Monday, August 01, 2005

April 3, 2003, just after Najaf fell to Coalition forces:

In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today.

What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring?

"Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"

Around him, the crowd roared its approval....


Apparently it's not looking too good for item #2:

Iraq's transportation minister, a Shiite Muslim, has ordered a ban on alcohol sales at Baghdad International Airport, declaring that the facility is "a holy and revered" piece of Iraq, a spokesman said Friday.

The airport duty-free shop so far has refused to comply with the order by Salam Maliki. Airport officials said Maliki threatened to have the store's $800,000 supply of alcoholic beverages destroyed.

The alcohol ban heightened fears of some more-secular Iraqis that the Shiite Muslim majority might seek to impose a rigid interpretation of Islamic law in Iraq....

"Given that the airport is a holy and revered part of Iraq's land, the minister ordered a ban on selling alcoholic drinks in the airport," Maliki's aide, Karim Jabiri, said Friday.


A longer version of the article is here (registration required?). In the longer version you can read this part of the story, which I just love:

Although Maliki has traveled through Baghdad's airport numerous times, the airport official said the minister objected only after he participated in the government trip to Iran, where the government enforces prohibitions on alcohol as part of a legal code based on Islamic law.

Ah, yes. Iran, the new Iraqi government's favorite country.

Link via Juan Cole, who adds:

I suspect that the whole country will be dry soon. The evidence from Iran and Pakistan, though, is that if people cannot get booze they turn to other drugs. Pakistan has a million heroin addicts, and I've heard that at middle class parties in Iran, if the hosts don't offer opium they are considered cheap. In the meantime, I suppose the good news is that if there was anyplace you'd just as soon nervous airplane staff couldn't get hold of liquor, it is Baghdad airport.

(By the way, DWS stickers are on the clearance rack at this online store. I won't comment on the fact that if you want one you should use the coupon code KARL1.)

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