The New Improved Iraq

My essay about the so-called transfer of sovereignty in Iraq is now available online at In These Times. An excerpt:

The so-called transition to sovereignty for Iraq set for June 30 [actually held on June 28] has been trumpeted as a turning point by the Bush administration. It is hard to see, however, what exactly it changes. A symbolic act like a turnover of sovereignty cannot supply security, which is likely to deteriorate further as insurgents attempt to destabilize the new, weak government. The caretaker government, appointed by outsiders, does not represent the will of the Iraqi people. Some 138,000 U.S. troops remain in the country and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad will be the largest in the world, both of which bode ill for any exercise of genuine sovereignty by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

The caretaker government faces five key issues, any one of which could be destabilizing. It must jumpstart the creation of an Iraqi army that could hope to restore security. It must find a way to hold free and fair elections by next January, a difficult trick to pull off given the daily toll of bombings and assassinations. It must get hospitals, water treatment plants and other essential services back to acceptable levels. It must keep the country’s various factions from fighting one another or from pulling away in a separatist drive. And it must negotiate between religious and secularist political forces.

The issue of separatism already has arisen. The U.N. resolution that created the new government neglected to mention the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) or temporary constitution passed by the Interim Governing Council under American auspices in February. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of most of Iraq’s majority Shiite population, had warned U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan against endorsing that document. The TAL calls for a secular legal code and gives the minority Kurds a veto over the permanent constitution, to be hammered out by an elected parliament in spring of 2005. Sistani objects to the Kurds’ veto. The major Kurdish leaders, for their part, worry that the United Nations and the Bush administration might go back on the promises made to the Kurds of semi-autonomy and special minority rights. Some angrily threatened to secede from Iraq if that should happen. The creation of the caretaker government, which was supposed to help resolve problems of instability, instead has provoked a major crisis with one major Iraqi ethnic group.

Early last January a member of the U.S.-appointed Interim Governing Council (IGC) in Iraq, Mahmoud Osman, gave a revealing interview to Al-Hayat of London. He said that officials of the Bush administration in Iraq had been “extremely offended” when the IGC called for U.N. involvement in the transition to Iraqi sovereignty. The administration, he explained, did not want any international actor to participate in this process; rather it wanted to reap the benefits in order to increase President Bush’s political stock in the months leading up to the November election. He added: “The fundamental issue for Iraqis is the return of sovereignty. The Americans are in a hurry for it, as well, though for their own interests. The important thing for the Americans is to ensure the reelection of George Bush. The achievement of a specific accomplishment in Iraq, such as the transfer of power, increases, in the eyes of the Republican Party, the chances that Bush will be reelected.”

In the end, Sistani and other Iraqi politicians forced Bush to involve the United Nations and to seek a Security Council resolution. He also was forced to give away far more actual sovereignty to the caretaker government than he would have liked in order to get the U.N. resolution he had not originally wanted. In particular, the U.S. military must now consult with the Iraqi government before undertaking major military actions.

But is the turnover really much of an accomplishment? All that has happened is that the Bush administration worked with special U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to appoint the four top officers of state and the cabinet ministers. This group of appointees will then be declared the sovereign government of Iraq.

Iraq already had the U.S.-appointed IGC, consisting of 25 Iraqi politicians, many of them longtime expatriates associated with significant Iraq parties or ethnic constituencies. They had in turn already appointed cabinet ministers. Why is a second appointed government better? Moreover, the overlap between the two is substantial. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, the leader of the Iraqi National Accord, a group of ex-Baath officers and officials who had fallen out with Saddam, was an influential member of the IGC. Allawi’s group engaged in terrorist actions against the Saddam regime with backing from the Central Intelligence Agency. Consequently, his emergence as prime minister is something of an embarrassment to both countries. And it was Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord that also provided false intelligence to the Bush administration and the Blair government about the dangers of Saddam’s regime.

Read the rest.

Rashid Khalidi's talk at UCLA, "Government Attacks on Area Specialists Called Disservice to U.S. Middle East Policy," is absolutely essential reading. Khalidi covers the group-think at the Pentagon, the exclusion and intimidation of State Department Middle East experts, the willful disregard by the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Feith crew of Middle East expertise generally, and the recent attempt to muzzle academic Middle East specialists. Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor at Columbia University and the author of an important recent book,
Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (Beacon Press, April 2004).

3 US Marines Killed, 2 Injured; 2 Police Officers Killed in Continued Iraq Violence on Tuesday

The Associated Press reports:

Guerrillas killed three U.S. Marines and wounded two others with a roadside bomb in southeast Baghdad on Tuesday, damaging their Humvee.

Also in Baghdad, guerrillas attacked a US patrol in the upscale Sunni Azamiyah district. They appear not to have hurt any US soldiers, but they killed a civilian bystander, according to an anonymous source in the Iraqi ministry of the interior,

In Mahmudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, guerrillas attacked a police station. They killed one police officer and one civilian, reciting verses from the Koran before firing small arms and rpgs at the police station. This detail suggests that the guerrillas are radical Salafi Sunnis. Salafis are Sunni Muslims dedicated to going back to the practice of the "pious ancestors" (al-salaf al-salih), sort of like Protestants in Christianity. They want to slough off medieval practices and commentaries. Most are peaceful, but some Salafis have turned radical and take up arms, just as there were violent Lutheran peasant rebellions in early modern Europe.

In Kirkuk, guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb as a senior Kurdish policeman was passing. It killed one of his guards and wounded him. The police in Kirkuk are dominated by the Kurds, even though the city is 2/3s non-Kurdish (Turkmen and Arabs make up one third each of the city's population.

In better news, guerrillas released three Turkish captives on Tuesday, saying that they had done so "for the sake of their Muslim brothers." This phraseology reflects the anger among Muslims, Iraqi or otherwise, at the guerrillas in Iraq who have killed Muslims with bombings and attacks. Apparently these radical Islamist fighters feared that killing the Turks, as they had Americans and a Korean, would dry up support for them among the Muslim population. The current Turkish government is the second most pro-Islamic Turkey has had since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, though the army and most Turkish institutions remain dedicated to the secularist principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It appears to have succeeded in appealing to the guerrillas on the basis of Islamic fellow feeling.

US Soldier Kept Hostage by Guerrillas is Killed

The killing of Spc. Keith Matthew Maupin by guerrillas in Iraq marks the potential beginning of a new tactic in the Iraq war. For the most part, it is hard for the guerrillas to wreak much real damage on US troops in the country, who are well armed and well protected. Ocassionally they manage to kill a US soldier with a roadside bomb or mortar or rpg fire. But these actions do not really wreak significant harm on the US war effort, though the accumulation of such deaths is beginning to alarm the US public.

