Author: Mick Hartley

ious promises to Iraqi democrats down the years. It would be morally impossible, as well as politically suicidal, to walk away from them.

Given the apparently irreversible fracturing of Iraq into at least three confessional and ethnic parts, an outcome that may have been innate in the Iraqi state, we cannot hope—so runs his argument—to police or manage the sectarian horror show that has been launched by the parties of god. And we run the grave risk of being drawn into it. However, there is a possible way of saving some of our credit. If we reconfigure our military presence to the north, in the three Kurdish provinces, we can reduce the size of ourselves as a target, remain just “over the horizon” in the case of an al-Qaida challenge, be available “case by case” in the event of any appeal from the Iraqi government for help, and protect the most outstanding of our achievements in the country, which is the emergence of a relatively peaceful, democratic, and prosperous region under coalition auspices.

By definition, this would mean a much smaller and leaner force, in an area where so far no American soldier has been killed by hostile action.

As this BBC article reminds us, taking slaves was a common practice in the 21-year North-South war in Sudan:

The northern government is widely believed to have armed the Arab militias in order to terrorise the southern population and distract rebel forces from attacking government targets.

According to a study by the Kenya-based Rift Valley Institute, some 11,000 young boys and girls were seized and taken across the internal border – many to the states of South Darfur and West Kordofan.

The boys generally looked after cattle, while the girls mostly did domestic chores before being “married”, often as young as 12.

Most were forcibly converted to Islam, given Muslim names and told not to speak their mother tongue.

Despite the horrors of the current Darfur conflict, abduction into slavery doesn’t feature so much. Murder and rape, yes – slavery, no:

The Darfur conflict broke out just as the war in the south was coming to an end and eyewitness reports bear a striking similarity of atrocities committed by the militias, known in Darfur as the Janjaweed…

Sudanese human rights workers say some members of the Arab Rezeigat community have been in both the Janjaweed and the Murahaleen but most of the Janjaweed are from different Arab tribes.

Sudan’s veteran anti-slave campaigner James Aguer, however, says they are exactly the same groups, just with a different name.

Sudan’s government has strongly denied claims it mobilised first the Murahaleen and then the Janjaweed to terrorise civilian populations seen as rebel sympathisers.

It also denies there are slaves in Sudan, instead using the euphemism “abductees”…

One reason why there seems to be less slavery in Darfur could be religion.

Both Darfur and south Sudan are mostly inhabited by black Africans but southerners are mostly Christian and animist, while Darfuris are generally Muslim, like the Arabs who have traditionally dominated Sudan.

Forced conversion seemed to be one motivation behind the abduction of southerners – they were mostly given Islamic names and told they were now Muslim.

One group of abductors was known as the Muhajadeen [Islamic holy warriors].

But this justification cannot be used in Darfur.

“Muslims are strictly forbidden to enslave fellow Muslims,” the lawyer said.

Some pictures and personal testimony here.

Tony Blair’s apologised; Ken Livingstone’s apologised; the Church of England has apologised. In the circumstances I feel moved to add my voice to the chorus. Yes, I apologise for the slave trade.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone apologised? I think the world would be a much much better place if everyone apologised. And not just for the slave trade. For, well, for everything, really.

I mean, it all started out so well, didn’t it? – those lovely cave paintings and the little figurines. Then there was that ghastly business with the neanderthals, and, well, one hardly knows where to begin. Murder and mayhem everywhere. Absolutely frightful. Anyway I really am most terribly terribly sorry.

Oh no! Another copy of the Koran has been defiled!

Security forces have been called in to tackle riots at a Yemen gas plant where a copy of the Koran is said to have been desecrated, security sources say.
Unrest began after a French engineer at the terminal in the south-eastern port of Belhaf allegedly “defiled” the book.

Hundreds of rioting workers burnt cars and a helicopter at the French-run facility, sources told news agencies.

Unconfirmed reports say four Yemenis and a Frenchman were injured in the unrest and the engineer was evacuated.

hemselves as Iraqi patriots.

For centuries the community believed it was untouched by Jew-hatred. When, therefore, the Iraqi government allied itself to Germany in 1933, apprehension of massacre came slowly. Polish or Russian Jews with their Hassidic kaftans might arouse hostility, but Iraqi Jewry’s integration into Muslim society was surely a guarantee of safety.

