A troubling piece by Steven Vincent in the NYT about the growth of sectarianism in Basra. Vincent - whose work I've linked to before - fears that the British policy of handing over security to the local police as quickly as possible plays into the hands of Shiite extremists. Residents, he says, want a much firmer line on respect for human rights and democracy:
Unfortunately, this is precisely what the British aren't doing. Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, they avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination: in my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society. Nor did I see anyone question the alarming number of religious posters on the walls of Basran police stations. When I asked British troops if the security sector reform strategy included measures to encourage cadets to identify with the national government rather than their neighborhood mosque, I received polite shrugs: not our job, mate.
The results are apparent. At the city's university, for example, self-appointed monitors patrol the campuses, ensuring that women's attire and makeup are properly Islamic. "I'd like to throw them off the grounds, but who will do it?" a university administrator asked me. "Most of our police belong to the same religious parties as the monitors."
Are the Brits too hands-off? A similar message comes across in Rory Stewart's Telegraph review (not yet on-line) of Mark Etherington's book on life after Saddam. Stewart finds that Etherington - former governor of Kut - is a staunch admirer of gung-ho Americans:
Their planes are a symbol of "transcendent and effortless power", their generals "laconic and measured, the rocks to which we instinctively clung". He particularly admires his American deputy who "still had a bit of the frontier in him... a first-class horseman... loyal to a fault, led from the front and accepted responsibility unhestitatingly". Etherington puts a high emphasis on loyalty, but he is intensely critical of his Foreign Office employers and their emphasis on cultural sensitivity, prudence and subtlety. He seems them as pompous, ignorant, indecisive and "risk-averse".
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