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January 15, 2004 A THEOCRACY IN IRAQ?....The Iraqi Governing Council has decided to approve the use of Islamic religious law — Sharia — instead of the existing civil law in domestic matters:
Kifa'i is trying to downplay this by saying (a) it's not official because Paul Bremer hasn't countersigned it and (b) it's completely voluntary. The old courts are still available for anyone who wants to use them. Juan Cole doesn't buy this and I don't think I do either. Who decides which court to use? What's the point of giving people an option that they already have? And even if Bremer doesn't sign off, it just means that official enforcement is put off until June 30, when sovereignty is due to be transferred to an Iraqi provisional government. This is probably a foreshadowing of the tension between democracy and liberalism in Iraq that's been inevitable from the start: if it's truly the kind of democracy the neocons originally envisioned, it's likely that Iraqis will vote to implement an Islamic theocracy of some kind. It may not be as fundamentalist as, say, Iran, but that's liable to be small comfort once they decide they've had enough and start warming up the clan leaders to kick us out. Not exactly what we had in mind when we invaded, I think. Posted by Kevin Drum at January 15, 2004 11:25 AM | TrackBackComments
Well, I'm sure they will like us more if we just say "no" to Shar'ia. Hearts and minds. Posted by: scarshapedstar at January 15, 2004 11:31 AM | PERMALINKThrow in the issue of the Kurds wanting a federated state, er province of their own and a looming IGC showdown with the majority Shia over how a new Iraqi government is chosen and you get oatmeal. Or is that fruit salad? In any case, I predict peace with honor by Election Day, 2004. Posted by: David W. at January 15, 2004 11:31 AM | PERMALINKThere isn't anything necessarily wrong with a country where the law is predicated on sharia, since there are moderate versions of sharia as well as radical/fundamentalist. And while we would likely want to steer the Iraqi version towards being moderate as opposed to radical, one has to question to what extent we can or ought to. Also, what did we have in mind when we invaded? I'm pretty sure I know what Bush thought it was going to be like, and I'm pretty sure he's wrong, but what did liberal hawks or others expect? The resurgence of more conservative Islamic movements have been gaining ground for more than a decade now, so this really should have been the forseen outcome, I think. Posted by: TOTL at January 15, 2004 11:35 AM | PERMALINKFor what it's worth, the approach of having each religion governed by its own courts has a very long history in Muslim lands. As in, Crusades-era or earlier. While it's not preferable to having a secular court system, at least it would prevent Jews or Christians (etc) from being tried for Sharia offenses. On the other hand, it would be better if it were easier for a Muslim
to convert to a religion with more acceptable rules, but that in itself
is a pretty dire offense for a Muslim. "Not exactly what we had in mind when we invaded, I think." What the heck did we have in mind, anyway, apart from the 2004 election in our own country? Posted by: rea at January 15, 2004 11:40 AM | PERMALINK"Not exactly what we had in mind when we invaded, I think." What do you think "we" (whoever the hell "we" is) had in mind would happen? That Iraq would turn into France, with a law banning head scarves? That Iraq would turn into the US, with its 1st Amendment? What? Another straw man argument from Kevin... (For my own opinion, I think the best we could hope for is perhaps the type of relationship that Poland has with the Catholic Church. More realistically, it could maybe be like the relationship Israel has with the Jewish religion. Is that really so bad? Does that make Israel not a democracy?) Posted by: Al at January 15, 2004 11:42 AM | PERMALINKCheck out what Riverbend has to say on this one (she is a woman blogging from Baghdad). Aside from partitioning Iraq, at least on a very strong federal or even confederal model, I'm not sure how democracy and secularism are going to be compatible there. Unless we're willing, as we were in Japan, to simply write their constitution for them and impose our values--and we seem, oddly, not willing--then I don't see how we avoid sharia. Posted by: James Joyner at January 15, 2004 11:47 AM | PERMALINKkefin wie due u alwaze frow strawmen around. u hate amerrica. george w bushe is sow smurt. u are dum. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 11:49 AM | PERMALINKThe important thing that I wasn't really aware of is that there is
not one Shari'a, there is each local preacher's idea of what Shari'a is.
Riverbend (see above) points out that some clerics believe in a
concept called "temporary marriage" while others consider this a form of
prostitution. Maybe not what the administration had in mind but I certainly remember people talking about a theocracy taking over if we didn't have a strong post war plan. Ooops! looks like they were right. Posted by: carsick at January 15, 2004 11:51 AM | PERMALINK"Not exactly what we had in mind when we invaded, I think. Well, it's still better than genocide, which was really our only other viable option. As I'm sure the clear-thinking belligerents will be along shortly to say. The paranoids posit, "how else are you gonna transform the Middle East? If I don't feel safe, we need a wholesale renovation of that part of the planet. Anyone who disagrees with that is just not serious about making me feel safe." Prozac, anyone? Posted by: andrew at January 15, 2004 11:53 AM | PERMALINKI love imposters... Anyway, I was curious whether anybody here realizes that Israel also has dual court systems for family law: both rabbinical courts and civil courts. So I really don't think that the fact that there might be a court system based on religious law rather than civil law is unprecedented, unworkable, or even a bad thing. Frankly, I think that what Kevin is trying to do is to scare people with the word Sharia, implying that if there is Sharia, Iraq is going to turn into someplace like Taliban-led Afghanistan. As Israel's example shows, this doesn't need to be the case. Posted by: Al at January 15, 2004 11:55 AM | PERMALINKkefin u ure triin to scure people. wiie ure u triing to scure
people? whiie due u hate amerrica? god blesse da trupes and george w
bushee. Well, its been nearly 20,000 years, and about the fourth foray into Iraq by Western powers in modern times. Call me in 2150 and we will see some incremental steps. Let's be honest...most Americans were looking to mess with and kill many Muslims, over 9-11. Any excuse would have done well. Our allies (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar, Kuwait) are more repressive or as repressive as Hussein and they are more like the Islamo-fascism that is the new boogey man of the right. It appears Al-Sistani knows this. Posted by: Neo-Troll at January 15, 2004 12:17 PM | PERMALINKNeo-troll, it's simply untrue that those governments are as repressive as Hussein. Posted by: JakeV at January 15, 2004 12:26 PM | PERMALINKIt is somewhat amusing to see the Bush apologists downplay the importance of this issue. IIRC, most of them were touting the wonderful rosey world that would be Iraq once we were through transforming it into a democracy. Funny how a few months changes that line of bullshit. Furthermore, if I had to guess, I'd say 99.9% of the, "What the hell, it's an okay system" folks are men. I suspect pleasure marriages sound pretty darn good to them (and since we're just talking about Iraqi women, no harm no foul). Who do you think might know more about the inequities of this system: Iraqi women who are protesting it? or Bush talking-point bloggers? Posted by: chris at January 15, 2004 12:35 PM | PERMALINKMy late wife's initial anthropological field work was about conflict among the Minangkabau people (who are matrilineal and Islamic) in west Sumatra. One of the interesting things was how, depending on the person and the circumstances, people would choose to take matters to either Islamic or secular civil courts, or traditional adat law venues. There's no inherent reason why this can't work, and work well. I would tend to be dubious about anything working all that well in Iraq given the people who are trying to put things in place, but it could happen. Posted by: QrazyQat at January 15, 2004 12:36 PM | PERMALINKThere's no inherent reason why this can't work, and work well. I would tend to be dubious about anything working all that well in Iraq given the people who are trying to put things in place, but it could happen. Again, trust the women on the ground in Iraq. They're better equipped to understand the realities. Posted by: chris at January 15, 2004 12:50 PM | PERMALINKI'm not downplaying the issue. We need to strengthen a secular state with religious tolerance. This doesn't sound like a very good way to do that. Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at January 15, 2004 12:53 PM | PERMALINKIndia also has a dual system: civil courts for non-Muslims and Sharia courts for Muslims, but only for matters of family law. I do have to say that I find it amusing that a couple of people have actually defended accommodating a Sharia system. I thought the whole point of this war against a secular Arab state was to smash up the theocracies which were funding terrorists. As meaningless as that sounds to me, imagine my further confusion when I realize that we're actually helping create one in Iraq. Oh, moral clarity! Why hast thou forsaken me? Posted by: Amitava Mazumdar at January 15, 2004 12:55 PM | PERMALINKsebastian, do not let kefin scare you. if u r scared bye kefin the tewawists will have wun. we cannot let the tewawists win. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 12:59 PM | PERMALINKbeen if we chose to invade Iraq, and how we would lose support that we needed if we did so. I was a young-blooded turk at the time (but 18 years), and I thought it was so weak and unsatisfying. 'Come on, George, kick Saddam's ass! He sucks!' Well, I found wisdom pretty quick, and realized Bush 1 was right, more or less (although I wish he would not have urged Iraqis to rise up, and implied American support if they did -- the blood of thousands of Iraqis is on Bush's hand from that one). Well, fast forward to 2003-4. Nothing changed in the country of Iraq. Yet the man's son suddenly thinks an invasion will result in the Iraqi's throwing flowers. Why? Of course, it is just us nasty liberals being spiteful, bringing this up. If America isn't careful, Iraq will end up being a worse place than it was before, both for the Iraqis and for our security. The only good thing going for Iraq under Saddam is that it was not under Islamic Fundamentalist rule. Sadly, now it looks like we've nudged it one step closer. Posted by: Timothy Klein at January 15, 2004 01:01 PM | PERMALINKDrats! That should have started: I seem to remember hearing another Bush family member warning us how hard things would have been... Posted by: Timothy Klein at January 15, 2004 01:03 PM | PERMALINKWe haven't been in charge of the outcome of this occupation since 28 June, when Sistani issued his fatwa prescribing elections for the constituent assembly, and we lost most of our influence when we announced on 15 November that we would be bugging out next summer. Prewar, I asked my congressmen and the president, by letter, what assurances the United States might have that Iraq wouldn't devolve into theocracy, given that prewar polls suggest that the Arabs generally would prefer government to be more theocratic, rather than less so. Well, I suppose, the answer was "The President just has this gut feeling it won't happen. God knows we're planning for it to be a secular state, to the extent we're planning at all." Sha'ria courts are hardly a "straw man." Nigeria has a sha'ria court system that forms an alternative to the formal state courts. The latter are corrupt and inefficient, which means people often choose the former system just because it's the lesser of two evils. And the Nigerian sha'ria courts are, by my Western judgement, evil, doling out harsh punishments ("stoning") for minor crimes ("adultery") without effective safeguards against torture for the accused or secular standards of proof of guilt. I don't view this development as a necessarily catastrophic one in Iraq, but it's clearly not a good, and it's another demonstration of lame-duck disregard for Bremer and the CPA. Posted by: Brian C.B. at January 15, 2004 01:03 PM | PERMALINKRegular elections are the key. Look, Iraq is an Islamic country. 97% (or more) of the population are Muslims. Iraqi culture is very different from our own. Some of the most important forces in Iraqi society have no counterpart in our own -- i.e. tribalism, institutionalzied corruption. In many ways, Iraqi society is incredibly backward. Feminism has not yet gained much of a foothold there. Like many third world coutnries, Iraq has a small cadre of westernized, educated women, like Riverbend, but Iraqi society as a whole is still very much in the dark ages. Iraq is not going to look like Indiana once we hand transfer power. No one ever expected this. Islamic law has a rich scholarly tradititon. It has been successfuly resolving disputes for centuries. Judges and lawyers are schoold in and familliar with it. It reflects the norms and expectations of Iraqi culture and society. Given this, of course the judicial system is going to use Islamic law. What did you expect? That the Iraqis would simply translate a bunch of Ohio supreme court decisions into Arabic and use that as the basis of their legal system? BTW, "Islamic law" isn't as bad as it sounds. About half of it is entirely secular -- i.e. A buys a load of grain from B. The grain spoils in transit. Who is liabile for the loss? Again -- and this cannot be emphasized forcefully enough -- Iraq is an Islamic country. It has a 50% literacy rate! It is not going to look like Vermont overnight. It is also very backward. Political institutions have been riddled with corruption for centuries. It is going to be very difficult to eradicate this. People are cynical and mistrustful after 30 years of brutalization by Sadaam. There is not much of an economy, though this is getting better by the day. Once we hand over power, Iraq will backslide a little. Some of this will be intentional -- the Iraqis will stick a finger in our eye just to prove that they are independent and are not there to do our bidding. This is a good thing. Some of it will simply be a failure to hold on to progress; some of the modern reforms we institute will simply fail to take hold. A few of the leaders will make corrupt and stupid decisions which have catastrophic results. This is sad, but it is also inevitable. Iraq will not be a place that is familliar to us. We may not approve of some of the things the Iraqis do, becuase they will offend our western sensibilities. For exmaple, maybe a wave of religious fundamentalism will sweep the country, and women will start donning head scarves. This is currently happening in the rest of the Middle East, and it is silly to think that Iraq will somehow be immune from it. Maybe the Iraqi government will pass resolutions condeming Israel. They'll probably ban pornography and alcohol or something. Islamic leaders and the Islamic religion will undoubtedly play a role in Iraqi society and politics. In case you haven't noticed, this is true in virtually every modern democracy, most definately including the United States of America. Leftists go into seizures of rage every time President Bush mentions God, and even the sainted Clinton conspicuously carried a bible -- into Church -- every Sunday. Heck, even Dean has been getting a dose of old time religion latelty. If Iraqi religious leaders have tremendous political power in Iraq, that is fine. It is also inevitable -- they are the only ones with any real political organization at present. The key is placing institutional limits on their power. There are two principal limits that will be required. The first is regular elections. Suppose the Iraqis elect some hate-filled mullah to the presidency. He runs on a "sanctity of Islam" platform. He promises to rid Iraq of perfidious Jews, restore "traditional Islamic morality" to government, and emphasize "traditional family values." No woman will be appointed to his cabinet, no sir. A woman's place is in the home! Now, leaving aside the question of how Mullah X will ever reach the presidency in the first place, given that 50% or more of the electorate will be female, suppose that he wins it all. I say we let him. Let the Iraqis see what it is like to be governed by a President with a seventh-century Koranic education. What is he going to do about unemployment? Can he pave the roads? How about social security -- will President Mullah be able to fund it? Let's suppose that President Mullah's term in office is a disaster. He has no clue about how to govern. This seems like a pretty reasonable assumption. Corruption is rampant. Inflation skyrockets. The Iraqis will throw him out in the next election. So long as free and fair elections are held, we do not need to fear a theocracy. A related principle is respect for human rights. If the Constitution gurantees women the right to vote, the theocrats are going to have a problem. Ditto if it provides for freedom of speech. Now, I realzie that the latter point cuts both ways. if the constitution provides that a three-cleric panel will have veto power over all judicial decisions, that would be bad. But I am sure that we can cut deals to prevent this sort of structural disaster. If the Iraqis hold free and fair elections, respect basic human rights, keep violence under control, and have some semblence of a modern economy, Iraq will be well on the way to democratization and modernity. It will be far better off than it was under Sadaam. This has always been the goal. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 01:05 PM | PERMALINK..."So I really don't think that the fact that there might be a court system based on religious law rather than civil law is unprecedented, unworkable, or even a bad thing"... Hey Al, well this leftie is keeping an open mind about it. It could be a transitionary type thing, and could make certain localities feel it is more representative. It could forestall resistence, in discreet areas, that might accompany a stronger imposition of the new order. It could also be a really bad road to even start down. I really don't know. When France and England were trying to establish post-colonial legal
