In the comments to a post at The Belmont Club (which is a revelation in itself concerning the life and times of Norman Hsu, international man of mystery), Wretchard makes this statement:
The existence of Norman Hsu naturally raises the question: how many
other Norman Hsus are out there. For the Saudis, for the Mexicans, for the Israelis, maybe, for the Russian oil interests perhaps, and for God knows who else. How many?
Consider this: maybe the real reason to avoid war, even in self-defense, is the same reason the Tsarist Empire had reason to avoid war back in 1914. The necessity of never having to put the corrupt parts of the system to the test. The Great War showed up all the secret deals, all the seedy connections, all the unthinkable compromises into which the Russian elite had entered. The revelations the Great War laid bare discredited an entire ruling class.
Being a psychopath means never having to face responsibility for the consequences of your actions. There are a number of strategies to ensure this outcome:
1. Make people too afraid to call you to account (terrorists and thugs like this one);
2. Make it worthwhile not to stand in your way (politicians with big bucks like this one);
3. Control any and all information that might expose you for the dysfuntional sociopath you really are (a strategy beloved by all psychopaths, big and small); or,
4. When all else fails, get out of town faster than the lynch mob.
I expect that if all the dirt were known, and all the seedy connections and secret deals exposed, there would be few figures standing on either side of the aisle in our own political houses.
9-11 fatigue ignores real meaning of date
By Jonathan Tobin
Six years after planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, a lot of Americans are getting bored with the obsessive desire to commemorate the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Posted by: McZoid ||
09/06/2007 00:10 ||
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#1
I got past mourning 9/11 a long time ago. I don't see a need for a bunch of memorials. However, I'm nowhere near getting past vengeance or preventive maintainance. My idea of a memorial is a pyramid of 10,000 jihadi skulls - at each impact site.
#2
Rav Yoffe's comments to the conference were a bit more substantive than the article states. His anti Islamophobia remark was made in the context of an appeal to Moslem to remove the violence from their religion.
It was still stupid to attend the conference but not quite as stupid as Tobin makes it out to be.
Also, Yoffe is a pretty standard liberal. He hates the NRA, supports abortion on demand (although he championed a special prayer for the victims of choice), gay rights, welfare for illegal aliens, etc.
#6
Six years after planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, a lot of Americans are getting bored with the obsessive desire to commemorate the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
I, too, am bored with America's "obsessive desire to commemorate the events of Sept. 11, 2001". Far better that we were taking Islam apart at the seams as a celebration of our national awakening on that tragic day. We'll see change only when the big turbans are dropping like flies.
#7
"Part of the problem is that these efforts have, at least to date, been successful and there has been no repeat of 9/11 or worse."
Yeah right Tobin. We could really use another horrific terrorist attack. You know just to wake up all those apathetic crumbums out there. Ah hell might as well make it a couple big ones just in case. Yep thats the problem allrighty We really have been just too damn successful.
#8
I knew someone who told me that she felt nothing for the dead of the World Trade Center, because she knew none of them personally. I've left that organization for good. Better to mourn what deserves to be mourned than to ignore it with contempt. And far better to remember it and determine that its perpetrators and their allies suffer justice for their actions.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
09/06/2007 20:33 Comments ||
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Nice analysis by Bill Bradley of Pajamas Media, with lots of quotes. Jay Leno followed Mr.Thompson's lead by asking serious questions about the the WoT and Iraq, Iran and Al Qaeda, and Mr. Thompson said many of the things we wish President Bush had been saying since 9/11. Tis said a majority of America's voters get their news from The Tonight Show. They certainly got news last night, and that will continue until November, 2008.
A taste, then go read the whole thing:
Dispensing with any of the banter hed had with his friend Arnold [Schwarzenegger, when he announced his run for governor of California on the show], Leno dove into Iraq, eliciting a hardline stay-the-course answer from the former Law & Order star.
You got to remember what itd be like if wed not done what we did, said Thompson. Saddam would still be there, having defeated the United Nations and all its resolutions, continued its nuclear weapons program, putting people in human shredders and attacking their neighbors and in a nuclear competition with Iran sitting on all those oil reserves. We stay till we get the job done.
And what, asked Leno, does it mean to get the job done?
