Miles Davis: “Walkin'” (1967)

The Miles Davis Quintet digs into this classic on November 7, 1967 at the Stadthalle, Karlsruhe, Germany.

Miles Davis (1926-1991) was on the forefront of almost every development in jazz following WW II until his death including bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz and jazz fusion. You can see him here performing “Footprints” and playing here “So What” with John Coltrane.

Just as New Orleans's Ninth Ward will still be a moonscape when Bush goes out of office, so will Iraq

President Bush’s comments this week following General Petraeus’ appearance before congress makes it clear our official policy in Iraq is now back to simply drifting along with jingoism replacing discussion on how to construct a strategy that best serves the American and Iraqi people. The President has abdicated his responsibility in providing the political leadership so needed for anything remotely resembling a positive outcome in the Middle East. American soldiers are somehow expected to accomplish with guns the political work that neither Washington nor the Maliki government seem capable or inclined to do. Two incompetent governments fumble along as Iraqis suffer and Americans become cynical.

Juan Cole has this assessment:

War turns Republics into dictatorships. The logic is actually quite simple. The Constitution says that the Congress is responsible for declaring war. But in 2002 Congress turned that responsibility over to Bush, gutting the constitution and allowing the American Right to start referring to him not as president but as 'commander in chief' (that is a function of the civilian presidency, not a title.)

Now Bush has now turned over the decision-making about the course of the Iraq War to Gen. David Petraeus.

So Congress abdicated to Bush. Bush has abdicated to the generals in the field.

That is not a Republic. That is a military dictatorship achieved not by coup but by moral laziness.

Ironically, what officers like Petraeus need from Bush is not deference but vigorous leadership in the political realm. Bush needs to intervene to work for political reconciliation in Iraq if Petraeus's military achievements are to bear fruit. But Bush seems incapable of actually conducting policy, as opposed to starting wars. Bush happened to Iraq just as he happened to New Orleans. He cannot do the hard work of patiently addressing disasters and ameliorating them. He just wants to set people to fighting. Crush the Sadr Movement, perhaps the most popular political movement in Iraq? He's all for it. Risk provoking a wider conflagration in the Middle East by worsening relations with Iran? Sounds like a great idea to him. Bush campaigned on being a 'uniter not a divider' in 2000. In fact, he is the ultimate Divider, and leaves burning buildings, millions of refugees, and hundreds of thousands of cadavers in his wake. He is not Iraq's Brownie. He is Iraq's Katrina itself.

Just as New Orleans's Ninth Ward will still be a moonscape when Bush goes out of office, so will Iraq.

Eugene Robinson nails it: "It's time to acknowledge that Bush has run out the clock. The nation's only recourse is the ballot box."

65% of Americans either want US troops out of Iraq immediately or sometime in 2009, up from 61% in February of this year. Only 31% want to keep them there 'as long as it takes,' and that percentage declined in the past couple of months from 34%. In other words, whatever the success of the troop escalation and COIN techniques in the past year, they have had no impact on the rapid decline in the popularity with the American public of the US presence in Iraq. Most Americans don't seem to care whether the situation is better or worse in Iraq, they just want out.

Passing of the Olympic torch from the Germans of 1936 to the Chinese of 2008

China billed the 2008 Olympic torch relay as the “Journey of Harmony.” However, the opposite seems to be the case. As runners carry the torch in the streets of Paris, London and San Francisco, demonstrators protest the human rights abuses of the Chinese government in China and Tibet as well as China’s support of repressive regimes abusing populations in Burma and Darfur. Protests have become violent. Police hover around the torch carrying runners to protect them and routes have been changed at the last minute to avoid the public. It is hardly a journey of harmony.

The torch relay does have a shady side to its history.

The tradition of carrying of the Olympic torch relay was invented by the Nazis prior to the 1936 Berlin games as propaganda. According to Harry’s Place, “…if you watch the depiction of that event in Leni Riefenstahl's film 'Olympia,' you are almost knocked out of your seat by the fascist overtones."

The BBC has this brief history published just prior to the London :

The Olympic torch is being welcomed this weekend in the UK as a symbol of the sporting spirit, uniting people around the world in peaceful competition.

But the idea of lighting the torch at the ancient Olympian site in Greece and then running it through different countries has much darker origins.

It was invented in its modern form by the organisers of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

And it was planned with immense care by the Nazi leadership to project the image of the Third Reich as a modern, economically dynamic state with growing international influence.

The organiser of the 1936 Olympics, Carl Diem, wanted an event linking the modern Olympics to the ancient.

The idea chimed perfectly with the Nazi belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich.

And the event blended perfectly the perversion of history with publicity for contemporary German power.

The first torch was lit in Greece with the help of mirrors made by the German company Zeiss. Steel-clad magnesium torches to carry the flame were specially produced by the Ruhr-based industrial giant Krupp.

Media coverage was masterminded by Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels, using the latest techniques and technology.

Dramatic regular radio coverage of the torch's progress kept up the excitement, and Leni Riefenstahl filmed it to create powerful images.

The route the torch takes has always been a matter of careful political planning too.

This year's route has already proved highly controversial.

Beijing wanted to take the torch through Taiwan's capital, Taipei, but this had to be changed by Olympic authorities due to political tensions between the Chinese and Taiwanese leaders. And there is now great tension over plans to run the torch through Tibet after recent disturbances there.

In 1936 the torch made its way from Greece to Berlin through countries in south-eastern and central Europe where the Nazis were especially keen to enhance their influence.

Given what happened a few years later that route seems especially poignant now.

"Sporting chivalrous contest," Hitler declared just before the torch was lit, "helps knit the bonds of peace between nations. Therefore may the Olympic flame never expire."

Yet the flame's arrival in Vienna prompted major pro-Nazi demonstrations, helping pave the way for the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria, in 1938.

In Hungary gypsy musicians who serenaded the flame faced within a few years deportation to Nazi death camps.

Other countries on the relay route like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia would soon be invaded by Germans equipped not with Krupp torches but with Krupp munitions.

And Carl Diem, the relay's inventor, ended the war as fanatical military commander at the Olympic stadium in Berlin, refusing to accept that the Third Reich was over.

Reinhard Appel, a teenage member of the Hitler Youth based at the stadium, described to me a speech made by Diem in 1945 as the Red Army closed in.

"He kept referring to Sparta - the history of how the Spartans had not feared dying for their country. He demanded that we be heroes."

Hundreds of the youngsters were killed in a futile attempt to defend the stadium.

Diem however survived, and reinvented himself after the war as an academic specialising in the philosophy of sport.

Germans are still debating his reputation today.

In 1936 itself there was no doubt that the spectacle of his torch relay was judged a great international success.

As a suitably Aryan-looking German athlete carried the torch into the stadium in Berlin the BBC radio commentator was deeply impressed: "He's a fair young man in white shorts, he's beautifully made, a very fine sight as an athlete."

