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I often do not agree with my friend Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, but he is certainly one of the more talented journalists I know and surely one of the bravest as well. I was having dinner at his house in Beirut one evening about a year ago, and as the night wore on and more wine was imbibed, a journalist visiting from London started in on me for having served as a solider in Iraq. Ghaith, who was himself severely wounded in a U.S. helicopter attack in 2004, stepped in firmly to defend me and made clear in no uncertain terms that I was both his guest and that he would not allow me to be insulted under his roof. I will always remember that.
And so this is a sad day for freedom of the press in post-war Iraq. To be sure, I doubt this would have happened if Ghaith were not a Baghdadi -- or had a last name like "Burns" or "Worth" or "Dreazen" rather than Abdul-Ahad. But what Ghaith told me one day over coffee that he most fears -- that we Americans would deliver an Iraqi goverment just as repressive as the last -- perhaps inches closer.
There was widespread condemnation from around the world today of an Iraqi court ruling fining the Guardian for reporting criticism of the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.
A broad range of leading journalists, Iraq experts, civic society activists and former officials involved in Iraq's postwar reconstruction said the ruling and fine – for an article quoting intelligence officials as saying Maliki was becoming increasingly authoritarian – reflected a marked decline in press freedom in Iraq.
The article was written by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an award-winning Iraqi staff correspondent for the Guardian.
Bill Keller, editor of the New York Times, said: "This ruling has to send a shiver up the spine of anyone who hopes for a genuinely democratic Iraq. What the court calls libel is, in most countries, called journalism.
"Indeed, if a respected journalist like Ghaith Abdul-Ahad can be punished for reporting on concerns about a trend toward authoritarian government, the verdict would seem to lend credence to those very concerns."
That's disturbing and worrisome. As a staffer for a news org I find myself suddenly angry this Friday morning. That we bled blood and treasure to install a government better than the last was the only thing I could salvage from Bush's heinous act of aggression. That it might bring about an better life , a more connected existence for the Iraqi people, that they might begin to enjoy the freedoms and the opportunities that I enjoy.
Sad day indeed.
Can't "control the population" without controlling the press.
"For this we fought?"
Sorry to break this to you, Andrew: there's no such thing as Santa Claus.
Just wait several years when you see Iran and Iraq openly engaging in military cooperation with all that flashy US hardware you gave 'em. Like the old AC-DC song says: "That's when the tear drops start FELLA!"
What were we expecting? That they'd take freedom of the press as an absolute right? We did let them build an Islamic theocratic-democracy hybrid right? Did we honestly think they're weren't going to be compromises?
Yea it is a worrying sign for the future and I would certainly agree with Salman e Farsi but I don't think its time to say its all gone for naught just yet.
AM
I'm hoping that your "for this we fought" was meant purely rhetorically.
If on the other hand you thought you were fighting for democracy in Iraq or think we are fighting for democracy in Afghanistan, we've got to meet.
I've got a compelling investment opportunity for you in Lehman Brothers stock.
The price has never been lower. It's a great time to make a substantial purchase.
AM
I'm hoping that your "for this we fought" was meant purely rhetorically.
If on the other hand you thought you were fighting for democracy in Iraq or think we are fighting for democracy in Afghanistan, we've got to meet.
I've got a compelling investment opportunity for you in Lehman Brothers stock.
The price has never been lower. It's a great time to make a substantial purchase.
Kind of reminiscent of the Supreme Leader in Iran, who was actually questioned in public by a math guy - leave it to the Spocks of the world to put the question to the dictator: it makes no logical sense to ban criticism, so why do you do it? However, unlike our professional reporter,
"Mahmoud Vahidnia has so far suffered no repercussions from the confrontation at a question-and-answer session between Khamenei and students at Tehran's Sharif Technical University," the Associated Press reports.
"I don't know why in this country it's not allowed to make any kind of criticism of you," Vahidnia said to Khamanei. "In the past three to five years that I have been reading newspapers, I have seen no criticism of you, not even by the Assembly of Experts, whose duty is to criticize and supervise the performance of the leader."
