bt’s Weblog

Part I : Sunni and Shiite Muslims, two sects of one religion.

Sunni Muslims comprise 85% of the world’s Islamic population. Shiites make up most of the remaining 15%. The six million Muslims in the U.S.A. (2% of the population) are found in the same proportion. BUT in Iraq the proportion is much different.

In Iraq the Muslim population is 2/3 Shiite and only 1/3 Sunni. Got that? Two-to-one in favor of the Shiites.

Under Saddam Hussein the mostly secular Sunni Baath Party ran the government and the army while the majority Shiites got shat on.

I realize both the names start with “s” but so do “shit” and “shine-ola” and those who can’t tell them apart are considered stupid (another ‘S’ word like “Shrub”).

Okay, now Shrub and Dick fake, mislead and even lie to us (Americans) about Saddam’s weapons potential. On March 20, 2003 they unleash a hellfire storm of missiles under the operational name of “Shock and Awe.” I kid you not. After launching more firepower than was used in Europe during the entire Second World War the troops go in and in three weeks Baghdad ‘falls’ while Shrub and his fellow boobs believe it will all be wrapped up in a few months. Pretty wrong, yes?

So Saddam is gone, the government and army are disbanded and the Baath Party is outlawed. That means the minority Sunnis are up Shit Creek without a paddle. OTOH the Shiites are dancing in the streets because they are the majority and they are going to make up for all the wrongs done to them by those (insert bad thing here) Sunnis.

So there the Sunnis were - out of power and outnumbered two-to-one by Shiites. What is amazing is that the current blood bath didn’t start until much later. It was called ‘civil war’ by everyone but Shrub & Dick et al and then ’sectarian violence’ but the war’s instigators seemed to be in total denial about all of the demons their unprovoked war had released in Iraq. We are seeing a re-run of the Serb vs Bosnian genocide of not so long ago. Remember Bosnia?

Part II: Sunnis, Saudis and alQaeda

I’ve quoted this before and I’m doing it again. This is one of the LIES President Shrub told in his “Mission Accomplished” speech. “We’ve removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding.” Je repete, il est faux. I’ll back up just a bit.

The notorius Osama bin Laden is (was?) a Saudi national. Saudi as in, Saudi Arabia loaded with oil, rich as a bitch and the site of Mecca, THE holiest place in Islam with an overwhelming majority of Sunni Muslims. Osama is an ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim who either left or was thrown out of Saudi Arabia and took up residence in Afghanistan toward the end of the Russian army’s occupation. It is said that his organization which became known as al-Qaeda (the ‘foundation’ or ‘base’, as in military base) was one of those funded by the CIA as proxy fighters against the Russian occupation.

So Osama is a Saudi Sunni Muslim, ultra-conservative to the point of wanting to rid Islamic countries of Western influence, rid the world of Israel and establish an Islamic Caliphate (something like a golden age for Sunnis).

Saddam Hussein was a secular leader “whose government gave women added freedoms and offered them high-level government and industry jobs. Saddam created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to traditional Islamic law (Sharia). Saddam abolished the Sharia law courts, except for personal injury claims.” (Wikipedia) For this and other “blasphemys” he was disliked (hated?) by Islamic conservatives. However, his power base was the minority Sunnis who made up the working class of the country.

Saddam relied on the Sunnis to shore up his control of the country but he was an enemy to Sunni conservatives like Ossama bin Laden who despised secularism. The feeling was mutual and al-Qaeda never had a prayer (pun) in Saddam’s Iraq. As for supporting terrorists with cash, Saddam had no use for the likes of Ossama bin Laden. The fact is that our own CIA and our “friend” Saudi Arabia were the ones who funded Ossama’s al-Qaeda.

Part III: Conservatives vs. secularists

The main branches of Islam, like those of Christianity and Judiasm, all contain their conservative and reactionary elements. Thus it is not a simple case of Sunnis vs. Shiites in Iraq. Both sides have their conservatives who happen to be the ones who want to kill the “other” side. Al-Qaeda lines up with the Iraqi minority Sunnis. The majority Shiites have a number of religious leaders who are in control of virtual and actual armies of followers. Moktada al-Sadr being the most prominent and powerful.

What the Shrub Administration is doing is getting the word “al-Qaeda” in every place it can. The propagandists want to reenforce the false premise that all “enemy” Iraqis are really al-Qaeda terrorists. However the organization calling itself “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,” is “a homegrown Sunni insurgent group with some foreign operatives” according to Stephen Farrell of the NY Times. It is a fact that the spread of al-Qaeda’s influence in Iraq was directly caused by Shrub’s invasion and subsequent neglect of the country.