systems in Africa, as they were pulling out, they incorporated the
common practices of local village customs (I can't remember the name for
this)...it was kind of a mess, but maybe better than the alternative. Al wrote: "What do you think "we" (whoever the hell "we" is) had in mind would happen? That Iraq would turn into France, with a law banning head scarves? That Iraq would turn into the US, with its 1st Amendment? What?" Al, what did YOU have in mind? I ask, because from the get-go, I had in mind that Kurds would make a play for autonomony, followed by Turks killing Kurds. That's up north. South and central, I had in mind vendettas, civil strife, and possibly civil war. I had in mind that our troops would never be accepted as liberators and that they would be 24/7 targets, I had in mind that we would kill thousands of innocents. I had in mind that we would provide a new recruiting flashpoint for Al Qeda. I had in mind that somewhere in late Spring or early Summer, Bush would boldly declare victory and leave, regardless of the situation on the ground. Those were and are events and situations that I had in mind would happen, and are some of the reasons that I think the pre-emptive war was a mistake. Some of these events are occuring as you read this, others may or may not occur. Posted by: Jeff Boatright at January 15, 2004 01:06 PM | PERMALINKThe northern half of my nation of origin has adopted Sharia law and I
can say unequivocaly that Sharia is fundamentaly incompatible with
liberal democracy. The problem with the Sharia court system is that it
really isn't voluntary. Furthermore, you can't opt out of Islam if you don't want to deal with Sharia Bullshit. Comparisons with the Isreali system are also misleading because I doubt Isreali courts enforce the "capital punishment for adultary" standards of Leviticus. Sharia courts do. Islam has never been unequivocaly removed from the political system anywhere but by Authoritarians like Ataturk and Saddam. There is no tradition of the courts staying out of temporal matters, and eventualy, the sharia courts will abrogate for themselves moral authority over all citizens. I gaurantee it. Posted by: WillieStyle at January 15, 2004 01:08 PM | PERMALINKIt doesn't seem to bother anyone that we would be allowing a secular country to go backwards to Sharia based law, which is inherently inimical to women's rights. I see that men don't seem to have a problem with women losing their rights, and certainly aren't going out of their way in, say, Afghanistan, to ensure women's rights. Why on earth is it OK to abuse half of humanity under the guise of "religious freedom"? If that is alright, then why do we get so bent out of shape about slavery? After all, someone could proclaim that slavery is allowed by their religion(in fact, people have, and still do), and to abolish slavery is to curtail the slave owner's religious freedom and right to self government. No, as Americans we have to quit being so relativistic, and start standing up for human rights and dignity. I forget who said that you have to beware of having such an open mind that everything falls out of it. Too much relativism leads to condoning truly immoral acts. Posted by: Carol at January 15, 2004 01:10 PM | PERMALINKIraqi culture is very different from our own. Some of the most important forces in Iraqi society have no counterpart in our own -- i.e. tribalism, institutionalzied corruption. In many ways, Iraqi society is incredibly backward. Feminism has not yet gained much of a foothold there. Like many third world coutnries, Iraq has a small cadre of westernized, educated women, like Riverbend, but Iraqi society as a whole is still very much in the dark ages. What the fuck are you babbling on about. P.S. I am not clear on Sistani. Negotiating with the IGC on a halfway Sharia, and the next day calling for an uprising? Posted by: bob mcmanus at January 15, 2004 01:18 PM | PERMALINKCarol Amen. I don't give a flying bleep in a rolling doughnut what your religion tells you -- you treat women as equals, not property. Period. If your religion says otherwise, your religion is wrong. We should not be supporting a system that allows for the stoning of a woman for 'adultery'. Forget that nonsense. We did not invade to 'liberate' these people into this. Posted by: Timothy Klein at January 15, 2004 01:20 PM | PERMALINKYea, we gave them all the liberty and freedom that they deserve, the ungrateful bastards. We will give them female circumcision, stoning to death of unfaithful wives, amputation of thieves limbs, women who can neither vote, go to school, or drive- all the good stuff that free societies have. Way to go George. I am sure they will be erecting statues in your honor. Posted by: Hexnut at January 15, 2004 01:21 PM | PERMALINKshawia is gweat. amewicans love shawia. bye destwoing hussane we have bwought bak the love of shawia. bye bwinging bak shawia we have destwoid the tewawists. god bwess the twupes and george w bushee. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 01:21 PM | PERMALINKCarol, Willie- Iraq is not going "backwards." It was never an advanced country to begin with. It was a totalitarian dictatorship with NO rule of law. Sure, Sadaam instituted many "secular" reforms. But these were a Potemekin village. He didn't give a rat's a-- about feminism, the seperation of church and state, or human rights. The secularism was (a) designed to keep the mullahs from getting too much power, and (b) an afterthought -- Sadaam probably put a few women in his "cabinet" because he thought it would make him look more modern or something. The way things were under Sadaam's government is totally irrelevant. This is because they did not reflect a broad-based consensus in Iraqi society. They did not embody Iraqi social norms. These things were totally and completley irrelevant. Iraqi society reflected the will of Sadaam Hussein. There were some crude limits to this, but still, the "progress" and "modernity" were mostly window dressing. Iraqis finally have a say in the civic affairs. It should surprise no one that a country that is 97% Muslim and 50% illiterate is backward by our standards. That's just reality. As before, the trick is to ensure that there are institutional constraints which prevent the fundamentalists from seizing too much power. Free speech. Regular elections. These things will, we hope, equal PROGRESS. I don't want to see the Iraqis experiment with fundamentalism, but if they do, so long as there are free and fair elections, it won't last forever. I do not want to see women don head scarves, but so long as they retain the right to speak their mind and vote, I know that they will not have to wear them forever. Democracy and the rule of law are the key goals here. If these remain, Iraqi society will move forward. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 01:23 PM | PERMALINK"It doesn't seem to bother anyone that we would be allowing a secular country to go backwards to Sharia based law, which is inherently inimical to women's rights." As opposed to Baathist law, in which "women's right" meant rape rooms. We're not talking about taking a country that had the legal system of, say, France, and turning into the Taliban here. We're talking about taking a country in which women had NO rights - Saddam and his Baathists could take abduct, rape them, torture them, and execute them. For no reason whatsoever. There was no appeals court, no habeas corpus review, nothing. So this idea that we're going "backwards" is asinine. The question is, how far forward can we reasonably expect Iraq to move? Many lefties here seem to think that if we don't leave Iraq with the equivalent of the European legal system, well then the invasion will be a failure. The goalposts are moved WAAAAAAAY over there. What we should be trying to do is to move Iraq as far forward toward a reasonably fair legal system as possible. How far can we push them now? I dunno; that's what we're going to have to work through. Posted by: Al at January 15, 2004 01:24 PM | PERMALINKWe will give them female circumcision, stoning to death of unfaithful wives, amputation of thieves limbs, women who can neither vote, go to school, or drive- all the good stuff that free societies have. No, these are the kinds of abuses that the structure of the political system will be designed to curb. It won't curb all of them -- nothing is ever 100% successful -- but it if can get most of them, it will be a resounding success. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 01:26 PM | PERMALINK"Democracy and the rule of law are the key goals here. If these remain, Iraqi society will move forward." Naw the key goal is not to give Al Quaeda a modern industrial base. I am not reassured by the events in this post. Posted by: bob mcmanus at January 15, 2004 01:28 PM | PERMALINKsuhdam is efil. wiee is kefin triing to scare people so that nobuddy nose dat? wiiee are all u libruls forget that. suhdam is efil. u libruls hate amewica. god bwess da twupe and george w bush the gweat libewator ov iraki wombmen. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 01:31 PM | PERMALINKJoe Schmoe, Aug. 27, 2003 Obviously, because Iraqi women will have the vote (wait -- I know -- "we'll see!"), they will be one of the key moderating influences in an Iraqi democracy. While many Iraqi women are undoubetdly conservative, by our standards, I can't imagine that they would vote for a theocrat. Also, the Iraqi constitution will have a Bill of Rights which will undoubtedly make certain aspects of Sharia impossible to actually implement. More Schmoe, Aug. 27 2003 ame goes for elections. We've appointed an Iraqi governing council. We've been holding sporadic local elections. Bremmer, Bush, and everyone else in the Adminsitration have said on dozens of occasions that we will bring democracy to Iraq. Also, the American people will not tolerate the installation of a dicator in Iraq. I won't. And yet more: To me, this is concrete evidence of very good news. It's not faith-based, irrational optomism. It's concrete evidence that we are rebuilding Iraqi society. We have a a plan, and it's being implemented. How's that plan going for ya, Joe? Or do you not see that you Bush people just keep adjusting your views as Bush's lies change? Posted by: chris at January 15, 2004 01:54 PM | PERMALINKThe use of multiple concurrent court/legal systems has a long
history; it was done by the german tribes which took over settled roman
lands in late antiquity, and it was done by the Ottoman Empire right up
until its dissolution. It was used in Louisiana for a time, and it's
done in Nigeria today. Which isn't to say that it will work in Iraq -
just that it has worked in the past. The general idea is that imposition
of an alien legal scheme results in a legal system which has no popular legitimacy, and which people will not defer to or trust. I don't know if using Sharia in modern Iraq is a good idea or a bad one, because I don't know enough about Iraqi society. I think you're right that there's a tension between democracy and liberalism - and of the two, i'd prefer a policy tilted towards democracy over one tilted towards liberalism. But i'm not conivnced that use of sharia necessarily precludes the development of a liberal polity. Posted by: aphrael at January 15, 2004 02:05 PM | PERMALINK"It doesn't seem to bother anyone that we would be allowing a secular country to go backwards to Sharia based law, which is inherently inimical to women's rights." Riverbend talks about how sharia marriage law can legalize prostitution and deny women the protection of using adultery as a basis for divorce. She says that sharia law can destroy the concept of alimony after divorce. Discussion of alimony and divorce is not as exciting as rape or
genital mutilation, but it is essential to the economic well-being of
50% of the population. Iraq's family law has been secular since 1959,
but in order to win Ayatollah Ali Sistani's approval of the new
government, Bush is going to sell women---out. Chris, what is happening is what I have predicted all along. For instance, in paragraph 1, I said "a Bill of Rights which will undoubtedly make certain aspects of Sharia impossible to actually implement." I am an extremely blunt and outspoken person, and you'd better believe that when I take care to qualify a statement by using a phraise like "certain aspects," it's for a good reason. Again, Iraq will be Muslim. It will be more culturally conservative than we'd like. It is a backward place. But the fact that mullahs are influential in politics and women play second fiddle does not, repeat not, make Iraq a theocracy. A theocracy is a dictatorship that rules through force and fear. Elections are not held. Heretics are tortured. Religious morality is enforced through force and fear. The governemnt is riddled with corruption and intrigue. It is a place where one dares to criticize the Grand Ayatollah on pain of death. The government gives billions of dollars to terrorists. A democracy in which a particular cleric decides to endorse a particular candidate is not a theocracy. A nation in which clerics must buy TV time to compete with the ads of secular politicians is not a theocrady. A nation in which anyone can publicy say "I have no use for those corrupt mullahs, we should send them to Iran/Saudi Arabia/Sudan where they belong, the bastards" is not a theocracy! Yes, there will be occasional abuses. No government is 100% perfect. Some elected offical will undoubteldy blur the line separating church and state at some point. If free and fair elections are held and basic human rights are largely respected, the government is not a theocracy! What is so hard to understand about that? Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 02:12 PM | PERMALINKIt seems to me, though, that Riverbend's objection was not to sharia per se, but to the ways in which sharia can be manipulated
by people with particular political/social ends, combined with an