Until it is pacified enough for those people who walk through those lines with people shooting at them in some cases and voted for the first time in that part of the world, replied Thompson. Till they have the opportunity to have a free life and to not be killed by Al Qaeda and others fighting in that part of the world. I think that thats do-able. I think its tough. But I think we cant afford to go into a situation and not show resolve. I think the most dangerous thing in the world that could happen to the United States of America is for people to think, well, we can divide her.
#2
In other news, Fred fades in polls when ties to the Bush's New World Order made public. In some cases we follow the money, but this time watch whose hand comes out of the sock.
America's most prominent unindicted drunk driver in a fine demonstration of the "Massachusetts virus" in action.
Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism.
In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish "Daily Show" on Comedy Central makes fun of him.
The source of unhappiness is Kennedy's efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New Englanders. Polls show 84 percent of Massachusetts residents in favor. But now it appears that America's first offshore wind farm will be near Galveston, Texas.
Proposed the month before Sept. 11, 2001, Cape Wind remains in limbo. It's been frustrated at every turn by a handful of yachtsmen, Kennedy included, who don't want to see windmills from their verandas. Many millions have been spent spreading disinformation and smearing the wind farm's supporters.
The towers would be at least five miles out and barely visible from shore on the clearest day, but the summer plutocrats resent any intrusion on their waterfront vistas -- and, equally, any challenge to the notion that they control everything.
"But don't you realize -- that's where I sail!" may stand as Kennedy's most self-incriminating quote. . . . See also this scathing Greenpeace flash video.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/06/2007 06:22 ||
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#1
......But while the waters off Cape Cod have given abundantly to the Kennedys, these same waters have also cruelly taken from them. First came the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, in 1969, when Edward Kennedy seemed to show more concern with keeping his presidential hopes alive than with saving a passenger in his car.
Thirty years later (almost to the day), the Kennedys' best prospect for returning to the White House, John F. Kennedy Jr., crashed off Martha's Vineyard at the helm of a plane he was too inexperienced to safely fly -- taking with him his wife and sister-in-law.
By this spring, Ted Kennedy had become the most prominent opponent of an offshore wind farm that he might be expected to support -- only this one hits too close to home. As if arranged by fate in a Greek tragedy, the project is proposed for Nantucket Sound, within view of the Kennedy compound, several miles away.
Excerpt from an article by Jack Coleman, a former Cape Cod Times political reporter who supports "The Wind Farm."
#6
2) Opposing an environmental project: OMG WE WILL OPPOSE YOUR REELECTION!
Opposing an enviromental HOAX. Electriacl appliances require constant power and there is no solution to store elctricity efficiently and without massive damage to envirmenet (components in battetries are highly dangerous). The usefulness of wind farms is zero, zilch, nada. Except for lining the pockets of manufacturers and nuturing the wet dreams of the greens.
#7
Due to variability, wind farms displace only 3-4% electrical generating capacity. The other 96-97% of generating capacity still has to built and spinning, ready to take over at any time. Stupid decisions like this is why windswept Danes pay 2-3 times what Americans pay.
Posted by: ed ||
09/06/2007 11:15 Comments ||
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#8
Traveling west I saw lots of windfarms and windmills being erected everywhere. About 1/2 the windmills were not spinning. I assume the wind was too fast or too slow.
So based on a non-scientific view out the car window I would say.. %50 duty cycle.
This implies the need for geographically (windolgy?) distributed mills and a 2X or 3X over engineering.
#11
will any given wind turbine exceed that value in its operational lifetime?
If simply attempting to build them causes Ted Kennedy's fawning syncophants to turn on him and bring him down in an orgy of fratricidal strife, they'll be cheap at twice the price.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/06/2007 17:56 Comments ||
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Via Wretchard, an example of citizen journalism at its finest:
With the well-heeled Democratic fundraiser (and once-and-again fugitive from justice) Norman Hsu skipping out on his court appointment in California this morning, forfeiting his $2 million bail in the process, the smart money seems to be on Hsu having already fled the country.
The Hong Kong native had not surrendered his passport to the court, not because he hadn't been asked to, but because he couldn't seem to find it.
On the off-chance that Hsu was still stuffing clothes in a duffle bag, I took a subway ride down to SoHo this evening and headed toward 160 Wooster Street, the address listed most frequently on the campaign disclosures documenting Hsu's bountiful political contributions over the last few years.
