Sunday, August 19, 2007
‘Untouchable’ corruption in Iraq ministries
Report partially faults PM’s office, says health ministry in ‘grip’ of militants
By Aram Roston and Lisa Myers
NBC News Investigative Unit
Updated: 8:56 p.m. ET July 30, 2007
Supplies and medicine in strife-torn Baghdad's overcrowded hospitals have been siphoned off and sold elsewhere for profit because of corruption in the Iraqi Ministry of Health, according to a draft U.S. government report obtained by NBC News.
The report, written by U.S. advisers to Iraq's anti-corruption agency, analyzes corruption in 12 ministries and finds devastating and grim problems. "Corruption protected by senior members of the Iraqi government," the report said, "remains untouchable."
One potential problem is in the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to the report.
The report said that "the prime minister’s office has on a number of occasions intervened on cases involving political supporters."
An al-Maliki adviser acknowledged to NBC that the problem of corruption in Iraq is "huge," but denied that al-Maliki's office has intervened in investigations. He said the prime minister is working hard to minimize the problem.
The draft report obtained by NBC said the Iraqi Ministry of Health, which oversees the country's hospitals, is in the "grip" of the Mahdi Army, the anti-American militia run by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
"Contract fraud and employee theft of medicines, food, vehicles are viewed by investigators as the greatest problems," the report said, adding that "military sources have reported that the Mehdi Army [sic] finances operations from diverted medicines."
Corruption 'widespread'
In the Ministry of Oil — the most important agency for Iraq’s economy — the report said "corruption is a major problem" when it comes to refined oil products, such as gasoline and kerosene. The report said corruption in the oil ministry is partly to blame for lines of cars stretching for miles as Iraqis wait hours to fill up their tanks.
An entire battalion of Iraqi police "was found to be nonexistent" and corruption in the army is "widespread," with ghost employees and a shortage of supplies, according to the report.
The report also cites alleged favoritism and selective prosecution.
The draft report cited an incident at the Ministry of Oil that implicated the Shiite minister and four other officials, including one Sunni. The other three officials were reportedly Shiites, who were "the only ones capable of giving testimony against the minister."
The minister, the report said, then used a technicality in Iraqi law to exempt the three Shiites from prosecution so that only the Sunni went to prison.
That technicality he allegedly used is a Saddam Hussein-era law known as Article 136B that was lifted when Americans first occupied the country. The statute was reinstated by the Iraqi government.
'Get out of jail free card'
The law allows the prime minister to exempt Cabinet ministers from prosecution and allows ministers to exempt their employees from prosecution.
"This is tantamount to a get out of jail free card," Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, told NBC.
Bowen pointed to the oil ministry case involving the three Shiites as a stark example of the problem. "It exposes the arbitrariness of Article 136B," he said.
Bowen said the provision "essentially acts as a bulwark against effective enforcement. If a minister wants to protect an employee from corruption charges, simply by fiat that minister can do so."
The top Iraqi anti-corruption investigator, Judge Rahdi al Rahdi, told NBC that "in many important cases, ministers did not give us the permission to take their employees to court, the prime minister's office did not give us permission to take ministers to court."
Rahdi said the total amount of missing money involved in his investigations into government misconduct is $11 billion.
Corruption is so serious that it is difficult for the government to function, according to Ali Allawi, a former Iraqi government minister.
"There's a serious problem in the Ministry of Oil," Allawi said, "There's a serious problem in the Ministry of Health. There's a serious problem in the Ministry of Trade, and really, there's a serious problem in every government department."
Americans 'must grin and bear it'
Allawi, who has written a book called “The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace,” said corruption has shattered any faith in government. "In some cases there is ... despair that ... corruption has destroyed the ability of the government to provide services," he said.
The draft report obtained by NBC outlines some devastating cases in Iraq, like a "guns for cash scheme with the Mehdi Army" involving a candidate for the head of Iraqi intelligence.
On top of the troubles of the current oil minister, the report said a former acting minister of oil was indicted — a case blocked by high-ranking officials. In another case a former minister of transportation was indicted.
Last week Bowen issued a report finding the U.S. Embassy had not done enough to combat corruption.
Allawi argues that U.S. authorities can do little because of the Iraqi officials with whom they are dealing.
"The Americans who are supporting this political class, I believe really have no choice. This is a group they have been saddled with, or supported in power, and must grin and bear it," he said.
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive
As British Leave, Basra Deteriorates
Violence Rises in Shiite City Once Called a Success Story
By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; A01
As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq's Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.
Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by "the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors," a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.
After Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003, British forces took control of the region, and the cosmopolitan port city of Basra thrived with trade, arts and universities. As recently as February, Vice President Cheney hailed Basra as a part of Iraq "where things are going pretty well."
But "it's hard now to paint Basra as a success story," said a senior U.S. official in Baghdad with long experience in the south. Instead, it has become a different model, one that U.S. officials with experience in the region are concerned will be replicated throughout the Iraqi Shiite homeland from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. A recent series of war games commissioned by the Pentagon also warned of civil war among Shiites after a reduction in U.S. forces.
For the past four years, the administration's narrative of the Iraq war has centered on al-Qaeda, Iran and the sectarian violence they have promoted. But in the homogenous south -- where there are virtually no U.S. troops or al-Qaeda fighters, few Sunnis, and by most accounts limited influence by Iran -- Shiite militias fight one another as well as British troops. A British strategy launched last fall to reclaim Basra neighborhoods from violent actors -- similar to the current U.S. strategy in Baghdad -- brought no lasting success.
"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as "surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.
Britain sent about 40,000 troops to Iraq -- the second-largest contingent, after that of the United States, at the time of the March 2003 invasion -- and focused its efforts on the south. With few problems from outside terrorists or sectarian violence, the British began withdrawing, and by early 2005 only 9,000 troops remained. British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced further drawdowns early this year before leaving office.
The administration has been reluctant to publicly criticize the British withdrawal. But a British defense expert serving as a consultant in Baghdad acknowledged in an e-mail that the United States "has been very concerned for some time now about a) the lawless situation in Basra and b) the political and military impact of the British pullback." The expert added that this "has been expressed at the highest levels" by the U.S. government to British authorities.
The government of new Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pointed to the current relative calm in three of the region's four provinces -- barring Basra -- as evidence of success. According to one British official, Brown told President Bush when they met last week at Camp David that Britain hopes to turn Basra over to Iraqi control in the next few months. Although a further drawdown of its forces is likely, Britain will coordinate its remaining presence with Washington after an assessment in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq.
As it prepares to take control of Basra, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has dispatched new generals to head the army and police forces there. But the warring militias are part of factions in the government itself, including radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- whose Mahdi Army is believed responsible for most of the recent attacks on the airport compound -- as well as the Fadhila, or Islamic Virtue Party, and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the country's largest Shiite party.
In March, Fadhila pulled out of Maliki's ruling alliance of Shiite parties in Baghdad after it lost control of the petroleum ministry to the Supreme Council. Last week, under pressure from the council, Maliki fired the Fadhila governor of Basra. Fadhila has refused to relinquish power over the governate or over Basra's lucrative oil refineries, calling the Maliki government "the new Baath" -- a reference to Hussein's Sunni-led political party -- and appealed the dismissal to Iraq's constitutional court.
Jockeying for political power in Baghdad has long since translated into shooting battles in Basra. The militias have shifted alliances with one another, as well as with the British and with Iran as they fight for control of neighborhoods and resources. With the escalation of street battles and assassinations, much of the population is confined to homes and is fearful of Islamic rules imposed by militias.
Although neighbor Iran's presence is pervasive -- with cultural influence, humanitarian aid, arms and money -- U.S. officials and outside experts think that the Iraqi parties are using Iran more than vice versa. Iraqis in the south have long memories of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, one U.S. official said, and when a southern Shiite "wants to tar someone, they call them an Iranian." He said the United States is "always very concerned about Iranian influence, as well we should be, but there is a difference between influence and control. It would be very difficult for the Iranians to establish control."
The ICG study described Iran, Britain and the United States as equally confused about what is happening in Basra. During a recent visit there, the U.S. official said, he was unable to meet with any local Iraqis outside the airport base or to travel beyond the secured route between the base and the palace. About 200 Americans are in and around the city, including those assigned to the embassy office, some civilian support personnel and contract security guards.
