Saddam trial discussed at Transitional Justice Forum blog

Christopher Le Mon has a good new post about the Saddam Hussein trial over at the Transitional Justice Forum blog. In it, he reviews the recent developments in the trial and some of the commentary in the US legal community about it.
He concludes:

    In the end, the text of the Tribunal’s verdict matters less than does the effect of the prosecution of Saddam Hussein upon Iraq’s nascent attempt to leave behind an era of violence, and move forward toward a more democratic future.

I agree strongly with this statement. I am, however, a lot less optimistic on this point than Le Mon seems to be. (See, e.g., here.)
When I have time, I’m going to go over there and drop off a comment onto his post. I warmly invite JWN readers interested in the trial to do the same.
(Full disclosure: I am one of the founders and authors of that blog. I also moderate the comments there. Guys, we need more comments there!)

MSM ‘discovering’ Moqtada’s strength?

Well, we still don’t have a government in Iraq though my handy DDI counter on the sidebar here at JWN tells me that it’s been 54 days since the Iraqi election.
Much of the MSM here in the US has stopped its previous, breathless following of “who’s up” and “who’s down” in the contest for the various government posts… Moreover, we’ve had many fewer mentions recently of SCIRI head Abdul-Aziz Hakim as being “the most powerful man in Iraq”, etc, etc. A tag, I should note, that I questioned from the get-go— and then Reidar Visser provided some solid facts about the intra-UIA balance that backed up my questioning.
And today, we have this from AP’s Paul Garwood:

    Behind most of Iraq’s protests over cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad has been one increasingly important figure — the fiercely anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
    Al-Sadr, whose militia has fought U.S. troops and rival Shiite groups for prestige and power since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, has been meeting Middle East heads of state, including Iranian leaders and Syrian President Bashar Assad.
    His political supporters won 30 seats in Iraq’s 275-member parliament, giving al-Sadr considerable clout in the dominant Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance.
    “That’s not bad for a man people once regarded as inexperienced and ineffectual,” Iraqi analyst Mustafa al-Ani said from the United Arab Emirates.
    He also said the cleric posed a strong challenge to the Shiite old guard, including Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of Iraq’s largest Shiite political party, and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. “He is going to compete with them for the Shiite leadership,” al-Ani said. [Duh! ~HC]
    Al-Sadr, in his early 30s, offers an alternative to Iraqis furious at the government’s inability to restore security and basic services and to those opposed to the presence of U.S.-led troops.

And guess what, among those troops are troops from Anders Rasmussen’s little Denmark.
Garwood continues:

    In a sign of his popularity, particularly among younger Shiites, al-Sadr has drawn thousands of supporters onto the streets to denounce Denmark, where the drawings of the Muslim prophet were first published, and other countries where newspapers reprinted the images.
    Some 5,000 protesters rallied outside a government building Monday in the southern city of Kut, burning Danish flags and calling for the 530-member Danish military contingent to be booted out of Iraq. The demonstration came a day after a gunman shot at Danish soldiers, children hurled stones at another patrol and a homemade bomb was defused near their base in Qurnah, 300 miles southeast of Baghdad.
    “All these things add up to the idea that we might not be as popular as we have been as a result of the Prophet Muhammad drawings,” said Capt. Filip Ulrichsen of the Danish contingent. [Duh! ~HC]
    The caricatures also prompted Transport Minister Salam al-Maliki, an al-Sadr follower, to freeze contracts between his department and Danish companies operating in Iraq.

Garwood goes on to quote some other Iraqi analysts as saying Moqtada seems to be doing pretty well politically. He writes, “Whether al-Sadr poses a threat to the Shiite political establishment remains to be seen, but many note he is maturing into a formidable political leader with street credibility for standing up to foreign forces.”
Sadr has been making a “premier-in-waiting” type of tour to neighboring countries, most recently Syria. Garwood again:

    In Damascus, al-Sadr told reporters on Monday that Iraqi and Syrian relations remain strong and that the common enemies were the United States, Israel and Britain, who were bent on “sowing seeds of sedition” between the neighboring Arab states.
    He also sent a message to the Americans that Iran and Syria — accused by the U.S. of sponsoring regional militants — were his friends, adding “I will be one of the defenders of Syria and Iran, and all Islamic states.”

