February 2007
Monthly Archive
February 13, 2007
This is a story that’s been simmering on the back burner for quite a while. When we think of foreigners meddling in the affairs of Afghanistan we naturally think of Pakistan to the east. We don’t tend to hear too much about western Afghanistan where it borders – Iran.
Iran, by contrast, has American forces on its eastern border in Afghanistan and on its western border in Iraq. Given all the sabre rattling coming out of Washington lately that has to feel a bit uncomfortable for the boys in Tehran.
As the Globe and Mail reports, Iran’s alliances in Afghanistan appear to be shifting:
“Nearly every Afghan politician criticizes Pakistan for stoking the Taliban insurgency, but they’re divided about Iran. Some describe their neighbour as exerting only political and commercial influence, broadcasting anti-American radio and TV programs and using predatory business practices to gain control over parts of the Afghan economy.
“‘They are meddling, for sure,’ a senior Kabul politician said. ‘But for now, we can’t say they are interfering in the military aspect.’ In Kandahar, another politician said he believes that Iran supports the Ishaqzai tribal faction within the Taliban. The Afghan politician said he recently met with an Iranian official and challenged him about the rumours, which produced only a shrug from the Iranian.
“‘He said, ‘What should we do? If we knew that the United States would behave like this, we would not have opposed the Taliban at first,’ ” the politician said.
“Support for the Taliban would be a major reversal for the Shia government in Iran, which nearly went to war with the Sunni Taliban regime over the killing of seven Iranian diplomats in 1998. Iran continued to give weapons and other assistance to the Taliban’s enemies in northern Afghanistan until the regime was overthrown.
There is a lot of speculation lately that Iran may be about to shift its support away from Karzai to the Taliban, the typical “my enemy’s enemy” business. This could open up another front for the insurgency and another headache for the United States and NATO.
February 13, 2007
Thomas Walkom, writing in today’s Toronto Star, castigates the Senate defence committee for issuing a report that fails to say what it screams when read between the lines: that Canada’s “mission” to Afghanistan isn’t going to succeed.
The problem isn’t with the Canadian soldiers over there. They’ve proven themselves courageous and dedicated. It’s that there aren’t nearly enough of them over there, especially not enough over there from other NATO members.
It’s that Afghanistan is a medieval society that has no interest in transforming itself into a Western-style democracy.
It’s that the government of Hamid Karzai, the one we’re propping up, the one our soldiers are fighting and dying for, “routinely shakes down its own citizens. Its army and police are, in the words of committee chair Colin Kenny, ‘corrupt and corrupter.'”
The report asks whether Canadians are, “…willing to commit themselves to decades of involvement in Afghanistan, which could cost hundreds of Canadians lives and billions of dollars, with no guarantee of ending up with anything like the kind of society that makes sense to us? If we aren’t willing to hang in for the long haul, what will have been the point of five years of Canadian lives and Canadian money disappearing?”
“To ask these questions is to answer them. Most Canadians will not agree to a war that takes decades to prosecute yet produces no results. And if, as the senators conclude, this is the prognosis, then the last five years of Canadian involvement – and Canadian deaths – have been pointless.”
So where does this leave us? In my view, we have done our post 9/11 bit for the United States. The reason we’re still in Afghanistan is because the US stupidly drained off its fighting force to wage a war of whim in Iraq. Every day our soldiers go into battle, they’re paying for George Bush’s duplicity.
We have done our job as babysitters in Kandahar while the Americans went out for their night on the town in Baghdad. Time for them to come home and take care of their own kids just like any responsible parents. This babysitter, Canada, needs to go home too.
February 13, 2007
It was probably wishful thinking to hope for more. Still, there appears to be some sort of agreement with North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme.
Our side says that NK has agreed to shut down its main reactor and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons programme. North Korea, on the other hand, says the agreement only mandates a temporary suspension of its facilities. The New York Times reports there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical:
“Making sure North Korea declares all its nuclear facilities and shuts them down is likely to prove difficult, nuclear experts have said.
