Around this time of year in 2005, the media toyed with a catch phrase to describe the budding signs of democratic reform in states throughout the Middle East. They called it the Arab Spring, but it was an unprecedented time for America too. Hawks were downright chipper, aloft in I told you so heaven. Liberals were contrite.
None of it lasted. Not the democracy, not the hawk happiness, and not the liberal contrition. In the first category, the setbacks have been numerous and horrifying. As for hawks and liberals, theyve both spent increasingly less time arguing about Arab democracy and more time arguing about military viability. Its now assumed by many that the best we can hope for after the heavy loss of blood and treasure is a lessening of the carnage and a staggered exit from the region, politics be damned.
This will soon change. . . .
. . . To paraphrase Talleyrand, the Arab Spring of 2005 was at once too weak and too strong. Its now obvious that back then we found evidence for political reform in what proved to be either superficial gestures of democracy or frustrated bursts of the real thing. But today we witness a slow-moving, organic galvanization of the democratic spirit in the Muslim world. We just have to know where to look.
In Iraq today theres more than a days worth of purple fingers to demonstrate citizens commitment to statehood and consensual government. Its been over a year since Sunni Awakening groups first took up arms against Sunni terrorists in Anbar, and the intra-sectarian battle has led to nothing less than the viability of a legitimate Iraqi state. The relative calm allowed the business of government to move forward, and in February the Iraqi Parliament passed three laws vital to the survival of a federalist Iraq: the 2008 budget, an amnesty for many prisoners, and, most crucially, a law outlining provincial powers.
Recently, Iraq has seen fighting in Basra and elsewhere, but properly understood this is also compelling evidence of the Maliki governments commitment to a pluralistic state. The Shiite Malikis willingness to wage war on Shiite militias in the interest of nationhood demonstrates that the country is not the crude sectarian powderkeg many detractors describe. Additionally, a March 4 article in no less an anti-war bastion than the New York Times details how young Iraqis rejected Islamic extremism in favor of a secular approach to law and order and government. This wholesale denouncement radicalism by the upcoming generation is as spring-like as one could dare hope for. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
04/14/2008 08:22 ||
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#1
I dunno, at best it looks more to me like an Iraqi spring than anything more general. Dont get me wrong, if we get an Iraqi spring, that will be very good, and I for one wont attack people who call it victory. But I think the bloodshed has reduced the appeal of Iraq as a model elswhere in the region, and also I think the region outside Iraq wasnt as ripe for democracy as some of us thought in 2002. So I think the moment for the reverse domino effect has passed, sadly.
#2
Abd-allah, slave to allah. That is the defining aspect of a Muslim's wretched life. To that mortal enemy, freedom means: rebellion against their nominal deity. Communism, Fascism, Ultramontain Catholicism, Militarism, was shaken by fanatic believers; Islamic dictatorship is like breathing to those savages.
Repatriate sovereignty over OUR oil properties in the Middle East, and send the locals back to their vulgar desert existence. That is their fate.
Canadian anti-sealing 'activist' and founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Paul Watson was kicked out of Greenpeace in 1977 because of his violent tactics. He was known for carrying a bowie knife and keeping AK-47's aboard his pirate ship the Farley Mowat which he routinely uses to threaten to ram other ships with if they won't bend to his demands. Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams has now publicly described Paul Watson - one of the founding fathers of enviromental terrorism as a terrorist but for all the wrong reasons:
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams has described provocative anti-sealing activist Paul Watson as a "terrorist." Watson, whose Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel Farley Mowat was seized Saturday, has described the incident involving his foreign-registered ship as "an act of war" and "an act of piracy."
But Williams said Watson who earlier this month described sealers as "sadistic baby-killers" deserves no sympathy."Ever since I've been aware of him, I've always considered Paul Watson to be, you know, a vile, disgusting excuse for a human being," Williams told CBC News Sunday, as Watson was arriving in Nova Scotia to help bail out the skipper and first officer of the ship.
"I think what a lot of people don't realize is that this man is a terrorist, in fact, you know, to come out with the insensitive remarks, for example, that he came out with a few weeks ago, when these sealers lost their lives and he put their lives below animal lives," Williams said.