Another relay runner was Siegfried Eifrig, who had carried the torch as it arrived in the centre of Berlin.

Flanked by huge swastika flags, he then lit a fire on an altar - typical of the pseudo-religious symbolism Nazism relished.

Eifrig is still alive, aged 98, and still has his Krupp torch engraved with the route of the 1936 relay.

But he told me this week that he was saddened by the controversy this year's relay has attracted, as it ought to be kept a "purely sporting" affair.

And he is critical of the way the politicians always seek to exploit it, seeing the plan to take the torch across the summit of Mount Everest as a "pointless gesture" that makes a nonsense of the relay as an athletic challenge.

Having survived the war as a soldier and then a British prisoner of war, he now sees the 1936 relay in a more sober light than when he was one of its stars.

No matter how great the emphasis on the torch as a bright sporting symbol, he knows better than most that, amid the political wrangling and media hype, less welcome historical ghosts are running alongside.

The world’s worse religious leaders

Foreign Policy magazine identifies five clerics of various faiths who go out of their way to promote or otherwise justify violence and hatred in their different corners of the world. Of course, they face no shortage of competition.

Hassan Nasrallah

Religion: Shiite Islam

Who is he?: Secretary-General of Hezbollah

Country: Lebanon

Quote: “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak, and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice I do not say the Israeli.”

Why he matters: Nasrallah and several colleagues formed Hezbollah in the wake of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Since then, the group has become a unique entity in world politics—at once an Islamist political party, a terrorist militia, and a virtual state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah’s 2006 battle with the Israel Defense Forces only boosted its prestige. Nasrallah studied Islam at a seminary in Najaf, Iraq, as a teenager and follows the brand of Shiite Islam developed by Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In recent years, as he has emerged as a major power broker within the Lebanese government, Nasrallah has stopped calling for an Islamic revolution and seems willing to work within the state. Nasrallah has not moderated his stance on Israel, though, and still calls for the “Zionist entity” to be wiped off the map.

Joseph Kony

Religion: Christianity/personality cult

Who is he?: Commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)

Country: Uganda

Quote: “[The spirits] speak to me. They load through me. They will tell us what is going to happen. They say ‘You, Mr. Joseph, tell your people that the enemy is planning to come and attack.’ They will come like dreaming; they will tell us everything.”

Why he matters: During two decades of civil war, Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army has killed more people than al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined. Kony, a former altar boy, aims to overthrow the Ugandan government and establish a regime based on the Ten Commandments. In pursuit of this goal, the LRA has abducted over 20,000 children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves, often forcing them to kill their own parents. Although Kony frequently uses biblical passages to justify his actions and has his child soldiers make the sign of the cross before battle, he mixes Christianity with mysticism and claims to be advised by a “spirit council” from beyond the grave. The LRA is currently in the process of negotiating a peace deal with the Ugandan government, but Kony is reluctant to leave his hide-out while under International Criminal Court indictment.

Yogi Adityanath

Religion: Hinduism

Who is he?: Religious leader and member of parliament from Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous province

Country: India

Quote: “I want Muslim votes, too. But wash them in Gangajal [Ganges water] first.”

Why he matters: Adityanath is an up-and-comer in India’s growing Hindutva—Hindu nationalist—movement. In addition to his membership in the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he is the founder of the Hindu Yuva Vahini, a radical Hindu youth movement that has been implicated in a number of incidents of anti-Muslim violence. In early 2007 he was arrested for his role in fomenting religious riots in the northern city of Gorakhpur. Yuva Vahini activists set fire to multiple vehicles including a train and an ambulance in response to his arrest. Adityanath has been released and remains in Parliament, where he is known for such publicity-seeking antics as breaking down in tears during speeches and making statements critical of Mahatma Gandhi. Adityanath’s extreme views put him at odds with even the BJP, and he is now looking into starting his own party with a strictly Hindutva agenda.

Athuraliye Rathana

Religion: Theravada Buddhism

Who is he?: Monk and member of parliament

Country: Sri Lanka

Quote: “Peace negotiations simply made the LTTE [Tamil Tigers] stronger. We mustn’t talk to them; we can crush the LTTE. It is like surgery.”

Why he matters: Most people didn’t take the Chinese government too seriously when it accused the Dalai Lama of inciting violence in Tibet, but it’s actually not unheard of for Buddhist monks to forgo their traditional pacifism. Sri Lanka’s Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) party is comprised entirely of Buddhist monks from the dominant Sinhalese ethnic group, and its seven members of parliament advocate a militant, ethnonationalist agenda. The party’s leader, Athuraliye Rathana, has been nicknamed the “war monk” for his staunch advocacy of military force against the Tamil Tiger rebels who have fought a 25-year insurgency against the state. (For what it’s worth, the Tigers exhibit some cultlike characteristics as well.) Athuraliye has worked to scuttle a Norwegian-brokered peace settlement, saying that the Tamils should be crushed militarily and that Sri Lanka has always been a Sinhalese kingdom. The JHU has also sponsored legislation in the Parliament that would ban Sri Lankan Buddhists from converting to Christianity.

Dov Lior

Religion: Hasidic Judaism

Who is he?: Head rabbi of Kiryat Arba settlement

Country: Israel

Quote: “A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail.”

Why he matters: Lior is the chief rabbi for Kiryat-Arba, a Jewish settlement near the turbulent West Bank town of Hebron, and leads the council of rabbis for the West Bank settlements. He has stated repeatedly that the killing of Palestinian civilians is compatible with Jewish law and that the commandment “thou shalt not kill”applies only to Jews. Rabbi Lior gave a eulogy at the funeral of Baruch Goldstein, the Jewish doctor who gunned down 29 Muslim worshippers at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994. Lior has also issued a religious ruling forbidding Jews from employing Arabs or renting them property.

“Abortion” blocked from health database due to abortion advocacy magazine articles

The term “abortion” has been blocked on the world’s largest database on reproductive health, POPLINE, since February. The block came about due to articles in A, the Abortion Magazine, which is published by Ipas, an international reproductive rights organization. The block was removed Friday afternoon.

Even thought the block on the data base search engine was removed articles from A magazine have been withdrawn from the database according to Ipas. Officials claimed that the magazine advocates for abortion and therefore does not meet the criteria for inclusion in the government funded database.

POPLINE (POPulation information onLINE) is the world's largest reproductive health database containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and reproductive health issues. POPLINE is maintained by the INFO Project at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The incident exemplifies the absurdity of government agencies trying to impose “political correctness” on all aspects of public services. Even well meaning people become overly cautious and self-censoring in ways that restrict the free flow of ideas and information. As Anu Kumar, the executive director of Ipas said, "We know that 40 million abortions take place every year and nearly 20 million of them are unsafe. Women are literally dying while we're dithering about these words."

