In the Red Zone

PATRIOTIC ZEAL WATCH

We've heard it a thousand times:  if we act like the terrorists, then the terrorists win.  And though this may be clichéd, it's true:  Islamists use every abuse they can extract from Abu Ghraib, Guantanomo Bay and homeland calls to limit Muslims' freedom as proof that the United States has embarked on a crusade against Islam.  Unfortunately, many Americans seem intent on proving them correct.  According to USA Today, a nationwide survey of 715 people carried out by Cornell University found

44% favored at least some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans...The survey showed that 27% of respondents supported requiring all Muslim-Americans to register where they lived with the federal government.  Twenty-two percent favor racial profiling to identify potential terrorist threats.  And 29% thought undercover agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep tabs on their activities and fund-raising.

Now, I'm not sure that allowing feds to listen in on some Wahhabi imam exhorting his congregation to attack American interests--or to insure that zakat does not end up in the coffers of Hizb ut-Tahrir or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front--constitutes "restricting" Muslim liberties.  But requiring American citizens to register where they live?  I can already hear Osama chortling from his Waziristani bat-cave.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the poll discovered that "people who paid more attention to television news" were more likely to endorse measures to abridge the liberties of Muslim-Americans.  And giving credence to the Michael Moorian view of Red State America,

Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious.

Maybe these God-fearing patriots should ask themselves a question:  How can we ask our troops to sacrifice themselves in Iraq if we betray the values they're fighting for back home? 

UPDATE:  via Andrew Sullivan, Eugene Volkoh underscores my suspicion that the pollsters expanded the definition of "restricting civil liberties" in order to make a catchy headline.  But the fact that 29 percent of respondees favor Muslim-Americans registering their location with the feds remains deeply disturbing.

WSJ GOES IN THE RED ZONE

The Wall Street Journal reviews ITRZ--check it out in the "Week-end" section (registration required).  Also, the fifth and last installment of Chapter Four is up on National Review Online.

POLITICS OF GRIEF

During the Vietnam War, many activists sought to poison support for the conflict by denouncing veterans as “baby killers,” as if every grunt were one of Kerry’s “Winter Soldiers.”  Like other excess of the time, the taunting of traumatized young men returning from a war zone backfired, tainting the legacy of the anti-war movement.

How well they’ve learned.  Today, many opposed to the war in Iraq adopt the opposite approach—they “support” our troops, remind us of the sacrifices made by our fighting men and women.  The mainstream media keeps a running tally of fatalities (with a morose fascination of the 1000^th death), ABC News’ Nightline recites the names of the dead, while Michael Moore sells books comprised of correspondence from soldiers who feel betrayed by Bush.  It is an effective tactic, one that tries to set the Right’s support for the war in conflict with its propensity to lionize America’s warriors.  And depending on the context, it can be sincere, meaningful or—too often—deeply cynical.

This photograph shows a young woman holding her five month old baby.  The father of that child has never seen his daughter, nor will he.  Last April, First Lt. Doyle Hufstedler, 25, of Abilene, Texas, died when an IED near Habbaniyah destroyed his vehicle.  The photograph illustrated a recent Scripps Howard News Service story highlighting the fact that 900 children have lost a parent in our current conflict, including six mothers, leaving behind 10 children.  As we look at the joy on Leslie Hufstedler’s face, we admire her courage—grateful that it relieves us of experiencing the true depth of her pain. 

What the image doesn’t—and can’t—convey is why her husband died, for what purpose.  Photography—the visual media in general—is ill-suited for conveying the abstract thoughts and concepts that provide context for images.  The once-living soldier’s face, the flag-draped coffin, the brave war widow make us feel profound worlds of grief, but beyond that grief there is no narrative, no meaning.  Like a fetish, the image constantly returns attention to itself.

