An Iraqi man lies on the ground to take cover during clashes between Shiite militiamen and Iraqi government troops in the Baghdad Shiite enclave of Sadr City on March 30, 2008. Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his fighters off Iraq’s streets yesterday in a move the government said would help end fierce clashes that have killed hundreds across the country. By Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Getty.
Upswing
Clinton’s Debts
By Patrick
This is more than a little ironic:
Among the debts reported this month by Hillary Rodham Clinton’s struggling presidential campaign, the $292,000 in unpaid health insurance premiums for her campaign staff stands out.
Reds In The Pipes
By Patrick
Apparently, your water is nearly communist.
The Chinese Street
By Patrick
Fallows continues to report the Chinese propaganda machine:
…my impression is that it is hard for people outside China to appreciate how strong and unified is the view on "the Chinese street" about the rights and wrongs of the Tibetan tragedy. From this internal perspective, Tibet has always, obviously, and indisputably been an integral part of China. And just as obviously and indisputably, through 50-plus years the people of Han China have sacrificed time, treasure, and manpower to bring Tibetans out of the feudal age and into modernity. And the thanks they get is…. this destructive outburst?
Americans might consider this blasphemous, but I think the prevailing Chinese view is about as dominant here as was the view on "the American street" about the rights and wrongs of 9/11. In all this is the potential for trouble between China and the outside world, not to mention the trouble for Tibet.
More Optimism
By Patrick
It’s not just Brazil banning death; a French mayor has also legislated against mortality. The punishment for disobedience is said to be severe.
Gore’s Biggest Fans
By Patrick
The Corner approves of Gore as the nominee:
If that happens then none of the votes cast by any of the Democrat voters counted…what about all the excitement over the possibility of the first woman or first black president? That goes down the tubes with the nomination of Gore. It seems to me that a Gore nomination creates serious problems for the Democrat Party. So, I would encourage the Democrats to do it.
Limbaugh would be proud.
Gay Heros
By Patrick
Chris Crain on the WaPo posthumously inning Army Maj. Alan G. Rogers:
Rogers’ being gay was his "most private life"? Why is the sexual orientation a gay person his "most private" secret when it is a routine fact treated with no privacy expectation whatsoever with heterosexuals? Howell acknowledges that Rogers kept his romantic life — not sex life, which is private, but romantic life — only as private as he needed to in order to comply with "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell."
I’m not of the school that the press "owes us" our heroes and thus should report sexual orientation more frequently. But I do believe the same editorial standards ought to apply to gay and straight alike.
Freedom Rings
By Patrick
Cubans get cell phones.
Our Man In Iraq
By Patrick
From the NYT:
The continuing fighting on Sunday left the ultimate significance of the statement uncertain, said Qassim Daoud, a former national security adviser who leads a secular Shiite party that has supported Mr. Maliki in the past. But the muddle that has emerged from what was supposed to be a decisive assault has serious consequences for the prime minister, Mr. Daoud said.
“The government now is in a weak position,” he said. “They claimed that they are going to disarm the militias and they didn’t succeed.”
Asked if the erosion of support for Mr. Maliki could cause his government to fall, Mr. Daoud paused and said, “Everything is possible.”
From the WaPo:
A fighter from Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Baghdad, speaking to The Washington Post, sees things similarly: "The fighting has proved they have learned a lesson. The government is dead from our point of view."
The general consensus this morning is that the Iran brokered truce has damaged Maliki’s position. It’s hard to see how this is going to impact Iraq’s political power struggles, but the situation highlights the shift in America’s relationship with Sadr. Bernhard Zand reports:
The Americans’ portrayal of Sadr has also changed. The Evil One of the last civil war, a man wanted by authorities and dubbed the "most dangerous man in Iraq" by Newsweek, has been repackaged as a leader to whom General Petraeus now attests a sense of responsibility. US military officials speaking on Iraqi television refer to him respectfully as "His Excellency Muqtada."
They know that they owe their successes partly to his withdrawal, and still do today. "Sadr is not the enemy," Ambassador Ryan Crocker said last week in Baghdad. The Americans, he added, are battling "special groups" and "extremist military elements" that Sadr apparently "doesn’t have under control." But this is not the view of Sadr’s Iraqi rivals, who now seek to deprive him of his power.
(Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki speaks with aides before addressing the 62nd United Nations General Assembly September 26, 2007 at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. By Spencer Platt/Getty.)
