I've had many opportunities to laugh today, watching the news from Iraq. Laugh with joy at the sight of ordinary Iraqis insulting their former oppressors and looting their houses, (I think any liberated people should have the right to loot its oppressors). Laugh with scorn as I've watched the local media make an enormous "yes, but" manouver. "Yes, Saddam is gone, but there is no law and order, and Saddam's supporters aren't all gone yet, and many people starve and lack medical treatment. Boo, Mr. Bush! Boo! Saddam bad, Bush worse!" Ok, not that last part, but the thinly veiled hope that the Americans would screw up really bad in Iraq has been replaced - as we knew it would be - by resentment that a fully recivilized, wealthy and democratic Iraq didn't just automatically spring out of the ruins of Saddam's dictatorship. (How Norwegians in general will react remains to be seen.)

Then laugh with relief, as I remember that none of the media's perpetual state of worriedness matters. Force matters, freedom matters. Some confused TV2 journalist who talks about America's new "nightmare" in Baghdad, (I think he referred to the suicide bomb today), don't matter much at all. Iraq has been given a second chance. That chance can be wasted, but it can't be revoked.

"...none of the media's perpetual state of worriedness matters."

There is a body of cultural theory, - based on French post-Marxist deconstruction theories no less, but essentially developed here in the US - that states that Western media has an economic interest in promoting anxiety in the world, as it assures the economic survival of that same media. Anxiety means paychecks for journalists, essentially.

I like that theory. It explains a lot of things: for example, the persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is a lot of money to be made out of that conflict, and not just in the military-industrial complex...

Probably some truth to that theory.

More directly true observations are that the UN controls large money flows only in regions where there is conflict. The most egregious example is UN control of the Iraqi oil-for-food program but there are others. Built-in incentive to extend misery rather than resolve it.

Personally, I'm worrying because I *supported* the war, and when I advocate something so potentially disastrous (not to mention unpopular among my friends) with this much uncertainty and half-buried guilt, I look really, really hard for evidence that I was wrong and perhaps complicit in an atrocity. (In the case of Afghanistan I actually overdid it a bit, and in my desire to be fair to the anti-war side I gave unwarranted credence to made-up rumors and enemy propaganda.)

I'd guess that at least a few of the people currently sniffing for the dark side of the fall of Baghdad are in this camp-- not wishful anti-war advocates but fearful and pessimistic pro-war advocates.

Some people over on Barlow's comment board are talking now about how suspiciously small the crowds at the Great Toppling were, and suggesting that the whole welcoming of the soldiers is fake, that these people were actually exiles from Chalabi's faction rather than real Baghdad residents. So I'm fretting about that.

Okay, I'm done fretting about that now.

I would discount that theory about the crowd being part of Chalabi's faction: Chalabi was sent just a few days ago, to an airfield in the south near Nasiriyah (spelling?) He's totally unknown to Iraqis in Baghdad.

Another bold manoeuver on America's part, but it remains to be seen if Chalabi is as gifted as Karzai in Afghanistan.

It is wise to be concerned about the aftermath: it's not over yet. The looting is all to emblematic of a people who equate law & order with oppression. It's not going to be easy to restore respect and confidence in law, especially when there are so many non-Iraqi Arabs in the crowd trying to sabotage the Anglo-American effort...

And yet, I am so supportive of this bold initiative on the part of America. In the end, I'd rather take a bold initiative, rather than react to events, like the Europeans are inclined to do.

Ollie on Fox News said that an Iman has told his followers to turn over all "foreigners" to the Americans.

Why do I think Iraq & Afghanistan have the same contempt for arabs?

Sandy P. USA!!!!!!: "Why do I think Iraq & Afghanistan have the same contempt for arabs?"

I don't know, maybe because you don't know much about the region?

Afghanistan is not an Arab country, but Iraq most definitely is. At the very least a strong majority of the population is Arab. Maybe you meant the Iraqi Kurds in the north?
Technically, though, I'm not sure if being a Kurd and being an Arab are mutually exclusive.
One definition of "Arab" I know is anyone who speaks Arabic as a first language and who identifies with an Arabic-speaking culture.
An Iraqi co-worker of mine is an ethnic Kurd but he doesn't speak Kurdish, his first language is Arabic and his wife is an ethnic Arab.