Taking a soldier hostage, on the other hand, is much easier than killing large numbers of US troops. Since an individual hostage has a name and a face and family members, his story is much more affecting than is the report of a casualty statistic, even when a name is given. With the killing of Spc. Maupin, the guerrillas have initiated a new media campaign aimed at weakening the will of the US public to remain in Iraq. I fear guerrillas may increasingly deploy this tactic.

One thing I admire about John Kerry's approach to Iraq is that he never fails to keep in view the sacrifice of the American soldiers and the positive contributions they have made. The Bush administration has grossly mismanaged post-war Iraq, but that is not the fault of US troops, who are mostly dedicated young people thrust into an unfamiliar situation in which their lives are in danger. They did rid Iraq of a genocidal regime, and they have done a lot of behind the scenes community service work in Iraq. I hope Americans, as they increasingly turn against the Iraq war (with every reason in the world) will not repeat the error of some in the 1970s, who despised Vietnam vets along with the Vietnam war. One officer confessed to me last fall when things were obviously turning bad, "Dr. Cole, I'm in a business where if I'm ordered to shoot over there, I shoot over there." He clearly was unhappy with the policies pursued. But what could he do. The American public owes it to these troops to give them a civilian leadership who will do right by them.

[addendum: Some readers wrote to complain that the stories that Vietnam vets faced hostility from anti-war Americans was a black legend spread in the 1980s and did not reflect the reality. I'm not in a position at the moment to comment on this issue one way or another, but note the objection.]

Also captured, with his fate as yet unknown, is Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, a Lebanese-American Marine, His case underlines the service given to the United States by Arab Americans and Muslim Americans. In the wake of September 11, it is especially important that the US public constantly be reminded that Arab Americans are not aliens but a longstanding and essential thread in the great American tapestry. Lebanese began coming to the US in some numbers in the 1880s. That wave of immigration, which was greatly reduced from 1924, also brought the Italians and Eastern European Jews to this country. Although most Lebanese immigrants were Christian, it is estimated that about 10% were Muslim.

Many Arabs took up the peddling trade in the Midwest, trekking long hours to farm houses to supply basic supplies at a time before the Model T and the Sears and Roebuck catalogue made it easy to get them. When the automobile helped kill the peddling business, many Arab Americans flocked to Dearborn to work for Ford, so that ironically the very industry that ended their previous jobs provided them new ones. The "Syrians" were a key element all along in the Detroit automobile industry, and southeast Michigan came to have the largest concentration of Arabs outside the Arab world itself.

The red scare after WW I and the spread of anti-immigrant racism closed off most such immigration from 1924 until 1965, when the Civil Rights Movement impelled Congress to end the quota system installed in 1924 (which had set tiny quotas for Syria and Lebanon and large ones for Germany and Norway). A second wave of large-scale Arab immigration began from 1965 and continues until the present.

Comedian Danny Thomas and his daughter Marlo Thomas (who married Phil Donohue) are among the best-known Arab Americans. But they are legion. They include Dr. DeBakey, who did pioneering work on the artificial heart, Paula Abdul, and Ralph Nader (Arab newspapers most often refer to him as the Arab presidential candidate), among many others.

Cpl. Hassoun has risked his for the United States of America. He is not only a Marine, but an Arab-American Muslim. All Americans owe him and his family a debt of gratitude that cannot be repaid. The next time any American looks askance at someone for having an Arabic accent or appearing Arab, they should remember Cpl. Hassoun. I only hope he can escape his captors so that we can remember his further exploits.

Bremer Flees Iraq Two Days Early

Paul Bremer suddenly left Iraq on Monday, having "transferred sovereignty" to the caretaker Iraqi government two days early.

It is hard to interpret this move as anything but a precipitous flight. It is just speculation on my part, but I suspect that the Americans must have developed intelligence that there might be a major strike on the Coalition Provisional Headquarters on Wednesday if a formal ceremony were held to mark a transfer of sovereignty. Since the US military is so weak in Iraq and appears to have poor intelligence on the guerrilla insurgency, the Bush administration could not take the chance that a major bombing or other attack would mar the ceremony.

The surprise move will throw off all the major news organizations, which were planning intensive coverage of the ceremonies originally planned for Wednesday.

This entire exercise is a publicity stunt and has almost no substance to it. Gwen Ifill said on US television on Sunday that she had talked to Condaleeza Rice, and that her hope was that when something went wrong in Iraq, the journalists would now grill Allawi about it rather than the Bush administration. (Or words to that effect). Ifill seems to me to have given away the whole Bush show. That's what this whole thing is about. It is Public Relations and manipulation of journalists. Let's see if they fall for it.

Allawi is not popular and was not elected by anyone in Iraq. The Kurds were sullen today. There were no public celebrations in Baghdad. When people in the Arab world are really happy, there is celebratory fire. They are willing to give Allawi a chance, but that is different from wholehearted support.

What has changed? The big change is that Allawi now controls the Iraqi government's $20 billion a year in income. About $10 bn. of that is oil revenues, and those may be hurt this year by extensive sabotage. To tell you the truth, I can't imagine where the other $10 bn. comes from. The government can't collect much in taxes. Some of it may be foreign aid, but not much of that has come in. The problem is that the Iraqi government probably needs $30 billion to run the government properly, and with only 2/3s of that or less, the government will be weak and somewhat ineffective.

Since Bremer was a congenital screw-up, just getting him and his CPA out of the country and out of control may be a good step forward. Allawi won't care about Polish style shock therapy for the economy. Allawi does not have any investment in keeping Iraq weak or preventing it from having a proper army. But how the Iraqi military, if brought back, can operate in a security environment where there are 160,000 foreign troops under US command is unclear.

So that some group of Iraqis now control the budget and can set key policy in some regards may be significant. But the caretaker government is hedged around by American power. Negroponte (the US ambassador to Baghdad who has just arrived in the country) will control $18 bn. in US AID to Iraq. Rumsfeld will go on controlling the US and coalition military. There isn't much space left for real Iraqi sovereignty in all that.

Another danger is that Allawi will overshoot and provide too much security. He is infatuated with reviving the Baath secret police or mukhabarat, and bringing back Saddam's domestic spies. Unlike the regular army, which had dirty and clean elements, all of the secret police are dirty, and if they are restored, civil liberties are a dead letter.

The guerrilla insurgency will continue, perhaps become more active. My wife Shahin, always a keen and canny observer, thinks the guerrillas will make their priority number one the assassination of Allawi.

See also the article by Michael Hill of the Baltimore Sun, where I and others are quoted.

