Chris Dodd is promising that if the FISA bill makes it out of committee with the telecom immunity language intact, he will filibuster.  You can watch him make his argument for it on this video.

Originally, Robin Wright Jones had let it be known that in late September she would officially declare her candidacy for the seat in state senate district 5.  That didn’t happen–because of a fall she took while exercising–but she was supposed to do so about October 20th.  That date, too, has passed.

Remember that Wright Jones’ entry into the race would give that district two African American candidates and the likelihood that a white candidate, Tom Villa, would enter as a spoiler.  If Villa or any white candidate were to win, that would give the city of St. Louis white senators in all three of its senate districts.  And that’s just not acceptable to a lot of people.

Dave Drebes at MO Scout (subscription only) has reported a couple of rumors about what might happen to keep Robin out of the race.  About three weeks ago, the rumor was that the mayor might do something to Robin (since Hubbard has more political capital with Slay) to keep her out of the race.  Three days ago, Drebes was reporting a different rumor:  that Robin herself has been putting off the official announcement in hopes of getting something from Slay to stay out of the race.

Of course, Robin could prove that latter rumor to be hogwash simply by announcing.

A sitting governor intervenes in the parole process, setting up the release of an individual who then goes on to commit another horrible crime. Sound familiar? Well, our political media will only cover a story like that if that governor is running for president, right? Think again.

The Kansas City Star’s resident political stenographer writes this gem in today’s paper [tiny URL]:

….Stick this one in your bonnet: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will win either the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary.

Whaaaat? You’ve never heard of Huck?

Get him on your radar screen. Huckabee has supplanted John McCain as the hot GOP contender on the circuit these days….

Of course, our political chattering classes can’t be bothered to do a little bit of research:

….Suttlar noted that just prior to Huckabee’s appearance before the board the board had voted 4-1 against Dumond’s parole. After Huckabee’s board appearance, her colleagues largely reversed themselves, voting 4-1 for Dumond’s release.

“Why did all the votes change?” Suttlar asked. The board members knew the governor’s position. And Huckabee knows what influence a governor has over a board. Who’s going to turn down a governor?”

A board member, who only agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, said, “We are not talking rocket science here. The board jobs are known to some degree [to be] political patronage…

Why would the Star’s Kraske jump on the Huckabee hype bandwagon? Stenography.

Fun While It Lasted [tiny URL]

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 26, 2007; 11:13 AM

….My view of the Huckabee hype is fairly simple: Reporters have run out of things to say about Hillary, Barack, Rudy, Mitt and the gang. Every conceivable story has been written, from cleavage to laughter to multiple marriages, and it’s only October. We need a dark horse to shake up the race. Reporters like Huckabee. So he becomes the flavor du jour….

Lazy stenography.

Saturday, October 27, 2007
Gail Collins: There To Make MoDo and Bobo Look Smart

….DuMond was released not out of some independent sense of compassion but because a wingnut campaign on his behalf was launched because the woman DuMond raped was a distant relative of Bill Clinton…

And the Missouri connection? You know, something that maybe, just maybe, a so-called Missouri political reporter should know?

…Saturday, June 30, 2001

Arkansas parolee is charged in killing of Missouri woman

LIBERTY (AP) – Prosecutors on Friday charged Arkansas parolee Wayne DuMond with first-degree murder in the death of a Missouri woman and said they had not ruled out seeking the death penalty for the convicted castrated rapist.

DuMond, 51, is charged in the Sept. 20 death of Carol Shields, 39, of Parkville, who was found suffocated in a friend’s Clay County apartment about 10 miles from DuMond’s home.

The woman was killed about seven weeks after DuMond moved to the Kansas City area…..

Missouri Courts

7CR101002894 – ST V WAYNE E DUMOND

07/25/2001  Docket Entry:  Filing:
Text:  1 – 1002100 – MURDER 1ST DEGREE – Class A felony – EMPTY CHARGE CODE SECURITY FIELD
  Docket Entry:  Judge/Clerk – Note
Text:  RELATED CASES FIELD: LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE
  Docket Entry:  Filing:
Text:  Indictment filed : BOND DENIED : warrant issued MJM….