Why can't doesn't Maliki want any dissent? Try this on, regarding the recent deal for Rumalia oilfield in Southern Iraq:
But Isam al-Chalabi, the country's former oil minister, criticised the deal, saying it had opened the country up to further exploitation by foreigners and that ordinary Iraqis would not benefit.
"It is one of the biggest mistakes that the current government is making...If they needed technical support for the revamping of the reservoir, they should have gone to service-providing companies, not international oil companies...."
"Iraqis will certainly not benefit from the oil revenue, the government is going to take the money and spend it the way they want. These companies claim they are going to use local labour, but they definitely will not. For example, the Chinese CNPC, with the al-Ahdab field in central Iraq, have brought every single labourer from China and now they are working together with BP to exploit the Rumaila field and I am sure they will be doing the same thing.""
Take a look at Southern Iraq - the locals aren't benefiting any more than the locals in the Niger Delta & Chad do, and that has a tendency to lead to more rebellion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2O2LGKLVW4
Not only that, the corruption in Iraq's government seems to be greater than in Karzai's:
Iraqis will also instantly refer you to the corrupt rulers who came to Iraq "on the backs of US tanks". They will tell you of the division of ministries and senior posts among the various sectarian and ethnically identified political allies of the US. Indeed, corruption has reached such levels that the minister of trade and his brothers have been accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars by the "Integrity Committee", while the deputy transport minister was caught receiving $100,000 as the "first installment" of another huge bribe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/25/carnage-and-corrupti...
Wow. "We" fought to topple Saddam and neuter his WMD capability. "We" didn't fight for Iraq to have a democratic freedom of the press. The IRAQIs are going to have to be vigilant against it, as free individuals with political rights. Right now, they have the international assistance, attention, and institutional bodies to ensure that their government is molded to reflect what the majority of the people want. If they're disturbed by increasing authoritarianism, they should stand up and fight it.
Pointing a finger at the U.S. won't stop their creeping dictatorship. If they don't like it, they should organize and do something about it, through the embryonic democratic processes they now.
Neither does the U.S. need to atone for Iraq. These people are resource-rich and at the heart of the Middle-East. They have a better-educated population than most Middle-East countries. They failed for years to rise up against a tyrant who menaced the whole region. This is their opportunity to shape a viable nation with a legitimate government. They have no excuse to not take charge and protect their freedom, and free press, if that's what they want. It's up to them.
BTW, in the U.S. there are also efforts to penalize news outlets that criticize the political leadership. There are also laws developing to abridge freedom of speech under the guise of anti-hate law. These types of controls do indeed favor the advance of dictatorship, or at least centralized control.
Point is, a few words to Maliki on freedom of the press might be in order, particularly since the U.S. regularly condemns Iran for cracking down on press freedoms and closing newspapers and arresting students and so on.
The problem might be that the courts are not truly independent, but rather doing Maliki's bidding - in which case, in a real democracy, the legislative branch could step in and declare that press freedoms would be protected. However, i don't think the Iraqi construction is slanted that way.
Finally, the stated goal in Iraq was regime change, followed by access for U.S. oil companies. WMDs and links to 9/11 were manufactured threats, cooked up by Chalabi's INC with British assistance on Cheney's behalf, or put out by the Office of Special Plans, Douglas Feith, and Dominatrix Rumsfeld. Downing Street Memo, right? "The intelligence is being shaped around the policy..." - and the policy was regime change.
That's why Afghanistan was neglected, leading to a resurgent Taliban - that, and the crooked USAID megaproject contracting in Afghanistan - the NYT has a good article on that right now, as well as a good image of what viable Afghani development projects might look like:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/world/asia/13jurm.html
In places like Jurm, the presence of the central government is barely felt. The idea to change that was simple: people elected the most trusted villagers, and the government in Kabul, helped by foreign donors, gave them direct grants — money to build things like water systems and girls’ schools for themselves. Local residents contend that the councils work because they take development down to its most basic level, with villagers directing the spending to improve their own lives, cutting out middle men, local and foreign, as well as much of the overhead costs and corruption.
