It's February 2005 in Iraq...

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...and bombings and killings continue except clearly due to the election all is well and who could think otherwise? However, strange things are afoot over in NROville. While most of the associated sorts there are all "Yay, election, mandate, we must stay the course" etc., the rather odious-in-many-respects ("Graner? Oh just give him thirty days.") John Derbyshire is starting to get worried about why we're there. He's said it before but he's getting more openly antsy about it and for his pains has been attacked by NRO readers for not only being just like Neville Chamberlain but the even worse crime of agreeing with Ted Kennedy! (His response to that.)

More interesting to me however was this observation today from him, part of a larger response:

We hear a lot about the good things our troops are doing for the Iraqi people. I don't doubt the truth of these stories. However, I get, and I'm sure my colleagues must get, a lot of other kinds of e-mail from guys in the field in Iraq--though generally with an attached plea not to print them. It ain't all sweetness and light out there. A lot of our guys are frustrated and disgusted. A lot of them really, really dislike the Iraqis. I hate to be the one to break this news.

I suspect this will be glossed over or ignored -- for now. But I'd be very interested in reading these mails, wouldn't you?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 10 February 2005 15:51 (twenty years ago)

Not if it unnecesarily upsets morale & scuttlebutts our attempts to spread freedom, you flouridating pinko traitor! Go back to Manchuria and take your hemp w/ you!

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 10 February 2005 15:56 (twenty years ago)

Well, you know, it's cold over there.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 10 February 2005 15:57 (twenty years ago)

Here - have a baby seal.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 10 February 2005 15:58 (twenty years ago)

Mmm!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 10 February 2005 16:02 (twenty years ago)

http://www.sistani.org/

(Link found in a Patrick Cockburn article.)

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Thursday, 10 February 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

Hey, living and loving in the great state of Utah (a bulwark and a fortress for GWB) I often feel like a foreigner. But I nevertheless love living in Utah. If we could just get rid of Dubya and all his cronies everything would be great! (Except for N. Korea....)

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Thursday, 10 February 2005 18:41 (twenty years ago)

Interesting editorial out of Canada. Deaths from today.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 11 February 2005 01:17 (twenty years ago)

Will the media be looking at the long view with this? The sycophancy and sentimentality of supposedly objective (UK, and presumably US) reporters on 'democracy in action' et al, and backslapping given Bush and Blair, has been unbelievable...

It is folly firstly to think that we can impose anything on the Iraqis; the editorial Ned links to above effectively points out how Bush has not 'got his way' entirely here. It's a difficult situation overall, as nobody wants a 'popular uprising' of the sort that happened in Africa, post-colonialism, yet neither do they want American appointees and, surely not, U.S. control of oil supplies and a military base in the region.

Above all, it does have to be an Iraq governed by Iraqis, and looking back to the country's older traditions, before the appalling onset of patronising and destructive colonial 'adventures' and 'interventions' - which of course include this current sorry episode.

― Tom May (Tom May), Friday, 11 February 2005 03:45 (twenty years ago)

Final election results are in. The Shia grouping holds over 50% of the seats but two-thirds are required to write the constitution, so the Kurds are the likely allies. This will be interesting...and Chalabi is once again lurking around.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 17 February 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

According to NPR this morning, Chalabi will not win but people are holding out until they can get concessions from Al-Jaafari.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 17 February 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

The media are thrilled and grateful for the elections, because now they can file scads of stories based on political-insider-horse-race-rumors that they can pull together over the telephone, instead of leaving their hotels where it is dangerous, and filing stories about car bombs, dead soldiers and strangled kittens. They're lovin' it (tm).

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 17 February 2005 17:49 (twenty years ago)

Snarf. I can see that being a salve to their concerns, yes...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 17 February 2005 17:55 (twenty years ago)

Im confused by this somewhat foregone conclusion that the Kurds and Shia will be holding hands in the sun. Hasnt Israel been seriously courting favor with the Kurds for some time now? Havent Kurds been the major 'Iraqi' forces involved in the leveling of Fallujah, etc? Or is Fallujah a Sunni town that the Shiites could give a fig about..?

― Dude, are you a 15 year old asian chick? (jingleberries), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:05 (twenty years ago)

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