Juan Cole - Jun 24, 2005

Student Unions [in Iraq] Call for Withdrawal of Occupation Troops

Gilbert Achcar kindly sends along his translation of this newspaper article:

' Student Unions [in Iraq] Call for Withdrawal of Occupation Troops

Baghdad – Abdel-Wahed Tohmeh – Al-Hayat, June 24, 2005

11 Student Unions approved the call made on al-Jaafari’s Government to set a timetable for the withdrawal of multinational forces and considered that the request made [by the Government at the UN] for the extension of their presence is “an infringement on Parliament’s prerogatives.”

Does Karl Rove Hate our Liberties and Way of Life?

' At a Manhattan fund-raiser Wednesday night, the flamboyant architect of Bush's two presidential campaigns and now White House deputy chief of staff told members of the Conservative Party of New York State: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war. Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." '

Now we know where the Bearded Lady of the Carnival Right, Ann Coulter, actually gets her material. She is just channeling Karl Rove, who believes that "liberals" wanted to put terrorists on the psychiatrist's couch or wanted to put them on trial rather than declaring them "enemy combatants" (i.e. persons with whom Bush and Rove could do as they pleased, without reference to any law). And, he implies that Conservatives knew what to do instead. Why, they got out their shotguns and went hunting for the varmints. Rove must not have heard that the Senate just apologized for not objecting to the practice of lynching in the old days.

Jaafari in Washington
Weeping Madman in Sweltering Baghdad

Robin Wright and Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post profile the meeting of Ibrahim Jaafari with George W. Bush.

As reported here yesterday, on Thursday morning back in Baghdad, four bombings left 17 dead and 70 wounded. (-Al-Sharq al-Awsat).

Richard Reeves predicts that the US will be in Iraq for 6 or 7 more years, and that when it withdraws it will be a "tragedy." He has no idea.

Al-Duri Leads Baath
Birth of His Daughter in Mosul

Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri [al-Douri] just had a daughter in Mosul, according to al-Hayat. The article says, roughly:

Al-Hayat has learned from sources close to Iraq's armed groups that the former vice president of the Revolutionary Command Council and the present Secretary-General of the dissolved Baath Party, Izzat al-Duri, was blessed with a baby girl, his eleventh child. She was born to a wife he married after the American attack. He has named her "Tahrir" (Liberation).

The sources affirmed that al-Duri received congratulations from the leadership of the Baath inside Iraq and outside it. He visited his wife, who gave birth in Mosul before leaving for parts unknown.

UN and Trying Bush

More on my UN Option for Iraq. By the way, someone over at the Kos discussion (scroll down) said that there "was no civil war" when the US withdrew from Vietnam. But mainland southeast Asia from the mid-70s is a pretty stark cautionary tale. Khmer Rouge take-over of Cambodia, genocide (one million killed out of a population of 6 million); North Vietnamese victory in the south and imposition of reeducation and Communism; exodus of Chinese Vietnamese as refugees; Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and decade-long occupation; Communist takeover of Laos; hostilities between Vietnam and China. If all *that* is awaiting the Oil Gulf after a US withdrawal, it will be a world-class catastrophe. Southeast Asia wasn't central to the world economy.