….7CR101002894 – ST V WAYNE E DUMOND

Date Filed:  07/25/2001
Location:  Clay 
Case Type:  Criminal/Infract.- see Charges
Disposition:  Jury Verdict – Guilty
Date of Disposition:  01/09/2004…

As for Mike Huckabee intervening in the parole of an individual who later goes on to commit murder in another state? Our dysfunctional media has rules about covering those kinds of things in their political reporting. IOKIYAR.

(it’s okay if you’re a republican)

On October 24th SurveyUSA released a 600 sample poll taken in Missouri from October 12th through the 14th which shows that “baby” Blunt does not have the best of approval ratings in Missouri. The margin of error is 4.1%.

The poll was sponsored by KCTV in Kansas City.

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Matt Blunt is doing as Governor?

All
42% – approve
52% – disapprove
6% – not sure

Democrats [37% of sample]
23% – approve
73% – disapprove
4% – not sure

republicans [25% of sample]
72% – approve
24% – disapprove
4% – not sure

Independents [29% of sample]
41% – approve
54% – disapprove
5% – not sure

“baby” Blunt’s numbers declined among republicans, but remain almost the same among Democrats and Independents. This month’s sample had fewer republicans.

Again, my favorite approval numbers come from the different reality based and fantasy based communities:

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Matt Blunt is doing as Governor?

Global warming is real [74% of sample]
35% – approve
61% – disapprove
4% – not sure

Global warming is made-up [21% of sample]
64% – approve
30% – disapprove
6% – not sure

There’s been some erosion of support for Blunt among those in the reality based community.

Fired Up! points out that school choice does not improve educational results–according to a study by a conservative group:

  A study being released today suggests that school choice isn’t a powerful tool for driving educational improvement in Milwaukee Public Schools.

  But more surprising than the conclusion is the organization issuing the study: the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank that has supported school choice for almost two decades, when Milwaukee became the nation’s premier center for trying the idea. The institute is funded in large part by the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, an advocate of school choice.

Milwaukee has had vouchers in place for years, so it’s the logical place to conduct such a study.  The longitudinal data affords facts rather than fantasy-inspired forecasts.

Vouchers don’t help.  Hear that Rex?  Jane Cunningham?  Never mind, they’re not listening, not even to people from their side of the spectrum.

A 105mm M1 Abrams tank, outside the
Tank-Army Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM)
Detroit Arsenal, Warren, MI

On Monday, ten specially trained auditors, criminal investigators and acquisitions experts will descend on the Tank-Army Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) north of Detroit to begin an audit of a sampling of approximately 6000 contracts worth $2.8 billion issued by an Army office in Kuwait that has been identified as a hotbed of corruption.

The office in question, located at Camp Arifjan, buys supplies and gear to support American G.I.’s as they rotate in and out of Iraq.  Nearly two dozen Army, military and civilian employees have been charged with accepting bribes and kickbacks, and $15 million has changed hands.  Depending on what the investigators discover, the number of individuals charged will likely grow.  Currently the Army Criminal Investigations Command  has 83 ongoing corruption investigations relating to contract fraud.

The highest profile corruption case to be charged so far involves Army Maj. John Cockerham, who stands accused of bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction. Prosecutors charge that Cockerham, in concert with his wife and sister, took at least $9.6 million in bribes in 2004 and 2005 during the time he was a contract officer in Kuwait.

Some of the red flags that have been raised include contracts awarded to vendors outside the usual competitive bidding process and contracts that went through the motions of the bidding process, then were awarded to the highest rather than the lowest bids.  In other instances, what was purchased  was not what was delivered.

“Is there anything in there that might indicate to us that there might be some potential fraudulent activity?” Jeffrey Parsons, director of contracting at Army Materiel Command, said in an AP interview. “If there are patterns that we start to identify, then we’re going to do further review.”

Contracts with significant problems will be forwarded to the Army Audit Agency and the Army Criminal Investigation Command. If there’s credible evidence of wrongdoing, the FBI and prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department are called in.

In Warren, Mich., home to a large Army acquisition center, the contracting review team will examine 314 of the Kuwait contracts, each worth more than $25,000 and issued between 2003 and 2006.

