“They say it is rather like life under Saddam Hussein. Many Iraqis use an Arabic expression, ‘Same donkey, different saddle.’”

— Peggy Gish, an American member of the humanitarian group Christian Peacemaker Teams, who has recently spent 13 months in Iraq recording the allegations made by Iraqi detainees being held by coalition forces.  

The Iraqi detainees, who number in the thousands, are suspected of participating in the mounting insurgency and attacks against the Iraqi government and the coalition forces occupying Iraq.  

Ms. Gish stated: “In fact, we came to the conclusion that 80 percent to 90 percent of the prisoners had never been involved in any violent action. This is an estimate that tallies with the estimates of other groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. A common reason for men to be detained is because an informant in the neighborhood has given their name to U.S. military and claimed that they are part of the resistance. Informants get money for each name they give, and many people have told us that informants use the system to revenge personal grudges.”

Mimi Hanaoka

What’s wrong with explaining political Islam, and specifically its violent jihadist offshoots, as a necessary or inherent part of Muslim culture?  

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Mahmood Mamdani, professor at Columbia University, presents an analysis of two recent books about political Islam, one by Gilles Kepel and the other by Olivier Roy.  

Mamdani’s article is astute and easily digested, and while he presents measured critiques of both books, the three authors, at their core, agree on a central point: to explain political Islam, and specifically jihadist violence, as merely a function of Muslim culture is intellectually and historically indefensible. Mamdani’s article is devoted to offering a critique of the different approaches to understanding political Islam — Kepel’s is historical and Roy’s is sociological — that the books offer. Mamdani’s insights, however, highlight the damage that a culturalist explanation of political Islam can do.

After all, if violent jihad is explained as one of the many manifestations of culture, for the tactful liberal it becomes something shielded within the protective shell of culture; to disparage political Islam and Islamist violence would be to disparage something that is inherently valuable because it is an essential part of Muslim culture. For those who are less sympathetic to the richness of different cultures, the culturalist explanation becomes a polarizing force; borders are inappropriately and unproductively drawn between the “us” and the Muslim “them.” Happily, the voices of scholars such as Mamdani, Kepel, and Roy are effectively sounding the death knell for the intellectually feeble culturalist explanation of political Islam.  
  

Mimi Hanaoka

To readers who prefer visceral and unfiltered accounts of the tsunamis and their aftermath in south Asia, the ChiensSansFrontiers Web log is a welcome information source.

Among the entries are reflective articles, one of which argues that the tsunamis may be something other than a natural disaster.

Readers are invited to respond to the entries.

The BBC maintains a reporter’s log covering certain news events. This week, after the tsunamis in Asia, several reporters have been writing dispatches posted online.

A reporter in Phuket, Thailand, wrote that a German tourist, Winfred Parkinson, said the following:

“Everyone who wanted to take something out of their house must have died. The people who ran and did nothing else but running, only they had a chance.”

Another reporter, in Aceh, Indonesia, posted this:

“The true horror of what happened here Sunday morning is slowly being pieced together.”

Dead bodies, the stranded, the injured, the hopeless. As it sometimes happens, the true horror of real life has far surpassed the viciousness of any imaginary tragedies we may have encountered in our books, movies, and other forms of fake drama.

Vinnee Tong

“What a terrible thing it is that billions — and I mean billions — of pounds are being spent on war in the Middle East which could have been spent bringing people out of dire poverty and malnourishment and disease.”

— Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, one of Britian’s most influential Roman Catholics.  

The trinity of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope, and Roman Catholic Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor all took the opportunity in their Christmas messages to address the current situation in Iraq.  While the Pope was the most modest in his criticisms, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Murphy O’Connor openly condemned the war in Iraq and the prevalent climate of fear.

Mimi Hanaoka

A new study suggests that the virus that causes AIDS spreads rapidly through the head and neck areas after oral exposure, and may result in a greater number of infections than previously thought.  

In this study, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas administered oral injections of SIV (the simian version of HIV) to rhesus monkeys, and found that the virus very quickly invaded all of the surrounding lymphoid tissue.  

If the findings are confirmed, they will challenge the messages we impart about the relative safety of breastfeeding and oral sex.  

For more information:

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
http://www8.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept37389/files/197419.html

Toyin

“It’s true that the Americans are Christians and we are Christians. But they should not associate us with them. All the Christians want the Americans to get out and the occupation to end. Nobody is with the Americans.”

— Father Gabriel Shamami of St. George’s Church in Baghdad.

There are approximately 700,000 Christians currently living in Iraq, and as Borzou Daragahi reports in The Washington Times, these Christians are reluctant to celebrate Christmas for fear of radical Muslim reprisals.

