Hi. I'll be away for a few days right after tomorrow morning's email, so these two essays are both headliners and a bit longer than usual. This afternoon's is quite fascinating, a very different analysis and proposal around Israel and Palestine. Don't miss it. . Ed
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/51624/?page=2 Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation By Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland, AlterNet: May 9, 2007. On Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition. It's a hugely significant development. Lawmakers demanding an end to the occupation now have the upper hand in the Iraqi legislature for the first time; previous attempts at a similar resolution fell just short of the 138 votes needed to pass (there are 275 members of the Iraqi parliament, but many have fled the country's civil conflict, and at times it's been difficult to arrive at a quorum). Reached by phone in Baghdad on Tuesday, Al-Rubaie said that he would present the petition, which is nonbinding, to the speaker of the Iraqi parliament and demand that a binding measure be put to a vote. Under Iraqi law, the speaker must present a resolution that's called for by a majority of lawmakers, but there are significant loopholes and what will happen next is unclear. What is clear is that while the U.S. Congress dickers over timelines and benchmarks, Baghdad faces a major political showdown of its own. The major schism in Iraqi politics is not between Sunni and Shia or supporters of the Iraqi government and "anti-government forces," nor is it a clash of "moderates" against "radicals"; the defining battle for Iraq at the political level today is between nationalists trying to hold the Iraqi state together and separatists backed, so far, by the United States and Britain. The continuing occupation of Iraq and the allocation of Iraq's resources -- especially its massive oil and natural gas deposits -- are the defining issues that now separate an increasingly restless bloc of nationalists in the Iraqi parliament from the administration of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose government is dominated by Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish separatists. By "separatists," we mean groups who oppose a unified Iraq with a strong central government; key figures like Maliki of the Dawa party, Shia leader Abdul Aziz Al-Hakeem of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq ("SCIRI"), Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi of the Sunni Islamic Party, President Jalal Talabani -- a Kurd -- and Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish Autonomous Region, favor partitioning Iraq into three autonomous regions with strong local governments and a weak central administration in Baghdad. (The partition plan is also favored by several congressional Democrats, notably Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.) Iraq's separatists also oppose setting a timetable for ending the U.S. occupation, preferring the addition of more American troops to secure their regime. They favor privatizing Iraq's oil and gas and decentralizing petroleum operations and revenue distribution. But public opinion is squarely with Iraq's nationalists. According to a poll by the University of Maryland's Project on International Public Policy Attitudes, majorities of all three of Iraq's major ethno-sectarian groups support a unified Iraq with a strong central government. For at least two years, poll after poll has shown that large majorities of Iraqis of all ethnicities and sects want the United States to set a timeline for withdrawal, even though (in the case of Baghdad residents), they expect the security situation to deteriorate in the short term as a result. That's nationalism, and it remains the central if unreported motivation for many Iraqis, both within the nascent government and on the streets. While sectarian fighting at the neighborhood and community level has made life unlivable for millions of Iraqis, Iraqi nationalism -- portrayed as a fiction by supporters of the invasion -- supercedes sectarian loyalties at the political level. A group of secular, Sunni and Shia nationalists have long voted together on key issues, but so far have failed to join forces under a single banner. That may be changing. Reached by phone last week, nationalist leader Saleh Al-Mutlaq, of the National Dialogue Front, said, "We're doing our best to form this united front and announce it within the next few weeks." The faction would have sufficient votes to block any measure proposed by the Maliki government. Asked about the Americans' reaction to the growing power of the nationalists, Mutlaq said, "We're trying our best to reach out to the U.S. side, but to no avail." That appears to be a trend. Iraqi nationalists have attempted again and again to forge relationships with members of Congress, the State Department, the Pentagon and the White House but have found little interest in dialogue and no support. Instead, key nationalists like al-Sadr have been branded as "extremists," "thugs" and "criminals." That's a tragic missed opportunity; the nationalists are likely Iraq's best hope for real and lasting reconciliation among the country's warring factions. They are the only significant political force focused on rebuilding a sovereign, united and independent Iraq without sectarian and ethnic tensions or foreign meddling -- from either the West or Iran. Hassan Al-Shammari, the head of