The new Iraqi Shi'ite power

The Bush administration and the supporters of the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq keep telling us what a "success" they've been having in creating "democracy" in the country post-invasion. Well, here's a "success" story from today's Times of London that gives a rather different picture:

A group of students having a picnic in a Basra park were violently attacked -- and two of them beaten to death -- by Shia militants for playing music the Islamists considered "immoral," the London Times' Catherine Philp reports in this morning's edition of the paper.

"The picnic had run foul of the Islamist powers that increasingly hold sway in the fly-blown southern city, where religious militias rule the streets, forcing women to don the veil and closing down shops that sell alcohol or music," the British daily reports.

"In the election in January, the battle between secular and religious forces in Basra came down to the ballot box. The main Shia alliance triumphed with 70 per cent of the province’s vote, most of the rest going to a secular rival. That victory has brought to a head the issue of whether Iraq’s new constitution will adopt Islamic law — or Sharia — as most religious Shia leaders desire.

"In Basra, however, Islamic militias already are beginning to apply their own version of that law, without authority from above or any challenge from the police. Students say that there was nothing spontaneous about the attack. Police were guarding the picnic in the park, as is customary at any large public gathering, but allowed the armed men in without any resistance.

"One brought a video camera to record the sinful spectacle of the picnic, footage of which was later released to the public as a warning to others. It showed images of one girl struggling as a gunman ripped her blouse off, leaving her half-naked. 'We will send these pictures to your parents so they can see how you were dancing naked with men,' a gunman told her. Two students who went to her aid were shot — one in the leg, the other twice in the stomach. The latter was said to have died of his injuries. Fellow students say that the girl later committed suicide. Another girl who was severely beaten around the head lost her sight.

“'We beat them because we are authorised by Allah to do so and that is our duty,' Sheik Ahmed al-Basri said after the attack. 'It is we who should deal with such disobedience and not the police.'"
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Spreading freedom and democracy around the world.

See also Afghanistan: Self-Immolation Of Women On The Rise In Western Provinces

It may not be so inconsistent with American values as you might think, however....

The I-Max chain has canceled screenings of science films in a dozen of its movie theaters because test screenings showed a majority of viewers judged their portraits of evolution "blasphemous" because they contradicted the Biblical portrayal of Genesis, the New York Times and the BBC report.

[...]

While relatively few cinemas were involved, it was feared it could have a profound knock-on effect across the world because of the high cost of producing Imax films."

At the same time, a new poll on religion and American life out today from NBC shows that a significant majority of our fellow citizens -- 57% -- believe in the literal truth of the Biblical explanation for the origin of human life, while only 33% believe in evolution (another 10%, who must have been living in a bubble, said they "didn't know.")

[...]

[A] TIME survey says that 68% of Americans believe the entertainment industry has lost touch with viewers’ “moral standards," 53% want stricter F.C.C. censorship of sex and violence on TV, and 49% want to extend F.C.C. "indecency" regs to cover basic cable, including MTV and the E! channel on most cable systems.

[...]

After the last 72 hours in the Schiavo affair--which saw Congress subpoena a human vegetable, both Senate and House vote to shred the Constitutional separation of powers, and The Twit flying back from Crawford to make sure Schiavo wouldn't be liberated from her suffering (although he's too busy to visit legless Iraq vets in their hospitals) --well, one can be forgiven if, at times, one wonders if we're not living in a better-furnished, fast-food version of Iran.....
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Tom Toles