Fallujah

Nir Rosen's brave and essential reporting from Fallujah in the New Yorker is a must read. A taste:

' A young boy from Najaf wearing a pressed white shirt tucked neatly into bluejeans walked up to the lectern, and the microphone was lowered to accommodate him. The boy raised his right arm, pointing his index finger at the sky. “I came to praise the heroes of Falluja!” he shouted. His poem ended with calls to God—“Ya Allah! Ya allah!”—that he screamed out. Then he began to sob, and he was led away, wiping his tears. The men in the front row of plastic chairs embraced and kissed him, and he returned to the lectern and recited another poem. This time, he brandished a Kalashnikov that was as long as he was tall. '

10 Killed in Iraq, including a US Soldier; One Marine Held Hostage

A US Marine was taken hostage in Iraq on June 21, and the group that kidnapped him is now threatening to kill Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun.

The fascist US pundits who keep intimating that Muslim-Americans or Arab Americans should be under suspicion after 9/11 should be doubly ashamed of themselves, given what Hassoun risked and what he is suffering for this country (he is Lebanese-American).

The Khaleej Times says, ' Meanwhile, at least 10 people - a US soldier, another American, two Iraqi children and six Iraqi National Guardsmen - were killed in separate attacks across Iraq. '

A US military casualty occurred when a C-130 transport plane came under fire and had to return to Baghdad airport. One soldier on board was killed, but the plane was largely unharmed.

Tarek Tablawi of AP reports that on Sunday, guerrillas launched a mortar attack on the party office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Mosul, killing a party member, and injuring nine others. Mosul also saw two drive-by shootings, in which a policeman was killed and a guard at an Iraqi army recruiting center.

Explosions were heard in Fallujah, possibly as a result of a mortar attack on US Marines.

In Baghdad, the Green Zone or American compound took mortar or rocket fire, but no casualties were sustained.

Guerrillas who captured three Turkish hostages threatened to kill them unless Turkey withdraws civlian contractors from Iraq. Turkish PM Erdogan refused. The Turkish hostage situation cast a pall over the NATO meeting in Istanbul, where the Iraq war was enormously unpopular and where Bush is deeply disliked. Some 40,000 Turks protested his visit over the weekend. See below for more on Bush in Istanbul.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I saw Michael Moore's new film in Ann Arbor at the midnight show last Thursday, thinking I might say something about it over the weekend. But social commitments of a pleasant sort kept me away from the keyboard, and I don't know when I will get to posting extended comments.

The film is inspired polemic, and I enjoyed it (if that is the word--the second half was painful). It has some serious flaws of argumentation. I thought the best parts were where Moore just let the footage speak for itself.

It struck me during the second half how seldom one sees in mainstream US media any extended interviews with Iraqis who vehemently oppose the US occupation. Since these are probably by now a solid majority, according to polls, it is odd that we never hear from that point of view. There is an undertone of patriotism or even nationalism to national American news that is peculiar if one looks at the industrialized democracies in Europe, e.g.

The film has an affecting scene of a woman screaming that her innocent, civilian relatives had been killed, and calling down curses on the US (yikhrib buyuthum, may God demolish their houses). Given the thousands of Iraqis killed in the past 14 months, there must be a lot of persons who feel that way. Moore is the only one showing them to us, to my knowledge.

I thought the point that Bush spent a lot of time away from Washington in his first 8 months in office was well made, and dovetails with the revelations of former anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke about Bush's unconcern with the terrorism threat. The way in which the Iraq war was a manipulated get-up job was also graphically and well portrayed. Likewise the cynical use of the "war on terror" to erode Americans' basic civil liberties is appropriately presented in canny and strident tones (James Madison would have been strident about this, too).

The interview with Michigan congressman John Conyers in which Conyers reveals that no one in Congress was allowed to read the Patriot Act before voting on it was breathtaking. I recently sat next to Conyers on a plane, and he explained to me that the final version of the bill, which had been very extensively changed, was delivered the night before the vote. He said it wasn't strange for a few minor changes to be made at such a late stage, but that it was his impression that virtually a new bill was dropped on the hapless Congress at the last moment. It is huge, and would have been impossible to read all the way through with attention under those circumstances.

The Patriot Act is so radical a departure from the American Civil Liberties tradition that if its most radical provisions are made permanent, as Bush desires, I think it would be legitimate to date from 2001 the Second American Republic. It is a much impoverished republic compared to the first, and ominously intertwined with Imperial themes. If Moore makes anyone angry about anything, I hope it is this.

I thought the bit connecting Bush to the Saudis was full of illogic. Wealthy people in the oil business are going to have relations with the Saudis, who at their best rates can produce 11 million of the 76 million barrels of oil pumped daily in the world. The Saudis can also get along with pumping 7 million barrels a day, so they are a pivotal swing producer and can affect the price deeply.

Another viewer asked me if it were true that the Saudis own 7% of the US economy, which was the impression the person brought away from the film. I'm not sure that is what Moore asserted, but it in any case cannot possibly be true. I think he said they had invested $700 billion in the US. Actually, total Saudi investments worldwide are about $700 bn., with about 60% in the US, or $420 bn. It is a nice chunk of change (and helps keep the US economy from collapsing from unwise US policies like running $500 bn. deficits--but note that one year of Bush deficits equals the whole value of all Saudi investment!). But even just the goods and services produced every year in the US amount to about $11 trillion. Moore seems to have started out by claiming that the Saudi investment equals 7% of the New York Stock Exchange. But NYSE investments amount to $15 trillion. My back of the envelope calculation is that Saudi investments are actually about 2.8 percent of that. Then Moore truncated that to "7% of the US economy." But the latter is not what he really meant to say. To get that, you'd have to know how much all existing property in the US is worth, and figure the proportion of it represented by $420 bn. The Saudis don't own more than a tiny proportion of the privately held wealth in the US. They are not even the major foreign investor in the US-- The British, Dutch, and Japanese top them.

Moreover, if it is true that the Saudis have so much invested in this country, then it makes no sense for wealthy Saudi entrepreneurs and governing figures to wish the US harm. Can you imagine the bath Saudi investments took here after 9/11? The Saudi royals and the Bin Ladens lounging about in places like Orlando, who were airlifted out lest they be massacred after the attacks, didn't know anything about the apocalyptic plots hatched in dusty Qandahar, and if they had they would have blown the whistle on them with the US so as to avoid losing everything they had.

The Saudi bashing in the Moore film makes no sense. It is true that some of the hijackers were Saudis, but that is only because Bin Laden hand-picked some Saudi muscle at the last minute to help the brains of the operation, who were Egyptians, Lebanese, Yemenis, etc. Bin Laden did that deliberately, in hopes of souring US/Saudi relations so that he could the better overthrow the Saudi government.