Basra's "security nightmare" has already had devastating effects on Iraq's economy, said Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan. Home to two-thirds of Iraq's oil resources, Basra is the country's sole dependable outlet for exporting oil, with a capacity of 1.8 million barrels a day. Much of Basra's violence is "over who gets what cut from Iraq's economic resources," a U.S. Army strategist in Iraq said.
Militias and criminal gangs are financed in part by stolen oil smuggled outside the country, even as Iraq lacks enough energy to provide electricity to many of its people. Both the oil industry and the port facilities -- providing Iraq's only maritime access -- have made Basra "a significant prize for local political actors," the ICG said.
The current U.S. security operation to "clear, hold and build" in Baghdad and its surroundings is almost a replica of Operation Sinbad, which British and Iraqi forces conducted in Basra from September 2006 to March of this year with a mission of "clear, hold and civil reconstruction." Although Operation Sinbad initially succeeded in lowering crime and political assassinations, attacks rose in the spring and British forces withdrew into their compounds.
In the early years of Iraq's occupation, British officials often disdained the U.S. use of armored patrols and heavily protected troops. The British approach of lightly armed foot patrols -- copied from counterinsurgency operations in Northern Ireland -- sought to avoid antagonizing the local population and encourage cooperation. A 2005 report by the defense committee of the House of Commons commended the British army's performance and urged the Ministry of Defense to "use its influence" to get the Americans to take a less aggressive approach.
In a recent BBC interview, Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup, chief of the British defense staff, insisted that Basra has been a success. But he acknowledged that judgment depended on "what your interpretation of the mission was in the first place," adding: "I'm afraid people had, in many instances, unrealistic aspirations."
The mission, he said, was simply to "get the place and the people to a state where Iraqis could run this part of the country, if they chose to."
Looting fear as Iraqi state library seized
Michael Howard in Irbil
Friday August 10, 2007
The Guardian
Thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Iraq's national library and archive, one of the country's most important cultural institutions, are in peril after the occupation of the building by Iraqi security forces, the library's director said yesterday.
Saad Eskander, a respected Kurdish historian who has run the library since 2003, told the Guardian that up to 20 Iraqi troops had seized the building at gunpoint yesterday, threatening staff and guards.
"They have turned our national archive into a military target," he said. "Tomorrow or the day after, the extremists will attack the Iraqi forces there."
He said the soldiers, who said they had occupied the building to defend Shia worshippers heading to the shrine of Khadimiya, about 15 miles away, had positioned themselves on the roof of the library. They had already started to dismantle the main gate, and had smashed doors and windows inside the main building, he said.
The national library and archive stands on the east bank of the Tigris, close to the old defence ministry, now a military outpost for Iraqi and US troops. The area is a hotbed of insurgent activity.
"The reckless actions of the Iraqi forces and the US military, who appear to condone the operation, will put the staff and library and archival collections in real danger," said Mr Eskander.
He fears soldiers may start looting the building "or even set fire to it".
"We are like many ordinary citizens, caught between the extremists and terrorist on one side, and the Iraqi and US army on their other," he said, vowing he would hold both US army and the Iraqi military responsible for all losses and casualties.
No one from the defence ministry or US military could be reached for comment.
Like Iraq's national museum, the library and archive was badly damaged in the chaos that gripped Baghdad following the collapse of Saddam's regime. Large parts were gutted by arsonists, and pillaged by looters. More seriously, the library estimated it lost 25% of its collections, including many rare books, while the archive lost 60% of its collections, including irreplaceable records from the Ottoman era. Since then, Mr Eskander and his team have rebuilt the library and archive, winning respect around the world. He has also kept a blog detailing his daily travails and the plight of his city. It can be read on the British Library website.
"By any measure, he has done a remarkable job amid very difficult circumstances," said Andy Stephens of the British Library. "He is a Kurd and has resisted the pressure of sectarian and political influence on his work."
Mr Eskander said: "We don't have anyone to support us here in Iraq ... You can see there is a hostility to us. They don't want liberal secular-oriented people running cultural institutions."
Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq
Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis
Peter Beaumont in Baghdad
Sunday August 12, 2007
Observer
Lieutenant Clay Hanna looks sick and white. Like his colleagues he does not seem to sleep. Hanna says he catches up by napping on a cot between operations in the command centre, amid the noise of radio. He is up at 6am and tries to go to sleep by 2am or 3am. But there are operations to go on, planning to be done and after-action reports that need to be written. And war interposes its own deadly agenda that requires his attention and wakes him up.
When he emerges from his naps there is something old and paper-thin about his skin, something sketchy about his movements as the days go by.
The Americans he commands, like the other men at Sullivan - a combat outpost in Zafraniya, south east Baghdad - hit their cots when they get in from operations. But even when they wake up there is something tired and groggy about them. They are on duty for five days at a time and off for two days. When they get back to the forward operating base, they do their laundry and sleep and count the days until they will get home. It is an exhaustion that accumulates over the patrols and the rotations, over the multiple deployments, until it all joins up, wiping out any memory of leave or time at home. Until life is nothing but Iraq.
Hanna and his men are not alone in being tired most of the time. A whole army is exhausted and worn out. You see the young soldiers washed up like driftwood at Baghdad's international airport, waiting to go on leave or returning to their units, sleeping on their body armour on floors and in the dust.
Where once the war in Iraq was defined in conversations with these men by untenable ideas - bringing democracy or defeating al-Qaeda - these days the war in Iraq is defined by different ways of expressing the idea of being weary. It is a theme that is endlessly reiterated as you travel around Iraq. 'The army is worn out. We are just keeping people in theatre who are exhausted,' says a soldier working for the US army public affairs office who is supposed to be telling me how well things have been going since the 'surge' in Baghdad began.
They are not supposed to talk like this. We are driving and another of the public affairs team adds bitterly: 'We should just be allowed to tell the media what is happening here. Let them know that people are worn out. So that their families know back home. But it's like we've become no more than numbers now.'
The first soldier starts in again. 'My husband was injured here. He hit an improvised explosive device. He already had a spinal injury. The blast shook out the plates. He's home now and has serious issues adapting. But I'm not allowed to go back home to see him. If I wanted to see him I'd have to take leave time (two weeks). And the army counts it.'
A week later, in the northern city of Mosul, an officer talks privately. 'We're plodding through this,' he says after another patrol and another ambush in the city centre. 'I don't know how much more plodding we've got left in us.'
When the soldiers talk like this there is resignation. There is a corrosive anger, too, that bubbles out, like the words pouring unbidden from a chaplain's assistant who has come to bless a patrol. 'Why don't you tell the truth? Why don't you journalists write that this army is exhausted?'
It is a weariness that has created its own culture of superstition. There are vehicle commanders who will not let the infantrymen in the back fall asleep on long operations - not because they want the men alert, but because, they say, bad things happen when people fall asleep. So the soldiers drink multiple cans of Rip It and Red Bull to stay alert and wired.
But the exhaustion of the US army emerges most powerfully in the details of these soldiers' frayed and worn-out lives. Everywhere you go you hear the same complaints: soldiers talk about divorces, or problems with the girlfriends that they don't see, or about the children who have been born and who are growing up largely without them.
'I counted it the other day,' says a major whose partner is also a soldier. 'We have been married for five years. We added up the days. Because of Iraq and Afghanistan we have been together for just seven months. Seven months ... We are in a bad place. I don't know whether this marriage can survive it.'
The anecdotal evidence on the ground confirms what others - prominent among them General Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State - have been insisting for months now: that the US army is 'about broken'. Only a third of the regular army's brigades now qualify as combat-ready. Officers educated at the elite West Point academy are leaving at a rate not seen in 30 years, with the consequence that the US army has a shortfall of 3,000 commissioned officers - and the problem is expected to worsen.
And it is not only the soldiers that are worn out. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to the destruction, or wearing out, of 40 per cent of the US army's equipment, totalling at a recent count $212bn (£105bn).
But it is in the soldiers themselves - and in the ordinary stories they tell - that the exhaustion of the US military is most obvious, coming amid warnings that soldiers serving multiple Iraq deployments, now amounting to several years, are 50 per cent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress.
The army's exhaustion is reflected in problems such as the rate of desertion and unauthorised absences - a problem, it was revealed earlier this year, that had increased threefold on the period before the war in Afghanistan and had resulted in thousands of negative discharges.
'They are scraping to get people to go back and people are worn out,' said Thomas Grieger, a senior US navy psychiatrist, told the International Herald Tribune in April.