asserted guarantee that it will be manipulated in that fashion. She may have a point - but I fail to see how sharia law is any more susceptible to manipulation than any other legal system. Posted by: aphrael at January 15, 2004 02:13 PM | PERMALINKIf dual courts work so well in Israel and prospectively in Iraq we should have them here as well. You can choose civil courts or a religious court of your choice. The Roman Catholics had an Inquisition for many centuries so they have a head start. Salem MA had some experience back in the '90s (16). Dayton TN? Heck good for the goose... Posted by: Wren at January 15, 2004 02:17 PM | PERMALINKto all u libwuls dont u undestand irakis want to live under shawia. they love shawia. disis da best day can due. nothing more. irakis are backward nobodies. irakis are no smarter than little termites. they did not efen half phones befour our gweat leader gave wun to them. it is only because of our gweat leader george w bushe dat dat made it dis far. wiie dont u undestand? Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 02:18 PM | PERMALINKsharia and alimony The manipulation question seems odd. There are lots of things directly in sharia law that don't lend themselves well to the treatment of women. No 'manipulation' is required. Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at January 15, 2004 02:22 PM | PERMALINKsebastian u r ledding kefin square u about shawia. do not let kefin square u. wie r u letting kefin square u? Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 02:28 PM | PERMALINKMost law has some religious basis. Implementing Sharia for family law could be good or bad, depending on the details. If religious family law is codified (the way the British codified Hindu law in the 1800s -- it forms the basis for the notionally secular Indian family law), and amendments can be made by the legislature, it is a temporary setback for women. They will be able to agitate for secular law in legislature in the coming decades. If, on the other hand, clerics will determine how to interpret the law, and will be responsible for amendments, it is a permanent setback for secularism. Regardless, it does seem to appear that the IGC giving the clerics religious family law in exchange for the stamp of approval on the undemocratic elections process. You could phrase that 'selling otu women to preserve their own power'. (Note: there are four schools of Islamic law for Sunnis and one school for mainstream Shias. I imagine each group will have its own laws). Posted by: Ikram at January 15, 2004 02:35 PM | PERMALINKI just read the articles. This is nothing but a tempest in a teapot. It's just a plan that hasn't even been approved yet. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 03:05 PM | PERMALINKLet's be realistic: the Iraqis are going to introduce any kind of court system in the country we damn well please. If it oppresses women, then tough shit: we can attempt to apply diplomatic and/or economic pressure to get them to liberalize the system, but it's not worth our soldiers dying over there. They didn't sign up to play policeman. God knows there are horrible injustices taking place systematically all over the planet, but I hope no one on this board is suggesting that we apply any type of military pressure to Iraq to accept a court system that is amenable to us. Posted by: Commissar at January 15, 2004 03:16 PM | PERMALINK"but I hope no one on this board is suggesting that we apply any type of military pressure to Iraq to accept a court system that is amenable to us." You mean like MacArthur did in Japan? Write their constitution and design their school curriculum? 1) We broke it, we buy it. Ain't trivial to *invade* a country 2) We cannot afford to let Iraq go whichever way it will. This will be an industrial base for Al Quaeda and anti-Israel terrorism. I have no doubt. Posted by: bob mcmanus at January 15, 2004 03:22 PM | PERMALINKSchmoe I read a number of your posts and am curious about something. You define a theocracy as a dictatorship which derives its powers to govern from some appeal to some religion, in this case Islam. I may be hardheaded, but I don't understand why this is so. Not the appeal to some religion part, the dictatorship part. What if the religious principles upon which the government is based were universally accepted? The people may vote, but they would never vote for a secularist, just as in the US the people would never vote for a communist. In such a hypothetical situation, why would we have a dictatorship? Posted by: Roland at January 15, 2004 03:28 PM | PERMALINK"This will be an industrial base for Al Quaeda and anti-Israel terrorism." It already was. Posted by: Al at January 15, 2004 03:28 PM | PERMALINKJoe and Al, You remain, as always, resolutely ignorant of history, fact, law and culture. There is nothing new under the sun about "personal law" and its implications for women (especially) within an Islamic system. Its all bad. Its all predictible. And it leaves Iraqi women in the same position that you keep assuring me we've just rescued women from in Afghanistan. The key to your arguments about why its a "good thing" we went into Iraq and Afghanistan was our seemingly godlike ability to make the Iraqis and the Afghan's democratic in some way that was a) meaningful to their own people, b) workable, c) safe for us, e)good for women. Now you say, happilly, that it was boobs like the liberals who were misled and that the most we can hope for is a)sharia, b)modified islamic theocracy, c) women back in burkas. IN the case of Iraq this is most definitely a step back for women regardless of the prior existence of a dictatorship and the so called "rape rooms." Yeah, its true that people were killed in Iraq, raped, ripped off but you know what? Women weren't stoned to death for being educated, for holding jobs, for reading books. We are allowing our puppet government to move directly in the direction of Afghanistan under the Taliban and Saudi Arabia under the saudis. We are actually *increasing* the number of "crimes" a woman can be accused of commmitting, and increasing the number of crimes/times she can be (potentially) put to death for violating those crimes. As a woman, I'd definitely take a dictatorship in which some top guys can rape/brutalize me for political crimes against the state some small percentage of the time to a system in which (like saudi arabia) a large number of religious fanatics may be granted the right to rape/brutalize/execute me for anything from wearing the wrong clothes to being seen talking to a guy. The liklihood of harm to me is, in fact, far increased under this putatitve sharia system. Please don't tell me how great sharia can be. I've studied it and I know that it can vary greatly from place to place due to long term cultural differences among the adopting groups. But the fact of the matter is that no individiual gets to opt out of the system (this is an ongoing sore point in India, in fact) at will. That means that every woman child born in Iraq from now on will be locked into a system which they can't vote their way out of, or convert their way out of. Its not compatible with true democracy, and its not compatible with women's rights. As far as I can see the Bush government just sold their last excuse for the war down the river. Oh, and crazy-quat, I reviewed a big book on the minangkabau a few years ago. Fantastic culture! aimai Posted by: aimai at January 15, 2004 03:29 PM | PERMALINK"It already was." That's so very, very 2003. Even for the Bush Administration, which has given up those links. Now, it's all about democracy, er, theocracy, er...Oh, look! Mars! Posted by: Brian C.B. at January 15, 2004 03:36 PM | PERMALINK2 all u libwuls suhdam was working with osama. suhdam was da mastwamind behind 9/11.suhdam has killed all the kwistians in irak. suhdam was the efil rualer in world histwowy. wiie dount u libwuls undwestand? Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 03:40 PM | PERMALINKWhat do you think "we" (whoever the hell "we" is) had in mind would happen?
Our soldiers face a dangerous situation in large part because "we" couldn't be bothered to examine data that didn't fit into the already-decided upon plan. Posted by: marty at January 15, 2004 03:47 PM | PERMALINKDamn fine post, aimai. Do you have a blog of your own? It is extremely disheartening to see the Iraq true believers these days. Any justification will do -- anything that happens in Iraq is justified. Bums me out. It's almost like religious dogma. Posted by: Timothy Klein at January 15, 2004 03:52 PM | PERMALINKAl, what did YOU have in mind? I ask, because from the get-go, I had in mind that Kurds would make a play for autonomony, followed by Turks killing Kurds. That's up north. South and central, I had in mind vendettas, civil strife, and possibly civil war. I had in mind that our troops would never be accepted as liberators and that they would be 24/7 targets, I had in mind that we would kill thousands of innocents. I had in mind that we would provide a new recruiting flashpoint for Al Qeda. I had in mind that somewhere in late Spring or early Summer, Bush would boldly declare victory and leave, regardless of the situation on the ground. Kudos!! Jeff Boatright has nailed it---and the "declaring victory and leaving" part?--underway right now......it is sickening how everything comes second to re-election. This is our "moral clarity" President, don't you know? Posted by: marty at January 15, 2004 03:59 PM | PERMALINKthe impwication of shawia is dat the iraki people will be fwee from suhdams hate rejeem. the impwication of shawia is dat the iraki women will finally be libwated. the impwication of shawia is dat amewica is the gweatest coutwy in da world. the impwication of shawia is dat george w bushee is da gweatest leader in the world. god bwess our twupes and george w bushe. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 04:01 PM | PERMALINKLook, we all know Saddam was an evil murderous tyrant. But to pretend that Iraq under Saddam was anywhere near as oppressive to women as Saudi Arabia is just nonsense. In Saudi Arabia, women can't work, drive, be alone with men, or function as free adults in any manner. They are basically farm animals. In Iraq, women were able to have careers, go to universities, shop, drive, wear what they wanted. Read Riverbend's blog if you want to know what her life was like. The world is not black and white. Just because Saddam was a horrible blight on Iraq does not mean that no aspect of the place could possibly be anything but the worst possible. That just isn't how it works. If we leave Iraq with the kind of treatment towards women that Saudi Arabia has, we will have done a terrible thing. Posted by: EmmaAnne at January 15, 2004 04:05 PM | PERMALINKdare is no gweater efil den suhdam hussane. becoz we have destwoyed him evweyfing we half dun must be good. gwad bwess our twupes and george w bushe. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 04:14 PM | PERMALINKWow, al speaks sarcasm in Chomsky's 'Natural Language'. Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at January 15, 2004 04:17 PM | PERMALINKsebastian, do not let kefin scare you. if u r scared bye kefin the tewawists will have wun. we cannot let the tewawists win. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 04:20 PM | PERMALINKAmai- Stop thinking of yourself primarily as a woman, a member of an oppressed group. I know that this is hard for many leftists to do, but it is necessary here. The question isn't whether "women" will benefit from the new political system. The question is whether Iraq as a whole will benefit. This is the essence of democracy. Some groups win, some lose. Everyone must make compromises. The important things are that (a) disputes are settled at the polls, and in court, rather than by bloodshed or by seeking the indulgence of a despot. I have the following questions for you. 1. Women will have the right to vote in post-Sadaam Iraq. Don't you think that sufferage is a major advance in women's rights by any measure? Please don't respond with "yes, but those clerics..." Give this advance the respect it deserves. Women's sufferage is a very big deal. To my mind, this is the key to women's rights. I don't see how women can be truly oppressed by their government if they have the right to vote free and fair elections. 2. Don't you think that female sufferage will be a moderagiting force in Iraqi politics? I certainly do. (Though this one can be overemphasized, as a lot of Iraqi women are probably shockingly conservative by our standards. I suspect that if Iraqi women were polled, you'd get almost universal agreement to statements like "a woman's place is primarily in the home," "men should take the lead in government and politics," etc. We should not expect to see Iraqi women lobbying to serve in the infantry any time soon...) 3. Do you acknowledge that much of the "progress" under Sadaam was window-dressing which was not due to popular support? Islamic fundamentalism is sweeping the Middle East. Many people there genuinely want a more traditional and religious society. (I think this is stupid, and I know they will grow out of it, but it is what they want.) Religious conservatism didn't take hold in Iraq becuase Sadaam executed the hardline clerics. That is, thankfully, not an option any longer. If the Iraqi people want to flirt with religious conservatism, we may have to let them do it. 4. Do you accept the idea that the US cannot change the very structure of Iraqi society overnight? We're not going to convert everyone to Christianity. We're not 4. If you could have stopped the execution of 300,000 innocent Kurds and Sh'ites by donning a head scarf and dressing more modestly, would you? I think that any answer other than "no" is immoral. If the price of democracy -- and an end to mass slaughter -- is a more head scarves and fewer miniskirts, I think it is more than acceptable. 5. Do you acknowledge that there is a continium, or sliding scale, of Islamic influence in politics? At one end we have Afghanistan. Total subjugation of women. Sha'ria law is enforced in its 7th century sense. Stonings. Honor killings. Dictatorship. At the other end we have the Ameircan Muslim experience. A really nice girl who I used to date was an M.I.T. trained engineer -- she had not been denied an education, obviously. Nonetheless, she chose to dress extremely modestly and did not wear makeup. She did not kiss men and had the most asexual bathing suit you've ever seen...I never knew that a one-piece Speedo could be so un-sexy! She attended the mosque regularly and observed Rammadan, ate only halal meat, did not drink alcohol, and was otherwise exceptionally devout. While Islam obvioulsy plays no role in American political life, it played a huge role in her personal life. Somewhere in between is a nation-state in which 97% of the population is Islamic. Clerics are revered and respected figures. They endorse political figures and take positions on political issues, much as Pat Robtertson and Jerry Falwell do here. Political leaders make references to Allah in their speeches, just as Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Candidate Dean do. Laws are passed which are consistent with Islamic notions of morailty. Pornography and alcohol are banned. No one likes Jews. The culture is conservative and Islamic. Women who run for office are regarded as "pushy" and "unfeminine" (much like Hillary Clinton), and women who wear t-shrits and jeans are considered "sluts." Head scarves are in fashion. This is the future I see for Iraq. Turkey sort of looks like that today. It probably won't look exactly like that -- remember, it's a primitive place, and it will take them a while for the separation of church and state to be worked out. This nation (a) holds regular elections, (b) respects basic political freedoms, such as free speech, and (c) while clerics are allowed to have a say in political life -- hey, there is free speech, after all -- they are not allowed to enforce their religious decrees through physical force and intimidation. To me, this sounds like a great victory for feminism and the Iraqi people in general. I don't see how anyone can regard such a system as anything but an overwhelming success. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 04:37 PM | PERMALINKal, you're irritating the hell out of me with your "spelling". If you want to communicate effectively and not be taken for a nut, drop it and rejoin the rest of the speakers of the language of Shakespeare and Tolkien. Please. Even George Bernard Shaw didn't actually USE his "rational spelling." Posted by: Temperance at January 15, 2004 04:43 PM | PERMALINK"Women will have the right to vote in post-Sadaam Iraq. " Not if they impose sharia, as they are planning to do. It seems all our much-crowed-over "liberation" has accomplished is to turn Iraq under Saddam into Iran under Khomeini. And this is a good thing? And this was our plan? Posted by: Chuck Nolan at January 15, 2004 04:56 PM | PERMALINKJoe I'm curious...When you say that regular elections will act as a limit
on powers of mullahs...how do you know that regular elections will ever
be a regular feature of the political landscape of Iraq? This is partly about young men with no other source of pride and self-esteem. Re: famous speech about the mule by Hackman in Mississippi Burning Reinforce these young men, oppress the women, you get a country of repressed (or not) anger and violence. And recruits for Al Quaeda, just as the South got recruits for the KKK I fear for these young men I fear for us Posted by: bob mcmanus at January 15, 2004 05:02 PM | PERMALINKi left a "not" out of my previous post (to joe). Changed the hell out of the meaning, DOH!! The question isn't whether "women" will benefit from the new political system. The question is whether Iraq as a whole will benefit. This is the essence of democracy. Some groups win, some lose. Everyone must make compromises. The important things are that (a) disputes are settled at the polls, and in court, rather than by bloodshed or by seeking the indulgence of a despot. Schmoe, this is one of the most annoying things I have ever read from you, which is saying something. So women will lose all the rights they had, and essentially become property. So what! They get to vote! That is, if their husband/father/brother will let them. Man, this is amazing progress! You can't make an omelette with out breaking a few eggs, eh? The real question is, where the hell is the omelette. We may or may not be powerless to help women out in Iraq. Hopefully, things will not go to shit for them. But your rationalizations of why is all peachy-keen are totally nauseating. Posted by: Timothy Klein at January 15, 2004 05:14 PM | PERMALINKThe use of multiple concurrent court/legal systems has a long history; it was done by the german tribes which took over settled roman lands in late antiquity, and it was done by the Ottoman Empire right up until its dissolution. There were ecclesiastical courts in England in the Middle Ages. But there weren't separate courts for different religious communities. My understanding of the Ottoman arrangement was they governed through communities based on religion and ethnicity. A person's community decided matters of family law. It's an efficient way to run an empire without a lot of administrative overhead. And non-Moslem might resent second-class status, but feel that they got a fair shake from the courts of their own group. It's difficult to tell what the IGC means to replace the secular system. It could be a return to the Ottoman arrangement. Or it could envision the installation of Sharia (probably the Shiite interpretation) in the Constitution. I believe Sistani has said he thinks the clergy should play no direct role in the exective or legeslature, but should influence or sit on the judiciary. Either way, it represents a profund step backward, if one thinks of the ideas of the Enlightenment as representing progress. It may be that some values of the Enlightenment aren't good for Iraq at present. But the Baathists had secular family law and equal rights for women, in principle. One view is that it's an unfolding of the neocon shuck'n'jive. We were promised a liberal, democratic Iraq with a Bill of Rights, etc. But if you look back a year or two, people like Friedman were more honestly calling for Saddam to be replaced with "an iron-fisted junta", just more cooperative and less of a threat to the neighbors. The freedom stuff was just bait for gullible liberals. Posted by: Roger Bigod at January 15, 2004 05:19 PM | PERMALINKJoe, I hope you can do better than this bit of silliness. To begin with a flaming ad hominem attack just starts you off on the wrong foot. Look at your point four though; this is truly offensive. Here you compare being subject to stoning by gangs of youths for the “crime” of showing your face, to donning a headscarf; but the grotesquerie doesn’t stop there, you conflate killings in battles (roughly civil war – Hussein against segments of his own people) with random executions. Your argument shows a lack of seriousness, a lack of historical