Like invading colonial powers throughout history, the US and its allies have been intent on pursuing “divide and rule” policies both within Iraq and throughout the region. Sadr has stood up quite clearly against these attempts. Though a number of his past actions– and those of some of his more zealous supporters– are certainly questionable (to say the least), at this point he may well be the best person to prevent the spiralling downward of Iraq into civil war, given his insistence on strengthening Shii-Sunni links inside the country.
I hope to heck he has some very savvy bodyguards.

JWN’s third blogiversary

Has it been three years already since JWN’s inaugural post?
It has indeed.. And what a three years it has been… Most of it, alas, dominated by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Back in February 2003, I could still hope (though I knew it was a long shot) that war might be averted. But in those days the warmongers of Washington were riding mighty high! Why, they even had Colin Powell doing their bidding there in the Security Council!
They bent him to their will… They invaded Iraq… They tried to bend Iraq’s people to their will… And, as we now know, they most spectacularly failed in that.
Bush and Cheyfeld still seem to live in a bubble of unreality– from “Mission Accomplished” to “Plan for Victory” to “Heckofajob, Brownie”. But in actual fact, reality has clipped their wings a lot, and continues to do so. Perhaps a more equitable, humane, generous, and rule-abiding international order will emerge from all this. I pray to G-d it will.
Meanwhile, I don’t even want to start to think how many hours I’ve spent here on JWN. The blog has 1,280 posts on it, a total of 10,630 comments (with now, only a small proportion of them being spam), and in an average week people from some 7,500 distinct IP addresses are these days checking in to read it.
So thanks for being there, readers vocal and silent. If nobody was reading this, there would have been almost zero point in doing it. I might, of course, have done something more productive with all those hours. But all in all I’m really glad I’ve done it. Onward and upward, eh?

Graham Fuller on Hamas

The very sensible and well-informed long-time CIA analyst Graham Fuller has an excellent new paper out on Hamas, here
His bottom line:

    Washington must abandon the fantasy that it can get “moderate” Palestinians to crush Hamas and proceed to accept what are unsatisfactory peace terms offered by Likud. The much-reviled Arafat could not do so, nor could Mahmud Abbas, the “moderate,” both of whom were exquisitely aware that Hamas represents the views of a large number of Palestinians who cannot be excluded or suppressed. The Western search for a “Palestinian Quisling” in effect, based on a one-sided reading of the problem, is doomed to failure. The West will have to engage in a much more measured and balanced approach with Hamas if any prospect of political progress is to take place.
    In the end the Israeli occupation remains the central problem, from which all other problems—despair, rage, and terrorism—flow. We must start by treating the core of the problem and not its symptoms. If the trajectory of other democratically-based Islamist parties is any indicator, there are reasonable hopes that Hamas, given the chance, will continue its evolution towards hard-headed pragmatism, even while not yielding its bargaining cards for free in advance.
    Can we assume wisdom and patience on the part of the United States, Israel and the Palestinians in this next stage? If it is forthcoming, Hamas just might offer a surprise—the most legitimate Palestinian force to eventually reach a de facto settlement with Israel.

Long live Erdogan and Zapatero

Here:

    MADRID, Feb 6 (Reuters) – The prime ministers of Turkey and Spain made a joint plea for respect and calm on Monday after violent Muslim protests at the weekend against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
    Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan and Spain’s Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in an article in the International Herald Tribune that they were increasingly concerned by the rise in tension provoked by the cartoons.
    “We shall all be the losers if we fail to immediately defuse this situation, which can only leave a trail of mistrust and misunderstanding between both sides in its wake,” they wrote.
    “Therefore, it is necessary to make an appeal for respect and calm, and let the voice of reason be heard,” they added…

The fulltext original of their piece in the IHT is here.