'Modern war is exhausting,' says Major Stacie Caswell, an occupational therapist with a combat stress unit attached to the military hospital in Mosul. Her unit runs long group sessions to help soldiers with emerging mental health and discipline problems: often they have seen friends killed and injured, or are having problems stemming from issues at home - responsible for 50 to 60 per cent of their cases. One of the most common problems in Iraq is sleep disorders.
'This is a different kind of war,' says Caswell. 'In World War II it was clear who the good guys and the bad guys were. You knew what you would go through on the battlefield.' Now she says the threat is all around. And soldiering has changed. 'Now we have so many things to do...'
'And the soldier in Vietnam,' interjects Sergeant John Valentine from the same unit, 'did not get to see the coverage from home that these soldiers do. We see what is going on at home on the political scene. They think the war is going to end. Then we have the frustration and confusion. That is fatiguing. Mentally tiring.'
'Not only that,' says Caswell, 'but because of the nature of what we do now, the number of tasks in comparison with previous generations - even as you are finishing your 15 months here you are immediately planning and training for your next tour.' Valentine adds: 'There is no decompression.'
The consequence is a deep-seated problem of retention and recruitment that in turn, says Caswell, has led the US army to reduce its standards for joining the military, particularly over the issue of no longer looking too hard at any previous history of mental illness. 'It is a question of honesty, and we are not investigating too deeply or we are issuing waivers. The consequence is that we are seeing people who do not have the same coping skills when they get here, and this can be difficult.
'We are also seeing older soldiers coming in - up to 41 years old - and that is causing its own problems. They have difficulty dealing with the physical impact of the war and also interacting with the younger men.'
Valentine says: 'We are not only watering down the quality of the soldiers but the leadership too. The good leaders get out. I've seen it. And right now we are on the down slope.'
'War tsar' calls for return of the draft to take the strain
America's 'war tsar' has called for the nation's political leaders to consider bringing back the draft to help a military exhausted by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a radio interview, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said the option had always been open to boost America's all-volunteer army by drafting in young men in the same way as happened in Vietnam. 'I think it makes sense to consider it,' he said. Lute was appointed 'war tsar' earlier this year after President Bush decided a single figure was needed to oversee the nation's military efforts abroad.
Rumours of a return to the draft have long circulated in military circles as the pressure from fighting two large conflicts at the same time builds on America's forces. However, politically it would be extremely difficult to achieve, especially for any leader hoping to be elected in 2008. Bush has previously ruled out the suggestion as unnecessary.
Lute, however, said the war was causing stress to military families and, as a result, was having an impact on levels of re-enlistment. 'This kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living-room conversations within these families. Ultimately the health of the all-volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions,' he said.
A draft would revive bad memories of the turmoil of the 1960s and early 1970s when tens of thousands of young men were drafted to fight and die in Vietnam. Few other policies proved as divisive in America and the memories of anti-war protesters burning their draft cards and fleeing to Canada are still vivid in the memory.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
Military families live in dread, while the rest of America is busy shopping
With the army stretched by Iraq to the brink of restoring the draft, US politicians rely on the distraction of a tax cut
Gary Younge
Monday August 13, 2007
The Guardian
Mom, I had another friend die today from a massive ied [improvised explosive device] and many more wounded with shattered bones and scrapes. We used to be in the same platoon. 1st platoon and the same squad when I first arrived at fort hood for a good 7 months or so. He was 17 then and barely a day over 19 now that he has passed away.
It's tearing me up so badly inside. I just can't stand it. I can't get rid of the feeling that I probably won't make it home from this war. I have this horrible feeling that his fate will soon become my own. I don't want to die here Mom. Don't tell Erin bc I know it will devastate her. But if somehow I don't make it, I want you Mom and Dad and all the family and especially Erin to know I love you all so so much and appreciate everything you all have done for me in the thick and thin.
The most important thing I want you all to do, is to use all of your connections to do everything in your will to use my death as a tool with the media to end this pointless war. Contact Michael Moore or whomever it may be to get the word out about how disgusted with our government I am about forcing us to come here to wait for death to claim us. I want it to end. How many more friends, sons, daughters, mothers, and dads must die here before they say it's enough? And if you don't die, the worst part you have to live with is the guilt of surviving. Surviving this war and not dying like your buddies to your left and to your right in combat.
I love you all so so much.
love,
Zach
Wednesday August 8 2007, Baghdad
'Death," said Donald Rumsfeld, the former United States defence secretary, "has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."
Zach Flory, 23, didn't start his military career depressed. He enlisted full of idealism about the potential of American power. Raised in Clinton, Iowa, on the banks of the Mississippi, he came home on September 11 and asked his parents for permission to join the military. They refused. They wanted him to finish high school first. "He was a young man with a conscience," said his mother, Marcia, who has always been opposed to the war. "He wanted to make things right." They hoped he would change his mind. He didn't. In February 2004 he enlisted in the first cavalry infantry division and signed a three-year contract. He did his time, serving in South Korea and Texas, and should have been discharged in June. Instead, the army forced him to extend his service by a year in what is known as the stop-loss programme - a form of indentured servitude that can keep soldiers working beyond the expiration of their contract for several years - and sent him to Iraq. Shortly before he left he married Erin, whom he has known since childhood. "Zach's greatest fear is to have to shoot innocent civilians," said Marcia shortly after he left. "What is this war doing to our fine young men and women?"
Even as Iraq has dominated America's political stage it has occupied a parallel universe in mainstream society. Military families may listen intently to every news report and live in constant fear of a visit from two uniformed officers in the wee hours. But the rest of the nation is shopping. This is the only war in modern American history that has coincided with a tax cut. "People seem to think war is OK as long as it is someone else's kid doing the fighting," says Zach's dad, Don.
Serving in it falls on the shoulders of the poor and the dark, who are over-represented in the military. And the casualties fall disproportionately on white men from small towns - like Donald Young, Zach's recently departed teenage friend. Iraq remains the number one issue of political concern, but it is rarely the central topic of conversation.
Needless to say, Iraqi deaths barely feature at all. The US military, which ostensibly came to liberate Iraqis, does not even count their corpses. So their death toll is approximate - rounded up or down by the thousand rather than counted individually. We'll never know what tender words an insurgent might send to a family member following the death of a fellow combatant, let alone the final farewell of an unsuspecting civilian slain by American troops or a car bombing. Perhaps if we did, it would help those with a limited imagination and compassion humanise the horrors of this war more easily.
Fortunately, this is not a competition. Unfortunately, there is enough misery to go around.
This is an American story. A tale of imperial overreach, military fatigue and political hubris as it affects a midwestern boy in a far away land who wants to get home. "You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you," wrote Tim O'Brien in his Vietnam war novel, The Things They Carried. "If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty."
The army is "about broken", said retired general Colin Powell last year - before Bush announced an escalation in troop numbers. British military standards dictate that a soldier should have two years at home for every six months deployed and that anything less than this 4:1 ratio could "break the army". American troops currently serve 15 months followed by less than a year's rest - a ratio of 4:5.
US military leaders deny the army is strained. But in recent years they have lowered standards and changed entry requirements in order to bolster flagging recruitment, including a push to attract non-citizens and to lift the upper age limit for new recruits. Since 2001 it has raised by half the rate at which it grants "moral waivers" to potential recruits who have committed misdemeanours and lowered the educational level required. Steven Green, the former soldier who now faces the death penalty on charges of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her family in Mahmoudiya, entered the military on one such waiver.
On Friday the president's new war adviser, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, said it was time to think about restoring the draft.
"I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," he said, suggesting that some soldiers' families could soon reach breaking point themselves. "And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table."
There is gruesome irony in the fact that such a possibility should come from an administration headed by a president who dodged the draft and a vice-president who "had other priorities" than serving in Vietnam. But American conservatives have a curious inability to put their children where their mouth is when it comes to the war. All of the main Republican contenders back it; none of their children are in it.
On the day that Zach sent his email home, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney addressed a town hall meeting 50 miles from his home town. Romney was asked why none of his children are serving in the military. "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president," he said.
g.younge@guardian.co.uk
Mark Steel: Atheists and believers have got religion wrong
There's a modern brand of militant atheist that can appear horribly smug and superior
Published: 15 August 2007
Whenever there's an argument between those who claim the religious are ethically superior, and the Richard Dawkins-following fans of atheism, I want someone to bang the table and shout "Oy - you're all wrong."