perspective, and a tolerance for diminishing the rights of those who
aren’t you. Maybe I've lost my stalker by now... "In Saudi Arabia, women can't work, drive, be alone with men, or function as free adults in any manner. They are basically farm animals. In Iraq, women were able to have careers, go to universities, shop, drive, wear what they wanted." I'm usually the last person to stand up for Saudi Arabia, but, I've got to say, you are completely ignorant about Saudi Arabia, EmmaAnne. Women go to universities in Saudi Arabia - hell, they make up the MAJORITY of the graduates! And women have jobs also - they make up an increasing percentage of the professional class. And have you ever heard about the lingerie shops at which Saudi women shop? I'm not saying that the level of rights of women in Saudi Arabia is acceptable - it's not. (See http://www.iht.com/articles/122788.html for an interesting story on the subject.) But if you think that the status of women in pre-war Iraq was better than the status of women in present Saudi Arabia, you're nuts... Hell, for one thing, women in present SA are not subject to rape, torture, and execution by the regime... Posted by: Al at January 15, 2004 05:29 PM | PERMALINKJoe, try to talk about "Iraq as a whole" benefiting from the new
political system while also including the half of Iraq that is female. "But the Baathists had secular family law and equal rights for women, in principle." You mean they had the equal right to get tortured and executed? Great! Oh, that pre-war Iraq, it was a women's paradise, wasn't it! The excuses the anti-war types here make for Saddam are really quite amazing. Posted by: Al at January 15, 2004 05:33 PM | PERMALINKdidnt the House of Saud execute a princess a few years back? Posted by: Keith G at January 15, 2004 05:37 PM | PERMALINKAl's like the triangle player in the band. He can only play one note, but when he plays it he plays it with all the spirit he can muster: *ting!(you're pro-Saddam)* ...and we in Houston TX are still talking about the "domestic" (maid/comfort girl) who was about to break out of the hotel room where she was held (imprisoned) by the Saudi royal she was in "servitude" to. She got to the local police charging she had been beaten and raped over many months, he got on a jet to Riyad. Posted by: Keith G at January 15, 2004 05:44 PM | PERMALINKLet’s do a little math here Al, how much of the population was subject to these “rape rooms” you keep going on, and on, and on about (snarky commentary deleted)? How much of the population of Saudi Arabia is subject to roving gangs enforcing Sharia? And while I’m not going to argue a better/worse proposition for being raped vs. being permanently disfigured by acid, don’t you think that there’s at least some difficulties associated with the latter? Exactly how much torture do you think is associated with being publicly stoned? How does that compare to the level of torture meted out by the Hussein regime? Al, until you can quantify these accusations there is nothing to your argument. Shouting “rape rooms,” “torture,” and “execution” at every suggestion that perhaps this isn’t progress just makes you look like you don’t have an argument. Give us some hard numbers on why Saudi Arabia’s abuse of women isn’t as bad as Hussein’s. Show us that more women would have been executed (don’t we do that here too?) under Hussein than under Sharia with its death penalty for adultery. Show us that more women would be tortured for political crimes than burned with acid or scarred by knife wounds for having the temerity to show an ankle. Show us that you are more than a collection of hot-button phrases designed to ward off the inevitable questions that come when a democratic society embarks on a nation building exercise (or any significant expenditure of resources), especially when done through military force. Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 15, 2004 05:59 PM | PERMALINKThe use of multiple concurrent court/legal systems has a long history; it was done by the german tribes which took over settled roman lands in late antiquity, and it was done by the Ottoman Empire right up until its dissolution. It was used in Louisiana for a time, and it's done in Nigeria today. WOW! Someone just used NIGERIA as an example to reassurre us that Sharia law will be okay. Oh my fucking god! As for Joe Schmoe and his "voting women will be a moderating factor" bull shit, give me a break! Look, the whole point of this fucking invasion was to create a liberal democracy in the middle east. It isn't rape rooms that turn young Arab men into terrorists, it's madrasas (there very few of the former in Saudi Arabia but plenty of the latter). It's the illiberal nature of Islamic fundamentalism not merely brutal dictatorships that led to 9/11 (after all, you don't see any Zimbabweans blowing themselves up to kill us do you?). If the CPA cannot be a liberalizing force on the Iraqi body politic (much like Attaturk was in Turkey) then what was the point of this whole adventure? WMD?! Joe Schmoe claims that we will somehow curb the greater excesses of Sharia law. How? What mechanism is the CPA putting in place to allow the U.S. to veto any portion of Iraqi law? All I see is concesion after concesion to Sistani. We have essentialy put the future of what was to be the key front of our war on terror in the hands of Shia cleric. Yet for Joe hope still springs eternal. Unbelievable! Posted by: WillieStyle at January 15, 2004 05:59 PM | PERMALINKThis is partly about young men with no other source of pride and self-esteem. If "this" is suicide bombers, the clinical psychology approach may not be effective. Studies seem to indicate that they're don't have obvious psychopathooogy, and are somewhat above average in intelligence and economic standing. Some aren't especially religious, and it's a phenomenon that isn't unique to Islam. It seems to be a matter of sociobiology that young people will go out and risk their lives, or even suicide, if they are convinced that their social group is under mortal threat. If this is the correct view, making it clear that we have very limited ambitions in the area is more important than trying to do psychotherapy type interventions to improve the self-esteem or economics prospects of potential suicide bombers. The neocon program of serial conquest of several countries in the Middle East appears to be a recipe for provoking intense opposition, and we are kidding ourselves if we think some kind of social work program will make much difference. Posted by: Roger Bigod at January 15, 2004 05:59 PM | PERMALINKu libwuls will nefer undastand. 1 rape from uday is worse than 100000 rapes from someone else. suhdam is the most efil rualer in world histwawy. becoz uday kan nefer rape again we wear wright to infade irak. y due u libwuls nefer undastand? Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 06:06 PM | PERMALINKYou mean they had the equal right to get tortured and executed? Great! Oh, that pre-war Iraq, it was a women's paradise, wasn't it! The excuses the anti-war types here make for Saddam are really quite amazing. Al: Nobody I have read on this blog is defending Saddam, and I am getting really goddamn tired of this little debate trick. People are talking about reality: the reality under Saddam for women. Saddam and his sons were not raping every single woman as a matter of course. He was a shit-heal, but Iraq was actually one of the more 'western-like' countries as far as the people living there were concerned. I am sure all of the Iraqies would have liked it better with Saddam gone (except Ba'athists, I guess), but that is not the same thing as saying every Iraqi was living in hell. Only certain were (or were executed). There is a reason brutal dictators brutalize certain people: to avoid having to brutalize everybody. That is the whole point: control. The fact of the matter is that, from my knowledge of Iraq, it looks like it would be quite possible for the situation for women to go quite seriously downhill. Don't try to pretend this is defending Saddam. It ain't. As a matter of fact, them's fighting words. Posted by: Timothy Klein at January 15, 2004 06:07 PM | PERMALINKTimothy, you are right, that point was inartfully made. What I was really trying to say is the fact that Riverbend's life is getting worse doesn't mean that the whole effort is a failure. I do not hold Riverbend in high esteem. Sadaam murdered over 300,000 people. People were being tortured, raped and mutiliated by Sadaam's thugs just a few miles from her Baghdad home! You wouldn't know this from reading her blog, though. I have never once seen her do anything but bitch and moan about her stupid parochial concerns, all the while blaming the US for liberating her and her fellow Iraqis from an evil tyrant. She's out of a job...her friend's home was searched by US soldiers, and she had to stand outside in her pajamas...cry me a fucking river, you selfish and heartless bitch. Where is her concern for her 300,000 fellow Iraqis who were murdered by beloved her maximum leader? Riverbend was a member of the priviliged elite, as evidenced by her outstanding English language skills and educational credentials. I just can't get too worked up over the fact that Riverbend's standard of living has temporarily declined during the postwar reconstruction. She can no longer live in the Potemekin village that was Ba'athist Iraq? Oh, well. I'm just not sorry that Sadaam is gone. That said, I am very dismayed at the prospect of Islamic fundamentalism coming to Iraq. However -- and this is a big "however" -- I think that two forces will moderate this. The first is democracy. It is fundamentally incompatable with the notion of theocracy. The second is that I think many leftists are exxagerating the threat. Again, an "Islamic state" can mean many different things. If mullahs want to endorse political candidates from the muzzein, that's fine with me -- religious leaders endorse candiates here in the USA, and we are not a theocracy. If, on the other hand, there are no elections and religious police are empowered to patrol the streets and beat men whose beards are too short with sticks, that is most emphatically not okay. Leftists always assume the worst, though. At the slightest mention of "Isalmic law" they assume that Iraq is in full Taliban mode, and that clitorodectomies and stonings are imminent. I just don't see how they can say this, especially when Iraqi women will have the right to vote. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 06:12 PM | PERMALINKLori just illustrated my above point. One mention of "Islam" and she automatically assumes that women in Iraq will be subjected to beatings, acid in the face, etc. She is in full Taliban mode. I just don't see how she can say that. Doesn't she have any faith in the Iraqi people? Won't women's sufferage be a moderating force? Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 06:18 PM | PERMALINKLeftists always assume the worst, though. At the slightest mention of "Isalmic law" they assume that Iraq is in full Taliban mode, and that clitorodectomies and stonings are imminent. I just don't see how they can say this, especially when Iraqi women will have the right to vote. For the upteenth time, Nigerian women have the right to vote and it happens there! Sufferage without constitutional protections is not adequate! I just don't see how she can say that. Doesn't she have any faith in the Iraqi people? Well, she shouldn't, according to you Schmoe. They are a 'backwards people.' So which is it, are they noble women's rights folks, or backwards? Posted by: Timothy Klein at January 15, 2004 06:24 PM | PERMALINKu libwuls, why due u fink dat just becoz riverbend does knot like shawia uder iraki women dount like it also? u half to no a lot more iraki women to no wat iraki womne fink. not all iraki women fink da daim. lori u act just like a leftist. just becoz someone menchuns islum u fink of da taliban. all leftists r just like u. all leftists r da saim. all leftists fink da saim. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 06:26 PM | PERMALINKYou mean they had the equal right to get tortured and executed? Great! Oh, that pre-war Iraq, it was a women's paradise, wasn't it! The excuses the anti-war types here make for Saddam are really quite amazing. The only excuses for Saddam I'm aware of were made by members of the Reagan and Bush I adnimistrations. But there are some do-gooder points to be made for the Baath Party before Saddam took it over in 1979. They were in power for 10 or 15 years and built infrastructure, supported education and conducted a massive adult literacy program. The historical experience of the material progress they made is one of the things we have going for us in trying to rebuild a government. They consciously copied European Fascism, and as in Germany and Italy, they produced some economic progress only to succumb to dictatorship. And yes, their treatment of women was a big improvement over Sharia. The number of women willing to demonstrate against the decree makes that obvious. Duh. Posted by: Roger BIgod at January 15, 2004 06:27 PM | PERMALINKRead the post again Joe, you seem to have mistaken asking for hard data (and using real world examples) with declarations about what “will” happen. I made no such claims. You, on the other hand, have conflated civil war with execution. Do you have some evidence to indicate that the 300,000 “executions” were, in fact, executions and not part of what would be called in other circumstances a civil war (you know, brutal dictator puts down an insurrection – that’s not execution, and yes it does make a difference)? Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 15, 2004 06:28 PM | PERMALINKJoe Willie, it's because the Nigerian government is weak and cannot control the Muslim provinces. If someone is physically intimidating women who try to go to the polls, that person has committed a crime -- assault. If a band of fundamentalist vigilanties is roaming the streets beating women whose skirts are too short, they are guilty of battery and conspiracy. The way for the government to deal with this is to arrest the vigilantes. The Nigerian government does not do these things. This is why the fanatics have been able to subvert the system. There is no *guarantee* that the Iraqi government will not be weak or corrupt (my guess is that it will almost certainly be corrupt -- the real question is how corrupt...), but the presence of tens of thousands of US troops in the country for the next 50 years or more will help a lot. If the Iraqi police have lost control of an area, we'll be available to back them up. We obvioulsy don't want to get drawn into these things, but we can if necessary. Timothy, Lori, do you know any Muslims? Do you think that Muslim women crave oppression, and are just waiting for the day that they can don burquas and give up their driver's licenses? If not, don't you think they will make their feelings known at the polls? Also, what about Kurdistan? It's mostly Muslim too, you know. They've had a democracy for 10 years now. Why haven't they gone the fundamentalist route? You guys just assume that the Iraqis, and especially Iraqi women, will meekly submit to a totalitarian religious dictatorship. Why do you think this? Lastly, don't you think that people in the Islamic world are beginning to realize that some ranting mullah isn't the solution to all of their problems? Don't Iraqis know what conditions in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, those fundamentalist "paradises," are like? I can guranatee that Sadaam has been pointing out every flaw of the fundamentalist Iranian regime for decades now -- and while some of this was disregarded as propagandaa some of it has also stuck. Don't you think that people generally only submit to oppression when they lack hope? Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 06:40 PM | PERMALINKJoe I agree with much of your post, but damn if I can generated a lot of confidence in the full functioning (in an American sense) of an Iraqi democracy at almost any level. But, once the complications caused by many of the interpretations of Islam are added to the mix, my confidence plumits to nearly nil. In a previous post someone seemed to be stating that theocracy and democracy were not mutually exclusive. I feel that's not the case. Opposition to the politcal plans of the religious elites will be seen as oppostion to god (allah) and heads will roll Posted by: Keith G at January 15, 2004 06:40 PM | PERMALINKPeggy- No they don't. Iran s not a democracy. It is a theocratic dictatorship in which the unelected mullhas grudgingly allow the people to express their frustrations via a parliment, all of whose memebers must be approved of by the ruling clerics. Heck, women had the right to "vote" under Sadaam -- and 100% of them voted for him. We must not confuse a puppet legislature with the real thing. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 06:43 PM | PERMALINKwoah......"the presence of tens of thousands of US troops in the country for the next 50 years or more will help a lot." Now i see where you are coming from. 'Nuff said. Posted by: Keith G at January 15, 2004 06:45 PM | PERMALINKKeith, that is tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands. We have had 70,000 troops stationed in Germany for almost 60 years now. Large numbers have been stationed in South Korea and Japan for similar periods of time. Of couse we will have a few military bases in Iraq. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 06:47 PM | PERMALINKy due u leftists fink that just becoz day are trying to make shawia into law irak will becum a islumic state. u leftists will be wrong agen. da thousands of us trupes for the next 50 years will prefent dat from happenin. just look at sodi arabia. becoz we had so many trupes in sodi arabia fweedom and democwacy has spread to sodi arabia. 10 years from now irak will be just like sodi arabia. gawd bwess our twupes and george w bushe. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 06:49 PM | PERMALINKJoe, address my point, or stop addressing me. What proof do you have that there were 300,000 executions? As to your silly question about voting, who said they would vote for such a thing? I certainly didn’t. But then perhaps you were too busy fighting straw men to notice. Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 15, 2004 06:49 PM | PERMALINKbut Joe, those troops in Germany and Japan aren't there to help enforce those countries' laws. Posted by: ChrisL at January 15, 2004 06:51 PM | PERMALINKJoe and Al, I can't even begin to address the overall confusion the two of you seem to have about reality. The others have done a pretty good job, so I don't suppose it really matters but I can't let the last few things just go. Neither Lori, nor I, nor anyone on this board "just assumes" things about Islam, about women's rights, or about Iraq. Actually, all of us have demonstrated a pretty extensive knowledge of history, sociology, religion, law and the particular circumstances of Islam in different societies. So we aren't "just assuming" things, we are actually pretty well informed about the past, and can make educated guessses about the future. Like many people who opposed Saddam and opposed the war, I predicted that the US would a) fail to find WMD and b) fail to leave a working, western style democracy. A has proved to be the case, and the Bush team are working on b) as fast as they can. So far, people like me are batting a thousand (as I believe the expression goes) and people like you are helplessly justifying every new development with reference to either a) a higher level of scepticism about the world (pessimmism?) or a higher level of planning on the part of the bush government (see, its all just like they told us, only they didn't tell us because we couldn't be trusted with the truth, but if they had told us we would have believed them and we believe that whatever they tell us now was just what they meant to tell us before? That seems to be your general line of argument. As for your cavalier dismissal of the actual rights of women in Iraq, you seem to not understand anything about a) representative democracy and b) law under Sharia. You see, once you give away rights at law under a given legal system (the right to choose your husband, the right to divorce, the right to equal inheritance, the right to determine whether or not you can get an education, the right to determine the nature and extent of the cultural customs that will bind you) you can't get them back. No amount of "voting" for any candidate will bring back actual rights that have been given away to the mullahs or the sharia system. So, no, I don't think (and nor does any educated person) that once women have been "assigned" to a particular legal system that possesssing the vote (if, indeed, they end up with the vote) will ameliorate their condition. Your other point seems to be that b) any iraqi who doesn't like what they get is/was "objectively pro-saddam" and pro the slaughter of their co-citizens so who gives a damn what they think anyway they should all curl up and die. c) the iraqis are different from us and probably don't care to have an actual democracy or any western style rule of law and equality, they will be very happy with a lesser system, with a theocracy, with a division of their country into separate ethnic and religious groups. Need I point out how self contradictory and insultingly contemptous of the Iraqis you have professed to care about/liberate these three points are. Riverbend is exactly the kind of westernized, democracy minded individual woman we were told we were liberating from the rape rooms and from saddam's dictatorship. IN your model of things she morphs directly from victim/the source of our noble crusade to enemy/the focus of our wrath without even stopping to pass go. If this is your attitude towards an actual woman, whose life you could get a glimpse of, what on earth am I to make of your professed concern for the rest of the women in Iraq or, indeed, anywhere? You have blithely supported the invasion and destruction of the government, however illegetimate, of another country. you have offered as your excuse variously "they threatened us" and "they were bad people to their own population" but now you find that holding the tail of the tiger is very uncomfortable. Now you are telling us that its just a matter of time before you need to let go of the tiger and you assure us that you've tamed it, you can still kill it if you need to, and that it will be a very good dog from now on. Not very convincing as a parable, and damned unconvincing as foreign policy. Good luck with the tiger, but don't expect the rest of us to compliment you on your nobility when you either let it go and get eaten, or let it go and shoot it. For the record, of course, I"m not a "leftist" at all, but simply a liberal. Alas, I can still vote and Bushco's associates Ahmanson and Rushdoody aside even a female non-christian like myself can still vote in this country so perhaps my vote can ameliorate some of evils of this current regime here. Posted by: aimai at January 15, 2004 06:52 PM | PERMALINK Willie, it's because the Nigerian government is weak and cannot control the Muslim provinces. These things are already happening in Iraq even with 130,000 U.S. troops there. Women are being molested for dressing immodestly. Stores are being burned to the ground for serving alchohol. That's how it began in Nigeria. That's how it's beginning in Iraq. If you think that the government of President Obasanjo (an ex-military dictator who just two years ago violently put down insurrections killing tens of thousands) is weak, then wait 'till you get a load of Chalabi's federal government. Now is the time to ensure these basic freedoms in Iraq. After we turn over power it will be too late. Posted by: WillieStyle at January 15, 2004 06:54 PM | PERMALINK Joe Adding to Chris's post... As the US troops in Germany and Japan were there (at least on paper) to stem an exturnal threat (the scurge of communism), the locals seemed to appreciate the free ride. (not having to pay for their own defense, as well as a lot of extra income) I don't see the Iraqis feeling as blissed, or blessed. Therefore I cannot see our people, and therefore our government willing to pay the price that would be needed to keep troops in Iraq for several decades. Which means, to me, that one should not plan on the US being able to retrain the Iraqis in to the niceties of western democratic ideals. As noble as your ideas are, I just can't see them happening Posted by: Keith G at January 15, 2004 07:10 PM | PERMALINKAmai- Thanks so much for implying that anyone who disagrees with you is "not educated." Ah, that liberal tolerance! I really could care less about your religious affiliation, or lack thereof. Why did you feel compelled to mention it? Also, FYI, we weren't liberating Riverbend, or westernized Iraqi women from Sadaam's rape rooms. We were liberating all Iraqi women, and men for that matter. There is a big difference. If Riverbend no longer gets to live in her Ba'athist paradise, that's too bad for her. Also, I do not regard her as "westernized." She speaks English very well and has a western technical eduaction. She appears to place no value on democracy, the rule of law, or the human rights of her oppressed fellow Iraqis. That does not make her "westernized" in my eyes. Lori- I concede that the 300,000 Iraqis in Sadaam's mass graves were not "executed." The women, children, and elderly people who were attacked with chemical weapons were not accused of any crime, and the term "executed" generally applies to the execution of a criminal. How about "murdered" or "massacred" instead? Is that better? What I find very troubling about your remark is the implication that these people were engaged in a civil war, and that as a result Sadaam lawfully masaccred them. I do not agree. Soverignty is derived from the consent of the goverened, in an election. Sadaam did not take power pursuant to an election. Therefore, he was not a legitimate soverign. His rule was therefore illegitimate and he did not have the right to attack villages full of women and children with chemical weapons in the name of putting down an "insurrection." I think you know this, and I cannot for the life of me understand why you are suggesting that Sadaam did anything other than commit murder when he killed the 300,000 Iraqis who rose up against his dictatorial rule. Willie- I see your point. I will have to think about that. Maybe we should take a harder line. Still, though, I think it will be impossible to elminate all clerical influence in Iraq. It might be the ideal thing to do, but I just don't think we are capable of it. We would not be capable even if we had 500,000 multinational troops and 100% support here at home. Iraq is a Muslim country, and there is just no realistic way to shut the clerics up. All we can do is try to set up institutional mechanisms, such as elections, that will limit their power. Actually, we can also play the ethnic groups off against one another -- I doubt that the Kurds will submit meekly to a theocracy, for example, and maybe the Sunnis won't either -- but that is a risky course of action. We don't want to go the full-fledged colonialist divide-and-conquer route, but I think a limited dose of ethnic tension will be very, very useful. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 07:13 PM | PERMALINKNo, Joe, Nigeria's problem is that the government is too corrupt to administer its Muslim provinces. Whether Iraq can avoid such corruption remains to be seen, but I doubt it. It was corrupt under Saddam, shows every sign of corruption today, and God knows the CPA contractors are giving the Iraqi population advanced lessons in graft right now. Al's constant reference to authoritarian terror under Saddam implies that the utter absence of authority in Iraq today lacks its own terror. This is the constant Bush partisan's refrain: the elimination of the Ba'ath dictatorship alone brought "liberation" and "freedom" to the Iraqi peoples, who on 10 April wandered from the medieval dark of Saddam's rude tyranny into the glorious daylight of a modern liberal democracy, and one supported by a 21st century infrastructure. Sorry. Right now, it's kidnappers, carjackings, unemployment, gasoline lines, mined sidewalks, blackouts, firefights, suicide bombs, intimidation by Islamist militias, cities in which the streets are lined with concrete and razor wire, and midnight raids by foreign troops. (Juan Cole reports that kidnappers have actually established their own jails to hold victims until the ransom is paid. No word yet about entrepreneurial "rape rooms," although rape was certainly a fixture of kidnappings in Baghdad last summer.) Some of us realized prewar that getting rid of Saddam would always be less than half the job, and that we could win the war and lose the peace, and leave Iraq a more dangerous place for both the safety of the average Iraqi and the security of the United States. Prewar, planning for the occupation was considered actively anti-war within the Bush Administration (according to James Fallows) because it burdened the nobility of the cause with difficult practicalities for which there were purely good answers. Postwar, you're right with them, declaring victory and leaving Iraq to its uncertain, unsupported, fate. Posted by: Brian C.B. at January 15, 2004 07:16 PM | PERMALINKKeith- The cost really isn't that great. The cold war ended almost 14 years ago and we still have troops in Germany and Japan. No one has ever really made a big fuss about it. As for the Iraqis accepting the troops, well, I can tell you this -- the Kurds will accept them. We can always enter into an agreement with the State of Kurdistan or whatever. We'll have our bases one way or another. Also, remember that we'll be pouring billions into Iraq for many years to come. We'll be able to buy a lot of influence there. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 07:16 PM | PERMALINK"which there were NO purely good answers" Posted by: Brian C.B. at January 15, 2004 07:19 PM | PERMALINKBrian -- I know. Corruption is a form of weakness. Columbia is in a similiar situation. The army could easily crush the guerillas and narcoterrorists if it wanted to. There is a huge disparity of force. The problem is that the drug lords have bought off virtually every single elected official who they haven't murdered. Don't you agree that we will have (a) troops in Iraq for many years to come, and (b) will be pouring vast sums of money into the country for 5 to 10 years? Don't you think that this will allow us to exert a moderating influence? Also, if the Iraqi economy improves, don't you think that calls for a Taliban-like state are likey to fall on deaf ears? Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 07:20 PM | PERMALINKAs the US troops in Germany and Japan were there (at least on paper) to stem an exturnal threat (the scurge of communism), the locals seemed to appreciate the free ride. (not having to pay for their own defense, as well as a lot of extra income) It also put us on our best behavior. In particular, we didn't try to
rip off their resources.. The deciding issue may be whether the
average Iraqi is doing better economically in 3-5 years, rather than
issues of governance. This doesn't look hopeful. We've already said
we're going to auction off all their state industry except the oil. How
much they realize from the oil is problematic, given that an early plan
was to use their supply to break OPEC. And we want to leave a
convicted embezzler in charge. Lori Thantos Try A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide. It describes the Anfal campaign fairly well, and was obviously not written by a dreadful lying neocon. Perhaps you missed the news stories about the mass graves. Only a few thousand bodies discovered so far, but off course Iraqi is a rather large country. Posted by: S Wood at January 15, 2004 07:23 PM | PERMALINKRiverbend is exactly the kind of westernized, democracy minded individual woman we were told we were liberating from the rape rooms and from saddam's dictatorship. IN your model of things she morphs directly from victim/the source of our noble crusade to enemy/the focus of our wrath without even stopping to pass go. Joe Schmoe has hade it clear he despises Arabs except as objects of "liberation". As in: The barbarism and savagery of the region is mostly the fault of the people who live there.
