Interviewing the Fallujah fighters

[Jason McCullough]

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040705fa_fact

Depressing, but interesting.

[Anaxagoras]

Depressing? I found it touching. Bush is finally living up to his "unifier" label. They're filled with such a seething, visceral hatred of us that Sunnis and Shias are finally walking hand in hand. It brings tears to the eyes.

And to think some people want to cut this saint's term to only four years? For shame, people.

[CindySue22]

Several people in Jolan said that the foreign fighters—Saudis, Tunisians, Moroccans, Yemenis, and Lebanese, directed by Syrian militants—had been crucial to the defense of the neighborhood. The groups of mujahideen who hung around mosques included men who looked to me like Arabs from the Gulf. Most of them were dark, with angular features, and they had long, well-groomed beards. Their dishdashas were short, in the Wahhabi style, ending a little below their knees. Friends of mine who had been held by mujahideen told me they had heard men speaking with accents from the Gulf, Syria, and North Africa.

The foreign mujahideen still in Jolan imposed strict Islamic codes of behavior on the neighborhood. They harassed Iraqis who smoked cigarettes or drank water using their left hand, which is considered impure. They banned alcohol, Western films, makeup, hairdressers, “behaving like women”—i.e., homosexuality—and even dominoes in the coffeehouses. Men found publicly drunk had been flogged, and I was told of a dozen men who had been beaten and imprisoned for selling drugs.

Yeah, it's depressing that liberals would rather have this kind of "culture" than democracy.

[Jason McCullough]

Yeah, it's depressing that liberals would rather have this kind of "culture" than democracy.

Slander people much?

[Doug Erickson]

CindySue means that liberals should drink the Happy Iraqi Kool-Aid instead of being so gosh darn NEGATIVE! After all, it's not like people's lives and the welfare of an entire region are at stake -- let's just pretend everything is hunky-dory and tell those frowny old liberals to shut their stinkin' traps!

For some as paranoid about Islam as you are, CindySue, you're pretty damn eager to have your fears smoothed over, even at the expense of reality.

[DennyA]

You do realize, CindySue, that given a democracy, the "culture" tends to dominate?

Or do you equate Democracy with us sending in Wal-Mart and Starbucks?