You will note that the repitition of “insurgent,” “militant,” “terrorist,” “al-Qaeda” give the impression that we are really fighting terrorism, as Shrub continues to blare at everyone he can. He relies on our ignorance of Sunni-Shiite  and religious-secular tensions. Our troops also fight Shiites who are responsible for killing mostly Sunnis and recently each other. From an Iraqi point of view our military is more or less helping rid the country of Sunnis while the Shiite clerics call for our withdrawal and/or death.

Did you notice that the stories about the 36% decrease Iraqis killed in June were on the wires and in the papers on July 1st? Apparently someone stayed up late and at the stroke of midnight in Baghdad they collated all the data on dead persons and got it out in time for the papers to publish. Amazing!

And did you notice that there wasn’t just one AP release but three over the next half day and that they were either published directly, as in our local paper, or worked over by a reporter in papers like the NY Times.

So I did a search for “Iraq” + “June 1″ and guess what? There was nothing on the previous month’s casualty figures. On June 2nd there was a NY Times article by Richard A. Oppel Jr. et al titled, “Number of Unidentified Bodies Found in Baghdad Rose Sharply in May.” The number of ‘unidentifed bodies’ shot up from 411 to 726. The number of identifiable victims fell from 495 to 344. Pretty much the same as the July 5th article Body Count Up In June
Oppel reported that “The Bush administration and military have cited a decline in sectarian killings as proof that the troop escalation is working. And despite May’s increase in corpses, the numbers remain far below the peak of sectarian executions last year.” But (says I) last year has nothing to do with the surge which Bush announced in January and according to the “generals in the field” was completed in either May or June.

The next day Oppel and Khalid W. Hassan had a piece headed “7 More U.S. Soldiers Are Killed in Iraq.” They write, “At least 22 American soldiers were killed in Diyala during May, more than any other province except Baghdad, where 60 died…” and “Altogether, 75 American troops have been killed so far this year in Diyala, compared to 20 during all of last year.” Not good news which according to the pseudo-conservatives is proof of the NY Times’ liberal bias.

The appearance of stories on the “36% decrease” sounds like a public relations operation typical of the backroom style of Karl Rove. Maybe he got help from Karen Hughes who is earning a large U.S. government salary as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. The State Department blurb says of her, “(Hughes) has been tasked by President Bush with leading efforts to promote America’s values and confront ideological support for terrorism around the world. She oversees three bureaus at the Department of State: Educational and Cultural Affairs, Public Affairs, and International Information Programs, and participates in foreign policy development at the State Department.” Can you say “Minister of Propaganda?”

This is one of a series of ‘blips’ in the news that are meant to create the impression that things is lookin’ up in Iraq. You know, the ordinary Joe who can name all the teams in the NFL, NHL, NBA, NL and AL will vaguely remember that he heard somewhere that deaths in Iraq are going down and the surge is working. God Bless America. Gimmie a beer.

Today we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a document we treasure whether or not we’ve ever read it. President Shrub celebrated by commuting the 2 year prison sentence of I. Libby, a former advisor to V.P. Cheney, who was convicted of lying to a grand jury on more than one occasion.

Shrub said the sentence was “too harsh” and that Libby would still have to pay the fine, etc. A few hours later the White House said that a full pardon is still a possiblilty.

Those, like me, who oppose this latest twisting of justice are in the majority and pretty much see it’s something Cheney pushed to keep Libby out of jail and thus to “reward” him for doing his dirty work and possibly to keep him from deciding to blow bush-cheney’s cover on how they lied and faked data so they could start the Iraq War.

Some on the other side said that commutation isn’t good enough, pardon is called for. Some others used various reasons and comparisons to justify the action. One was that President Clinton was not sent to jail for perjury (for which he was aquitted). Yet others are like a woman who said in a letter to the editor (of the New Haven Register) “I just like it when Bush sticks it to the liberals.” I think that’s honest at least.

And we slog on with the feeling that a watched, botched Administration never ends. But it will and that is reason for hope.

Here and there some maple trees have been turning red and gold for over a week. During my daily commute over wooded, two lane roads I see the brown of dying leaves replacing the green palette of summer. The peak of the season for color is month away but for me the transition is defined by familiar places and even individual trees. I see the whole as well as the parts that contribute to it.

This Autumn I am in a melancholy mood which comes and goes with the news from the front. My decision to stop watching TV made five or six years ago has detached me from fads and news propaganda to the extent that I am disconnected from what passes as mainstream America. I keep up with the news but through my own channels of Internet, newspaper and sometimes a magazine. I am mostly ignorant of entertainment and sports “celebrities” whose pictures grace headlines that often make no sense to me. And I couldn’t care less. I have escaped from the grip of advertising, commercial and political, as well as the insidious propaganda of the Republican Party’s power grubbers.

