May 2007
Monthly Archive
May 23, 2007
Farmers in southern Iraq’s historic rice-growing region have diversified. Now they’re moving into poppy cultivation. From The Independent:
“Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.
“The shift to opium cultivation is still in its early stages but there is little the Iraqi government can do about it because rival Shia militias and their surrogates in the security forces control Diwaniya and its neighbourhood. There have been bloody clashes between militiamen, police, Iraqi army and US forces in the city over the past two months.
“There has been an upsurge in violence not only in Diwaniya but in Basra, Nassariyah, Kut and other Shia cities of southern Iraq over the past 10 days. It receives limited attention outside Iraq because it has nothing to do with the fighting between the Sunni insurgents and US forces further north or the civil war between Shia and Sunni in Baghdad and central Iraq. The violence is also taking place in provinces that are too dangerous for journalists to visit. Aside from Basra, few foreign soldiers are killed.
“The fighting is between rival Shia parties and militias, notably the Mehdi Army, who support the anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr Organisation – the military wing of the recently renamed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). In many, though not all, areas of southern Iraq, the latter group controls the police.
“The intra-militia violence in southern Iraq is essentially over control of profitable resources and the establishment of power bases. According to one report the violence in Diwaniya has been escalating for two months and was initially motivated by rivalry over control of opium production but soon widened into a general turf war.”
May 23, 2007
It came from the mouth of the man himself. We’re not done, no way near done. That’s how Stephen Harper described “the mission” to a gaggle of garrison troops in Kandahar. He made it plain that, if he has anything to say about it, Canadian troops can expect to be in Afghanistan for years to come.
Harper told the troops their work isn’t done. I doubt he’d get many arguments on that point, in Afghanistan or Canada. What he didn’t let us in on, however, is just exactly what their “work” is and how much of that work remains undone. That’s the beauty of Bush’s Global War Without End on Terror, it’s endless. You can claim victory simply by refusing to admit failure but, then again, that cuts both ways.
Just what is “victory” in Afghanistan supposed to look like? I don’t know, do you? Is it a matter of bringing an end to the current insurgency (and I’m only talking here about the one involving the Taliban)? Is it the establishment of a Western-style, secular democracy? Is it Pashtun, Baloch, Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara living peacefully, arm in arm? Is it the establishment of genuine civil liberties for women and children? Is it the creation of a viable economy to end Afghanistan’s narco-economy? Is it all of these things? What is “victory” in Afghanistan?
Once we get a handle on the main question we can begin to devise metrics. How much of the job have we accomplished over the past six years? Are we 20% of the way there? How much progress are we making at the moment? What is an appropriate amount of time to achieve victory in Afghanistan?
Once we’ve defined the task and a target timeframe we need to assess whether we have deployed the forces we need to meet it. Is 2,500 enough? C’mon, get real. Do we need 10,000 or 15,000 or perhaps more? Without a large enough force, is everything else just optics, window dressing?
Are we in Afghanistan for a decade or two or three? Can we turn our back on the rest of the world where we’re needed for that long? How do we justify that?
What will the insurgency in Afghanistan look like if the Americans leave Iraq? Will Canadian troops find themselves in the crosshairs of a fresh batch of Islamists hatched out of the Iraq fiasco?
Notice how few of these questions ever get asked, much less answered? To ask them is to reveal that we have no answers.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – Harper Style.
May 23, 2007
Now if you think you know all you need to know about global warming from Exxon or Lennie Asper and the NatPo, then move along, nothing to see here.
If, however, you really want to learn about the problem or even just expand or update your knowledge, here’s a site that has links where you’ll find everything (or almost everything):
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=448
May 22, 2007
What happened to NATO? For half a century there was a clear purpose to the military alliance. It was intended to safeguard Europe from being overrun by masses of Soviet tanks. Oh sure, the mutual defence of North America was in there too, sort of, wink, wink.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was, as the name suggests, an alliance of Western nations on both sides of the Atlantic. The members’ land and air forces kept Western Europe viable while their naval forces maintained the North Atlantic sea lanes.
The US was always the senior partner in NATO. It had most of the guns and most of the planes and most of the ships but, then again, it also had the most to gain or lose.
Despite de Gaulle and lesser irritants, NATO more or less sailed smoothly through the close of the 20th Century until those pesky Soviets folded up and closed shop. The music stopped, the dance ended and no one was quite sure what to do next. The North Atlantic suddenly seemed very quiet, even dull.
Along comes 11 September, 2001 and the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. Get the horses harnessed up, boys, we’re going to a fire! Everyone threw on his best pants and raced toward the sound of the guns, except there was no gunfire.