Information liberation award to Juan Cole

Talking of freedom of media, information, and dialogue in our present world, I want to express huge appreciation to Juan Cole for liberating the “Fact File” on the Danish cartoons issue produced apparently jointly by the CIA-linked “FBIS” media-monitoring organization and its British counterpart at BBC monitoring.
A careful reading of this fact-file, going back to the original Sept 30 publication of the offending images and the reactions of many concerned parties since then really helps to clarify the whole tangled story, and to show that the world’s “Muslims” have not merely been acting “emotionally and irrationally” to something that happened a long time ago… There is a whole history to this issue– inside Denmark and more broadly, that it is important to know about.
However, the monitoring reports produced by FBIS and the BBC are for-pay products– even though both are produced by tax money taken from taxpayers including (in the US) myself. So a big thanks to Juan liberating this “Fact File” for the global discourse.
Juan’s own commentary throughout the file is also v. worth reading. His conclusion there is this:

    The allegation that this thing was fanned by Saudi Arabia does not seem to be substantiated by the FBIS record, which shows Egypt’s secular foreign minister to have been among the main fanners of the flame. Minor members of youth wings of Islamist parties in places like Pakistan then got into the action. Nor is it true that things were quiet after the immediate publication of the cartoons. Nor is it true that the Danish prime minister or the Jyllands-Posten expressed any sympathy for the hurt feelings of Muslims early on. Indeed, they lectured them on being uncivilized for objecting.

I just parenthetically note that this whole controversy is doing more for inter-Muslim unity than anyone could have expected. Including– as Salah has noted here– between Shii and Sunni adherents in Iraq; and also, as Juan notes, between more secular Muslims like the Mubarak government and their less secular confreres.
Interesting times. Let’s focus on pulling back from escalating this into a “clash of civilizations” but try to focus on the need to civilize the discourse and all its related actions. Increasing the amount of information available about the issue, as Juan has done, makes a great contribution.

What is it about Rasmussen?

…And maybe other European leaders, too.

    Note: I revised and extended this post shortly after first posting it. Including I changed its title. ~HC

I can’t understand why Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who has said he disapproves of the cartoons of Muhammad, continues to insist he cannot apologize about the activities of his country’s media publisherss.
The government of Lebanon, badly shaken by the very nasty anti-Danish and anti-Christian violence shown by some hotheads in Beirut, quickly apologized to Denmark. This, from AP:

    Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said early Monday that the government had unanimously “rejected and condemned the … riots,” saying they had “harmed Lebanon’s reputation and its civilized image and the noble aim of the demonstration.”
    “The Cabinet apologizes to Denmark,” Aridi said.

I take it that no-one is inferring that, by having apologized to Denmark for the harm caused to its embassy, the Lebanese government is admitting to any culpability of its own in the act. But the apology regarding the harm caused by some Lebanese citizens (and also some non-citizen residents of the country) is a humane, very statesmanlike thing for a national leader to do.
So why does Rasmussen continue to feel– even five months after the original publication of the cartoons, and having seen quite clearly the hurt to others that they caused– that he “can’t apologize” for the actions of Danish publishers? To do so, after all, would imply no assertion whatsoever that his government should be held responsible for the actions of all of its citizens. But it would be a humane, very statesmanlike thing to do.
That same AP story linked to above, notes that Rasmussen says he can’t apologize “on behalf of” the Danish publishers of the cartoons. I don’t think people are asking him to apologize on their behalf. (Only they themselves could do that, or authorize it to be done.) But he could surely– as the national leader of the “nation” of Danes– apologize to Muslims in and far beyond Denmark for the hurt caused by this Danish institution and about the activities that caused that hurt?
… So what has been holding him back from doing that?

