The Rude Pundit has much to say about the wackiness and “freedom” of the new Iraqi constitution. Can you say “theocracy?”

Article 17, Part 1 reads: “Each person has the right to personal privacy as long as it does not violate the rights of others or general morality.” Article 36 says that freedoms of “expressing opinion by all means,” “of press, publishing, media, and distribution,” and “assembly and peaceful protest” are guaranteed “as long as it does not violate public order and morality.” And in that one word, “morality,” the hopes of a free and open and democratic Iraq are as dead as the soldiers falling there as this is written. […] In the end, banning offenses to “morality” means, simply, “we own you.” Quite a democratic document there, even if it only succeeds in starting a civil war, plunging the region into chaos. Yep, it’s worth a few thousand more lives to make sure morality is enforced, right?

If you think about it, it sorta reads like what the right wingnuts here would like OUR Constitution to say. The lack of actual unfettered rights and the supremacy of Islam make it abundantly clear that “freedom” isn’t exactly going to be the order of the day even if Iraq doesn’t collapse into a lawless failed state as soon as our troops come home.