This from NPR:

An inquiry into why the world's largest database on reproductive health blocked searches using the term "abortion" has found the restriction was put in place because of articles from an abortion advocacy magazine available on the site.

The block was an "overreaction," says Michael Klag, the dean of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, which maintains the POPLINE database. When Klag learned that the search function for abortion had been removed, he ordered it restored. The block was taken down Friday afternoon.

Klag says the seven articles that triggered the restriction in late February were from an issue of A, the Abortion Magazine, which is published by Ipas, an international reproductive rights organization.

Ipas' executive director, Anu Kumar, says she knew about the block but didn't know it had anything to do with Ipas.

"We are disappointed," Kumar says. "We know that 40 million abortions take place every year and nearly 20 million of them are unsafe. Women are literally dying while we're dithering about these words."

The issue in question focused on abortion as a human rights issue and profiled abortion rights advocates around the world.

The federal agency that funds POPLINE, the U.S. Agency for International Development, cannot by law support abortion activities. Sandra Jordan of USAID says abortion statistics and research are acceptable. But she says the agency did have problems with some materials on the site.

"The materials on POPLINE about which USAID made its inquiries were abortion advocacy materials Afterward, POPLINE administration made the decision to restrict 'abortion' as a search term," Jordan says.

She says USAID did not ask POPLINE to limit searches.

The block was discovered by medical librarians doing routine searches.

After Gloria Won, a librarian at the University of San Francisco, conducted a search on abortion for researchers using POPLINE, she told her boss what was happening.

"(Won) was doing an update of the search in the database and she noticed a discrepancy in the retrieval," says Gail Sorrough, UCSF director of medical library services. "She got fewer citations than the first time she ran the search, which was unusual."

Sorrough says that Won then contacted POPLINE and asked if there had been any changes in the database and the administrator replied that, yes, they had decided to turn the term abortion into a "stop word."

A "stop word" is something like "a," "an" and "the." Search engines ignore stop words.

"The average user would go to the database, and you would throw in abortion and you would get zero," says Sorrough, who complained to POPLINE's administrator and then spread word of the block.

"Because abortion is a perfectly good noun, there's nothing wrong with it," she says. "And we sent it out to some library list-servs so medical librarians would know about this, and it just spiraled after that."

Mugabe and Mandela: a study in contrasts

Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela were both products of the movements for majority control of the governments ruling their respective countries. Independence for both South Africa and Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) from British colonialism left white minority elites in charge. The failure of both governments to allow participation, let alone meet the needs, of the majority black populations sparked violent opposition. Black liberation movements eventually won out in both countries decades ago yet the outcomes could not be more different. South Africa, not without many problems still, is stable and holds much promise for the future. Zimbabwe, on the other hand, used to be referred to as the breadbasket of Africa but is now hosting a starving population due largely to governmental mismanagement of the economy. Mandela served his country as president and then stepped aside letting the democratic process play itself out. Mugabe was elected prime minister and later took the role of president in a number of questionable elections that used corruption and violence to maintain control for twenty-eight years so far.

Martin Meredith compares the two men today in the Guardian and L.A. Times:

The careers of two of Africa's most prominent politicians - Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela - have striking similarities. Both were born in an era when white power prevailed throughout Africa, Mandela in 1918, Mugabe in 1924. Both were products of the Christian mission school system, Mandela of the Methodist variety, Mugabe of the Catholic. Both attended the same university, Fort Hare in South Africa. Both emerged as members of the small African professional elite, Mandela a lawyer, Mugabe a teacher. Both were drawn into the struggle against white minority rule, Mandela in South Africa, Mugabe in neighbouring Rhodesia. Both advocated violence to bring down white-run regimes. Both endured long terms of imprisonment, Mandela, 27 years, Mugabe, 11 years. Both suffered the anguish of losing a son while in prison; and both were refused permission to attend the funeral.

But whereas Mandela used his prison years to open a dialogue with South Africa's white rulers in order to defeat apartheid, Mugabe emerged from prison bent on revolution, determined to overthrow white society by force. Military victory, said Mugabe, would be the "ultimate joy".Even after seven years of civil war in Rhodesia in which at least 30,000 people died, when the opportunity to gain power through elections was on offer, Mugabe expressed his disappointment that he would be denied the kind of power that military victory would have given him. Power for Mugabe was not the means to an end but the end itself.

This year Mandela celebrates his 90th birthday, acclaimed around the world as one of the great leaders of his time, while Mugabe battles on grimly after 28 years of power in Zimbabwe like an 18th-century prizefighter blinded by his own blood - and the blood of many others.Yet the early years of Mugabe's rule seemed so full of promise. Instead of the angry Marxist ogre that the white minority had feared, after winning the 1980 election Mugabe appeared as a model of moderation, pledging to work for reconciliation and racial harmony. Even the recalcitrant white leader, Ian Smith, who had previously denounced him as "the apostle of Satan", now found him "sober and responsible".

Western governments lined up with offers of aid. In its first year of independence, Zimbabwe was awarded £900m in aid, enabling Mugabe to embark on ambitious programmes of education and health development. The white population, too, benefited from growing economic prosperity. Given large increases in commodity prices, white farmers - the backbone of the economy - became ardent supporters of Mugabe's government and his ruling Zanu-PF party. "Good old Bob!" they cheered.

But Mugabe's black political opponents fared less well. Within weeks of gaining power in 1980, Mugabe set out to crush political opposition in Matabeleland and establish a one-party state. The military campaign he unleashed there in the 1980s culminated in mass murder. As many as 20,000 civilians are estimated to have died. But it gave Mugabe the total control he had always sought.

In Harare, meanwhile, Mugabe's inner circle scrambled for property, farms, businesses and government contracts. Mugabe joined the fray, but his real obsession was not with personal wealth but with power. Year by year, he acquired ever greater powers, ruling the country through a vast system of patronage, favouring loyal aides and cronies with government positions and ignoring the spreading blight of corruption. "I am rich because I belong to Zanu-PF," boasted one of Mugabe's proteges, a millionaire businessman. "If you want to be rich you must join Zanu-PF."

With his one-party system, Mugabe's tentacles reached into every corner of the land. One by one, parliament, the state media, parastatal organisations, the police, the civil service and, eventually, the courts, were subordinated to his will. In dealing with dissidents, his secret police were licensed to harass, intimidate and even murder at will.

By the mid-1990s, Mugabe had become an irascible and petulant dictator, brooking no opposition, contemptuous of the law and human rights, surrounded by sycophantic ministers and indifferent to the incompetence and corruption around him. Whatever good intentions he had started out with had long since faded. A land reform programme financed by Britain came to a halt when it was discovered that Mugabe was handing out farms intended for peasant resettlement to his own cronies.

