January 12, 2006, 8:30 a.m.
A thought for the Marsh Arabs, &c.

In the forthcoming issue of National Review, I have a piece on the Marsh Arabs. Who are they? They're a 5,000-year-old people in southern Iraq, in what many call the Mesopotamian Marshlands. (This area is also known as "the Fertile Crescent.") Do you recall what Saddam did to them? Well, he wiped them out, that's all.

After the Persian Gulf War, Shiites rebelled against Saddam. And he put them down mercilessly. Many Shiites took refuge in the marshlands, and the local inhabitants sympathized with them. Saddam, quite naturally, decided that both the marshlands and the people had to go.

So he did something almost unfathomable in its evil: He drained the marshlands. What was once the largest wetland in the Middle East — covering 7,500 square miles — became a desert.

That did in the people — and Saddam made absolutely sure they were finished, by blockading them, seizing them, torturing them, executing them, dispersing them, and attacking them with WMD: with chemical weapons. If the Saddam trial endures, he will be charged with this crime, and it will be one of the crimes for which he swings, if he swings.

The world knew about this murderous campaign, by the way. There was much and poignant reporting on it. Some of the most moving reporting was done by Chris Hedges of the New York Times. You know this name: In 2003, he became a stunningly vicious opponent of Bush and the war. He condemned the United States and its allies as the real oppressors in Iraq.

Funny old world.

Anyway, after Saddam was through with his work, there were relatively few Marsh Arabs, in their original places. Numbers are hard to come by — this is a primitive people, unlikely to cooperate with census-takers, if census-takers were interested — but there were perhaps 250,000 Marsh Arabs in 1990. After Saddam's campaign, there were possibly 75,000, in their home region. The rest were either exiled or dead.

But then the war came. And, the second they could, the Marsh Arabs began to undo Saddam's project: his dams, dikes, and such. They tore at these things, making the waters come back. And then the U.S. and its partners moved in, aiding the Marsh Arabs — or Madan, as they are also known — and coaxing back those marshlands.

Soon enough, Marsh Arabs from all over began to return: about 100,000 of them, from the cities, towns, and camps to which they had fled. (Many people went to Iran.)

The marshlands have their share of problems — as I detail in my NR piece — but, all in all, this is a success story: a story of environmental restoration and human liberation. So can't everybody — supporters and opponents of the war alike — rejoice in it? Of course not. Because George Bush et al. must be credited with nothing.

More on that point in a moment, though.

A great many agencies and groups are helping in the marshlands, but I'd like to tell you about one: Eden Again, whose website is here. I should have mentioned, by the way, that, for eons, people have imagined the Mesopotamian Marshlands the site of the Garden of Eden — hence, Eden Again.

Two of this group's leaders are Azzam Alwash and his wife, Suzie Alwash. His Ph.D. is in geotechnical engineering; her Ph.D. is in geological sciences. Azzam is an Iraqi, raised in Nasiriyah, the son of an irrigation engineer; Suzie is a Texan.

Azzam is more apt to be in Iraq than Suzie, whom you will probably find in the United States. Why? Well, as she explained to me, "We've got two kids, and one of us has to stay alive to take care of them."

That is a stark indication of the risks involved in aiding Iraq and Iraqis.

According to Suzie Alwash, about 40 percent of the marshlands have been re-flooded; and about half of that has been revegetated. The marshlands are coming back pretty fast. The U.N. Environment Programme has spoken of a "rapid revival." The marshlands won't come back all the way, unfortunately — but they will again have a life, after their decade as desert.

If it weren't for the anti-Bush fever abroad in the world, we could all rejoice in these consequences of the war. But that is impossible. I find the case of the liberals terribly sad, when not outrageous. For many years, they've expressed the most intense concern about wetlands: As you know, about the worst thing you can do in America is fill in a swamp.

All my life, from liberals, I've heard "wetlands, wetlands, wetlands."

Saddam Hussein merely destroyed one of the world's largest and most important wetlands. And, thanks to U.S.-led efforts, the Mesopotamian Marshlands are returning.

Bush should get a speck of credit, right (or at least a little slack)? A pipe dream.

And then there's the human element (only that!): the rescue of the Marsh Arabs. It occurs to me that liberals have always been especially reverential about ancient ways of living. (I used to be.) This is regardless of whether the people themselves wish to modernize! So liberals should be thrilled that the Madan now get to live as they once did, if they choose to.

No way.

One could go on — and I have much more to say in that NR piece I've mentioned. But I'd like to close with this. Last week, I was talking to an Iraqi-born scholar who works in Washington, Nimrod Raphaeli. He is affiliated with the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). I asked why the Coalition forces receive so little credit on the Marsh Arab front. He answered,

"People should give the invasion credit for a lot of things. I often say to journalists, 'Just look at the Iraqi press. Look at freedom of association, look at freedom of speech.' These things never existed in Iraq. This is one occupation that brought freedom, not oppression; that brought freedom, not censorship. Where else do you find a military occupation that encourages a free press? This is a unique occupation."