It is difficult but necessary to accept that our president and his supporters in and out of the administration really do approve of secret prisons, torture and spying that are against the law. They really did start a war for their own political reasons. They brand Harry Potter as having a bad influence on children and ignore the effect of a president who shows off his criminal acts as the right of the leader of a democracy. If teaching civics was difficult in the past it must be impossible now because children are not deflected by nuance and specious reasoning.

The president is our leader. Bush is our president. Bush tortured men in secret prisons. Follow the leader.

While not violating laws that protect humanity, Shrub and his party are busy putting up barriers to voting by those who tend to be Democrats. The Republican candidate for Ohio governor, J. Kenneth Blackwell, has a long history as a front man for GOP voter suppression efforts. He was the chair of the Presidential Census Monitoring Board - the Republican half of the Board that did Rep. Dan Miller’s (R-FL) bidding in trying to skew the count of U.S. residents to favor rich white folks. Blackwell is Ohio Secretary of State and as election supervisor used the GOP partisan Diebold company and illegal rule changes to suppress minority votes in Ohio in the 2004 election. He will supervise his own election with (of course) no conflict of interest. He’s another Katherine Harris, who did Karl Rove’s dirty work in the 2000 Florida vote fiasco.

There is reason for melancholy as the Fall of American democracy heralds the bleak winter to come.

This year the 4th is on Tuesday, at the end of a four day weekend. I’m rather relaxed and have no plans except to walk a hundred yards or so and sit on “our” hill along with lots of neighbors and watch the fireworks a few miles away in New Haven harbor. Perhaps half the crowd will be speaking Spanish but that’s the way it should be. We are a nation of immigrants aren’t we?

I think back to some July 4ths and come up with a few that are memorable.

In the early 70’s I ‘did’ the fireworks on the Mall in D.C. Those were a real celebration of America as 250,000 or so folks of all shapes, sizes and colors sat on the lawns and had a picnic. We all oooed and aahhed at the fireworks and gave a big cheer at the end. I was back in the early 80’s when it was decided to have Wayne Newton replace the Beachboys as the lead act before the fireworks. It rained and the concert was called off because of the threat of lightning. But the real show went on and we were on the windward side of the fireworks so along with the rain drops we were sprinkled with ash and other debris from the explosions. Still, it was a reunion with two former students who had just returned from an Outward Bound experience and a student or two from the school I was teaching at. We had a great time.

The American Embassy in Dacca, Bangladesh had plans for a picnic and fireworks for the Bicentennial and I was eager to attend this special 4th celebration. Unfortunately, that is the monsoon season so we managed to have hot dogs and hamburgers in the drizzle but the fireworks were postponed and then cancelled. Guess it made the 200th Anniversary of Independence even more memorable.

In 1980 I was with good friends in Mountain, WI enjoying some summer boating, fishing and fun. We gathered at a small field in that very small town and watched the fireworks as we drank beer and celebrated our friendship along with our country’s birthday. A couple of years later I was in Wilkes-Barre, PA and again with friends we listened to the NE PA Symphony Orchestra play the 1812 Overture and the fireworks began as the last part was played. Somehow a Russian overture celebrating the defeat of the French in 1812 has become part of the American Independence Day experience. Must be the cannons.

Staten Island, NY in the early 90’s was a real bang up affair because loads of people shoot off monster fireworks from the street. I mean these are the chrysanthemums that “blossom” a thousand feet in the air only sometimes they didn’t make it more than a couple of hundred. A cloud of smoke drifted over the island and the smell of gunpowder was in the air. The next day the streets were littered with mortars and burnt out launchers. In a city where firecrackers are illegal this was an in-your-face show of independence that stirred my soul.

The common thread in my memories of great 4th of July celebrations is being with friends among a crowd of revelers as the colorful displays burst overhead. I’ve always loved the physical feel of the percussion as the big ones explode and cheered with everyone else as if we were all seeing fireworks for the first time. For those minutes we are again children of the American Revolution, the great experiment whose effects have carried us onward for these 230 years.

A brief history of the 20th Century from an American perspective:

WW I, WW II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, the “Wars” on Drugs and Poverty, and the Cold War.

I was once hopeful that the 21st Century would be a century of peace but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled otherwise when it appointed the Shrub as president.

This miserable failure, Air National Guard deserter, with a mid-20th Century world view lied through his teeth so he could start a war to oust Saddam Hussein. This wholly inept and wrong-headed response to a terrorist attack has killed at least 30,000 people and maimed God knows how many times that number.

Junior has disgraced America and he continues to do so with an arrogance rooted in stupidity and encouraged by those who put power and wealth ahead of all else.

It did not have to be this way. A real leader could have united much of the world in an effort to halt terrorists and more importantly, remove the causes of terrorism. This is what a real American would have and could have done.

For now we must watch this morally corrupt administration make us torturers, liars and disrespectors of the rule of law in the eyes of the world. As ye sow, so shall you reap. Lord help us.