We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Reuters reports that Saddam Hussein’s former vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, has been captured by U.S. Kurdish allies in northern Iraq, U.S. and Kurdish officials. Ramadan was No. 20 and the 10 of diamonds in a deck of cards issued to U.S. troops hunting the 55 most wanted members of Saddam’s administration.
Ramadan, who is in his 60s and originally from the Mosul region, was one of the most hawkish members of Saddam’s inner circle and one of the only surviving plotters of the 1968 coup that brought the Ba’ath Party to power. His capture will fuel speculation that U.S. forces may be closing in on Saddam himself.
Ramadan is alleged to have been involved in crimes against humanity for his role in suppressing Kurdish rebellion in the north in the 1980s and against the Shi’ite revolt in southern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. A man of blunt words, he told Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister to “go to hell” during the U.S. invasion when the minister suggested that Saddam should step down.
Reuters
A new letter from Basra, this time adding a bit of colour (or new shades of grey) to the black and white picture of Iraqi society.
I promised you a description of Basra society. The most important division is not religious or tribal but between the top 20% and the bottom 80%. The top 20% is the educated class that run the country. It was a totally technocratic country, with the highest percentage of PhDs per capita in the world, and it shows. The educated 20% are scared stiff of Islamic fundamentalism, Iranians and extremists.
They want to see a modern, comparatively secular state, so they tend to be pro-CF [ed. Coalition Forces] as a bulwark against all of the above, and because they have the most to lose from a breakdown in law and order. They are also terrified of mob rule. They are appalled by the current crime, which is not simply old Basra without Saddam, but Basra with the worst scum from across Iraq deliberately released into it just before we arrived. They want security above all from CF and are frightened of not getting it. Talk of the Badr corps, Iranian trained Iraqis, is everywhere.
The top 20% are usually tainted ex-regime to some degree although they also include those most vehemently opposed to the old regime, as they tended to have suffer more personally – they were important enough for the regime to bother to deal with. Most have also quickly switched to CF as the resident power and will switch again just as easily. There are plenty of genuine patriots and some humanitarian idealists, but most look to see how the new regime works and how they can manipulate it. They now want to get on and get ahead with their fairly typical middle-class aspirations, but most are held back to some degree by Ba’ath Party connections. And some are involved in the crime in the sense of general managerial corruption.
Authority – many people, especially at the top defined themselves by their positions. This has all gone, creating a social vacuum and loss of identity. The top 20% provide the main support of the secular political parties, i.e. INC, CINU, etc. Influences on the top 20% in rough order of importance are the CF, the political parties, western aspirations, ex-regime connections, tribes, and religion.
Amongst the poorer 80% only 40% of the total population count, as only the men count politically. Women have a lot more sway within the homes than western stereotyping realises but not outside of it. (Women in the top 20% have professional status just as in the West.) Their sources of information are primarily their local Imams. They all go to the Mosque on Friday and listen to the sermon but they do not necessarily agree with what they are told (if they did, there would not be so much crime…) In addition, if they do not like the message they simply swap mosques.
The small educated part of the bottom 80% tend to be religious scholars, anyone else who is educated gets immense respect, i.e. any doctors, lawyers. Otherwise, people listen to radio in crowds in markets and barber shops. They are 80% illiterate, but those who can read pass on whatever they read in pamphlets, leaflets or papers, inevitably putting their own spin on it and increasing the power of rumour. There is a popular local saying Egyptians write, Lebanese print, Iraqis read…
Tribal connections are becoming more important in urban Basra than in the past, as they provide the only available means of security – the police are frightened of being attacked, but a tribe is big enough and violent enough to protect you. The police are not willing to kill your enemies, the tribe is. To a lesser extent religious political groups try to fulfil the same function. This part of the population is very localised and rely upon local community links. Their other options are to join or work for a crime gang.
The bottom part of the population is used to being told, not so much what to do, as what will happen. They are desperate for direction and basic security and basic infrastructure, i.e. immediate water and electricity and fuel to cook. By way of comparison Saddam Hussein got the infrastructure back up and running in a month in 1991 after Basra was far worse damaged. He did it largely by threatening to shoot looters. The influences at this level are the Imams, who also act in effect as local social workers, tribes, and crime gangs.