The blinds were closed behind all 10 sets of windows at Hsu's third floor loft (pictured) and the lights didn't seem to be on. Still, having made the trek, I strolled up and hit the buzzer for Hsu's unit. After a couple of fruitless buzzings, I went into the lobby and exchanged pleasantries with the doorman behind the desk.
"I'm trying to get in touch with Norman Hsu in 3C," I said. "Do you know if he's available?"
Only mildly less pleasantly, he responded, "You're going to need to step outside now."
He was perfectly polite about it, but unmistakably resolute, and I couldn't help but wonder whether my doorman would have my back if ever had to lam it. I'll bet Hsu is a better Christmas tipper than I...
Anyway, the darkened windows and mum doorman were no surprise, I suppose, but making the trip was an i worth dotting. After all, Hsu had been hiding not just in plain sight, but in a brilliant spot light in recent years, despite being a fugitive on a felony conviction carrying a three-year sentence. Given that California has been so lax (nay, absent) in their attempts to collect Hsu as he paraded and hobnobbed across the country these last few years, spilling hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pockets of Demcoratic officials along the way, and further, given that California once again managed to drop the ball by allowing this glaring flight risk to slip through their fingers, I figured I'd pitch in a tiny modicum of effort at locating him - namely by jumping on the subway and strolling up to Hsu's very public street address, knowable to anyone with access to a web browser.
That little trip, while cursory and unsuccessful tonight, is all authorities would have needed to do at any time to collar this convicted con man and bring him to justice. At $4 round-trip, I'd've thought it a bargain.
I have to agree with the smart money that Hsu is likely long gone. Asked today about whether Hsu may have fled the country, California assistant attorney general Ralph Sivilla commented, "I would imagine he has the capability."
I'll renew my prediction from earlier today: We'll never hear from Norman Hsu again.
#11
My take is that the Dems didn't get nearly all the cash Hsu "Bundled" I'll bet around 1/3 is "Missing" and nevermore to be seen.
(Course there's no acounting records to be found, they never were kept in the first place, now were they?)easiest theft of all, swipe something that won't be missed.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/06/2007 17:30 Comments ||
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#12
The Daly City bundling bungalow, home of Ma and Pa Paw...and Winkle Paw, requires further investigating. Bank records would be a good start. Too bad AG Gonzalez won't be interested.
Emilio Dabul is a Mideast commentator and author of such essays as One Arabs Apology and An Arab-American Defends 24. A taste:
In the midst of all these diversionary tactics of the Islamists well-funded propaganda ministers, very real terrorist threats can be overlooked. That, however, is a story that neither AP nor NPR (or just about any other major media outlet other than FOX) apparently wants to pursue, and one that Steve Emerson has accurately called The Grand Deception.
Steve, of course, continues to be guilty of speaking the truth. He has exposed such groups for what they are, showed how they undermine our national security, and never backed down, no matter how many lawsuits they bring (and lose), and how many threats he gets.
The Islamist groups and their supporters cant find any real evidence of bigotry or Islamophobia in Steves many books and speeches, so they typically return to one incident. In 1996, before Timothy McVeigh was apprehended for the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Steve said in an interview that it appeared to have the hallmark of Islamic terrorists: maximum destruction.
As an Arab-American and descendant of Syrian Muslims, that statement did not offend me then, nor does it now. The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center as well as multiple examples of terrorism throughout the world would have led any rational person to that same supposition, including me. The fact that it was not true in that particular case doesnt make Steve, me, or anyone else a racist for making such a logical connection, no matter how much the Islamist bigots insist otherwise.
#1
I haven't even looked at this - is it a reprise of Bremer's long overdue and vastly understated column in the WSJ last year making the same basic point? This is perhaps the most egregious and bizarre example of the detachment from reality that has characterized so much discussion of Iraq. Yet there are folks who go beyond sheer ignorance to claim, hilariously, that "if only" - somehow - the little bits and pieces of the self-disbanded and utterly useless Iraqi army had been reassembled, it somehow would have .... uh, you know ... uh .... made things easier for us.
Having not lived through other extended debates this lame, I don't know if it's fairly typical to have such an obvious counter-factual myth seized upon as the first step in an utterly illogical march to a false conclusion.