Dr. Raphaeli continued: "People look only at the bad things. People forget that Iraqis can go out and demonstrate — against the government, against the Americans, against anyone. Before, Saddam commanded 100 percent of the vote! People can go out and buy newspapers from the extreme left to the extreme right, including classical communism. I can go on and on about the changes that have taken place in Iraq."

But those positive changes must remain unremarked, lest anyone think that the war has done some good. American security has been enhanced, and so has Western security generally. In the bargain, a lot of people have been liberated.

That's a very good bargain.

You've heard me say it before about Afghanistan: Many, many people would rather homosexuals be crushed to death, according to the Taliban's law, than that they suffer the indignity of being freed by George Bush and the U.S. military.

And many, many people would rather that Marsh Arabs choke on sand.

As I said earlier, funny old world, and often not so funny.

A quick shift to the Alito hearings? There are a million things to discuss, but I'd like to focus on one. Sen. Richard Durbin, the Democratic giant from Illinois, said that Judge Alito was a man with "a mind that, sadly, is closed in some instances." Really? This is shocking, given that Alito is 55 years old. Anyone who hasn't closed his mind on certain matters by that time has weird problems.

I'm reminded of something I heard Bill Buckley say, many years ago: The purpose of an open mind is to close it, on particular subjects. If you never do — you've simply abdicated the responsibility to think.

And, by the way: Does Dick Durbin think that the minds of Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were "closed in some instances," when they were nominated to the Court? Did he care?

You might have read about Harry Belafonte, and his trip to Venezuela. He was there in the company of Prof. Cornel West and other luminaries to hail the country's strongman, Hugo Chávez. In the course of his hailing, Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest tyrant in the world" and "the greatest terrorist in the world." Those words made headlines.

But other words of Belafonte were far more interesting, in my opinion. He said that he, West, and the others had traveled to Caracas to "support your revolution." At the conclusion of his remarks, he shouted, "Viva la revolución!"

What I loved was the innocence of that. The more sophisticated defenders of Chávez claim that he is a democrat. Belafonte had no such pretense — he knew what Chávez was about. So he simply blurted it out, with almost child-like candor.

Bless him for that. Open, honest bolshies, I can handle. It's the deceptive ones I have long abhorred.

I had to wince when Jon Stewart was named host of the Oscars, because I sort of like watching that show — and I'm afraid that Stewart will make it unwatchable. Sure, he's plenty talented — but, from what I've seen, he's really toxic. Not like Jay Leno or David Letterman, who are basically late-night comedians, going with the political flow. (The political flow of their milieu.) No, Stewart is a nasty piece of work, in my view.

But Hollywood's kind of guy. I just think that, if the Oscars are going to go that far left, they should simply cut out the middleman and get Howard Dean, Barber Boxer, or Michael Moore. We know that Moore, like Stewart, is talented.

And, hey: Is Chomsky funny? Can he dance?

I will always love Steve Martin for his hosting of the show. He did a superb, exquisitely apolitical job. Conservatives often have to watch the Oscars nervously — sort of waiting for a jab or insult. Martin provided nothing but smooth, enjoyable sailing.

I don't care if he goes on to commit a string of bank robberies, I'll always be grateful to him for that.

A bit of music criticism from the New York Sun? For a review of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, James Levine, conductor, the soprano Renée Fleming, soloist; and for a review of the New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, conductor, the violinist James Ehnes, soloist — please go here.

I'm running a bit over, so I'll leave you with this, guys: It seems the battle for "Turin" has been lost. By that I mean, I'm afraid we're going to have the "Torino Olympics," not the "Turin Olympics," starting February 10.

I started whining about this, here in this column, way back in 2002, when we had the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Then, Katie Couric et al. were saying, "See you four years from now in Torino!" I wanted to start a "Torino Watch," nipping this dismaying trend in the bud. "Torino" figured in my piece "'Gutter' Politics," about the pronunciation of place names and personal names.

I think we'll be able to keep "The Shroud of Turin" — I don't think we'll have to say, or hear, "The Shroud of Torino." And we'll be able to say Florence, not Firenze; Rome, not Roma; Naples, not Napoli; Venice, not Venezia.

But have you noticed that a certain type of American likes to say "Milano," instead of "Milan"?

Yeah, me too — highly annoying.

Anyway, that's a petty concern, next to, say, the Marsh Arabs and Saddam Hussein's crimes against humanity.

But what is Impromptus without petty concerns?

See you.

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