For example, a column in this paper claimed, "Judaeo-Christian religion devotes itself principally to instructing its adherents in how to behave well in their dealings with others." Someone ought to try this out, and apply to be a Rabbi or the Pope by saying, "I don't really care for God, but I always give up my seat to old women on the bus. When can I start?"
Also, Judaeo-Christian religion pays some regard to the Bible, which is full of instructions to behave well, such as the one in the book of Deuteronomy, "In the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave anything alive that breathes. Otherwise you will sin against the Lord your God."
Anything that breathes? Even Hitler left it at humans. But that's not enough for the Bible, that screams, "The trouble with genocide is it's too soft. It takes no account of lizards."
Clearly most modern Christians don't go along with this, and they say the Bible isn't meant to be taken that literally. Which seems a bit of a cop-out, as it is the Bible. It's like a political party issuing this statement in a manifesto, and then when they're questioned about it saying, "Oh I wouldn't take any notice of that. It's more of a long-term goal than a commitment."
The idea that religious people are more moral or better at behaving well than atheists is hard to show. From the Spanish Inquisition to Cliff Richard they've got to make a lot of excuses. But equally, there's no clear case in blaming everything on religion. For example, the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland was evidently about more than that. When Loyalists chucked stones into a Catholic estate they weren't thinking, "Transubstantiation my arse."
Because it's not ideas that drive actions such as these, it's circumstances. There have been few religious ideas that, on the face of it, are more batty than the beliefs of the Nation of Islam. If they're right, then apparently white people were all bred by an evil doctor on an island over a period of thousands of years, and there's a flying saucer involved as well. But when seen in context, from the point of view of black people angry at segregated, lynch-happy America, the devils theory could make sense.
Similarly, modern Islam is shaped by events in Palestine and Iraq, which has led millions of Muslims to conclude that Western governments have got it in for them. If you start from the point that circumstances drive ideas, then as a non-Muslim you can engage with Muslims in discussing how to deal with George Bush's Project for the American Century.
If you start from the point of view that all religion is nutty, you've got nothing more to say to a Muslim than, "How can a mountain move, you idiot?"
There's a modern brand of militant atheist that can appear horribly smug and superior. It's an attitude that can be summed up as, "Aren't religious people stupid? All over Africa they're stupid, and the Middle-East. And the Romans, believing in all those two-headed animals, the morons. Aristotle with his unmoved moving God, as if. Descartes, Isaac Newton, Bob Marley, they all fell for it. In fact everyone who ever lived up to about 1800, and most people since then have been stupid stupid stupid."
Or worse, there's these patronising stuck-up columns that go, "Aren't these Afghan peasants awful? I mean, I took the trouble to read Voltaire and Hume at university so why can't they? Their sexual politics is frankly shocking, and there's no excuse these days because with the internet they could order Armistead Maupin novels on Amazon and they'd be out to the caves of Tora Bora within a fortnight. I think the time has come for decent mountain tribes to say to these sexist types if they don't change their ways they won't be invited to any dinner parties or any openings of art galleries."
There's always a rational basis to the irrationality of religion, and however bizarre, religious ideas usually reflect the reality of people's lives.
So the Christianity of a Mexican landless peasant takes a different form from the Christianity of Tony Blair. In a just and fair world, these ideas would be no more harmful than the irrational following people have for football teams. Maybe they'd even be more relaxed about people taking the piss, with other religions allowed into the away end of the temple, where they could chant, "Who ate all the wafers?"; "You're damned - and you know you are"; and "Can you hear the Trappists sing - I can't hear a thing."
You Worry Too Much
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You say,
I make you feel dizzy.
Of a little headache then,
why do you worry?
You say, I am your antelope.
Of seeing a lion here and there
why do you worry?
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You say, I am your moon-faced beauty.
Of the cycles of the moon and
passing of the years,
why do you worry?
You say, I am your source of passion,
I excite you.
Of playing into the Devils hand,
why do you worry?
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
Look at yourself,
what you have become.
You are now a field of sugar canes,
why show that sour face to me?
You have tamed the
winged horse of Love.
Of a death of a donkey,
why do you worry?
You say that I keep you warm inside.
Then why this cold sigh?
You have gone to the roof of heavens.
Of this world of dust, why do you worry?
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
Since you met me,
you have become a master singer,
and are now a skilled wrangler,
you can untangle any knot.
Of life's little leash
why do you worry?
Your arms are heavy
with treasures of all kinds.
About poverty,
why do you worry?
You are Joseph,
beautiful, strong,
steadfast in your belief,
all of Egypt has become drunk
because of you.
Of those who are blind to your beauty,
and deaf to your songs,
why do you worry?
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You say that your housemate is the
Heart of Love,
she is your best friend.
You say that you are the heat of
the oven of every Lover.
You say that you are the servant of
Ali's magical sword, Zolfaghar.
Of any little dagger
why do you still worry?
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.
You are the security,
the shelter of the spirit of Lovers.
Oh the sultan of sultans,
of any other king,
why do you worry?
Be silent, like a fish,
and go into that pleasant sea.
You are in deep waters now,
of life's blazing fire.
Why do you worry?
Faith that is set in stone
August 14, 2007
Jehovah’s Witnesses are taking Bible tours of the British Museum. Our correspondent loses patience with the prophecy
Josh Spero
Among the Greek goddesses and Assyrian altars of the British Museum can be heard the growing rumble of the imminent Apocalypse. At least, that’s what the Jehovah’s Witnesses who gather there every Saturday tell me. Even if I’m a bit deaf to it, they’re not – and they’re using the Museum to prove it.
These Witnesses are going on Bible tours, where they are taken around the museum to see objects relating to history and prophecies as given in Scripture. They are turns round the Classical world with an Apocalyptic twist. With a variety of routes and subjects, hundreds of people – not exclusively Witnesses – turn up each week.
Many of them come from abroad, some especially to go on the tours. One such woman, from Zimbabwe, segues smoothly and without irony from talking about Harare’s terrible problems to cheerfully predicting the end of the world. If the Bible’s prophecies are right – and they are, she says – “The good times are here!” Never before has Armageddon sounded so cheery.
The tourists I meet take pains to stress that their faith is not in stones but in Scripture, a sentiment seemingly at odds with the tours’ purpose: who needs physical proof for a fundamental belief? Nor do any of them see the tours as a Da Vinci Code backlash – although the setting and the methods summon up the comparison. All that’s really missing is the ominous music and an albino monk.
Emmanuel Zervides is the charismatic, learned showman at the centre of the tours. A Greek forced out of Egypt after Nasser’s expulsion of nonnationals, he moved to London and started taking tours in 1970. Since then, they have expanded into a non-profit-making venture with a dozen volunteer guides. All tourists are asked to donate 50p to the Museum. According to Zervides, the tours have raised £150,000 for the British Museum since 1989.
He cuts quite a dash as he takes the first tour – a greying Barnum presiding over stone lions. He darts between objects as he keeps us in suspense about the significance of the 13 Israelites on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (they stand for each tribe of Israel) and wildly waves his hands while explaining the deficiencies of Assyrian sculpture (all too flat and lifeless). The showmanship is tremendously entertaining and does nothing to detract from his lucid history lesson, which uses the museum’s artefacts as evidence to be questioned and eventually reconciled with the Bible. It resembles a vivid university tutorial, given by a teacher with a flair for amateur dramatics; Zervides pause pointedly before stage-whispering his thesis: “Don’t you see? The stones are crying out!”
Zervides’s showmanship would have helped Gary Hollington, another guide, who led the second tour – it would at least have distracted from the flaws in his argument. The tour, called “This is history written in advance”, purported to tie down prophecies in the Book of Daniel to Greek and Roman items fabricated centuries afterwards, such as busts of the early Roman Emperors and coins struck by Alexander the Great. Unfortunately Hollington neglected to mention the dispute over the date of Daniel; prophecies work much better when they predate the events they foretell. But if these were prophecies and they are true, the Witnesses hold, then all the others in Scripture – including the rapid approach of the Apocalypse, as calculated and then recalculated by the Witnesses – must be true.
What starts out, however, as a whistle-stop plunge through Classical history ends up as a lesson in dubious hermeneutics. Take Daniel xi, 5, cited as a proven prophecy: “Then the King of the South shall grow strong, but one of his officers shall grow stronger than he and shall rule a realm greater than his own realm.” The first half is said to relate to Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s heirs, who indeed grew strong. Yet the second half of the sentence, which contradicts historical reality because no officer did grow stronger than this heir, is apparently a separate prophecy. It’s a buffet approach to the Bible, picking what suits regardless of order or logic.
