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Michael Barone has an excellent antidote to the unending stream of nattering negativity on the Iraqi reconstruction.
What is remarkable about our occupation of Iraq is not that it has gone badly but that it has gone so well. Last week, crude oil production was above target level, the central bank signed up for the payment system used by central banks internationally, and 140,000 Iraqi police and law enforcement officers were on duty. A new Iraqi currency is circulating, and schools are open. Wages are rising, interest rates are falling, businesses are opening and hiring. Millions of Iraqis are buying cellphones, TVs, and satellite dishes. Attacks on Americans have greatly diminished, and attacks on Iraqis are likely to turn them against terrorists rather than against us.
Just so. The opponents of American intervention of Iraq have consistently played the expectations card. Rather than measure results of the war and reconstruction against any realistic yardsticks, they instead set impossibly high standards, and then carp when they aren’t met, or move the goalposts whenever the good guys achieve the nearly impossible.
The war itself was a stunning victory, unparalleled in the history of the world in the speed and precision of the coalition campaign, but throughout the fighting the Save Saddam types which populate the Democrat Party in the US, the BBC, and most establishment media, would have had us believe the coalition was on the brink of disaster and quagmire.
The reconstruction is following a similar pattern. Miracles are being accomplished on the ground in Iraq, but you won’t see any of it acknowledged by the anti-Americans in the establishment media or political opposition.
My advice? Study history. Don’t fall into the expectations game. Think about what needs to be done, and you will marvel at the speed and effectiveness with which it is being done.
Sure, the reconstruction hasn’t been perfect, but nothing in this world ever is. What is certain is that the Iraqis are much better off today because Bush and his coalition have forged ahead. Just remember, if the opponents of the Bush policy had their way, Saddam would still be ruling Iraq, Iraqis would still be subject to rape, murder, and torture, and Iraqi oil money would still be flowing to terrorists and their sympathizers. That, not some paradisical utopia, is the true benchmark for evaluating the Iraqi situation.
Some of those opposed to the military ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime, such as libertarian isolationists like Jim Henley, for instance, have repeatedly maintained that there was little or no regular and operational contact between the unlamented dictator and operatives of al-Qaeda and other radical islamist forces. The lack of a clear link remains a central plank of opposition to George W. Bush’s doctrine of going after regimes which sponsor terror. At most, such critics contend that the Iraq links were no more than low-level and no justification for military action. Of course, much of the evidence for a link prior to 9/11 was circumstantial at best.
Well, if it were the case that no link existed, why did the statement purporting to be from al-Qaeda after the Madrid atrocities make such a big deal of Spain’s involvement in the Iraq liberation, when, according to the naysayers, Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda? In fact, the Islamo-fascists seem more convinced of a common cause with the fate of Saddam and his regime than antiwar types seem to do. Curious.
Of course, it may be that the islamists are opportunists, perceiving that anything that can sow discord between European nations and between Europe and the US is a good thing. It may also be the case that the islamists believe that any incursion by western, secular forces into a region they deem off-limits is a dishonour to them, and hence justification for retaliation. They obviously do not extend their islamic embrace to Shiite muslims, whom they have massacred in the hundreds.
Even so, the very fact that the Iraq and Afghan operations were mentioned as ‘justifications’ for the Madrid massacres ought to give pause to those who claim that those countries’ regimes had had no direct connection to islamist forces. Ousting the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were two major blows against fundamentalist terror. The terrorists know this better than anyone, which is why the message coming out of Spanish politics today is so troubling.
While the terrorists were busy in Spain, the ‘militants’ have been at work in Israel:
A double suicide bombing in the southern Israeli port area of Ashdod has killed at least 11 people.
A Palestinian militant had entered the port and asked for water – and the moment he was shown where there was a tap “he blew up” – an employee of the port quoted one of his injured colleagues as saying.
Well, there is no reason why the work of terrorists should disrupt the busy schedule of ‘militants’ is there? Mind you, these trade unionists agitating for better working conditions have got a very strange way of going about it.