Which reminds me, I owe Steve White an answer to his question from a comment thread last week, in which I referred to The Three Actual Mistakes in Iraq (meaning the 3 most important ones, and most avoidable ones). Disbanding the worse-than-useless and already self-disbanded Iraqi army was not on the list. I'm trying to remember which one I mentioned - but I think the other two were not suppressing the Sunnis, and not taking the fight very heavily to Syria and Iran. Both measures not only would have certainly left Iraq less worse now, but would have advanced the key broader objectives of intimidation of the Sunni world and the overdue smackdown of the mullahs in Tehran for their decades-long war against us.
Oh yes - the other key mistake was a more mundane one, but one which I think made quite a difference in undermining basic security in Iraq. Energy prices should have been decontrolled immediately. Oil smuggling was the key aspect of black-market and corrupt public sector activity throughout the CPA and early sovereignty years, and was a multi-faceted disaster: it undermined state institution integrity and thus public confidence in a new Iraq, and was the lifeblood of many mafias, including Iran-linked ones in the south that of course became part of the constellation of Iran-linked outlaw outfits bedeviling Iraq today.
Immediate and total decontrol of energy prices was of course the only sane economic policy as well, as it always is - but in this case the artificial and avoidable creation of a vast criminal smuggling enterprise with strong links to the main meddling neighbor state was a political and security as well as economic disaster.
#2
The Coalition Provisional Authority made immediate efforts at mass recruitment of police personnel, after the liberation. Iraqi army personnel joined civil units, in spite of Sunni Arab attacks on recruitment centers. But, when the CPA outlawed "Baathism" the effect of same was the degradation of secularism in Iraq. Clerics like al-Sadr stepped into the breach, and Iraq's first post Saddam constitution was Islamic, and ensured effective Shiite legislative control. It would have been better to promote secular institutions to co-exist with religious ones. However, everything looks simple in hindsight.
The threshold question in any war is: What are we fighting for? Our troops, especially, deserve a convincing answer.
If you were to ask them, Maddy, they might just tell you that they know exactly what they're fighting for.
In Iraq, the list of missions that were tried on but didn't fit includes: protection from weapons of mass destruction, creating a model democracy in the Arab world, punishing those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and stopping terrorists from catching the next plane to New York.
Protection from WMD: check. It worked. No one from Iraq has hit us with WMD.
Punishing those responsible for 9/11: check. AQI is part of AQ, which is responsible for 9/11. We've been killing them which (to us anyways) is a punishment.
Stopping terrorists: check. All the dead ones are stopped cold.
Model democracy: check. Three elections, a constitution, a parliament, a prime minister, and functioning courts. Not perfect, but who is. Work in progress.
The latest mission, linked to the "surge" of troops this year, was to give Iraqi leaders the security and maneuvering room needed to make stabilizing political arrangements -- which they have thus far shown little interest in doing.
One could argue that they're made more progress in working together than Dhimmicrats and Republicans in Congress.
A cynic might suggest that the military's real mission is to enable President Bush to continue denying that his invasion has evolved into disaster.
Guess that makes all the nutroots cynics.
A less jaded view might identify three goals: to prevent Iraq from becoming a haven for al-Qaeda, a client state of Iran or a spark that inflames regionwide war.
Is that a bad idea? We sure don't want the Iranians in Iraq, we don't want Iraq to be a safe haven for AQ (that's why we invaded Afghanistan, remember) and we didn't want to leave Iraq in the hands of a genocidal thug who had big plans (Sammy). Are any of those goals a bad idea?
These goals respond not to dangers that prompted the invasion but to those that resulted from it.
Wrong. Iran has had designs on the Shi'a population of Iraq for a long time. Sammy was consorting with AQ at several levels. And removing Sammy was always in our best interest.
Our troops are being asked to risk their lives to solve problems our civilian leaders created. The president is beseeching us to fear failure, but he has yet to explain how our military can succeed given Iraq's tangled politics and his administration's lack of credibility.
Actually the military is showing us. The Sunnis are working with us -- not because we can't protect them, as alleged by the odious Chuckie Schumer, but precisely because we are the ones that do protect them -- from AQI and from the Shi'a. The military is getting Iraqis at the local level to cooperate, and building any sort of democratic state has to begin there. The mistake has been to try and cobble together a government in Baghdad and think that it would hold. That has been the goal of the 'realists' and it hasn't worked.
This disconnect between mission and capabilities should be at the center of debate as Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker report on the war's status and congressional leaders prepare their fall strategies.
