Abyss-TV
A confession: I stopped reading Riverbend long ago because she annoys the crap out of me. But via Drum, I learn that she saw a jaw-dropping crawl across her TV screen the other day:
The translation:
“The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.â€
That’s how messed up the country is at this point….The situation is so bad on the security front that the top two ministries in charge of protecting Iraqi civilians cannot trust each other. The Ministry of Defense can’t even trust its own personnel, unless they are “accompanied by American coalition forcesâ€.
Think about that a minute. What’s worse, it’s unclear how one can practically decline to comply with the orders of armed patrols no matter what the TV screen told you.
But this brings up a larger point. If you stop to think about it for one minute, the idea that “The key to successful political evolution in a country with an authoritarian political tradition is to strengthen the security services” is absurd on its face, isn’t it.
Comment by Nell —
March 30, 2006 @ 9:38 am
All the news is bleak but this:
Jill Carroll freed!
Comment by IOZ —
March 30, 2006 @ 10:56 am
Thanks–puts concisely something I’ve been struggling to express: A state security apparatus as the key to democratic governance?! Almost makes one wonder if we shouldn’t have just gone with the Chalabi raj after all . . . yoy and double-yoy.
Comment by Hesiod —
March 30, 2006 @ 8:00 pm
Im, did you see that Riverbend was nominated for the Samual Johnson prize for non-fiction literature?
No. Really. I’m not kidding.
Comment by Gary Farber —
March 30, 2006 @ 10:38 pm
”I stopped reading Riverbend long ago because she annoys the crap out of me.”
I’ve never taken her as representing more than a single person’s opinion, complete with bias, just like every other blogger (and every other Iraqi blogger, all of whom are just people-with-opinions), and have often found annoying the close-to-reverence some American bloggers tend to refer to her with, but I’d be interested if you might expand a bit on what you found/find so annoying about her. As ever, I could guess, but would prefer not to, as I might get it wrong.
Comment by Gary Farber —
March 30, 2006 @ 10:41 pm
Incidentally, sort of, I missed it if you’ve said anything about Biddle, but, then, I’ve missed just about everyone saying anything about Biddle, save for a single post by Porter at Oxblog. I’d be very interested to know what you (and anyone else) had to say about his POV.
Comment by Nell —
March 31, 2006 @ 12:15 am
Gary, I could swear there was a post at American Footprints. But now I can’t find it.
If I’m not imagining it, the post made clear there was a lot of wishful thinking in his recommendations, and contradictory wishful thinking at that.
Their archives setup is very frustrating and tiresome.
Comment by Nell —
March 31, 2006 @ 12:19 am
Here it is. A search on ’Biddle’ doesn’t turn it up, but a search on ’Stephen’ does. WTF?
Comment by Curtis Erhart —
March 31, 2006 @ 1:48 am
Seconding the request for elaboration. I feel annoyed by her, too, but also guilty because it’s apparent her life (like others) got infinitely shittier as a result of actions by my government.
Comment by Noumenon —
March 31, 2006 @ 9:16 am
I’ve actually been getting quite into Riverbend lately, exhibit: the charming story about Smurfs, Snorks, Sunnis, and Shi’ites. The only thing that bugs me about her is that her blog is almost too much what I would imagine a real Iraqi would be feeling, gallows humor and all.
Comment by shinypenny —
April 1, 2006 @ 9:45 pm
Second the request for an explanation as to why you find Riverbend so annoying (the truth hurts, perhaps?). I’ve found her posts to be informative and thankfully free of the frantic spinning going on over at Iraq The Model. And she’s a damn good writer. Her description of being forced out of her job due to the worsening security situation in Iraq, particularly for women, way back in 2003 is one of the most heartrending things I’ve ever read in any medium.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
April 3, 2006 @ 4:12 pm
Yeah, I’m not quite sure why you’d find her annoying. She is biased, I think, but mostly in ways that seem entirely natural and forgiveable. I don’t buy into her notion that there were no serious ethnic tensions in Iraq before the US came, for instance–it’s presumably true that in her circle of friends and family there were no tensions, but given that Saddam was massacring Kurds and Shiites in massive numbers it’d be a little surprising if that didn’t cause resentment.