Saturday, January 20, 2007

Consequences and martyrdom

Professor Juan Cole is reporting that one of the predictable consequences of Saddam Hussein's execution is the revival of the Iraqi Baath Party and its successors, such as the Awdah ("the Return") Party. Saddam, whose name was mud after the successful overthrow of his government, is now a hero to a large percentage of Iraqis. And I dare say, even amongst those who don't support the Baath Party, there will be a lot of people thinking "He might have been a bastard, but he was our bastard".

Anyone would think the US was deliberately setting out to cause chaos and disorder in Iraq...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Anyone would think the US was deliberately setting out to cause chaos and disorder in Iraq..."

No, really? D'you think?

I ran across a site yesterday, the Failed States Index, here: http://www.fundforpeace.org/programs/fsi/fsindex.php

with a listing of world states and how functional they are. Unfortunately it's only been publishing results for 2 years, but still the stuff is interesting.

The four worst are Sudan, the Congo (DNC - Congo, right?), the Ivory Coast, and Iraq.

The same four, in scrambled order, held those spots last year, with Iraq staying in fourth place.

Their scores are interesting, though. In 2005 they scored 106, 105, 104 and 103. In 2006, they scored much worse - 112, 110, 109 & 109.

Meanwhile, way down the list is the US of A, at 34 in 2006 versus Canada at 23.

Best in the world? Norway, at 17.

Mrs Cake
"accept no substitutes!"