| 20 August 2008: More on Diyala Today there is an attempt by Iraqi authorities to gloss over the Diyala episode by blaming it on technical misunderstandings between various arms of the Iraqi security apparatus: the local police versus a special force from Baghdad. THIS CANNOT DISGUISE THE FACT that a week ago, and reportedly by consensus, the provincial council which includes 20 members from the Shiite Islamist camp (many of them ISCI) voted to oust the police chief, Ghanim al-Qurayshi, whom Baghdad had earlier appointed probably with the support of Nuri al-Maliki and Jawad al-Bulani. Demonstrations against the dismissal, allegedly to a large degree made up of members of the police loyal to Qurayshi, had met with the disapproval of the governor who has ties to ISCI. There clearly is some kind of intra-Shiite dimension to this affair, but it remains unclear whether it is a case of a local branch of ISCI cooperating with non-Shiites in a bid to oust an outsider appointed by Maliki, or another example of tension between ISCI and forces more loyal to Maliki." [R. Visser dixit.] |
Learning how to think in the shape of a pretzel is not easy. Lessons and examples from a master ought always to be welcome. RV's ability to fit assorted flotsam and jetsam into his factional mosaics is perhaps unrivalled; it should not be neglected merely because nobody but himself adheres to his own precise ‘pov’!
So, how does he do it? Well of course a mere amateur can do no more than notice a few of the more striking strokes.
Especially this amateur notices that the final body count never gets mentioned, neither here nor in yesterday’s slightly longer virtual notebook entry. Given one killed Sunni, four wounded Sunnis, and two kidnapped Sunnis, how to derive "some kind of intra-Shiite dimension"? In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister -- the best way to handle that sort of difficulty is -- as I infer from the present specimen of technique and hereby freely recommend to everybody -- not to touch it. Facts not mentioned need not be disguised, and then subsequently where there is no mask, there can be no unmasking. Viewed from the other side of the front, there will be no need for any glossing over such as the intra-Shí‘ís are alleged to have been reduced to.
Examination of the way McClatchy handled the same human event yesterday may show the apprentice what to avoid. I count three paragraphs of eminently disguisable facts, followed by four paragraphs of worrying about possible involvement on the part of the AEI-GOP-DoD Coalition. RV dispenses with the latter as well as the former, though anybody the least bit familiar with his agitprop knows that he cares nothing for preserving the good name of the invasionites.
After that, McClatchy and Visser clash headlong. A Battle of Titans, sort of. In the words of the former:
| The arrested men were all Sunni. The Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni party in the country, condemned the raids as sectarian persecution that was directed at the party. |
In the words of R. Visser (Tuesday 19 August):
| [T]he corporate media is already feverishly reporting the Diyala developments as a purely sectarian affair, conveniently ignoring the fact that the Sunni Islamist IIP holds only 14 seats out of 41 on the provincial council that voted to oust the Shiite police commander (and whose governor is also a prominent Shiite leader who used to be criticised for ties to Badr). |
Students must decide for themselves whether the McClatchy corporatists (or any other) are being especially ‘feverish’ about it. Bear in mind, though, that it can’t do one’s cause any harm to make that sort of soft journalism claim even when you know that it cannot be sustained. You have only to announce "No disputing about tastes, tra-la-la! Sure seemed ‘feverish’ to me!," and you will be perfectly safe. Nobody is going to take you to court about a subjectivity like that, and the case would be thrown out in an instant if, by a very remote and improbable fluke, somebody tried.
That is rather an elementary touch, perhaps, as is shown by the fact that my own dilettantish ‘pretzel’ is exactly on a par with the pro-class ‘fever’. No lawyer is ever going to prove that I secretly consider RV the most straightforward of ax-grinders. Even if I really did, he--the lawyer--couldn’t ever.
Definitely more advanced is the touch that goes "conveniently ignoring the fact." That one is so advanced, in fact, that I am not altogether sure how it works -- or even what effect it was supposed to have on the enemy. Nothing good, of course, but is RV mocking the McClatchy crowd because they -- very probably, but not certainly -- are not even aware of his favourite fact, or is he seriously imputing a cover-up of it to them? ("Ha, ha, ha," she chuckled to her native accomplice, twirling her moustachios with cold and unfeverish fiendishness. "If we simply omit to tell ’em about Ghánim al-Qurayshí, why, they’ll NEVER figure out what really happened!")
But time to stop, before succumbing to the Silly Season Spirit altogether.
Speaking of the SSS, did thee know, Mr. Bones, that the oracles of Dr. Righteous Virtue are now being disseminated in the vernacular ? [1] If that keeps up, perhaps RV will not constitute a Party of Zero forever!
Happy days.
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[1] The Sawt al-‘Iráq is, unsurprisingly, a bit at a loss confronted with the sectarianism of Scandinavia. They are under the impression that RV is a Dane. Tusk, tusk!
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