It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Swopa of Needlenose Reports:

Needlenose | We Needle. You Decide: From the Department of Implausible Extremism. The Washington Post reports this evening:

Iraq's transportation minister... has ordered a ban on alcohol sales at Baghdad International Airport, declaring that the facility is "a holy and revered" piece of Iraq.... 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, traditionally considered to be tolerant in its observance of religious law. The order followed a visit Maliki made this month with other government officials to Iran, which is controlled by fundamentalist Shiite clerics....

"The issue is that the minister landed in the Baghdad airport and saw alcohol being sold there," Maliki's aide, Karim Jabiri, said Friday. "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."

I think I speak for all of us here at Needlenose when I say that "holy and revered" is not a phrase that usually occurs to us when we think of airports. But perhaps the transportation minister's position as a government official has given him a misleading perception of the place.

I'll tell ya what, Mr. Maliki -- let 'em lose your luggage once, and you'll be humming a different tune...

Comments

[dilbert dogbert]

When and if Iraq gets its independence back and holds "free" elections we will get what we didn't want; a Islamic Republic a la Iran. That also may be the last "free" election held in Iraq.
First on their adjenda, after putting Iraq women back in the tents, would be a "reconstitution of their Nuclear weapons program".
Whee, ain't spreading democracy in the Mid East fun.

[bncthor]

..."Whee, ain't spreading democracy in the Mid East fun."

And, hard work. Very hard work.

[Big Al]

Brutally hard.

[ken melvin]

For some, for the past couple of years, the road to the Baghdad Airport could well be considered the gateway to heaven.

[Jason]

For whom? Bechtel and/or Haliburton Contractors with No-Bid Contracts looking in? Or well-connected Iraquis with enough ready cash to get the hell out? The Doors to Heaven swing both ways, and the view depends on which side you're *on* and *take*. I think Milton summed that one up the best... ;)

[Auros]

Jason: I think Ken meant his remark in the sense that flying through Baghdad Airport is an indicator that you have a high chance of dying in the near future...