And when the good general and good ambassador tell you that they're making progress and that they disagree with you, Maddy, will you reconsider?
Despite the hopes of many, this debate is unlikely to end the war soon; nor will it produce fresh support for our present dismal course.
As long as the nutroots advocate withdrawal and defeat that will be true.
Although U.S. troop levels will surely start to come down, big decisions about whether and under what circumstances to complete the withdrawal seem certain to remain for the next president, when he or she takes office.
And perhaps for the president after the next one, and the one after that. This is a generational fight. We all recognized that with the Cold War, and we need to realize that it's also true in the War on Islamicist Terror. We'll be fighting this war in one way or another for the next forty years.
Yet this should not preclude Democrats and Republicans from trying to agree on ways to minimize the damage before then.
That's just code speak for withdrawal.
According to the National Intelligence Estimate released last month, the recent modest but extremely hard-won military gains will mean little "unless there is a fundamental shift in the factors driving Iraqi political and security developments."
Maddy has to bang the political drum. The goal posts were moved and that's the drum she has right now. If the Iraqis start to make political progress -- and staying there is the best bet to get them to accommodate each other -- she'll move on to something else.
Given the depth of the sectarian divisions within Iraq, such a fundamental shift will not occur through Iraqi actions alone. Given America's lack of leverage, it will not result from our patrols, benchmarks, speeches or "surprise" presidential visits to Anbar province. That leaves coordinated international assistance as the only option.
Oh dear, the committed internationalist speaks. She's going to cite the Balkans. She might wish to remember just how it was that 'international assistance' was able to work. It came on the tip of F-117s, A-10s and F-15s. It came because American military commanders, unlike their Y'urp-peon counterparts, made clear that the people of the Balkans would stop the killing, or the Americans would do so. Maddy was around for that but doesn't remember the history.
The Balkans are at peace today through the joint efforts of the United States, the European Union and the United Nations -- all of which worked to help moderate leaders inside the region.
Because we Americans made clear that we'd start killing the radical ones, and we bombed the shit out of a few of them to make our point.
A similar strategy should have been part of our Iraq policy from the outset but has never been seriously attempted.
It wasn't possible -- the U.N. was against what we were doing, as were most of the Euros. The U.N. bailed out of post-war Iraq when their HQ was bombed.
Seen any French or German or Belgian assistance missions in Iraq? See any Russian or Brazilian humanitarian missions there? No? Wonder why? Because, Maddy, they were against this all along, and the only way for us to have any agreement with them was to cancel the invasion. That was unacceptable. It's disingenuous today, at best, to say that we made it impossible for an 'international agreement'. I'd say it's intellectually dishonest.
Is such an initiative still viable? Perhaps. The United Nations has pledged to become more involved.
Now that we've done the heavy lifting, the U.N. would like to take credit.
Europe's new leaders -- led by Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown -- understand their region's stake in Iraq's future and seem willing to assist.
Funny how Chirac and Schroeder didn't see that. Wonder why?
The Saudi, Jordanian and Syrian governments all view Iraqi instability as a profound security threat.
Saddam was a genocidal thug, but he was a Sunni thug that they understood very well. He was just like most of them. Now the Shi'a are in charge, so of course that's a threat to these Sunni regimes.
Turkish and Kurdish representatives recently signed an agreement to cooperate along their troubled border. Iran is the wildest of cards, but it would be unlikely to isolate itself from a broad international program aimed at reconciliation.
Which is why they're doing so right now and have been for years. They have sanctions against them. The banking system is increasingly unavailable to them. Most of their neighbors despise and mistrust them. 'unlikely to isolate itself'? Does Maddy even read the papers?
If it does, it would only hand a political victory to us and to the many Iraqi leaders, Shiite and Sunni alike, who would prefer to minimize Iranian influence.
Only if we confront the Iranians, rather than acquiescing to them. Confrontation doesn't mean a bombing campaign, but it does mean that the West has to stop its mealy-mouthed seeking of accommodation. Ronald Reagan got it right when he called the Soviet Union an 'evil empire' -- it clarified the issue at hand. George Bush was right to include Iran in the 'axis of evil' -- follow the logic and again, it makes clear what needs to be made clear. That's where we go: the Mad Mullahs are evil, and we will stand up to them. That's how you put an end to evil.
President Bush could do his part by admitting what the world knows -- that many prewar criticisms of the invasion were on target.