In Kuwait, a separate team of 10 at Camp Arifjan is already going through 339 contracts of lesser value and awarded during the same time period, according to Army Materiel Command at Fort Belvoir, Va.

Both reviews are to be finished before the end of the year.

Preliminary results of an investigation into the contracts coming out of Camp Arifjan in 2007 has wrapped up, and the investigators uncovered numerous problems with the office, including high staff turnover, slip-shod record keeping, inadequate staffing, and lack of oversight.  Those personnel problems, coupled with billions of dollars of war funding,  create an environment where corruption, malfeasance and misconduct find fertile soil.

The investigative teams in both Michigan and Kuwait  will be reviewing paper records, but they will also be using data-mining techniques to search electronically stored data for signs of wrongdoing.  “Do we have contractors with different names but the same address?” Parsons said. “That would cause some suspicion.”  He also indicated that the investigators would be relying on tips provided by individuals familiar with the imperfect process.

If a contractor and an acquisitions officer conspire to break the rules for personal gain, uncovering the corruption can be extremely difficult.  “You can have a contract file that is pristine – all the documentation is there,” Parsons said. “Just going through the contract files doesn’t necessarily give you 100 percent assurance that something else might not have been going on.”

Beating the checks and balances in the federal procurement process is a difficult trick to pull off, requiring attention to detail and precise planning.  It takes someone schooled in the system to know how to evade it.  Unfortunately, the Army had some very smart “bad apples” who knew how to pull it off.

The 6000 contracts that came from the office in Kuwait spawned 18,000 transactions for myriad support items, from laundry and warehouse services to bottled water and food.  Every transaction presented an opportunity for fraud to be committed.

In 2005, two Lt. Generals who were top commanders in Iraq, Steven Whitcomb and John Vines, became so concerned about allegations of corruption that they pushed for the Criminal Investigation Command to establish field offices in Iraq and Kuwait.

The Army investigating the allegations of fraud, abuse, bribery, corruption and kickbacks is a good start, but it is time to take a page from history.  It is time for a reprise of the Truman Committee. 

In 1940, as World War II gripped the globe and United States involvement in the conflict became more and more likely, the United States appropriated $10 Billion in defense contracts in preparation for that eventuality.

Early in 1941, reports of malfeasance and abuses by the contractors reached Missouri Senator Harry S Truman, and the news did not sit well with WW I Infantry Captain “Give ’em Hell Harry.” In typical Truman fashion, he set out to seek the truth, not by summoning “experts” but by embarking on a 10,000 mile tour of military installations. On this fact-finding tour, he discovered that the companies that received the contracts were clustered in the east, with a mere handful divvying up most of the largesse. He also discovered that they were receiving a fixed-profit, regardless of performance.

He returned to the Senate convinced that the defense efforts of the United States were being undermined by waste and corruption, and he proposed the notion of a special Senate committee that would investigate the National Defense Program.

President Roosevelt was convinced to let Truman head up the committee, being sympathetic to the President and his administration. The President was assured that the committee would not be too much trouble, as it would only be allotted $15,000 to investigate billions in defense contracts.

The Truman Committee was created by unanimous Senate decree on 01 March 1941. Over the next three years, with Senator Truman at the helm, the committee held hundreds of hearings, traveled thousands of miles to conduct field inspections, and saved millions of dollars in cost over-runs. Senator Truman was not shy about threatening executives with prison time as he whacked greedy corporate snouts out of the public trough.

Before Claire McCaskill announced her Senate bid, I was encouraging her to run for the Class I seat that Truman once held, and touting her background as our state auditor and as a tough prosecutor as reasons she should run and reasons we should vote for her, because the Iraq fiasco needed a good auditing, in the spirit of Harry Truman.

During her campaign, she seized on my the idea of a modern day Truman Committee to investigate waste, fraud and corruption in the reconstruction of Iraq. During a speech in Harry S Truman’s hometown of Independence last year, she spoke admiringly of the former President and his diligence in reining in war profiteers. “He was fearless. He uncovered enormous undeserved profits. I believe we need a new Truman Committee. I will fight for such a committee.”

