Ge, that is a fascinating piece. I think she is a bit slighting of the NYTimes article in that I got some positive impressions from the article that she did not read into it. Her her info adds considerably to the NYTimes story but does not contradict it. The NYTimes writer did say that only 40% of marriages were between cousins, and it makes sense that there is more mixing and extra-family relations and marriages in the larger cities.
BTW, I am reminded by some letters in the NYTimes this morning that I forgot to point out something with which I disagreed strongly in the Friedman piece I patched in yesterday. He spoke about the "free riders" who would not support or join us in the war but who would benefit from the stability radiating out of a democratic Iraq. That is nonsense. It was out of those countries' principled beliefs that they did not support us; and if they derive any benefit from a stable Iraq, it is not because they took a "free ride."
It's the Marshall Plan all over again...the two situations are exactly the same...no significant differences...
Quote:It's rarely mentioned nowadays, but at the time of the Marshall Plan, Americans were very concerned about profiteering in the name of patriotism. To get Congressional approval, Truman had to provide assurances that the plan would not become a boondoggle. Funds were administered by an agency independent of the White House, and Marshall promised that priorities would be determined by Europeans, not Americans.
Fortunately, Truman's assurances were credible. Although he is now honored for his postwar leadership, Truman initially rose to prominence as a fierce crusader against war profiteering, which he considered treason.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/opinion/30KRUG.html
Quote:A group of businessmen linked by their close ties to President Bush, his family and his administration have set up a consulting firm to advise companies that want to do business in Iraq, including those seeking pieces of taxpayer-financed reconstruction projects.
The firm, New Bridge Strategies, is headed by Joe M. Allbaugh, Mr. Bush's campaign manager in 2000 and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency until March. Other directors include Edward M. Rogers Jr., vice chairman, and Lanny Griffith, lobbyists who were assistants to the first President George Bush and now have close ties to the White House.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/politics/30LOBB.html?hp
"Fortunately, Truman's assurances were credible"
"Fortunately, Truman's assurances were credible."
Which is more than can ever be said for Krugman's attempts at controlling his biases.
An interesting piece from MSNBC that details some of the more basic problems in establishing much of anything in Iraq.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/973699.asp?0si=-
The Iraqis can't even manage to decide on a process for selecting people to draft a Constitution on their own.
fishin says.....
The Iraqis can't even manage to decide on a process for selecting people to draft a Constitution on their own.
We don't use our constitution, why should they want one?
Kara wrote:
Quote:Did anyone read the lead center story on the front page of Sunday's NYTimes about cousin marriage in Iraq? Fascinating. The people interviewed said that Saddam's extended family would protect him completely, just as any such family clan would do so in Iraq. (I can post this if anyone is interested.)
I linked this story on this thread at 6:30am Sunday. (There were no comments at that time.) I thought it was a interesting look at a culture very different from the one swirling around the USA. The comments in the blog about the meeting with all the sheiks were instructive as well.
Iraqis are not like us. They still live in a society with 13th century principles. When students in Ohio study feudalism, they view it as a remnant of a distant past. Students in Bagdad merely have to look out a window.
The meeting of the sheiks would have gone better if each have been contacted privately through an intermediary and an offer of some compensation to the clans made. If that sound like a bribe to Western ears, it doesn't to an Iraqi. It's a matter of balance to them.
So is the matter of marrying your first cousin because it's comfortable.
The Blogger writes:
Quote:Arabs and Kurds in the region have strong tribal ties and it is considered an honor to have a strong family backing- even if you don't care about tribal law or have strayed far from family influence.
emphasis mine.
She doesn't have a clue of how deep in the 13th century she is, with her university degree, her former job and her extended family of thousands who at any time can demand that she do ask the sheik says or lose their support.
Joe
The question I asked last March has yet to be answered.
What are we going to do when the Iraqis tell us to shove our democracy?
Democracy becomes an oxymoron when force fed. The people must choose.
Freedom Gelisgesti, come on now - you can't expect everything
fishin
Naughty. The accusal of bias functions as an ad hominem here, and the point remains unaddressed.
Joe nation wrote:
Quote:Iraqis are not like us. They still live in a society with 13th century principles.
I do not agree with this view. There are some disconnects because we have not learned about their society. They are still learning about ours. It is not useful to describe their society as one with 13th century principles. Some of our own society's hang ups go back further than that. Ge's blogger draws the parallels between Iraqi modern society and our own.
Iraqi's, especially in Baghdad, are some of the most modern Arabs in the Middle East. Well education, well read and modern.
blatham wrote:fishin
Naughty. The accusal of bias functions as an ad hominem here, and the point remains unaddressed.
And? Since when is there any limit on ad hominems towards people who aren't even on the board? If it were against the TOS half this thread would have been gone long ago (along with a lot of others).
The article I posted the link to addresses Krugman's comments. He's whining and crying about the lack of progress on infrastructure and luxuries of a high level society. None of those are going to come about in any meaningful manner until the Iraqis figure out a process to to settle their own basic internal disagreements.
Iraqi constitution delayed
Religious and ethnic groups want fair representation
Officials in Iraq have warned it will take at least one year before a new constitution for the country can be drawn up.
The news will be a blow to the US Government, which had hoped to complete such a document within six months in order to pass control of the country over to the Iraqis.