The implication one often hears from Democrats that the US should have invaded Saudi Arabia and Pakistan after the Afghan war rather than Iraq is just another kind of warmongering and illogical. There is no evidence that either the Saudi or the Pakistani government was complicit in 9/11.

The story Moore tells about the Turkmenistan gas pipeline project through Afghanistan and Pakistan also makes no sense. First, why would it be bad for the Turkmenistanis to be able to export their natural gas? What is wicked about all that? It is true that some forces wanted the pipeline so badly that they even were willing to deal with the Taliban, but this was before Bin Laden started serious operations against the US from Afghan soil, beginning in 1998 with the East Africa embassy bombings.

In any case, if Bush had been supporting the Taliban, why did he then overthrow them? If it was because they turned out not to be a Mussolini type of government that made the trains run on time, but rather to be supporters of international terrorism, then wasn't it logical for Bush to turn against them? The mid-90s temptation to support the Taliban, who seemed to be bringing order to Afghanistan (albeit the order of the mass grave) was bipartisan. Moore says Afghan president Karzai had been involved in the earlier pipeline plan, and now is president. I still cannot understand why the pipeline is evil. Afghanistans would collect $2 bn. a year on tolls, and the Turkmen would be lifted out of poverty, and Pakistan and India might have a new reason to cooperate rather than fighting. I personally wish it could be built immediately. It doesn't explain the US Afghan war (one thing cannot explain both the temptation to coddle the Taliban and the determination to get rid of them). The US only intervened to overthrow the Taliban reluctantly, and because it was the only way to get at al-Qaeda, which needed to be rooted out.

So, I think the second half the the film, on Bush's Iraq policy, has virtues. He turns out to have been prescient about how fictitious the reasons for the war were. But some of the innuendo about the Saudis and Afghans just seems an attempt to damn by association, and seem to me to be based on faulty logic and innacurate assertions.

$2 Billion Unaccounted for In CPA Handling of Iraq Finances

The BBC reports that of nearly $20 billion in Iraqi money that the Coalition Provisional Authority had authority over during the past year, some $2 billion is unaccounted for.

The report says, ' Helen Collinson, from Christian Aid, said: "For the entire year that the CPA has been in power in Iraq it has been impossible to tell with any accuracy what the CPA has been doing with Iraq's money." '

Iraq Haunts Bush in Istanbul

Nabil al-Tikriti, who teaches history part-time at Loyola University New Orleans, writes Sunday from Istanbul:

' Hello:

There are 15 million people in Istanbul who [are extremely hostile to] Bush. So that he could get a private tour of Topkapi and the rest of Istanbul during this NATO summit, they have closed the following for THREE DAYS: coast road from the airport to Dolmabahce, Galata Bridge, Taksim Square, Besiktas stadium valley, Sirkeci ferry terminals, and the first Bosphorus bridge. Last night we couldn't cross the coast road to view the sunrise from the Marmara. Today we can't get to the islands, because the ferry terminals are closed. Surreal. I'm trying to figure out how to leave my Sultanahmet hotel to get over to Beyoglu for the next couple of days. They recommended before the summit that everyone just leave town, and yesterday everyone I tried to contact was on their way to their summer holiday on the beach. It was like Thanksgiving Wednesday in the US.

Anyone who knows Istanbul knows that such a closure literally turns the city into an open-air prison. There are snipers posted on the next building to our hotel, constant military helicopters buzzing around, and naval craft cruising offshore. If only for sacrificing three days of their life for Bush's secure comfort, people here are furious. The trend in the past couple of years has been to hold such summits in remote locations. What brainchild decided to hold this summit smack in the center of one of the world's largest cities, with hostility running so high?

The bilateral meeting between Bush and Turkish PM Erdogan this morning was a thing of beauty. Bush said: "our disagreements in the past year are behind us, it's time to look to the future." That was diplomatic code for "I'm sorry I called you names last year when you stopped us from sending 40,000 troops across your territory to invade your neighbor. Help, for God's sake!" The Turkish reaction was a rather smug and quiet sort of:

"You'll not be taking me for granted anytime soon. Good luck in Iraq, my friend. There's still that matter of billions of USD public debt you promised to forgive. Put up or shut up. Oh, and don't let the door hit you on your way out."

I just spent three days at a conference entitled "A Future for Our Past," which was the opening salvo of a group called "Istanbul Initiative." The goal of the group is to advocate for protection of cultural patrimonies worldwide, starting with Iraq. All the heavy-hitters concerning the Iraq artifacts issue were present: Donny George, McGuire Gibson, and several others. There was a delegation of Iraqis . . . joined by lawyers active in fighting the artifacts dealers, representatives of the British Museum, Yale, Chicago, Dutch military, Turkish Foreign Ministry, and several Turkish scholars.

At the end of the conference, we were asked to submit suggestions for a common declaration. When I suggested that there should be a call for restitution to the Iraqi state by the UK and US governments, as well as criminal prosecution of the individuals responsible for bringing about the conditions leading to the wholesale destruction of Iraq's cultural patrimony (archaeological sites, Baghdad Museum, manuscript collections, provincial museums -- all burned and/or looted), there was a largely positive reaction (although as it was not complete consensus, it probably won't make the final cut).

The Turks and Iraqis, none of whom had ever met, hit it off quite well -- a relationship that should continue well into the future. When the declaration is finalized, I'll forward it . . .

Cheers,
Nabil '

Clarke: Invasion of Iraq an Enormous Mistake

In a speech in Orlando, former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke said, according to AP:

' The invasion of Iraq was an ''enormous mistake'' that is costing untold lives, strengthening al-Qaida and breeding a new generation of terrorists, former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said Saturday.

''We did exactly what al-Qaida said we would do invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab country that wasn't threatening us in any way,'' Clarke said before giving the keynote address at the American Library Association's annual convention in Orlando. ''The hatred that has been engendered by this invasion will last for generations. . .'' '

''We won the Cold War by, yes, having good strong military forces but also by competing in the battle of ideas against the Communists,'' Clarke later told the librarians. ''We have to do that with the jihadists.''

He referred to the Abu Ghuraib prison scandal in this regard.

Attacks Target Party Offices in Iraq

Al-Hayat: Guerrilla attacks on Saturday concentrated on party offices of parties allied with the United States. Gunmen attacked the HQ of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq in Baqubah, killing 4 persons. Others blew up the HQ of the Iraqi National Accord, the party of caretaker Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. In the northern Kurdish city of Irbil, center of the Kurdish Democratic Party led by Massoud Barzani, a car bomb exploded, killing one person and wounding 40 others, including the Kurdish minister of culture, Mahmoud Muhammad.

