.

Michael Hirsh: Bush's Rhetoric Unclear. Well done. But it also shows the disconnect between rhetoric and actual policy.
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Cole in Salon.com on Shiite-on-Shiite Violence

My article, "Shiite vs. Shiite," is out in Salon.com.

excerpt:

' Among the best-selling jewelry items in Iraq today is a pendant consisting of a whole map of the country. It's the symbol of a national unity many Iraqis see slipping away, because now even the majority Shiites are fighting among themselves.

The ongoing ethnic cleansing and piecemeal partition of Iraq most often takes place along ethnic and sectarian lines. Kurds fight Arabs, Sunnis fight Shiites, and so on. The recent battles in Diwaniyah, Karbala and Basra, however, raise the specter of Shiite-on-Shiite violence, and on a level that may pull in coalition troops and further imperil the U.S. mission in Iraq. '

Read the whole thing.
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The Iraqization of Afghanistan

A massive suicide car bomb very near the US embassy embassy in Kabul has left at least 3 dead, including Coalition soldiers.

The resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan have begun actually taking and holding territory from time to time in the south.

On Monday, Taliban had deployed a bomb that killed 17 in an attempt to kill the local police chief.

Just a few days ago, They killed 4 Canadian troops and injured 9.

Afghanistan's poppy crop is up 40% this year over 2005, posing severe problems of narco-terrorism on the Colombian model.

Some observers think the Taliban are taking back over southern Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is especially important to Washington because it is the only plausible way to bring natural gas down from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India. The Turkmenistan alternative is being used to push Delhi away from any flirtation with an Iranian pipeline.

As Afghanistan falls again into substantial chaos, India is being forced to reconsider, and to seek to draw on Iran's Yadavan fields, with a pipeline coming down through Pakistani Baluchistan and over to the Indian border.

The turn for the worst in Afghanistan may explain the sudden warming of relations between Delhi and Tehran. Indian PM Manmohan Singh called up Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and stressed the need to fast track the pipeline project, which had seemed dead earlier this summer. (Last spring the pro-Iranian minister of petroleum had been fired, and some assumed it had been in part as a result of American pressure).

By deserting Afghanistan to run off to war in Iraq, Bush ensured that it would risk falling again into social turbulence, and thus helped seal the fate of the Turkmenistan pipeline through Herat (wouldn't the Taliban just blow it up?)

In turn, that may have ensured that Iran would be able to sidestep US sanctions by dealing, not only with China, but also with India.

And that may mean that Bush let the big fish get away by getting bogged down in Iraq, which is turning out not to be any prize for him, either.

It is like the Aesop's Fable where the dog with a piece of meet in its mouth crosses a bridge and sees its reflection, and hungers for the reflected meat, but in grabbing at the mirage, drops the piece already in its mouth, and ends up with nothing.
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Al-Qaeda Gloats over 9/11

A new videotape surfaced on Aljazeera Thursday showing Usamah Bin Laden with Ramzi Bin al-Shibh [al-Shibihah], Wa'il al-Ghamdi and other 9/11 hijackers. Bin Laden is shown urging followers to pray frequently for these martyrs, as a way of accelerating the progress of their own souls.

The tape is a way of celebrating the fifth year anniversary of the monstrous September 11 attacks, and tries to parlay Muslim resentments against US policies into support for al-Qaeda, which has declined and fallen on hard times in recent years.

They play the old suicide tape of al-Ghamdi, which complains about the treatment of Muslims in Chechnya, Kashmir, the Philippines, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

It is to weep. The US helped save the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo. Al-Ghamdi did not know that. Does anyone, over there? Why is the US so bad in getting out the word of the positive things it has done for the Muslim world? Doesn't anybody care?
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

1500 Dead in August
Sunnis in Parliament Complain about Shiite confederacy plan.

Two US troops were announced killed on Thursday.

The (Sunni) Speaker of Parliament complained bitterly Thursday that he had not been presented with a copy of a draft law on regional confederacies submitted by the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance.

In other news, Mashhadani's nephew was kidnapped on Thursday, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP.

Salih Mutlak [Ar.] , the leader of a small Sunni contingent of 11 secular deputies in parliament, denounced the Shiite plan for a southern federal region in no uncertain terms and said he and his part would go to the mat to stop the partition of Iraq.

It turns out that another 1500 or so Iraqis died in political violence in Baghdad in August, about the same as July, which was a record month. Earlier Iraqi health ministry figures had suggested that there was a reduction, but this idea now seems to have been shot down. The US military said that the murder rate has fallen by fifty percent, but that may have been based on preliminary and unreliable preliminary data.

If the "Battle of Baghdad" is making no difference at all to the civil war in the streets of the capital, that is very, very bad news.

Iraq the Model: The thin-skinned Iraqi government has closed the news bureau in Baghdad of al-Arabiyah satellite television. Al-Arabiyah is known in the Arab world as conservative, pro-American and pro-Saudi. If even they are unacceptable in Iraqi journalism, freedom of speech in Iraq is in big trouble.