Watson sparked an uproar earlier this month when he said that while the death of four Quebec sealers was a tragedy, "the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups is an even greater tragedy."
Watson defended the remarks which prompted Green party Leader Elizabeth May to resign an honorary post with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and said, "I'm here to rock the boat, to make waves, to make people think, you know, to provoke." (CBC)
It shouldn't be what he said it should be his actions. A person who practices terrorism is a terrorist.
Notable terrorist actions by Paul Watson the media neglects to tell you about:
1979 - He sank the commercial whaling ship the Sierra by ramming it. His ship was equipped with a cement-filled bow.
1980 - He sank the the whaling ships Isba I and Isba II in Vigo, Spain.
1980 - He sank the the whaling ships Susan and Theresa in South Africa.
1981 - He sank the whaling ships Hvalur 6 and Hvalur 7 in Iceland
1986 - Sank half a fleet of Icelandic whaling boats.
1987 - Founded the practise of tree spiking for his other terrorist group the Heart of the Wood.
1992 - He threatened to sink a fleet of ships reenacting the Columbus voyage of the discovery of America.
1992 - He sank the whaling ship Nybraena in Norway.
1994 - He sank the whaling ship Senet in Norway
1997 - He was imprisoned in the Netherlands for ramming a Norwegian coast guard vessel and trying to ram a whaling ship that was tied up at dock.
1998 - He sank the whaling ship Morild in Norway
2002 - He tried to ram a 13 foot shark boat with his ship the Farley Mowat (previously named the Ocean Warrior).
2005 - He attempted to ram the Japanese whaling ship the Oriental Bluebird.
2007 - He attacked the Japanese whaling ship the Kaiko Maru with bottles of butyric acid.
2008 - He attacked the Japanese whaling ship the Yushin Maru with bottles of butyric acid.
These are just a couple of the highlights of his 'career' and there are many more incidences but for whatever reason we don't hear about them and not having them upfront in the media tends to help paint this human piece of garbage in a somewhat sympathetic vein. He's a crusader, a freedom fighter, a provocative anti-sealing activist, ect....
But when it comes right down to it he is no better then the scum that took down the towers on 9/11 and incidently a few days after that event he publicly stated that "There's nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win".
#1
Don't all whaling ships carry harpoons? Maybe they should. Or Vulcan Phalanx or Bushmasters. That should raise the pucker factor for these terrorists.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
04/14/2008 18:18 Comments ||
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#1
The al-Qaida leadership outside dumped huge amounts of money and people and arms into Anbar Province, says Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman, who oversees an area just north of Ramadi. They poured everything they had into this place. The battle against Americans in Anbar became their most important fight in the world. And they lost.
Yo, Binny, how's that strong horse thing working out for you, dude?
Posted by: Matt ||
04/14/2008 13:49 Comments ||
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The US's major quandary is that Sadr reflects the views of most Iraqis. His possible victory in the south in fair elections could position him as the new nationalist leader, and a unifying force for Iraqis, says Ramzy Baroud.
When it comes to Iraq, reporters appear intent on omitting or fabricating news.
The latest battles in Basra, Iraq's second largest city and a vital oil seaport, furnished ample instances of misleading and manipulative practice in corporate journalism today. One commonly used tactic is to describe events using self-styled or "official" terminology, which deliberately confuses the reader by giving no real indication or analysis of what is actually happening.
Regardless of the outcome of the fighting that commenced upon the Iraqi army's march to Basra 24 March, and which proved disastrous for Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, we have been repeatedly "informed" of highly questionable assumptions. Most prominent amongst them is that the "firebrand" and "radical" Moqtada Al-Sadr -- leader of the millions-strong Shia Sadr Movement -- led a group of "renegades", "thugs" and "criminals" to terrorise the strategically important city.
Naturally, Al-Maliki is portrayed as the exact opposite of Al-Sadr. When the former descended on Basra with his 40,000-strong US- trained and equipped legions, we were circuitously told that the long-awaited move was cause for celebration. The media also suggested we had no reason to doubt Al-Maliki's intentions when he promised to restore "law and order" and "cleanse" the city, or to question his determination when he described the Basra crusade as "a fight to the end". If anyone was still unsure of Al-Maliki's noble objectives they could be reassured by the Bush administration's repeated verbal backings, one of which described the Basra battle as "a defining moment".
