Iraq

Mark Twain’s description of the Grangerford/Shepherdson feud and James Webb’s Born Fighting take different perspectives on a tough, independent strain central to American culture. The Grangerfords give honor to Pilgrim’s Progress and Henry Clay’s speeches; they decorate with Highland Marys and graveyard art. Their religion (predestination and brotherly love, while the guns are left at the door) echoes that hardy angularity Webb likes. But, of course, gone wrong, this can also produce a feud of honor over a pig. Gone wrong, it isn’t honor but tribalism. Faulkner, a writer of mythic and complex sensibility, appreciated the power of the passion that underlies such feuds, one he describes as “the old fierce pull of blood.” He counters it with the great ability western thought encourages: an ability to see the “other” as human, (as, indeed, burning with a spark of divinity). This leads us to transcend our blood loyalties, move from revenge to justice, from blood loyalty to national loyalty. Seeing all others as our brothers – ah, that is the great gift our tradition has given us. Webb sees the broader, more self-conscious and rational values that also permeate that tradition. But that primal urge, that fierce pull of blood, is always a part of us, a prioritizing we cannot help but feel.

The power of the tribal loyalty Twain captures was fresh on my mind when I happened upon “Cousin Marriage Conundrum”. Steve Sailor argues that “the ancient practice [of consanguinty] discourages democratic nation-building.” Then he quotes Randall Parker.

Consanguinity [cousin marriage] is the biggest underappreciated factor in Western analyses of Middle Eastern politics. Most Western political theorists seem blind to the importance of pre-ideological kinship-based political bonds in large part because those bonds are not derived from abstract Western ideological models of how societies and political systems should be organized. Extended families that are incredibly tightly bound are really the enemy of civil society because the alliances of family override any consideration of fairness to people in the larger society. Yet, this obvious fact is missing from 99% of the discussions about what is wrong with the Middle East. How can we transform Iraq into a modern liberal democracy if every government worker sees a government job as a route to helping out his clan at the expense of other clans?”

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According to this news story, a high raking al-Queda operative has confessed to the bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad. He also claims that al-Queda has constructed about 75% of the car bombs that have been used in Baghdad.

AQ has been suffering from a loss of prestige so far as radical, murderous Islamo-Fascist terrorist groups go. This is probably some has-been blowing smoke to puff up his sense of importance. Sort of like those copycat serial killers who confess to crimes they didn’t commit so the cops will think they’re such big deals.

Still, he is a mover and shaker in AQ. There’s also no doubt that he’s one of the bad guys, a murderous punk with innocent blood on his hands. And it’s beyond question that he was captured in Iraq while up to no good.

But that doesn’t mean anything, right? It’s like all of those angry op-eds in the NYT told us. Saddam had nothing to do with terrorism, invading Iraq isn’t really attacking international terrorism, and the current attacks in Iraq are conducted by local “freedom fighters” trying to defend their homes without support from foreign terrorists desperate to prevent the formation of an Arab democracy.

So what was this al-Queda guy doing there? Uh…He was on vacation!

I hear that he was thinking of going to Disneyworld instead, but he looked like a geek in those mouse ears.

I’m never sure what to make of things I read at Debka. Some of the time, it appears to be little more than rumor mongering. At other times, it’s been accurate. That said, this is interesting:

Richard Armitage performed his last major mission before stepping down… This mission took Armitage to Damascus with nine American demands:

1. Start repealing Syria’s 40-years old emergency laws.
2. Free all political prisoners from jail.
3. Abolish media censorship.
4. Initiate democratic reform.
5. Speed up economic development
6. Cut down relations with Iran.
7. Announce publicly that the disputed Shebaa Farms at the base of Mt. Hermon are former Syrian territory.
8. Hand over to US or Iraqi authorities 55 top officials and military officers of the former Saddam regime, who are confirmed by intelligence to be established in Syria and running the guerrilla war in Iraq out of their homes and offices.

