It's shame to see an Iraqi blogger considered "good" by the relatively mild sarcasm, cynicism and ingratitude.

I used to wonder if the Salams, Gs and Riverbends represented the best of the Near East until I ran across Iranians like Koorosh Afshar and others who - hold onto your hat - admire us, seek to be admired themselves and actually want to be friends.

Did you miss something important? How about the bombings in Bombay (interesting, as the international spotlight turns there, everyone forgets about the "Mumbai" name change)? Is this really a local issue (Guardian and BBC speculate it is related to an archaeological report due out about Ayodhya), or is the timing (so close to the Jerusalem and Baghdad car bombings) meant to imply a new front in the global jihad? Just why Indo-Muslims would want to piss off 3/4 billion Hindus and other non-Muslims is a question for the ages, but there it is.

So let's get speculating! My personal take is that this activity is too close in shape and timing to other recent events to be mere coincidence. Moreover, India and Pakistan have been making peace overtures to one another lately (ever an irritant to jihadis) and both countries have been drawing closer to the western/US-led political camp over the past year or two (also a very bad sign to Islamofascists). Could this also be a warning to New Delhi not to send badly needed troops to Iraq? You better believe it.

And while I HATE pedants as much as the next guy, I feel compelled to note that it's spelled "Colombia" not "Columbia." Thanks.

on the pakistan times article: the logic of india-iran security cooperation (even extending into the nuclear realm) is quite believable, especially when considered in light of recent iran-india joint naval exercises and rumors of iranian pasdaran elements involved in border exercises with elite indian troops. india seems to be acting based on exigencies vis-a-vis pakistan--a situation from which iran profits.

a "wildcard" here is the unclear US policy towards india, which may not be assuring enough (despite recently-resigned US amb. blackwill's attempts to make assurances) with respect to the pakistan threat to dissuade the indian leadership from seeking partnership with iran.

the bombay bombings will certainly be a wake-up call to the US to reconsider these "wildcard" effects.

How is this a news roundup without mentioning the awful terrorist bombing in India that has killed over 40 people.

http://www.hawken.blogspot.com/2003_08_24_hawken_archive.html#106182587312114377
We have a post at Hawken.

You need to have a "Printable" button to click to print out the roundup and read it.

Otherwise, its often too much to read on line and I would often like to read it over lunch.

Would be a smart move and appreciated.
Thanks.
Mike

Thanks. Good idea. You can, of course, just hit the "Direct link" button and print it... maybe that will be the core of our solution, a button that takes you there.

My question is, when you read it over lunch, what do you do about the links that interest you?

For the questions about India: that had not yet been reported when I compiled the data. I caught it this morning when I got home from PT, but Indus Watcher had already noted it.

And I'll watch my spelling of Colombia in the future.

The print idea is a good one. It would keep me from going to all the links which, at times, has me tied up for well over an hour of just reading the fascinating material. If I had a print out, I wouldn't be tempted!

What is good about the blog of Riverbend named "Baghdad burning"? Every post is a variation on "Life was great in Iraq until the Americans ruined everything". For her, certainly.

Not a reliable witness. And the arrogance on display is off-putting.

W.,

I believe she's exercizing her newfound freedom to express herself. Whether she appreciates it or not, we should.

Riverbend does write with some style, but it is sad to see her "Saddam was better" mentality. Sure, for her it was. Here in Japan too no doubt some people had it better under Tojo than under MacArthur.

Reading thru her blog, much of her rage is vented at the religious types who tell her what to wear and what she can and cannot do. This she throws on the Americans. Perhaps she's been watching a bit much of the BBC?

Christopher, I'm sure nearly every one of us is happy that Iraqis are free to speak their minds. In the course of expression, of course, they'll speak well and poorly of us.

America's two largest relations with the defeated Axis countries were very dynamic; the Germans and Japanese showed appreciation, curiousity, embarrassment, resentment, ambivalence, despair and thanksgiving in less than a decade of occupation. Political and personal interaction wasn't always friendly or constructive (to Daniel, indeed, reactionaries in the Diet fought MacArthur tooth and nail on many reforms).

And that was with the understanding of Axis nations' culpability for bringing the world into war. The Iraqi people, by and large, aren't guilty of anything; as select political and media forces goad them on to drive a hard bargain with the Allies, they will continue to show a much more independent, often confrontational spirit. Former Ba'athist beneficiaries will be among the most brazen.