Indeed.
Reporters parroted such assumptions with little scrutiny. Even thorough journalists seemed oblivious to the known facts: that the Iraqi army largely consists of Shia militias affiliated with a major US ally in Iraq, Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim and his Supreme Islamic Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI); that the SCIRI's Al-Badr militias have rained terror on the Iraqi people -- mostly Sunnis, but increasingly Shias as well -- for years; that the Sadr movement and SCIRI are in fierce contest for control of Iraq's southern provinces, and that the US allies are losing ground quickly to the Sadr Movement, which might cost them the upcoming provincial elections scheduled for October 1, 2008; that the US wanted to see the defeat and demise of Sadr supporters before that crucial date because a victory for Sadr is tantamount to the collapse of the entire American project predicated on the need to privatise Iraqi oil and bring about a "soft" partitioning of the country.
Al-Hakim is pushing for what is being termed a super Shia province with its centre in Basra; Sadr is demanding a unified Iraq with a strong central government. Al-Hakim wishes to see a permanent American presence in the country; Sadr insists on a short timetable for withdrawal. The US's major quandary is that Sadr reflects the views of most Iraqis. His possible victory in the south in fair elections could position him as the new nationalist leader, and a unifying force for Iraqis.
What we are rarely told is that Al-Maliki, although prime minister, is helpless without the validation of Al-Hakim. The latter's SCIRI is the main party in the ruling bloc in the Iraqi parliament. Al-Maliki's own Daawa Party is smaller and much less popular. In order for the coalition to survive another term, Sadr needed to suffer a major and humiliating defeat. Indeed, it was a "defining moment", but the "criminal gangs" of Basra -- and Najaf, Karbala, Diwaniyah, Kut and Hillah -- have proven much stronger than the seemingly legitimate Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and their Al-Badr militias. Even the atrocious US bombardment of Basra proved of little value, despite many civilian deaths. More, the additional thousands of recruits shoved into the battlefield -- tribal gunmen lured by promises of money and power by Al-Maliki -- also made little difference. News analysts concluded that the strength of the "criminal gangs" was underestimated, thus someone had to be blamed.
First, Al-Maliki was blamed for acting alone without consulting with the US government. Even presidential candidate John McCain jumped at the opportunity to chastise Bush's man in Iraq for supposedly acting on his own behest. US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker was quoted in the April 3 New York Times as saying, "the sense we had was that this would be a long-term effort: increased pressure gradually squeezing the Special Groups." Really? Would the US allow Al-Maliki to execute a "long-term effort" -- which is costly financially, politically and militarily -- without its full consent, if not orders?
Second, blame was shifted onto Iran. The media parroted these accusations again with palpable omissions. It is true that Sadr is backed by Iran. It is partly true that he is serving an Iranian agenda. But what is conveniently forgotten is that Iran's strongest ally in Iraq is Al-Hakim's SCIRI, and that the central government in Baghdad considers Tehran a friend and ally. Indeed, it was pressure from the latter that weakened Al-Maliki's resolve in a matter of days. On March 24, Al-Maliki announced his "fight to the end", and on April 4 he ordered a halt to the fighting and compensation for the families of the "martyrs". What took place during this short window of time is an Iran-brokered agreement.
Naturally, skewed reporting leads to slanted conclusions. No, the lesson learnt is not that the Iraqi army requires more training and funds, which would necessitate the US and other forces to prolong their stay in the country. It is rather that the tide has turned so fast in Iraq, whereby the new enemy is now largely Shia, and one which envisions a unified and free Iraq which controls its own resources; that Iran's influence in Iraq has morphed to the point of guaranteeing a win-win situation, while the US is playing with a lot fewer cards; that US firepower has proven less effective than ever, and that the upcoming elections could create a nightmare scenario whose consequences could remove the sectarian label from Iraqi violence and replace it with a nationalist one.
Reporters can be quisling, incompetent and parrots of official accounts. Regardless, no matter how they wish to term it, the battle of Basra is likely to change the nature of the US fight in Iraq for years to come.
Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian-American author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in numerous newspapers and journals worldwide, including the Washington Post, Japan Times, Al Ahram Weekly and Lemonde Diplomatique. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London). Read more about him on his website: RamzyBaroud.net
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC ||
04/14/2008 11:02 ||
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#1
Now there is an unimpeachable, unbiased reporter!
#3
gotta feel sympathy for certain variety of lefties, israel haters, neocon haters, etc.
US backs Israel, ergo US bad, eevil antimuslim.
Sunnis premier victims of US invasion of Iraq. Shiite attacks on Sunnis example of US -neo-con Chalabi consipiracy. Eevil Iraqi exiles who lied about WMD to get us to toss out Saddam for them.
Sadr anti-US, anti-occupation, backed by poor people, strongest "resistance" left.
Ergo Sadr must be a true nationalist, reaching out to Sunnis, etc.
But then mass graves are found confirming Sadrists mass murdered Sunnis. Sunni parties in Iraqi parliament support banning Sadr. The cognivtive dissonance has to be far greater than its been for years.
#4
gotta feel sympathy for certain variety of lefties, israel haters, neocon haters, etc.
US backs Israel, ergo US bad, eevil antimuslim.
Sunnis premier victims of US invasion of Iraq. Shiite attacks on Sunnis example of US -neo-con Chalabi consipiracy. Eevil Iraqi exiles who lied about WMD to get us to toss out Saddam for them.
Sadr anti-US, anti-occupation, backed by poor people, strongest "resistance" left.
Ergo Sadr must be a true nationalist, reaching out to Sunnis, etc.
But then mass graves are found confirming Sadrists mass murdered Sunnis. Sunni parties in Iraqi parliament support banning Sadr. The cognivtive dissonance has to be far greater than its been for years.
The opinion of Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute
Here we go again: the New York Times tries to sex-up an already interesting story to score political points on its front-page. ....
The story, written by Solomon Moore, makes its first mistake by sensationalizing the arms deal between Iraq and Serbia as a secret sale in its headline. How can something be kept secret if the Iraqi Ministry of Defense put out two press releases - with pictures - about the Defense Ministers two visits to Serbia during September and November of last year; then the Defense Minister held a press conference on December 9 announcing specifics about the deal; then the ministry put out a third press release announcing the formal signature of the deal and its total sum (230 million dollars) on December 24?
All this was amply reported on by the Iraqi press, and some of this coverage found its way into the Arab press. Im sure that the Serbian media also covered it in some detail. But the NYTimes still maintains that it was all hush-hush ....
.... why was Moore able to ask the Iraqi Defense Minister about the deal during an interview in February in his office? .... The timing of this February interview is very revealing, for it tells us that the NYTimes has been working on this story for some time now, but had decided to sit on it. I think they did so because there wasnt much of a story to tell: the NYTimes wanted to use the Serbian deal to paint the Iraqi government as corrupt and inept, and there wasnt enough meat on this skeletal narrative.
So what changed? Standards did, of course. The NYTimes reporting on Iraq can be best described as anything goes as of late, so a story heavy on innuendo and factually meager can still go to press if it serves the editorial policy of this paper in painting everything about Iraq in dark hues. .... The NYTimes itself tells us that theres no evidence of corruption or wrongdoing, yet it reserves six whole paragraphs to insinuate that there may be something inappropriate anyway. ....
This could have been a great story had it been an expose of how some pencil-necked paper-pushers over at the Pentagon are hampering the procurement and distribution of weapons to the Iraqi military by pedantically conforming to the protocols spanning hundreds of pages that shape the Foreign Military Sales program, or FMS. Two years ago, Iraq put up billions of dollars of its own money to buy U.S.-made weapons, but these weapons have yet to reach those Iraqi soldiers battling it out on the frontlines of the insurgency. Thats why al-Obeidi turned to other, more expedient sources for arms like Serbia.
The reason that this story failed to be great was that it was leaked and spun by those same DoD pencil-necked paper-pushers that were worried that their failings would be exposed. So they did what many in Washington and the Green Zone have turned into a literal blood sport: Operation Blame It on the Iraqis. .....