Ordinary people meanwhile suffered the brunt of government mismanagement. By 2000, Zimbabweans were generally worse off than they had been at independence: average wages were lower; unemployment had trebled; public services were crumbling and life expectancy was falling.

As opposition to his rule mounted, Mugabe struck back with increasing ruthlessness. His first target was white farmers who, worried about their title to land, had shown signs of supporting a new opposition coalition, the Movement for Democratic Change. Hoping to bolster his popularity, Mugabe sent gangs of party activists to rural areas to seize control of white-owned farms to distribute to his supporters, but it led only to the collapse of the agricultural industry.

His ultimate objective, however, was to crush all opposition and remain in power for as long as he wanted. Since 2000, he has used all the government's resources to attack his opponents, sanctioning murder, torture and lawlessness of every kind, rigging elections, violating the courts and suppressing the independent press. In a speech in 2003, he warned he would use even worse violence if necessary, threatening to act like a "black Hitler" against the opposition. "If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold. That is what we stand for."

The cost of this strategy has been enormous. Zimbabwe has been reduced to a bankrupt and impoverished state, threatened by economic collapse and catastrophic food shortages.

But still Mugabe fights on. "No matter what force you have, this is my territory and that which is mine I cling [to] unto death," he said in 2001. And he is far from finished. Though losing control of parliament in last month's election, he can still rely on party militias, youth groups, war veterans, police and army generals to help him win the next round of the presidential election. Violence has been Mugabe's stock-in-trade for more than 30 years. Indeed he has boasted that he has "a degree in violence". It is not a pleasant prospect for Zimbabweans yearning for something better.

The Olympics, a call for a boycott and a controversial black minister – 40 years ago

In the news an Olympic host cracks down on dissent at home, there is talk of an Olympic boycott over human rights and a controversial black minister speaks out. 2008? No, 1968.

The 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico was surrounded by controversy.

The Olympic Project for Human Rights or OPHR was an organization established by sociologist Harry Edwards. The aim of the organization was to protest racism in the United States, apartheid in South Africa and racism in sports generally. The group advocated a boycott of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games.

The OPHR included prominent blacks, athletes and non-athletes, from a wide variety of political/apolitical viewpoints including H. Rap Brown,m Stokely Carmichael, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (who would be assassinated in April of 1968), college basketball star Lew Alcindor (who ended up, along with some UCLA teammates, boycotting anyway), Floyd McKissick, Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali.

In the meantime, ten days before the start of the games, up to 5000 students marched in Mexico City to protest the government’s expenditures on the event. Riot police opened fire on the crowd and between 200 and 400 students were killed.

The OPHR boycott did not have much effect but protests continued in other forms. This time two black American track and field runners, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, made a controversial stand against racism in the United States. Teammates at San Jose University, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were both competitors in the 200-meter race. Smith won the gold with the time of 19.5 seconds and Carlos won the bronze.

At the medal ceremony, Smith and Carlos stood on the platform wearing black socks without shoes, they both wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge, and Smith wore a black scarf around his neck. As the American flag was raised and the National Anthem was played, Smith and Carlos bowed their heads and each raised a gloved fist in the black power salute.

Because of their actions, the Olympic Committee barred them from competing in other events. Back in the United States, instead of receiving a celebration of their achievements, they were subjected to death threats and their actions were the subject of widespread debate. However, they did receive support from civil rights leaders.

While at the time, Smith and Carlos’ method of protest was controversial, years later they were honored for their actions on numerous occasions.

Below is a film clip of Martin Luther King speaking about the proposed boycott of the Olympics in 1968.

The myth of the “surge” exposed in Basra

The fighting between Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's central government forces last week in Basra and Baghdad as well as the outcome leaving Sadr strengthened and Maliki weakened speaks poorly of the “surge” efforts by the U.S. With a decrease in violence over the past several months the Bush administration has declared the surge a success. Yet the whole point of the surge was to buy time for the central government to not only build up its own armed forces but to do the political work necessary to pull the country together. The outbreak of conflict over this civil war that has been simmering under the surface proves how little was actually accomplished.

Spencer Ackerman examines this failure in the Washington Independent:

… the surge was never intended to bring violence down to 2005 levels -- when, it's worth remembering, violence was so pervasive that the first wave of U.S. politicians reacted by calling for withdrawal -- nor to give Iraqi security forces the opportunity to skirmish with militias. President George W. Bush presented the surge to the American nation on Jan. 10, 2007 as an effort to enable political progress.

On that front, some experts say, Sadr's victory over Maliki exposed the weakness of the U.S.'s partner. "In spite of holding de jure power, Maliki can't exert territorial control over even the Shiite regions of Iraq," said Robert Farley, a professor at the University of Kentucky's Paterson School of Diplomacy. "While the surge has reduced violence, it has failed utterly to create Iraqi state capacity. The Iraqi central government is as far as ever from exerting control over other armed groups within Iraq."

Some in the Bush administration contended that a fact more significant than the Iraqi government's poor military capacity was Maliki's willingness to go after a co-religionist militia. Bush called it a "bold decision." CIA Director Michael Hayden called it "a very decisive act on the part of Prime Minister Maliki to get personally involved and commit his forces and his government to extending Iraqi government control over parts of Iraqi that, frankly, have not been under much central government control now for several years."

Brandon Friedman, who served in Iraq as an infantry officer with the 101st Airborne Division in 2003 (commanded at the time by Petraeus), disagreed. "It’s very clear now that -- after five years of American training and assistance -- the militias still wield more power and influence than any national, organized Iraqi military or police force," Friedman, who edits the veterans' advocacy blog VetVoice.com, wrote in an e-mail. "This is exactly what both Maliki and the Bush administration were trying to disprove last week. Unfortunately for them, they only succeeded in showing how inept and dependent the Maliki government is on outside forces."

Yet despite Sadr's strength, and Maliki's weakness, there is little likelihood of the U.S. abandoning Maliki. "Who's going to come out on top is still unclear, but obviously the U.S. is still going to support Maliki," said the U.S. intelligence analyst. "He's the hand the U.S. has been dealt. We have to back him because there's no alternative."

No matter what, however, the Bush administration insists that the surge is a success in the face of all evidence because to do otherwise would be to admit a blunder. And this administration has no record of admit(ing) to an error.

You can read his entire piece here.

China jails Hu Jia, human rights dissident

A young Chinese dissident who has been jailed for three-and-a-half years in a sentence for inciting subversion of state power by criticising the ruling Communist Party.

Hu Jia is a human rights activist and dissident in the People’s Republic of China. His activism has focused on democratic rights, enviromentalism, self-determination for Tibet and HIV/AIDS in China. (An English translation of his blog can be found here.)

On December 27, 2007, Hu Jia was detained as part of crackdown on dissent. The decision to take him into custody was made after peasant leaders in several Chinese provinces issued a manifesto demanding broader land rights for peasants whose property had been confiscated for development.

