Cage the Songbird in Iraq?

This story from the Washington Times is short on real numbers, relying merely on phrases like "hot market," "brisk business," and "best seller," but apparently despite official occupying force bans on "any sort of public expression used in an institutionalized sense that would incite violence against the coalition or Iraqis," a form of old-fashioned Sufi praise music with lyrics like "America has come and occupied Baghdad, the army and people have weapons and ammunition. Let's go fight and call out the name of God" is getting popular in Sunni areas of Iraq.

For more on the occupying force reaction to this story than the Washington Times provides, see this essay by Lew Rockwell. An excerpt:

The US has strict censorship against "any sort of public expression used in an institutionalized sense" that would "incite violence against the coalition." This was spelled out in an Orwellian news conference in which Daniel Senor was trying to figure out if the US would crack down on those who sold the music.

The problem, as Senor pointed out, is that the edict against unapproved politics:

"does not reference music specifically. But I could talk to our lawyers and find out if music would apply. You can follow up with me after that. But I would think that any sort of public expression used in sort of an institutionalized sense, in some sort of institutionalized media that would incite violence against the coalition, incite violence against the Iraqis, would be subjected to this decree. But I can check on that."

The Iraqi people are free so long as they say and do only what the occupation military government tells them to do. Between 10,000 and 20,000 people being detained (the low number claimed by the US, the high number by human rights groups) for engaging in anti-coalition thoughts, words, or deeds. If you think that is striking enough ? and what American doesn't shudder at the thought of his own government becoming someone else's despotism? ? consider something even more alarming: the US doesn't consider this abnormal.

Listen to these words in defense of military censorship in Iraq: "That is a decree that was modeled after similar policies and similar standards and guidelines in the United States, in the United Kingdom, Australia, and elsewhere."
…..
In short, the US is claiming that it could round up 10,000 to 20,000 Americans and hold them without trial on the mere suspicion of wrongdoing ? which could consist only of writing and selling a popular song that takes an anti-regime political view. Many people warn that this is precisely what the administration's Patriot Act makes possible.
…..
Just so we are clear: an official spokesman has said that what is going on right now in Iraq is based wholly on laws currently in effect in the US. You might point this out the next time someone calls you an alarmist for saying that the Bush administration is ushering in tyranny. What is even more troubling is that the Bush administration calls what is happening in Iraq freedom itself.

Comments

[Saving John Hood the Trouble]

How dare you quote Lew Rockwell, that fascist mouthbreather slaveryapologistantisemitebaldloser!

[Overlord]

Let's get serious here, people. We are at war.
If it was 1945 and a radio station inside of occupied Germany was broadcasting songs urging the German people to kill American troops, what would we have done? Respect their "Freedom of Speech" and let them continue or would we arrest them all and shut them down? Do I have to ask?
Why is this any different?

[Josh]

The Iraqi people are free so long as they say and do only what the occupation military government tells them to do. Between 10,000 and 20,000 people being detained (the low number claimed by the US, the high number by human rights groups) for engaging in anti-coalition thoughts, words, or deeds.

Anyone want to take a stab at the ratio of those incarcerated for anti-coalition thoughts and words vs. anti-coalition deeds? What a terrible essay. What was Brian thinking?

[mak_nas]

the biggest problem we have, o/l, it that some significant majority of americans are really convinced we're at war -- despite the fact that there have been no attacks on our homes, despite the fact that al-qaeda exists less in reality than in the western media, despite the fact that the wtc looks more and more like a one-off instigated by a wealthy religious zealot.

i know 9/11 scared us. but terrorism is not warfare -- its a crime. and the only appropriate response is effective police work, not the end of the constitution and the institution of an unaccountable militant dictatorship.

[Alton]

It is different, Overlord, because Ike wouldn't have justified the policies by saying that Germans are living under the same protections that Americans enjoy. He would have said, "this is a martial law decree to protect the Allied troops." Not "this is a decree that was modeled after similar policies and similar standards and guidelines in the United States..."

Indeed "we" are at war, as you say. But if the spokesmen for that war deny that what they are doing is waging war, it is cause for concern.

[Rational]

Josh, why don't you just run down to Guantanamo and do a head count for us?

[Sen]

You are subjecting us to a piece by Lew Rockwell and ask us to take it seriously? Lyndon Larouche has more credibility.

[salvage]

Alton -

yup, way too much denial all over Iraq.

[Russ D]

Today's soldier is tomorrow's bureaucrat.