Opponents of the war know this.  They seek to decouple the conflict in Iraq from a larger narrative that might provide meaning to soldiers’ deaths.  Lacking their own narrative (during Vietnam, they claimed participation in global anti-imperialism; today, they are reduced to “No Blood for Oil”), they focus on images of sorrow and loss with accusatory, prosecutorial, intent.  See?  These are the costs of your war.  They are right, of course.  And thousands of grieving Americans, for whom no concept of duty or pro patria or “democratizing the Middle East” justifies their loss, agree.

And yet I wonder what effect the Left’s politicization of grief will have on our soldiers and, more importantly, suffering families.  Politics are by nature one-sided, and to use America’s sorrow as an attack on the Bush Administration is to transform that sorrow into an instrument of outrage.  When the guns fall silent, and the protesters move to other causes, outrage, too, fades away.  Leaving the bereaved with--what?

The Gettysburg Address, Sir Edward Lutyens’ monument at Ypres, Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial at Washington did not seek to diminish the war which claimed so many lives.  Instead, they sought to represent the tragedy of the soldiers' sacrifice, and in so doing connect us with something profound and deep in the human soul.  Political outrage, in contrast, reduces that connection to sloganeering.  When, after the Iraq War is over, we revisit Fahrenheit 9-11, will we still feel the anguish of Lila Lipscomb—the Bush supporter whose son was killed in Iraq—or will her grief seem tarnished, cheapened by the filmmaker's mendacious agenda? 

I have no real problems with the Scripps article, or with its use of Laurie Hufstedler’s photograph.  (The “People” magazine-ation of this war, however, is troubling). Rather, I have difficulties with what the website Daily Kos did with it.  “Another facet of Bush’s legacy,” Markos Moulitsas Zuniga posted over a link to the article and photographs accompanying it.  Yes, yes, j’accuse.  But the photograph is more than that.  It represents a widow's sorrow, softened by the promise of continued life.  To reduce that image to ideology is parochial, crude.  Zuniga’s lapse, of course, is minor (Michael Moore’s less so) and yet it represents, I think, the effects of much of the Left’s ”concern” for the troops:  tragedy exploited for political ends, grief diminished by ideology. 

Doyle Hufstedler died in a war that many of the people reading these words support:  To us, his death is honorable and tragic—and, because of that honor and tragedy, meaningful.  It is important that we keep these notions of honor and meaning alive in our thoughts and the in public discourse.  As Lincoln articulated in the Gettysburg address, how we judge a war’s purpose, in the end, determines whether we view our soldiers’ sacrifices as tragic and meaningful—or wasted and outrageous. 

UPDATE:  Blackfive lets us know the kind of response our soldiers are receiving today.  Indeed, this is not Vietnam.

VOICES FROM THE RED ZONE

I've asked my friends and acquaintances in Iraq to e-mail me stories and anecdotes about their lives.  This is a short post from Zena, a housewife and mother of three.  She tells us what it's like to attempt to fill one's car with gasoline in today's Baghdad.

The queue for petrol runs fives around the block.  There was one station here whose owners always observed "respect" for the female population of Baghdad who own and drive cars.  As in most Muslim countries, Iraq doesn't allow men and women to queue side by side together, so to our advantage, we women usually get ushered to the front of the line and fill up in less than five minutes.

But what happened?  The pressure was so intense among men waiting in line for hours, that they forgot the Islamic principle on which this understanding was founded and refused us entry to fill up.  I pleaded and explained that I have as much right to fill up my car as anyone else, and I don't mind waiting an hour so, but I will not sleep in the street overnight.  It didn't matter.  I was sadly turned away.  So what could I do but queue up at six that morning and hope they will let me in?  At the same gas station, we were told to line up in one street, and then after an hour told to go to the other street to line up.  But this caused all the people at the end of the first line to become the front of the second line, and at this point, you guessed it, I just gave up and went home.

Like the Iraqis say, "We live on a sea of oil.  How can this happen?"  How indeed?

RED ZONE DOWN UNDER

Finding its way south of the equator, In the Red Zone caught the attention of Australian blogger Arthur Chrenkoff, who was kind enough to review the book--and has now added to his graciousness by interviewing its author. 

