NYT: Shiite Morality Is Taking Hold in Iraq Oil Port (theocracy)

[Pirate Smile]

Shiite Morality Is Taking Hold in Iraq Oil Port

BASRA, Iraq - The loudest sounds emanating from musicians' row these days come from explosions.

-snip-
"They say it's forbidden by Islam," Mr. Ali, 18, said as he went back to his own shop, its shelves stocked with drums. "We're afraid of everything. I'm afraid of it all. I'm afraid even when I'm talking to you."

The once libertine oil port of Basra, 350 miles south of the capital and far from the insurgency raging in much of Iraq, is steadily being transformed into a mini-theocracy under Shiite rule. There is perhaps no better indication of the possible flash points in a Shiite-dominated Iraq, because the political parties that hold sway here also wield significant influence in the central government in Baghdad and are backed by the country's top clerics.

-snip-
Few women walk around without a head scarf and full-length black robe. A young woman who gave her name as Layla said she could wear jeans without a robe a year ago. But seven months before, as she strode from her house, a group of men came up to her and warned her that she was improperly dressed.

She says she no longer goes out in public without a robe.

more at
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/international/middleeast/07shiites.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=fb3ff3ce62480903&hp&ex=1120708800&partner=homepage

[newswolf56]

1. Given the Grover Norquist scheme to build an alliance of...

...Muslims and Fundamentalist Christians on the basis of their common hatreds of women's rights, homosexuality, the Constitution etc., it is at least worth asking if the theocracy emerging in Basra reflects the REAL intent of BushCabal policy -- that the supposed "blunders" that have led to this point were not instead deliberate ploys to facilitate the development of theocracy. Perhaps based on some Norquistian notion that American Christian theocrats and Islamic theocrats have far more in common than, say, Western secularists and Islamic theocrats -- especially when such an alliance is arrayed against Communist China.

[LynnTheDem]

2. Iraq; LOSING their freedom, thanks to BUSH!

WELL DONE, bush!

America; home of the stupidest MFers on the planet.