A special committee of lawyers, scholars and religious leaders had been meeting to prepare the groundwork for a proposed constitutional convention, but committee members had not been able to agree how to select delegates for the convention.
The matter has now been passed back to the current governing council in Iraq.
Full story
Good point, Bill. Iraq has been just about the most progressive and secular of all the nations in the region, and apart from Saddam over the past 15 years or so, a noted center of learning ... at least so far as the urban population, the bulk of the populace, goes. There is strong tribal influence, and religious influence, among the rural population, but neither is the rural population predominant nor are the ancient loyalties anywhere nearly so strongly entrenched in the cities. There indeed is influence, as evidenced by the wrangling within and over the Governing Council and the pending constitution, but I believe it to be of less real impact than some would posit. While I have no reason to expect Iraq will blossom full blown into Jeffersonian Democracy, I do sense the folks there are in general quite eager to get down to the business of doing business, and likely to approach that rather more pragmatically than to dogmaticly oppose a rise in mercantilism. That is something I see as hopeful, to the point of being confidence inspiring. A period of chaos, violence, and unrest is a logical development of the power vacuum created by the removal Saddam and the Ba'athists. There is the troubling possibility tribal and sectarian fueds and loyalties may prolong that period, but I believe the Iraqi People, particularly the urban population, really just want to get back to work, and they realize they need help straightening up the shop if they're ever going to get it open.
GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Well, I think we should have anticipated that if you take down the government of an authoritarian centrally controlled organization like Saddam Hussein had and you pull it out, and you rip it out, if you dismantle the Army, if you tell all the businessmen that were ever quote Baathists this they can't do business again because they were Baathist. It's like telling communist businessmen in Russia they couldn't do business after the revolution.
If you are going to take out the institutions and remove them, then you have to be prepared to restructure them from scratch. There was no secret as to the conditions that these institutions might be in once you ripped out the leadership, once you dismantled them. I think that should have been anticipated. I think the tensions in the Sunni triangle should have been anticipated. I think the potential for civil war, the potential for outsiders, Jihadis coming in to see this as a potential battlefield, seeing this as a place where if they can defeat us and make us fail, their stature in the region improves. That should have been seen clearly. I mean, those things were not something that you had to be [inaudible] to realize.
JIM LEHRER: Who should have seen it, who blew it?
GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): I think the planners.
JIM LEHRER: Are you talking about Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Wolfowitz, those folks?
GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): I think those responsible for planning in the Pentagon should have seen this. I mean, whether they're wearing uniforms, or they're civilians; they owe our troops on the ground the very best in planning, just like the generals on the battlefield: Tommy Franks delivered an excellent plan and it was well executed by our soldiers, sailors, airmen marines on the ground and we're all tremendously proud of what they did. We owe them the same kind of planning that Tommy gave the troops, we owe from the Pentagon to those troops in the aftermath of this war.
One does not have to agree with the view that Iraqis live in the 13th century, the facts speak for themselves: Think middle ages in France, Britain or Prussia: Inheritance is available only to the males of a family followed by a complex division process that always must insure that the first born male receive the largest bequest; arranged marriages between first and second cousins and government filtered through fiefdoms: power brokered through landed or royal families with nepotism not only the result but the preferred result with unlanded persons unable to make gains either through marriage or education/employment. Clans or families who already have power, stay in power. The status quo is maintained by the church and enforced by whosoever's military happens to be nearest and best equipped. There are more parallels to 1403 than to 2003 and the above are just the first few that come to mind.
Don't get me wrong, if I, like the blogger, was in one of the power families I too would be happy with the status quo too.
I am not even saying that any of the above violate modern civil and human rights, though some obviously do, I am saying that the USA needs to understand that the Iraqi people are not Iowans or Virginians or Connecticut Yankees and to approach them as if they were (gather all the sheiks together for a meeting sheesh) shows how little we understand about how different they are from us. Different does not mean less than, it just means different. We need to stop thinking that Iraqis are Americans under those robes, they aren't. They aren't even Iraqis, the Brits just made them up out of whole cloth, but we know that history, we just keep forgetting it.
In order for the peace process to move forward the US must face the facts of the matter, that we of the new world have invaded and now preside over a very old world that stopped interacting with the modern world in the 13th century after gifting it with astronomy, farming, hydro-physics, bio-chemistry and al-Gebra in the centuries before.
Joe
Kara wrote:fishin, what is TOS:
Quote:If it were against the TOS half this thread would have been gone long ago (along with a lot of others).
?????
The
TOS is The Terms Of Service, the agreement between A2K and its members, spelling out the responsibilities and priveleges of both. Its
THE RULES. By clicking "accept" when joining,, a member agrrees to be bound by the stated terms, with full understanding that violation of those terms may result in sanction up to and including expulsion from and denial of participation on the forums. A specific link to it is at the bottom of every page, and in the signatures of several of the Moderators.
fishin
Are you and I in enemy status suddenly?
It wasn't a TOS point, it was a logical point. To the claim made by the administration (Rice) and supporters that what the administration is up to in Iraq is the same as the Marshall Plan, it's quite relevant to point out the differences. And it is no small difference that Krugman points out. How much more trust and credibility might Bush have achieved, thus support for his goals and administration, had he proceded as has Truman? And, of course the related question is, why didn't he? Which is what the second link addresses.
That Iraq is a mess in terms of institutions, and that constituing them will be no easy task, is a quite different issue.