"the State of Kurdistan or whatever." If there is ever a State of Kurdistan, the first troops to establish bases there will be the NATO forces of the Turkish Army. They, too, will be what we would be--an occupying force. We kept troops in Germany and Japan as a Cold War measure, forward bases for our confrontation with the Soviets. They ceased to be occupiers early on. "We'll have our bases one way or another. Also, remember that we'll be pouring billions into Iraq for many years to come. We'll be able to buy a lot of influence there." Buying influence with their government is just what the Iraqis would expect we had done, and why our troops would remain targets, even in a legitimate international security role. A poll conducted last month in Iraq that was comparatively favorable to the United States revealed that an excess of 75 percent want the United States out of Iraq as soon as the country has a government of its own. Our conduct there--a failure to provide security for the average Iraqi, spending money without hiring Iraqi contractors--has led that nation to believe that we want the oil, period. And I don't see a great deal of American sentiment for "pouring billions into Iraq for many years to come," if those billions are American. Iraqi recovery is already more expensive, adjusted for inflation, than the Marshall Plan. Posted by: Brian C.B. at January 15, 2004 07:36 PM | PERMALINKJoe Monetarily, it cost a lot more to keep troops in "harm's way", but I was speaking of other costs actually. Not the least of which are the lives of our troops. On that account, many now feel the cost is too high. Posted by: Keith G at January 15, 2004 07:40 PM | PERMALINKIn answer to your question, Joe: 1) If we have troops there, to protect the suddenly-weak Iraq from
Iran and Saudi Arabia (a weakness for which we are the cause) then it be
like Lebanon in 1979-83, foreign troops caught in a crossfire, trying
not to become embroiled in local feuds and national power struggles I think the ability of the United States to determine the outcome of this occupation ended in late June, and that our position became weaker on 15 November, and that we are about to dramatically compromise with Sistani's fatwa because we realize we have no other choice if we are to turn over sovereignty in June of this year. Posted by: Brian C.B. at January 15, 2004 07:47 PM | PERMALINKI just don't see the American public willing to pay the cost of what it would take to proctor the Iraqis as they struggle to learn (or deliberately fight to prevent the learning of) western style democracy. I see Iraq spending decades following a path similar to what has been happening in Iran over the last 15 yrs. And that, as you recall has earned the monicer part of the axis of evil I fear we will have paid a lot for not much progress. Posted by: Keith G at January 15, 2004 07:50 PM | PERMALINKRoger:
Granted; I was speaking of the situation in Visigothic Spain and in the Kingdom of the Franks in the 6th-8th centuries. My understanding of the Ottoman arrangement was they governed through communities based on religion and ethnicity. Yes, exactly. This was common throughout the Islamic world; the same thing happened in al-Andalus, for example. I think you could argue that the Enlightenment didn't happen in
Iraq; while it influenced political thought inside the Ottoman Empire,
Iraq was a provincial backwater. What "enlightenment" ideas came in were
brought by the British, and imposed by the governments of the twentieth
century; it's unclear to me - because i'm not an Arabist - how deep the
roots of those ideas run. My guess, from comparison with neighboring
states, is "not very deep".
A more interesting question is the assertion that the point was to create a liberal democracy. What happens if adoption of democracy demonstrates that the population rejects the fundamental beliefs of liberalism? This is one of the concerns liberals had before the invasion, and it's a serious one. The choices may actually be an illiberal democracy or a quasi-liberal semi-democracy (see, for example, the Turkish experience). Both have their pluses and minuses. Posted by: aphrael at January 15, 2004 07:56 PM | PERMALINKWillieStyle: I believe it's already been pointed out that family law for moslems in India is derived from sharia. WillieStyle: How are we going to do that, precisely? If the institutional mechanisms of the state aren't sufficient, what difference does it make what legal system is in use? *Puzzled look* Posted by: aphrael at January 15, 2004 07:56 PM | PERMALINKI believe it's already been pointed out that family law for moslems in India is derived from sharia. That's a bit of a stretch. Whatever the compromises in India's legal system, India is a predominantly Hindu nation with a Hindu Nationalist government. The strength of islamists there is hardly informative when considering Iraq especialy when one notes that the muslim/non-muslim conflict already happenned there decades ago with the creation of Pakistan. How are we going to do that, precisely? If the institutional mechanisms of the state aren't sufficient, what difference does it make what legal system is in use? *Puzzled look* My point is that the time to ensure that the instituional mechanisms
are sufficient is now, before we hand over power. How? Through the
Iraqi constitution. Through brokering deals with the more liberal local
leaders. Through massive mass media campaign. Through economic
cajoling. Through ice cream parties in the streets if we have to. What makes you think a constitutional provision which did not have popular support would survive the withdrawal of US troops? Posted by: aphrael at January 15, 2004 08:58 PM | PERMALINKbecause popular support can be manufactured. That's the very point of politics. The point is to keep the Sistanis out of the political driver's seat and the Attaturks in it. A constitution helps (but is not necessarily sufficient) in this regard. In any case, if you go the precise oppossite route and write Sharia right into the constitution, you're pretty much throwing the fight in the 1st round. Posted by: WillieStyle at January 15, 2004 09:11 PM | PERMALINKKeith, Brian- I respectfully disagree with regard to troops and money. I am sure that, if asked, an overwhelming majority of Americans would be opposed to a proposal that we station troops in Iraq for the next ten years. But Americans would have given a similar answer in May 1945 if asked whether we should station troops in Germany for the next 60 years. Ditto 1991 if asked whether we should station American troops in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia until the year 2003 to protect the corrupt and brutal monarchy there. People may oppose these things, but no one will ever actually do anything about it. It will never become an issue in any election or attract much attention. It might attract attention if our troops were to come under attack, but we can prevent this by putting them in desert bases. These bases are basically impregnable to most forms of terrorist attack. Nothing much has happened to our soldiers in Saudi Arabia and Kandahar for the past year, and Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are obviously crawling with terrorists. A Khobar Towers or Beruit embassy event is always in the cards, but frankly, those incidents were the result of our own stupidity and incompetence (this is especially true in the case of Beruit -- the Marines simply dropped the ball big time) rather than any inherent difficulty in defending such a position. The same goes for money. If we want to pour $10 billion into Iraq every year, people will be opposed to it, but no one will be spurred to action. We have an anuual budget of roughly $2.2 trillion and Iraqi foreign aid would represent less than one half of one percent of the budget. Most every policymaker, Democratic and Republican, understands that lots of foreign aid will help keep Iraq stable. For this reason, I think that we will be able to continue to contribute substantial amounts of foreign aid to Iraq. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 09:20 PM | PERMALINKNot one of the conservative commenters is willing to say the imposition of Sharia law would be a bad thing. Simply amazing. Are these the same guys who go on at length about the threat of Islamofascism and the inevitability of unintended consequences? WillieStyle - if popular support is 'manufactured', is it democracy? Posted by: aphrael at January 15, 2004 09:33 PM | PERMALINKWillieStyle - if popular support is 'manufactured', is it democracy? Yes. What do you think campaigns are for? Posted by: WillieStyle at January 15, 2004 09:44 PM | PERMALINKWillie- I totally agree with you, but don't you think that certain aspects of Islamic law might properly be part of the Iraqi legal system? I mean, I know that Islamic probate law is actually part of the Koran. I don't see any harm in having traditional Islamic jurisprudence govern things like inheritance and wills. Ditto for things like contract law. I actually took a course in Islamic law while in law school, and I can state from personal knowledge that Islamic contract law is pretty much identical to our own. Where things get difficult is in areas like divorce and criminal law. If the Iraqis want their criminal code to impose the death penalty for rape, as per the Koran, that seems acceptable to me. I don't approve of it, but it's hardly the first step toward theocracy. If a few rapists are executed instead of imprisoned for life, I know I won't lose too much sleep. But amputation as a punishment for theft? Now that is fundamentally inconsistent with modern norms of social justice and human rights. Ditto stoning for adultry (actually, this one is widely abused in Islamic countries -- I am familliar with the Koranic origins of this punishment, and it is clear to me that Muhammed was actually trying to make stoning for adultery a rare thing, but that is neither here nor there.) Still, don't you think it might be possible to work out some sort of system in which the system is loosely based on Islamic law, but doesn't include some of its most barbaric aspects? Certainly it could avoid giving petty tyrants despotic powers (i.e. ministries of virtue and vice and the like.) I see your point when you say that we need to take a hard line, and I am beginning to agree. But I still see no reason why Iraq can't be both Islamic and democratic. It should be possible to keep the fanatics in line. This is not to say that it will be easy, but don't you think it is possible? Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 09:57 PM | PERMALINKu libwuls dont understwand. shawia is gwate. shawia gives iraki women fweedom and democwacy. y due u libwuls hate fweedom and democwacy for iraqi women? y due u libwuls hate da gwate leeder george w bushe. if u dont support shawia u dont support god. y due u libwuls hate god? gwad is gwate. gwad chose our gwate leeder george w bushe to force all iraki women to live under shawia becoz gwad wants dem two. if dont support shawia u hate gwad. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 10:11 PM | PERMALINKJoe, who was President when Hussein gassed those people? Was America’s position to support or undermine him at the time? Did we fight a war subsequent to these atrocities? Assuming you understand the timeline, what was the result of that war? Has any other dictator massacred those he held sovereignty over with our support? Have we ousted all of them? What makes Hussein a special case? Can you explain this burning desire to avenge crimes of well more than a decade ago? Can you point to a graph of the number of people killed by Hussein’s regime over the last couple of decades? Where is the maxima? Was there some sudden spike that only you are aware of? These aren’t trivial questions. These are the kinds of questions that must be asked when we are spending the blood of our children to oust this dictator. S Wood, you might think to answer some of these questions yourself –
as you should be aware of some of the answers and how they might affect
rational discourse on the subject. Oh, and nice try, but if you read a
little more carefully you will notice that I was not disputing the
notion of there being 300,000 dead, only the dishonesty of calling there
deaths “executions.” Joe’s spin notwithstanding, Hussein’s actions
were those of a dictator putting down a disgruntled population, not mass
murder for entertainment. Yes, Lori, when Sadaam murdered his own people (or in your words, "put down an insurrection") it was ALL OUR FAULT! America sucks! Dean in 2004! Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 15, 2004 11:37 PM | PERMALINKlowi the us nefer supported suhdam. nefer. wiiee due u libwuls must lie about amewica? y due u hate amewika? gawd bwess the twupes and george w bushe. Posted by: al at January 15, 2004 11:53 PM | PERMALINKI do know Muslims, both immigrants raised in Muslim countries and Western converts, and none of them seem interested in living under shari'a. They generally favor religious adjudication of some specific issues, like contracts with their fellow believers, but not one of them wants to live under shari'a in all aspects of their lives. I have much respect for cultural diversity, but I agree with the Original Dads when they declared some rights universal. No system of governance that denies equal opportunities to women can be considered just or desirable, any more than a system that denies it to racial minorities, sexual ones, or any others. In practice, there will always be discrimination and injustice because we're a finite, fallible species. The whole point of having universal standards is that they remind of us of what we should aspire to, not what we feel we can settle for. Institutional commitment to standards that push the authorities to redress whatever discrimination there's been in the past are a Good Thing. I want to live in a world that's getting richer and healthier and more just and less damaging to the planet all the time. Part of that is not throwing away human souls just because they happen to fall into some category deemed expendable or at least optional. The women of Iraq matter as much as the men, and deserve nothing less than the same range of opportunities. (Furthermore, living in a society that institutionalizes this sort of
discrimination is, in the end, bad for those favored, too, on a moral
level. Look at how the legacy of slavery warped white hearts and minds
in the South for a vivid example. Men need not to be in a position to