That’s enough for now. Things have actually improved on the security front because of the ops [ed. operations] we have done, mostly VCPs [ed. vehicle checkpoints]
The BBC reports that two young British soldiers have saved the life of an abandoned newborn Iraqi girl after finding her in an ammunition dump.
Private Damien Kenny and Private Jonathan Hunt of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment were searching a house in Basra after rounding up five terror suspects when they found two days old baby in a dusty 3ft-long padlocked metal box and nestling among rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK47s and ammunition. Tightly swaddled and prematurely born, she was no longer breathing.
The squaddies began giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and a few minutes later Rose – named by the soldiers after the red rose of their Lancashire regiment – squeezed Private Kenny’s finger.
The Army was able to track her down and mother and daughter have been reunited in hospital. Lieutenant Craig Rogers, who is in charge of the unit which found Rose said:
The mother has actually said that it was the father who put the young child inside the ammunition box. He has been arrested by ourselves.
Four soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment had chased armed Iraqi men into the house in the Al Jubaylah area of Basra early on Sunday following reports of looting at a local water treatment plant. They were arrested and the baby was found – along a large white bag containing one million Iraqi Dinars – in the subsequent routine search of the house.
And all this without a search warrant…!
Update: The first commenter in a fit of otherwise commendable paranoia against the BBC wants to wait for a confirmation. So far I have found Annanova reporting the same story pretty much verbatim. I shall keep searching…
Another update: And here is SkyNews with the same story. Here is CNN’s version of the same event.
Update: Ignore the previous updates. The author of this post has gone off the rails.
Our Man in Basra has sent us a few quotes from locals before his next dispatch about Basra society.
Words from the streets of Basra:
For over 30 years we suffered under Saddam. No Arab, no Muslim country came to help us. Then America and Britain made political decision to get rid of Saddam. Now we should help the British.
From local Sheikh.
You should be more like the Americans and kill more Ba’athists.
After US killed Uday and Quasay and first time I heard anyone say we should be more like the Americans!
I am very happy that Uday and Quasay were killed but it is a pity they were not captured so they could be put on trial and tortured and then killed. Being killed like this was good for them.
The people here really hate Saddam and all his family and friends. It’s about the one thing everyone agrees on. When the news was confirmed that the evil sons were dead, the whole place was like 4th July in South L.A. In fact it was like watching TV footage of the nights Baghdad was bombed, there was tracer arching up into the sky from every direction you looked. Quite pretty to watch it sailing overhead, but a little worrying to see how many places all around us have automatic weapons to fire off, as well as all kinds of flares. And no shortage of ammo either. On the other hand these people must like us really, because we don’t get all that fired at us, and there’s a lot more civilians with guns here than there are soldiers. But basically, Saddam’s sons dead – party time. The only down notes I heard from anyone was “let’s get the rest”, and “pity they didn’t suffer more”. A lot of people wanted them put on trial but I don’t think a few years in prison and early parole for good behaviour was ever an option. Incidentally, one 12 year old boy sleeping on a roof seems to have been killed by falling fire, though we can’t be certain that was the reason – we had a few near misses. This prompts the thought that one of the first things Iraq really needs is some decent fireworks for celebrations. And don’t worry too much about the safety regs, just make them loud.
You British built Basra, you built the sewers, you taught us how to dress, how to eat, how to run the oil industry. We do not know the Americans, we think they are against the Muslims because of what they do, but we know you. Why do you not do now what you did in 1920 and 1941 and control this place and get rid of the bad men? Then Basra will be very rich for everyone.
By bad men this man meant Ba’athists, anti-CF, sheikhs, criminals and religious fundamentalists. There are quite a lot of anglophiles in Basra from the last time my Regiment was here in WW2 but of course you have to allow for them telling you what they think you want to hear…
After a short hiatus due to snail mail from Basra involving wrong addresses and the usual off-line world confusions I give you the forth letter written by our illustrious ‘Man in Basra’. The following has been written partially as a response to
White Rose has a post about the launch of the Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) to raise awareness about the IP Enforcement proposal’s threat to consumer rights and market competition.