Anticipating all that, it's still heartbreaking and frustrating to see someone misunderstand, convinced of their dislike for us.

What is your point, Christopher? Of course Riverbend can express herself, although I am not sure this freedom is as new to her as you think. And I can express my distrust of people who liked the old Iraq better. If they brought Saddam back tomorrow, there is nothing in this blog that would cause her any problems.

Really, she berates the Americans for disbanding the Army and the ministry of information? How much did the conscripted soldiers get paid anyway? Do they miss their officers?

For a proud Iraqi patriot, she expects very little from her countrymen. They need a "reason to get up every morning"? Well, if you want to keep hundreds of thousands of useless officers and bureaucrats in comfy jobs you will need a lot of oil money, so why don´t you help to stop your people from blowing up your pipelines? But helping the Americans (those 'Rambos') in any way is really beneath her. She is not a traitor to her class, I give her that.

I believe Riverbend expresses a common Iraqi mentality well. As a window into that mentality who can write well, yes, that's a worthwhile contribution to our understanding. Whether we like it is a different question.

Do the Iraqis need to take more responsibility? Yes. What Riverbend reinfiorced in my mind, though, is that you have a whole generation of people trained in the reverse of responsibility (because initiative could get you killed), confused because all past guides to action are gone and now what do we do?

Predictable, really, and it's good to have a few "temperature takers" in the blogosphere so we can follow the evolution (if any).

And I thought she had at least one good point:

I myself was more than a bit taken aback by the full army demobilization in Iraq. 400,000 people, with some military training, cut loose into an economically unstable situation where weapons were widely available even in Saddam's last months... it sounded to me like the ideal recipe for creating (a) mass banditry in the short term; and (b) a fantastic organized criminal class in the longer term.

I find it a bit hard to believe that was really the best alternative the USA could come up with.

They couldn't be allowed to remain armed, so the alternative Joe was to imprison them.

Unarmed worker brigades to help with reconstruction? There are precedents for this, most notably 1930s Germany in its pre-armament period. And if they have to help lay phone cables, etc., they might start to get rather protective of them....

Or maybe point defense for hard to protect infrastructure targets in remote areas, or based away from their home areas, and backed by mobile US reinforcements?

And maybe there's even a good case for what was done vs. the alternatives. I just never saw the explanation of why (can't be debating every point, but should be explaining the big ones), and I'm pretty sure the Iraqis didn't either. So of course this will generate confusion.

I think the biggest reason for what was "done" was that the Iraqis did it themselves. The army melted back to their homes. Few formations surrendered as formations. Rounding them back up into formations would have been too much like ... rounding them up.

But weren't some elements of the army still cohesive enough to mount organized demonstrations that then led to the CPA's demob payment program? Thus, I don't think we can fully dismiss questions about alternatives to fully cutting loose the army by saying the organization had completely melted away.

Historical footnote: as a contrast to Joe's example of interwar Germany there is interwar Bulgaria: Treaty of Neuilly dictated that Bulgaria scale back army from 700,000 to 33,000, leading "disaffected officers [to] establish a conspiratorial group" that would align with opposition groups that would undermine and eventually overthrow the gov't in the 1923 coup (ref. Glenny's "The Balkans", p.398). This began a spiral of violence between various parties. Lesson: Disaffected demobs can be a threat to political and economic order. They will probably remain below the surface so long as there is someone to effectively deter them. But such deterrence is not easy to establish.

Wasn´t this a conscript army, except for the guard officers who are most opposed to our project, and many of whom were appointed based on political and tribal affiliations?

This is just my uneducated guess, but most of the conscripts surely wanted to leave and did. Pay, decent treatment and a worthy assignment might have convinced many of them to stay voluntarily, but probably not under their previous officers. The divides in Iraqi society that Riverbend´s blog inadvertently exposes, exist in the army as well. I don´t think the officer class is either professional or representative, and many of them are not used to working with their hands either. And screening them would have taken months anyway, given the language problem (and it would have been another insult to Riverbend, let´s not forget that). For the same reason, you cannot just put Americans in charge.

So you need to establish a new organisation and chain of command, which I think is what the U.S. is trying to do right now.