Rhinocrisy

Activist judges much?

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P.S. This has been a lazy week, I will readily acknowledge. Light on posting, thinking, brewing, brooding. I could protest innocence by reason of catastrophic weather-induced apoplexy: it dropped forty degrees in temperature here, this week. When your marrow is so chilled after several weeks of bliss (and you stupidly allowed yourself to hope), catatonia sets in quickly and firmly. But one shouldn’t make excuses. One should be a man of iron will and constitution, unmoved in a strong wind, relentless in the face of circumstance. I’m not willing to promise that, however: I’m sticking with the weather excuse.

Very interesting article in Asia Times (via Today in Iraq):

Recent meetings of the so-called Higher Committee for National Forces (a grouping of Iraqi resistance bodies) and the 16th Arab National Congress held in Algiers played a pivotal role in building consensus among various Iraqi communist, Islamic, Ba’athist and nationalist groups on several issues, such as the right of Iraqis to defend themselves against foreign aggression and imperialism, and the right of Iraq to demand a political process untainted by occupation and which reflects the uninhibited will of the Iraqi people for a pluralistic and democratic Iraq.

…

On this common ground, the central command of the resistance reorganized its activities, a key to which was merging mohallah-level (street-level) Islamic groups scattered in their hundreds across Iraq to work toward a common goal - defeating the occupation. In turn, these militias would co-opt common folk into their struggle, so that, literally, the streets would be alive with resistance.

Aware of this development, the US has accepted that no conventional military force can cope with such a resistance, and therefore similar mohallah-level combat forces are needed.

According to Asia Times Online contacts, these US-backed militias will comprise three main segments - former Kurdish peshmerga (paramilitaries), former members of the Badr Brigade and those former members of the Ba’ath Party and the Iraqi army who were part of the Saddam regime but who have now thrown in their lot with the new Iraqi government.

All three segments have already been equipped with low- and medium-level weapons purchased from various countries, including Pakistan.