Forbiding tools that are required for the exercise of legally protected rights, like private use, preservation of works by libraries, and reverse engineering, means giving a complete monopoly to right-holders on the basic infrastructure needed to communicate in the digital world.
An international coalition of 47 civil liberties groups and consumer rights campaigns sent a letter to the European Union today urging rejection of the proposed Intellectual property Enforcement Directive .
The coalition warns that the proposed Directive is overbroad and threatens civil liberties, innovation, and competition policy. It requires EU Member States to criminalize all violations of any intellectual property right that can be tied to any commercial purpose, with penalties to include imprisonment. Andy Müller-Maguhn, a board member of European Digital Rights and speaker for the Chaos Computer Club explains:
If this proposal becomes a reality, major companies from abroad can use ‘intellectual property’ regulations to gain control over the lives of ordinary European citizens and threaten digital freedoms. Under this proposal, a person’s individual liberty to use his own property is replaced with a limited license that can be revoked or its terms changed at any time and for any reason.
Ville Oksanen, a lawyer and Vice Chairman of Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFi) who signed the letter, points out:
Currently EU-Member states are implementing the EU Copyright Directive and the EU Software Patent Directive is next in the line. We should really wait and see what effect these new laws have before adding any new legislation organizational letter. Contrary to what the Enforcement Directive claims, Member States are already obliged by international treaties like TRIPS to protect intellectual property rights.
The letter marked the launch of the Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) to raise awareness about the IP Enforcement proposal’s threat to consumer rights and market competition. → Continue reading: IP Enforcement Directive – DMCA on steroids
Communist leaders plan to amend China’s constitution to formally enshrine the ideology of Jiang Zemin, the recently retired leader who invited capitalists to join the Communist Party. Despite sweeping economic and social changes, the political status of China’s entrepreneurs is still ambiguous.
There have been no details of the possible changes although foreign analysts say they include the communist era’s first guarantee of property rights. Certain amendments are still needed to promote economic and social development, said the party newspaper People’s Daily. It said the changes were meant to cope with accelerating globalization and advances in science and technology.
Jiang’s theory, the awkwardly named “Three Represents,” calls for the 67 million-member party to embrace capitalists, updating its traditional role as a “vanguard of the working class” and for the constitution to formally uphold property rights and the rights of entrepreneurs.
As someone who has more than passing acquaintance with communism, I see this is as a big change indeed. Even under most dire oppression you cannot entirely stop people exchanging goods and services. And so it was in the countries of the former Communist bloc, although the private sector was not officially recognised, there were shades of grey in the ‘socialist worker economy’. Former Yugoslavia, for example, ventured furthest in its recognition of private enterprise and some semblance of property rights and in return relatively prospered. Also in practice, Poland and Hungary were kinder to their small landowners and tradesmen than the communist ideologues allowed.
Nevertheless, there was no question of formally acknowledging property rights and any form of private enterprise by governments whose grasp of economics was based entirely on Marxism. It was one thing to tolerate existence of non-state markets and even benefit from them, but changing their opposition to individual’s property rights, so firmly embedded in political systems that were barely surviving, would have been a political, ideological and social suicide. (As a matter of fact, not changing it amounted to the same, just by other means: No, no, no, comrade, let’s not play with this (freedom of the press, speech, travel, association, trade, property rights etc) it has sharp edges and will cut your wrists, let’s just circle round the drain together, holding hands and singing the Internationale…)
China’s development has been very different to that of Eastern Europe, politically and economically, although both were waving the Red Flag. The proposed change to the China’s constitution may amount to a symbolic amendment given that China’s entrepreneurs have driven its two-decade-old economic boom. But then, symbols can be very powerful.
Here is some real news that the big media missed so far, straight from the horse’s mouth:
Abdul Al Aal Batat, known as “the lion of the marshes” because of his ferocious reputation or, alternatively, as “the man Saddam looked to for all of Southern Iraq”, was captured by the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment (QLR) in Basra last week.