Oh, let's see about that 'many', shall we?
The Left said that our invasion would founder because the Iraqi army, particularly the Republican Guards, would stop our troops.
The Left said that Baghdad would be Stalingrad. Or Dresden.
The Left said that we'd have 30,000 casualties just from the invasion. There would be a million Iraqi casualties, including civilians, and several million would be displaced.
The Left said that post-war Iraq would be overrun with cholera and typhus.
The Left said that not only did Saddam have WMD, he would use them on our troops.
Are those amongst the 'many' criticisms, Maddy? I can cite more.
Such an admission would be just the shock a serious diplomatic project would need.
Sure would. It would depress everyone who's trying to make things work in Iraq. It would embolden Iran and Syria. It would encourage AQ. It would be the best recruiting tool for terrorism in years.
It would make it easier for European and Arab leaders to help, as their constituents are reluctant to bail out a president who still insists that he was right and they were wrong.
He was right. They were wrong. And frankly, we really don't need the U.N. and the Euros at this point.
Our troops face death every day; the least the president can do is face the truth.
How 'bout you, Maddy?
A coordinated international effort could help Iraq by patrolling borders, aiding reconstruction, further training its army and police, and strengthening legislative and judicial institutions.
We're already doing that. How exactly are the Belgians going to 'strengthen legislative institutions'? The Phlegms and Loonies can't even govern their own country. Does anyone think that the French will put troops on the Iraq-Syria border? Does anyone think the Euros would do one reasonable thing that would require any substantial commitment of men, material and money? Nah, me neither.
What Maddie, the Left and the Euros want is to be the Boss: they want to tell the rest of us what to think and how to behave. They want us to dig deep into our wallets to support their notions of how the world should be. And they want us to be grateful that they're here to guide us.
It could also send a unified message to Iraq's sectarian leaders that a political power-sharing arrangement that recognizes majority rule and protects minority rights is the only solution and is also attainable.
A unified message is something the Euros could do today. They could admit that the U.S. had a point, that Iraq is indeed important, that it's good that Sammy is cavorting with Himmler in Hell, and that Syria and Iran had better keep their hands where we can see them. That kind of talk would be useful, and it wouldn't cost the Euros a thing.
If there is a chance to avoid deeper disaster in Iraq, it depends on a psychological transformation so people begin preparing to compete for power peacefully instead of plotting how to survive amid anarchy.
Plotting to survive is what you do when you think the single big power in the region is going to bail out.
The international community cannot ensure such a shift, but we can and should do more to encourage it. Pavarotti dies and we get this?
Could be worse. We could have gotten Jimmuah Carter.
#4
I'm going to tread carefully. Dr. Steve has sharpened his scalpel, and there's no telling who's going to be in need of his next precise cut. ;-)
Pavarotti left us glorious memories for comfort. Former Secretary of State Albright will leave us brooch jokes, when the time comes. What a pity -- she seemed to have so much promise, once.
Is the Islamic Republic facing a growing revolt by Iran's Arab minority? Until a couple of years ago, the question would have sounded naive. In the '80s, Arab-Iranians fought bravely against Saddam Hussein's forces, even though they were linked to the invading Iraqis by ethnic, tribal, linguistic and religious ties going back 1,300 years. Data from the Foundation for the Martyrs (which is supposed to look after war veterans and families of the war dead) show that the number of Arab-Iranians who died for the fatherland was proportionally four times higher than Iranians from other ethnic backgrounds.
In the last two years, however, evidence has mounted that Arab-Iranians - disenchanted by the Islamic Republic and angry at Tehran's increasingly repressive policies under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - are being drawn toward dissidence and revolt:
* Last year, rising tension in a number of towns and villages forced Ahmadinejad to cancel a much-publicized visit to the southwestern province of Khuzestan. (He later managed a shortened version of the trip, amid tight security.)
* In the last few weeks, the authorities have executed 11 men in connection with the nascent Arab revolt. Hundreds more have been arrested and shipped to jails in unknown destinations.
* Last month, bands of Arab youths ran riot in the streets of Ahvaz (Khuzestan's capital), attacking government offices and banks and setting official cars on fire. Eyewitnesses say the authorities had to bring in special Baseej (Mobilization) militia units to regain control.
