Rhinocrisy

One in every 6.5 Iraqis is now a refugee (4.2 million out of 27.5 million). Normally that .5 would be a statistical artifact, but in this case, partial people are among the escapees. Which means that maybe the 800 allowed into the U.S. since 2003 made up as many as 1,600 individuals, if the statisticians were counting blown-up people as 1/2 a person each. Which would be very good news since that would mean we had let in 1 out of every 2,625 refugees, rather than just 1 in every 5,250. That would be cheery news, and I haven’t had any of that since the whales escaped Sacramento.

We’re all Abu Ghraib guy. Hooded and muted, afraid to move.

We who oppose The War, the great global death worship of all against all from Sierra Leone to Kashmir to Utah, “The War itself as tyrant king,” we are terrified of the big pronouncement, the demand for what we and our families need, the truly human statement that we have a better way to do things.

I don’t mean a program, a manifesto, a six-point plan. I mean a diagnosis and the simplest prescription

Patient: Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I go like this.
Doctor: Try not ramming that pitchfork into your forehead.

We don’t just need to “get out of Iraq” or “elect Ciro Rodriguez” or “stop the war machine.” We need to give up the empire.

By comparison, here’s what we’re up against. Yesterday, hours after it came out that the Saudi ambassador had gone home to “spend more time with family,” Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wrote a column in which he laid out a scenario he said is supported by some Washington “hawks” (more accurately vultures). They want to create a pro-U.S., Shia-dominated country or group of countries in control of Iraq, Iran, and the oil-rich north of Saudi Arabia.

We hate the Saudis and the Egyptians and all the rest of the standing Arab governments. But the Iraqi Shi’a were oppressed by Saddam. So they’ll like us. So we’ll set them up in control of Iraq. You might think that would empower the Iranians. But not really. The mullahs aren’t very powerful. And once the Iraqi Shi’a have a good thing going with us. The Iranians are going to want to get in on that too. So you’ll see a new government in Tehran. Plus, big parts of northern Saudi Arabia are Shi’a too. And that’s where a lot of the oil is. So they’ll probably want to break off and set up their own pro-US Shi’a state with tons of oil. So before you know it, we’ll have Iraq, Iran, and a big chunk of Saudi Arabia that is friendly to the US and has a ton of oil. And once that happens we can tell the Saudis to f$#% themselves once and for all.

This scenario gained credence today with this N.Y. Times story, “Saudis Say They Might Back Sunnis if U.S. Leaves Iraq.” Those of us with critical faculties might find it hard to imagine the U.S. voluntarily signing up to fight a proxy war against Saudi Arabia, the Iranian mullahs and Iraq’s Sunnis, while also trying to hold off the depredations of anti-American Shiite Moqtada al-Sadr. Then again, we probably wouldn’t have set up the baroque lunacy of the Arms-for-Hostages deal, which involved our new Secretary of Defense.

While we fiddle and diddle, the people who started the war — people who might share this insane, bones under the tread of tanks babies with bloated bellies child amputee rape rape power drill to the forehead vision of the future — try to convince the world they’re the sane ones, that no one questioned the War (the 15 million on Feb. 15 (as important a date as March 19) 2003 were ghosts and figments, easily canceled noise against a signal of necessity to kill, maim, wreck) and no one truly questions it now.

The latest CBS News poll gives me hope that their magical thinking is running out. 21% of U.S. poll respondents say Mr. Bush is doing a good job in Iraq. That represents 60 million people, which sounds like a lot until you recall that just as many believe that justice was served in the O.J. Simpson trial, approve of how the Catholic Church handles pedophilia and think the killing of civilians in Vietnam was “relatively rare.”

Speaking of Vietnam, CBS News also found this remarkable fact:

Today, 62% of Americans call it “a mistake” that the U.S. sent its troops into Iraq, considering the developments that have occurred since the war began.

WAS SENDING TROOPS TO FIGHT IN IRAQ A MISTAKE?
Yes 62% No 34%

These sentiments are slightly higher than any recorded in Gallup Polls in the early 1970’s about the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War, the percentage that felt sending troops there was a mistake rose as the war went on. 24% called Vietnam a mistake in a 1965 Gallup Poll, 41% called it a mistake by 1967; 61% said so in 1971 and 60% thought so in 1973.