He was a leading player in Saddam’s regime on the civil side, right hand man to Chemical Ali and known for killing and torturing his employees. As part of Saddam’s close circle through a connection to Saddam’s brother-in-law, he grew rich on sanction busting, smuggling, owning a lot of property around Basra on behalf of the Ba’ath party. Although just below the level of the pack of cards, he knew Saddam personally.
Until last week he was a leading criminal player, heavily involved in extortion from businesses courtesy of his tribal links from the smuggling side. He is believed to have been probably the top Former Regime Loyalist left in the south, funding and directing most of the anti-CF activity from their side in Basra (although not all of it).
He was caught by one of the QLR VCP’s (Vehicle Check Points) because his bodyguard was armed. He was then recognised by Int despite trying to grow his beard and change his dress. This is the biggest catch in the British AO (area of operations) and into the British detention facility at Umm Quasar since the end of the war.
Finally, they captured someone who has actually been running a lot of anti-coalition forces activities. It is always good news when they capture the pack of cards criminals but post-war some of the big fish are not in the pack of cards. Getting rid of the ones who are causing disruption right now may be doing more for the everyday lives of ordinary Iraqis.
Update: The QLR Media Ops Officer is John Ainley, at BASRA. The official media links should have his contact details.
US Senate will be voting on a proposed law that would prevent the taxation of Internet access. The Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee whose approval sends the measure to the full Senate for a vote. Computerworld reports:
The bill, introduced by Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), would make permanent a five-year-old moratorium on Internet-specific taxes. Congress first approved a three-year moratorium in 1998 and renewed it again in 2001, but it’s now set to expire on November 1st.
The moratorium prohibits taxes on Internet access, discriminatory taxes on purchases made over the Internet and the double-taxation of Internet commerce (by two different states, for instance). It doesn’t, however, outlaw the collection of sales taxes on items bought in Internet transactions.
All technologies used to provide Internet access, which now include wireless, Digital Subscriber Line, cable modem and dial-up connections would be exempt.
Sounds like good news to me. And if TCPA/TCG and Palladium/NGSCB were stopped somehow, now that would be great news!
FT.com reports that the UK government’s proposal to genetically screen all newborn babies and store the information in a database is likely to be rejected by the Human Genetics Commission, the watchdog set up by Labour in 1999 to monitor advances in biotechnology, on the grounds of being unworkable, expensive and potentially threatening to civil liberties.
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, the head of the HGC, said the medical benefits of the Human Genome had been over-hyped, leading to unrealistic expectations and the threat of discrimination against people who carried certain genes.
It is one of those things that initially has great attraction: The idea that you might be able, at the begining of your life, to know so much about yourself that you can pretty much chart your life appropriately, make sure that you have twice the normal helping of spinach and therefore throw off the chance of getting a disease. But it does not take account of where a child might be living, what it might be susceptible to because of its environment, and all the other factors that interact with your genes and change the prognosis.
The proposal to test all babies was announced in a White Paper published in June. It promised £50m ($80.4m) to expand the ability of the National Health Service to cope with the rapid advance in genetic testing.
I found this on Gay.com UK, so the language may be a bit distorted (e.g the phrase ‘the Pope’s anti-gay document…) but still worth a post:
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties says it will prosecute any priests found distributing or quoting the Pope’s anti-gay document for hate crimes.
Any clergy found handling the 12-page document, released last week as a statement of the Catholic Church’s response to gay marriages, will face charges under the country’s hatred legislation reports suggest.
Although the document itself is not illegal, it could lead to an increase in hatred, the Council said, and by stirring up hatred in the parish, the clergy could face jail terms of six months.
According to their website the Irish Council for Civil Liberties is an independent governmental organisation promoting and defending human rights and civil liberties.
Update: Here is the same news from Irish Times quoting Ms Aisling Reidy, director of the ICCL:
The document itself may not violate the Act, but if you were to use the document to say that gays are evil, it is likely to give rise to hatred, which is against the Act. The wording is very strong and certainly goes against the spirit of the legislation.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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