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"...even the wicked get worse than they deserve." - Willa Cather, One of Ours

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Even Paranoids Have Enemies

Opinion Journal (WSJ editorial)

The thing about conspiracy theories is that sometimes they turn out to be true.

Take for example the prison abuse scandal. For over a year we have been hearing outrageous stories of abuse in US detention facilities. I, like everyone else, treated them as the usual Arab penchant for wild conspiracy theories. If it wasn’t for the pictures, I would still think this way. Now we know that those stories were true. In fact, now when I hear a story of abuse, I tend to think it is more likely to be true than not. Although now I may be trusting these accusations too much.

In these days it is hard to know what is true, and which sources you can trust. I would have thought that I could dismiss the statements of the detainees and trust the statements of the Pentagon. In this case that was an error.

Another wild accusation has been ringing in my ears for a year or so. The Pentagon has been telling us that Saddam’s intelligence people were connected with Al-Qaida. I have always believed this to be complete nonsense. I have not rejected the possibility that, someday in the future, if enough pressure had been placed on Saddam, he might have entertained the idea of such a relationship. But at the time of the invasion I was certain that no such relationship existed.

One of the strange things you learn about life as you get older is that some things are true, even when your ignorant, contemptible enemies believe in them.

To paraphrase the wise fool: "It’s not what people don't know that can hurt them. It's what they do know that just ain't so."

These days I am less inclined to automatically dismiss accusations like the one below.
One thing we've learned about Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein is that the former dictator was a diligent record keeper. Coalition forces have found--literally--millions of documents. These papers are still being sorted, translated and absorbed, but they are already turning up new facts about Saddam's links to terrorism.

We realize that even raising this subject now is politically incorrect. It is an article of faith among war opponents that there were no links whatsoever--that "secular" Saddam and fundamentalist Islamic terrorists didn't mix...If the CIA was wrong about WMD, couldn't it have also missed Saddam's terror links?

One striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

This matters because if Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned 9/11. Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his own.

[...]

That's not the only connection between Shakir and al Qaeda. The Iraqi next turned up in Qatar, where he was arrested on September 17, 2001, six days after the attacks in the U.S. A search of his pockets and apartment uncovered such information as the phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe houses and contacts. Also found was information pertaining to a 1995 al Qaeda plot to blow up a dozen commercial airliners over the Pacific.

After a brief detention, our friends the Qataris inexplicably released Shakir, and on October 21 he flew to Amman, Jordan. The Jordanians promptly arrested him, but under pressure from the Iraqis (and Amnesty International, which questioned his detention) and with the acquiescence of the CIA, they let him go after three months. He was last seen heading home to Baghdad.

[...]

U.S. officials believe that American civilian Nicholas Berg was beheaded in Iraq recently by Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, who is closely linked to al Qaeda and was given high-level medical treatment and sanctuary by Saddam's government. The Baathists killing U.S. soldiers are clearly working with al Qaeda now; Saddam's files might show us how they linked up in the first place.
Posted by: Zayphar / 5/27/2004 07:59:00 PM
Comments:
Which do you prefer? A secular regime in Irag headed by Saddam Husein or a right wing Shite Cleric Govt. in Iraq allied with Iran. We are likly to get the latter. Already in Fallujah the clerics have taken over. Alcohal, CD,s and movies have been banned and women are no longer seen. We have lost the chance for democracy in Iraq.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 8:37 PM
 
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"We have lost the chance for democracy in Iraq."

That is patently absurd. Not only that, I firmly believe that the supposition that Iraqis and Arabs are unsuited to democracy is fundamentally racist.

As to the Fallujah problem, see my comments here.

Becuase they represent a minority of even the Sunni Arabs, the Baathists hopes for reagaining power are doomed. And unless the clerics take over the government at the point of a gun, like Muqtada Al-Sadr tried to do, a clerical government in Iraq is very unlikely, if not impossible.

Though it has not been widely reported in the news (good news goes nowhere these days), there have been dozens of elections for local councils in the conservative rural areas of southern Shia Iraq. These local elections have received little coverage by the media despite their importance. In these elections religious parties and candidates have won only 15% of the seats. Of the remaining 85% of elected officials, few have been tribal or clan leaders. The fact is that almost all of the remaining 85% have been secular Shia technocrats (doctors, teachers, lawyers, engineers, etc.). In a few cases women have been elected.

When given a chance at a free and fair election, conservative Shia with lower educational levels have not been swayed by campaigns from the Mosque. Based on this, it is reasonable to assume that in any free and fair national election, Shia religious based parties would not win the dominant plurality they would need to control Iraqi politics.

This is very good news indeed for the future of Iraq.

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# posted by Blogger Zayphar : 10:02 PM
 
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