The oil-for-food scandal keeps bringing up some interesting although by no means surprising evidence that the program was corrupt.
A letter has come to The Wall Street Journal supporting allegations that among those favored by Saddam with gifts of oil was Benon Sevan, director of the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food Program. As detailed on this page on Feb. 9, Mr. Sevan’s name appears on a list of individuals, companies and organizations that allegedly received oil allocations or vouchers from Saddam that could then be sold via middlemen for a significant markup. The list, compiled in Arabic from documents uncovered in Iraq’s oil ministry, included many of Saddam’s nearest and dearest from some 50 countries, including the PLO, pro-Saddam British MP George Galloway, and French politician Charles Pasqua. (Messrs. Galloway and Pasqua have denied receiving anything from Saddam.) According to the list, first published by the Iraqi daily Al Mada in January, Mr. Sevan was another beneficiary, via a company in Panama known as Africa Middle East Petroleum, Co. Ltd. (AMEP), about which we have learned quite a bit.
There is more and the evidence is mounting. As Claudia Rosett puts it in her NRO guest comment:
U.N. officials have denied that this tidal wave of graft in any way seeped into their own shop, or that they even had time to notice it was out there. They were too busy making the world a better place.
Read the whole thing as they say. It appears that there is a positive side to totalitarian regimes… they are sticklers for bureaucracy and record-keeping.
Via Instapundit.
Iraq’s US appointed ‘governing council’ has produced a deal on a new national constitution which was described by a Kurdish delegate as one of the most liberal and progressive documents of its kind to have been produced in the Middle East
A coalition official said the charter sets a goal, not a quota, to have at least 25% of the national assembly made up of women. It also includes protections for free speech, religious expression, freedom of assembly and due process.
Free speech and religious expression? Due process? No quotas? At this rate Iraq may end up with a more (classically) liberal constitution that several quota addicted regulatory western nations I would mention. No, not really, as the whole ‘Islamic dimension’ rather precludes that.
There is a long way to go and the devil is not just in the details but the implementation. Nevertheless, this is a very big step in the right direction.
After reading this article you will no doubt sense a bit of hostility towards Senator Kerry from young Iranians:
We have read how you refer to the theocratic regime in Iran as a ‘democracy’ we have heard how, if elected, as the president of the United States you intend to ‘engage’ this barbaric regime; this very terrorist regime that your own State Department lists as the most active ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’.
Why is it, Senator, in all your statements, you don’t, even once, mention the oppressed and suffering masses of Iran? Obviously, as long as there is such preoccupation with appeasing the regime the people of Iran don’t even enter your equation!
These are among the less heated statements about Kerry’s plans to work closely with terrorists or ‘engage’ them if you will. I really would be interested in knowing what new set of american values he intends to institute. Like the Iranian students, I cannot see how any existing ones would apply.
I can think of all manner of intriguing discussions could be sparked off by this report in the UK Sunday Times:
MORE than 14,000 white Britons have converted to Islam after becoming disillusioned with western values, according to the first authoritative study of the phenomenon.
Some of Britain’s top landowners, celebrities and the offspring of senior Establishment figures have embraced the strict tenets of the Muslim faith.
The trend is being encouraged by Muslim leaders who are convinced that the conversion of prominent society figures will help protect a community stigmatised by terrorism and fundamentalism.
The new study by Yahya (formerly Jonathan) Birt, son of Lord Birt, former director-general of the BBC, provides the first reliable data on the sensitive subject of the movement of Christians into Islam. He uses a breakdown of the latest census figures to conclude that there are now 14,200 white converts in Britain.
Speaking publicly for the first time about his faith this weekend, Birt, whose doctorate at Oxford University is on young British Muslims, argued that an inspirational figure, similar to the American convert Malcolm X for Afro-Caribbeans, would first have to emerge if the next stage, a mass conversion among white Britons, were to happen.
