Month: January 2005

The man most responsible for Iraq’s election didn’t vote because he wasn’t eligible. No, not George W. Bush – I mean the Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al-Sistani, the man who single-handedly faced down the Americans, demanded direct elections rather than the “caucus” system the occupation authorities wanted to impose, and called his people out … Continue reading “Iraq Election: Sistani’s Triumph”

I had the opportunity to participate in the long-awaited Iraqi elections this weekend. Contrary to popular belief, this was not the first time my opinion has mattered to the Iraqi state. It was actually the third. Saddam Hussein had asked us Iraqis in both 1995 and 2002 if we wanted him to be our leader. … Continue reading “The Iraqi Ballot, Translated”

ARBIL – It is 8:30 in the morning, and the roads of Arbil appear for a moment to be eerily silent. Most cars have been banned from the streets of this Kurdish city of 800,000. Roadblocks are up all over town. But the city is hardly abandoned. The local peshmerga guerillas are out in force. … Continue reading “Kurds Make a Strong Showing in Relative Safety”

Okay, under the rubric of “the war on terror” (which turns out to be just so versatile, so useful for so many much-desired but once back-burner policies, programs, and products), the military is having a grand old time protecting us from the Enemy up close and personal, right in our own, previously unlawful-to-occupy backyards. But, … Continue reading “Resisting the Homeland Security State”

Hours before his "ratification" inaugural, Vice President Dick Cheney was chatting with Don Imus on MSNBC about Iraqi and Iranian "nuclear programs." Now, Cheney appears to know the difference between a "nuclear program" and a "nuclear weapons program." Bush may not. In any case, both Cheney and Bush want you to hear "nuclear weapons" when … Continue reading “Let the Israelis Do It?”

ARBIL, Northern Iraq, (IPS) – Many Kurds in Northern Iraq are facing new threats – and they do not come from masked Arab terrorists. They come from the two main Kurdish parties doing all they can to gain strength in the election Sunday, independent local journalists and opposition politicians say. Kurds are voting for the … Continue reading “This Democracy Could Be Paper-Thin”

MOSUL – Mosul could be the most dangerous city in Iraq on election Sunday. The city is something of a Sunni island in the Kurd-dominated north of Iraq. Troop reinforcements from the U.S.-supervised Iraqi National Guard (ING) are being brought from Kurdistan into the violence-plagued city. In mostly night-time raids, they have arrested scores of … Continue reading “In Mosul, Hunters Become the Hunted”

ARBIL, Kurdistan – The afternoon call to prayer sounds on the final Friday before election on Sunday, and thousands of Kurds across Northern Iraq file into their mosques. At each one of them, imams appointed by the ruling Kurdish factions give the same message: go out and vote. "Vote, vote, and vote for all the … Continue reading “Worried Turkey Keeps Close Watch Over Kurdistan”

Despite a continuing increase in the already draconian security measures imposed across Iraq, the bombs keep coming. Today in the al-Dora district of Baghdad a primary school which had been a designated polling station was struck by a car bomb. Four Iraqi Police (IP) were killed. A GMC packed with explosives rammed a checkpoint at … Continue reading “On Pins and Needles in Baghdad”

Since ancient Rome, imperial republics have invariably felt a tension between cherished republican practices at home and distinctly unrepublican ones abroad; or put another way, if imperial practices spread far enough beyond the republic’s borders and gain enough traction out there in the imperium, sooner or later they also make the reverse journey home, and … Continue reading “The Emergence of the Homeland Security State”