Today he was given three and a half years in jail on charges of "inciting subversion of state power" as one more attempt by the Chinese government to crack down on dissent prior to the Olympic games this summer.

Here is the BBC on Jia’s troubles:

A prominent activist who publicised human rights abuses across China has been convicted of subversion and jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Hu Jia, 34, was convicted of "inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system", his lawyer said.

He has long campaigned for the environment, religious freedom and for the rights of people with HIV and Aids.

His sentence comes a day after a rights group accused China of a campaign to silence dissent ahead of the Olympics.

****
Hu Jia's case has attracted a great deal of international attention, both from rights groups and Western diplomats.

Before his arrest late last year, he had been an outspoken critic of China's record on a variety of human rights issues.

Correspondents say he had become a kind of one-man clearing house for information, passing it on to journalists, organisations and foreign embassies.

Evidence presented against Mr Hu in court included interviews he gave to foreign media and political articles that he wrote for the internet, lawyer Li Fangping said.

"As lawyers we propose that Hu Jia appeal this sentence but it is up to him and we will wait for his decision," Mr Li said.

"We have not had a chance to exchange ideas with him so far."

Chinese state news agency Xinhua said the court had been lenient with Mr Hu because he had admitted his crimes.

"Hu spread malicious rumours, libel and instigation in an attempt to subvert the state's political and socialist systems," Xinhua said, quoting the court ruling.

Mr Hu's conviction comes only two weeks after another activist, Yang Chunlin, was jailed on similar charges.

On Wednesday, UK-based rights group Amnesty International accused Beijing of carrying out a "wave of repression" ahead of the Olympic Games.

The authorities were targeting those who criticised the government in a bid to present a stable and harmonious image when the Games began in August, the group said.

In response, the China Society for Human Rights Studies accused Amnesty of bias and of ignoring positive developments in the country's human rights record.

Last month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was asked about Hu Jia's case. He said it should be handled according to the law.

"As for critics' view that China is trying to increase its efforts to arrest dissidents ahead the Olympic Games, I think all these accusations are unfounded," he said.

Who won the battle of Basra?

According to Pepe Escobar of The Real News Network, Iran is sufficiently powerful to broker a ceasefire deal in Basra. The United States backed the ill-fated attack by the central government in the south of Iraq and comes away from this as the loser.

Obama: “He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill”

Writer Alice Walker explains why Barack Obama is her choice for President in "An open letter to my sisters who are brave" in The Root:

When I joined the freedom movement in Mississippi in my early twenties it was to come to the aid of sharecroppers, like my parents, who had been thrown off the land they'd always known, the plantations, because they attempted to exercise their "democratic" right to vote. I wish I could say white women treated me and other black people a lot better than the men did, but I cannot. It seemed to me then and it seems to me now that white women have copied, all too often, the behavior of their fathers and their brothers, and in the South, especially in Mississippi, and before that, when I worked to register voters in Georgia, the broken bottles thrown at my head were gender free.

I made my first white women friends in college; they were women who loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered. That, for instance, at Sarah Lawrence, where I was speedily inducted into the Board of Trustees practically as soon as I graduated, I made my way to the campus for meetings by train, subway and foot, while the other trustees, women and men, all white, made their way by limo. Because, in our country, with its painful history of unspeakable inequality, this is part of what whiteness means. I loved my school for trying to make me feel I mattered to it, but because of my relative poverty I knew I could not.

I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the country at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to start over, and to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him. Cannot see what he carries in his being. Cannot hear the fresh choices toward Movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans –black, white, yellow, red and brown - choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me.

When I have supported white people, men and women, it was because I thought them the best possible people to do whatever the job required. Nothing else would have occurred to me. If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. We look at him, as we looked at them, and are glad to be of our species. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change America must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves.

You can read her entire essay here at The Root.

What to make of the Battle of Basra

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s "decisive and final battle'' against the ragtag Mahdi Army with his better equipped and American trained army has fallen flat. The assistance of U.S. and British troops were not enough for the central government to take charge of the Basra region of the country. Iran, the real winner in all this, brokered a cease-fire between Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's coalition (the Da`wa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq). The stalemate has left Maliki’s government politically weaker than before and even more dependent on U.S. military force to rule.

The assault by the government on the Mahdi Army was as likely motivated by power grab on behalf of the Da`wa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) against Muqtada Sadr's movement prior to upcoming provincial elections as it does with the assertion of sovereignty of the central government in Baghdad.

Mathew Yglesias wonders where all this can possibly lead:

… what if Iraqi government forces, given enough time and Anglo-American support, manage to first crush organized armed resistance in Sadr City and then swing south and take control of Basra? Do Sadrists wind up winning local elections this fall anyway? Or does ISCI use its newfound military supremacy to intimidate people away from the Sadrists?

Suppose Maliki winds up with a quasi-democratic mandate for a not-very-popular regime that we're now committed to supporting. Imagine the best case scenario here where over the next two or three years, US military, logistical, and financial support lets Maliki build an efficacious, pro-American, regime that's a bit lacking in the old popular legitimacy but that certainly manages to hold onto power. We've got a Mesopotamian Egypt or Saudi Arabia (or Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, etc). Maybe that's outrageously optimistic. And guess what, it's our support for regimes like that's the main driver of al-Qaeda terrorism.

And for that matter, what does happen if the Mahdi Army beats the government forces and wins the Battle of Basra? There don't seem to me to be any scenarios in either direction where expending huge amounts of further American blood and treasure looks like a good option.

In the video clip below, The Real News interviews Sabah Al Nasseri regarding the latest events. He was born in Basra, Iraq and currently is a Professor for Political Science (Middle East Politics) at the York University, Toronto. He argues that the Iraq ruling elite needs US troops to stay in power.

And Juan Cole has this take on the events of last week:

The campaign was a predictable fiasco, another in a long line of strategic failures for the sickly and divided Iraqi government, which survives largely because it is propped up by the United States. So why did al-Maliki do it? With no obvious immediate crisis in Basra that called for such desperate measures, what could have motivated the decision to attack?

Three main motivations present themselves: control of petroleum smuggling, staying in power (including keeping U.S. troops around to ensure it), and the achievement of a Shiite super-province in the south. A southern super-province would spell a soft partition of the country, benefiting Shiites in the long term while cutting Sunnis out of substantial oil revenues, both licit and illicit. But all of the motivations have to do with something President Bush established as a benchmark in January 2007: upcoming provincial elections.

The Sadr Movement leaders themselves are convinced that the recent setting of a date for provincial elections, on Oct. 1, 2008, and al-Maliki's desire to improve the government's position in advance of the elections, precipitated the prime minister's attack. It is widely thought that the Sadrists might sweep to power in the provinces in free and fair elections, since the electorate is deeply dissatisfied with the performance of the major incumbent party in the southern provinces, the Islamic Supreme Council of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

Provincial elections could radically change the political landscape in Iraq. Both the Sunni Arabs and the Sadr Movement sat out the last round, in late January 2005. Thus, governments in the Sunni Arab areas are unrepresentative and in one case a Sunni-majority province, Diyala, is actually ruled by the Shiite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), which Sunnis tend to see as a puppet of Iran.