The Sunni al-`Ubayd tribe based at Hawija has held a congress at which members called for the release of Saddam Hussein, the readmission of Baathists to civil and political society, and the dissolution of Shiite militias as prerequisites for national dialogue and reconciliation.

Roadside bombs this summer in Iraq targetting US troops were four times as numerous as they had been last January. There has been a substantial fall-off of tips from Iraqis. The main reason for this is apparently that it has become, since the Samarra shrine bombing of last February, difficult for Iraqis to circulate much, so even sympathetic Iraqis just don't see the bombs. (It seems also possible that as sectarian hatreds have increased, they cannot be sure if the roadside bomb is aimed at the other side, and so figure it is best to leave it where it is.)

The handover of control of one of Iraq's 10 divisions to Prime Minister al-Maliki is not as big a step as some news sources are hyping it. My understanding is that even that one division cannot undertake big operations without getting permission from the Americans.

US troops raided the home of late Shiite Ayatollah Muhammad al-Ghurayfi on Wednesday, arresting his three sons and confiscating large amounths of equipment. Ghurayfi was assassinated by Saddam in the late 1990s.

The Herald Sun puts Iraq's deaths on Thursday at abour 40.

Reuters reports civil war violence for Thursday. Excerpts of major incidents:

KIRKUK - A roadside bomb exploded on Wednesday near a police patrol in Kirkuk, wounding four policemen, including an officer, police said. . .

MOSUL - The bodies of six men with multiple gunshot wounds were found in the northwestern suburbs of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, sources at the morgue said. . .

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed 10 people and wounded 17 at a petrol station used by police vehicles in eastern Baghdad, police said. The casualty toll included police and motorists caught in congested traffic nearby. . .

BAGHDAD - Two bombs planted in a market killed two policemen and four civilians in Zaafariniya in southern Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in Karrada district, central Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding two others, police said. . . .

BAGHDAD - Four people, including two policemen, were wounded when a police patrol was struck by a roadside bomb in al-Qahtan intersection, western Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber targeting a police patrol killed three people and wounded 10 in a tunnel in Bab al-Sharji district, central Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said. . .

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed two policemen and wounded four civilians when they attacked Shi'ite pilgrims crossing a southern Baghdad bridge, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - Two roadside bombs exploded in different areas of the mostly Shi'ite Amil neighbourhood in southwestern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding seven others, an Interior Ministry source said. The target of the bombs was unclear. . .

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives at an Iraqi police commando checkpoint in western Baghdad's Yarmouk district, wounding seven police commandos, an Interior Ministry source said. . .

NEAR SUWAYRA - The bodies of three people, including a beheaded woman bearing signs of torture, were retrieved from the Tigris river near town of Suwayra, south of Baghdad, police said. . .

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

40 Killed in Bombings, Shootings
Al-Hakim Seeks Shiite Federal Region

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's United Iraqi Alliance laid out plans Wednesday in parliament for the creation of a nine-province regional confederacy in the south. AFP reports that die-hard Sunni opposition to the plan appears to be fading. They seem to have been given representations by al-Hakim's people that a central government with key prerogatives will be preserved.

Al-Zaman says that the plan will be voted on within 15 days.

Reuters reports on civil war violence:

' *BAGHDAD - Two people were killed and eight wounded when a bomb exploded near a funeral tent in Amel area in southwestern Baghdad. People had gathered there to mark the death of a supporter of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the Interior Ministry said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed eight people and wounded 38 in northern Baghdad's Qahira district, police said. An Interior Ministry source who quoted hospital tallies said six people were killed in the bomb blast and 46 wounded. . .

BAGHDAD - Iraqi police found a further 15 [al-Zaman says 22] bodies throughout Baghdad on Wednesday, most were bound, blindfold with some showing signs of torture, police said.

SINJAR - A car bomb killed six members of Iraq's border police and wounded six others in the northern town of Sinjar, close to the Syrian border, police said.

MOSUL - Gunmen killed two people from the Yezidi religious minority in the northern city of Mosul, police said. It was not clear whether they were targeted because of their beliefs. '

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Bush, Abu Zubayda and the End of Trust

Bush has lied so often, and about absolutely crucial matters of national security, that I do not trust him any more. This is a sadder commentary than anyone can know. On the War on Terror, I don't prefer a partisan approach. After September 11, I felt we all had to pull together, left right and middle, to beat down this challenge.

But I saw our president taking unseemly advantage of the terror threat. I saw him take short cuts in the law. I saw him repeatedly mischaracterize the facts. I saw him hang pre-existing projects on this new peg. I saw him try to make Americans-- always before a proud, free people--live in fear, so as to aggrandize his own power and prevent criticism of his policies. Now members of his cabinet have been so emboldened by their megalomania that they are likening critics of the Iraq War to Hitler-lovers.

