Wolfowitz and the Marsh Arabs

Mickey Kaus responds to my explanation (below) of my view of the relative authority of Muqtada al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He says, however, that I compared Wolfowitz to Saddam and that I was in his view too “shrill” to be “completely reliable” as a result. But this is what I said:

When I say Muqtada has won politically . . . I mean that he has made the US look like an oppressive tyrant. Paul Wolfowitz kept crowing last summer about how the US saved the Marsh Arabs from Saddam, but now that many of them have joined the Sadrists in Kut and Amara, Wolfowitz is having the Marsh Arabs killed just as Saddam did, and for the same reasons.

I did not “compare Wolfowitz to Saddam.” I compared the killing of dozens of Marsh Arab fighters in Kut and Amara by the US Department of Defense to the killing of dozens of Marsh Arab fighters by Saddam. I said that Muqtada has maneuvered the US into looking to the Marsh Arabs as though it is behaving like Saddam.

As for my reliability, well that depends on a record. Go back and read the Web Log over the past year and show me where I’ve been unreliable.

Wolfowitz and the Marsh Arabs

Mickey Kaus responds to my explanation (below) of my view of the relative authority of Muqtada al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He says, however, that I compared Wolfowitz to Saddam and that I was in his view too “shrill” to be “completely reliable” as a result. But this is what I said:

When I say Muqtada has won politically . . . I mean that he has made the US look like an oppressive tyrant. Paul Wolfowitz kept crowing last summer about how the US saved the Marsh Arabs from Saddam, but now that many of them have joined the Sadrists in Kut and Amara, Wolfowitz is having the Marsh Arabs killed just as Saddam did, and for the same reasons.

I did not “compare Wolfowitz to Saddam.” I compared the killing of dozens of Marsh Arab fighters in Kut and Amara by the US Department of Defense to the killing of dozens of Marsh Arab fighters by Saddam. I said that Muqtada has maneuvered the US into looking to the Marsh Arabs as though it is behaving like Saddam.

As for my reliability, well that depends on a record. Go back and read the Web Log over the past year and show me where I’ve been unreliable.