Al-Fadhila bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said this week, "We have a peace plan, and we're trying to work with other nationalist Iraqis to end the U.S. and Iranian interventions, but we're under daily attacks and there's huge pressure to destroy our peace mission." A sovereign and unified Iraq, free of sectarian violence, is what George Bush and Tony Blair claim they want most. The most likely reason that the United States and Britain have rebuffed those Iraqi nationalists who share those goals is that the nationalists oppose permanent basing rights and the privatization of Iraq's oil sector. The administration, along with their allies in Big Oil, has pressed the Iraqi government to adopt an oil law that would give foreign multinationals a much higher rate of return than they enjoy in other major oil producing countries and would lock in their control over what George Bush called Iraq's "patrimony" for decades. Al-Shammari said this week: "We're afraid the U.S. will make us pass this new oil law through intimidation and threatening. We don't want it to pass, and we know it'll make things worse, but we're afraid to rise up and block it, because we don't want to be bombed and arrested the next day." In the Basrah province, where his Al-Fadhila party dominates the local government, Al-Shammari's fellow nationalists have been attacked repeatedly by separatists for weeks, while British troops in the area remained in their barracks. The nationalists in parliament will now press their demands for withdrawal. At the same time, the emerging nationalist bloc is holding hearings in which officials from the defense and interior ministries have been grilled about just what impediments to building a functional security force remain and when the Iraqi police and military will be able to take over from foreign troops. Both ministries are believed to be heavily infiltrated by both nationalist (al-Sadr's Mahdi Army) and separatist militias (the pro-Iranian Badr Brigade). The coming weeks and months will be crucial to Iraq's future. The United States, in pushing for more aggressive moves against Iraqi nationalists and the passage of a final oil law, is playing a dangerous game. Iraqi nationalists reached in Baghdad this week say they are beginning to lose hope of achieving anything through the political process because both the Iraqi government and the occupation authorities are systematically bypassing the Iraqi parliament where they're in the majority. If they end up quitting the political process entirely, that will leave little choice but to oppose the occupation by violent means. *** The Hard Bigotry of the New York Times http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/22231 By David Swanson A New York Times editorial on May 7th is titled "The Soft Bigotry of Iraq," and begins: "Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial, most Congressional Republicans are prepared to back up President Bush's veto of the Iraq spending bill." Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial or corrupt corporate interests, the New York Times pretends to be writing only about Republicans, while building into its editorial the assumption that the Democrats, too, must retreat in the face of a veto. The Democrats, as we all need to be constantly reminded, are in the majority, yet the Times' editorial arrives at this as its penultimate sentence: "The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won't let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America's withdrawal." "Mr. Bush" won't LET Congress pass a bill demanded by the vast majority of Americans? Why, because he might veto it again? If he vetoes enough of these war spending bills, Americans will get what they wanted anyway: he'll have to end the war. The New York Times clearly believes that Americans' attention spans have been reduced to zero, and that we can now forget things even while they are still happening. Bush just vetoed a bill because it included a meaningless non-binding request to end the war while leaving a huge military presence behind and stealing most of the oil. The bill was miles behind the public's demand for peace, but Bush vetoed it, and demanded a bill free of even the nonbinding request to end the war. Immediately, the chant arose from the media: Stand Up to Bush! Don't back down! Send him a bill with no request to end the war! The criteria for "standing up" were instantly redefined to include "benchmarks", such as oil theft, but no "timeline" to end the war, only "timelines" that might be imposed on those insufferable Iraqis who are handling the occupation of their own country so poorly. That's right, the way to stand up to Bush, and not back down, and be tough, and stand strong, is to impose demands on Bush's victims. Only in America. The New York Times' editorial continues: "It is now essential that the revised version not back away from demanding that Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, finally deliver on the crucial national reconciliation measures he has spent the last year dodging. And it must make clear that American support for his failures - and Mr. Bush's - is fast waning." So, now, over four years into a criminal war supported by fewer that a quarter of Americans, Congress should pass LEGISLATION in order to communicate that Americans may soon cease supporting the failures of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki? I'd like to see a poll on what percentage of Americans even know who Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is. Then I'd like to see a poll on whether Americans would prefer for Congress to A.