Prior to the American war in Iraq and in contrast to the current situation, Christians celebrated Christmas in harmony with their Muslim neighbors. Twenty-eight-year-old Sirab Suleyman, an Iraqi Christian, states: “Before the war, Muslims and Christians used to celebrate Christmas together,” he said as he rubbed his hands for warmth in his modest living room. “Muslims used to visit their Christian friends and greet them. It was a true celebration. That’s over now.”

Mimi Hanaoka

“The European Dreamers,” an article published in The Economist print edition on December 16, 2004, inflates a bubble of idealism about the current perception of the European Union as seen through the eyes of the West, then seems to pop it in the end. Whatever the leanings of the article, there are enough opinions to go around, even for the Westerner with the choosiest tastes.

The old stand-by contention that Europe is a washed-up enterprise gains support from Europe’s current low birth rate and the aversion to immigrants, yet it fails to squash a growing trend of optimism about the future of the E.U. “One explanation for this new strand of opinion doubtless lies in the grim realities of modern publishing,” the article suggests. In other words, volatility sells as well as yellow journalism.

T. R. Reid, author of The United States of Europe, offers a la dolce vita-inspired perspective of Europe, which is understandably attractive to the generation of overworked Americans who flocked to see Under The Tuscan Sun. He offers several recent situations in which the United States has been forced to subscribe to European demands, though The Economist questions whether these illustrate European supremacy or just a process of globalization.

When contrasted with the opposing perspective, which is explained by Jeremy Rifkin, author of The European Dream, is it any wonder that an increasing number of readers prefer optimism? Mr. Rifkin notes that it is not uncommon for “realists” to argue that “…the sad truth is that without a massive increase in non-EU immigration in the next several decades, Europe is likely to wither and die.”

It’s all in how you look at it. The Economist enjoys a distinctive European view:

“Awareness of the depth of the political and economic challenges that lie ahead accounts for the fact that many European officials are more inclined to troubled pessimism than to Rifkinesque optimism. This European willingness to be self-critical is, as it happens, a genuine strength. Unfortunately, there is a lot to be self-critical about.”

Filmmaker Michael Moore has shown that Americans are no strangers to self-criticism either. So toward which side of the idealism question does The Economist tend? Is The Economist intimating in this article that Americans are more practiced in visualizing an ideal world? And if so, does strengthening that ability increase the likeliness of actualizing those ideals?

TO DO: Cash in that Social Security Check

When is a mandate a mandate? Ever since the election, Democrats have been running around like chickens with their heads cut off screaming that, “Bush does not have a mandate!” Their argument seems to hinge on the thread that even though President Bush won the election handily, with 51 percent of the vote — 49 percent still aren’t happy. Well LA DEE DA! Fifty-one percent is the essence of democracy, because 51 percent is a majority. Everywhere democracy is instituted, from boardrooms to schoolrooms to family rooms and kitchens, a majority always carries the day. If there were three people deciding where to go to dinner and two people voted for steak, and the remaining one voted for chicken, you can bet dollars to dominoes that
Beef — it’s what’s for dinner.

What is it about liberals in this country? They carp all day long about democracy, but as soon as it is exercised, they immediately take up the position that the winner now has to cater to the loser. It’s INSANE! In a New Republic published after the election, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson contend that the idea that Bush has a mandate is “patently absurd.” Nobody votes for all the things the candidate stands for, so why should the candidate do any of the things he promised in his campaign? That’s the way these people think. One editorial after another, and countless made-for-TV democratic “strategists” claim that Bush doesn’t have a mandate for tax cuts, doesn’t have a mandate for gay marriage, doesn’t have a mandate for abortion.

The most recent liberal to refuse the mandate is former Clinton economic advisor Gene Sperling. After Bush immediately got to work on pushing for Social Security reform (to the amazement of Democrats who never do what they campaign on), Sperling said to The Washington Post:

“All the president has shown is that you can vaguely talk about a free-lunch privatization proposal and not have that be decisively detrimental to your electoral outcome. There’s a big difference between that and having a mandate to carve up Social Security by cutting guaranteed benefits and adding significant market risk.”

Besides grossly mischaracterizing Bush’s Social Security proposal as “free-lunch privatization,” Sperling totally misses the point — the president said that this is what he’s going to do if he won the election and (wow!) this is what he’s doing after winning the election.

The point is lost on liberals though, because they still think that red-staters swung for Bush because of their predilection towards homophobia and their fear of women’s reproductive rights. Most Democrats probably still think that Heartland Republicans are too busy looking for abortion clinics to burn, which is why prominent Democrats think they can get away with calling the President’s Social Security plan a Christmas present to Wall Street.

Harry Reid, the new Senate minority leader, said, “They are trying to destroy Social Security by giving this money to the fat cats on Wall Street, and I think it’s wrong!”

Maybe it’s wrong, or maybe the American people want to grow their own money instead of spending their grandchildren’s.