politics

Iraq, Christians, and the “Time 100″ Party

More on reporters in Iraq, permanent-looking military bases, and inane conversations among celebrities.
May 16, 2006

In New York magazine this week, writer Jennifer Senior looks at life among reporters in Baghdad.

The piece is certainly well-written, but it’s also distinctly late to the party. We recall reading a whole series of articles — both first-hand and reported — about this very same subject back in January and February in practically every major magazine and newspaper, after the Jill Carroll kidnapping and the roadside bombing that injured Bob Woodruff. In fact, all the usual names are interviewed for Senior’s piece: Time‘s Michael Ware, the New York Times‘ Dexter Filkins and John Burns, and the Washington Post‘s Anthony Shadid.

If one assumes that readers of New York don’t read the New York Times or the Washington Post or Time magazine, printing this story makes sense. Otherwise? Not so much.

Elsewhere, Michelle Goldberg, senior writer for Salon.com, has an excerpt from her book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in the latest In These Times. She writes that in her book, “I am not suggesting that religious tyranny is imminent in the United States … for most people, including those most opposed to the Christian nationalist agenda, life will most likely go on pretty much as normal for the foreseeable future. Thus for those who value secular society, apprehending the threat of Christian nationalism is tricky. It’s like being a lobster in a pot, with the water heating up so slowly that you don’t notice the moment at which it starts to kill you.”

Strong stuff.

Goldberg says that the movement described in the book “aims to supplant Enlightenment rationalism with what it calls the ‘Christian worldview.’ The phrase is based on the conviction that true Christianity must govern every aspect of public and private life, and that all — government, science, history and culture — must be understood according to the dictates of scripture.”

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In The Atlantic this month, Fred Kaplan looks at the unlikelihood that the U.S. military will withdraw from Iraq any time soon, and he explains at least one reason why. Kaplan writes that, “in three years of occupation, the U.S. military has taken steps that suggest a total pullout is unlikely for years to come. The most tangible sign of these measures is the far-flung network of Forward Operating Bases, or FOBs. There are more than seventy FOBs scattered across Iraq … The larger bases are fortified chunks of Middle America, surreally plunked down in the desert, replete with Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, Internet cafés, first-run movie theaters, gyms, and swimming pools. Camp Anaconda, built around two 11,000-foot runways and spread out over fifteen square miles, is home and workplace to 20,000 U.S. troops and 2,500 private contractors. Camp Cooke, which boasts 29,000 square feet of retail shopping, is so huge that a shuttle bus runs back and forth from one end to the other. At Camp Falcon, Army engineers had to bring in 100,000 tons of gravel just to build the reinforced roads.” What’s more, the Pentagon is asking for “$348 million in emergency funds this year for further base construction, beyond the billions already spent.”

The reason for this? Even after the Iraqi military is able to “stand up” on its own, American military planners estimate that the United States will still have to provide logistical support for them for years to come — to the tune of 20,000 to 30,000 American troops for logistics, air support and intelligence.

In this week’s New Yorker, Lauren Collins attended the “Time 100″ party last week, which is an annual dinner for the world’s “most influential” people. Her report perfectly captures the brain-dead nature of the event, and the inane conversations that ensue when you put a group of movie stars, writers and newsmakers together in the same room.

After chronicling a conversation between Arianna Huffington and reggaeton singer Daddy Yankee, Collins writes of Mukhtaran Bibi, “a woman from Pakistan whom Time had deemed a ‘Hero & Pioneer’: she went to court to protest after being gang-raped as punishment for her brother’s crime of walking with a girl from a different tribe.” Turns out, Bibi was “less than starstruck by the scene.”

Indeed. One can only wonder why.

Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.