October 13, 2003
Monday Reading
Juan Cole writes that the neocon dream of a peaceful, democratic Iraq has failed and once again the centers of power in the Middle East are Saudia Arabia and Israel. He shows that the neocons completely misunderstood the radicalization of the Shiites in the anvil of Saddam's Iraq and this mistake has done nothing to make the threat of Al Qaeda lessen.
And there's more about the destruction of the date palms from Riverbend today.
Tristero has a thoughtful piece up about the end of the American century and why this should be considered good, yet sad.
This morning I heard about John Podesta's official start of a new Liberal Think Tank on NPR. Seeing the Forest finds that the NY Times piece covering Podesta's group finally writes about the power of the conservative think tanks in shaping our current political ideology. And yes, Dave has been on top of this story for a while.
David Corn has more about why the Plame Affair continues to be a growing problem for Bush. Gee, why does this make me happy?
Is California a failed state? Robert Kuttner says yes and that the election of Schwarzenegger is merely the latest sign of this.
Posted by Mary at October 13, 2003 11:19 AM | TrackBackWas there an earlier release on the story about the date palms in Dhuluaya? Riverbend's exclusive source of info the actual atrocity was a story in The Independent by Patrick Cockburn.
Part of the problem I have with the story is the city of Dhuluaya is extremely small--it's near the town (and the ruin) of Sam[m]arra, but appears on no map (here's a big one). That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, of course, but Cockburn posted some other uncorroborated stories from this same town.
Riverbend mentions Ba'aquba (which is much bigger and does appear on the above-linked map--north of Baghdad) and the outskirts of Baghdad itself, but again--no reports in other Arab news outlets. The destruction of these palm trees does occur as a reprisal against Palestinians, but I haven't heard of this happening in Iraq from any other source.
Posted by: James R MacLean on October 14, 2003 07:11 PMHere is what I mean: Google search for Dhuluaya. Same text from same story for every single hit; except for others from same town by Cockburn.
But Cockburn described the scene, while saying others accused US forces of doing it! Cockburn says this part of a new policy of collective punishment, when it would be more logical to declare this was an atrocity (in other words, "collective punishment" is a violation of article IV of the Geneva Conventions, ergo, it would never be admitted. Not that that means this never happened, but how would Cockburn know this was a policy?
When a reporter from the newspaper Iraq Today
attempted to take a photograph of the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera and tried to smash it.
"Tried"? This seems most implausible. Either the photojournalist was unusually inept/timid, or... OK, why didn't he attempt to photograph this from a distance? Why did the cameraman get within 50 meters of the soldiers? Why not come back in twenty minutes and photograph it from, say, 200 meters with a telephoto lens? Or from a neighbor's orchard, without one? Or afterwards, when the soldiers were gone?
Iraq Today has a story about date palms all right...but US troops aren't in it:
Agriculture
An old pest returns to haunt Iraqi palms
By Abd Alrahman Aljuburi
DIYALA - The Dubas pest was once considered the scourge of Iraq's date palms. But thanks to an organized eradication effort, the pest was considered history till now. In just a matter of months, the pest has begun taking a toll some of Iraq's richest... (registration required)
Posted by: James R MacLean on October 14, 2003 08:04 PM
Here is a partial confirmation:
And here is Islam Online. These are from Xymphora. The article in Islam Online has photos.
In the nearby town of Aduluwiya, Israeli-like "collective punishment" tactics were in full-effect. Last week, the Americans destroyed the palm orchard that has been in twenty-five year old Mohamed Ali Sadoun's family for fifty years because passing U.S. convoys had been attacked from its cover.
The romanizations vary dramatically, but all three sources do confirm a site: the trees destroyed were part of an orchard on the highway between Samarra and Balat (Balad), about 80-100Km northwest of Baghdad (50-60 miles). Islam Online, with the most consistant detail, says the farm belonged to Khudeir Khalil; Cockburn says 32 or 50 farmers (including Nusayef Jassim), or 10 trees per farmer; Mohamed Ali Sadoun, in Gert Van Langendonck's story.
Mr. Langendonck's story is much more ambiguous; the trees are destroyed because it's a menace to convoys and people get wounded. But his story refers to the trees through hearsay. IslamOnline also mentions the motivation being the safety of convoys. It mentions that the orchard owner is interviewed by AFP. But there is no story on this by AFP.
Posted by: James R MacLean on October 14, 2003 10:00 PMPart of the problem I have with the story is the city of Dhuluaya is extremely small--it's near the town (and the ruin) of Sam[m]arra, but appears on no map (here's a big one).
Uh, despites it's apparent size, that's not a very detailed map at all.
Posted by: on October 15, 2003 03:21 AM...Despites it's apparent size, that's not a very detailed map at all
Sorry, that's true, it isn't.
Posted by: James R MacLean on October 15, 2003 04:40 AMWell, I can confirm that Dhuluaya exists because I was there. Some confusion may be due to the arbitrary transcription of Arabic place names - Aduluwiya is another one. At the location where I was about 1,000 date palm trees were destroyed, part of which belonged to M. Sadoun. I talked to other owners as well but didn't quote all of them in my story. There was a story about US troops destroying the palm trees in Iraq Today last Monday - not the one reproduced here. My story predates Iraq Today's which in turn predates the Independent's. Hope this helps.
It does. If you see this, could you send me an email, Mr. Langendonck?
jamesrmaclean@hotmail.com
Posted by: James R MacLean on October 16, 2003 11:52 PM