“The country has sidestepped previous agreements, allegedly running a uranium-based weapons program even as it froze a plutonium-based one — sparking the latest nuclear crisis in late 2002. There are believed to be countless mountainside tunnels in which to hide projects.”
The core of the agreement would see up to a million tons of oil given to North Korea if it meets all of its committments. The problem is that North Korea’s promises of compliance are no stronger than the word of its dictator, Kim Jung Il, and everyone has seen what that’s worth.
February 13, 2007
Posted by MoS under
Bush,
Iran,
war
[2] Comments
The credibility of the Bush White House has all but tanked. After its Iraq scam, details of which are continuing to emerge almost five years later, the Bush administration isn’t getting the benefit of the doubt on its intelligence claims about Iran.
The problem is that, having lied so outrageously to so many in the run up to the conquest of Iraq, the Bushies are now relying on circumstantial evidence to support assumptions that allow it to allege that senior Iranian officials are providing weapons to groups in Iraq to use against American soldiers. It’s like saying, “here’s a grenade, it was made in Iran, so we want you to assume that it was sent to Iraq by the president Ahmadinejad in order that it could be tossed at American soldiers.”
If they have nothing else going for them, Bush/Cheney have a completely shameless audacity. On Iraq they produced intelligence – twisted, stretched, manipulated, sometimes even fabricated, but intelligence – while for Iran they’re not even claiming they’ve got intelligence, they just want people to rely on thin assumptions instead. Even their top general won’t back them up on this one.
The worrisome part is that this chicanery suggests that Bush is intent on attacking Iran no matter what. He has to come up with some justification but he can’t so he’s willing to manufacture some. This is what we get as the “Leader of the Free World?”
February 13, 2007
There’s a problem with the latest claim that the US military has evidence that Iranians at the highest levels are sending weaponry to Iraq for use against American soldiers. The problem is Peter Pace, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace.
From the McClatchy news service:
“Asked about the briefing during a visit Monday to Canberra, Australia, Pace said he couldn’t substantiate the assertion that the clerical regime in Tehran is shipping such devices to Shiite militias in Iraq.
“‘We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government per se knows about this,’ Pace replied. ‘It is clear that Iranians are involved and it is clear that materials from Iran are involved. But I would not say based on what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.’
“Neither the White House nor the Pentagon responded to requests for an explanation of the apparent contradiction between the nation’s highest-ranking military officer and his subordinates in Baghdad.
Careful Pete. Remember you can be replaced. Never forget that Cheney likes his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to be a complete stooge like that sycophant Meyers.
February 13, 2007
George Bush has just thrown down his 2008 budget proposal and he’s actually going to decrease funding for education and health care. This from a guy who is squandering $10-billion in borrowed money each and every month on a war of whim in the Middle East while slashing taxes for the most well-off at home.
Incredible. Absolutely astonishing. Isn’t anyone down there going to storm the Bastille?
February 13, 2007
Posted by MoS under
Bush,
Iran,
war
[4] Comments
The White House is spoiling for a fight, this time with Iran. They’re making all the noises that preceded the illegal conquest of Iraq. Iran, we’re told, is a threat to the world. It was, after all, pronounced a full member of the Axis of Evil by George W. Bush hisself – case closed.
Now there’s the business about Iran arming Iraqi Shiite militias. A real threat if there ever was one. But wait, they’re the bunch that go after the Sunni insurgents, the other bunch, the group that actually does target American soldiers, the guys who get their support from Saudi Arabia. Why isn’t Bush bombing the living hell out of Riyadh? I guess that’s because the House of Saud and the House of Bush are bosom buddies, eh?
To stir things up, Mr. Bush has now ordered a third, carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf. Three fleet carriers is pretty much unprecedented and observers have noted that on every occassion US carriers have deployed to the Gulf, save one, there’s been combat. So, judging by past experience and the deployment of three carrier battle groups, the odds are better than even that the Bush/Cheney regime has already made its mind up to attack.