Less than a year after she was elected, and a mere nine months after taking her seat, she is very close to bringing the notion to fruition. The Senate recently agreed to a plan from Senators McCaskill and Webb to get a handle on the Pentagon’s scattershot method of awarding private contracts for work in Iraq. It was added to the Defense Authorization Bill for 2008.

The audits that get underway on Monday certainly underscore the need for the oversight body that would be created from the legislation offered by Webb and McCaskill.  In fact, they  demand it.

( – promoted by Michael Bersin)

Those of us in the Kansas City area are able to get the Kansas City Star.  One of the national columnists it carries is Michelle Malkin.  Today, I sent a version of the following to the reader’s representative of the Star.

****
The KC Star does its readers a huge service by printing Michelle Malkin’s weekly column of hate.  I’m sure it serves an important part of the KC readership.

For that reason, I wonder why today’s version was edited for some of its more interesting language.

An online version of the column in today’s Star is available here.

Here is the third paragraph in the unabridged version.

Both papers uncovered dishwashers, cooks and other suspect Hillary campaign contributors in New York’s Chinatown, Flushing, the Bronx and Brooklyn who were limited-income, limited-English-proficient and smellier than stinky tofu. One Asian donor admitted to the Los Angeles Times “to lacking the legal-resident status required for giving campaign money.” Another, Hsiao Wen Yang, told the New York Post she was reimbursed for her $1,000 donation — setting off clear alarm bells over yet another possible straw donor scheme on the heels of Norman Hsu-gate.

We readers of the Star did not read the relative clause in the first sentence:

who were limited-income, limited-English-proficient and smellier than stinky tofu

Here is the second to last paragraph in the unabridged column.

If it’s “ethnic profiling” to be extra-careful of Chinatown donors who can’t speak English, live in dilapidated buildings, have never voted, can’t tell Hillary Clinton from Hunan Chicken or simply can’t be found, then “ethnic profiling” should be the standard procedure of every responsible campaign.

Again, we readers of the Star did not get to read

can’t tell Hillary Clinton from Hunan Chicken

Why weren’t the readers of the Star allowed to read these wonderful turns of phrase?  This is exactly the kind of language that makes Malkin’s column such a wonderful example of hate. 

Is it possible that the Star is embarrassed by these phrases and decided it would not be good for its readers to read lines that reveal the real nature of Ms. Malkin’s ability to think critically?

If these lines are over the top, why does the Star keep printing Ms. Malkin’s weekly hate?

***
I will share with you the response I get to my many question.

George Lakoff of the Rockridge Institute believes that values are more important than issues in carrying elections. He also believes that this nation was pretty much founded on progressive values. He believes that the protagonists central to the development of our nation were citizens, then later perhaps, citizen revolutionaries, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  Or maybe they were citizen abolitionists like Frederick Douglas or Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks. Or suffragists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and naturalists like John Muir and Rachel Carson.  The list goes on.

  And then there was Franklin Roosevelt.  From Lakoff:

  …he permanently established government’s central role for using the common wealth for the common good by launching the New Deal.  It was more than a set of programs – it was a movement imbued with the core progressive values of empathy and responsibility, with the idea that government should not only care about people but also act on that caring.

Regrettably, the past several decades have seen the Republican right trampling all over these historical values and have offered up instead a stingy worldview based on authoritarian political values. Compounding the menace of the political authoritarianism was the increasing power of religious authoritarianism as defined by the Religious Right Movement. In almost lock step formation, these movements sought to denigrate progressive values and principles. 

With the help of a well developed form of social control called Ritual Defamation, they trampled all over liberal members of Congress reducing them to practically forced apologies for crimes not committed.  The obligatory apology by Senator Durbin for his remark comparing the Abu Ghraib torture behaviors with Nazi behaviors during WWII comes to mind.  Ritual Defamation involves the tool of character assassination (and in the case of the contemporary right wing, relentlessly repetitive character assault) with the goal of censorship and repression.  For a comprehensive definition of Ritual Defamation, I have included this link.  I think we relabeled it Swiftboating in 04. I definitely recommend the read. [ http://www.lairdwilc… ]  The following from TomPaine.com:

The political cost to progressives, for their inability to properly deal with this tactic is greater than they realize.  It is a potent demonstration of pure power to force others to insincerely condemn or apologize for something, particularly when the person who is forcing it is also insincerely outraged.  For a political party that suffers from a reputation for weakness, it is extremely damaging to be so publicly cowed over and over again.  It separates them from their most ardent supporters and makes them appear guilty and unprincipled to the public at large,

For some time it seemed as if the cacophony of right wing Talking Points Babble had completely obliterated the progressive voice of our nation, but then they had a running start.  Real organizing to this end began with NeoCons some thirty years ago, and if Lakoff is correct in his position that values are more important that issues, then the gift the NeoCons received in the form of Ronald Reagan was priceless.  Never let it be said that I admired Ron, but according to Lakoff, he communicated well and so connected with people.  They felt the (love) authenticity; they trusted him and came running.  Well that was his job history after all, getting into character and playing a role.  But it worked.  As for the issues, in the case of Ronald Reagan’s affair with the people, it became whatever he “communicated”.

Progressives have been at a disadvantage in this game. We always want to talk about the issues, but we have had difficulty in communicating a vision. We need to remember that it is about values as well.  It’s about how to articulate those values and not come off sounding defensive.  It’s about dumping the disconnect.  Watch Hillary.  What she says is measured and reasonable. But it is not authentic. Certainly she is not connecting with me.  When I watch Hillary, I see her wearing someone else’s values. There is definite dissonance.  On the other hand, it’s definitely a crush on Chris Dodd.  When he came out the other day unabashedly blocking the FISA travesty, he did so with all the authenticity of the original statesman.  There was no doubt what he was communicating – love of country.  He surely connected with me and I am sure countless others.  His numbers jumped. It’s a start and quite a treat, I might add.

So, the challenge for you, citizen commentators, is to take Dodd’s example and run with it.  Remind our guys in the big white houses that our basic values were and still are values of empathy and responsibility. Repeat those values ceaselessly and unabashedly.  Make their restoration the heart and soul of our vision for the future. Articulate, authenticate, communicate and connect!  Oh Yes, and give Chris Dodd three big cheers!

An article in The Nation describes how the U.S. may have stumbled near a solution to the civil war in Iraq.  How?  By doing everything wrong.  We have, completely unintentionally, sparked nationalism among various Iraqi factions, thus begetting a unity among them which could conceivably lead to our withdrawal.  Three American actions helped spawn the newfound alliances among erstwhile enemies in Iraq. 

The first was Joe Biden’s senate resolution to partition Iraq into three mini-states.  That passed the senate 75-23 on September 26th.  The second factor was the killing of seventeen Iraqis in a crowded Baghdad square by trigger-happy Blackwater security forces.  Third has been the continuing American pressure to partially privatize Iraq’s oil.  This last element was too vividly illustrated for Iraqis when a Texas pal of Bush’s, Ray Hunt, obtained an illegal contract with Kurds giving him rights to much of their oil.  Any one of these factors would have sparked Iraqi outrage, but taken together they have sparked more than outrage:  they have sparked collective action.

The Biden resolution sparked near-apoplectic outrage among vast swaths of Iraqis. The Cabinet declared, “The Iraqi government categorically rejects the resolution.” The Iraqi Parliament voted to condemn it. “Iraq is not a US property,” said a spokesman for the Sunni-led National Dialogue Front.

snip

Meanwhile, the Blackwater massacre brought into sharp focus what, for Iraqis, has been one of the ugliest parts of the occupation: the arrogant behavior of the US diplomatic and military convoys in the streets of the capital. At best, these cowboy convoys are a painful reminder that the country is occupied, as they set up arbitrary roadblocks, speed through oncoming traffic in the wrong lanes and routinely smash through stopped or parked vehicles. At worst, they engage in criminal assaults against civilians. The most recent Blackwater incident crystallized a long-simmering resentment that has touched off a showdown between the Iraqi government and US authorities. Even subservient Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared that Blackwater is “unfit to stay in Iraq.”