Even though the United States had suffered an attack that was much more a criminal act than an act of war, no one wanted to bother with petty details. Instead we all invoked Article 5 and raced off in mutual defence of a member under attack. That was almost six years ago. Where have we come in the meantime? The answer isn’t encouraging.
NATO started fraying from the outset. Some members were eager to come to America’s aid, others were hesitant. Still, everything probably would have worked out well enough except that Bush decided to parlay his strength into an illegal, ill-conceived and incompetently executed war in Iraq that was doomed to wind up where it stands today – a mess.
Instead of going to aid America by taking the battle to al-Qaeda, NATO is now backed into something much more grandiose and futile. We’re part and parcel of a frat boy’s fun scheme to reshape the Middle East. The illusion that (a) we’re only in Afghanistan and (b) our presence there isn’t an essential part of Bush’s greater Middle East fiasco is sheer fantasy.
Bush erased all doubts when he told the NATO Secretary General this weekend that the alliance should play a much bigger role in the “war on terror.” Now, let’s see. That would be George Walker Bush’s war on terror, his Global War Without End on Terror, Amen. That would be the very same war that this cretin has incompetently waged for six years now without accomplishing anything except to leave global security in tatters and the world a much more dangerous place.
This is like the falling-down drunk behind the wheel of the schoolbus asking you to put your kids aboard.
No, it’s better for NATO to have no defined role even if it means an end to the alliance than to transform it into some multi-national foreign legion to be commanded by that dimwit in Washington. The American people wouldn’t follow this clown into another adventure, why should we send our young people to sacrifice their lives in his ill-conceived causes?
May 22, 2007
We’ve already found Harpo. Is Hamid the long lost Groucho? That must mean Chico’s running around the Oval Office.
May 22, 2007
You’ll know when conditions in Afghanistan (and Iraq for that matter) have really turned around. It’ll be the day when politicians like Harpo no longer have to skulk in on “surprise” visits. Let’s face it, the people Stevie is trying to take by surprise are those he figures have a good enough chance to blow his smug ass out of the air before he can set foot in Kandahar if word leaks out. They’re the bad guys and we can’t give Steve enough protection against them that he can fly in announced.
So, anyway, just how are things going in Afghanistan? Well, if you read today’s National Post, we’ve all but won. The Taliban are a “spent force” in Kandahar, all but finished. Uh, sure, okay.
How ’bout that pinnacle of Afghanistan’s liberation, its parliament or Loya Jirga? Some snags there, one of them being outspoken female MP, Malalai Joya. Isn’t that typical. Give a woman a seat in parliament and she still won’t do as she’s told! This uppity female has been a real pain to the men in parliament. They’ve pelted her with water bottles, even lustilly joined together to call for her to be raped. They tried to off her a couple of times (okay, so it was four times). Did she get the message? NO she di’int!
But now Malalai has really torn it. She had the nerve to call the parliament “worse than a zoo.” The gall! Well it didn’t take long for the menfolk to sort out this nonsense. They voted (overwhelmingly I might add) to suspend her from parliament for the balance of her 5-year term.
“Most of Ms Joya’s campaigning has been about women’s rights, which have been severely eroded after initial gains made with the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Women activists, including the highest-ranking official dealing with female empowerment, Safia Amajan, have been murdered.
“Ms Joya said: ‘Talking about women’s rights in Afghanistan is a joke. There really have not been any fundamental changes, the Taliban were driven off by the Americans and the British but then they were allowed to be replaced by warlords who also simply cannot see women as equals.’
“She added: ‘Those of us who speak up are targets. My friends and colleagues have been assassinated. They have tried to kill me four times, the last attack was in Kabul which is the capital of this country which is supposed to be secure and democratic. And then if you try to speak up in parliament their first reaction is to try to gag you.'”
Hey, Harpo’s over there. Karzai even turned out to greet him. Why doesn’t Little Stevie sort this out. After all, he’s a champion of democracy and women’s rights, right?
May 22, 2007
This is nap time for the Flat Earth Society. Just go play quietly in the corner.
For those, however, who don’t feel like drinking the Exxon Kool Aid, there’s word that we’re actually emitting more CO2 faster today than just a few years back – a lot more. Now, it’s not me. I’m cutting my emissions a lot. That means it has to be you. So, I’ll say it right now, shame on you.
It seems our mankind is actually slipping backwards on GHG emissions. A report in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, indicates that greenhouse gas emissions rose substantially during the 2000-2004, much faster than what was assumed by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in coming to the findings in their recent reports.
How much? According to the report in The Guardian, GHGs went up 1.1% annually during the 1990’s. During the first four years of this decade, the annual rate of GHG increase shot up to 3.1%.