Bush did it again on Wednesday. He continues to peddle the Abu Zubayda myth:

' Within months of September the 11th, 2001, we captured a man known as Abu Zubaydah. We believe that Zubaydah was a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden. Our intelligence community believes he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained, and that he helped smuggle al Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan after coalition forces arrived to liberate that country. Zubaydah was severely wounded during the firefight that brought him into custody -- and he survived only because of the medical care arranged by the CIA. '

This whopper may seem a minor thing in the context of the changes announced on US government torture policy, which clearly seemed aimed at keeping Administration officials out of jail (on the grounds that they changed their procedures as soon as the Supreme Court told them to do, and can't be held responsible for winging it in the absence of such instruction. Uh, they could have followed the Constitution.) But when you cannot trust your elected leaders not to tell you bald-faced lies about so crucial a matter as national security, then you do not truly live in a democracy with a rule of law and political accountability. You live in the Orwellian State. Every time Americans give up elements of basic civic governance at Bush's wheedling, Bin Laden wins a little bit more. Bin Laden cannot win, but Americans like Bush can grant him victory.

Abu Zubayda was captured in a shoot-out in Karachi in March of 2002. Bush has repeatedly characterized him as a high-level al-Qaeda leader, and on Wednesday he implied that the information supplied by Abu Zubayda was crucial to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, a genuine 9/11 mastermind.

Already on April 7, 2002, the WP reported that Abu Zubayda "was described by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as "a very senior al Qaeda official who has been intimately involved in a range of activities for the al Qaeda." and that ' White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the administration considered his capture "a very serious blow to al Qaeda." ' On April 13, 2002, the Washington Post was reporting on his significance in Rumsfeldspeak:

' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was the first administration official to disclose publicly that Abu Zubaida, who was acting as the field operations coordinator of the al Qaeda network, was answering questions. Rumsfeld told reporters that Abu Zubaida "talked when people asked him questions and he said this, that and the other thing." '

What?

But the information attributed to Abu Zubayda is that he identified Khalid Shaikh Muhammad's nickname and gave details helpful in tracking him down. In fact the CIA knew the nickname from August, 2001. And he was captured near Islamabad in the house of a relative of a major Jama'at-i Islami leader based on a tip. The tipster was paid $25 million. When confronted with this, the Bush administration said it was true but that Abu Zubayda's information was also helpful. But how? If we knew the nickname from other sources, and if we knew the location from a tipster, what value added does Abu Zubayda supply? None.

There is in fact reason to question whether he was capable of providing solid information, because he is not a well man.

Ron Suskind's One Percent Solution discusses Abu Zubayda. His sources in the intelligence community revealed to him that Abu Zubayda turned out not to have been a high level planner, as Rumsfeld had announced. He was more like a low level travel agent for the families of al-Qaeda operatives.

And he could barely pull off that basic job, since he seems to suffer from multiple personality syndrome. The CIA captured his diary. The entries were by his three distinct personae, Hani-1, Hani-2 and Hani-3 (a boy, a young man, and a middle-aged man).

The entries contained exhaustive detail about making travel arrangements for his clients. It was useless, junk detail, compulsive in nature and completely unhelpful. It went on forever. Dan coleman, then the FBI's lead man in fighting al-Qaeda said the diary was about "what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said. . . This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality."

Suskind says that the agents briefed Bush and Cheney about all this, how Abu Zubayda was a small looney fish, not a big clever one. And the agents were shocked to see Bush and Cheney nevertheless continue to mischaracterize Abu Zubayda as a major al-Qaeda leader to the American public. How shocked they must be to see Bush go on this way even after the appearance of Suskind's book!

Testy denunciations of Suskind's findings by anonymous "intelligence sources" are to be expected, and are irrelevant as long as we don't know who and why. The problem is that Zubayda's information was in some cases extracted while he was suffering from three gunshot wounds, and was denied painkilling medication as a way of making him talk. Zubayda's information has to be high quality, you see, to make the agents and the Bushies feel right about doing that.

Bush had the gall to say on Wednesday that Abu Zubayda's life was saved by the agents who captured him. That is true. But it was Bush's way of making sure the press didn't ask about the torture.

The other problem is that there are active cases hanging on the validity of Abu Zubayda's testimony.

Apparently the bizarre allegations surrounding Jose Pedilla, derived from Abu Zubayda's fevered mind. I would not be surprised to see that case collapse. There are others:

The Gazette (Montreal)
October 23, 2004 Saturday

BYLINE: ANDREW DUFFY, CanWest News Service

DATELINE: OTTAWA

The lawyer for Mohamed Harkat of Ottawa will attempt to establish in Federal Court that an Al-Qa'ida lieutenant was tortured into giving evidence against his client.

Abu Zubaida, an Al-Qa'ida operational planner in U.S. custody since March 2002, has been a key source of information for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in building a case against Harkat.