In Ken Stiles' NBC report (linked to in Lew's article) you get this gem (split up in the article, condensed for the purpose of making the point easier):

"Lt. Francis Schafer...will stand on top of a Humvee and (with the aid of a translator) read a pamphlet that asks them to report insurgent activity. Otherwise he says the coalition can?t properly bring them the basic services they need like water and electricity.

They listen patiently until the lieutenant is finished, then let loose with a myriad of complaints about everything from the lack of kerosene and propane to the unannounced searches of their homes.

He tells them through the translator that democracy takes time. If they?re not getting enough propane and kerosene, they need to hold their neighborhood council representatives accountable."

So our good ol' US Lieutenant tells them that the US can't provide service without help, then tells them it's not their job to provide service anyway and they're on their own. Any surprise the forces aren't getting any help?

For some of these Iraqis, this is their first lesson in democracy. I don't know about their hearts, but I don't think we'll likely win many minds with this logic.

[Jennifer]

Serious question: exactly what constitutes "inciting violence?" If an Iraqi (truthfully) says, "My family has starved for lack of food or frozen for lack of fuel, and it's all the Americans' fault," that could incite someone to violence to avenge the family. Any complaint, any mention of injustice, might qualify, couldn't it?

If you want to take this to extremes, I remember when Jodie Foster incited John Hinckley to try and murder the President of the United States.

[Andrew]

Oh, for Christ's Sake!

Iraq IS under martial law, although they are normally permitted a great deal of latitude, and there is no "pretense" that Iraqis enjoy the same liberties as Americans, or any one else, living in a free society not in crisis.

What would you think if Howard Dean became president tomorrow, decided we needed to stay in Iraq for about six more months (his stated position)...and meantime decided to lift the ban on inciting violence against Americans serving there, 'cause it would, like you know, make Iraq look more like a democracy?

If American troops had been invited to help Iran pull bodies out of the earthquake rubble, it would have been reasonable to ask the mullah's government to restrain incitements to violence against soldiers operating there.

This is another bone-head topic posted by Brian.

[tim]

the whole point is that the bush administration has continually lied to us about iraq. first, it was that saddam has links to el qaeda. that wasn't true. if anyone had links to el qaeda it was our shiite "allies" who saddam hasn't really controlled in about 10 years anyway. then it was that saddam had weapons of mass destruction, intends to use them, and poses an imminent threat. that wasn't true. than it was that we really have come to bring demopcracy and freedom to iraq. this has become the whole justification for the war in iraq, and this is just one example among many that we're not really intersted in bringing western freedoms to iraq. sure they'll have "free" elections is long as they vote for who we tell them to. lew rockwell may be "ultra conservative" but it least not paul craig roberts. who once said that slaves really didn't want to vbe freed because slaveholders were so good to them.

[fyodor]

Perhaps someone more knowledgable on the subject can clarify if I have this wrong, but I believe the Supreme Court once ruled that you must show a direct link between a set of words and an objectionable action for the words to be held accountable. I think that's a good standard should probably be used in Iraq as well. Maybe that might appear to put our troops at risk, which obviously is bad, but so does allowing US citizens to say "Kill the pigs."

Difference between Iraq and Germany. Germany was defeated, period. Germany had had democracy before. Winning in Iraq is only complete if we successfully win over ye olde hearts and minds to democracy and liberal ideals. Repression does not do that.

All that said, we needn't take seriously the claim that policies in Iraq are modeled after those here. Just because someone said it doesn't make it true.

[TSA employee]

Are you calling George Bush a liar?

[thoreau]

Iraq IS under martial law, although they are normally permitted a great deal of latitude, and there is no "pretense" that Iraqis enjoy the same liberties as Americans, or any one else, living in a free society not in crisis.

And criticizing martial law is bad because...?

[Mac]

I'm schocked, shocked, that we don't yet have Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq. And while we're at it, how dare we be so heavy handed in Japan, not allowing them to ressurect their army after WWII, and not allowing Nazis to re-form in Germany. If we'd only given these two countries more say, they could have developed true democracy.

[fyodor]

Mac,

Potentially good point. But I wonder, are you suggesting that we hold the Iraqi people responsible for Hussein's atrocities the way we held the German and Japanese populations largely responsible for their leaders having made war against the rest of the world?

[iMac]

Actually, mac, if you read any post WWI history, your comment wouldn't be so smart-assy.

So, how DID North Korea and Pakistan get those nukes anyway? We just "allowed" them?

