I've been wondering why there have been no diaries on these two events :
http://www.alertnet.org/...
and
http://www.alertnet.org/...
In the first, the Iraqi government announced that it hung 27 people. Don't worry, they say, these people were rapists and murderers.
In the second, the Iraqi government shut down Al Arabiya television station. Al Arabiya was "unprofessional," you see.
Usually, when the question is "where is the outrage?" I can usually turn to DailyKos and find it on the right side of the screen, if not the center. What happened? Did nobody else read these stories? Didn't they send chills down anyone other spines?
Let's start with the 27 executions. The pro-death camp is usually fond of pointing out the drawn-out appeals process that guarantees (eyeroll) that only the guilty are executed. I can see the authoritarian 23% saying that if the government says they deserved it, they probably did, but something of this nature should unite the other 77% in at least asking questions if not crying foul. What we have here is a guy walking up to a podium and announcing that his goons have just iced 27 people. Such language might be uncalled for in the context of fair trials, but I see no reason to give this guy the benefit of the doubt until he answers the following questions :
(1) Whom did your goons kill?
(2) What, precisely, did these people do to "deserve" that?
(3) What is your evidence against them?
(4) What counterclaims were made by their counsel?
(5) Who judged them guilty?
(6) Why weren't the executions scheduled so people would know that 27 people were going to hang?
(7) Why are you hanging 27 people at once?
Now Al Arabiya, which isn't nearly as outrageous to me. My problem is the nonchalant nature of the shutdown. They didn't even bother with a "national security" pretext; the excuse basically amounts to "we don't like you very much."
The common thread of both of these stories is that Iraq can get away with a lot more than the US government. Imagine Bush announcing that he executed (after scaling up to account for population) 324 Americans yesterday and he might reveal more information at some point in the future. Even in the GOP, the game of distance-self-from-Bush would turn into a mad dash to censure, if not impeach. I hope. Ditto for shutting down television stations.
Have they created a client state in the middle east with deliberately lowered expectations, perhaps with the goal in mind of having an enforcer in our future conflicts in the region?