Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Iraq Violence Kills at Least 24, Wounds over 100
Sistani Criticizes Election Plans
The guerrilla war and American military assertiveness together wrought havoc in several areas of Iraq once again on Wednesday.
Baghdad
In downtown Baghdad, guerrillas used a car bomb to strike at persons in a retail district who were waiting to sign up for service in the Iraqi National Guard. The huge explosion killed 6 individuals and wounded 54.
There were also clashes at Haifa Street, a stronghold of the Iraqi branch of the radical Monotheism and Holy War movement. The number of resulting casualties is unknown as I write.
A US strike on Abu Ghurab west of Baghdad a week ago may have killed a leader of Monotheism and Holy War, Abu Anas al-Shami, a Jordanian Muslim radical and author.
Sadr City
In east Baghdad, according to Naim al-Qaabi, spokesman for the Sadr movement, a US push into that part of the capital resulted in clashes that left 15 dead and 52 wounded.
Samarra
Some 40 guerrillas fought US forces near Samarra on Wednesday. The US forces called in an air strike on a house, killing 2 Iraqis and wounding 2. Although a supposed ceasefire had recently been called by city leaders of Samarra, allowing US troops back into the city, it seems clear that Samarran guerrillas are still operating in the area and that the situation remains dicey.
Tikrit
Guerrillas used a roadside bomb to attack US troops near Tikrit, killing 1 US soldier.
Nasiriyah
Three American crew members of a Black Hawk helicopter were wounded when it crashed soon after take-off on Wednesday near Nasiriyah. The cause of the crash was not announced, but US helicopters frequently take rocket-propelled grenade fire in Iraq.
Najaf
On Monday and Tuesday, US Marines and Iraqi national guards raided offices of the Muqtada al-Sadr movement near the shrine of Ali, arresting several officials close to the radical young cleric. The American-appointed governor, Adnan al-Zurfi, maintained that they had found weapons caches in the sweep.
The action appears to contravene the terms of the cease-fire earlier reached with the Sadrists, and the raid was condemned by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Sistani deeply dislikes the Mahdi Army, but he no doubt feels that if the various parties cannot trust that a settlement under his auspices can be trusted, it will weaken his authority to help settle future disputes.
Dexter Filkins of the New York Times reports that Sistani is increasingly worried about the form of the elections scheduled for January. The current plan to have nation-wide pre-selected party lists will unfairly favor the expatriate political parties, he fears, and he is threatening to withdraw his support from the process.
I personally would be shocked and amazed if elections are actually held in January. If they are, it would not be surprising if the expatriate parties managed to set things up so as to dominate them. They are the ones who have been organizing abroad for the past twenty years and have experience in politicking. But if a lot of local Iraqis feel disenfranchised by the results, then the elections won't produce a stable government. Moreover, Sistani's approval would be key to such a government's hopes for success.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is burning up money and ammunition so fast in Iraq that it has prematurely had to dip into a $25 billion emergency fund: "If the additional money were not available this month, armed services either would have to cut other programs to shift money to the war or face the prospect of new troops going to battle without sufficient body armor, armored Humvees and other protective gear." The war is costing about $1 billion a week.
posted by Juan @ 9/23/2004 06:23:39 AM
Cat Stevens Deported
I know that it is faintly ridiculous that Cat Stevens a.k.a. Yusuf Islam was deported on Wednesday from the US after the airplane he was on was diverted to Maine, on the grounds that he is a dire security threat to the country. David Letterman in his monologue allowed darkly as how the Feds were no doubt gunning for Gordon Lightfoot next. He also wickedly observed that despite Osama Bin Laden being at large, what with Cat Stevens deported and Martha Stewart in jail, he felt a lot safer.
But I have a hard time rushing to Yusuf Islam's defense because I never forgave him for advocating the execution of Salman Rushdie in 1989. He endorsed Khomeini's "fatwa" or death edict against Rushdie for the novel, Satanic Verses. He later explained this position away by saying that he did not endorse vigilante action against Rushdie, but would rather want the verdict to be carried out by a proper court. These are weasel words, since he was saying that if Khomeini had been able to field some Revolutionary Guards in London to kidnap Rushdie and take him to Tehran, it would have been just dandy if he were then taken out and shot for having written his novel. In my view, that entire episode of the Khomeini fatwa showed how sick some forms of Muslim activism had become, and served as a foretaste of al-Qaeda's own death warrant served on a lot of other innocent people.
And, the disavowal wasn't even consistent. AP reported on March 8, 1989, that "Cat Stevens Endorses Rushdie Death Sentence Again," writing:
' Former pop singer Cat Stevens reiterated his support for the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death sentence against Salman Rushdie, saying the author's treatment of Islam was "as good as stabbing Moslems in the heart." . . . "It's got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again," Stevens said in an interview with the television show "World Monitor," produced by The Christian Science Monitor . . Stevens, who said the novel's treatment of Islam was "as good as stabbing Moslems in the heart," suggested that Rushdie should repent writing the book. "If he manages to escape (the death sentence) he still has to face God on the day of judgment," he said. "So I would recommend to him to sincerely change his ways right now." '
At the time, Rushdie's life was in imminent danger, and Cat Stevens was skating pretty close to inciting to murder. (What else is the "deterrent" he is talking about?)
So, to steal from Bill Maher:
NEW RULES: If you advocate the execution of novelists for writing novels, you and John Ashcroft deserve one another.
posted by Juan @ 9/23/2004 06:01:30 AM
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?
President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.
What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.
Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.
And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?
What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?
What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units?
There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal troops could not go into those cities?
What if, during the past year, the Secretary of State (Aqilah Hashemi), the President (Izzedine Salim), and the Attorney General (Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated?
What if all the cities in the US were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year?
What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs", but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?
What if, from time to time, the US Army besieged Virginia Beach, killing hundreds of armed members of the Christian Soldiers? What if entire platoons of the Christian Soldiers militia holed up in Arlington National Cemetery, and were bombarded by US Air Force warplanes daily, destroying thousands of graves and even pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial over on the Mall? What if the National Council of Churches had to call for a popular march of thousands of believers to converge on the National Cathedral to stop the US Army from demolishing it to get at a rogue band of the Timothy McVeigh Memorial Brigades?
What if there were virtually no commercial air traffic in the country? What if many roads were highly dangerous, especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, DC, and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95 anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed with machine gun fire.
What if no one had electricity for much more than 10 hours a day, and often less? What if it went off at unpredictable times, causing factories to grind to a halt and air conditioning to fail in the middle of the summer in Houston and Miami? What if the Alaska pipeline were bombed and disabled at least monthly? What if unemployment hovered around 40%?
What if veterans of militia actions at Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing were brought in to run the government on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis?
What if municipal elections were cancelled and cliques close to the new "president" quietly installed in the statehouses as "governors?" What if several of these governors (especially of Montana and Wyoming) were assassinated soon after taking office or resigned when their children were taken hostage by guerrillas?
What if the leader of the European Union maintained that the citizens of the United States are, under these conditions, refuting pessimism and that freedom and democracy are just around the corner? |