CRUDE BUSINESS

Conservatives demanding Kofi Annan's head on a barrel of Basran Light Crude are outraged by President Bush's apparent support for the embattled U.N. chief.  Others, such as uber-blogger Glenn Reynolds speculates that the White House's seeming volte face indicates that W. either supports the U.N. chief or figures that a discredited Secretary General will prove ineffective in opposing U.S. interests.  But there may be an additional element that affects Bush's calculations:  the U.N. is turning the heat up on Uncle Sam's own oil scandal.

This week, the U.N.'s International Monetary Advisory Board (IAMB) released a report charging the U.S.-backed Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) with mismanaging the Iraqi economy.  The auditor's report accuses officials of, among other things, improperly "metering"--or measuring--oil production, losing track of oil resources, allowing smugglers to steal oil, "bartering" oil at below-market value rates, giving out non-competitive contracts and insufficiently controlling spending at Iraqi ministries.  It is the latest in a series of reports from the IAMB and other organizations that have cast doubts on the CPA's stewardship of the Iraqi people's wealth.

The money in question belonged to the Development Fund of Iraq, some $20.6 billion comprised of oil proceeds, Oil-for-Food money and frozen assets of the former regime.  While the IAMB concludes that all "known [emphasis original] oil proceeds, reported frozen assets and transfers from the Oil-for-Food Program have been properly and transparently accounted for," its reports raises two basic questions.  how much more money could the CPA have drawn from Iraq's oil resources had it applied stricter metering, accounting and security measures; and what exactly did administrators spend $20.6 billion on? 

December 10's Financial Times asserts that "hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenues may have been squandered," and notes that the CPA's inspector-general is "investigating 27 cases of alleged corruption by CPA officials."  Numerous payouts involved non-competitive contracts, such as a $1.4 billion deal with Halliburton to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure.  According to a report issued by the Open Society Institute financed by George Soros, "73 percent in dollar value of all contracts awarded using Iraqi funds" were not competitively bid.

As revealed in the FT's article, the CPA went on a spending spree two months before it handed sovereignty to the Iraqi interim government in June.  For example, nearly $1.8 billion went to Kurdish authorities who are now apparently in talks--assisted by Washington lobbyists connected to the GOP--to send part of that money to Switzerland.  An additional $1.8 billion went to various Iraqi ministries, while over $1 billion went to projects which were already funded by Congressional appropriations.

Ironically, those appropriations are one reason with the CPA opened the DFI checkbook.  Legislators placed so many guards against waste or misuse on the $18.4 billion Congress earmarked for Iraq's reconstruction, that administrators in Baghdad frequently found themselves ensnared in red tape.  Moreover, the FT notes, those taxpayer funds evidently fell under the control of the Pentagon, which "was reluctant to let them spend the money."  Indeed, CPA officials I spoke to in Iraq constantly complained that they couldn't move Congressional funds "into the field" because of oversight rules, such as demanding multiple bidders for even low-level projects.  "How can we find more than one Iraqi construction firm to repair a school or a hospital?" one told me.  "It's like the Pentagon has a 10,000-mile screwdriver and is trying to fine-tune everything we do with the money," another said.  In the end, it simply proved more expeditious for the CPA to use the less-scrutinized DFI account.

It's difficult to know what to think of this.  On one hand, neither the IAMB or any other agency so far has charged any person or group with embezzlement or fraud.  Then, too, the understaffed CPA was operating in a chaotic environment, in a country with no functioning banking system, where emergency situations often called for measures not in accordance with standard accounting practices.  But we are talking about monies desperately need by the Iraqi people, whose current safety and future stability lie in our hands.  It is a painful to think that millions, perhaps billions, of dollars vanished into accounting black holes when child malnutrition, unemployment, gas and electric shortages and sanitation and drainage problems afflict the country.