The Hunt Oil deal with the Kurds, one of several pending oil contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, may have put the last nail in the coffin of the US effort to force Iraq to rewrite its oil laws. Like the Biden resolution and the Blackwater shooting, the Hunt deal unleashed pent-up anger among Iraqi Arab leaders, who called the deal illegal, since under current Iraqi law only the central government in Baghdad, not the Kurds, can approve oil deals. The nationalization of Iraq’s oil in 1972 by Saddam Hussein, after a decades-long struggle between Iraq and the Anglo-American oil cartel, was a landmark event, the first major oil nationalization in the region since the Iranian government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh took over the British oil interests there and, for his efforts, was toppled in 1953 by a CIA-engineered coup inspired by that cartel. In Arab Iraq, if not in Kurdistan, the national oil industry is sacrosanct. If the United States intended to confirm Iraqis’ belief that the invasion was about grabbing their country’s oil, the US effort to open up the industry to foreign investors is perfectly designed to do so.

Not that uniting Iraqis to expel the U.S. will be any easy task.  The Iraqis who currently control Parliament are a coalition of Kurds and Shiite separatists.  They control the Iraqi army and police as well as the Interior ministry.  Perhaps even more daunting than facing down these forces is the necessity of overcoming entrenched Sunni-Shiite hatreds in this new alliance.

On the upside, though, this new bloc could likely get enough votes in Parliament to topple el-Maliki.  The alliance consists of two major Shiite factions (Muqtada el-Sadr and the Fadhila Party), the entire Sunni bloc, and secular Shiites led by former prime minister Allawi.  Furthermore, al Jaafari, a Maliki rival, is negotiating to join the alliance.  The votes he controls would put the alliance over the top, in control of Parliament. 

Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni vice-president, after announcing the formation of the group, traveled to Najaf to get Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s blessing for their efforts.  Did that register?  A high ranking Sunni asked for the blessing of the highest Shiite cleric.  That is bridge building.

What the group wants is an end to sectarian violence, an end to foreign interference (including dates certain for the departure of U.S. troops and taking back control of their own oil assets), and an end to al-Qaeda presence in Iraq.

Outside parliamentary politics, other important changes are afoot.  Sunni tribal leaders and former Baathists have formed their own coalition.  These groups, who were the instigators of armed resistance against U.S. troops, are abandoning violence in favor of political alliances.  They’re holding political talks with former prime minister, Allawi, a secular Shiite.  While such an alliance is less of a tectonic shift than a Sunni vice-president asking Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani’s blessing, it is still remarkable.

Among the Shiites, a major shift has taken place in dominance.  Muqtada el-Sadr and the Fadhila party have become the powers in Baghdad and southern Iraq. 

If elections were held today, Sadr and Fadhila would likely sweep the Shiite-dominated parts of Iraq, reducing SIIC and Dawa to mini-parties. Sadr has sent envoys to Sunni Arab countries, proposed a joint Sunni-Shiite effort to rebuild the Samarra mosque damaged by Al Qaeda bombers, taken part in a Saudi-backed effort in Mecca to create a Sunni-Shiite clerical dialogue in Iraq and quietly engaged in talks with Sunni and secular factions in Baghdad.

Six months ago, Sadr ordered his forces to stand down.  Just at a time when U.S. forces have decided to join with Sunni tribal leaders in getting rid of al-Qaeda, they also have a chance to cooperate with Sadr.  But the ironic part is that all these groups–including the ones we have been making some common cause with–are united most of all in wanting us out.

Even el-Maliki, installed by us and committed to keeping religious Shiites as the ruling coalition, has spoken up brazenly about getting Blackwater out of the country immediately and made it clear that U.S. control of Iraqi oil is not in the cards.  He has threatend to cut us out in favor of Iran if we continue to insist on privatization.  Furthermore, the current government has announced that Iraqis want us to leave.  They are petitioning the U.N., asking that:

the next annual renewal of the United Nations Security Council mandate for a multinational force in Iraq — the only legal basis for a continuation of the American occupation — will be the last.

The Nation sums up the situation we find ourselves in:

The Catch-22 of the American occupation is this: Iraqi nationalism is the only political force capable of uniting Sunni and Shiite Arabs and thus putting an end to the sectarian civil war, but for the past four years the United States has systematically worked to suppress nationalism.

We’ve worked to divide and conquer Iraq, but many Iraqis are apparently deciding to unite in unexpected ways.  It will be interesting to see whether they can hang together.