Holy Naïveté, Batman!

I was doing a little Baghdad Burning and saw a couple of interesting things. The first is something I'd heard before, but hadn't paid it too much attention - it was just another piece of bad news coming out of Baghdad. Iraq Governing Council (IGC) was considering changing Iraq's governing laws from Family Law to Shari'a Law - the decision would become known as Decision or Decree 137, apparently. Shari'a Law, of course, is the semi-technical term for Islamic Law - the law of Muslim-dominated, non-secular counties, based on the Koran. Places implementing Shari'a Law are really good for women and human rights and freedom of expression and all that - places like Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria, etc. Anyways, big protests from womens' rights groups and others seem to have prevented the Decree from passing this past Friday - that's good news.

Now, while this is a rather bizarre development to even have such a decree considered, given the Administration's highly altruistic intentions for the Iraq Oil & Re-election War, you might be inclined to dismiss it as 'politics as usual', maybe just a little pushback from the IGC on the CPA, a little friendly power-play, but that might make you a bit....naïve. This guy Mr. Sistani, apparently the most powerful non-American in Iraq these days, is continuing to gain stregth, it seems, and continuing to flex his muscles. Mass demonstrations of 100,000+ people in Baghdad and Basra have worried the Americans and the Brits. I actually knew about the mass protests, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw next. Check out the website - if you can call it a site - of the Iraq Governing Council here. Not too shabby, I guess, but c'mon folks - this is the twenty-first century - surely we can do a little better than that. I mean, that looks like something I would have done, oh, ten years ago? Now, oblige me, if you will, by checking out the website of one Mr. Sistani. Ohhhhh, so you did catch the whole sleek pictures, interactive forms, and FIVE LANGUAGES thing. Good. Wasn't sure if you were going to catch that. Well, it just goes to show that even a well-meaning liberal can completely underestimate a non-Westerner. Thus, the title of this post.

This guy Sistani is pimping his point of view in FIVE LANGUAGES! So, one theory has it that the IGC was considering 137 to appease Sistani. Sistani is calling for full elections which would mostly likely mean a Shia-dominated government, which of course would mean an Islamic state. Bush/Bremer/CPA/IGC is now calling on the UN to provide cover for some type of hoax of a 'full election' that the Jackals hope Sistani will buy hook, line, and sinker. Ummmm...methinks they are being a tad naïve. But that's just me. And it's not like the neocons or others responsible for this war could ever be accused of being naïve about their points of view, but Kurt Vonnegut just might disagree.

p.s. I found the Robin quote here.