The CSM column on Iraqi elections

My Sept. 9 column in the CSM on the need for a US de-escalation in Iraq and more focus on the election process there is now up on their website: here.
It looks more or less as good as I’d hoped it would, though God knows the discipline of keeping under 850 words is sometimes really wearing.
(That’s why I really like doing things for Boston Review. One of my pieces there ran 14,000 words, and I think they said it was the longest article they’d ever run.)
I wish the mainstream media had more information about the election-prep process in Iraq. It really is what people should be focusing on!
Anyway, do post any comments you have about the piece up here. (And if they’re nice comments, send them as a Letter to the Editor to the CSM, too… My editors there say they always get plenty of anti-Helena rants in their mailbag.)
Also, alert reader and web-surfer BQ found my latest Hayat piece up on Hayat’s English-language website. That’s here. So you can put away your Hans Wehr Arabic-language dictionaries and read it in English now.
As for me, I’ll be pulling out my Hans Wehr soon and heading to Beirut for two months, God willing. Bill the spouse is coming, too. We each have plans of some degree of vagueness for what we want to do there. If conditions in Baghdad allow it, I plan to head on over there. Who knows?
We’ll leave Charlottesville at the beginning of October. I need to crash on my book about Africa before then. I’m into Chapter 10 already. Woohoo!

18 thoughts on “The CSM column on Iraqi elections”

  1. Wrong. Security first.
    Meaningful elections are possible in cities where militia rule the streets. The thugs will pick the candidates, the vote counters, and the voters. Anyone else will be shot, blown up, or placed under “protective detention.” It will not even meet the standards of “one person, one vote, one time.” Honestly, do you imagine any sort of pluralistic process in Fallujah, Bagdad’s slums, or Najaf? Islamists and Baathists alone need apply. And don’t imagine that the Sunnis will abide by a Shi’a majority.
    Larry Diamond makes the most convincing argument. See his article in the Sept-Oct. ’04 issue of Foreign Affairs

  2. I use Al Mawrid more than I use Hans Wehr, ya Helena. Perhaps just a matter of habit and familiarity, or maybe because Al Mawrid is a two-way dictionary. Of course, it IS much bigger and bulkier, so not convenient to carry around, though they do have a small pocket edition.

  3. helena, stay safe while in Iraq. As an American who can’t afford to visit the Iraqi people, I really appreciate people like yourself taking the time to visit our new American “state”… sadly, the Iraqi people don’t have independence yet; however, if the American people know the facts they’ll act to bring the troops home.

  4. Helena, if you do make it to Baghdad, I hope you can get in touch with someone for me. She is a journalist, and my dearest sister. She lives on Haifa Street, so I do not know her condition at the moment. Anyway, if you do end up going I can give you her contact information.

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