Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

Pretty and Packing Heat

Hey baby, is that a glock in your pocket? Photo: Max Becherer/Polaris, NYT

With chipped, painted fingernails, Nahrawan al-Janabi
picked up a cartridge and slid it into the chamber.

“Like this,” she said, loading her new Glock
pistol with a loud, satisfying click. “You see, like this.”

Akram Abdulzahra now keeps his revolver handy at his
job in an Internet cafe. Haidar Hussein, a Baghdad bookseller, just bought
a fully automatic assault rifle and has been teaching his wife how to shoot.

Iraq has long been awash in guns. But after the bombing
of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra in late February, sectarian tensions
exploded, and more Iraqis than ever have been buying, carrying and stockpiling
weapons, adding an unnerving level of firepower to Baghdad's streets.

Sectarian
Strife Fuels Gun Sales in Baghdad

Anarchy, anyone?

Or is it just concealed carry will travel?

Either way, everyone is buying a gun and loading up. It's not
safe in Iraq without your favorite pistol.

After Bush and Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army, with guns in
tow, Iraq has been awash with weapons.

Today, Iraqi politicians don't dare try and disarm the militias,
because they not only infuse the Iraqi police force, but control the power of
Iraq. A Shiite who wants a say can't be seen without his militia.

Of course, the love of firearms goes back into the Saddam era.

Today, it's the Iraqi frontier and we helped to make it so.

L. Paul Bremer III, the former top American
administrator in Iraq, did not step between Iraqis and their guns. He issued
an order that essentially upheld Iraqi law: everyone 25 and older with a “good
reputation and character” could own one firearm, including an AK-47,
the world's most popular killing machine.

I said it before, but the bombing of the Golden Mosque was the
insurgents' Tet
Offensive, if you will, which becomes apparent with each passing bloody day. Forget democracy, we're one step closer to anarchy. Somebody, anybody, form the Iraqi government, already.

But the destruction of Askariya Shrine
in Samarra in February uncorked a different kind of bloodshed and a different
kind of fear, ratcheting the personal arms race even higher. Mobs of mostly
Shiite men killed Sunni civilians. Some Sunnis fought back, killing Shiites.

Sectarian revenge has become the new common form of
violence. Baghdad's homicide rate since the Samarra attack has tripled, to
33 killings per day.

“Baghdad is the battlefield,” said Maj. Gen.
Rick Lynch, an American military spokesman.

Going to the police isn't an option, because most Iraqis don't trust the police,
especially if you're a Sunni.

So now the women are packing heat. There's safety in the chamber.