Then Bush lays the big stick on the table:

9. Syria had better make sure that none of the Kornet AT-14 anti-tank missiles which it recently purchased in large quantities from East Europe turn up in Iraq. US intelligence has recorded their serial numbers to identify their source.

Just in case any are found in Iraq, General Casey, commander of US forces in Iraq has already received orders from the commander-in-chief in the White House to pursue military action inside Syria according to his best military judgment.

This is fascinating and probably necessary. Bashir Assad learned much from his father Hafez. Chief among the lessons learned at daddy’s knee was the value of a skillfully executed proxy war. The Syrians have been waging a proxy war against Israel, via hamas, for over 20 years. Of course, they’ve also occupied Lebanon for 30 years, but since they’re not Americans or Jews, the UN and EU don’t really seem to mind. Move along, nothing to see here.

Proxy wars have two chief advantages for the sponsor:

1. Plausible deniability.
A) You’re being attacked by guerrillas and terrorists? Why that’s terrible!
B) Where could they be getting those rockets and mines? We have no idea.
C) Where are they getting their funding? Swiss bank accounts? Got us.

2. It’s highly effective. For minimal cost, your opponent can be attacked relentlessly. Each attack may be, in itself, militarily insignificant. But it erodes morale and political support. Death by a thousand cuts.

Clearly this is the strategy, the proxy war, that the Syrian Ba’athists have pursued against the US in Iraq. Having pursued it virtually without cost against the Israelis for decades, it was natural the method would present itself as first choice to confront, hamstring and confound those damned Yankees next door. We’ll make their life a living hell, and if accused, we’ll dust off our halos and feign outrage that our unassailable moral character could be questioned. Perfect!

Except for one little flaw. One tiny little oversight in Bashir & Co.’s perfect plan. The US is not Israel. Whatever level of escalation the Syrians can threaten in Iraq pales – no, dwindles to nothing – in comparison to the punishment the US can inflict on Damascus and its surrounds in a single night of conventional high intensity bombing. A couple of weeks of it might just give them a whole new outlook on things.

At the risk of degenerating Chicagoboyz into Fox or CNBC, let’s note CBS reports a verdict at Ford Hood, where

Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., the reputed ringleader of a band of rogue guards at the Abu Ghraib prison, was convicted Friday of abusing Iraqi detainees in a case that sparked international outrage when photographs were released that showed reservists gleefully abusing prisoners.

This CBS story, like most, doesn’t give the context to help us pass the test at the Mudville Gazette. However, it does seem to purposely mislead and choose interesting phrasing in an attempt to blow CBS’s horn. “The deck was stacked against him once charges were filed, especially after his supervisors refused to back him up” their legal expert notes. A network enamoured of “cover up” chooses “back him up” here?

Apparently the jury decided men in their thirties were capable of choosing evil on their own. It saw neither noble savages nor a need for aluminum tinfoil beanies.

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Since the removal of Saddam Iraq has been compared to several different countries in order to put the situation there in context. Most named post-WW II Germany and/or Japan, while some others came up with South Korea just after the Korean war. I don’t think that these comparisons really fit, for a number of reasons, and for my own part nominate South Africa as the closest if by no means perfect fit:

– Iraq and South Africa alike are basically are Third World countries with some modern parts

– both countries were ruled by privileged minorities, and denied freedom and rule of law to the vast majority, with the predictable consequence of widespread lawlessness

– the population of Iraq and South Africa is mostly very young, which unfortunately means that they have to accept a pretty high baseline of violence, for the number of teenage boys and men in their twenties is one of the most important indicators of violent crime.

– both are in transition, especially as their institutions are concerned, which makes it harder than it otherwise would be to impose rule of law

– the population of both countries is made up by rivalling ethnic groups and of roughly the same size

I think that compared to these similarities the religious affiliation of their respective populations is quite irrelevant. For example, the behavior of the inhabitants of the slums of Djakarta, Durban or Calcutta very likely would not differ all that much from that of those of Sadr-City in Baghdad, given a large foreign force within shooting range, and with extremists agitating among them and handing out weapons.

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