[garym]

Mac's comment is appropriate, in an unintentionally ironic way, since Germany also has declared a rock band to be a "criminal organization" for singing songs the government doesn't like, and has sent its members to jail. (See, for example, http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=5798)

[Spur]

As a hardcore libertarian I have to say that LewRockwell is horrible. Bad writing. Conspiracy orientated. And when did being an anti-Vatican II Catholic, creationist, immigrant bashing, pro-Southern Rothbaridan lunatic become the litmus test for being a libertarian -- if you read Lew's site, which I haven't in over a year, you'd certainly get that impression.

[Dan]

In short, the US is claiming that it could round up 10,000 to 20,000 Americans and hold them without trial on the mere suspicion of wrongdoing ? which could consist only of writing and selling a popular song that takes an anti-regime political view.

This is beneath contempt. Here is a (by no means exhaustive) list of the flaws in Rockwell's argument:

(1): The spokesman listed several countries, plus whatever "elsewhere" means, as the basis for the laws. It is therefore completely wrong to assume that any given aspect of the Iraq policy must necessarily apply to the United States. For example, openly advocating the violent overthrow of the government -- the sentiment being censored here -- is illegal in most countries.
(2): Key words: "modeled after". United States law is modelled after English Common Law. Does American law therefore apply in England? No.
(3): 20,000 held for "engaging in anti-coalition thoughts, words, or deeds" morph into a parallel 20,000 Americans held for "mere suspicion of wrongdoing" without explanation. Are the 20,000 held in Iraq held on "mere suspicion"? Rockwell offers no evidence that this is the case.
(4): A ban on speech that could "incite violence against the coalition" morphs, in its American parallel, into a ban on "a popular song that takes an anti-regime political view", despite the fact -- obvious to your average four-year-old -- that "anti-regime" does not require "incites violence".
(5): Rockwell claims that:

an official spokesman has said that what is going on right now in Iraq is based wholly on laws currently in effect in the US.

This is, quite simply, a lie. Rockwell has just finished quoting that official quite explicitly saying that what's going on in Iraq is NOT wholly based on US law -- that's why "the United Kingdom, Australia, and elsewhere" were listed as nations whose laws the rules were modelled after. Rockwell's "argument" is so shaky that he can't even reconcile his own lies with his own essay. That pretty much says it all.

Of course, none of this stopped most of you from drinking Rockwell's Kool-Aid. I sometimes wonder if it's even possible to formulate a paranoid anti-war rant so absurd that it couldn't receive a favorable response at Reason.

[Andrew]

Dan

Can you believe this is the same crowd that wanted to mow down looters to save the air-conditioners in Baghdad City Hall?
I suppose that's because the looters were doing real damage, rather than just murdering American troops.

[Josh]

Good job, Dan. I can't believe Lew Rockwell required a point-by-point refutation here.

[matt]

How dare those ungrateful Iraqi's speak out against the occupation of their country by a foreign power. The nerve of those people, thinking they have a right to express their displeasure with the U.S. occupation in song.

Good post Mr. Doherty, keep 'em coming.

[John Ashcroft]

Iraq is a testing ground for the future of America. I've been getting very upset lately at all the LIE-berals and DEMON-crats saying nasty things about our Great Leader and things he said that, uhm, seem to have not been true (like that bit about Niger yellowcake, hmm). This is requiring our administration to trot out administration official after administration official to take the blame that they fed the President bad information and thus it's not the President's fault. Sooner or later we're going to run out of administration officials, and then what? Well, if this works out in Iraq, we can do the same thing here in America and shut up those LIE-berals and DEMON-crats forever (or send them to the Free Speech Zone at the Nevada Test Site if they don't get the hint). Ohboyohboy my soldier salutes just thinking about it!

[Sportsterpaul]

If you want to know how the Executive Branch would like to run this country, just look at how they run Iraq. John Ashcroft probably rubs his pee pee and dreams about when he can get the same power over Americans.

[R. C. Dean]

And here on this comment thread we have a very nice demonstration of why libertarian are, and will likely remain, a marginal force in American society, exerting somewhat less influence on the course of events than Wiccans and Druids.

Words just fail, they really do. Iraq as a testing grounds for Ashkkkroft's takeover of America? Comments in favor of allowing the Iraqis complete license to incite the murder of our troops and fellow Iraqis? People busting an Lt's ass for telling the Iraqis that until they get their shit together they can't expect too much in the way of basic services?

Kee-rist.