Harkat is accused of being part of the Al-Qa'ida terrorist network.

Harkat, 35, faces deportation to his native Algeria if a judge accepts that the security service's case against him is "reasonable."

His lawyer, Paul Copeland, wants CSIS to acknowledge that the information they received from Zubaida came as the result of his being denied medical treatment for gunshot wounds.

Zubaida was handed over to U.S. officials after being arrested in a violent raid on a guest house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, during which he was shot in the groin and thigh.

Both the Washington Post and New York Times have reported that Central Intelligence Agency interrogators denied him painkillers as a means of gaining his co-operation.

Copeland will contend in a Federal Court hearing next week that whatever evidence he has provided against Harkat should be discounted.

Next week's hearing will be Harkat's first chance to officially answer the terrorist allegations levelled against him in December 2002.

Justice Eleanor Dawson must decide if a decision to issue a security certificate against Harkat was reasonable.

The certificate allows Harkat to be deported as a national security threat.

CSIS claims Zubaida identified Harkat as operating a guest house in Peshawar, Pakistan, for mujahideen travelling to Chechnya.

Harkat, who has lived in Ottawa since 1995, insists he has never been to Afghanistan.

He says he never met Zubaida and that he has nothing to do with Al-Qa'ida. '

This Montreal Gazette story shows the dangers of torture to the judicial process, now that there is going to be one for at least some al-Qaeda prisoners.

But the main problem is that Suskind's account brings into question Abu Zubayda's reliability. His obsessiveness about detail may have thrown up something useful to forensics. But if Abu Zubayda has a split personality and sometimes thinks he is a young boy, then his testimony isn't actually worth much.

And no, he wasn't a "senior terrorist leader," Mr. Bush.
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Bush Turns to Fear-Mongering
Creation of "Islamic" Bogeyman

The Bush administration obviously wishes it were waging war on Nazi Germany. Even the old Soviet Union would be fine, these nostalgic Cold Warriors seem to think. Something big and menacing that would scare the blue-haired grannies in Peoria into voting Republican because, everyone knows, in addition to being good for business (except for that Depression unpleasantness), Republicans are mean s.o.b.'s and would as soon shoot a potential menace to the US as glare at him.

The Bush administration has the misfortune to have no powerful enemies it is brave enough actually to take on. China and Russia are not exactly enemies any more, and are the only potential state challengers to United States freedom of action as the sole superpower. And they don't go beyond potential. Too busy making money while Washington bleeds itself dry with military adventures. Waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces.

So what enemies does Bush see that he really will confront? Here they are:

1. North Korea.

2. Syria, population 19 million. Poor, militarily weak. Gross Domestic Product of $26 bn. [I.e. nothing.] Minority ruling clique of Alawi Shiites (think New Age California Shiism). State ideology, secular Baath Socialist Arab Nationalism, an ideology founded by Arab Christians and which has nothing much to do with Islam. Would make peace with Israel and the US in exchange for the return of the Golan Heights and an equitable resolution of the plight of the Palestinians.

2. The 1.3 million Shiites of southern Lebanon and the slums of south Beirut (or what used to be the slums of south Beirut), who largely support the Hizbullah Party-Militia. No one had ever heard of them as a threat back in Eisenhower's era. That is because they only organized a militia after the Israelis kept invading and brutally occupying them.

3. The 6 million Sunni Arabs of north, central and western Iraq. Many are secular Iraqi nationalists. A handful are radical Sunni fundamentalists. They had all been encompassed by the secular Iraqi Baath Party before Bush destroyed it.

4. Iran. Population 69 million. GDP per capital $2,825 (exchange rate method). Only some 15-20 percent support their religious, populist government. Weak air force and navy. Iran has not launched a war on a neighbor since the late 1700s.

5. Pushtun guerrillas in southern Afghanistan who don't like foreign troops in their country

6. Al-Qaeda and similar tiny terrorist organizations around the world, in Saudi Arabia, the UK, France, Algeria, Pakistan, India, etc. Often consist of cells of 4-8 persons not in direct contact with traditional al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is proven dangerous, and should be combatted by good police and counter-terrorism work. But it is small and mostly disrupted or under surveillance. If its ideology were so challenging to Bush, then he should shut up those videotapes by capturing Bin Laden and Zawahiri. He has not done it.

This isn't a coherent enemy, it is a laundry list of places Bush would like to control because they have oil or gas, or are key to its development, or have other strategic benefits for the US and/or its regional allies, especially Israel.

So Bush tried to unify the Bogeyman by condemning radical Sunni Islam and then equally condemning radical Shiite Islam.

It doesn't help with North Korea, and signally does not work for Syria or most Iraqi Sunnis.

