Now that’s either one awkward-ass family barbecue or it’s not true or Maliki doesn’t really mind who gives him his money and power.

I keep trying to make the point that Maliki is not the puppet he’s often painted as being. Sistani and al-Sadr had more to do with putting him in office than Bush/Cheney.

If one assumes that the job of Iraqi prime minister requires a certain amount of public shit-eating and making nice with the occupation, but privately he (like the rest of the Shiite governing coalition) looks forward to the day they can kick the U.S. out, why shouldn’t his family members be involved with illicit militias?

Doesn’t that explain why the Iraqi government seems pissed off not because a Maliki family member might have been tied to such militias, but because the guy wasn’t as untouchable as his family name should have made him?

digg

And, of course, I never claimed to have encountered that meaning of ‘clapped’ before.

Because until I got to the hyperlinked text I thought it was supposed to be some hip shorthand for “clapped in irons”, like on the old sailing ships.