I got scowls from my fellow tourists for asking about this, and Hollington, who earlier said that Daniel specifically predicted Alexander would have four heirs, none of whom were his children, told me that Daniel couldn’t know all the details of future history. Another of my suggestions, that one of Hollington’s interpretations might be a bit tenuous and ignore actual history, was greeted with a rab-bit-in-the-headlights look as he stood beside a bust of the Emperor Titus. When discussing my queries afterwards, Zervides reached for the excuses: “I studied the Bible but I can’t remember all of it”; “I can get back to you with an explanation of that”. Gary contributed his own: “I don’t claim to know every bit of the Bible.” Not even the second half of a verse you were just explaining? No.
These tours are decent introductions to Classical history led by experienced guides. But as soon as there is talk of prophecies or Scripture – and challenges to interpretations – it becomes nothing more than a Bible-versus-reason debate: as Zervides says, “You still need faith to understand it.”
In the British Museum, the glorious product of the Enlightenment, this is a profoundly disturbing sentiment. And still the Apocalypse rumbles away, as imminent as ever.
Order without law: Hamas flexes its muscles to assert political authority
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
The insurgents hate us
They play a crucial part in helping journalists to cover the Iraq war but their highly dangerous work is largely unheralded. Here an Iraqi 'fixer' tells his story
Ayub Nuri
Monday August 6, 2007
Guardian
I became a fixer shortly before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. A man drove me to a house in the northern town of Sulaimaniya where two American journalists needed an interpreter to do an interview.
They worked for the New York Times Magazine: Elizabeth Rubin, a writer, and Lynsey Addario, a photographer.
They were sitting with a local Kurdish commander, waiting for someone to help them talk to him. When the interview was finished, they asked me to be their "fixer". In a war zone, a fixer is a journalist's interpreter, guide, source finder and occasional life saver. I was offered $100 a day, about 25 times what I could make as an English teacher. I spent the next three years as a fixer and watched as my country learned a painful lesson: sometimes when you try to fix something, you break it even more.
When Baghdad fell, in April 2003, I went south to the capital. I quickly became friends with fixers for National Public Radio, Knight Ridder, the Boston Globe, the BBC and the Times. I supported the war, as did many of my countrymen and pretty much all the fixers. We thought that only a powerful outside force could take on the job of ousting the dreadful Saddam.
The war also brought an economic boom. In some streets, the pavements were piled with boxes containing TV sets, air conditioners and other appliances. People thought Iraq would become a kind of 51st state of the US. But then the war entered a new phase. A few weeks after President Bush's announcement that combat operations were over, American troops were battling insurgents across Iraq. My responsibilities as a fixer were rapidly expanding. I was not only taking reporters around the country and interpreting for them and then choosing safe routes home, but I was also finding people to be interviewed.
Then, five months into the new phase of the war, I met Quil Lawrence, an American reporter for the BBC who worked for the show The World. Every morning, Quil and I would set out for interviews along with our driver, Abdulrazzaq. We did political reports as well as human-interest stories on reconstruction, the printing of new textbooks, the release of new albums by local singers.
From the beginning, I watched carefully as reporters asked questions. When I began working with radio reporters, I also learned the techniques of recording. Other Iraqi journalists were getting a similar education.
During Saddam's regime, the media were controlled by the state, and journalism was not an enviable profession. But only a few months after Saddam was toppled, there were more than 100 newspapers being published in Baghdad alone. It was a turning point in the history of the Iraqi media.
Soon, however, the situation in Iraq grew much worse. The insurgency spread to cities, and all foreign nationals became targets. The insurgents hated fixers. They called us "collaborators". They broke into my apartment three times in Baghdad, but luckily I wasn't there.
Many of my fixer friends received letters from armed groups ordering them to quit their jobs or they would be killed. At times, fixers have been killed without warning. Just two weeks ago, Khalid W. Hassan, a 23-year-old interpreter and reporter with the New York Times in Baghdad, was on his way to the bureau when he was stopped by gunmen and shot dead.
Though fixers run as many, and often more, risks than western reporters, we haven't had the same protections. There have been no guidelines on what we should wear or when it is OK for us to travel for a story. As Iraqi natives, we have been expected to use our judgment about these things. And while American news organisations have often supported fixers' applications for visas to the US, the US government does not see itself as having a special obligation to them.
Many Americans don't realise how central Iraqis are to bringing them the news they read every morning. But most of the journalists we worked with knew, even before we did, that they would come to rely on us more and more.
One day, Quil and I were sitting in our hotel-room studio when he turned to me and said it was time for me to learn how to edit sound on the computer and file radio pieces myself.
I asked him why. "One day we won't be able to come to this country any more," he said. "You fixers will have to replace us."
I began going out with the radio equipment to interview the police, militia leaders and people on the street. I would take the tape back to the hotel and give it to the reporter or reporters I was working for. Sometimes a reporter would call me on my cellphone and tell me whom to interview and even what questions to ask. And sometimes I would do my own article. Some fixers had so much autonomy that after doing interviews and research for an article they would get a byline in a foreign paper.
In the autumn of 2004 Iraq's political parties were preparing for general elections. At the same time, American troops were preparing for their second attack on Falluja - to make the city "safe for voters," they said. In this assault many hundreds of Iraqis, including civilians, were killed.
Quil told me it was time for me to do my own radio pieces. With the recording equipment in my bag, I went to the headquarters of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. A man in a blue suit introduced himself as the party's spokesman.
Over the next two days I met a range of politicians and people in the street. The Iraqis I talked to were angry about the plan to attack Falluja. I took the tapes back to the office, and I sat down to write my script. Finally it was time to read my piece over an ISDN line that would allow me to be recorded in the studios in Boston.
The only way for me to listen to my story was via the internet, so I logged in and listened to it over and over again. I was not paid for that story because I was still in training, but my "sign off" dream had finally come true.
"For The World, this is Ayub Nuri, in Baghdad."
There was so much for me to learn. I especially wanted to improve my writing skills so that I might one day write for foreign newspapers. My American journalist friends encouraged me to apply to Columbia University's journalism school. Last summer, I received a scholarship from Columbia. I was very excited to begin that new experience and get away from the war for a while.
Several other Iraqi fixers have also gone to the US to attend journalism school. When we left Iraq, we were all planning to go back after graduation. But the worsening war has made return all but impossible. We are stranded here. Every time we speak with our families on the phone, they tell us not to come home. "At least one less person to worry about," they say.
Many of the fixers fled Iraq and are now refugees in neighbouring countries. Some of those who remained have big families to feed, so they stay. But some fixers I know refuse to leave the country merely out of loyalty to their trade.
We welcomed the US war with a lot of hope. We changed careers and became fixers to help Iraq. Some of us paid with our lives. Now we are no longer sure we will ever be able to fix anything.
· This article first appeared in the New York Times magazine
Iranian morals police arrest 230 in raid on 'satanist' rave
Robert Tait in Tehran
Monday August 6, 2007
Guardian
Iran's drive to enforce Islamic morals netted revellers from Britain and Sweden after police swooped on a "satanic" concert organised over the internet.
Police arrested 230 people and seized drugs, alcohol and 800 illicit CDs after raiding the event in Karaj, 12 miles west of Tehran. Those arrested included young women in skimpy and "inappropriate" clothing, officers said.
Reza Zarei, Tehran's provincial police chief, said the operation also resulted in the confiscation of 20 video cameras, with which organisers allegedly planned to shoot "obscene" films and then blackmail female participants.
The event included rock and rap performers as well as female singers, who are banned under Iran's Islamic laws. The authorities described the artistes as "satanist" without elaborating. Iran's rulers routinely label much of western-style popular music and culture as decadent.
Preparations were kept so secret that revellers were made aware of the venue only hours before the rave.
Although security guards were hired to act as lookouts and plans were made to clear the site of alcohol and drugs the police found 150 bottles of alcohol and drugs, including marijuana.
Most of the detainees came from rich families and included people from Iranian backgrounds who had travelled from Britain and Sweden, Mr Zarei said. "This is the first time that tens of male and female participants have been invited to such an event through an internet call," he told the semi-official ISNA news agency. Rock concerts are rarely permitted in Iran but are sometimes held illegally in venues such as underground car parks.
