Shiites March in Baghdad Against U.S.

Associated Press ^ | 05-20-03

[VOA]

the crowd, which swelled at one point to 10,000,

How about "the rest of the story">

My understanding is that the promoters of this event promised, in our terms,
"a million man march".

About the same thing happened with the observances at the holy city of Karbala.

Lots of problems need to be worked out in Iraq...and plenty could still go wrong.

But we don't need New York Times/Pravda-style reporting to give us
a false sense of the situation.

[Tin-Legions]

I'll bite: 1700+ years old law codes that rarely outlived their makers for more than a few more kingships and writers is a rather poor comparison to the modern, less than 4-500 year old concept of rule of common law (applying to all classes equally, precedent being used to determine changes and rulings on the law several decades/centuries after the fact)-and not rule of a single emperor/king/magnate's law that could be changed on the whim of whomever was in charge. To say that those law codes established common precedent law is probably unverifiable by the remains left to us. That is not to say that such things did not happen, but the proof is sparse indeed.

ON the other hand, I'll take the rebuke that written law codes, as far as I know, did originate in the Fertile Cresent. I know of none from Asia or Africa that predate them.

If you have more to add-I'm a junkie for history, so keep it coming. Just as an aside, I had a soldier in my unit claim C-O status based on the Hammurabic code. Supposedly his church suscribed to such laws, but I could never verify what rules against violence in defense of the state applied. Needless to say he still is in the Army, a little less heavy on the collar.

take care-TL