Likewise in the Shiite south, the ISCI, led by Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, is largely in power, even though probably a majority of the population favors Sadr. To have a minority in power and the majority feeling disenfranchised is especially dangerous in a violent society such as Iraq. The disjuncture has contributed to endemic fighting in the capital of Qadisiya Province, Diwaniya, for instance, between Sadr's Mahdi army and the paramilitary of the Islamic Supreme Council, or Badr Corps. In many provinces, ISCI has infiltrated members of its Badr paramilitary into the police and security forces, thus giving them the presumption of legitimacy and allowing the branding of the Mahdi army as violent militiamen with no popular mandate, won at the polls.

That the week's fighting was intended to bolster pro-government forces in preparation for the October provincial elections is at least plausible. During the fighting, the Iraqi army was allied with the Badr Corps paramilitary of the ISCI, which was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. ISCI, the leading Shiite political party in parliament, is now al-Maliki's main backer in the government, along with his own smaller Da'wa (Islamic Call) Party. And U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner told a news conference on Wednesday that the Iraqi army's military operation, which U.S. forces aided, was aimed at improving "security" in the city ahead of provincial elections.

And then there is the super-province. On the same day that Bergner spoke, a Sadrist leader told the Times of Baghdad, "The objective of the operations in Basra is to impose a provincial confederacy on the south, which the Sadr Movement opposes." The reference to a provincial confederacy, confusingly called "federalism" in Iraq, is to the plan of ISCI leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim to establish an eight-province regional government for the Shiite south. Were the Sadrists to win the southern provinces in October's provincial elections, they would halt any move toward such a confederacy, since they favor strong central government on the French model and view al-Hakim's plan for a Shiite super-province as the first stage in a soft partition of Iraq.

The issue of whether to create a Shiite super-province and risk a soft partition of Iraq is not the only source of conflict between the Sadrists and the Iraqi government. The Sadr Movement demands the setting of a timetable for the departure of U.S. troops, a demand supported by a majority of the members of parliament but which is not shared by most ministers in the Iraqi cabinet.

Indeed, the Sadr Movement, which helped bring al-Maliki to power in spring of 2006, broke with him precisely over his refusal to demand that the U.S. set a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq. The Sadrists also objected to al-Maliki's direct meetings with Bush, which they saw as a humiliating capitulation to colonialism. In summer of 2007, the Sadrists withdrew their ministers from al-Maliki's cabinet.

The Bush administration wants its current partners to stay in power in the Shiite areas, since ISCI and al-Maliki's Da'wa party support a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. Washington would probably therefore have preferred that the provincial elections in the Shiite south be postponed. Yet the administration knows that there is little hope of mollifying the Sunni Arabs unless they have an opportunity to vote for their own provincial leadership. The very step that might help calm down the Sunni Arab provinces, however, may inflame tensions in the Shiite south, if the Sadrists toss ISCI out on its collective ear.

The upcoming provincial elections are a potential public relations nightmare for both the Iraqi government and its allies in the Bush administration. What if fighting breaks out in September between the Badr Corps and the Mahdi army? They are the paramilitaries of the two major parties that will be heatedly contesting the south. A campaign now might weaken the Mahdi army, suggesting to the electorate in the south that the Sadrists cannot protect them. Iraqi Shiites appear mainly to vote for parties that they hope can protect them and establish security.

Other issues, such as petroleum smuggling, are also bound up with the power struggle. The various political parties in Basra are using their paramilitaries to capture and smuggle Iraqi government gasoline and kerosene, worth billions, which allows them to build up big war chests for fighting the elections and doing charitable work in rundown neighborhoods. A decisive defeat of the Mahdi army in Basra now would possibly have deprived the Sadrists of the funding they need to win the October elections.

If the Sadr Movement rules most Shiite-majority provinces, including Baghdad, that will make it difficult for the U.S. military to remain in the country. It will stop any move toward a soft partition of the country of the sort endorsed by the U.S. Senate. It will ensure that the Sadr Movement can continue to siphon off billions in petroleum revenue through smuggling, strengthening it for the future.

The survival of the current Iraqi government, based on rivals to the Sadrists such as ISCI and the Da'wa Party of al-Maliki, hangs in the balance. Clearly, al-Maliki felt that the operation had to be launched, and may well have thought that it is better to do it now, so that it will not be fresh in the minds of the Iraqi or American electorate when they go to the polls in the fall. Now that al-Maliki's campaign has gone so badly, it raises the question of whether there will be a sympathy vote for al-Sadr in October. The Iraqis, a majority of whom say they want a short timetable for U.S. withdrawal, may well have an opportunity to elect provincial governments that, practically speaking, want the same thing, in October. If that happens, it is hard to see how the U.S. presence can last, since the U.S. needs bases in Shiite provinces like Baghdad so as to function.

Castro’s daughter: “…at the end of the day, it’s true that power transforms people”

In 1993, Alina Fernández, the estranged daughter of Fidel Castro, left Cuba. She has become a critic of the regime her father built and offers some insight on her uncle Raúl Castro and the state of the Cuban people in this interview in Foreign Policy magazine:

Foreign Policy: Who is Raúl Castro?

Alina Fernández: Raúl Castro has always been the second main character of Cuban politics, of this process called the Cuban Revolution. He has great administrative talent, which he demonstrated clearly in managing the armed forces, the most efficient—and the only—institution in Cuba. He’s not a liberal or democratic person; he’s a communist of the old orthodox school. He’s a man who, for the first time in his life, has the right to make decisions as a first, and not second, in command. He has a very pragmatic attitude. He’s going to make all kinds of economic changes except those that could affect the political system in any way, as evidenced by the fact that he appointed personalities of the oldest guard.

FP: As you said, it’s the first time in his life that Raúl is going to have the chance to decide alone. Is this going to affect his personality and choices?

AF: I know that power changes people. I know because I saw it. There’s almost a physical effect. With power, you can see the person suffering from a dramatic change of personality. But what I can tell you is that the Raúl Castro I know doesn’t suffer from any form of messianic delirium. He’s a very rational, organized, and caring person ... more than anybody else in the family. But at the end of the day, it’s true that power transforms people.

FP: When did you see Raúl last?

AF: In 1989, I started having contact with Cuban dissidents. Obviously, when you are in contact with political opponents to the regime someone built, you automatically become his enemy. I saw him last at that time, and I haven’t seen him since.

FP: Is it hard for you to criticize your own family?