So there you have it, the New York Times rushes yet another sexed-up yet leaky story to its front-page and further damages the reputation of its Iraq reporting. It is simply ridiculous to claim in the pieces opening paragraphs that anonymous American commanders had said that the Serbian equipment had turned out to be either shoddy or inappropriate for the militarys mission without fully fleshing out this accusation of shoddiness later in the piece.
Not only was the arms deal not secret, not only was there no evidence of corruption, not only does it seem that al-Obeidi acted appropriately and with the backing of his government while the NYTimes sources over at the Pentagon had dropped the ball during a time of war, .... not only is there no elaboration of the tensions that have arisen between Iraqs executive branch and infantilizing American bureaucrats who are bristling at their fading ability to unilaterally command the situation, not only of so many other things that could have given this story more context; the NYTimes chose to mutilate an interesting story that could have taught us all about the myriad challenges being faced in Iraq into a badly-conceived and hastily-conjectured smear. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
04/14/2008 08:13 ||
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#1
One could almost feel for those poor New York Times reporters, forced to comply with the company line regardless of reality, were so many of them not such self-rightous, pompously ignorant fabulists.
#2
When I become King of the Forest, pennies will be outlawed and you can hunt NYT reporters for sport - as long as you have a Small Game & Varmit license, of course. Just don't eat them. They are amazingly bitter.
Obama doesn't understand a great deal of America. He has no experience with it other than as a politician looking for votes, and even that experience outside of Chicago has been accumulated only since he began his run for the U.S. Senate in 2003. His life has made him keenly aware of urban dysfunction and of African-American issues even as it has exposed him to the Third World in a way that very few American officials have been.
But he is blind to what makes most American communities work. His family experiences and his work experiences have never immersed him in the majority of America that not only functions but indeed thrives. His projection on to that America of his own beliefs -- that odd mix of the beliefs assembled during his very unusual childhood, in Hawaii's most privileged school, on Chicago's south side, and at Columbia and Harvard Law School and Trinity's congregation-- has opened a lot of eyes to just how different Obama's vision of America is. . . .
. . . Most Americans are productive and generally happy; hard-working and actively involved in their communities through church and their children's schools.
Most Americans are generous, and favorably disposed towards strangers and eager to help the world.
Obama doesn't know this America, which is certainly the backbone of most suburbs, small towns and rural communities in flyover-country and, truth be told, on most of the coasts outside of the largest urban centers.
What Obama knows is the world in which he has lived, which is a strange combination of some of the toughest neighborhoods in the U.S. and its most elite institutions. He belonged to a church that indulged radical politics in its weekly bulletin and from its pulpit even as it struggled to help some devastated neighborhoods. He did so after attending and absorbing the attitudes of America's most elite law school and having been taught by its --mostly-- hard-left professors. He does so from the lofty perch of the U.S. Senate. He's had a schizophrenic life that combined the toughest aspects of America and its most indulgent.
No wonder he is clueless about "flyover land." . . .
It is clear that Obama has spent much of the last 30 years in and around some very dysfunctional neighborhoods full of some broken and almost certainly bitter people.
He has been hearing and speaking complaints against the powerful for just as long.
He has not been building a small family business and coaching in the AYSO league, making budget in a medium-sized corporation or manning the snack booth at the football game, teaching the AP English course or organizing the Knights of Columbus or Society of St. Vincent de Paul food drive. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
04/14/2008 14:50 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The US's major quandary is that Sadr reflects the views of most Iraqis. His possible victory in the south in fair elections could position him as the new nationalist leader, and a unifying force for Iraqis, says Ramzy Baroud.
Naturally, skewed reporting leads to slanted conclusions. No, the lesson learnt is not that the Iraqi army requires more training and funds, which would necessitate the US and other forces to prolong their stay in the country. It is rather that the tide has turned so fast in Iraq, whereby the new enemy is now largely Shia, and one which envisions a unified and free Iraq which controls its own resources; that Iran's influence in Iraq has morphed to the point of guaranteeing a win-win situation, while the US is playing with a lot fewer cards; that US firepower has proven less effective than ever, and that the upcoming elections could create a nightmare scenario whose consequences could remove the sectarian label from Iraqi violence and replace it with a nationalist one.