Last Wednesday's raid occurred during a government-backed "social security" campaign in which police have arrested or cautioned thousands of women whose dress or headscarves have been deemed insufficiently Islamic. While such offensives occur periodically, this year's has been carried out with unusual intensity over a prolonged period amid accusations that the US is trying to topple the Islamic regime through a "soft revolution".
Authorities last month doubled the number of officers deployed on morals patrols. Police have been instructed to arrest young men with "western" hairstyles. Those arrested are released only after giving the names of their barbers and making signed commitments to get hair-cuts. They then have to return to the police station to show their new hairstyles.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Tehran killers hanged in public
Majid and Hossein Kavousifar's deaths come a day after nine public hangings in other parts the country.
The government says it is part of a major effort to tackle violent crime and the illegal drug trade in Iran.
Human rights groups have criticised Iran for the high number of executions it carries out, second only to China.
The uncle and nephew were convicted of the murder of Judge Hassan Moghaddas in central Tehran two years ago.
Their execution was held at the same location as the murder, and on the same date, in front of a large picture of the murdered judge.
People like him should know that their actions cannot and will not dissuade our judges from carrying out their dee
Chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi
When Hossein Kavousifar looked distressed as he awaited his execution, his uncle gestured to him and smiled in an attempt to reassure him.
When the time came, hangmen with their heads covered, put the nooses around their necks kicked away the stools on which the two men stood.
A crowd of several hundred watched. Some shouted "God is great", some took pictures with their mobile phones. A few laughed.
The mother of one of the condemned men cried out: "God, please give me back my son."
'No remorse'
Executions doubled in Iran in 2006 to 177, and seven months into 2007, Amnesty International says 151 people have been executed, with the number increasing.
The assassinated judge was known for adjudicating in political cases and cases where Iran's Islamic revolutionary system had been criticised.
In 2001, he was the sitting judge in the case of Akbar Ganji - a prominent dissident whom he condemned to six years in prison.
Tehran's chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi told reporters that the Majid Kavousifar had expressed no remorse, after killing a judge he had deemed "corrupt".
"People like him should know that their actions cannot and will not dissuade our judges from carrying out their deeds," he said.
On Wednesday seven convicted criminals were hanged for rape, kidnapping and armed robbery in Iran's Second City, Mashhad, with the other two convicts executed in south-east Iran.
A few days earlier 12 people were hanged in Tehran's Evin prison.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
A green light to oppression
Brian Whitaker
July 31, 2007 1:30 PM
In a move supposedly intended to counter Iranian influence, the US has announced a series of arms deals with Middle Eastern countries.
Apart from Israel, which will receive $30bn in military aid, Egypt will get $13bn. Five Gulf states - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE - will also be sold weaponry to the tune of $20bn, with the lion's share going to the Wahhabi regime in Riyadh.
Thus, in the name of "working with these states to fight back extremism" (as secretary of state Condoleezza Rice put it), the US is arming two of the Arab world's leading human rights abusers: Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The reaction from Tehran was predictable. US policy "is creating fear and concerns in the countries of the region and trying to harm the good relations between these countries", foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters in Tehran. And he's absolutely right.
If the Bush administration's goal was to inflame Sunni-Shia tensions across the region and to spread the sectarian strife in Iraq to neighbouring countries, it would be hard to imagine a more effective way of going about it.
Although Iran is the worldwide centre of Shia Islam, there's an important distinction to be made between Shia Muslims and the Iranian regime. The question is how many people will actually make it. Marginalised Shia communities in the Gulf states and Egypt will undoubtedly feel more threatened, while others will interpret the American move as a green light to oppress them further.
In Egypt, the tiny Shia population is already harassed by the authorities and treated with suspicion. Some of this has been documented by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Its report talks of Shia Muslims being arrested - ostensibly for security reasons - but then being subjected to torrents of abuse by state security officers for their religious beliefs.
One officer is quoted as telling a suspect: "I'm going to keep tabs on you. If you try anything, I'll make you regret it. I'm prepared to forgive the members of the Gamaa'a Islamiyya [the armed Sunni Islamist group], although they murder us, but I wouldn't forgive you, because at least the Gamaa'a Islamiyya shares my creed."
In Saudi Arabia, where Shia account for 20% of the population (and, more critically, 75% in the oil-rich region), the official policy, as Matthew Mainen of the Institute for Gulf Affairs noted recently, is to treat them as polytheists, idol worshippers, and as part of a vast Jewish conspiracy against Islam.
"Matching the indoctrination of Saudi Arabia's public education system, governmental practices and policies reinforce the notion that Shia Muslims are subhuman. Shia books, education, music, and art are banned in Saudi Arabia. Shias are further barred from playing any political, social, or religious role in Saudi society, and are not even allowed to provide testimony in courts of law ...
"As long as Saudi Arabia continues to promote and practise an ideology holding that it is the obligation of Sunni Muslims to purge Islam of Shias in the great jihad, hundreds of Saudi insurgents will continue to cross the Iraqi border to further the sectarian violence without hindrance from the Saudi security forces."
As the US state department itself has observed in a report on religious freedom in the kingdom:
"Members of the Shia minority are subject to officially sanctioned political and economic discrimination ...
"Members of the Shia minority are discriminated against in government employment, especially in national security-related positions, such as in the military or Ministry of Interior. While there are some Shia who occupy high-level positions in government-owned companies and government agencies, many Shia believe that openly identifying themselves as Shia would have a negative impact on career advancement ... While there is no formal policy concerning the hiring and promotion of Shia, anecdotal evidence suggests that in some companies -including companies in the oil and petrochemical industries - well-qualified Shia are passed over for less-qualified Sunni compatriots ...
"The Government also discriminates against Shia in higher education through unofficial restrictions on the number of Shia admitted to universities."
Viewed from Washington, bolstering tyrannical Sunni regimes against Iran might seem like pragmatism - a convergence of interests. But it's a dangerous sort of pragmatism because the American and Saudi interests are ultimately different. The Saudi government isn't really worried about Tehran; it's worried about keeping the lid on its Shia population in the oil-rich eastern province - and in the long term that can only rebound negatively on the US.
Just as there is a need to recognise that Jews in general are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, nor ordinary Muslims for the actions of al-Qaida, Arab states must be careful not to automatically treat their Shia communities as tools of the Iranian government, or encourage the public to think that they are.
What the region needs most right now is not more arms but a concerted effort to promote religious tolerance, to combat religious discrimination and prejudice, and to draw the Arab Shia communities into the political processes of their home countries before it is too late.
Bread graft taxes Egypt's poorest
Officials say corruption is worsening a wheat shortage. Government-subsidized flour, meant for poor Egyptians, is often sold on the black market.
By Jill Carroll | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
CAIRO
Every day throughout this largely poor city, throngs of Cairenes scramble to get their share of government-subsidized bread.
Each person can buy as many as 20 pieces. And when the bakeries begin running low, the crowds begin growing restless. In many bakeries in the city's impoverished quarters, bakers have already built cages to protect them from customers not known for their patience.
Now that the country is facing a wheat shortage, parliamentarians are worried that cheap bread for the poor may become even more scarce.
But Hamdan Taha, first prime minister for supplies at the Ministry for Social Solidarity, says this problem has little to do with the wheat shortfall and everything to do with corruption.
If people weren't selling cut-rate government flour on the black market, "we could have a large amount of flour," says Mr. Taha.
As central as bread is to life here, so too is corruption in the subsidized flour system. Many public bakeries, which receive cut-rate flour from the government, sell their flour on the black market to private bakeries. To compensate for the lack of ingredients, the public bakeries, who cater to the poor, often make bread smaller and lighter and sometimes simply bake less.
One sack of subsidized flour costs about 16 Egyptian pounds, or almost $3. A sack on the black market fetches almost ten times as much.
To cheat the system, black market flour dealers sometimes bribe bakery inspectors, who work for low state wages, say sources in the government.
Members of Egypt's Parliament demanded this week that an emergency session be held to discuss the wheat shortage. Shortfalls in wheat imports caused a spike in demand and private bakeries (which cater to the country's middle and upper classes) have been buying up much of what is on the market, leaving government wheat inventories short, according to the independent newspaper Ad-Dustour. Parliament is on a break until November.
The government has tried some measures to stop the corruption, including tougher laws against corruption at bakeries last year and a proposal for a separate distribution system. But old habits have proven hard to break. Flour corruption, in tandem with a growing population, a shortage of public bakeries in poor areas, widespread poverty, and fluctuations in wheat production lead to periodic bread shortages particularly in poor neighborhoods.