Of course, it also raises questions as to why Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, the ideology of which is not traditionally so very different from that of the radical Sunni fundamentalists, is in with the good guys. (I'm not saying Wahhabis are dangerous, I'm saying most Salafis are not.) So too is the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was formed by Ayatollah Khomeini, and the Iraqi Da'wa Party, which conducted terrorist attacks on US facilities and personnel in the 1980s. Shiite Islamism in Iraq is good, the same thing in southern Lebanon is bad.

And then of course the United States has more friends among regimes ruling Muslim-majority populations than virtually any other set of governments in the world. Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain are all non-NATO allies. Turkey is a full NATO ally. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, etc-- all dear friends.

So Bush is basically saying that the US is threatened by a congeries of Middle Eastern movements and governments that have nothing to do with one another, and only one of which has struck directly at the US since Bush came to office. Plus North Korea.

And this is the reason for which he needs to keep 140,000 troops in Iraq, to stop the Muslim fundamentalists from taking it over. But of course, the Da'wa Party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Sadr movement have *already* taken it over.

Nor is it plausible that "al-Qaeda" could take over Iraq! The United States couldn't take over Iraq. The Shiites and Kurds would never put up with it. Bush doesn't need to stay in Iraq to fight al-Qaeda there. If Bush weren't in Iraq, neither would al-Qaeda be. There less than 1,000 such foreign fighters, anyway.

So there are good Muslim fundamentalist movements and bad ones. What seems to distinguish them is whether they are eager to do business with Houston or whether they badmouth Bush.

5,000 al-Qaeda members, probably no more than a few hundred of them actually dangerous to the United States, just cannot justify all Bush's aggressive policies.

So now, even while denying he has anything against Muslims, Bush is creating this "Islamic Fascist" bogeyman, which mostly is a figment of his fevered imagination, or is woefully imprecise as a way of describing the phenomenon, or lacks any real political power, or could be dealt with by containment and decisiveness (remember the Soviet Union), or turns out to be some goatherds on the side of a hill in southern Lebanon.

If you want to know what is really going on, it is a struggle for control of the Strategic Ellipse, which just happens demographically to be mostly Muslim. Bush has to demonize the Muslim world in order to justify his swooping down on the Strategic Ellipse. If demons occupy it, obviously they have to be cleared out in favor of Christian fundamentalists or at least Texas oilmen. And what is the Strategic Ellipse?

Voila.



Bush didn't do anything about al-Qaeda his first 8 months in office. He left the job half done in Afghanistan and ran off to Iraq, which was always irrelevant to al-Qaeda. There were no good targets in Afghanistan, just Bin Laden and Zawahiri. Iraq, now that is prime Ellipse territory.

Bush is undermining our Republic, gutting our rights, spending us into penury, and smearing a great civilization, in order to get his grubby fingers on the Ellipse. You get to pay for it twice, once at the pump and once on your annual tax return.
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Parliament to take up Shiite Federal Region
US Backs off Criticism of Barzani

On Wednesday morning a car bomb in the Qahira district of Baghdad killed 8 and wounded 38.

Civil war violence killed some 25 on Tuesday, including 3 US GIs.

The US embassy in Iraq began by appearing to condemn the decree issued by Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani that the Iraqi national flag not be flown in Iraqi Kurdistan. But then in its second communique on the subject on Tuesday, it said

' "Decisions on Iraq's national symbols must be made by the Iraqi people as a whole through an established constitutional process," adding that Washington was committed to "Iraq's unity and territorial integrity".

In the revised statement, the embassy did not give any explanation for deleting parts of the original statement. '

The Iraqi parliament opened its fall session. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite leader, is pushing for recognition of a 9-province regional confederacy or super-province for the Shiites of the south. I figure at most he has 63 Shiite votes for it and probably can depend on 58 Kurdish MPs. That is 121, and you need 138 for a simple majority. The idea is strongly opposed by the Sunni Arabs, by the movement of Muqtada al-Sadr, and by the Da'wa Party. The latter two are part of the United Iraqi Alliance, as is al-Hakim's SCIRI, but they disgree vehemently on this issue.

Since 98 parliamentarians were missing today, however, and absenteeism is a big problem, it is hard to predict the outcome of such a vote on any particular day.
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35 Bodies Found Executed in Baghdad, Kut
10 Coalition Troops dead in 2 Days

AP and Reuters report that 33 bodies, most showing signs of torture, were found in the streets of Baghdad on Monday. The victims were likely victims of reprisal killings from the opposite branch of Islam. Another two bodies were found in the southern Shiite city of Kut.

Iraqi security forces said that they killed 14 Sunni Arab guerrillas planning to attack pilgrims to the sacred Shiite city of Karbala.

12 Coalition troops have been announced killed in the past two days. SBS writes:

' Meanwhile at least 10 US and two British troops have died in Iraq in a two-day period, most of them killed in rebel attacks.

The latest deaths brought the US military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 2,651, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

The British military also said that two of its soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack near the main southern city of Basra on Monday, while a third was seriously wounded.

