ON NOT TAKING BA'ATHISM SERIOUSLY:

A Mission to Bring Democracy: 'It's war and it's nation- building' at the same time, a U.S. commander says of his troops' efforts to teach local leaders in Iraq about government. (Noam N. Levey, October 7, 2005, LA Times)

Thirty-five miles north of Baghdad, on a dusty U.S. Army base outside this provincial capital, the officer and the sheik are debating free speech.

Sheik Hanesh Musawi, a robed city councilman from nearby Khan Bani Saad, has come to complain about a recent pro-Saddam Hussein demonstration. "I told my people that the Americans would not allow this," Musawi says as he sits down with Lt. Col. Oscar J. Hall IV in a spare concrete room on the base.

Hall, a former college football player who commands a tank battalion from Ft. Riley, Kan., listens patiently. "We can stop all the gatherings," he tells the sheik at last. "But that's not democracy…. What I want to know is why you didn't organize a protest the next day."

Musawi looks horrified. "Baath demonstrations are the work of the devil!" he cries. "You can't compare that to freedom of speech, sir. Demonstrations are one thing in the U.S. and something totally different here."

After Musawi departs with a request for help finding a job for a friend, the commander acknowledges that his civics lesson may have been lost.

Shiek Musawi seems to understand this better than Colonel Hall. Can you imagine the U.S. Army allowing a Nazi march in Berlin in the late '40s? If I recall correctly they're banned there even today.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 7, 2005 9:08 AM