But there's another dimension to why the CPA felt compelled to raid DFI monies, rather than spend U.S. funds.  Of the $18.4 billion appropriated by Congress, only around one-third has been earmarked for projects, with just over $1.2 billion spent.  Senator Byrd could blow that much on West Virginia pork-barrel projects over the course of an afternoon; why is it so difficult in Iraq?  In some ways, the delay is analogous to the controversy over unarmored Humvees:  America, a country blessed with enormous wealth, seems unable to provide enough resources where they are needed most--the reconstruction of Iraq. 

We should remember, too, that despite their tactical disadvantages, the paramilitary gunmen in Iraq lack no shortage of weapons, nor do they have the same oversight restrictions on the $500 million in "unaccounted funds" from Saddam's regime, the untold amounts flowing from Saudi sources through Syria, or the $2.6 billion Saddam is said to have shipped to Damascus.  This doesn't excuse the CPA's spendthrift ways with Iraqi money, of course--just as the U.S. must abide by rules of combat, so too, it must observe rules of accounting.  The irony, however, is frustrating:  in fighting black-masked killers lurking in back alleyways, American forces must also contend with the green-eyeshade men sitting in highrise office towers.

WOMEN ARE THE ACHILLES HEEL OF ISLAMOFASCISM

The key to winning the War on Terror--whether in Iraq, Ridyah or the American homeland--is women.  Liberated women will sweep away the claptrap of religious fascism faster than you can say Scheherazade and relegate the mullahs of every denomination to the status of soap-box preachers.  And across dar-al-Islam today, we see the issue of women's rights beginning to shake the self-conception of Muslim world with a force unheralded since Napoleon sailed into the harbor of Alexandria.  Adding our voices to the revolution is one small way we can help bring about a release of new energies across the Middle East and beyond. 

With that in mind, I thought we'd periodically examine topics pertaining to women in the Middle East.  Starting with this small, but interesting bit of good news (tip of the hat to Professor Roth) from the BBC.  Over the last month the Beeb has featured on-line voices from Iraq, including Sarab al-Delaymi, a Baghdad housewife, who recently wrote

Women in Baghdad are traditionally more open than women in the provinces, but we've recently started to notice the emergence of a new type of more emancipated women in the provinces. Many women are becoming more engaged and active in political debate and some of them even occupy high administrative and political positions. This makes me and others hopeful of a better future.

Indeed.

(Unfortunately, not all observations from the Beeb's participants are so upbeat.  But scroll down and read what Sarab has to say about schools and teachers' salaries.)

The Beeb also informs us of a radical event occurring in Egypt.  Seems medical doctor and  sociologist Nawal Saadawi has announced her intention to enter next year's presidential elections, making her the first woman to run for the top post.  Although her candidacy has no legal standing, Saadawi intends it as an consciousness-raising act. "I am going to stand in the presidential election, not to win but to get the Egyptian people moving in favour of a reform of the constitution and to oppose corruption and"--adding the obligatory coda--"American colonialism."  (Interestingly, Saadawi's anti-colonial ire did not prevent her in the 1990s from fleeing with her family to the Great Satan when religious fundamentalist threatened her life.  After teaching at Duke University and Washington State University, she returned to Egypt in 1996.)

Ms. Saadawi is a controversial figure in the Land of the Nile: author of 27 books--mostly about women's issues--and a political prisoner under Sadat, in 2001 she gave an interview in which she denounced the veil and polygamy, accused religious leaders of being more concerned with sex than Allah and posited the shocking theory that the Hajj contained paganistic elements.  Her comments blew the turbans off Egypt's religious establishment, who charged her with sexual licentiousness in inciting women to immoral behavior, declared her beyond the bounds of Islam and ordered the state to annul her 37 year marriage.  Authorities eventually dropped the case, largely due to pressure from international observers. 

More seriously, human rights observers have criticized Pakistan's first-ever legislation against karo kari, or the horrendous practice of "honor killings." which take the lives of hundreds of Pakistani women each year.  On first glance the bill--passed the Congress but awaiting President Musharraf's signature--is strong, prescribing a minimum of ten year imprisonment and a maximum of the death penalty for murdering women deemed to have "shamed" a family.  But it also allows killers to escape justice through qisas--convincing victims' families to pardon perpetrators--or by paying compensation, called dyat.  Critics note that qisas and dyat favor the rich and powerful who can intimidate families through social or economic pressure.   

