Blogging the democratic revolution
The al-Mada newspaper on June 30 published what is apparently a draft version of the equivalent to the Bill Of Rights that is being worked on by a subcommittee in the Iraqi legislature. Omar from Iraq The Model first reported this on that day and provided his commentary on the document, but ultimately it was too large to translate. Nathan J. Brown of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace provides a valuable public service by translating the entire document, so a big hat tip to him. Let’s take a quick look at some of the features of this bill, as…
I normally don’t comment on the media, but this bit from the AP is egregious: But in a development that could affect efforts to get Shiites and Sunnis working together, President Jalal Talabani said Saddam, a Sunni, could be put on trial in the next two months. Hello? Excuse me? As though it’s not a ridiculous enough assumption that Saddam Hussein is representative of Iraq’s Sunnis and that his trial could cost the new government their support… bipartisan cooperation efforts are absolutely nowhere on the scale of important issues in trying and sentencing a genocidal tyrant who literally filled the…
As ‘The World’ —- otherwise known to us as self-centered eurotrash — solemnly intones about the depredations of the U.S. over the Saddam underwear photos and the importance of eradicating the US from the earth — by UN vote of course, or better still, EU bureaucratic fiat from Brussels —- Tim Blair advises us that there’s a very different reaction on the ‘Arab Street’ which ‘The World’ fully informs us it speaks for since it understands it so much better than us unsophisticated cowboys do. LMAO! Hat Tip: Instapundit.
The New York Times reports: In a stark reversal from earlier this year, when Sunni Arabs boycotted national elections here, a broad gathering of Sunni sheiks, clerics and political leaders formed a political alliance on Saturday, seeking to win back the political ground they had lost to Shiites. The meeting was the first wide-scale effort by Iraq’s embittered and increasingly isolated Sunnis to band together politically, and was broadly attended by what organizers said was about 2,000 Sunni Arabs from Baghdad and nearby cities. The gathering was an implicit acknowledgment that it had been a mistake to turn away from…
Somewhat belatedly, this is the link to the Midweek Edition of my Biweekly News Bulletin, which I posted Wednesday night. While not bearing directly on democracy movements, I did come across an amazing article in an Arab newspaper which I have translated in full. The basic store is this: Two Saudi brothers hear about the “jihad” in Iraq and decide they want to go there to fight Americans in Falluja. So they go to Syria, which runs the pipeline for people who want to do this, and they quickly get into Iraq and meeting with a terrorist leader. But when…
It’s all over for the Islamofascists. They are now lying to their Syrian recruits to get them to drop suicide bombs. Nobody wants to join them. They stand for nothing. Young Sunni Iraqis are rushing to join the building of their new young nation. The heroes are obvious to them. The police, firefighters, army, businesses and teachers are the ranks they would like to join. No more Islamofacism. TechCentralStation has it here.
If this is true, it certainly won’t help the effort in Iraq. However, take care with reading what the article actually says: WASHINGTON – U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq cannot properly account for nearly $100 million that was supposed to have been spent on reconstruction projects in south-central Iraq, government investigators said Wednesday. There are indications of fraud in the use of the $96.6 million, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. A separate investigation of possible wrongdoing continues. More than $7 million of the total is unaccounted for, the report said. An additional $89.4…
The two major developments in Iraq over this past week have been (1) the formation of Iraq’s first democratically elected government and (2) the reaction of the terrorist opposition, which has expressed its views by a string of bloody attacks. I’m sure you have read enough of these things elsewhere, so I decided not to do a full post on this, but what I haven’t seen elsewhere in English is a list of the names of the ministers in the new government. This is the new government list according to the Iraqi newspaper Al-Bawaba. Obviously this is a government with…
Arthur Chrenkoff can go ahead and put this one under good news from Iraq. Almost three months after the elections in January, Iraq’s National Assembly voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve a Shiite-led cabinet, establishing the first elected government in Iraqi history. The assembly chamber burst into wild applause after a show of hands revealed that 180 of 185 legislators in attendance had voted in favor, with almost a third absent. A traditional Islamic chant of praise – “God’s blessings be on Muhammad and on his family” – went up soon afterward. But the divisions that had delayed the government’s formation…
Always a favorite of mine, Chrenkoff has his 25th installment of good news up!
As accorded by the deal struck between the main Shiite coalition and the Kurdish Alliance, a Shiite has been elected Prime Minister. This is the post with the task of forming and managing the government, while the presidential role is mostly ceremonial. Iraq’s newly appointed presidential council yesterday chose Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shia, as prime minister, but the new leader indicated it might be some time before he can form a government. Iraq’s president, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani who was himself elected by parliament only the day before, informed Mr Jaafari that he should form a government, only minutes after…
Over at IEDs I have a post reporting the Jalal Talabani has finally been chosen Iraq’s new interim president after weeks of negotitations. With all that has been going on around the world, it’s a good idea to stop and remember how all of this revolution got started. There may still be some who don’t buy the democratic domino theory, but if one actually listens to what people in the Middle East are saying, little doubt can be left that the free election in Iraq has proven more powerful that any bomb. The parliament now sets about installing Ibrahim al-Jaafai…
Through two months of bold and sometimes bitter negotiations, pluralism wins through and Iraq has a speaker for parliament. BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi politicians chose a Sunni Arab tobe the speaker of parliament on Sunday, ending a politicalimpasse and taking a decisive step toward forming a governmentnine weeks after historic elections. In a ballot, the members of the 275-seat National Assemblyvoted overwhelmingly to elect Hajem al-Hassani, the industryminister, as speaker. Hassani, a religious Sunni, is an ally ofinterim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. “We passed the first hurdle,” Hassani told reporters. “TheIraqi people have proven that they can overcome the politicalcrisis…
Arthur Chrenkoff has a special roundup of recent events in the Middle East that he has dubbed the “Pro-Democracy Edition.” And in that respect, you should definitely check it out. For an older post in this same regards, check here if you haven’t seen it already.