A 2001 report by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington said corruption meant about 28 percent of wheat flour was lost to the black market. That along with subsidies on bread and other food distributed equally regardless of income meant only about a third of subsidy benefits go to the truly needy.
Inside a public bakery in the poor Al Waaili neighborhood, a veteran baker – eyelashes to trousers dusted in government-subsidized flour – points to a yellowed and crumbling notice on a column.
"It says make sure all the 30 [sacks of flour] are used for the bread. The government bakeries, they are selling this flour," says the baker, who only gave his name as Sayid and crows with pride that they don't sell their flour on the black market.
"But it's just the truth," he says as his boss tries to quiet him from disparaging other bakeries.
"It's common, but [done] in a very secret way," says Samir Gamal Abdel Salim who runs Grand Bake, an upscale private bakery. Public bakeries, he says, pile the sacks of flour in big trucks or cars at night and drive them to their black market customers.
"It's much easier for them to sell this flour rather than making bread. They are selling this flour to any bakery and they will get profit without any effort, and a lot of profit. But [black marketeers have] to be very careful," he says.
He said the private bakeries mix in the lesser quality subsidized flour with the regular flour so customers, paying a premium, don't notice the difference.
"I prefer if there is no subsidy at all and they use the subsidy in another field, because this subsidy is for bad people to get rich," says the tall, lanky owner of the public bakery in Al Waaili who asked his name not be used because of the sensitivity of the subject. He says government inspectors sent to weigh and measure the bread are often bribed.
Politicians learned their lesson about trying to reduce the expensive subsidy 30 years ago. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat tried to reduce subsidies on some foods including some bread and flour in 1977, sparking riots that threatened the stability of his government and the proposal was quickly withdrawn. Since then, debate about Egypt's subsidies has centered on how to more equitably distribute them, not do away with them.
Abu Somaa ekes out a living from several jobs and lives on subsidized food. He works a government factory job during the day and at a private bakery in the Al Waaili at night, selling bread he could never afford. He uses a nickname because he says it's illegal to have a government job and another job. He is afraid he will lose the bakery job that earns him a crucial extra $3.50 a day.
He hands out bread at the bakery counter and during lulls in his 12-hour shift, piles bread atop a wooden lattice longer than he is, balances it on his head, and rides a bicycle a few blocks away to sell it at a meager profit.
"This is my [work] and [it was] my father's work," he says, next to the bakery as the sunset call to prayer floats down on the tiny side street among donkey carts, tumbled-down buildings, and men sipping tiny glasses of coffee at rickety tables in a cafe in a rubble strewn lot.
"Life is very hard. There are lots of people like this. So many people don't have enough money. They are doing this rather than becoming criminals," he says.
Gamal Fouad Naguib, a sugar company employee, bends down in a narrow alley by a busy public bakery, sorting his hot, subsidized bread on newspaper on the ground to cool.
"My salary is not enough to buy the bread [at the private bakeries]," so he comes here everyday or so to collect his 20 pieces of bread for about 17 cents. But on the days he works late and public bakeries have either run out or closed down, he has to go to the private bakeries that are at least four times as much.
While Mr. Taha, says corruption is "the main problem," he then back peddled, perhaps sensing the sensitivity of the issue, "There's no problem, no problem... It's not a lot. It's not a real problem. Just some people doing this who [are] very weak and they sell it, but it's not a huge problem," he says.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Father-to-be allowed into delivery room for first time in Iran
Robert Tait in Tehran
Monday July 23, 2007
Guardian
It has become a fixture of modern medical practice: women giving birth in the comforting presence of the father-to-be.
Now a custom long seen as a sign of western social progress is being adopted in the conservative setting of Iran as doctors seek to wean the country's women off their preference for caesarean births.
Sarem hospital in Tehran last week became the first in Iran to allow a father inside a delivery room for the birth of his child. The hospital is offering couples the chance to stay together during childbirth after being told that it is permissible under Iran's Islamic laws.
What has become common practice in the west is still unknown in Iran, where pregnancy and birth are still seen as women's business.
But Dr Abutaleb Sarem, a western-trained specialist obstetrician and medical director at Sarem hospital, is urging patients to bring in husbands for health and psychological reasons. He believes the presence of fathers is necessary to soothe women's nerves and make them more willing to give birth naturally.
Dr Sarem came up with the proposal after Iran's health ministry asked doctors to reduce the number of caesarean births. About 70% of babies in Iran are born by caesarean section, largely due to women's fears about the pain of childbirth and the worry that natural births make them less attractive to their husbands.
Dr Sarem said the fears about pain could be eased by fathers attending the births. "Our hospital advertised that we had all the latest facilities to make natural childbirth painless but patients were still insisting on caesareans, despite the high risks of infection and serious side-effects," he told the Guardian. "I remembered that when I worked in Austria and Germany, women were forgetting about the pain when their husbands were present at the births. The atmosphere in delivery rooms seemed so peaceful and I wondered if it was because the fathers were there. So I offered it to the husband of one of my patients.
"He agreed after we asked if it was religiously permissible and were told that it was. We gave the mother a low epidural. The environment was very spiritual and friendly, with husband and wife laughing and joking. The mother was able to help the medical team a little and delivered the baby, a girl, without great discomfort. The husband was emotional and in tears."
Caesareans were traditionally frowned upon in Iran as a sign of ill-health and weakness, but they have become more popular since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
This time it's personal
Alastair Harper
July 24, 2007 12:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/alastair_harper/2007/07/this_time_its_personal.html
Our privacy is a farce. As you read this, the cute bod you met last night has found your Facebook profile and is sniggering at the photo of you, aged 16, looking an idiot at an Ibiza foam party while lifting a delighted alcopop to the camera. You'd told them you were a Rhodes scholar. Your number has already been deleted from their phone.
The Sun is now able to do odd little stories about a policeman being homosexual and, dear Lord, actually admitting to it on his Facebook profile. They justify the story by saying he was recently promoted in the Transport Police - meaning he now might guard high-profile passengers, So if, say, the Queen were to catch the Central line to Bethnal Green in order to have a look around Whitechapel market, he might possibly be one of her many guards. The issue, according to the Sun, is that his profile has made him a target for terrorists. And he is gay.
Oxford University can now use the pictures put up by friends of some poor Bullingdon sap burning peasant villages and discipline him. Or congratulate him, I'm not quite sure how it works up there.
It's amazing how much easier the internet has made it for fools to be foolish. Intrigued as to Facebook's ability to find friends through your email username, I managed to accidentally ask everyone I had ever emailed to be my friend. Everyone. Imagine it was your job to very occasionally interview quite important people and so have email contact with them. Imagine what you'd feel like when you asked cabinet ministers or an elderly and very respected playwright to join you on, of all things, Facebook.
Meanwhile there are infuriating little applications trying to extract every bit of data they can for their marketing departments, hiding under the guise of turning you into a zombie or inviting you to cyber-kick someone in the jaw. I remember working for an internet company and coming up with these sorts of things: made in half an hour to hook stupid people into revealing all their information for no reward other than getting a little profile of their dog.
The thing is, any social networking site is completely pointless for keeping in touch with friends. You don't socially network, anyway. That implies some cyber cocktail party where you see someone else is a fan of both the Television Personalities and Knut Hamsun and start a wonderful relationship before moving on to the chap that has also flagged his interest in Joseph Priestly and the Holy Modal Rounders. In reality, the only thing you do is receive requests from the people you hated at school and weigh up in your head if it's worth having them being able to look at your life in exchange for you having a good nose around theirs. Keep your fingers crossed - they might have a crack addiction.
Actually I might be wrong about a choice when it comes to adding someone. There seem to be strange etiquette rules that I don't quite understand. I was once called "extremely petty" and thoroughly told off by several friends for denying a request from someone that I was very open (especially to him) about disliking. They were also very open about disliking him too, but they had not refused to add him. The idea that I want as few people as possible to be able to report me to the Sun when suspicious photos of me playing with a police truncheon go up just doesn't seem to occur to them.
The last thing I want to have happen is what occurred to two of my friends last week. Having been happily engaged for the last few years and, apparently, looking forward to their wedding in late summer I logged into Facebook to see a little gif of a broken heart and the casual announcement that x and y are no longer engaged. It must be some sort of electronic glitch, I thought. But a click on the former affianced's profile showed her receiving cyber hugs from various members of her ex-beau's family.
