Category Archives: Iraq War

International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies

Iraq, Iraq War, Teaching Resources

The International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies is a new peer-reviewed, tri- annual, academic publication, sponsored by the International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, and is devoted to the study of modern Iraq. In recognition of Iraq’s increasingly important position on the editors are: Tareq Ismael and Jacqueline Ismael at the University of Calgary (ijcis@intellectbooks.com).

For those interested, the first issue from 2007 is available free online in pdf format. Contents of more recent issues are also available online. The articles in the first issue are:

The Islamist imaginary: Islam,Iraq,and the projections of empire (Raymond W. Baker)

Media and lobbyist support for the US invasion of Iraq (Janice J. Terry)

Beating the drum:Canadian print media and the build-up to the invasion of Iraq (Tareq Y. Ismael)

The United States in Iraq:the consequences of occupation (Stephen Zunes)

Toward regional war in the Middle East? (Richard Falk)

Reconstructing the performance of the Iraqi economy 1950-2006: an essay with some hypotheses and many questions (Roger Owen)

A Man, A Sign, a War

Iraq War

Yesterday afternoon on a crowded Connecticut Avenue roundabout in our nation’s capital, Washington, D. C., a man stood holding a sign. The sign read “Bring our Troops Home” on one side and “End the War” on the other. He was not simply holding the sign, but slowly twirling it back and forth so both messages came across. I would guess his age was late 50s or early 60s and he was well-dressed, a man who would fit comfortably on Wall Street. He was not your stereotypical t-shirt labeled liberal icon, so who was he and why was he standing there? I will never know. My 30 seconds of peripheral vision, waiting for the traffic to clear, allowed only a glance. But today when I close my eyes I see him standing there. Continue reading A Man, A Sign, a War →

Darkness Falls on the Middle East

Iraq War, Lebanon, Terrorism Issue

by Robert Fisk
The Independent, 24 November 2007

In Beirut, people are moving out of their homes, just as they have in Baghdad.

So where do we go from here? I am talking into blackness because there is no electricity in Beirut. And everyone, of course, is frightened. A president was supposed to be elected today. He was not elected. The corniche outside my home is empty. No one wants to walk beside the sea.

When I went to get my usual breakfast cheese manouche there were no other guests in the café. We are all afraid. My driver, Abed, who has loyally travelled with me across all the war zones of Lebanon, is frightened to drive by night. I was supposed to go to Rome yesterday. I spared him the journey to the airport.

It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to be in a country that sits on plate glass. It is impossible to be certain if the glass will break. When a constitution breaks – as it is beginning to break in Lebanon – you never know when the glass will give way. Continue reading Darkness Falls on the Middle East →

Déjà Voodoo

Iraq, Iraq War, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism Issue

Consider the opening line of the lead story in yesterday’s New York Times:

BAGHDAD — Saudi Arabia and Libya, both considered allies by the United States in its fight against terrorism, were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to serve as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks, according to senior American military officials.

In the long durée, as Napoleon might say if he were alive today, politics makes strange embedded fellows of nation states. There are three nations at play here in the field of lording over by the world’s reigning super power. Iraq and Libya had European imposed (and later revolution-deposed) monarchs at mid-stream in the 20th century. At the same time Saudi Arabia’s royal line evolved an iconclastic religiously mandated kingship that has withstood toppling and seems likely to do so far into the security based future. All three states are where they are today largely because of the world’s thirst for crude oil. The same three states, should Iraq survive de facto federation, face a future defined by a mega-politicized war on terrorism, a war with no state-like enemies being fought by a coalition of nation states willing to arm themselves to the teeth with conventional weapons and make airline passengers take their shoes off each and every time they fly. Two centuries from now a future Napoleon, whatever his or her nationality, may look back on the current political climate and have a hindsight sense of déjà vu, or will it be more of the voodoo politics mass mediated today? Continue reading Déjà Voodoo →

