blogging along that dusty old road

[Jon Ford]

Mike-- I noticed many of the Shiites carried little signs to hold up for the 
cameras saying (in English) stuff like "Americans go home. We want to run 
the country ourselves." I don't know how that will play with the Kurds and 
other types of Muslims in the country(including more educated secular types 
whom Americans hope will carry the day).  Sounds like an attempt at a power 
grab by a long repressed fundamentalist group happy to be let out of the 
box-- but it also seems like the beginning of a long civil war, like we saw 
in Afghanistan after the Russians gave it up.

Jon






>From: Michael Eisenstadt <michaele@ando.pair.com>
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>Subject: blogging along that dusty old road
>Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 10:39:15 -0500
>
>again i invite you to check out http://www.wdvx.com
>streaming country music. technical note: wdvx has
>settled on using RealPlayer (rather than Windows Media
>Player) and are streaming at a steady 32k which will
>more than adequately feed both speakers of a normal
>stereo set up (i am still using phone dialup).
>
>they have excellent taste ranging from Lucinda Williams
>and the best of Dolly Parton to hardcore bluegrass. and
>long sets with minimal announcer's blather.
>
>on another subject, the evolving Iraq situation has
>become extremely interesting. look closely at the
>Kirbala Shiite crowd: most of them are SYMBOLLICALLY
>beating themselves in grief over the murder of
>Caliph Ali. only a very small number of them are
>ACTUALLY flagellating themselves with steel chains
>till blood flows. this is a good index of the future
>Shia political position, no? many were chanting
>Death to America, Death to Israel.
>
>on another subject, the WMD are still missing
>
>on another subject, Colin (colon?) Powell in a tv
>interview threatened unspecified reprisals against
>France. weird!
>
>on another subject, going back to fundamentals, the
>neo-cons' argument is that paribis ceteris liberal
>democracy is an irrestable trump card over Islamic
>religious fundamentalism DESPITE previous opinions
>of America and that the Arab mind like everyone
>else's mind is malleable.
>
>on another subject, i note that Israel is going
>through some changes right now. the new PA prime
>minister plans to disarm Fatah which Arafat is
>resisting with all his might. however the
>Egyptians have a point man on the ground to MAKE
>SURE that Arafat gives in to Abu Mazen. also,
>which is a surprising thing to me, is that the
>Israelis have apparently managed to surpress all
>suicide operations at least for the moment. so it
>seems that even suicide operations can be countered
>with determination and lotsa modern machinery. right
>there in the Casbah. you dont fight your way down
>dangerous alleys. you bust through the walls with
>enormous armored bulldozers. remember, the Shin Bet
>(the cops) has an enormous number of Arab informers
>to point out who and where the bad guys are. these
>traitors are from the Arab criminal class who, once
>incriminated, the Shin Bet can easily blackmail,
>put on the payroll, and task with specific intelligence
>gathering.
>
>back to the neo-cons' and Bush's plan: after Iraq
>settles down there will be a full court press on
>Israel by the US and others to back down on their
>illegal settlements in the West Bank. the plan is
>to force the Israelis to permit the establishment
>of a Palestinian state.
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