February 2007
Monthly Archive
February 14, 2007
In recent months ordinary Sunnis and, to a lesser extent, Shia have fallen victim to a form of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad. Traditionally mixed neighbourhoods were uprooted as militias from the local, majority sect gave minorities their marching papers. Usually those papers read, “leave or die.” What began to emerge were largely homogenous areas, primarily Shia with a few Sunni enclaves.
The New York Times reports that now the Maliki government appears intent on taking advantage of the Bush “surge” to undo the damage:
“The Iraqi government on Tuesday ordered tens of thousands of Baghdad residents to leave homes they are occupying illegally, in a surprising and highly challenging effort to reverse the tide of sectarian cleansing that has left the capital bloodied and Balkanized.
“In a televised speech, Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, who is leading the new crackdown …said the government would break into homes and cars it deemed dangerous, open mail and eavesdrop on phone calls.
“Since the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra a year ago, the sectarian map of Baghdad has been almost completely redrawn, as Shiites pushed Sunnis from neighborhood after neighborhood.
“At least 10 formerly mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad are now almost entirely Shiite. East Baghdad, vulnerable to attack from Shiites in the Sadr City stronghold, is almost entirely under Shiite control. West Baghdad, where there are still fierce sectarian clashes, is a war zone of divided neighborhoods, where crossing from a Shiite enclave to a Sunni enclave without the right identification, or the other way around, can mean death.
“The Iraqi cabinet proposed a plan last year to create space in West Baghdad for some 3,000 Sunni families who had been displaced, but nothing came of it.
“It is impossible to know exactly how many people have been forced from their homes, but estimates by Iraqi and American officials range from tens of thousands to as high as 200,000.
“Samantha Power, a public policy professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, who has written widely on genocide, described the plan as either a public relations ploy that would never be enforced, or worse, a prelude to more sectarian cleansing and catastrophe.
“’To do this in the middle of a war when tempers have been inflamed and militarization is ubiquitous seems to be putting the cart before the horse,’ she said. ‘You haven’t stopped the willingness to ethnically cleanse, but you’re imposing the moral hazard of ethnic cleansing on the cleansee? Unless you create security first, you are paving the way for a potential massacre of returnees.’”
If there’s anything that’s been learned since the American conquest of Iraq it must be that almost nothing is ever as it seems.
February 13, 2007
There had to be something wrong with those damned fuel-efficient, pollution misers. Thank goodness we’re able to count on the blind to spot it.
“Michael Osborn, a blind marketing consultant from Laguna Beach, Calif., and his guide dog, Hastings, were in the middle of an intersection one morning last April when the yellow Lab stopped short. Mr. Osborn took the cue and halted — just in time to feel the breeze from a car passing right in front of them.
“‘Half an inch and it would have hit us … it wasn’t making any noise,’ says Mr. Osborn, 50, who has been blind for 12 years. Witnesses say the car was a Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle.
“Hybrids deliver better mileage and less pollution than traditional cars by switching between a gasoline engine and an electric motor. But when operating on the electric battery, especially when idling at a stop or running at low speeds, the engine in a hybrid is almost silent. A hybrid vehicle is generally quieter than a vacuum cleaner.
“‘I’m an environmentalist, and I’m all for quiet cars,’ says Mr. Osborn. ‘But it poses a particular problem for somebody who has no vision.'”
Maybe we should make them put sleighbells on the radio antenna.
February 13, 2007
“…an embrace of differences—in opinion, in culture, in belief, in way of life—has long been a driving force of human progress.
“During Europe’s Dark Ages, that was how the Iberian peninsula flourished, through the interaction of Muslim, Christian and Jewish traditions. Later, the Ottoman empire prospered not only because of its armies, but because it was an empire of ideas, in which Muslim art and technology were enriched by Jewish and Christian contributions.
“Some centuries later, our own globalized era is regrettably marked by rising intolerance, extremism and violence. Closer proximity and improved communications have often led not to mutual understanding and friendship but to tension and mutual mistrust. Many people, particularly in the developing world, have come to fear the global village as a cultural onslaught and an economic drain on their way of life. Globalization threatens their values as well as their wallets.
“The terror attacks of 9/11, war and turmoil in the Middle East, ill-considered words and drawings have all helped to reinforce this perception, and have inflamed tensions between different peoples and cultures. They have especially strained relations between followers of the three great monotheistic faiths.