AF: It’s been so long since I made my choice and started speaking this way that I’m now kind of used to it. It’s hard, sure, but there are many hard things in life and I know I’ve got to do this for my country. I want to make up for at least a bit of the great mess my family made in my country. Castro is the reason why 3 million Cubans have to live abroad, to escape on boats. And he’s why I had to run away from my country with my daughter.

FP: Why did things go so wrong? At the beginning, they said the revolution was meant to help the Cuban people.

AF: Everybody keeps on talking about revolution as something ideal, but they simply forget that this was 50 years ago. And now, today, people in Cuba are living in barely passable conditions. They can’t find anything in the market because no clothes, no goods are coming from outside. And the few things you can find are so expensive that no Cuban can afford them. Cubans have been eating, sleeping, and breathing ideology for the last 50 years, but you can’t live off ideology, and Raúl Castro knows it.

[As a critic of the Cuban regime,] you don’t have to speak about freedom or all the other big words. The only thing you should focus on is the total poverty in which Cubans have to live. In Cuba nowadays, there’s a double currency system in which those who only have Cuban pesos have to survive on five or 10 dollars a month. Basically, in Cuba there’s nothing for those who don’t have convertible pesos. Ironically, in the land of revolution, there’s a dramatic social inequality between those who can count on foreigners’ help and money, or work in tourism, and normal Cubans.

Thelonious Monk: “Round Midnight” (1966)

This is the Thelonious Monk Quartet playing “Round Midnight” in Norway in 1966.

Thelonious Monk is on the piano, Charlie Rouse tenor sax, Larry Gales bass, and Ben Riley drums.

Monk (1917 – 1982) was a jazz pianist and composer regarded as one of the founders of bebop although his playing style evolved in different directions. His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are impossible to separate from Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations.

“Round Midnight” is a 1944 jazz standard by Monk. It has been recorded with greater frequency than any other standard composed by a jazz musician.

You can see Monk perform “Epistrophy” here and “Blue Monk” here.

Senator Clinton and her Bosnia remarks

Here is the whole story of Senator Clinton’s Bosnia remarks flap from start to finish. Make up your own mind.

Iraqracy?

Anthony H. Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in today’s New York Times on this week’s fighting in Basra:

Fighting is now occurring in southern Iraq and parts of Baghdad between the Mahdi Army, which is under the control of the populist cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and a coalition of forces led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Dawa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a powerful party led by a Maliki ally, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. This latter coalition has de facto control of much of the Iraqi security forces, and Mr. Hakim’s group has its own militia, called the Badr Organization.

Much of the reporting on this fighting in Basra and Baghdad — which was initiated by the Iraqi government — assumes that Mr. Sadr and his militia are the bad guys who are out to spoil the peace, and that the government forces are the legitimate side trying to bring order. This is a dangerous oversimplification, and one that the United States needs to be far more careful about endorsing.

There is no question that many elements of the Mahdi Army have been guilty of sectarian cleansing, that the Sadr movement is hostile to the United States, that some of its extremists have continued acts of violence in spite of the cease-fire Mr. Sadr declared last summer, and that some of these rogue elements have ties to Iran. No one should romanticize the Sadr movement, understate the risks it presents or ignore the violent radicals in the Mahdi Army.

But it is equally important not to romanticize Mr. Maliki, the Dawa Party or the Islamic Supreme Council. The current fighting, which the government portrays as a crackdown on criminality, is better seen as a power grab, an effort by Mr. Maliki and the most powerful Shiite political parties to establish their authority over Basra and the parts of Baghdad that have eluded their grasp.

Moreover, Mr. Maliki’s gamble has already dragged American forces part-way into the fight, including airstrikes in Basra. Striking at violent, rogue elements in the Mahdi Army is one thing, but engaging the entire Sadr movement is quite another. The official cease-fire that has kept the mainstream Mahdi Army from engaging government and United States forces may well be rescinded if the government’s assault continues.

This looming power struggle was all too clear when I was in Iraq last month. The Supreme Council was the power behind the Shiite governorates in the south and was steadily expanding its influence over the Iraqi police. It was clearly positioning itself to counter Mr. Sadr’s popular support and preparing for the provincial elections scheduled for Oct. 1.

American military and civilian officials were candid in telling me that the governors and other local officials installed by the central government in Basra and elsewhere in southern Iraq had no popular base. If open local and provincial elections were held, they said, Dawa and the Islamic Supreme Council were likely to be routed because they were seen as having failed to bring development and government services.

****

There are good reasons for the central government to reassert control of Basra. It is not peaceful. It is the key to Iraq’s oil exports. Gang rule is no substitute for legitimate government. But given the timing and tactics, it is far from clear that this offensive is meant to serve the nation’s interest as opposed to those of the Islamic Supreme Council and Dawa.

How will it affect America? If the fighting sets off a broad, lasting, violent power struggle between Shiite factions, most of the security gains of the last year could be lost and our military role broadened. There is also no guarantee that a victory by Dawa and the Islamic Supreme Council will serve the cause of political accommodation or lead to fair elections and the creation of legitimate local and provincial governments. Such an outcome, in fact, might favor a Dawa and Islamic Supreme Council “Iraqracy,” not democracy.

You can read the entire piece here.

Fight for Basra: Decisive and final battle…or ongoing stalemate?

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says Basra is a "decisive and final battle.'' He is vowing to remain there overseeing operations against the Shiite Mahdi Army until security by the central government in the city is restored. However, the escalating civil war is making the political situation more muddled than before and the fighting in Basra and Baghdad seem anything but final. So far, Maliki’s offensive has only exposed the weaknesses of his government. According to the London Times:

Maliki had flown to Basra to take personal control of the military operation. But instead of sweeping to a decisive victory with American guns at his side, he was stumbling into something that looked dangerously like stalemate yesterday.

Having originally imposed a 72-hour deadline for rebels to hand in their weapons, he was forced to extend it until April 8. Yesterday he vowed to remain in Basra until the resistance was crushed. “This is a decisive and final battle,” he said.

Sadr issued an equally robust directive, ordering his fighters to ignore Maliki’s ultimatum.

At stake in Basra was not just the prime minister’s reputation, his prospects for provincial elections this autumn and control of the Iraqi oil fields, but also an entire coalition strategy of reduced troop levels, steady withdrawal and the turning over of Iraqi security to local troops.

If Maliki’s crackdown fails, both London and Washington may have to reassess Iraqi army capabilities and the risk of future disaster if coalition forces continue to withdraw. “This is a precarious situation,” one US official said yesterday. “There’s a lot to be gained and a lot to lose.”

Already this weekend there were reports that police officers and soldiers had left their posts, changed their uniforms and joined the Mahdi Army.

Basra conflict: The enemy of my enemy is…who?