The latest British casualties brought the military's losses in Iraq since the invasion to 117, a military spokesman said. '

Al-Hayat reports [Ar.] that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, defended on Monday the decree issued by Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani forbidding the flying of the Iraqi flag in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Senior Iraqi ministers are planning a trip to Iran. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki may follow them, according to the Iranian press. But al-Sharq al-Awsat says that he denies it.

Meanwhile, in the US, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami told Barbara Slavin that the US should stay in Iraq until the new (Shiite-dominated) government is stronger.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called Monday on the Iraqi Pilgrimage Board to employ upright criteria in choosing Iraqis to go on pilgrimage. He urged that the major political parties and religious movements not be given quotas.

(Goodies in Iraq tend to be distributed by political party, in a sort of spoils system. Sistani is saying that that is not the right way to choose pilgrims.

Bush's refusal to rethink his Iraq strategy may have an unexpected side effect-- of uniting the Democrats.

I know that it sounds absurd to talk about Democrats uniting. But if W. could unify the Iraqi Sunnis--who are notorious for their feuds and infighting-- he can unify the Democrats.
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Tantawi: Jihad is Purely Defensive
Freedom of Religious Belief Intrinsic to Islam

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar Seminary in Cairo, perhaps the foremost Sunni Arab authority, has issued a statement that jihad or "holy war" was legislated in Islam for the defense of the persons and honor of Muslims, and is not to be used as a threat or a form of aggression against the innocent.

Dr. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi called for the correction of false Western ideas concerning Islam, especially the notion of "jihad."

The remarks came in a closing session of a joint Muslim-Christian Dialogue Committee between al-Azhar and the Anglican Church in the UK.

Grand Sheikh Tantawi denied that there is any clash of civilizations or religions, affirmed that members of the religions cooperate with one another, and mere difference in religion does not prevent that.

He quoted the Quran verse, "There is no compulsion in religion," saying that it demonstrates that freedom of belief is delegated (to human beings), and any practices that contradict that principle are considered departures from true Islam.

I couldn't find an English account of all this easily on the Web. If any Anglican readers know of a Website for it, I would appreciate the link.
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Israel to Launch War on Syria, Iran?

The Times of London details Israeli planning for a war with Syria and Iran.

Richard Perle, who sold the American people the fantasy that the US could march into Iraq, install corrupt businessman Ahmad Chalabi in power, and would be greeted with garlands of flowers, is disappointed that Israel did not attack Syria during its recent war on Lebanon. Hey, Perle, in case you didn't notice, the Israeli military did not do so great against 5,000 Hizbullah militiamen. So you wanted them to compound the failure by widening the war? The man never met a war he didn't love and never let reality interfere with his power fantasies.

If there were no arms industry, people like that would never get to be on television.

Note especially the ending grafs of the article:

' Advocates of political engagement believe a war with Syria could unleash Islamic fundamentalist terror in what has hitherto been a stable dictatorship. Some voices in the Pentagon are not impressed by that argument.

“If Syria spirals into chaos, at least they’ll be taking on each other rather than heading for Jerusalem,” said one insider. '

Why assume that the Syrians would stay busy with each other? If the Muslim Brotherhood managed to come to power, backed by the vast Sunni majority in the country, it could fairly quickly establish order and begin concentrating on getting back the Golan Heights and "liberating" "Palestine". The Syrian MB would be even closer to Hamas than the Syrian Baath. It would also be closer to the Salafi Jihadis fighting in Iraq. And it might well angle to overthrow the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Israel might end up facing a massive, militant, fundamentalist Sunni state, aiming to unify all the Sunni Arabs in the neighborhood for a final drive against Israel, using Hizbullah guerrilla tactics and rockets and missiles. Sunni fundamentalists increasingly see themselves as caught in a pincers between Israel/the US on the one side, and Iran/the Shiites on the other, and would have lots of incentive to create a united front.

You wonder if that phrase, “If Syria spirals into chaos, at least they’ll be taking on each other rather than heading for Jerusalem,” is how the Neoconservatives in the Pentagon feel about what has happened in Iraq. It is an astonishingly shortsighted perspective. And when did the US Pentagon begin caring who rules Jerusalem?
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Barzani Threatens Secession;
Sistani Aide Assassinated;
4 GIs Killed

Massoud Barzani reacted angrily to criticisms of him by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and many other Iraqi politicians for his call that the Iraqi flag not be flown in Iraqi Kurdistan. Al-Hayat reports [Ar.] that in a speech before the opening session of the Kurdish parliament on Sunday, Barzani said that he had discussed the flag issue at some length with President Jalal Talabani and with PM Nuri al-Maliki, and that this was not a unilateral decision. He characterized the present Iraqi flag as that of the Baath Party, the Anfal chemical weapons campaign against the Kurds, and mass graves. He added,

' If the Iraqis are not enthusiastic about creating a new flag, the Kurds also are not in a hurry on the issue . . . [my message to all is] that the time of threats has passed, and we will not accept the language of threats from anyone at all. The will of the Kurdish people will not be held hostage to others . . . The Kurdish parliament decided to remain now inside the federal framework, but at any moment the Kurdish parliament and the Kurdish people perceive it in their interest to announce independence, we will announce it without fearing anyone."