In fact it was how his family found out. Phonecalls surged from America and the Middle East as cousins alerted their non-information age fathers to the sudden change in their nephew's life. So for the last week traditional Muslim patriarchs have been calling him every few days to have a little conversation about how he chooses to take out internet advertisements before telling his family. Once the phone stops ringing he intends to delete his profile.
America's North-West Frontier fantasy
July 24, 2007 11:30 AM
A perplexing twist in Washington's "war on terror" has occurred. For over two years the White House has stoutly defended the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf's, record on combating Islamist extremism, even as a cyclone of Taliban terror ran through the tribal belt. But now, when Musharraf is finally starting to act - ordering the Red Mosque siege three weeks ago, deploying fresh troops to North West Frontier Province, and rallying Pakistan for a potential civil war against militants - Washington has suddenly decided he's not going fast enough. In fact it seems to be seriously considering war.
Six years after dropping troops into Afghanistan, Washington seems to believe it invaded the wrong country. A cascade of ever-tougher statements have created the impression that unilateral mlitary action against targets inside Pakistan is looming. First then the National Intelligence Estimate pinpointed the tribal areas as al-Qaida's global headquarters and warned that it was putting the US at risk. Then President Bush declared that Musharraf's efforts to broker peace in the same area had miserably failed. Finally his homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, said that "no options are off the table" to solve the problem - including military action.
Trigger-happy Democrats chimed in enthusiastically. Whatever rock "those evil people" were hiding under, crowed the Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, "we should go get them".
It's not only politicians who are baying for bombs. A Washington Post editorial last week called for "targeted strikes or covert actions" inside Pakistan. The influential New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd declared she "had it up the Wazir with Waziristan" and called on a few good "Army Rangers or Navy Seals" to take care of business.
This sabre-rattling is ill-informed, dangerous and counter-productive. Certainly President Musharraf and his devious intelligence agencies have an ambiguous approach to the Taliban. But this must not be confused with the situation on the ground where, since the Red Mosque siege ended on July 11, Islamists have launched a blistering onslaught against government forces. The only thing guaranteed to rouse the fire-breathing mullahs even more is the prospect - however remote - of an American invasion.
And what would an American war in Waziristan look like? A full-scale invasion is unthinkable unless the US intends to topple Musharraf and create a second Iraq. They could go for targeted strikes - but in fact they already are. American Predator drones have been secretly hitting al-Qaida hideouts across the tribal areas for at least two years; to save itself political embarrassment Islamabad claims responsibility.
The military's last tactic is commando raids - a tactic the US has employed across the border in Afghanistan for the past six years with limited success. How would the same Special Forces, operating in a treacherous mountainous environment with hardly a friend, do any better in Waziristan?
Of course the rocket-propelled talk may be simply a ploy to make Musharraf push faster and harder against his troublesome tribesmen and their al-Qaida guests. If so, it's a risky gambit. At best the threats will deepen anti-Americanism and the perception that Musharraf is Bush's "poodle". At worst they will further destabilise the Pakistani state at an immensely fragile time. Musharraf is politically weak and his forces are at war in pockets of the Frontier. The suicide bombing - a device previously reserved for presidential assassination bids - has become a thrice-daily occurrence. No matter how much Washington exhorts him to "do more", Musharraf may reaching the limits of his power.
This is partly the Bush administration's own doing. Since 2001 it has propped up Musharraf with $10bn in aid and endless diplomatic cover-fire, free of cost. The price has been paid in terms of numerous distortions of politics and society - political alliances between Musharraf and the mullahs, a castrated parliament and, most recently, surging anti-military feeling. It was no coincidence that as triumphant lawyers tumbled out of the supreme court last Friday - after the victory of the chief justice, Muhammad Iftikhar Chaudhry, against Musharraf - that some also chanted anti-American slogans.
But even if Musharraf's sell-by date is approaching, American bombs are no solution. Success against bin Laden and his chums at their "terrorist mountain spa", as Ms Dowd puts it, is inextricably linked to solving the problems of the tribal areas themselves. The scheming tribesmen have survived on the outer margins of the Pakistani state since independence in 1947. Now, by whatever means possible - greater political freedoms, more schooling or just old-fashioned bribery - they must be brought into the fold. Few consider America a friend; but not all need to see it as the enemy.
Some American officials already know this. Before the latest hard talk they announced a $750m aid package for the tribal belt. The plan attracted some criticism, notably about tricky issues like corruption and finding projects that won't get blown up. But the broad alternative looks much worse. American military action in Pakistan now could plunge the country into turmoil, swamp its beleaguered democratic forces and fail to yield the terrorist scalps Washington is looking for. In fact it would likely create many more.
No bloodless revolution
Turkey's election may point the way to further democratisation, but the army means to block it
Maureen Freely
Tuesday July 24, 2007
The Guardian
When Turkey went to the polls at the weekend, it was, according to the headlines, fighting for its soul. Which would it choose, Islam or secularism? But that was never the real contest. The key issue was democracy - would the Turkish electorate again endorse a secular system that has, since its inception, been enforced by the military? Or would it signal that the time had come to let the people govern themselves? This was their message on Sunday, when they returned the mildly Islamist AK party to power with 47% of the vote. That they could do so at all is a victory for democracy. But it is not at all clear who will have the final say.
A few words, then, on Turkish secularism. In 1923, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk pulled Turkey from its Islamic roots to establish a western-style republic, one of his first acts was to shut down the dervish lodges. He went on to "nationalise" religion. To this day, clerics are state employees. When he replaced the Arabic script with a Latin alphabet, his aim was to increase the literacy rate - but he also knew that, before long, most Turks would be unable to read the Qur'an, or indeed any version of their history that he and his successors did not endorse.
A pretty amazing achievement. It is unlikely that he could have done the same by democratic means. This has long been the refrain of the generals and those secularists who put their trust in them. Turkey's democracy is young, they say. Unsupervised, it will go back to its old ways. To keep it on the true path, the army has rolled in its tanks three times in the past 50 years. A decade ago, it successfully organised a tank-free intervention - what has come to be known as the post-modern coup. In spring, it staged an "e-coup", issuing on its website a "press release" warning it would intervene if the ruling AK party continued to Islamicise the state.
The big fight then was about the presidency. The prime minister's candidate was Abdullah Gul, who had once been less mildly Islamist and whose wife wears a headscarf. But as foreign minister he took Turkey towards Europe. He has worked hard to keep the accession project afloat and his colleagues in Europe hold him in high esteem.
Some in the army see this as stage one of a dastardly plan. By taking Turkey into Europe, the secretly fundamentalist AK party would emasculate the military, paving the way for an Islamist counter-revolution. There is no evidence that AK has such ambitions, or that Turkey - which overwhelmingly supports the separation of religion and state - would endorse such a project. But the military will want to curb and supervise the newly re-elected government, and there are fears that if that doesn't work, it will find an excuse to shut it down - thus "saving" it not just from Islam, but also from Europe.
There are those who say the army cannot afford to stage a full-size coup. Having refused to play along in Iraq, it can no longer depend on its usual sponsor, the US. It has its own internal, though largely unreported, power struggles. And it is disinclined to take action without first manufacturing consent.
But this it would seem to have done. Since 2005, the media has run a hate campaign against those it deems traitors. It has, in addition to reigniting the Kurdish issue, championed the ultranationalist lawyers who have prosecuted more than 100 journalists, writers, publishers, academics and activists for "insulting Turkishness". They have convinced the public that these "traitors" have sold the country to Europe to advance their careers. Few of their targets are Islamists. Meanwhile, the nation's mayors compete to prove who is the most patriotic. Istanbul is so thick with flags you can hardly see the skyline.
Nothing stays still for long in Turkey, however. The economy is booming. During the AK party's five years in power there has been steady growth. For this it has won the approval of the secularist business world. Many in the liberal intelligentsia - secularists who are repelled by the nationalist rhetoric of Ataturk's old party the CHP and disturbed by the rise of the ultra-nationalist MHP - gave their votes to the AK party. At grassroots level there is abundant evidence that Islam and secularism can co-exist productively, as can Turkey and Europe. Even Turks and Kurds. But it's not going to be easy with an army this strong and this determined to block change. If democratisation continues, it is unlikely to be bloodless.
· Maureen Freely is the author of Enlightenment maureen.freely@warwick.ac.uk
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