“Demonization of the “other” has proved the path of least resistance, although healthy introspection would better serve us all. In the 21st century we remain hostage to our sense of grievance and to our feelings of entitlement. Our narratives have become our prison. Many people throughout the world, particularly Muslims, see the West as a threat to their beliefs and values, their economic interests and their political aspirations. Evidence to the contrary is just disregarded or rejected as incredible. Many in the West dismiss Islam as a religion of extremism and violence, despite a history of relations in which commerce, cooperation and cultural exchange have played at least as important a part as conflict. It is vital that we overcome these resentments. We should start by reaffirming, and demonstrating, that the problem is not the Qur’an, not the Torah, nor the Bible. The problem is never the faith; it is the faithful and how they behave towards each other.”
February 13, 2007
Peter Brooks, The Times of London
February 13, 2007
Martin Rowson, The Guardian
February 13, 2007
First it was Shell that was forced to sell out its oil venture in Russia, now BP is being forced out of its natural gas joint venture.
Russia’s environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, has put the Ango-Russian oil venture on notice to expand its production to untenable levels or forfeit their development licence to the massive Kovykta gas field.
Current production is at 33-million cubic meters per year. The company has been given an ultimatum to raise that to 9-billion cubic meters per year by May, or else.
The order, from a local branch of Russia’s environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, puts the Anglo-Russian oil group TNK-BP in an impossible position that appears designed to force it to sell its controlling stake in the $2bn (£1bn) Kovykta gas field.
“Yet industry analysts say that even if it were possible to raise production at Kovykta to 9 billion cubic metres within three months, most of the gas would have to be flared off since demand in the surrounding Siberian region of Irkutsk is just a fraction of that figure and under Russian law TNK-BP is not allowed to export gas.”
February 13, 2007
NATO forces and the Taliban are locked in a battle over the Kajaki dam in Helmand province. The Soviet-built dam houses a power station that supplies electricity to Kandahar and other southern Afghan cities.
For the past few weeks NATO troops have been skirmishing with Taliban insurgents. NATO hopes to secure the dam area so reconstruction can go ahead on the power plant and the Taliban, of course, are fighting to prevent that.
Recently NATO declared victory at Kajaki but it appears their fight is far from over. Reuters reports that 700-Taliban reinforcements have crossed over from Pakistan to carry on the fight for the dam:
“‘We have got confirmed reports that they are Pakistani, Uzbek and Chechen nationals and have sneaked in,’ Helmand Governor Asadullah Wafa told Reuters by telephone.
“Wafa said the Taliban fighters were brought in by local commanders for a joint operation with al Qaeda.
“‘They are planning to destroy the Kajaki dam,’ he said, accusing Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, ISI, of providing training and logistical support for the guerrillas.
“The Afghan government, backed by its western supporters, has launched a major effort to refurbish the dam and the power transmission network to increase its power output.”
February 13, 2007
The Washington Post has thrown in the towel on Iraq. It concludes that a victory, as defined by president Bush, the establishment of a stable, pro-American, liberal democracy in Iraq is not going to happen. In an op-ed piece, retired Lt.Gen. William E. Odom takes apart the “four myths” that prevent reality from taking hold in Congress. He notes that leaving Iraq is the most bitter tonic, one that Congress is reluctant to swallow:
“Perhaps this is not surprising. Americans do not warm to defeat or failure, and our politicians are famously reluctant to admit their own responsibility for anything resembling those un-American outcomes. So they beat around the bush, wringing hands and debating “nonbinding resolutions” that oppose the president’s plan to increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq.
“For the moment, the collision of the public’s clarity of mind, the president’s relentless pursuit of defeat and Congress’s anxiety has paralyzed us. We may be doomed to two more years of chasing the mirage of democracy in Iraq and possibly widening the war to Iran. But this is not inevitable. A Congress, or a president, prepared to quit the game of “who gets the blame” could begin to alter American strategy in ways that will vastly improve the prospects of a more stable Middle East.
“…the assumption that the United States could create a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq defies just about everything known by professional students of the topic. Of the more than 40 democracies created since World War II, fewer than 10 can be considered truly “constitutional” — meaning that their domestic order is protected by a broadly accepted rule of law, and has survived for at least a generation. None is a country with Arabic and Muslim political cultures. None has deep sectarian and ethnic fissures like those in Iraq.
“American political scientists whose business it is to know these things have been irresponsibly quiet. In the lead-up to the March 2003 invasion, neoconservative agitators shouted insults at anyone who dared to mention the many findings of academic research on how democracies evolve. They also ignored our own struggles over two centuries to create the democracy Americans enjoy today. Somehow Iraqis are now expected to create a constitutional order in a country with no conditions favoring it.