He made fun of his critics, saying that they cannot even administer their provinces, are failures, and just want to reduce Kurdistan to a similar failure.

Al-Hayat says that the Iraqi National Security Council will look into what is driving Barzani's emotionalism on this issue.

Meanwhile, the Higher Commission for Reconciliation and National Dialogue has decided to seek a site other than Irbil (Barzani's base) for the holding of its conference. Obviously, an attempt to reconcile Sunni and Shiite Arab Iraqis will require that the Iraqi flag be flown.

Fadil al-Sharaa, the political councillor to the Iraqi prime minister, implied that Barzani was making a bid to take the focus off the substantial problems facing the Kurdistan Region, and said that Barzani's occasional attempts to portray himself as a Kurdish national hero standing up to an oppressive anti-Kurdish government in Baghdad targetted not only Arab Iraqis but also prominent Kurds serving in the Federal government, including the president.

He said that Prime Minister Maliki had put the ball in parliament's court.

Borzou Daragahi reports that in Kurdistan, Iraq seems far, far away.

While Barzani cannot stand even the Iraqi flag, 300 Sunni tribal chieftains demanded that Saddam Hussein be released from prison. Whether he resumed the presidency, they said, would be up to him. They threatened to join the guerrilla movement against the US presence if their demand is repulsed.

My guess is, any tribes still attached to Saddam Hussein, are already behind the scenes playing a big role in the guerrilla movement.

Unknown assailants assassinated Shaikh Hasan Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawadi, 56, in the southern city of Amara on Sunday. Al-Jawadi was a senior aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Amara is a rough neighborhood, dominated by displaced Marsh Arabs, where the Sadrist Movement and its splinters are strong and maintain paramilitaries. It is alarming that this assassination is almost certainly a further manifestation of Shiite on Shiite violence, of the sort that shook Diwaniyah last week.

The Iraqi Radio Sawa, which is generally much more substantive and professional than the generic version, reports that Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi recently brought an oral message from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to George W. Bush, as Abdul Mahdi himself claimed in an English language press conference. Najaf appears to be denying the report, but maybe is just denying that Sistani sent a formal letter.

2 US soldiers and 2 Marines were reported killed by guerrillas in Iraq over Labor Day Weekend.

Reuters reports that in the city of Khalis "A bomb in a market store killed four people and wounded 19 in the religiously mixed town of Khalis, 80 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad . . ."

(Reuters also reports:)

' DIWANIYA - U.S. troops patrolled through Diwaniya in a show of armoured force a week after the Iraqi army lost at least 20 soldiers fighting Shi'ite militiamen in the city. The U.S. military had no immediate comment . . . [Aljazeera described the US operation as an encirclement of the city. - JC]

BAGHDAD - U.S. and Iraqi forces have arrested the second most senior figure of al Qaeda in Iraq and killed 20 fellow militants, Iraq's national security adviser said, claiming a big victory over insurgents. Mowaffak al-Rubaie named the man as Hamed Juma Faris al-Suaidi, also known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana. . . '

I'm afraid that if the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did not stop massive terrorism in Iraq, we may conclude two things: 1) relatively little of the political violence is being carried out by "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" or Monotheism and Holy War as many still prefer to call it on the ground in Iraq; and 2) capturing al-Suwaidi is not going to stop the violence, either.

Meanwhile, the US military is offering to turn control of the Iraqi army over to the Iraqi government, and tried to do so again on Sunday, but failed. This writer says that the reason for the Iraqi foot dragging is that they are only being offered control of company-sized (100 men or so [-correction) operations, and they want much more, and are holding out for it. ( - Update)

Al-Zaman/ DPA report that an Iraq-Iran free trade zone opened Sunday in the Shalamijah district of Basra, the southern port city. The zone is based on an agreement earlier signed by the Basra city governing council and the Iranian government. (The Iraqi central government isn't mentioned as having been involved.) The area of the new market is 750 by 1500 meters (approx. yards), and the goods sold there from Iran will be allowed to be transported at much reduced tariff rates from both sides. There will be a similar zone inside Iran. Iran has undertaken to fund the repaving of the streets connecting Shalamijah with downtown Basra, and the rebuilding of a bridge across the Shatt al-Arab (the water boundary of Iran and Iraq).
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South Asian Pilgrims Slaughtered;
Sistani Retires from Politics
Upbraids Government for lack of Security

11 Pakistani and 3 Indian Shiite pilgrims that passed through al-Anbar Province and reached al-Nakhib to the west of Karbala, to which they were making pilgrimage--were captured, robbed, tortured and killed on Saturday. Their women relatives were allowed to go free. The dead will be buried at Karbala.