Here is a convenient little cheat sheet from Kevin Drum on who is who in the fighting in southern Iraq:

· ISCI = SIIC = new name for SCIRI = Badr Corps = "aristocratic" Hakim family = exiles during Saddam Hussein's reign = pro-Iran = generally in control of army and security forces = pro-U.S. = ally of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Dawa Party.

· Mahdi Army = JAM = "firebrand cleric" Muqtada al-Sadr = Iraqi nationalists = originally part of Maliki's governing coalition but no longer = anti-U.S. = populist/working class orientation = controls much of the oil sector in Basra.

· "Special groups" = rogue elements of the Mahdi Army = maybe Sadr is just as happy to have Maliki take these guys out for him, but who knows for sure?

· Fadhila = ex-allies of Sadr = won some elections in Basra in 2005 = smallest of the three Shiite factions in the south.

Perhaps someone should forward this to the White House.

Sarah Vaughn: “Perdido” (1955)

This is Sarah Vaughn (1924 – 1990) singing Perdido in 1955 at the Rhythm and Blues Revue, a musical variety show filmed at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.

She entered a talent contest at the Apollo Theater in 1942 at age 18, sang "Body and Soul," and won. She was spotted by singer Billy Eckstine, who recommended her to Earl Hines, a bandleader with a remarkable ear for talent, who hired her as his band's relief pianist as well as singer. She sang "Misty," "Tenderly," "All of Me," and made dozens of other classic jazz recordings with Count Basie, Cannonball Adderly, Lester Young, and Oscar Peterson. Her hits include "It's Magic," "Send in the Clowns," and "I Cried for You."

Today (March 27) is the birthday of Sarah Vaughan.

"Perdido" is Spanish and simply means "lost". The song refers to the resort town of Perdido in the Florida keys. The jazz-song has become a standard for many performers.

Fighting in Basra: It's not a case of good vs. evil

The alleged purpose of the “surge” was to buy time for the Iraqi government to do the political work necessary to stabilize the country. That political work was not done and lo’ and behold one of Iraq’s overlapping civil wars has been rekindled. Fighting has broken out in the Basra region of the country with scattered incidents occurring further north in Baghdad. (And we have yet to hear what action the unhappy Sunni Awakening Councils will take.)

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out that the Maliki government is carrying out as much or more of a power grab on behalf of the Al Dawa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) against Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi army as it does with the assertion of sovereignty of the central government in Baghdad.

The administration has been presenting the whole conflict in Iraq in black and white terms of good guys and bad guys or, more specifically, Al Qaeda and freedom loving Iraqis. Unfortunately, it is a lot more complicated than that. Since it is hard for most Americans to tell the players without a scorecard, here is Fred Kaplan’s explanation in Slate of the recent fighting:

The wars in Iraq (the plural is no typo) are about to expand and possibly explode, so it might be useful to have some notion of what we're in for.

Here is President George W. Bush, speaking this morning in Dayton, Ohio, and revealing once again that he has no notion:

[A]s we speak, Iraqi security forces are waging a tough battle against militia fighters and criminals in Basra—many of whom have received arms and training and funding from Iran. … This offensive builds on the security gains of the surge and demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them. … [T]he enemy will try to fill the TV screens with violence. But the ultimate result will be this: Terrorists and extremists in Iraq will know they have no place in a free and democratic society.

The reality, alas, is less stark. The fighting in Basra, which has spread to parts of Baghdad, is not a clash between good and evil or between a legitimate government and an outlaw insurgency. Rather, as Anthony Cordesman, military analyst for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, writes, it is "a power struggle" between rival "Shiite party mafias" for control of the oil-rich south and other Shiite sections of the country.

Both sides in this struggle are essentially militias. Both sides have ties to Iran. And as for protecting "the Iraqi people," the side backed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (and by U.S. air power) has, ironically, less support—at least in many Shiite areas, including Basra—than the side that he (and we) are attacking.

In other words, as with most things about Iraq, it's a more complex case than Bush makes it out to be.

The two Shiite parties—the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi army—have been bitter rivals since the early days of post-Saddam Iraq. And Maliki, from the beginning of his rule, has had delicate relations with both.

Sadr, who may be Iraq's most popular Shiite militant and who controls several seats in parliament, gave Maliki the crucial backing he needed to become prime minister. However, largely under U.S. pressure, Maliki has since backed away from Sadr, who has always fiercely opposed the occupation and whose militiamen have killed many American soldiers (until last year, when he declared a cease-fire).

Maliki has since struck a close alliance with ISCI, which has its own militia, the Badr Organization, and whose members also hold much sway within Iraq's official security forces (though more with the police than with the national army). This alliance has the blessing of U.S. officials, even though ISCI—which was originally called the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq—has much deeper ties with Iran than Sadr does. (ISCI's leaders went into exile in Iran during the decades of Saddam's reign, while Sadr and his family stayed in Iraq—one reason for his popular support. As Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations has noted, SICRI was created by Iran, and the Badr brigades were trained and supplied by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.)

Sadr's Mahdi army and ISCI's Badr Organization came to blows last August in the holy city of Karbala. This fighting—and his growing inability to control criminal elements within the Mahdi army—spurred Sadr to order a six-month moratorium on violence, which he renewed last month, against the wishes of some of his followers. (This moratorium is a major reason for the decline in casualties in Iraq, perhaps as significant as the U.S. troop surge and the Sunni Awakening.)

The fighting this week in Basra may be a prelude to the moratorium's collapse and, with it, the resumption of wide-scale sectarian violence—Shiite vs. Sunni and Shiite vs. Shiite.

Many Shiites believe—not unreasonably—that Maliki ordered the offensive in Basra now in order to destroy Sadr's base of support and thus keep his party from beating ISCI in the upcoming provincial elections.

Late last month, Iraq's three-man presidential council vetoed a bill calling for provincial elections, in large part because ISCI's leaders feared that Sadr's party would win in Basra. The Bush administration, which has (correctly) regarded provincial elections as key to Iraqi reconciliation, pressured Maliki to reverse his stance and let the bill go through. He did—at which point (was this just a coincidence?) planning began for the offensive that's raging now.

Maliki's official reason for the offensive, simply to bring order, has some plausibility, because Basra—Iraq's second-largest city, a major port, and a huge supplier of oil—is teetering on the edge of anarchy. At the start of the occupation, British forces were put in charge of Basra, but they viewed their operation as passive peacekeeping, not counterinsurgency, so militias moved in and gradually took the place over. By the time the British withdrew to the outskirts, the city was already taken over by fractious warlords.

The current fighting in Basra is a struggle for power and resources between those warlords. It's hard to say which faction is more alluring or less likely to fall under Iranian sway. Neither seems the sort of ally in freedom and democracy that our president conjures in his daydreams. (The lively blogger who calls himself Abu Muqawama speculates that Bush officials have embraced ISCI because, unlike Sadr, its leaders speak English.)

It's not a case of good vs. evil. It's just another crevice in the widening earthquake called Iraq.