-pass a bill to make clear that their support for Maliki's and Bush's failures is waning; or B.-pass a bill to cut off the money and end the war. The New York Times goes on to claim that some even unlikelier beliefs are commonly held: "What Mr. Maliki needs to do to slow Iraq's bloodletting is no mystery. Iraq's security forces must stop siding with the Shiite militias. Iraq's oil revenue must be apportioned fairly. Anti-Baathist laws now used to deny Sunni Arabs employment and political opportunities must be rewritten to target only those responsible for the crimes of the Saddam Hussein era." The bloodletting is generated first and foremost by the occupation of Maliki's country by a foreign army. Therefore, the first thing he needs to do is to demand that the occupiers leave. Rewriting the laws of a puppet government at this point is not going to restore order. And "oil revenue apportioned fairly" is code for giving Exxon Mobil and other U.S. and British corporations control over most of the oil. This has been explained in an op-ed printed by the New York Times in March: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/19606 It's explained well here as well: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/22108 But this recent article by the New York Times buried the lead at the bottom of the story: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/22103 The May 7th editorial then takes a turn into irony: "Without these steps, Mr. Maliki and his allies cannot even minimally claim to be a real national government. With them, there is at least a chance that Iraqis can muster the strength to contain the chaos when, as is inevitable, American forces begin to leave." A puppet government in an occupied land can only be legitimate if it obeys its master. True enough. But why must the New York Times agree so wholeheartedly with Fox News that Americans should only reduce the occupation after Iraqis have shown they can contain the insurgency? The Americans can't contain it. It's going from bad to worse. And were the occupation to go away, so would most of the insurgency. There must be some grim humor intended and secret laughter resulting from this policy of telling the Iraqi people that we will occupy them until their government has shown that it can contain the resistance to our occupation after the occupation is gone. Then the New York Times goes after Bush for not demanding more of his victims: "Mr. Bush acknowledges that these benchmarks are important. Yet he refuses to insist, or let Congress insist, that Baghdad achieve them or face real consequences. Each time Baghdad fails a test, Mr. Bush lowers his requirements and postpones his target dates - the kind of destructive denial Mr. Bush called, in another context, the soft bigotry of low expectations. Consider the Baghdad security drive. Last week, The Washington Post reported that Mr. Maliki's office had helped instigate the firing of senior Iraqi security officers who moved aggressively against a powerful Shiite militia. After betting so many American lives, the combat readiness of the United States Army and his own remaining credibility on this bloody push to secure the capital, it is a mystery why Mr. Bush would allow the Iraqi leader to undermine it." So, even while we pretend that the Iraqis have their own government, Bush is understood to be responsible for what that government does or does not do. Thus we can stand up to Bush by criticizing dark-skinned Arab-speaking Muslims, and avoid the whole unpleasantness of ending the war. "Then," the New York Times continues, "there is the endless soap opera that is one day supposed to produce a fair share-out of Iraqi oil revenues. The Bush administration prematurely popped champagne corks in February when Mr. Maliki's cabinet agreed on a preliminary draft. Now, in May, there is no share-out, no legislation and even the preliminary agreement is starting to unravel. The leading Sunni Arab party in Mr. Maliki's cabinet is now threatening to withdraw its ministers, declaring that it has 'lost hope' that the Iraqi leader will deal seriously with Sunni concerns." "Share-out" is a stock market term meaning "hand over the damn oil." The adjective "fair" in this instance is used to mean "handed over primarily to white English-speaking Christians." There is nothing "soft" about the bigotry that allows the belief that Iraqis cannot best run their own country and manage their own resources. The Times' editorial concludes: "Mr. Bush, by contrast, sees 'signs of hope' in the Baghdad security situation, urges Americans to give his failed policies more time and seems offended that Congress wants to impose accountability on Baghdad and the White House. The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won't let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America's withdrawal. If Mr. Maliki and Mr. Bush still don't get it, Congress will have to enact new means of enforcement, and back that up with a veto-proof majority." Again, this is not true. If Congress passes only bills to end the war, and no bills providing new money to extend it, the war will eventually end (following the illegal use of other funds, impeachment, and removal from office) whether the bill is signed or not. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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