AlterNet Readers' 10 Best Comments of the Week!

This week, AlterNet readers discussed the usual: Iraq, 9/11, and the suppression of civil liberties in the name of national security; and the slightly more off-beat: "rednecks," sex workers on Craigslist, and invisible potsmokers. But enough talk from us and onto your comments:

Sometimes our articles can elicit unexpected honesty and self-reflection from our readers, like mike1997 who responded to America's Deadly Shock Doctrine in Iraq by writing:

You know what's odd about this article? After reading it, I feel like a criminal. That was my tax dollars at work in Iraq. That was my government in action. I have never voted for any of the people currently serving in Washington. I voted against Bush, both of my states (KY) sitting senators and the Republican congressman representing my district. Still it doesn't feel like enough. It is still my fault on some level. I let the government that is designed to work for me do this in my name.

Staying on the topic of our foreign policy quagmire, umravya responded to The Battle for Iraq is About Oil and Democracy, Not Religion! by writing:

Ra'ed and Joshua, thank you so much for this and the other articles you have published here. It brings a critical insight to what is really going on and what is really important to understand about today's situation in Iraq, and it is entirely consistent with Iraq's social and political history. I wish you would do more of these joint articles. Ra'ed offers a voice and a set of insights that are very difficult to come by.

The story that Iraq's history is one of centuries of deep-seated ethno-sectarian conflict, and that therefore Iraq's fracture into three warring groups was an inevitable result of the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime has no basis in reality. The claim that Iraq is an inherently non-viable entity consisting of three distinct geo-ethno-sectarian bodies who have detested and slaughtered each other for centuries, and that the nation was only held together by the iron fist of Saddam is a falsehood that by incessant repetition over at least a decade, has become "received truth". To challenge this "received truth" one could begin by asking how Iraq managed to not only hold together but become well known for its people's strong sense of national identity during the half century or so of statehood that constitutes most of its history before Saddam's iron fist supposedly started holding it together.

This is an interesting question particularly because compared to the relatively politically stable years of Saddam's rule the earlier decades were a period of great political instability and regular upheaval, and yet Iraq did not show any signs of flying apart along geo-ethno-sectarian or any other lines. On the contrary, as Iraq historian Reidar Visser shows in his book, Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq, an early attempt by Iraqis at separatism was not based on ethno-sectarian considerations at all, but on political and economic ones. Furthermore, as Visser shows, Iraqi nationalism ultimately prevailed.

This is much too large a subject to address in any real detail here. I strongly recommend taking a good look at Visser's site, and some of the articles he has written. It will open some eyes to an Iraqi reality that very few Americans have any idea of.

It is also worth considering that the original issues that led to the creation of the Shi'ite sect were not over issues of religious doctrine or practice, but over politics. To be specific it was over who should succeed Mohammad as leader of the Muslims.

I will end this comment by pointing out that, rather than being some kind of uncharacteristic anomaly as it was presented in the media, Iraqis' reaction to their soccer team's victory in the Asia Cup was a true reflection of their natural feeling of nationalism and national pride. That win engendered enormous joy and pride in Iraqis of all kinds, everywhere, including in Kurdistan, where a number of Kurds were arrested for waving the Iraqi flag. (Oh yes, did you know that the separatist "government" of Kurdistan has made it a crime to display the Iraqi flag?)