In the southern Shiite city of Hilla, a car bomb exploded in the center of the city, killing at least 32 and wounding 42, according to AFP.

Should Cheney be Fined $275,000?

Vice President Dick Cheney shouted "go fuck yourself!" at inoffensive Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, at a photo opportunity on the Senate floor earlier this week. On Friday he told Fox Cable News, "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it."

Now, it seems to me that the Senate floor is public space, paid for by the public. And in this regard, there is no difference between it and the public airwaves, which the public also owns.

We know what the Republicans in the Senate think about the use of obscenities on the airwaves. The Federal Communications Commission under the chairmanship of Michael Powell, son of the secretary of state, has waged a campaign of harassment and persecution against broadcasters who use colorful language on the airwaves, especially Howard Stern. Clear Channel dropped Stern and had to pay $1.75 million in fines for his and other infractions. The Republican-controlled Senate even attached a rider to a defense bill (!) raising the fine for a single infraction from $27,500 to $275,000. What I take away from all this is that the Republicans in the Senate are against using the word "fuck" in public spaces of discourse, owned by the public.

Personally, I think people who don't want to hear Howard Stern should change the channel. The one thing Reagan was right about is that there are areas where we should get the Federal government off our backs. Speaking as we please is one of them, and Jefferson and Madison thought so, too. If the Powell FCC is going to take public ownership of the airwaves so seriously, then it should restore them to us and take them away from the corporations to whom it is has given them away for practically nothing. They used at least to offer us something like real news in return for this gift, worth trillions, but now some of them take our airwaves and use them to feed us propaganda by persons dressed like news anchors but who are actually professional spinmeisters.

Howard Stern no doubt feels better when he gets some blue language off his chest, too. So I propose that Mr. Cheney be made to pay $275,000 for fouling the air of the Senate in the way that he did. Should he feel the need to feel good again, he should be aware that the second offense in the Senate bill costs $500,000.

And, I propose that the fine go to vocational training for the disadvantaged people that Cheney has made a career of stomping all over.

US Kills 20 in Fallujah Bombing
Muqtada condemns Thursday's Terrorism

The US air force bombed Fallujah again on Friday, hitting a safehouse of the al-Tawhid and al-Jihad organization of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and killing 20 fighters. Some reports, apparently based on aerial surveillance, suggested that they just missed Zarqawi. I'm not sure, though, how you tell that from the top of someone's head, and remain skeptical about these kinds of claims. We on the outside don't know where they come from or how reliable they are, and it is more convenient for the CPA to claim it almost got Zarqawi than to admit that they tried and missed (i.e failed). The US resort to bombing suggests how weak it is in Fallujah, since it means it could not commit troops to an attack on the safehouse. There is now a plan to set up a security perimeter around Fallujah to curb the activities of the jihadis based there. But I had read several weeks ago that such a security perimeter had already been implemented. Has it lapsed?

The American news media often phrased this bombing as an attack on "al-Qaeda." But these al-Tawhid fighters never pledged loyalty to Bin Laden, and most probably never fought in Afghanistan. Zarqawi, who did, was never part of al-Qaeda and when he was in Germany he refused to share al-Tawhid resources with al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda anyway is not a top-down organization with a flow chart and a CEO. But I think it is downright misleading to call al-Tawhid by that name. Al-Tawhid is al-Tawhid. The Bush administration no doubt likes this shorthand because it reinforces the dubious point that the war in Iraq has something to do with the war on terror.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat: Paul Bremer, the US viceroy in Iraq until June 30, issued arrest warrants for three radical Sunni clerics in Fallujah on Friday. They include Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi, the leader of the "Holy Warriors Front" in the city, Sheikh Zahir al-Ubaidi, and Sheikh Umar Hadid. All three have been accused of leading the resistance to occupation in Fallujah. Al-Janabi and al-Ubaidi in particular had been accused recently of being implicated in the murder of 6 Shiite truck drivers from the al-Rubai'ah tribe near Fallujah, and desecrating their bodies. They have denied the charge, which caused substantial Sunni-Shiite tension.

The Friday prayers leaders in Fallujah condemned the American forces for "engaging in acts of enmity toward the population" of the city.

Hamza Hendawi of AP reports that preachers throughout Iraq have been giving anti-American sermons for the past few weeks. Here are some quotes from his important piece:

' "American soldiers are infidels," said Youssef Khodeir, a Sunni sheik and imam of Saad Bani Moaz mosque in Baqouba, scene of the heaviest fighting Thursday. "The blood that is being shed every day is because we are not closing our ranks. The source of all power comes from adhering to the Qur'an . . ."

[Speaking of America supposedly bringing freedom,]Mohammed Bashar, told worshipers in Mosul that what America really wanted was "the freedom to kill and arrest Iraqis . . ."

"Al-Zarqawi is a myth created by America," sheik Aous al-Khafaji told hundreds of worshipers in Sadr City, where U.S. troops and al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army have clashed for 2½ months . . .

"We hope that after June 30 Iraqis will be united, loyal to their nation and not allow foreigners to interfere in their affairs," Sunni cleric Niema Hassan told a congregation at the Grand Mosque in Basra.

He also quotes a number of mosque preachers who condemned the killing of Iraqis by the bombings on Thursday (this is a critique of the foreign jihadis), and some who expressed hopes about the caretaker government of Iyad Allawi. (Recent polling in Iraq suggests that Iraqis are largely willing to give the caretaker government a chance, and want it to succeed in restoring security.)

Edward Cody of the Washington Post reports that Muqtada al-Sadr and his lieutenants joined in the condemnations. Muqtada ' ordered his followers to lay down their weapons and cooperate with Iraqi police in Sadr City to "deprive the terrorists and saboteurs of the chance to incite chaos and extreme lawlessness. ' The Mahdi Army distributed a pamphlet that said, ' We know the Mahdi Army is ready to cooperate actively and positively with honest elements from among the Iraqi police and other patriotic forces, to partake in safeguarding government buildings and facilities, such as hospitals, electricity plants, water, fuel and oil refineries, and any other site that might be a target for terrorist attacks."

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat: Muqtada's spokesman in East Baghdad, Aws al-Khafaji, affirmed that the Mahdi Army would not attack the US if the US did not attack it. In Najaf, followers of Muqtada prevented Friday prayers from being held for a second week in a row. The conflict has become a little bit bizarre and hard to follow. Earlier, the Sadrists had complained that the sermon was being given by Sadr al-Din al-Qubanji, local leader of their rival, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. But someone replaced al-Qubanji with Khalid al-Numani. A Sadr spokesman said that he talked to the son of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who insisted that Sistani still backed Qubanji for the job and had not appointed al-Numani. The Sadrists then demonstrated against al-Numani on the grounds that he had not been appointed by Sistani. (But they had also not let Sistani's appointee, al-Qubanji, lead the prayers last week!) As with many reports from Iraq that make no sense on the surfance, it is certain that some complex back story has been omitted. (Do the Sadrists suspect that al-Numani has been placed in Najaf as an agent of the Americans?)