Last Monday Publius posted an entry on Iraqi protests against Jordan following reports that Jordanians celebrated a terrorist attack which killed 125 Iraqis because the bomber was Jordanian, and then a Jordanian newspaper spun the event positively (see Bad Journalism Causes Iraqi Outrage). From what I saw on Al-Jazeera about an hour ago, a week later the Iraqis’ fury seems not to have tempered much. The footage showed crowds still protesting at the ravaged Jordanian embassy. The Al-Jazeera report noted that Jordan has now pulled all of its embassy personnel from Iraq for security reasons, and Iraq has also recalled…
Husayn from Democracy in Iraq (is here!) has written a lengthy post relaying his thoughts on this important anniversary. Two years is about 730 days. In those days what have I seen. My eyes have seen more than I had ever hoped, more blood, more death and more pain, then I ever imagined or hoped I would have seen. In those days I have seen the worst of humanity, the animal that lives in all humanity, the ability of humanity to destroy at will others, and rob the life given to others by God almight himself. So you ask me,…
Tomorrow will mark the second anniversary of Operation: Iraqi Freedom. Glenn over at Instapundit said it, I think, better than anyone. WAR CRITICS want to mark the anniversary of the war — there will be an “antiwar protest” at my local mall tomorrow and there are all sorts of events planned worldwide — but a proper way of marking the date would be with a mass apology to the Iraqi people, and to George W. Bush, for taking the wrong side at a crucial moment in history. Sackcloth, ashes, and signs reading: WE WERE WRONG, SORRY WE TRIED TO BLOCK…
This is good to hear, especially after this report by Omar that talks between the United Iraqi Coalition and the Kurdish Alliance melted down on the 13th. NewsBAGHDAD/ARBIL (Reuters) – Talks between Kurdish leaders and a Shi’ite bloc to form the next Iraqi government have collapsed three days before the country’s first fully elected parliament meets, senior politicians said on Sunday. Between them the two groups have the two-thirds majority needed to form the government and their failure to reach a deal could leave Iraq (news – web sites) in political limbo and further delay efforts to improve security and…
I thought this was incredibly timely given that Kirk had just posted a piece on Jordanian civil society. Natasha Tynes is reporting on an unreported story in the mainstream press that I’m finding particularly interesting. You may all remember a few thousand Iraqis protesting against the insurgents when a car bomber blew up a couple hundred Iraqis. Natasha brings to our attention an article written inside a Jordanian paper that bends, distorts, and outright lies about the entire event. If also portrays the bomber as a martyr. Well, she wasn’t going to have any of that. First, she translated the…
Now this is news! Except that you have to wade through paragraph upon paragraph of details about bombings and missing people to see it. The writers at the AP really need to stay on focus before. Like I was taught in elementary school, “Opening, support, closing.” You’ll see from the article that their’s is more like “Opening, several paragraphs unrelated to the headline whatsoever, small snippet of relevant information.” I’ll put three dots for every paragraph skipped to get there: BAGHDAD, Iraq – More than 2,000 people demonstrated Tuesday at the site of a car bombing south of Baghdad that…
Another crazy report, just like a lot of the bunk charges that come out of Human Rights Watch. Great name, great mission. Terrible follow through. LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Nearly two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, women there are no better off than under the rule of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, the human rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday. In a report entitled “Iraq — Decades of Suffering,” it said that while the systematic repression under Saddam had ended, it had been replaced by increased murders, and sexual abuse — including by U.S. forces. Washington promised…
Winfield Myers emailed me to let me know about this post of his on Democracy Project. Harvard will be paying for six Iraqis to attend its institution for the weekend. A fantastic idea, in theory, until the curriculum became available: Getting full exposure to the typically busy life of a Harvard student, the Iraqi visitors will have a jam-packed schedule during their time in Cambridge. The students will attend the conference course Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1203, ???????Gender and the Cultures of US Imperialism,??????? appear at a variety of luncheons and receptions, and participate in a panel discussion…
Ali has posted an incredible piece on the Iraq elections, doing the math for all of the parties and such but makes a very notable observation: One of my neighbors received his family’s ballot with his father’s name included even though he died a year ago. Under reporting of deaths was not that uncommon but it became more common after the last war as a result of the total collapse of the system for months. Another neighbor had his two sons’ names registered although they both left Iraq since 1995. This means that many Iraqis outside Iraq, regardless whether they…
Look at this map, it shows which parties won which regions in Iraq. President Bush won’t be pleased that it’s half blue!