The faith has made inroads into the Establishment. It emerged this weekend that the great-granddaughter of a British prime minister has converted. Emma Clark, whose ancestor, the Liberal prime minister Herbert Asquith, took Britain into the first world war, said: “We’re all the rage, I hope it’s not a passing fashion.”
I rather hope it is but my ambitions are irrelevant. The question is whether this is just a conversion du jour among people with a God-shaped hole in them or whether this is the start of Islam making serious inroads into native British society. If it is the latter then it certainly has some way to go. Out of a population of some 59 million or so, I don’t think a mere 14,200 could be called statistically significant.
The more interesting question for me is not in the number of conversions but the type and class of the converts. Assuming the article is accurate, the overwhelming majority of the converts are among (for want of a better term) the ‘rich and famous’. Now why is that, I wonder?
And just how different from the history of Christianity in these Islands which took hold in Roman Britain as very much a working-class movement and which filtered up to the ruling elites.
The article contains a tantalising clue:
Many converts have been inspired by the writings of Charles Le Gai Eaton, a former Foreign Office diplomat. Eaton, author of Islam and the Destiny of Man, said: “I have received letters from people who are put off by the wishy-washy standards of contemporary Christianity and they are looking for a religion which does not compromise too much with the modern world.”
This makes it sound as if these people are seeking a refuge. Perhaps this growing interest in the Islamic faith is more a variation on the post-modern/anti-progress/green politics which appear to be popular among the the very same people. Who knows?
Having said all that, I think it reasonable to at least postulate that the collpase of the Church of England has got something to do with this. From being the bedrock of national faith and the morally certain religion of empire, the CofE has shrivelled into a comically ludicrous NGO presided over by an Arch-Hippy. In other words, it has gone and shot all its own credibility in the head and is no longer in any position to offer anything to people for whom DVD players and all-night shopping are not enough.
Because of this decline, a lot of people rather assume that Britain is a post-religious country that has abandoned faith and embraced secularism as the national doctrine. But maybe that is not so. Maybe the ruination of the Church of England has simply left a vacuum waiting to be filled and a great spiritual thirst needing to be slaked.
The ballot boxes are the coffins of freedom. We will not take part in the funeral of freedom.
– A text message circulating on Iranian mobile1 phones yesterday
1 = US: cell phone
This news has been around bits of the blogosphere but it is still shocking enough to write about a week later.
When linguist Sibel Dinez Edmonds showed up for her first day of work at the FBI, a week after the 9-11 attacks, she expected to find a somber atmosphere. Instead, she was offered cookies filled with dates from party bowls set out in the room where other Middle Eastern linguists with top-secret security clearance translate terror-related communications.
She knew the dessert is customarily served in the Middle East at weddings, births and other celebrations, and asked what the happy occasion was. To her shock, she was told the Arab linguists were celebrating the terrorist attacks on America, as if they were some joyous event. Right in front of her supervisor, one translator cheered:
“It’s about time they got a taste of what they’ve been giving the Middle East.”
It gets worse.
When Edmonds reported the incident and other breaches in security, mistranslations and potential espionage by Middle Eastern colleagues she was fired “without specified cause”. Edmonds’s supervisor, “a naturalized U.S. citizen from Beirut” reportedly told his employees to take long breaks, to slow down translations, and to simply say no to those field agents calling us to beg for speedy translations so that they could go on with their investigations and interrogations of those they had detained.
The FBI, which like the army suffers from a severe shortage of Arabic translators, instated a bureau-wide Muslim-sensitivity training program after 9-11. Edmonds is said to have detailed these allegations further in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. Edmonds wrote Justice’s Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in a Jan. 5 letter.
I have alleged, and the FBI has confirmed (to Senate investigators), that there are in fact such persons in the language department.
I do not know whether these allegations are true, but I have no reason to doubt their validity. I have no problem believing that a government agency swamped with bureaucracy and with departmental biases can foster such shocking behaviour within its ranks. An allegded shortage of arabic translators seems to have opened floodgates to greedy and hostile behaviour of the Middle Eastern linguists in residence whose allegiances cannot be doubted.