Of course this isn’t another Vietnam, because the Vietnam War took place in Vietnam, and Iraq is very far from Vietnam. (Old joke.)

It’s nice having ultra-orthodox anti-Zionist allies, sometimes. The best anecdote I have: some pro-Palestinian types showed up to protest at an Israel Day celebration in Boston one time. The cops were also in attendance, to prevent the hostile crowds from erupting into violence. Some healthy shouting and chanting ensued, and things were going full-tilt when a bus pulled up near the anti-Zionist crowd. A whole troop of ultra-orthodox Jews filed out. Alarm bells are already going off in the cops’ heads. A friend of mine, a prominent Palestinian activist in the area, begins approaching the lead member of the group. The cops now know claret is imminent, but they’re too far away to stop anything from happening. So they can only watch in horror as the two meet …and embrace each other like brothers. “Wha-wha-wha??!?” say the cops. Priceless.

But never mind that. Attending a conference on the Holocaust in Iran, put together by Ahmadinejad, populated by Holocaust-deniers like Fourisson and David Duke, is simply inexcusable, no matter how strong your anti-Zionist politics.

A beast is congealing from the clouds of acrid smoke in Iraq. It is the automaton horror-baby of American policy. Before March 19, 2003, no one was sure which badness would be conjured when the U.S. destroyed Iraq. Now, if the reporters on the ground are to be believed, we can see its shape: Religion-based genocide.

“There are already signs of what technically could be declared ethnic cleansing.” -CNN

“Iraq’s Sunni minority [is] “embroiled in a daily fight for survival,” fearful of “pogroms” by the Shiite majority.” -Washington Post, citing a Marine Corps memo

“These are electric drill-holes… Those accused of supporting this daily carnage are the same people America has put in power to shape the future of Iraq… A group of MPs showed up at one of Saddam’s prisons that should have been closed. But the police had taken it over unofficially. Inside they found several hundred men, all Sunnis. Almost none of them had ever been charged with any crime.” -U.K. Channel 4 (Link to the full video killed by Mr. Google.)

“M., a childhood friend, came to say goodbye before leaving the country. She walked into the house, complaining of the heat and the roads, her brother following closely behind. It took me to the end of the visit for the peculiarity of the situation to hit me. She was getting ready to leave before the sun set, and she picked up the beige headscarf folded neatly by her side. As she told me about one of her neighbors being shot, she opened up the scarf with a flourish, set it on her head like a pro, and pinned it snuggly under her chin with the precision of a seasoned hijab-wearer. All this without a mirror- like she had done it a hundred times over… Which would be fine, except that M. is Christian.” -Riverbend

“In some mixed neighborhoods, Shiites provided shelter to Sunnis targeted by Shiite militiamen, even though they risked being branded as collaborators. Others took care of Sunni children or bought groceries for Sunni neighbors who feared walking to the local market.

Outside their houses, the revenge attacks raged on. Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms rounded up 21 men, including a 12-year-old boy, from two Shiite homes in the village of Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province. On Saturday morning, their bodies were found, all handcuffed, blindfolded and shot to death, said Bahaa al-Sodani, a provincial police official. The attacks were in apparent retaliation for assaults by Shiite militiamen on Sunni mosques in Baghdad and Baqubah the previous day…

As Sammaraie watched from his front gate, two militiamen stopped a Sunni man who worked in an electrical shop. A local informant looked at him and nodded. One of the gunmen shot him dead and left. Two weeks ago, the electrician had complained loudly when Shiite gunmen attacked a nearby Sunni mosque.” -Washington Post

“Sheathed in powder-blue body bags are the remains of 72 men, many of them bearing signs of terrible torture–holes in the skull made by power drills, mutilated genitals, burns. They are the signature of the shadowy Shi’ite groups that have been kidnapping and murdering hundreds of men and boys, most of them Sunnis, in a campaign that has terrorized Baghdad’s neighborhoods.” -Time

(Later) I was about to update with this word of hope from Nir Rosen:

The only source of hope is that both the Shia militia members and the indigenous Sunni, who constitute the majority of the resistance, are fierce Iraqi nationalists. They have come together before to assert their Iraqi identity, and their leaders are sure to rein their forces in eventually. The best way for the Americans to support this constructive outcome is to withdraw quickly-even to begin the withdrawal now. It is encouragng that the Sunni resistance has shown an increased willingness to negotiate, and former Sunni and Shia rejectionist leaders, observing the government’s composition and the drafting of the new constitution and feeling left out, have decided to participate in politics and the government, even if they have not relinquished their arms. Once the Americans leave and Sunnis are taking part in the government, which they will no longer view as collaborationist, they will have no common cause with foreign mujahideen, only a conflict of interests that will be quickly and violent solved, resulting in no more foreign fighters enjoying Iraqi hospitality.

Then I noticed it was dated from this time last year. His latest interview shows a bit less hope:

AMY GOODMAN: And what would happen if the US just withdrew troops?

NIR ROSEN: The same thing happening now, the civil war would continue. At some point Shias will make a move, a large move against the Sunnis in Baghdad. You’ll find a day when there are no Sunnis left in Baghdad. Saudi Arabia and Jordan are of course panicking about this, and they are hoping that the US will in some way arm or support Sunni militias. It’s hard for me to imagine that Sunni nations in the region will stand by and watch Sunnis pushed out of Baghdad. And Baghdad becoming really a Shia city. Because there is this Sunni terror of the Shia threat. So you’ll see greater support from Saudi Arabia, from Jordan, perhaps from Yemin, from Egypt, for Sunni militias. Funding, things like that. And the civil war will spread and become a regional one. And I think Jordan will cease to exist as it does now. Eventually, because you’ll have the Anbar Province of Iraq joining somehow–you already have one million Iraqi’s in Jordan at least. You walk down the streets of Jordan, you hear Iraqi Arabic as much as any other kind.

Jon’s post this morning got me thinking about Israel again. I find much of the discussion about its conflicts to be irrelevant. I don’t think the abrasion between Israel, Palestine and their neighbors can be solved by trying to assign blame for specific actions and wars. It’s much more useful to look at the structural conflict and to seek ways to resolve it.

Maybe the problem is that Israel is an ethnically based state — and one imposed on a region where its dominant ethnicity was a minority at the country’s founding. Ethnic states are archaic. Ethnic states run by a minority fell out of fashion before I started humming “Free Nelson Mandela.”

It’s fashionable for peaceniks to push for a 2-state solution. I think this is doomed to fail. Who will be in which state? Who gets the airports, seaports, fresh water? Will the world keep dissecting into smaller units, each devoting its best and brightest to defending a border?

Why not a 1-state solution, with Israel accepting full human and civil rights for all those who live there? It’s sad that even here in the U.S., which was the first country based on the notion of inalienable rights, this is a controversial view.

I believe such a state would be more stable and healthy for both Palestinians and Jews because of improved prosperity. More minds working on problems, less money spent on internal security, more food security for all, and if other prosperous but historically torn societies are any gauge (England vs. Ireland?) fewer people feeling the passion of a blood feud. Israel could live up to its moniker of being the only democracy in the Middle East.

There is a reason why there are more Jews in the U.S. than there are in Israel — it’s a more prosperous place. Our prosperity is largely because we have eschewed the 16th-century ideal of being an ethnic homeland (despite some people’s efforts).

Many Jews and Zionists think full rights for Arabs would betray Israel’s mission of being a Jewish homeland. The country could soon revert to being minority-Jew, and the Knesset could be dominated by people who oppose Israel’s very existence.

This risk is real. On the other hand, being a more peaceful and prosperous place, perhaps more Jews would move there. And more importantly, making it a better country could help save the religion. I was born a Jew but if I’m supposed to identify with that homeland, I’ll stick to atheism and stay out of shul. The U.S. is the Jewish homeland for now, and I think it will remain that way unless Israel backs off and figures out how to be a functioning part of the modern world, rather than, like its Islamic Republic neighbors, a relic of a more tribal time. As is, it is driving some of us away from the religion without creating paradise on earth for itself.

(Cross-posted from Tiny Revolution.)

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed, the officials said. But Israel’s request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike.

This might be the perfect reference next time some idiot asks, “Why do they hate us?”

(Via)