The pro-government militia later raided several neighborhoods where ethnic Arabs form a majority, arresting dozens. Among them was Thamer Ahvazi, a top pop star. His crime? Singing "defiant" rap-style songs in Arabic.
The best estimates put the number of ethnic Arabs in Iran at about 2.2 million, or more than 3 percent of the population. More than half live in Khuzestan, a province that produces almost 70 percent of the oil that Iran exports each day. But in recent decades, the province's mainly Arab feature has changed for several reasons.
First, the discovery of oil in 1908 led to a boom that created job opportunities that the locals couldn't fulfill. Hundreds of thousands from the Iranian heartland poured into Khuzestan, first as temporary laborers and then as permanent residents.
Second, a government policy, formulated in 1928, seeks to "Persianize" majority-Arab areas by bringing farmers from distant provinces. The newcomers revived the province's moribund agriculture, introduced new crops and, as they prospered, multiplied faster than native Arabs who remained largely excluded from the new economy.
The introduction of the military draft also brought change. Many ethnic Arabs smuggled their male children to the Arab coast of the Gulf to avoid obligatory military service. Most never returned. Sometimes whole families and clans emigrated to avoid the draft and taxation by an increasingly assertive Tehran government. At the same time, better-educated ethnic Arabs moved north to settle in Tehran and other cities in the Iranian heartland, where they gradually lost their Arab identity.
It's hard to identify the exact causes of the tension in Khuzestan. One source is the emergence in next-door Iraq of a new government dominated by Arab Shiites. (Not a single ethnic Arab holds a key government position in Iran.) Many Arab Shiite tribes on both sides of the Iran-Iraq border retain their ancient bonds of blood and tradition. The Bani Kaab, the Bani Amer, the Bani Tamim and other tribes have always moved and intermarried regardless of the border.
The dream of a unified Arab Shiite state (encompassing central and southern Iraq as well as Iran's Khuzestan province), which Arab nationalists call "Arabistan," appeals to activists on both sides of the border. Not surprisingly, some local tribal chiefs and even Shiite mullahs are trying to use that dream to build a constituency for themselves.
Adding to the tension are a number of armed groups, some set up by Saddam Hussein in the 1970s as a means of exerting pressure on Tehran. Often linked to smuggling networks operating in both Iran and Iraq, these groups have been mainly responsible for attacks on border posts and police stations in towns near the border.
The main source of the tension, however, is the central government's policy of implicit discrimination against the Arab minority. This is especially manifest in state-owned corporations, where non-Arabs have advantages in job opportunities, grades and pay.
Arabs are also at a disadvantage in higher education. Entry into Iranian universities is through a tough set of exams known as konkour. Ethnic Arabs usually come from worst-rated secondary schools, don't quite master Persian (the language of the tests), and are unfamiliar with questions dealing with Persian culture and literature. As a result, an ethnic Arab's chance of getting into university is 12 times lower than his compatriots from Tehran, Shiraz or Isfahan.
Demands that at least 10 percent of places at local universities be reserved for ethic Arabs have been turned down by successive Iranian administrations. Ahmadinejad regards such policies as "un-Islamic."
One outlet for Arab-Iranian grievances is the so-called Khuzestan Welfare Party, which calls for greater autonomy for the province within the Iranian state. Created in 1946, the party disappeared in the 1950s, to reappear in 2005. No one can gauge its strength. But it provides a moderate alternative to the radical Ahvaz Liberation Front (ALF), which has preached armed struggle since the 1970s.
The revolt of Arab-Iranians is in its early stages. There is, as yet, no evidence that it might degenerate into secessionism. But Ahmadinejad's repressive policies could help those who claim that ethnic Arabs would be better off in a secular democratic state with their Iraqi Shiite Arab brethren, rather than remaining in an Iran dominated by chauvinistic mullahs.
Posted by: ryuge ||
09/06/2007 07:48 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
agree G*rom, writer in search of a pathetic reality.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/06/2007 10:31 Comments ||
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#3
It's still a good idea to partition Iran and cut off Persian access to the oil and gulf.
Posted by: ed ||
09/06/2007 10:34 Comments ||
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#4
Far too little, far too late. The Persian people allowed their Shiite mullahs to entrench themselves so thoroughly that only large scale violent force will uproot them. I do not see how anything but external military action will do the job. It seems highly unlikely that Iran's military can adequately oppose the IRG and Qods Force. That leaves little hope.
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