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You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / “Sahel” Long

“Sahel” Long

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And thanks for all the fish:

PERHAPS no fact is more revealing about Iraq’s history than this: The Iraqis have a word that means to utterly defeat and humiliate someone by dragging his corpse through the streets.

The word is “sahel,” and it helps explain much of what I have seen in three and a half years of covering the war.

It is a word unique to Iraq, my friend Razzaq explained over tea one afternoon on my final tour. Throughout Iraq’s history, he said, power has changed hands only through extreme violence, when a leader was vanquished absolutely, and his destruction was put on display for all to see.

Most famously it happened to a former prime minister, Nuri al-Said, who tried to flee after a military coup in 1958 by scurrying through eastern Baghdad dressed as a woman. He was shot dead. His body was disinterred and hacked apart, the bits dragged through the streets. In later years, Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party crushed their enemies with the same brand of brutality.

“Other Arabs say, ‘You are the country of sahel,’ ” Razzaq said. “It has always been that way in Iraq.”

But in this war, the moment of sahel has been elusive. No faction — not the Shiite Arabs or Sunni Arabs or Kurds — has been able to secure absolute power, and that has only sharpened the hunger for it.

Listen to Iraqis engaged in the fight, and you realize they are far from exhausted by the war. Many say this is only the beginning.

The most depressing thing I have read about Iraq in a long while, courtesy of the Belgravia Dispatch, who also notes the casualty rate for our forces is increasing with the surge.

Reader Interactions

31Comments

  1. 1.

    DougJ

    PERHAPS no fact is more revealing about Iraq’s history than this: The Iraqis have a word that means to utterly defeat and humiliate someone by dragging his corpse through the streets.

    Perhaps no fact is more revealing about the Bush administration than this: Americans now have a word that means to torture someone by simulating the feeling of drowning.

    The word is “waterboarding.”

  2. 2.

    Pb

    The Iraqis have a word that means to utterly defeat and humiliate someone by dragging his corpse through the streets.

    Maybe they got the idea from Achilles, though…

  4. 4.

    DougJ

    Listen to Iraqis engaged in the fight, and you realize they are far from exhausted by the war. Many say this is only the beginning.

    That’s not what Tom Friedman’s Iraqi cabbie says. He says we won’t know one way or the other for six months. And the guy’s the real deal: came here because the world’s flatness allowed him to, eats only halal meats, believes we did the right thing by popping the Islamic bubble in Iraq. I’ll take his word over the guys Ed Wong talks to in tea shops any day.

  5. 5.

    ThymeZone

    No word more describes the whole rationale behind our war there: Dumb.

    If anyone in the government had bothered to read the history of the region, they could have predicted the situation we have now. The notion that we would invade, run Saddam to ground, and then magically establish something like El Paso over there was just nuts to begin with.

    The NYT pieces is quite right, these people aren’t done. Nowhere near done.

  6. 6.

    Wilfred

    This doesn’t seem quite right, unless Iraqis have a greater sense of irony than I thought. The root SHL means to make something possible, or to enable something to happen. As a substantive, with the addition of vowel sounds, you get suhl which means a treaty or to stop fighting; < or the name sahl-easy going; or salah – righteous, like Salah-al-Deen (Saladin); Salih is the name of a prophet. The only use of Sahel that knew of is the area of the Sahara.

    What they might mean is that there cannot be total peace until one side (or sides) is totally defeated, their will to fight totally crushed. In which case they would be making war exactly like Western countries do. The last paragraph, for example, is just as true for the American right, is it not? As is the urge for total humiliation of the enemy.

    I hate to be pedantic, but breathless articles like this need to be taken with a bit of linguistic salt.

  8. 8.

    Zombie Santa Claus

    If this war has taught us nothing else, it’s taught us that Iraqi flowers are very, very unpleasant. They grow right along the road, but you’ll probably want to keep them away from your vehicle. The Iraqis like to greet us with them, but the last thing we need at this point is another batch of those posies.

    That’s not what Tom Friedman’s Iraqi cabbie says. He says we won’t know one way or the other for six months. And the guy’s the real deal: came here because the world’s flatness allowed him to, eats only halal meats, believes we did the right thing by popping the Islamic bubble in Iraq. I’ll take his word over the guys Ed Wong talks to in tea shops any day.

    Six months from now, when we’ve flattened Iraq, we’ll be that much closer to flattening the world. Then the insurgents won’t have anywhere left to hide, and we’ll all head over to McDonald’s for some freedom fries and spongiform encephalitis.

  9. 9.

    capelza

    Pb Says:

    Maybe they got the idea from Achilles, though…

    The Thracian’s enjoyed a good romp with a dead body in tow, too.

    Alexander even indulged himself once…at Gaza.

    Also, isn’t the Sahel some geographic/climate zone in Africa?

  10. 10.

    tBone

    Also, isn’t the Sahel some geographic/climate zone in Africa?

    It’s right next to Macaca.

    If this war has taught us nothing else, it’s taught us that Iraqi flowers are very, very unpleasant.

    Iraqi flowers hate freedom almost as much as you moonbats do. And don’t get me started on their candy . . .

  11. 11.

    DougJ

    The notion that we would invade, run Saddam to ground, and then magically establish something like El Paso over there was just nuts to begin with.