The Myth of the Aftermath of Withdrawal
“…to expect any Iraqi leader who can hold his country together to be pro-American, or to share American goals, is to abandon common sense. It took the United States more than a century to get over its hostility toward British occupation. (In 1914, a majority of the public favored supporting Germany against Britain.) Every month of the U.S. occupation, polls have recorded Iraqis’ rising animosity toward the United States.
“We are now fighting to prevent what our invasion made inevitable! Undoubtedly we will leave a mess — the mess we created, which has become worse each year we have remained.
The Myth of Countering Iranian Influence
“One of the president’s initial war aims, the creation of a democracy in Iraq, ensured increased Iranian influence, both in Iraq and the region. Electoral democracy, predictably, would put Shiite groups in power — groups supported by Iran since Saddam Hussein repressed them in 1991. Why are so many members of Congress swallowing the claim that prolonging the war is now supposed to prevent precisely what starting the war inexorably and predictably caused?
The Myth of leaving Iraq a Haven for al-Qaeda
“The longer U.S. forces have remained there, the stronger al-Qaeda has become. Yet its strength within the Kurdish and Shiite areas is trivial. After a U.S. withdrawal, it will probably play a continuing role in helping the Sunni groups against the Shiites and the Kurds. Whether such foreign elements could remain or thrive in Iraq after the resolution of civil war is open to question. Meanwhile, continuing the war will not push al-Qaeda outside Iraq. On the contrary, the American presence is the glue that holds al-Qaeda there now.
The Myth of Being Faithful to “The Troops”
“Lawmakers proclaim in grave tones a litany of problems in Iraq sufficient to justify a rapid pullout. Then they reject that logical conclusion, insisting we cannot do so because we must support the troops. Has anybody asked the troops?
“But the strangest aspect of this rationale for continuing the war is the implication that the troops are somehow responsible for deciding to continue the president’s course.”
February 13, 2007
As California goes, so goes America – or so some claim. If they’re right the backbone of the American economy, its housing market, is becoming increasingly brittle.
The LA Times reports California’s housing market has turned stagnant and cracks are starting to appear:
“There’s a lot of speculation about where the housing market is headed. Some analysts contend the shakeout is already over. Others maintain it hasn’t even begun. Dave Hennigan and the company he works for, Home Center Realty, don’t have the luxury of waiting to see how the story will play out. They need to make a living now, and they’re betting that things are going to get worse. Maybe much worse.
During the four-year boom that ended last summer, Home Center expanded from 15 agents to 80 in three offices. The roster of agents has since sunk to 52, only about half of whom are active.
“‘The rest are looking for side jobs at McDonald’s,’ said Home Center President Jason Bosch. ‘It happened overnight.’
Hennigan has found the key to survival is in tracking down those whose own financial survival is at great risk:
“In this queasy market, sales are slumping. Sellers remember the boom and want more money than they can get, while buyers feel they have unlimited time to make a decision. An agent’s best prospect for a sale is someone who must act now — a homeowner told by a lender to pay up or get out.
“These owners are in crisis. They need to refinance if they can or sell and move into something affordable. If they had an easier option, they wouldn’t be behind in their payments in the first place.
“Home Center Chief Executive Ron Barnard says that personally, he finds foreclosure sad, even tragic. ‘But as a business owner, I think it’s great.’
“The new issue of the company’s 22-page listings magazine, distributed outside supermarkets and drugstores, will tout nothing but distressed and foreclosed properties: 95 of them, many nearly new, each priced at around $250,000.
February 13, 2007
This sounds kind of strange but University of Toronto researchers claim that getting troubled kids into organized sports may actually increase their chances of becoming juvenile delinquents.
From the National Post:
“In fact, there is probably “much in common” between playing sports and deviant behaviour, including violence, confrontation and the masculine ideals of toughness, heroism and sacrifice, says the paper in the Journal of Behavioural Medicine.
“‘Perhaps some physical activity in a sporting context actually promotes what we would broadly call anti-social behaviour: cheating, maybe being aggressive,’ said Guy Faulkner, a U of T physical education professor and the study’s lead author.
“‘Look at hockey: fighting and so on. I think there are clear links between sporting activities and maybe developing less than positive attitudes.'”
Predictably, the study didn’t long go unchallenged:
“…one expert on young offenders voiced skepticism about the study, saying that, while physical activity in general may not curb juvenile crime, organized, orderly team sports can help turn around errant teens.
“‘Young males have tremendous drive and aggression. If you channel the aggression in an organized way, where you have referees, where you have coach mentors, where you have positive role figures — captains, teammates ? it gives a positive identity, it teaches you discipline,’ said Raymond Corrado, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.”
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