The WP also gives a more detailed overview of the attack in Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad. It is still unclear who exactly launched the attack. The WP report says that the US troops counted it as a major victory that they killed a local leader of the Buhriz resistance, Husain Ali Sibti, last week. That is an indisputably Shiite name, which brought me up short. Diyala, where Baquba is located, is a mixed Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish region. If Sibti was leading the fighting in Buhriz, it was a local Shiite uprising of some sort. (But what sort? The Sadrists have largely stood down. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is strong in Baqubah,but it is allied for the moment with the Americans. It must be a local Shiite group with local grievances).

If in fact foreign jihadis allied with Zarqawi played a role in Thursday's attacks in Baqubah itself, it means that the action was unconnected to the Shiite uprising in Buhriz. The Sunni jihadis hate the guts of Shiites. Al-Sharq al-Awsat/AFP report that local Fallujans are annoyed by the attacks--mainly on the police--and blame it on foreign Arabs. An eyewitness, Abdul Salam, said "The armed persons who attacked my house and burned it, and who entered it, were Arab terrorists, one of them Egyptian and another Lebanese, and there were Arabs among them of other nationalities . . . The problem is that there are people from among the inhabitants of the city who help and support them and give them refuge in their homes. If it weren't for that, it would be difficult for them to continue with their work."

Jack Ryan Withdraws from Race

Illinois Senate candidate Jack Ryan withdrew from the race on Friday. It had become increasingly clear to him that the allegations he pressured his then wife, actress Jeri Ryan, to attend sex clubs in the 1990s, would dominate the campaign if he tried to remain in it.

Former senator from Illinois, Republican Peter Fitzgerald, had encouraged Ryan to stay in the race. He said, apparently without a trace of embarrassment,

' "I think the public stoning of Jack Ryan is one of the most grotesque things I've seen in politics," the senator said Friday. He said the party's bigwigs pushed Ryan out: "It was like piranhas. They smelled blood in the water and they just devoured him." '

Can Fitzgerald say, "Bill Clinton's impeachment"?

Jaafari: Iraqis Must be in Control
Emergency Laws a Possibility

Interim Vice President of Iraq, Ibrahim Jaafari, said Friday that emergency laws might be implemented if the security situation demanded it. Jaafari is a leader of the extremely powerful but under-reported al-Dawa Party, a covert Shiite organization organized by cells. AP's Tarek El-Tablawy is to be congratulated for getting an interview with him, because he could well emerge as prime minister in elections in January. Quotes:

' "Announcing emergency laws or martial law depends on the nature of the situation. In normal situations, there is clearly no need for that . . . But in cases of excess challenges, emergency laws have their place,'' he said, adding that any such laws would fall within a ''democratic framework that respects the rights of Iraqis.'' . . . Al-Jaafari expressed optimism that cooperation with multinational forces following the handover could mitigate the need for emergency laws. ''What we need is support for the security operations,'' he said. But ''under sovereignty, the relevant Iraqi authorities are the ones who would consider such steps.'' . . . Hardline Shiites, who had initially welcomed the toppling of Saddam's government, are increasingly concerned that the new government will be little more than a lackey of the West . . . Al-Jaafari said the United States, and other countries who continue to maintain a military presence following the handover, must ''respect'' Iraq's sovereignty and limit themselves to support and advisory roles that avoid giving the impression of a reversion to the pre-handover occupational stage. ''Security is a paramount concern,'' he said. ''But there must be a balance between achieving sovereignty, on the one hand, and (being aided) by non-Iraqi forces, to back up the security operation, on the other. . . There must be a clear understanding of this by any force that wants to join the Iraqi security forces (in aiding the country). We ask them to respect our sovereignty,'' al-Jaafari said. '

It worries me that Jaafari is talking about imposition of emergency laws (i.e. something like martial law, but the US has high-handedly told the Iraqi government it can't use that terminology.) The al-Da`wa, like most US allies in Iraq aside from the Kurds, does not actually have a history of commitment to democracy. Note also that he is underlining that there must be a perceived Iraqi control over the security situation-- i.e., the US military can't unilaterally go about the country staging operations without Allawi's permission. I predict that there are going to be big clashes between the caretaker Iraqi government and CENTCOM over these issues in coming months.

Radio Sawa in Iraq is reporting that interim Minister of Defense, Hazem al-Shaalan, has drawn up an emergency plan to deal with the "disturbances" (i.e. bombings and guerrilla attacks) in Baghdad. He is looking into the possiblity of imposing a state of emergency there and in other parts of Iraq. (N.B.: governments most often implement extra security in the capital, because government officials are located there). He said that a state of emergency would be declared in any area where there was a sufficient security threat. He emphasized that the authorities had not taken any final decision, and that the state of emergency might cover a limited territory or small stretches of territory. He made the remarks at a joint press conference with Interior Minister Fallah al-Naqib. He said that the measures now being studied enter into the framework of Iraqi law and that any steps taken will involve coordination between the ministries of Justice, Interior and Defense.

I'd say the ongoing guerrilla insurgency in Iraq has made all those nice rights announced in the Transitional Administrative Law late last winter a dead letter. Allawi and his whole crew seem to envisage the caretaker government declaring an emergency, imposing curfews, curbing individual rights of movement, and basically using authoritarian means in hopes of addressing the insurgency. The worst case scenario is that the impose press censorship and deprive people of all kinds of new-found rights, but still fail to stop the ongoing violence.

Hannah Allam on government factions in post-June 30 Iraq and the difficulty the caretaker government of Iyad Allawi will have in dealing with them. Allam covers Sistani (who will play along with Allawi as long as there is clear movement toward elections), Muqtada al-Sadr (who remains a radical wild card), and the Kurds, who want Kirkuk and its oil but face vehement objections from the 2/3s of the city that is Turkmen and Arab.

For a good overview of the Iraqi Shiites, see Janine di Giovanni's "Reaching for Power" in the National Geographic.

107 Killed, Including 3 US Soldiers:
321 Hurt in 6 Iraqi Cities

Edmund Sanders of the LA Times and AP report that within a six-hour period, guerrillas launched bombings, ambushes and small arms fire in six cities in the Sunni heartland. Three US soldiers were killed, along with 104 others, and 321 were wounded. Those hurt were mostly bystanders at bombings in the northern city of Mosul.