Any chance of a more appropriate ‘sensitivity training’? Once more, without feeling…
It seems to me that the latest suicide bombings in Iraq, targeted at Iraqis nascent army, should be met with a blizzard of public relations aimed not at minimizing the horror of what happen but rather making it clear that the perpetrators are trying to play the Iraqi people for fools.
Certainly seeking to play one section of Iraqi society off against another is potential a highly effective strategy for the bag guys. However by making the revelations such as the one Dale wrote about yesterday as widely known as possible within Iraq, this could be turned around in a most interesting fashion and perhaps used to promote a sense of solidarity within Iraq againt the Al-Qaeda/Ba’athist hardcore.
Perhaps the propaganda war will be the decisive battle in this struggle and paradoxically publicizing the enemy’s views as widely as possible might be the Allies trump card. By their own words they are revealed. Now let them be reviled for them.
Sections of a seventeen page letter likely written by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants, have been published in the New York Times. Terrorist leader al-Zarqawi bemoans the lack of support in Iraq:
“Many Iraqis would honor you as a guest and give you refuge, for you are a Muslim brother,” according to the document. “However, they will not allow you to make their home a base for operations or a safe house.”
Other quotes show how he sees more difficulty in the future:
“The problem is you end up having an army and police connected by lineage, blood and appearance,” the document says. “When the Americans withdraw, and they have already started doing that, they get replaced by these agents who are intimately linked to the people of this region.”
“We can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases.”
“America, however, has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes.”
“By God, this is suffocation!”
More ominously, he talks of his desire to incite sectarian warfare. He would see tens of thousands of Iraqi’s die for his macabre politico-religious goals:
“So the solution, and only God knows, is that we need to bring the Shia into the battle,” the writer of the document said. “It is the only way to prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and us. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis who are fearful of destruction and death at the hands” of Shiites.
“You noble brothers, leaders of the jihad, we do not consider ourselves people who compete against you, nor would we ever aim to achieve glory for ourselves like you did,” the writer says. “So if you agree with it, and are convinced of the idea of killing the perverse sects, we stand ready as an army for you to work under your guidance and yield to your command.”
There is just too much of value in this story to convey without redoing the entire article. It is well worth the time to read the entire thing.
I have also intentionally left out a few very interesting admissions…
Amidst the voluminous analysis and comment about the Middle East, the part it played in the Cold War seems seldom mentioned of late. But, from the 1950’s right through to the end of the 1980’s, the Israeli-Arab conflict was, at least in part, an important Cold War battlefront, fought out between two proxy antagonists.
But, everything old is new again:
The primary goal of the EU is the internationalisation of the conflict in order to underline the need for its own mediating role. Here is the prevailing European view: The longer the conflict continues and the deeper it gets, the more evident is the incapability of the US to moderate a peace process. The EU thus concludes that both sides are in need of – ironically speaking – the good uncle from Europe to resolve this conflict with European democratic and ecological values, its welfare state and civil society. How good for both sides that there is Europe and how bad for the world that one side, and this is Israel, is affording a wild west type of policy in the style of the US.
The need for a solution only exists as long as the war continues. This is why the EU does not want the conflict to end before it gains a major role. And this is why the EU does not wish the PA to give up too early and why the EU is strengthening the PA. The EU is getting up to the cynicism of stirring up a conflict that it supposedly wants to see resolved by financing one side. This is the inherently inhuman purpose of EU humanitarian aid in the region. The Palestinians are playing the ugly role of being the cannon fodder for Europe’s hidden war against the US. It can be noted on the sidethat this is not considered an anti-Arab policy by those who otherwise easily use this word.
This is an excerpt from a longish but thoroughly fascinating article written by German Green MEP, Ilke Schroder. If she is correct (and I must say that the facts on the ground do somewhat bear her out) then it appears as if the European Union has stepped into the role once played by the old Soviet Union.
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