rule of law...,
2005-02-09 14:57:59
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huh...,
2005-02-10 13:04:44
not your father's colonialism:
which is why they put that "neo" in front of it: I don't know what else to call it when a foreign power invades and rewrites domestic law, reconfigures the domestic economy in the foreign power's interests, and places it under the domination of foreign forces - more or less permanently on a path paved by corruption:
Last week a British adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council told the BBC's File on Four programme that officials in the CPA were demanding bribes of up to $300,000 in return for awarding contracts. Iraqi money seized by US forces simply disappeared. Some $800m was handed out to US commanders without being counted or even weighed. A further $1.4bn was flown from Baghdad to the Kurdish regional government in the town of Irbil, and has not been seen since.
A snide comeback might be that it already was under foreign domination, which was something I recall as being a serious part of the problem to begin with: a sanctions regime that assisted the tyrant while it brutalized the population. We shouldn't have to remind anybody, as Volcker's touted but mostly ignored report just reinforced, that the US condoned the black market oil sales that were the regime's primary source of external revenue throughout the 90s. Ending support for Saddam simply wasn't an option short of war, apparently.
Now we've put in place an economic regime that assists a foreign occupation and marginalizes the population. Nevermind the dramatic costs already incurred in your moral equation, what does Hitchens intend to do if "it" happens?
If anybody is unclear, the "transfer of sovereignty" to US appointed lackeys last summer was a sham, and this election was for a constitutional assembly - US dictates remain the law of the land by virtue of gridlock: "No amendment to this Law may be made except by a three-fourths majority of the members of the National Assembly and the unanimous approval of the Presidency Council....the laws in force in Iraq on 30 June 2004 shall remain in effect unless and until rescinded or amended by the Iraqi Transitional Government in accordance with this Law." It certainly means something to finally have a constitutional assembly, but there's little talk about what it means. Triumphalism isn't warrented unless you're an Iraqi Shi'ite, but at least we don't have to worry about what Totten and Hitchens might do in their fight against Facism until somebody is actually elected to power.
Tales of the absurd propagated via crookedtimber, via henley, and so on.
update: andrew arato talks a little about what it means.