    You call it nuts, I call it an audacious role of the dice.

  13. 13.

    Tim F.

    The article claim that Iraq does not have a dominant power who can be beaten, dismembered and dragged through the streets. Unfortunately I think they are wrong about that.

  14. 14.

    Andrew

    notes the casualty rate for our forces is increasing with the surge.

    That’s part of the plan, America-hating moonbat.

    Actually, seriously, it is.

  15. 15.

    DougJ

    What about all the people Clinton murdered, disinterred, and dragged the streets of Washington? Isn’t that what happened to Vince Foster? And the liberal media mostly just ignored it.

  17. 17.

    ThymeZone

    Actually, seriously, it is.

    Yes, and we have already have Pentagon types stating that this proves the surge is “working.”

    Apparently the whole point of the surge is to let the Iraq and American governments go on vacation, and get some casualties out of the way while nobody is looking.

    It’s no different from having your house fumigated while you go up north to the cabin for the summer. I mean, to Kennebunkport. Well, you know what I mean.

  18. 18.

    Jake

    John, congrats on another excellent post title.

    If anyone in the government had bothered to read the history of the region, ^been conscious when the USSR fell apart they could have predicted the situation we have now.

    Fixed.

  19. 19.

    Tsulagi

    I wonder if they have a word for a brain-dead CIC backed up by bobbleheaded fluffers.

    notes the casualty rate for our forces is increasing with the surge.

    Yep, and our KIA rate during The Surge has been running about 2:1 over the Iraqi Army. Of those IA that bother to show up for this theater. From those 18 IA brigades our Commander Guy said would be taking the lead.

    However, not sure if ISF killed while planting IEDs count in the official KIA totals. That kind of stuff has been causing a little friction. Which led LTC Patrick Frank of the 101st Airborne to remark to an Iraqi captain…

    “The reason there is distrust,” Colonel Frank responded, his voice rising, “is because I have a video of six Iraqi officers placing a bomb against my soldiers, and they came from your station.”

    This surge as the previous ones before it like Operation Together Forward are a joke. Different names or no names like the current one, but same results. Of course, though, the current one is a success that hasn’t happened yet. Or rather we haven’t been told it’s a success yet. That will happen later this year.

  20. 20.

    Pb

    Wilfred,

    Here’s another reference for you–apparently it’s slang, so maybe they do have a greater sense of irony than you thought:

    I remember stifling my anger then storming into the house shouting at everyone and threatening to tie every party member I know in the neigbourhood by their feet to my car with a rope and drag them through town as soon as we were ‘liberated’. Of course I was told to shut the f*ck up. The method I mentioned above is called ‘sahel’ in Iraqi slang, and its part of our political heritage. About 50 years ago when the monarchy was overthrown, the Iraqi prime minister then Nouri Alsaeed and the crown prince Abdul Illah were dragged around baghdad this way after they were killed. I have a picture of it but its too graphic to be posted. And during General Kassem’s reign after that, Communists used to kill their opponents this way, which ironically enough were either Baathists or Arab nationalists. Kirkuk and Mosul witnessed the bloodiest of these events during the late fifties. I am digressing. What I meant to say, is that most people expected ‘sahel’ to return after the fall of Saddam’s regime. But it didn’t. Actually people were very tolerant towards Baathists in general following the war, which to tell the truth surprised me. They even protected them from angry people who wanted revenge in some neighbourhoods. They forgot and chose to forgive them for all the blackmailing, harrassment, and secret reports most of them were guilty of. Talk about tolerance. Of course there were incidental cases of revenge that happened and are still to this day. A friend of mine always tell me that if Baathists were ‘sahel’ed at that time, they wouldn’t have dared to carry out attacks against Americans and Iraqis today.

  22. 22.

    The Other Steve

    Clearly the main problem in Iraq is the lack of a functioning cut flower market.

  23. 23.

    Zifnab

    Russia is demanding Royalty payments for AK-47 production!

    Man, remember back in the good old days when those fuckers were communist?

  24. 24.

    Rome Again

    Oh, can’t we just sip tea instead? I would like to leave my sex life ideologically virginal, please. Otherwise, I may end up with some kind of hang up and stop climaxing altogether.

    But, Czar Nicholas and his offspring are dead. There is no royalty now!

  25. 25.

    Rome Again

    Whoops! Apologies for the copy/paste on that blockquote, that was from another thread LMAO…. time to go home.

    Russia is demanding Royalty payments for AK-47 production!

    That’s the one I wanted, yeah!

  26. 26.

    Jackmormon

    Russia is demanding Royalty payments for AK-47 production!

    Ok, this is the funniest thing I’ve read for weeks.

  28. 28.

    cleek

    That’s the one I wanted, yeah!

    i preferred the first. it had to be either head-snapping absurdity or an unfathomable inside joke. i assumed the former.

  29. 29.

    ATS

    Sahel eh? Now Dick Cheney has something to look forward to.

    Hey, after living with Lynne, it would a be like a month in the country.

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Trackbacks

  1. […] Hat tip: John Cole who also points to The Belgravia Dispatch’s observation that the surge is a success if one defines “success” as meaning the rate of US casualties increases.  But hey, it’s all a part of dear leader’s master plan that is so secret nobody knows it, including himself. […]