    Update after following this link from Juan Cole’s blog:

Here’s what Rasmussen said in a statement he made on Al-Arabiya satellite TV on Thursday evening:

    “I have a very important message for you: the Danish people have defended freedom of expression and religious freedom for generations. We deeply respect all religions including Islam and it is important for me to tell you that the Danish people have no intention to offend Muslims.
    “On the contrary we will do our utmost to continue our historic tradition of dialogue and mutual respect. And therefore I am deeply distressed that many Muslims have seen the drawings in a Danish newspaper as a defamation of the Prophet Mohammed,” Rasmussen said.
    The Danish leader said he would do his “utmost to solve that problem” and noted that the Danish newspaper had already apologized for the offence caused by the drawings.
    But Rasmussen defended his country’s tradition of freedom, saying, “We have a free press and this freedom of expression is a vital and indispensable part of our democracy and this is the reason why I cannot control what is published in the media.
    “But on the other hand neither the Danish government nor the Danish people can be held responsible for what is published in the media,” he said.

To me, this looks like an insufficient, indeed blame-the-victim type of apology. He says he is distressed that “many Muslims have seen the drawings… as a defamation of the Prophet Mohammed.” Clearly implied sub-text there: “Why are they so primitive? Can’t they ‘grow up’ and be like us and see these ‘drawings’ as quite value-neutral What is their problem?”
It strikes me that this was highly dishonest and unsatisfying. He must have known long before that point that the cartoons were not value-neutral but were indeed both clearly and intentionally desecrative of very widespread Islamic norms against pictorial representation of the Prophet and– in the case of at least one of them– defamatory to the Prophet and thereby to the worldwide community of Muslim believers. So for him to say that the “problem” that caused him distress was only the Muslims’ reaction to the cartoons, rather than the existence and publication of the cartoons– by anyone at all! but actually, as it happens, by a Danish media company– is mean-spirited in the extreme.
And then, he expresses “distress” over this but no “apology”. And rushes to argue that “neither the Danish government nor the Danish people can be held responsible for what is published in the media.”
Well, that is an important crux of his argument. It is one that is highly contested by many others around the world who have less of a free-speech-absolutist position on these issues than he does; and it is certainly a discussion we should all can engage in in our increasingly globalized world.
But if he wants to issue a sincere apology I suggest he simply does that. As the government of Lebanon did. Without making any mention in the statement of apology of issues of culpability or non-culpability. Those could be addressed later.
But this guy is certainly not acting in a way that is either humane or statesmanlike. What a dangerous ignoramus. Let’s hope the Danes hold him accountable at the next election.

    Second addendum, 1:30 p.m., Monday

I just checked the Wikipedia entry on Rasmussen. From that he appears to be much more like a wittingly dangerous person in this matter than someone who merely “lacks awareness” of the effects of his actions.

The “cartoons”

I can understand, perhaps, if some publisher in a not terrifically lively place like Denmark decides he wants to make some money by publishing some cartoons that– perhaps– he doesn’t even know are actively offensive to a billion-plus of his fellow humans. What I don’t understand is that, after the offended people have expressed their deep hurt about these cartoons, a bunch of other publishers all over Europe should choose to reprint them.
And they call that “free speech”? To me, it is exactly like sexual pornography, which is an ideology and a billion-dollar industry that intentionally demeans and objectifies women and provides the ideological basis for the industries of prostitution and human trafficking that are built centrally on the human suffering of women and young girls and boys.
Liberal societies have laws against the free publication, display, and distribution of pornography, and I’m glad that they do. Many have laws against publications that incite race-hate.
Publishing cartoons whose main intent is– as we all well know– to cause predictable amounts of great offense to adherents of a religion is not a “free speech” issue. It is incitement to hate of the most childish and irresponsible kind.
Of course Muslims should also find effective and nonviolent ways to express their sense of deep hurt. The violent response that’s been seen in a number of Muslim communities does nothing, I think, to either defend or honor the values of the religion. Huge, disciplined, nonviolent protests of all kinds– demonstrations and possibly also boycotts– would achieve those things so much more effectively.
Meantime, maybe we should all have a calm and reasoned discussion about the nature of sacred-ness in our world– and how we can all learn better to respect the feelings of others about the sacred.
What does it mean, indeed, when we say something is “sacred” to us? Is free-speech absolutism a “sacred” value? Thoughts?