Why the loopholes?  In 1990, Pakistan amended sections of its criminal code to reflect the so-called Qisas and Dyat Ordinances of Islamic law.  According to Pakistan's Daily Star, any legislation that seeks to abrogate or work around the Ordinance will "most likely be successfully challenged in a court of law as being repugnant to the Quran and Sunnah."  Indeed, Pakistan judges have already ruled that the Qisas and Dyat Ordinance cannot be by-passed because they are "part and parcel of Islamic common law."  Take a deep breath and repeat after me, separation of mosque and state..separation of mosque and state...

Women's rights in Islam (and not only Islam) is huge, of course, and I've only presented a merest skimming of the news.  If anyone has any tips or issues they'd like this site to raise, please let me know.  Until next time, let us ponder the words of the Holy Koran:

He created you from one being, then from that being He made its mate. (39.6) 

SELECTIVE OUTRAGE WATCH

Happy Holidays from PETA

"For 249,000 lambs, eight million pigs and 750 million chickens, there will be no presents under the tree, no warm family gatherings, no happy new year," PETA TV informs the viewer, as images of cuddly--and no doubt doomed--creatures bound across the screen.  The message from the animal rights activists is, of course, to "go vegetarian" this holiday season.

Well, all right.  My own animal rights activist, Warrior Woman, tells me not to criticize PETA's position on this point, and I won't.  But I wonder, what is PETA's stance on  the Hajj?  The tenth day of the holy pilgrimage to Mecca is the Day of Sacrifice, or Eid al-Adha, one of Islam's biggest holidays.  Here, the faithful sacrifice a lamb, goat or other animal in order to commemorate Abraham's substitution of a ram for his son Isaac (or Ishmael, as some Muslims believe).  According to England's Channel Four news, Muslims during each Hajj slaughter some 700,000 sheep and 8,000 cattle or camels.  Some slaughterhouses handle 50,000 animals a day, with more than 28,000 butchers working for three days.

The religious directives for Udhiyah, or sacrifice, mandate that the minimum age for a sheep is either six months or a year old; one year for a goat, two for a cow and five for a camel (a female is prefered); no chickens or rabbits.  Muslims consider it Sunna--or in accordance with the actions of Mohammad--to keep one-third of the meat and donate one-third to the poor.  Since 1983, reports Channel Four, "the meat of 8.8 million heads of sheep, camels and cows has been distributed among the poor in Islamic countries including Bangladesh, Sudan, Senegal and Somalia."  The remaining third is given to friends and neighbors, making Eid al-Adha a joyous occasion for everyone. 

Well, almost everyone.  Zena, my Baghdadi housewife friend, was raised a Sunni in the U.K.  Whenever she or her siblings asked why their father had to slit the throat of a cute little lamb or goat, her parents answered "because Ali demands it."  Translation:  the Shia made them do it.  Said Zena, "All my life, I identified Shiism with killing little animals."  And people complain that Santa is a straight, white male who oppresses the workers.

Many Muslims decry Udhiyah and claim that neither the Koran nor the Hadiths mandate it.  In this way, they're doing more to protect animals from Islamic traditions than America's self-appointed guardians of the winged, pawed and hoofed.  Evidently, PETA feels the only animals worth activist efforts are those killed for Western holidays.  A search on their website for "Eid al-Adha" turns up only a single page on islamveg.com.  A search for "Hajj" also turns up one entry: something entitled "They Shall Not Hurt or Destroy" on a site called, ironically enough, jesusveg.com.

NRO GOES INTO THE RED ZONE

The National Review Online is kindly excerpting passages from "The 'Resistance'" --or Chapter Four of In the Red Zone.  If you're curious about my take on those ever-charming folks in the Sunni Triangle, or want a quick refresher, go here.  If nothing else, it will remind you of the moral imbecility of Michael "Minutemen" Moore and  Ted "Collaborators" Rall.