reap the benefits of women's subjugation.) I have to agree with the other posters who, in essence, think Joe Schmoe is full of that commodity I spread around my garden. I was especially struck by the posts from aimai and willie. Right on, folks. To think that "liberal democracy" could somehow survive in any recognizable form with the mullahs having any role in the government is to believe in the good fairy. This is a no-brainer and I don't believe middle America envisioned any such outcome. As one poster put it, I suspect they were thinking Indiana. Unfortunately, I was and am extremely skeptical. I left part of my soul and some good friends in Vietnam. Later, Nixon told us, "peace with honor." That lasted about as long as it took the North Vietnamese Army to drive south. I fear Bush is going to give us something roughly akin to that, with the inclusion of the mullahs being the first crack in the dam. Much more to follow, of course, because who loves terrorists more than the mullahs? Sigh. Yet another half-assed foreign adventure, more lives and dollars spent in the pursuit of political wet dreams. The way you get away with bugging out whilst betraying the stated principles for going in (peace, freedom and the American way) is to accurately gauge when the American people are sick and tired of the whole mess and just want it to be over. Then, you can take off with the flimsiest of covers. We'll know soon, certainly within five years. The Democrats just might get their act together this year (doubtful) and make Iraq a significant issue. If they're effective, we'll bail from Iraq sooner rather than later. Bush knows his history, at least that part of it that contains the dreaded initials, "LBJ." If Bush survives this year, 2008 might be a very interesting year. Posted by: JT at January 16, 2004 12:18 AM | PERMALINKBasing the civil law upon religious law is A Bad Thing. The civil authority has no leverage on religious precepts. Religions are rarely democratic in theory or practice, so giving the mullahs or the priests the last say is tantamount to abandoning democracy. This point will largely be lost on those intent on establishing a theocracy in America, who believe, like the mullahs but unlike the founders, that the law is based on the revealed wisdom of our sacred texts. However, we're supposed to make our own decisions, not hand them over to an unquestionable authority. Religious law is the antithesis of democracy. Posted by: bad Jim at January 16, 2004 01:02 AM | PERMALINKEveryone's posts have been so interesting and so well informed, I"ve learned a lot from these posts--with the exception, of course, of Joe schmoe and Al. But I did learn something from Joe's post above (sorry I can't replicate it here exactly) where he argues that even though we were assured we wouldn't be in iraq a minute more than necessary (with a nod and a wink to a few months), and even though we were originally told it would cost only 1.7 billion dollars (andrew natsios) and even though we were told we would be welcomed as liberators by a grateful and comliant populace now we are to switch on a dime and figure that we will be in Iraq for 40 or 50 years, spending tens of billions of dollars and the main reason for that is a) we have to and b) our own democracy is so weak, our own populace so cowed and indifferent, that we don't even begin to care enough to fight about it. Like everyone else on the liberal side of the spectrum, with the exception of the war hawks, I predicted this right down to the "we're still in germany and japan" argument. Alas for our democracy when the joe schmoe's of the world willingly accept being lied to, being led by liars, and paying the credit card debt for a thriftless, corrupt regime while begging for them to kick us all again because, hey, democracies are like that. I reccommend to anyone interested a wonderful new review of Kagan's book on Thucydides and the peloponessian war. Its in this weeks New Yorker and it deals with the ways in which what was, for thucydides, a horrific war that dragged athenian democracy down to destruction morphs, in the hands of Kagan and other conservatives, into something very different. The turning point, as the reviewer sees it, is the way the slaughter of the Melians was a source of shame and grief to thucydides and to most previous commentators, but becomes a source of pride and a shrug of the shoulders (things happen in war) to the new conservative crowd. Schmoe and Al (not al) wants to take credit for victory, without taking the blame for failure. He wants the flowers of the populace, but he averts his eyes from the looting and pillaging of the country. He wants the reflected glory of the manly deaths of others, and he wants the rest of us to forget those deaths as politically uncomfortable for the president. What an indictment of democracy such a citizen is. That is rough, perhaps but this isn't all about personal feelings--there is a war on, a war of choice with some fairly unchoice results. I would admire Schmoe for standing and taking criticism except that he never learns from the other posters, or from history, and he seems to come here primarily to defend the indefensible so I have to presume that he is getting his kicks this way. aimai Posted by: aimai at January 16, 2004 06:14 AM | PERMALINKOh how we laughed, the day they announced the theocracy... a dark, sour cynical laugh. Posted by: Matthew at January 16, 2004 06:27 AM | PERMALINKAimai -- I beleive that in India it is possible to opt out of the Muslim family law code and into the Hindu Code. I'm not sure if one can opt out of the Christian marraige law, or the Parsi marriage law. And, as you probably know, the Muslim code does not apply to Muslims in Kerala (why, I don't know). So when you said that it was not possible to opt out of the religuious law code, perhaps you meant that it was not _practical_. An important difference. I can dig up some links to the relevant statutes if you like. Posted by: Ikram at January 16, 2004 07:07 AM | PERMALINKAmai, I actually agree -- Bush lied. He lied about the cost, he lied about the duration, and he lied about the difficulty. The reason why he lied is becuase our political process is still haunted by 1960's leftism and the ghosts of Vietnam. A not-insubstantial percentage portion of the American people are anti-American defeatists who do not believe in the superiority of our cvilizaiton -- even when confronted with the act of breathtaking barbarism and savagery we witnessed on 9/11 -- and are simply incapable of imaging that our military is competent and capable. It is necessary to lie to these people because they will not participate in a rational debate. Every proposal for war will be met with cries of "Quagmire! Vietnam! Haliburton! Imperialism! We Have No Plan!" It's like having an argument about abortion with the members of Operation Rescue -- there is no point. No one's mind is ever going to change. The pro-life movement is blinded by religious savagery and the sixties left is still trapped in the year 1968. Unfortunatley, the sixties left makes a great deal of noise and controls most of the media. For this reason I, and many other Americans, know that Bush lied, and wholeheartedly approve of his decision to do so. I know that Bush was simply trying to protect us from terrorism. And I respect Bush for having the guts to stand up and fight. Sadly, a great many Americans are simply too weak and too blinded by old ideologies to protect us. I want us to fight for our survival. I think that the Iraqi people deserve freedom and democracy. I believe that Americans are capable of effecting change in the Middle East. Sixties leftists have nothing to offer me on that score. What are they doing to protect us from terrorism? Their vapid mutterings about religious zealots here at home, calls to investigate sinster neocon conspiracies and love for Jaques Chirac certainly don't make me feel any safer. They are all talk. Bush is taking action. If the price of that is a lie, I am more than willing to pay it. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 16, 2004 07:10 AM | PERMALINKu libwuls still doant undwastand. dare is no gweater good den a lie bye our gwate leeder george w bushe. becoz hes fiting the tewawists. if our gwate leeder george w bushe does knot lie da tewawists will have wun. we kan knot let da tewawists win. bye lieing our gwate leeder george w bushe had destwoid da tewawists. gawd bwess da twupes and our gwate leeder george w bushe da destwoier ov all tewawists. Posted by: al at January 16, 2004 07:20 AM | PERMALINKI think that the Iraqi people deserve freedom and democracy. So do I, Joe: one thing at least that we agree on. But it doesn't look as if invading Iraq illegally and without any clear idea of what to do if it wasn't the cakewalk that Chalabi & Co promised, was any good road to freedom. Further, it seems clear that Bush & Co have their eyes firmly fixed on November 2004: they don't want freedom and democracy in Iraq, they want something they can declare "Mission Accomplished" over (again) and make it look good in time for the immediate run-up to the Presidential elections. If it crashes and burns thereafter, what does Bush care? He'll be in for another four years, or he'll be safely out of power and can blame the failure on his Democrat successor. As many people have already said, Joe, a more useful (and longer) method of achieving freedom for the Iraqis would have been to support an internal revolt - the same kind of action that Bush I walked away from in 1991, because Bush & Co then were afraid that a free Iraq would model itself on Iran. Bush is taking action, certainly. The problem is - what kind of action? Nothing the Iraqi people can count on as being in their interests. Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 16, 2004 07:25 AM | PERMALINKFor this reason I, and many other Americans, know that Bush lied, and wholeheartedly approve of his decision to do so. I'm reminded of an old button my uncle used to wear: "If the government doesn't trust the people, why doesn't it dissolve them and elect a new people?" Nice to see someone openly abandoning the principle of democratic government -- that's the way to spread our ideals around the world! Posted by: LizardBreath at January 16, 2004 07:27 AM | PERMALINKBad Jim, Willie- I have changed my mind. I don't have a problem if some elements of Islamic law are incorporated into the Iraqi legal system. Again, if they want to use Koranic probate law to govern what happens to your estate when you die, I don't have any problem with that. It doesn't threaten democracy and freedom at all. I also think that Muslim clerics are certainly going to have an influential role in a country with a population that is 97% Muslim and 50% illiterate. There is going to be a Muslim religious right in Iraq, without question. I am not too happy about that, but hey, Iraq is 97% Muslim, what do we expect? The only question is whether it will look like our religious right -- i.e. Jerry Falwell can raise money and endorse candidates, but that's basically it -- or whether it will look like the Iranian religious right -- i.e. institutional role in politics, ministries of virtue and vice, etc. The former answer is perfectly acceptable to me, the latter is not. Third, I think democracy and Islam are not incompatable. I am friends with several American Muslims, and while some are extremely conservative, all are prefectly content under our system. Finally, I think that many leftists do not sufficiently grasp the distinctions set forth above and will cry "Taliban!" the first time an Iraqi politician mentions Allah in a speech. They despeately want to make our reconstruction look like a failure. I recognize that there is a very big difference between Jerry Falwell and Mullah Omar, but it is all the same to them. But I do think there needs to be a strict sepreation between church and state. Modern notions of human rights and social justice must be embodied in the Constitution. This proposal is a threat to that. We aren't talking about basing the Probate Code on the Koran, or having mullahs run TV commercials urging Iraqis to vote for candidates with "traditional Muslim values." No. We are talking about creating a seperate set of courts headed by clerics. This gives them institutional power. It is a problem. I am not inclined to support it. It might be possible to make it work, but it does sound dangerous. It might be the first step on the road to sha'ria. One thing is for sure: I certainly don't trust the clerics. Sistani's claims that he is not interested in politics have always sounded like BS to me. Also, and this one is really signfiicant, I know that the Iranians and the Saudis are going to try to destroy the Iraqi democracy. They'll undoubtedly work through the clerics. This does appear to be the first step down that road. It's a problem. We need to stand firm against it. One interesting thing is that the Iranians/clerics would not be doing this unless they felt safe. The fact that they have suggests that we really are breaking the ba'athist resistance. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 16, 2004 07:30 AM | PERMALINKI see your point when you say that we need to take a hard line, and I am beginning to agree. But I still see no reason why Iraq can't be both Islamic and democratic. It should be possible to keep the fanatics in line. This is not to say that it will be easy, but don't you think it is possible? I think it's possible. Certainly all is not lost, yet. But the time to make it possible is now. I think the CPA is vastly
overestimating the influence it will have over the political process in
Iraq after July 1st. While Sistani was a useful force for
marginalizing Sadr's brigades, he is entirely too influential over the
process at this juncture. See Joe, I knew you wouldn’t be up to answering a few questions. I posed them in the hopes of getting you to think, but instead you responded with the simpleminded “you hate the fatherland” line so loved by, well, people exactly like Hussein. Why are you even bothering with political debate if you are unwilling to engage in the smallest amount of introspection? Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 16, 2004 09:38 AM | PERMALINKJoe, I always knew you were dumb, but these two sentences take the cake: "Bush is taking action. If the price of that is a lie, I am more than willing to pay it." So action - based on a lie - makes you feel safer? Shouldn't Bush - as a public servant - refrain from lying to us, his employers? If anyone is "just talk," it's you, Joe, because you spout off about democracy all the time, but your comments above make clear that you would not know democracy if it bit you on the ass. The same goes for your derision of the French government, which, after all, was acting democratically by reflecting the views of the overwhelming majority of its citizens (who were opposed to the war, no matter which poll you look at). Funniest of all, the French position was a lot softer (give Blix 12 more weeks) than the German (no support under any circumstances), but I don't hear you say anything about the Germans, who maintain the largest military force in the EU. Posted by: Commissar at January 16, 2004 10:02 AM | PERMALINKJust 12 more weeks...yeah, right. I'm so sure that if we'd waited until June, the French Foreign Legion would have led the charge into Baghdad. Uh-huh. I haven't mentioned the Germans because so many nations behaved shamefully that it is impossible to list them all by name. That said, I am somewhat more sympathetic to the German position becuase I believe their pacifism, however misguided, is sincere. The same cannot be said about the French. I don't think the French public was especially principled in their opposition; it all looked like a big anti-American hate fest to me. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 16, 2004 10:17 AM | PERMALINKWilliestyle Do you know of any secular Shia which could be brought into the political process which could short circuit Sistani? I have never read about this sort of thing. From what I have read, Sistani appears to be very organized and has a pretty good idea of what type of government he wants in Iraq. I am afraid that he might be the only game in town. Posted by: Roland at January 16, 2004 10:19 AM | PERMALINKWillie- I have never trusted the clerics. Unlike people like John Cole, I do not take their professed "aversion to politics" as face value. It seems obvious to me that they'll sieze power if they can. That said, I think the mullahs realize that they are in a precarious position. They can't count on their counterparts in Iran. The Iranian goverment is weak and might not be around five years from now. They also have to govern the Kurds and Sunnis, and those groups will not meekly submit to a mullahocracy. We won't tolerate one either, and if the mullahs were to have a howling mob of Iraqis storm the CPA compound, they can't ever know how we would respond to it. We might cut a deal, or we might put down the insurrection. The mullahs do, however, have everything to gain from working with us. We'll give power to the Shi'ites. We'll put down the Sunnis. We'll keep the economy afloat and pour billions of dollars into Iraq. If the mullahs simply go along with us, they'll be infinitely better off than they were under Sadaam. Why rock the boat? But the pressure on them from Iran and Saudi Arabia is constant and intolerable. Those nations are desperate to ensure that the reconstruction is a disaster. They must be constantly pushing the mullahs to bring down the democracy. For this reason, we can't ever trust them. They might well cooperate in the end, but they are not a reliable ally. Certainly it is foolish to take their statements at face value. One last thing: the mullahs also appear to be weaker than most people know. For one thing, there are rival mullahs. No one figure has emerged as the undisputed leader of Iraqi religious believers. Sistani appears to be the most powerful, but he has legitimate rivals. Also, how many fatwas has Sistani issued? How often has he condemned the occupation? What has been the result of this, exactly? I am not suggesting that he cannot make a lot of trouble, but the idea that his word is law seems to be patently false. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 16, 2004 10:26 AM | PERMALINK2 all u libwuls let me explain. george w bushee is da gwate libewator. he has fweed the iraki peeple frum da hated suhdam rejeem. da iraqi peeple luv our gwate leeder. da iraqi peeple due knot twust systany. da iraqi peeple due trust our gwate leeder george w bushee. day undastand dare is know gwater leeder den our gwate leeder george w bushee. dat is y george w bushee kan knot fale in irak. gwad bwess our twupes and george w bushee. Posted by: al at January 16, 2004 10:42 AM | PERMALINKIt is necessary to lie to these people because they will not participate in a rational debate. Every proposal for war will be met with cries of "Quagmire! Vietnam! Haliburton! Imperialism! We Have No Plan!" Joe Schmoe You know what I find most interesting about this tack? Other than the usual, 'waahhhh, it's the left's fault!'? We live in a representative democracy, a republic. The constitution says congress gets to decide to make war, and they OK'd the measure, although Bush made it clear his lawyers told him he did not have to get congress's permission. So here's the key: Bush does not need the permission of the American people to wage war (in practical terms -- he should have it in philosophical terms). At most, he needs it from congress. Bush has lock-step support from Republicans -- he would have gotten his war resolution passed no matter what his justification of the Iraqi Adventure was. So was Bush lying to the people because 'they can't handle the truth!' (in Best Nicholson shout)? Hell no. Bush could have, and indeed was, going to war regardless of what the people felt. He didn't lie to make the war possible -- he lied to make it popular. Think about that for awhile. This is not a Tom Clancy hero tough-guy move to do what's best for the people -- this is a crass political move to make George more electable. He lied about our national security for poll numbers. Not your fantasy land 'you can't handle the truth!' argument. Posted by: Timothy Klein at January 16, 2004 11:26 AM | PERMALINKJoe Schmoe I tend to agree with you in that I believe the Shiites have a lot to gain from the occupation. I can also see why Saudi Arabia might be opposed to a Shiite government on their border. I don't see why the ouster of Hussein is bad for Iran. The Gulf states spent a lot of money financing his war with the Iranians. While I don't subscribe to the notion that Sistani and company dance to the tune that Tehran calls, in the long run , the new government in Iraq might have a lot in common with Iran. The fact that the IGC seems to be willing to establish Muslim courts of law suggests to me that the "Mullahs" in Iraq are pretty powerful. If not, why not simply ignore them? At the moment, Sistani is not codemning the occupation in very strong terms. He may take issue with the lack of a direct vote or call for a demonstration or two, but I doubt he has much interest in confronting the US as long as the US is eliminating his political opponents. This might change if the US fails to recognize the Shiites in the new government. Posted by: Roland at January 16, 2004 11:57 AM | PERMALINK"Joe’s spin notwithstanding, Hussein’s actions were those of a dictator putting down a disgruntled population, not mass murder for entertainment." There is nothing dishonest about saying most of Saddam's victims were executed. Saddam's Anfal campaign targeted town and cities where no insurgent activity had been reported. This has been well documented by such organizations as Human Rights Watch. http://hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/ANFALINT.htm Whether you like or hate the US government's present Iraq policy, attempting to portray Saddam's brutality as merely being the actions of a dictator putting down an insurgency is a gross distortion of the facts, and is similar to the Reagan administration's spin on the issue when Saddam's abuses first came to light. Posted by: S Wood at January 16, 2004 12:16 PM | PERMALINKI don't see why the ouster of Hussein is bad for Iran. The ouster of Hussein isn't a disaster. But the replacement of Hussein with a modern democracy certainly is. There is a lot of unrest in Iran right now. There will be a whole lot more if a successful Iraqi democracy is established. This might change if the US fails to recognize the Shiites in the new government. Oh, we'll recognize them. Part of this is just ordinarly jockying for power. They want to get the best deal that they can. There is nothing wrong with that. And I agree that the mullahs don't simply dance to Iran's tune. For the reasons stated above, that would be a very stupid move -- The present government of Iran might be gone next year. The theocracy there might be toppled from within. We might invade (unlikely, but if they are on the verge of going nuclear, well...it wouldn't be pretty, but it certainly can't be ruled out.) The Iraqi mullahs would be crazy to throw their all of their eggs in the Iranian basket. The risks are enormous, and the rewards are low. Especially given that if they cooperate, we'll shower them with power, money, and prestige that they never enjoyed under Sadaam. That said, I know that the Iranians and Saudis are desperate for the Iraqi government to fail. Iran has had ties with the Sh'ite clerics in Iraq for decades. I am sure that they are putting maximum pressure on Sistani et al. The Iraqi clerics are walking a tight rope here. Also, I do suspect that some of the Iraqi clerics are ideologically opposed to a modern western democracy, and do indeed want a theocracy. Fundamentalist Islam is a force in the Middle East, and there is no reason to think that it does not exist in Iraq. Also, power corrupts. I've never met a high chuch offical -- a Catholic cardinal, a Protestant bishop, or a Mormon elder -- who wasn't at least a little bit drunk with power, no matter how much they might deny it. This isn't intended as a criticism, it's just a natural human reaciton. I think the allure of power will be impossible for many Shi'ite clerics to resist. Sistani is already succumbing. Others will follow. The real question is how much power they will be satisified with. If Sistani becomes a junior Pope John Paul, a spritual leader who seldom exerts his formidable political power (and when he does, it often falls on deaf ears, as happened when he opposed the war in Iraq), that would be fine. If, on the other hand, the mullahs are determined to enjoy a formal, institutional role in the Iraqi government....we can't tolerate that. Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 16, 2004 12:24 PM | PERMALINKJoe wrote: "If, on the other hand, the mullahs are determined to enjoy a formal, institutional role in the Iraqi government....we can't tolerate that." Based on that June pullout date and the necessity of a "positive"
outcome in Iraq for the 2004 election, that choice is no longer in our
hands. Aimai wrote: "I would admire Schmoe for standing and taking criticism except that he never learns from the other posters, or from history, and he seems to come here primarily to defend the indefensible so I have to presume that he is getting his kicks this way." Aimai, that describes Al pretty accurately, but Joe is a slightly different case. In Joe's case, he's been dramatically affected by 9/11. He's admitted that he is consumed by fear and that has affected his opinions, his way of thinking, everything. In his time of trial, he ended up turning to Bush, whose "manliness" and "direct action," and "firm resolve," and "fighting back" help relieve Joe's feelings of fear and helplessness. This is so much so, that he has invested literally everything in Bush and will not hear any criticism of Bush or of his plans. The war on Iraq is pure and good and will "win the war on terror," etc., etc. He will quite literally not see anything wrong with the Iraqi occupation, with its planning, its execution, its current state, not even when it's blatantly obvious. And, as you correctly note, he continues to try to defend the indefensible, even going so far as to blatantly ignore reality in his postings. Anyone who disagrees with him or points out the obvious that this isn't making us any safer and that we aren't any closer to "winning the "war on terror" just isn't seeing clearly, as far as Joe is concerned. He has faith and there is not one thing you can do or say to shake that faith. We're just devils who are trying to drag down America, as far as Joe is concerned. Read his stuff again with this in mind and you'll see what I mean: his happiness with Bush's lies, his statements about the people who are "simply too weak and too blinded by old ideologies to protect us," hell, even his ridiculously contradictory comments about the people of Iraq. It's sad, really. Posted by: PaulB at January 16, 2004 12:53 PM | PERMALINKS Wood, I asked a series of questions, including one concerning the timing of these atrocities and our real-time response to them as well as the result of the war that followed. But again: how many of the events are subsequent to the Gulf War? Why was there an emergency need, a decade later, to right these wrongs? What justified our sudden interest in the plight of people dead for a decade? Are these questions too hard to grasp? Are there too many to be bothered with? Or are you, like Joe, unwilling to consider even the slightest introspection? Don’t become confused: no one here is defending Hussein. But calling
this brutal campaign that targeted the innocent along with the “guilty”
executions is merely a way of trying to inflame passions where the
facts aren’t sufficient. 1. President Bush promised to liberate the Iraqi people, to give them freedom. is pretty upsetting. If 60% of Iraqis will be either no better off
(those who are religious already) or considerably worse off (those who
now are secular), Yes, certainly many Iraqi women would not be regarded as feminists. But I have never before heard an argument against human rights based on the person not being aware of the fact that she could have them. This makes me pretty angry. Now, I'm no expert on sharia law, but based on my reading it could be used to a) make divorce almost impossible for women while men could divorce at will, b) take away child custody from women who are divorced by their husbands, certainly after the children are a given age, c) make it necessary for women to have their father's or husband's permission to work or to travel, d) leave daughters with 1/2 of the share sons inherit at the death of a parent, e) make getting someone convicted for a rape impossible unless there are either four male witnesses or the culprit confesses; if neither is possible the woman can be punished for adultery which could mean lashing for unmarried women and stoning to death for married women, f) women's witness statements in court would have half the weight of men's and g) no woman could be a judge in court. It's also possible, given the interpretation that would be adopted, that girls as young as eight could be regarded as marriageable and that daughters could not refuse the candidate for marriage their father chooses. Even women of mature years would be subject to a related man's judgment on this. Now, if a woman wants to be judged according to this system I wouldn't try to stop it. But it's important for Iraqi women to have alternatives. Didn't Bush go into Iraq for freedom and liberation? -"Don’t become confused: no one here is defending Hussein. But calling this brutal campaign that targeted the innocent along with the “guilty” executions is merely a way of trying to inflame passions where the facts aren’t sufficient."- Pointing out that Bush used these crimes as one of many pretexts to invade Iraq (when it was politically convenient--no one cared in the 1980s when the events actually happened) may demonstrate quite well that Bush is a politcal opportunist, but is absolutely irrelevant to whether Saddam actually did execute large numbers of his own people. These are two separate issues and in fact HRW/ME has been attempting to charge Saddam with genocide--a word invented to inflame the passions--since the early 1990s, long before GWB became President. -"Joe’s spin notwithstanding, Hussein’s actions were those of a dictator putting down a disgruntled population, not mass murder for entertainment."- By the way, there is no confusion here. I consider Hussein a mass
murderer. You consider him 'a dictator putting down a disgruntled
population.' Echidnae, it's virtually the same set of people running Bush as the same set of people running Reagan. Under Reagan, these people supported the mojaheddin, whose one coherent philosophy was that they were against education and rights for women. (These kind of Islamists actually support a radical reinterpretation of Qu'ranic law that gives Muslim women virtually no legal rights.) These same people supported the anti-women government in Saudi Arabia, and re-instated the anti-women government in Kuwait, calling it "liberation". (Kuwait is now the only country in the world when women don't have the vote but men do. And yes, there are Kuwaiti suffragists demonstrating for the right to vote: but their fight for freedom and equality receives no support from the Bush administration.) I honestly think that these people simply don't see women - women are invisible to them. Yes, Condi Rice is a woman: I have no idea what she feels and thinks being part of an administration that considers freedom and equality for women to be unimportant - a matter for cosmetic speeches from Laura Bush, not a matter affecting serious policy. Read the right-wingers fulminations against Riverbend. There's far more naked hostility towards her than there is towards Raed: she is presented as a spoiled rich girl who doesn't appreciate being "liberated" - not as a woman in her 20s who has lost her job and is facing systematic discrimination, possibly for the rest of her life. I somehow feel this anti-woman hostility, this invisibility, ties in to the Pretty, Oh So Pretty thread, too. These are frat boys: privileged men to whom women simply don't matter. Still wondering how Ms Rice fits into this, though. "...Also, what did we have in mind when we invaded? I'm pretty sure I know what Bush thought it was going to be like, and I'm pretty sure he's wrong, but what did liberal hawks or others expect? The resurgence of more conservative Islamic movements have been gaining ground for more than a decade now, so this really should have been the forseen outcome, I think." Posted by: TOTL at January 15, 2004 11:35 AM ." To my mind, the resurgence of radically conservative (is that an oxymoron?) Islamic movements is the true justification for the war. They are the moral force behind the attacks on the WTC. Don't forget that there was an attempt to demolish the WTC in '93 (I think it was) by a radical Islamic group. In other words, the outcome of doing nothing about Islamic extremism was foreseen. The war is the beginning of an attempt to halt the spread of conservative Islam. In that narrow sense it could be called a religious war, but I don't believe it is a war on the religion of Islam, only on those believers who use it as an excuse to attack the western world. Politically, Iraq was simply the most obvious place to start, since it was seen by most of the rest of the world as a secular nation ruled by a bellicose tyrant. It would seem that our apparent lack of a plan of how to proceed after we won the war has had the unintended result of empowering the religious extremists we meant to forestall. The outcome is most definitely in doubt. Whether it should have been done differently, or at all, is now a question for the ages. 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