Al-Hayat says Iraqis are calling it "Black Thursday."

Although these attacks have been viewed as "coordinated," I am not sure they really were, or at least that all of them were. There has been serious fighting around the northeastern city of Baquba for the past week, so the violence there has been ongoing and is not the result of a region-wide campaign. Attacks took place, as well, in Mosul, Fallujah, Ramadi, Mahaweel and Baghdad. Again, the fighting in Fallujah has a local history. The al-Tawhid organization of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi took responsibility for all of them on its web site, but this is grandstanding. Former Saddam Fedayeen seem likely to be the actual responsible party in Ramadi, e.g., as interim PM Iyad Allawi noted. He blamed Zarqawi for the huge carbombs in Mosul. Many of Thursday's attacks were aimed at police stations. Presumably this disruption of policing was aimed at undermining the caretaker government due to take power on June 30.

The violence first broke out in Baquba early Thursday morning, with an ambush on a US patrol. Two soldiers were killed and seven wounded. Guerrillas then attacked the city's municipal building, a police station and Iraqi police. They killed 20 or so Iraqi policeman. Al-Hayat says the US called in airstrikes on the guerrillas. Wire services reported eyewitnesses saying that the guerillas' headbands were inscribed with the words, "Battalions of Monotheism and Holy War." If this were true, it would suggest that Islamists are leading the Baquba insurrection, but Allawi seems to discount it. The group gave out pamphlets saying, "The flesh of those working with the Americans is more delicious than American flesh itself," one read. Guerrillas in Baquba burned down the home of the police chief, who had been attempting to organize a response to their attacks.

The fighting in Fallujah was a breakdown in the truce with the Marines. The mosques of Fallujah called for calm, and a semblance of order returned. The guerrillas in Fallujah are a mix of ex-Baathists and Islamists. From several press accounts, it appears that Islamists now control the city and it is being run after the manner of the Taliban in 1990s Afghanistan.

Police in Mosul announced a curfew in the wake of the horrible car bombing there.

Sanders reported that many Iraqis, fearful of violence, have fled to Jordan or Syria for the time being. US military in Iraq are apparently being kept from going out much until after the so-called transfer of sovereignty on June 30.

It is truly amazing that Iraqis are now fleeing their country again. That so many had been chased out, and that so many Iraqis had been killed under the Saddam regime, were among the justifications for the war. But we seem to be back to the beginning. These attacks are part of a long-term on-going guerrilla insurgency. They may want to make a statement, what with a new prime minister coming in, that the attempt to cause the pro-American government in Iraq ot collapse will not cease with the "transfer" of "sovereignty."

Iraq

Allawi Threatened; Attacks at Ramadi
Sadr Refuses to Attend National Congress

Guerrillas targeted police stations all around Iraq on Wednesday and early Thursday, killing and wounding tens of Iraqis. Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi threatened to assassinate caretaker Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi, calling him an "American agent."

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced Wednesday that he would not agree to serve on a preparatory committee that will call a national congress of 1000 delegates in late July. Sadr spokesman Ahmad Shaibani said that Muqtada had studied the invitation for 3 days, but had found huge problems with it. He added (al-Hayat) "There are enormous movements such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Al-Da`wa Party and the Sadrists, and each of them has only been given one seat [on the preparatory committee]. Then there are ordinary people who only represent themselves, who also have a seat . . . For this reason, we rejected the invitation."

Meanwhile, US troops began pulling out of the holy Shiite shrine city of Karbala earlier this week. Likely the US military knows very well that any Iraqi government will ask it to please leave Karbala, so it is beating them to the punch.

Religion and Ethics

7 of 9 and the Paris Orgy

Science fiction is in the real-world news big time these days. The actress Jeri Ryan, former wife (1990-1998) of currently embattled Republican senate candidate Jack Ryan of Illinois, played the Borg babe 7 of 9 in Star Trek Voyager. For the uninitiated, the plot of Star Trek Voyager is that Captain Kathryn Janeway's space vessel, Voyager, is accidentally thrown to the wrong side of the galaxy, and the crew spends seven years trying to get back to earth (Star Trek is based on the premise that somehow we will find a real-time way around Einstein's finding that things with mass cannot go faster than the speed of light; this premise is unlikely). Among the species the Federation troops battle out there is the Borg, who are cyborgs or hybrids of human and machine. They have a collective mind and lack individuality, and are dedicated to incorporating forcibly all individuals they encounter from other species into their collective. This incorporation appears to be painful and unpleasant, and to involve high-powered buzz saws. When people come out of it they are robotic, lack individuality, and have chrome various places on their bodies.

The Star Trek Voyager creative team hit on the idea of casting Jeri Ryan as a former Borg who has somewhat reverted to being human (she had been born Annika Hansen; the Borg killed her parents). She is therefore the ultimate ice princess, though in hoary science fiction tradition (the genre after all appeals disproportionately to adolescent males), she was made to wear extemely revealing spandex. Viacom (owner of UPN and Paramount Pictures), Jack Ryan, everyone wanted her in leather or spandex or something that left little to the imagination.

Incredibly, Seven of Nine could help throw the Senate to the Democrats. Jeri Ryan was married to multi-millionnaire investment banker turned teacher Jack Ryan, but filed for divorce four years ago. In her filing, she alleged

On three trips, one to New Orleans, one to New York, and one to Paris, Respondent [Jack Ryan] insisted that I go to sex clubs with him. They were long weekends, supposed "romantic" getaways. ... The clubs in New York and Paris were explicit sex clubs. Respondent had done research. Respondent took me to two clubs in New York during the day. One club I refused to go in. It had mattresses in cubicles. The other club he insisted I go to. ... It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling. Respondent wanted me to have sex with him there, with another couple watching. I refused. Respondent asked me to perform a sexual activity upon him, and he specifically asked other people to watch. I was very upset. We left the club, and Respondent apologized, said that I was right and that he would never insist I go to a club again. He promised it was out of his system. Then during a trip to Paris, he took me to a sex club in Paris, without telling me where we were going. I told him I thought it was out of his system. I told him he had promised me we would never go. People were having sex everywhere. I cried, I was physically ill. Respondent became very upset with me, and said it was not a "turn on" for me to cry.