What anthropologist Michael Fischer of MIT once called "the Karbala Paradigm" is at the center of Shiite spirituality. The story of how the grandson of the Prophet, Imam Husayn, tried to help the people of Iraq against their oppressors, the Umayyad Empire, but was surrounded, cut down with family and friends by the armies of the Calph Yazid, is central to Shiism. The story is not just a historical narrative, but like the Passion of the Christ for Christians, has a cosmic dimension. Among Iraqi and other Shiites, the Sunni Arab guerrillas of Al-Anbar have transformed themselves into Yazid, and the hapless pilgrims have become ex post facto companions of the Imam (which is the significance of them being buried, as martyrs, in Karbala).

Reuters reports other violence, including an attack on Karbala guards.

Shiites in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and India are seething about this attack today, and there will certainly be reprisals against Sunnis in Iraq, if not elsewhere.

That is the reason for which Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani hurriedly issued a communique calling on the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to restore order in the country. Otherwise, he said, others would arise to do so (i.e. militias). Siatani had met al-Maliki earlier on Saturday.

The Grand Ayatollah wrote, "The failure of the government to carry out its missions and duties in assuring security and order and the protection of the lives of citizens creates an opportunity for unofficial forces to arise to fulfill that mission."

Sistani's point is that the al-Maliki government can hardly ask the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, major Shiite militias, to disband if they are the only thing standing between Shiites and being blown up or decapitated.

The Daily Telegraph maintains that Sistani is angry and bitter about the rapid decline in his political influence. He had asked Shiite politicians of the United Iraqi Alliance to press the Americans for a timetable for withdrawal of US troops, but they had not followed through. (Hey, Americans, the Grand Ayatollah wants a timetable!) He had routinely asked Shiites not to fall into the guerrillas' trap by engaging in reprisal killings, and for the first two years they listened to him on the whole. No longer; the Telegraph reports:

' "I will not be a political leader any more," he told aides. "I am only happy to receive questions about religious matters . . "
Al-Sistani's aides say that he has chosen to stay silent rather than suffer the ignominy of being ignored. Ali al-Jaberi, a spokesman for the cleric in Khadamiyah, said that he was furious that his followers had turned away from him and ignored his calls for moderation.

Asked whether Ayatollah al-Sistani could prevent a civil war, Mr al-Jaberi replied: "Honestly, I think not. He is very angry, very disappointed."

He said a series of snubs had contributed to Ayatollah al-Sistani's decision. "He asked the politicians to ask the Americans to make a timetable for leaving but they disappointed him," he said. "After the war, the politicians were visiting him every month. If they wanted to do something, they visited him. But no one has visited him for two or three months. He is very angry that this is happening now. He sees this as very bad." . . .

Sistani's theory of the guardianship of the jurisprudent is much more limited than that of Khomeini and his tradition in Iran. Sistani believes that the supreme jurisprudent should only intervene in structural matters affecting the "order of society," not in everyday politics. (Thus, he did intervene to ensure one person, one vote elections in Iraq in the face of Bush administration opposition). But he believes that even this structural role can only be played by a Shiite cleric who has gained the allegience of the people and is popular among them. I take it he is saying that it is his perception that he is no longer in a position to play that pivotal role because Iraq's Shiites have been turning to leaders such as Muqtada al-Sadr. (Since al-Sadr is sort of an all-but-dissertation Ph.D. student and Sistani is the most eminent professor in the system, this desertion of the old man for the younger one in the street is a real slap in the face to the Najaf establishment.)

Al-Maliki affirmed that his government was up to the task. He must be worried about Sistani's slam, however. Despite his declining influence, Sistani's conclusion that former Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari just was not decisive enough to restore security played a role in al-Jaafari's fall from power.

Salih al-Mutlak, the head of the National Dialogue Front, with 11 seats in parliament (secular, mostly ex- Baathist Sunni), criticized al-Maliki for visiting Sistani and warned that it "could lead to the establishment of the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent in Iraq" (a reference to the Iranian theocratic system, in which the chief cleric heads up the government.) He said that the Iraqi government should make decisions on its own and not be guided by a central religious authority.

The Association of Muslim Scholars (Salafi Sunni clerics) issued a statement condemning the Kurdish decree that the flag of the central Iraqi republic will not be flown in Kurdistan. They said, "Such a step comes at the same time that attempts are being made to partition the petroleum and the instigation to establish provincial confederacies here and there, when the country is occupied and the people are being killed and undergoing poverty and hunger." It is a bold step toward separation."

39,000 Sunni and Shiite Iraqi Arab families have fled to Kurdistan because of the insecurity in their regions. This is an increas from 27,000 the last Kurdistan officials released these numbers.
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