MEET THE NEW BOSS

Assuming the January elections take place with a reasonable degree of legitimacy--and barring untoward events--Iraq's new leader will almost certainly be Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.  Who is he?  What does he stand for?  Is he a moderate, a Muslim fundamentalist or, as some fear, a stalking horse for Iranian expansionism?  The picture we have of him is vague and contradictory and bears some analysis.

Born around 1953 (the date is uncertain), Hakim is head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.  Formed in 1982 by his brother Mohammad Bakr al-Hakim, SCIRI originally was an Iranian-based group of Iraqi Shia dedicated to overthrowing Saddam.  Abdul Hakim directed SCIRI's military wing, the Badr Brigade, which boasted from 5,000 to 10,000 men trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards--but whose fighting capabilities proved overrated against Saddam's troops in 1991.  When In August 2003, a car bomb detonating outside the Mosque of Ali in Najaf killed Mohammad, Abdul assumed SCIRI's leadership.

Despite their Iranian ties, both SCIRI and Hakim have walked a fine line between Washington and Tehran.  In winter 2003, for example, Iran--over U.S. protests--dispatched 5,000 SCIRI fighters into Kurdistan in part to extend its influence over northern Iraq.  According to The Secret History of the War in Iraq, by Yussef Bodansky, that February, Abdul declared that his Badr Brigade "is dependent on Iranian policy.  We abide by the decisions of the Iranian government."  He also declared that "Even if the regime in Baghdad is toppled, we will continue our resistance."  During the invasion, the Brigade obeyed Tehran's injunction not to assist Coalition forces against Saddam.

Still, SCIRI's contacts with Washington date back at least to 1993--and during the invasion, Mohammad Hakim cautioned his followers not to fight U.S. or British troops.  He also allowed Abdul to serve on the American-appointed Governing Council.  Indeed, SCIRI's moderate, or neutral, attitude toward the Coalition "occupiers" is a major reason for the relative calm of Shia-dominated southern Iraq.

Officially, at least, SCIRI still endorses Ayatollah Khomeini's concept of Velayat-e-Faqih, or rule by religious clerics.  SCIRI publications often laud Khomeini, as did many SCIRI members I met in Baghdad and Basra.  Over time, though, the group has evolved into a social service network, filling in gaps left by Saddam's fall and Coalition neglect.  The Badr Brigade, for example, rechristened itself the "Badr Organization for Development and Reconstruction." and in May 2003, a spokesman denied that SCIRI advocated an "Iranian style theocracy."  Observers expect that Hakim and his organization will continue to be influenced by Ayatollah Sistani's "Quietist" views, which oppose religious activism. 

Like most Shia leaders, Hakim has kept his cards close to his chest.  Nevertheless, he has indicated some positions.  Last February, he told PBS' Frontline,

We don't want an Islamic government.  We want a constitutional government that preserves the rights of everyone...To respect Islam is one thing, and to establish an Islamic government is something else.

Another issue is Hakim's position on federalism--or, to put it another way,.the Kurdish question.  The Kurds fiercely defend their semi-independent status, want little to do with the Shia conception of shari'a, or Islamic law, and have the best Iraq fighters to protect, or assert, their desires.  Hakim appears to waffle on this issue.  Speaking to Turkey's foreign minister last January, he opposed federalism based on an ethnic basis in favor of "a geography-based federal system;" at the same time, thought, he remained vague if Iraqi's new constitution would enshrine Kurdish rights.  Speaking to Iranian journalist last July, he stated that SCIRI believes "so long as a federal system would solve the problem of the Iraqi Kurds, it will be okay."  What "okay" means will come clear next December, when Iraq's new parliament draws up a permanent constitution.  How moderate Hakim truly is, whether his vision of Iraq includes granting rights to non-Arab, non-Shia minorities and how independent he is from Tehran--all this waits to be revealed. 

UPDATE:  Providing a solider's-eye view of Mohammad al-Hakim--and Iraq in general--is The Adventures of Chester.  Check out what he has to say here.