| It appears Tareq al-Hashemi, leader of the Islamic Party of Iraq and vice-president of the republic, will be another major player (along with Ayad Allawi, see prior post) in the drama of "reconciliation" ahead of the Petraeus report. Azzaman, in its Iraqi edition this morning, headlines the good news: "1500 prisoners to be released during Ramadan" (which starts this year on Sept 13 this year), specifying that these will be innocent prisoners held in American-forces prisons, and that they will be released at the rate of 50 per day. The report also cites what it describes as a "working paper" prepared by Hashemi that includes three points: Release of prisoners; human rights issues and the condition of those in custody; "and the question of those involved in human rights violations, and compensation for prisoners." Omar al-Jabburi, described as human-rights advisor to Hashemi, says Hashemi is continuing to work for full implementation of the working paper. And Jabburi also [adds that] Hashemi has achieved agreement on the working-paper "with the political blocs and with the Americans". |
Now of course THAT obviously won't do at all either. The TwentyPercenters of Big Party neo-liberated ex-Iraq are entitled to their proportionate twenty percent: not to one filthy and forever Saddam-polluted whit more than a strict and humble proportionality ever again! but also to nothing less -- and one "vice-president of the republic" plus his "human-rights advisor" plus fifty GOP kidnap victims to be released per day for thirty days one month of one year quite ludicrously fails to add up to twenty percent. One might even sarcaz against such a bad show oneself, except that ...
... except that the Twenty Percenters and their hangers on (like almost everybody else, apparently) continue to think they're vicariously on a roll out there in Peaceful Freedumbia -- 1000...000% Success and Victory for Sinn Fein, "ourselves alone," is just around the next bend of the Dark Tunnel -- just you wait and see! Even the Quakerite peaceniks have jumped on the cheapjackery bandwagon and expect to be exclusively vindicated forever any day now, only multilateralism really works, and now here comes "Iraq" to "prove" it!
Keep your political and legal and ethical distance, Mr. Bones! "Iraq" is very black and defiling pitch indeed, a permanent stigma, a black mark set up against the good name of the whole human race, not witless Bushies and amateur volunteer Sunni Ascendancy boosters at Mu’ámara Junction alone. "Iraq" makes EVERYBODY look bad, one way or another, whether because of what we did or what we didn't, because of what we could or what we couldn't, if not because of clownish positive Boy-'n'-Party thoughts, then because of our shameful and ineffectual thoughtlessness (or thoughtful inefficacy). "Iraq" pollutes our whole age and Epoch, Mr. Bones! Princess Posterity and her historians are pretty well bound to dismiss us as the "Iraq" degeneration that immediately followed the Cold War degeneration. We're bound to be stigmatized forever about "our" "Iraq" no matter what we did or didn't, could or couldn't. And that not altogether without cause and a sort of rough-and-ready justice, after all, O Bones!
So I advise we lie low. If you draw the exact opposite conclusion, though, well that is understandable too: Princess Posterity is bound to despise "us" anyway, so why don't we commit a Great Foundational Crime in "our" "Iraq" for her to depise us about ever after? As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, after all!
Except -- can we really still snag any adult sheep for "ourselves" in the former Iraq and not just some adventitious sneerworthy "vice-president of the republic" and fifty kidnap victims released every thirty days? Are "we" really capable of a Great Foundational Crime, then, Mr. Bones? Backed up, as "we" are by Sole Remainin' Hyperpower, why not?
Sed respondeo: the criminality of the thing is instantly apparent, the alleged foundationality only long-term and far off. So 'tis better not to attempt!
"Serbs are heroes, Croats are lawyers!" And I'm a spiritual Croat, Mr. Bones, no doubt about that. Yet God knows best.
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