Hmm, the NION people seem to be obsessing over the supposed set-up of the statue toppling. After my first and second thoughts, my third thoughts about this are: who cares? There are plenty of reports coming out from all over about how much the Iraqis hate Saddam and how much they like the fact that he's gone; plenty of atrocity stories flooding out that stayed hidden for years and can only be told now. I expected the people in Baghdad itself (as opposed to the north or south of the country) to basically regard the coalition as nasty invaders, so this is a much better outcome than I would have expected.

One thing I'm still wondering is whether the *educated middle class* in Baghdad is this happy. We'll need them to rebuild the country; I don't have much trust in the exile opposition. But I keep thinking back to Salam Pax's generally anti-war attitude, and the various speculations about how he could have been doing so well under Saddam. Are these Baghdad professionals compromised enough not to welcome, or be welcomed by, any new order? Are they like Sam Lowry in the movie _Brazil_, living their lives with the illusion of clean hands while implicitly aiding the system? And if so, can they be turned and should they?

Hard questions, but they'd have come up however Saddam fell, and it's still ridiculous to prefer keeping the monster in power.

Or Michael, it was those "foreign arabs" who brutalized the Iraqi/Afghan peoples by being the Taliban/Osama/Saddams' enforcers?????

It seems a frog terrorist might have been caught in Iraq. Go figure.

Simplisme American, I know, but it would seem the Afghans and Iraqis do have something in common. The ilk that kept them in bondage.

Sandy P.: "Or Michael, it was those "foreign arabs" who brutalized the Iraqi/Afghan peoples by being the Taliban/Osama/Saddams' enforcers?????"

The only case I've heard of 'foreign Arabs' in Iraq are the misguided fools and scoundrels that came to aid the Iraqi army. They weren't there during Saddam's reign, he found plenty of Iraqis to be complicit.

"It seems a frog terrorist might have been caught in Iraq. Go figure."

The things those amphibians get up to. You'd think a desert environment would be dry and harsh for their delicate skin, go figure indeed.

"Simplisme American, I know, but it would seem the Afghans and Iraqis do have something in common. The ilk that kept them in bondage"

Depends on what level of abstraction you're talking at. Aghanistan was under an intolerant, fundamentalist religious regime with no interest in economics or anything else except making sure people were cowed and practicing their (the regime's) religion.
Iraq, on the other hand, was thugocracy/kleptocracy which game some lip service to socialism and was considerably more secular than the norm in the region (the Baath movement started as a Moslem/Christian coalition).
After 1991, Saddam began giving more public lip service to Islam, either he became more religious as he got older as many scoundrels do or he was cynically trying to to appeal to the undereducated Arab masses in other countries, probably some of both. Nevertheless he never got within light years of the kind of religious repression that is the norm in Iran or "our friends" the Saudis. But then his repression was already so horrific that a little religious persecution would hardly have been noticed.
The taliban and Saddam's regime were both made up of evil thugs, but they had about zero in common beyond that.

Good for you, old boy.

"There is a body of cultural theory, - based on French post-Marxist deconstruction theories no less, but essentially developed here in the US - that states that Western media has an economic interest in promoting anxiety in the world, as it assures the economic survival of that same media. Anxiety means paychecks for journalists, essentially."

1. "News Media" - possible. General media? Nah.

2. Isn't this just our good ol' friend sensationalism dressed up in fancy Marxist robes? Fleet street knows rape n' murder sells better than gardening tips on the front page - hardly news. They don't do it to promote anxiety though - they do it to grab attention. Any angst produced is a side effect.

3. "I like that theory. It explains a lot of things: for example, the persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Erm - could you be a bit more specific here? Is CNN secretly funneling cash to Islamic Jihad in order to promote anxiety amongst decadent westerners, mayhap? Side note: Persistent ethnic conflict was a fact of life in the world before the word "media" was even invented.

Chirac and Putin have some strange prejudices:

'He wanted a "multi-polar... well balanced world", Mr Chirac said - touching on a fear that Mr Putin elaborated upon when he warned of the perils of undermining sovereign nations and diplomacy in the "export of capitalist, democratic revolution".'

[source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2941417.stm]

What's wrong with capitalist, democratic revolution? We've had enough of the other kind. And they all resulted in failure...

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