With the outbreak of the second world war, however, the tide turned against Iraq’s Jews. A cabal of pro-Nazi Iraqi army officers began to agitate against the nation’s Jews and encourage Arab nationalists to support Hitler in the war against colonial British interests. On the night of June 1, 1941, a mob rampaged through Baghdad’s Jewish quarter, and killed almost 200 inhabitants. Swastikas began to appear on the walls of the synagogue.

Even at the war’s end, with Hitler now defeated, the Iraqi government retained its semi-Nazified ideology. Immediate antagonism flared between Jews and Arabs after the state of Israel was founded in 1948. Martial law was imposed and the country’s Jews were gradually eliminated from the civil service, the army and the police. Hundreds of Zionist suspects were arrested, tortured and executed, and in 1950 a Denaturalisation Act revoked their citizenship. An estimated 120,000 stateless but once prosperous Jews were airlifted out of Iraq to Israel, where, to their dismay, Ashkenazi Jews from Europe treated them as little better than road sweepers. Later, the few Jews who remained in Iraq were either harassed or hanged by the antiJewish Ba’ath party under Saddam Hussein. By any other name, this was ethnic cleansing.

The unforeseen side effects of the pub smoking ban:

A pub regular has been barred from his favourite Dunfermline boozer – for indiscriminate wind breaking.

Management at the bar say Stewart Laidlaw “revels” in his bouts of flatulence and other punters have almost been sick after exposure to the foul smells.

Mr Laidlaw (35), who is furious at the ban by Thirsty Kirsty’s, is thought to be the first person in West Fife to be barred for breaking wind.

The James Street pub’s owner says the stench has become unbearable since Scotland’s smoking ban came in last year but suspects drinkers could have been breathing in the waft for years before without noticing it.

Former Woodmill High School pupil Mr Laidlaw, who lives in Edinburgh, admits he may have broken wind in the pub in the past but claims the ban by landlord John Thow is “petty”.

The Harvey Nichols stock assistant told the Press, “I went in and basically he turned round and said, ‘Stewart, that’s the last fart you do in this pub. Get out.’

we think voluntarily did wrong – not those who literally had no choice but to act as they did. But if there is no free will, then no one has ever had a choice but to act as they did. […]

Derk Pereboom [contributor to “Four Views on Free Will“] recognises that our lack of free will means we need to rethink morality – but sees this as no bad thing. It would, he suggests, lead to sensible reforms, such as shifting the focus of the criminal justice system away from retributive punishment and towards re-education and deterrence – or towards protecting society: ”Suppose that a serial killer continues to pose a grave danger to a community. Even if he is not morally responsible for his crimes, it would be as legitimate to detain him as it is to quarantine a carrier of a deadly communicable disease.”

Ah yes, this is where it’s going: the triumph of the therapeutic. By this logic, of course, no one is responsible for anything. Morality ceases to have any meaning. But this isn’t really anything to do with the findings of modern neuroscience: it’s a political or philosophical programme masquerading as science. It’s a blueprint for a world run by technocrats. Sensible reforms – freed from the tired old constraints of personal responsibility – would include the incarceration of anyone deemed by scientific experts to be likely in the future to commit a crime. Indeed, once we rid ourselves of the old-fashioned and, we are clearly meant to think, barbaric notion of retributive justice, with its medieval emphasis on revenge, this brave new justice wouldn’t bother itself at all about whether or not a person has actually committed a crime: that’s no longer of relevance. All that matters is whether or not someone poses a danger to the community and therefore needs to be incarcerated. Why bother to wait for the actual event? Deal with potential miscreants before they have the chance to become criminals. Save them from themselves.

I don’t think the opinions expressed by the reviewer here are particularly unusual. For anyone who reads much about psychology or neurology, it’s familiar stuff. It seems to me that as well as being profoundly illiberal, it’s also based on muddled philosophy.

Disturbing woolly art from Patricia Waller (via a comment in this Metafilter post).

Statue-wise every town in Yugoslavia used to have its enormous Titos. How times change:

A life-size marble statue of the former glamour model Samantha Fox is to be erected in Serbia after she agreed to sing at a pop festival.

Locals in the southern Serb town of Cacak raised the money to show the 1980s model turned pop star how delighted they are about her visit. Obrad Banovic, a fan, said: “We love her. She is an authentic sex symbol of the 1980s, so why shouldn’t we have a monument to her. Other towns have their heroes in parks, so why can’t we?

“We are also aware that her most famous attributes may require special treatment, so we are planning on using the best quality marble only.”

y pools of blood and excrement, and a bone in his neck had snapped”.

Could Kingston’s finest not perhaps have guessed at the time that this was not quite your usual coronary?