The unsealing of this filing, which Ryan fought, has created a huge political scandal in Illinois and has given a big boost to Ryan's Democratic rival, Barack Obama. Most Republicans, who have increasingly tied their political fortunes to an alliance with the evangelical Christians, are defending Ryan, usually by implying that Jeri's charges are untrue and are part of the junk that comes out in any divorce proceeding. Ryan admits, however, to having taken her to the Paris club. Some Republicans have said snippy things like that it was she who committed adultery, not he. The Phyllis Schlaflys should give up this implicit attack on Jeri's credibility. Jeri is popular with the public, more of whom probably know her from a subsequent turn on David Kelly's series about teaching in an urban high school, "Boston Public," than through the niche Star Trek franchise. Ironically, Kelly may have modeled Jeri's BP character, a lawyer who gives up practicing in order to teach, on Jack Ryan, who left Goldman Sachs (having gotten rich when the firm went public in the late 1990s), to teach school.

Obama has taken the high road, and is refusing to attack Jack Ryan on the sex clubs issue. Many Democrats, still boiling mad over what the hypocritical Republicans did to Bill Clinton, seem intent on making an object lesson of him.

Another irony is that Ryan pulled the stunt early in the campaign of having a cameraman follow Obama around everywhere, documenting all his moves. Obama could not even speak to his wife on his cellphone in privacy. Ryan tried to create what French philosopher Michel Foucault called a "panopticon," as a way of intimidating his opponent. This move was despicable, an invasion of privacy, and a form of stalking, and should be illegal. (I think it would be in California, which has proper privacy laws). Now Jack Ryan is going to be the one followed around by cameras, into whose private life strangers are going to poke relentlessly. In that sense, the whole thing serves him right.

But I think Obama is making the right choice in letting the tabloids and the schlock television shows run with this story and keeping it out of his own campaign, which is about issues. For instance, Obama wants to give more tax breaks to companies that keep jobs in Illinois.

The lesson for the Republicans of all this is that the wages of Puritanism are hypocrisy. Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich, and many other Republicans who tried to nail Clinton had also tried to nail women not their spouses and were no better than Clinton morally. In fact, no one is better morally than anyone else as a matter of ontology or being. Some deeds are better than others, and some people achieve better deeds more often than others. Some people are capable of higher ethical standards than others. But human beings are not in the nature of the case morally perfect beings. Since that is so, it is crazy for the American public to want its politicians to be saints (they aren't), and the desire merely produces hypocrisy, which in turn corrodes ideals and the moral order.

I therefore agree with Jack Ryan that the visits to those clubs should not in themselves disqualify him from public office. Why should we care where he takes his wife? Note that business travelers who stay in nice hotels are known to rent enormous amounts of porn. The travelers, the hotels, and the cable companies involved are all heavily Republican. What is the difference between watching it on celluloid and watching it at a club in Paris? Isn't this the same public that yawned at Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and complained it was only shocking to a 1950s sensibility? Are we going to get to the point where every guy who has ever been to a strip club is disqualified from public service? Are we doomed to have the French and other Europeans laugh at us hysterically yet again?

Journalists keep asking me if the US can prevent Iraq from becoming a "theocracy." Why are the Americans so worried about Iraqis insisting on strict religious standards in their politics, if in fact that is the public platform of the dominant Republican Party in the United States? I think politicians should be permitted wide lattitude in their private lives, as long as they are good at their jobs-- i.e. use their positions to empower the people, to create jobs and wealth, and improve their states or districts. Jack Kennedy did lots of things that make a married couple's visits to some clubs rather tame in comparison. No one I know holds it against him.

The troubling issue here seems to be that Jeri alleges that Jack tricked her into going to the clubs, so this was a compulsion he had that she did not share. (Star Trek fans will not forgive him for this, especially for making her weep. Everyone remembers how brittle 7 of 9 was about sex and romance, what with being a former automaton and all. Starfleet Ensign Harry Kim tried to romance her, and found he had to go very slow.). If Jack Ryan would trick her that way, he might trick the public. So if what she alleged is true (and the Borg are incapable of subterfuge, it should be remembered), that would be the key issue. On the other hand, this all happened some years ago; he clearly had some sort of sex addiction at the time, which he may have kicked by now, and addictions compel people to do things they would not otherwise do. People change.

The one counter-indication I know of is the dirty trick Jack Ryan pulled of having Obama followed around by cameramen. That sounds coercive and manipulative, and falls within his earlier pattern of enjoying forcing others to exhibit themselves (the postmodernists might call it sado-alter-exhibitionism). In essence, he treated Obama just the way he treated Jeri. That is not a good sign.

Bottom line, the question for the good people of Illinois should not be whether Ryan is kinkier than Obama, but a) whether Ryan still uses people instrumentally to get his rocks off and b) whether Ryan could accomplish something for their state that Obama cannot. Even before the club scandal broke, the increasingly Democratic-leaning Illinois voters had seemed to discount Ryan, who after all doesn't exactly have a thick portfolio to be senator. The club scandal probably finishes off his candidacy (perhaps for the wrong reasons), but he was unlikely to have won anyway.

If Bush gets reelected but does not have the Senate, the Democratic Senators will finally be in a position to establish some investigatory commissions into Bush administration actions of questionable probity. If that happens, the country will have Jeri Ryan, ex-cyborg, to thank for it.

2 US Troops Killed; Airstrike on Fallujah;
Korean Hostage Killed

The Associated Press reports that guerrillas attacked a US military convoy near Balad north of Baghdad, killing two US troops and wounding another.

After the body of a Korean hostage was found, the US air force launched yet another air attack, allegedly on a safe house for the al-Tawhid group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. AP reports, ' Fallujah residents said the strike hit a parking lot. Three people were killed and nine wounded, said Dr. Loai Ali Zeidan at Fallujah Hospital. ' An airstrike on Saturday killed 22, including some children and a woman, according to local residents. The US military maintained that the dead were radical Islamists and that the house went on exploding for a while because of the explosives stored there.

Guerrillas holding a Korean hostage killed him when the Korean government declined to withdraw its forces from Iraq (it is planning to send 3,000 more, dedicated to reconstruction and medical tasks, not to peace enforcement).

I don't think a lot of press attention should be given to the capture and killing of a single hostage, since the whole point of the captors is to generate such attention. I think the big stories on Tuesday were the killing of 2 more US troops near Balad and the airstrike on Fallujah. The beheading creates a lurid interest, but it doesn't matter to a dead person how he was killed. And, no, beheading has nothing special to do with Islam, it is just grisly and a good tool for terrorists.

The South Korean government is unlikely to back off its commitments because of this one murder. However, the killings of hostages have caused large numbers of civilian contractors to flee Iraq, according to al-Jazeerah. And, a group of Korean parliamentarians condemned their government for throwing in with what they saw as Bush's unprovoked war in Iraq. The Washington Post contrasts the lively and divisive debate over Iraq in South Korea with the way in which Italians generally closed ranks over killings of their troops and of a hostage in Iraq.