Trillion Dollar Baby

Iraq War, Music and Dance, Terrorism Issue

There is only one rock band that I have seen live twice in my life. It was not summer and school was not out and I really think of myself as a nice guy, but, yes, it was Alice Cooper. One of these was the famous green “Billion Dollar Babies” album, which is now beyond 33 (despite the fact it is still 33 rpm) years old. At the time, just graduating from college, a billion dollars seemed astronomical to me. Alice is still performing and selling merchandise, but a billion is no longer a big deal. Consider that a report has just been issued saying that 1.6 trillion dollars will have been spent by the end of next year by our U.S. government on the combined wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Welcome to our nightmare. Continue reading Trillion Dollar Baby →

Out on an Amputated Limb

Iraq War, Pakistan, Terrorism Issue

As November breaks, the news from the warmongering of terrorism has two new flares. In Pakistan, where some think Osama might still be cave sitting, General Pervez Musharraf has announced (or shall we say re-announced) martial law. On the border of Kurdish-controlled Iraq, some 100,000 Turkish troops are said to be poised for an attack on the PKK operating out of Iraqi territory. Meanwhile the fires have hardly been dampened in Iraq or Gaza and President Mubarrak of Egypt has been slated to run yet again. The more we wish things to change, the more they seem to stay the same. But there is a thread running throughout all these events: the role of America as a tarnished symbol of democracy and as unilateral neoconnected bull in a west-of-China shop. Continue reading Out on an Amputated Limb →

When Will Chemical Ali Bite the Dust?

Ethics, Iraq, Iraq War, Terrorism Issue

The demise of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime took place over five years ago. Most of the card-carrying players in the American liberation deck have been found, including the literal ace in the hole, Saddam. In a trial so lengthy and full of delays that it has dropped almost entirely out of sight in the media, the next sacrificial wolf is the man dubbed “Chemical Ali” in the West. Lacking remorse, this chemical engineer of mass killing is well aware there is nothing he can do to stop his own death. But it ain’t over until the fat lady sings and the noose tightens. If the story of Chemical Ali has faded from your memory, here is a refresher from Al-Jazeera:

Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin, and widely known as “Chemical Ali”, will be executed “in the coming days,” an Iraqi government spokesman has said.

Legal arguments and religious holidays have delayed al-Majid’s execution, which was confirmed on September 4 by the Iraqi supreme court and due to be implemented within 30 days.

Al-Majid was convicted earlier this year of presiding over the killing of thousands of Kurds during the Anfal campaign in the 1980s.

Asked whether he would be hanged soon, Ali al-Dabbagh said: “I think so, yes, in the coming days.”

Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister, delayed the hanging of al-Majid until after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which ended on Monday. Continue reading When Will Chemical Ali Bite the Dust? →

Anthropo covertus: A Disputed Species

Afghanistan, Anthropology/Sociology, Ethics, Iraq War

Get ready for a shock. Anthropology (the best kept discipline secret in American academics) made the front page of today’s New York Times. And, believe it or not in the Ripley tradition, it was not about finding the “missing link” or “Noah’s ark”. In a report filed by David Rohde and entitled “Army Enlists Anthropologists in War Zones,” the focus is on the Pentagon’s newly instituted “Human Terrain Teams,” a kind of social science intellectual swat team approach, in which the military uses experts on the local culture. In a video on the website, an American officer explains that his soldiers no longer routinely break down doors of houses and violate the cultural space of Afghan homes, but let their Afghan counterparts knock first while they wait respectfully outside. While I am not sure it takes an anthropologist to point out what should be obvious through simple experimentation, the basic argument of the article is that the military is being coached to listen and work with the local population rather than play knee-jerk mercenary search and destroy games.

It is hard to argue with the sentiment that talking and negotiating are better ways to accomplish a proposed peace-building mission than assuming everybody in sight is a terrorist or is hiding one. So anthropologists, especially recent graduates who have a hard time finding jobs, should be pleased that supply actually might be influenced by a newfound demand for their services. Take Marcus B. Griffin, for example, an embedded anthropologist in Iraq who has a blog discussing his work. Continue reading Anthropo covertus: A Disputed Species →