Hillary Mann, the former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf affairs warns of what’s coming, “They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something (the United States) would be forced to retaliate for.”
Paul Krugman, writing in today’s New York Times, says the White House has already got its intelligence cooker turned up high. He points out that Abram Shulsky, the guy who headed Rumsfeld’s intelligence warper on Iraq, is now back in business heading the Pentagon’s Iran directorate. Let’s see – the guy put in charge of gaming the Iraq intelligence, instead of being fired in disgrace, is now assembling the Iran intelligence. What does that sound like?
Krugman also sees a reason for keying so much attention to Iranian ordinance found in Iraq and tying it to the deaths of US soldiers. Bush isn’t about to get Congressional authorization to launch a war against Iran, simply ain’t going to happen. But, if he can “earmark” the attacks as just part of the already authorized Iraq war then he can claim he doesn’t need the approval of Congress.
Is attacking Iran stupid? No more stupid than invading Iraq.
February 12, 2007
What a stupid thing to say. What makes it worse is that it came out of Cairo, not the lunatics in Tehran.
The Associated Press reports that a lot of heated talk occured when Egyptian MPs criticized Israeli excavations near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
“‘That cursed Israel is trying to destroy al-Aqsa mosque,’ Mohammed el-Katatny of President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) told a heated parliament session held to discuss the Israeli digging.
“‘Nothing will work with Israel except for a nuclear bomb that wipes it out of existence,’ he said.”
Israel and Egypt supposedly buried the hatchet by signing a peace treaty in 1979 but many Egyptians still see Israel as their main enemy because of the Palestinian question.
“‘The war with Israel is still ongoing whether we like it or not,’ NDP lawmaker Khalifa Radwan said.
“Mohamed Amer, another ruling party member, said: ‘What this [Israeli] gang is doing makes me demand that we trample over all the agreements we signed.'”
Oh dear.
February 12, 2007
His country is in ruin, on the verge of total collapse. The highest inflation in the world drives a hopelessly inept government to keep printing furiously devaluing currency. Teachers who don’t go to work because their salary no longer even covers bus fare. Key civil servants who get regular raises that are wiped out by inflation in just weeks. Hospitals shut down, sanitation systems broken down, cholera outbreaks spreading. Even soldiers who go hungry.
How does Robert Mugabe cling to power in the midst of this chaos? According to The Telegraph, Mugabe is becoming increasingly reliant on plain, old fashioned graft:
“But the economic collapse has created opportunities for the corrupt elite around Mr Mugabe, who have already benefited from the seizure of white-owned farms.
“Senior figures in the ruling Zanu-PF party can buy US dollars from the Reserve Bank at the meaningless official exchange rate – and then sell them on the parallel market at a 2,000 per cent profit. They can buy fuel from the state at one twelfth of the market price. This gives a powerful core of Zanu-PF figures a vested interest in keeping Mr Mugabe in power.
“The president, who turns 83 later this month, gambles that by keeping this wealthy handful happy, he can survive the economic collapse and extend his 27-year rule.”
February 12, 2007
How about a home computer that worked like hundreds, possibly even a thousand computers networked together? Your very own super-computer.
Intel says that could be only five years away. The company has demonstrated a prototype chip with 80 separate processing engines, or cores, that may lead to the development of similar chips for mainstream computers.
“During a briefing last week, Nitin Borkar, one of the chip’s designers, showed an air-cooled computer based on the chip running a simple scientific calculation at speeds above 1 trillion mathematical calculations a second.
“Such computing power matches the performance speed of the world’s fastest supercomputer of just a decade ago. However, Intel acknowledged that the experimental chip was not a complete system necessary to do real computing work.”
“‘If we can figure out how to program thousands of cores on a chip, the future looks rosy,’ said David Patterson, a University of California, Berkeley, computer scientist who is a co-author of one of the standard textbooks on microprocessor design. ‘If we can’t figure it out, then things look dark.'”
« Previous Page — Next Page »
The Mound of Sound 