Outside the "Green Zone", radical Islaam rules

(Hat tip to Rising Hegemon) As Attaturk points out, this is a story which you won't be likely to see in any of the "liberal left wing American media" this week. It comes to us, of course, from the Guardian in England and the BBC.

Under US noses, brutal insurgents rule Suuni citadel

The executions are carried out at dawn on Haqlania bridge, the entrance to Haditha. A small crowd usually turns up to watch even though the killings are filmed and made available on DVD in the market the same afternoon.

A three-day visit by a reporter working for the Guardian last week established what neither the Iraqi government nor the US military has admitted: Haditha, a farming town of 90,000 people by the Euphrates river, is an insurgent citadel.

That Islamist guerrillas were active in the area was no secret but only now has the extent of their control been revealed. They are the sole authority, running the town's security, administration and communications.

This displays the type of "control" we've managed after two years of war and nearly 2,000 dead US troops. It also provides a shocking glimpse into the "real Iraq" outside of the few square kilometers that MSM press people are able to see without getting their heads blown off.

Juan Cole, as always, has a reality based take on the situation.

Apparently many small towns of western Anbar province are similar theocratic mini-states. Occasional sweeps by the Marines in the area do no more, it seems, than stir up dust in the air for a few days.

Cole also provides a peek at some of the processes being hammered out in that constitutional convention in the area that we allegedly do control. The fine points being debated don't bode well for Bush's plans for some sort of mini-America on the Euphrates.

Dexter Filkins of the NYT reveals some of the details about which the constitution drafting committee has been arguing. One is whether clerics will sit on the Supreme Court (they do in Afghanistan). Apparently one plan would give them 4 of 9 seats. You can only imagine what US law would look like if 4 of the Supreme Court seats were set aside for Cardinals and televangelists. We'd all have 12 kids and they would be taught "intelligent design" in state schools.

Oh, yes indeed. Women, ethnic minorities and folks of other relgions should just be having a regular field day in Iraq if they load up their Supreme Court with high clerics. Maybe they can save a seat for Sadr?