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Flypaper Report

The Coalition Casualty Count lists 14 American troops killed in Iraq the week starting Saturday, August 21, and Reuters security incident reports reported at least 67 Iraqis killed over the same week.

Alas, A Blog explains how we've freed the women of Iraq. Ampersand highlights the surge in honor killings, kidnappings, rapes and the targeting of professional women, then asks the 'don't abandon Iraq' people if maybe we should "abandon putting into power people who see a woman's face and their first thought is to splash acid into it."

The Sideshow brings us a "report from Baghdad's fear-haunted literary cafes," which says whatever else needed to be added to the country's descent into widespread honor killings and acid splashings.

In what was suspected to be part of negotiations with the Sunnis over the draft constitution, 1,000 prisoners have been released from Abu Ghraib. The constitution was finally signed and is ready to go to the National Assembly. These were the main points of contention, as per CNN:

... The biggest dispute is over the presence of autonomous regions.

Currently, the Kurds have an autonomous region in the north and continue to back such de-centralized government. Shiite Arabs have voiced support for one in the south, a concept opposed by Sunni Arabs.

Under the compromise, the new draft would sideline details on federalism, appeasing Sunni demands, but endorse a Kurdish region, appeasing a basic Kurdish demand.

Also, it sidelines another Sunni concern -- de-Baathification: How to define the status of former members of Saddam's regime and his Baath party.

Essentially, the issues are transferred to a future government. ...

I just love that, the knotty problems "transferred to a future government." They're sure learning a lot from listening to Team Bush. Also, women's rights and safety, not so much of a knotty problem. Not for the Iraqis, not for the Bushistas. I bet Robertson, Falwell, Dobson and all their sycophants are just as jealous of that constitution as the day is long.

On the protest front: In Iraq, 100,000 Shi'ites marched against the new constitution in a demonstration organized by followers of Moqtada Al-Sadr, with demands ranging from adopting Al-Sadr's writings as the constitution to turning the utilities back on. Here in America, the counterprotestors have moved into Crawford, so they're very busy throwing gratuitous insults and mistakenly attacking each other. People's Front of Judea, indeed.

"George Bush forgot the lesson of Vietnam. Call dad." - Bill Maher

Posted by natasha at August 28, 2005 01:43 AM | Iraq | Technorati links |