Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Black Banners And Economic Warfare In

Juan Cole 07/23/2004

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Black Banners and Economic Warfare in Iraq

Claude Salhani of UPI reports that the recent kidnappings of truck drivers in a bid to force the companies that employ them out of the Iraq market are being claimed by a shadowy group called “the Black Banners.” He speculates that this phrase has a Shiite ring to it, but quotes one observer who doubts that. Salhani writes:


The “war” in Iraq is suddenly taking a very different turn, and regrettably, not one for the better. After first targeting the military, then changing tactics by kidnapping hostages and holding them in exchange for the withdrawal of Coalition troops — and one may add with some success — the “insurgents” are now going after the soft underbelly of Iraq, its fragile economy.

A new rebel group, hitherto unknown, calling themselves the “Black Banners” is the latest to surface. They join the plethora of armed groups opposed to the presence of foreign forces, particularly American soldiers, in Iraq. The Black Banners have detained six hostages: three Indians, two Kenyans and an Egyptian, all nationals from “neutral” nations.

The tactic of attacking the civilian employees of companies doing work in Iraq is actually not new, and is only one of a number of current guerrilla tactics. Another is to assassinate municipal, provincial and federal officials. A significant percentage of municipal council members has been assassinated, though only The Guardian has reported on this deadly campaign at the local level.

As for the trucker kidnappings, the Black Banners are a symbol of revolution in Islamic history, and not only among Shiites. The corrupt Umayyad kingdom was overthrown by the Abbasids around 750 CE when revolutionaries raised black banners in the East. The Abbasid dynasty, which created Baghdad and ruled for centuries, is seen by Iraqis generally and by Muslims generally, including Sunnis, to have created a Golden Age when the Muslim world was more glorious than Europe. So the term “Black Banners” could have a Shiite implication, but does not necessarily do so. Even secularists or Marxists could adopt black banners as a revolutionary symbol, with reference to the Abbasid revolution.

The tactic of economic warfare aimed at multinationals and at their workers, drawn from the global market, is working at an official level. The Philippines has withdrawn from Iraq and has called for Filipinos not to work there (it is a major source of guest workers throughout the world, several million, and they are a political force, which helps explain the government’s solicitude for them). Now Kenya has asked it citizens not to work in Iraq. But every indication is that both in the US and elsewhere, workers eager to participate in the Iraq bonanza and make a lot of money are still heading for Iraq. Certainly, Filipinos are. Unfortunately, some of these guestworkers are likely to fall victim to the spiral of violence in Iraq.

What does seem clear is that Donald Rumsfeld’s peculiar idea that Iraq is “calming down” is ridiculous on the face of it.

Two US soldiers were killed in Samarra on Thursday by a roadside bomb, and there was more fighting in Fallujah on Friday, and sundry other violence.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....