“You don’t steal from yourself,” was how Ataullah, a farmer in Jurm who uses one name, described it.
Those are the kinds of programs we should be funding, along with rugged lightweight renewable energy systems, like these:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/10/fast-cheap-and/
A journalist for a foreign news outlet was given a fine? Yeah, that's basically indistinguishable from Saddam's reign. I can't see any difference in form, substance, or degree.
I don't have any statistics readily available about how many journalists were willing to openly criticize Saddam, but I'm sure it is similar to today's numbers criticizing the GoI - certainly nobody was too intimidated to mouth off to Saddam.
And among those who did mouth off, I'm sure that the number who actually had a court review their transgressions was similar to today - surely they were not just turned in by secret police or ratted out by co-workers and promptly arrested.
And among those found guilty in trials, I'm sure that their punishment was something roughly equivalent to a fine - certainly not torture, disfigurement, or retaliation against one's family.
Yup, I can see the glidepath headed straight toward a revival of the Ba'ath regime.
For this we fought?
Your friend, the journo Abu-Ahad is now feeling the winds of change of the new Iraq but you must remember that some scribes have benefited greatly from the war.
Peter Galbraith, the left -leaning, war-hawk sometimes NYTimes guest-commentator is the beneficiary of a sweet Kurdish oil deal. It's being reported that he will receive over $100 million for his business acumen.
Andrew Goldberg, one time Israeli soldier now serious journalist, went from the New Yorker to The Atlantic after writing pure bullshit about a Saddam/bin Laden alliance.
AM has a nice cozy DC job where he can dream up scenarios that lengthen The Long War.
Some writers have all the luck, others spend time in Nuri al-Maliki's gulag. Life ain't fair.
correction on the above, The Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg, not Andrew. I was mistakenly thinking of fellow Atlantic scribe and Queen of the Blogosphere Andrew Sullivan.
Schmedlap (enjoy your blog, by the way, although by god do you need a redesign),
The point, I think, is not how al-Maliki's actions are relatively reasonable compared to Saddam's, but rather that they are a step down the path of something not indicative of an open society.
To have fought for a democracy that is slowly but surely sliding back towards authoritarianism seems like something that should be avoided, but that's just my .02
Andrew: Where the hell has SNLII gone? This is an enigma to me. I suspect a falling out between the two of you.
HUS
By the way, has anyone seen this photostream? It's effing fantastic.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has been a trumpet for the insurgency. He has given a voice to insurgents who boast of killing Iraqi civilians, Iraqi soldiers and American soldiers. Is it ethical to consort with murderers and not tell the Iraqi govt and coalition troops about the safe houses of these killers?
Abdul-Ahad is an irresponsible journalist with an agenda. All Maliki did was take a paper to court which is something that happens in Britain and Sweden and many other democracies. Saddam would have tracked down Abdul-Ahad's relatives and executed them. That is the difference. Exum, stop being so melodramatic. You are exposing your own agenda.
But you have had wine with Abdul-Ahad, and that makes him your pal. Other Iraqis blown to bits by the insurgents haven't invited you to a dinner in Beirut. Maybe that makes them less compelling as human beings.
I agree with the part in parenthesis.
What you fought for was to topple Saddam Hussein. What you fought for was to try to eliminate the subsequent insurgency. What you fought for was to prevent the outbreak of civil-war and give the country some semblance of security . Democracy and freedom is a whole different ballgame. That's something the Iraqi people need to fight for themselves. It cannot be imposed. nor can it be nudged along. With a region that is still very much plagued by a culture of authoritarianism, the actions of Iraqi leaders shouldn't surprise anyone.
Hukook al-Insan
http://tqa81.wordpress.com/
It's not the main point of your post, but I'm moved by Ghaith's decency and honor in response to the self-righteous Britwit at dinner.
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