“The research noted a reversal of the trend towards greater energy efficiency and lower carbon working seen in the 1990s.
“‘The trends relating energy to economic growth are definitely headed in the wrong direction,’ said Chris Field, one of the authors of the report and director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology.
“‘Despite the scientific consensus that carbon emissions are affecting the world’s climate, we are not seeing evidence of progress in managing those emissions in either the developed or developing countries. In many parts of the world, we are going backwards.’
“The American, British, Australian and French scientists behind the study found that the acceleration of carbon dioxide emissions was greatest in the rapidly expanding economies of developing countries, particularly China.
“In 2004, 73% of the growth in global emissions came from developing economies, which comprise 80% of the world’s population. However, when the scientists looked at total emissions for the year, they found developed countries, including the former Soviet Union, contributed about 60%.”
May 22, 2007
Now consider the source. Ask yourself: a) whether any party has an obvious benefit to be had from this account, and; b) whether that party and the source are one and the same.
The source: the United States. The story: Iran is planning on allying with al-Qaeda and Sunni Iraqis to help force America out of Iraq.
A “senior US official in Baghdad” tells The Guardian that “…US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran’s Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat. ‘We expect that al-Qaida and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus’s report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush’s controversial, six-month security “surge” of 30,000 troop reinforcements].'”
“US officials now say they have firm evidence that Tehran has switched tack as it senses a chance of victory in Iraq. In a parallel development, they say they also have proof that Iran has reversed its previous policy in Afghanistan and is now supporting and supplying the Taliban’s campaign against US, British and other Nato forces.
“Tehran’s strategy to discredit the US surge and foment a decisive congressional revolt against Mr Bush is national in scope and not confined to the Shia south, its traditional sphere of influence, the senior official in Baghdad said. It included stepped-up coordination with Shia militias such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Jaish al-Mahdi as well as Syrian-backed Sunni Arab groups and al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, he added. Iran was also expanding contacts across the board with paramilitary forces and political groups, including Kurdish parties such as the PUK, a US ally.”
So, there you have it. The already failed “Surge” now can be passed off as something other than a failure. Just point a finger at Iran. Come to think of it, with a good bit of spin, the “Surge” might even work as a shoehorn to expand this glorious war to Iran itself. Think of the possibilities! Hell, how is America supposed to win in Iraq with one hand tied behind its back? This drama is straight out of Saigon 30-years ago. Hey, isn’t that plagiarism?
May 20, 2007
The Republican Party has mutated into a party of America’s Deep South. That’s where the core of its support is to be found and that accounts for why slime like Tom Delay, Trent Lott and George W. Bush ascend to become its leaders.
The Republican Party isn’t an overtly white supremacist organization but, these days, that sort of thing really isn’t necessary. There are plenty of ways to reach the same objectives and smile at the cameras at the same time.
Now the Deep South and racism are about as well linked as fried chicken and hot oil. If you don’t understand the connection you might as well get straight back to whatever planet you just came from. The Deep South has evolved similar bonds to Christian fundamentalism and to the Republican Party.
The history of Christian fundamentalism and racism (at least if you think slavery is a form of racism) goes way back. In his book, American Fascists, author Chris Hedges records how the anti-slavery fundamentalist movement utterly reversed itself when it saw an opportunity to flourish in the pre-Civil War era south. In his early years even the late Uber-Kristian, Jerry Falwell, refused to perform mixed marriages and until only recently Bob Jones University forbad mixed race dating. We’re talking real Kristian Krackers here folks.
The Republicans knew a good thing when they saw it – and they saw it when Democratic President Lyndon Johnson enacted civil rights legislation that cut off southern discrimination loopholes. Republicans, Rednecks, Racists and Radical Christians – how far off can the Rapture really be?
Now Bob Jones University got caught red-handed and ran for cover but, c’mon folks, does anyone really believe this Southern Redneck/Fundamentalist/Republican racism problem has gone away? And no, don’t go asking a bunch of Southern redneck fundamentalist Republicans, no fair.
If you really have any doubts, try to swing by the courthouse in Jena, Louisiana this week. If you yearn for the “good old days”, tomorrow marks the start of a race trial that, as reported in The Guardian, really fits the bill:
“Jena is gaining national notoriety as an example of the new ‘stealth’ racism, showing how lightly sleep the demons of racial prejudice in America’s Deep South, even in the year that a black man, Barak Obama, is a serious candidate for the White House.
“It began in Jena’s high school last August when Kenneth Purvis asked the headteacher if black students could break with a long-held tradition and join the whites who sit under the tree in the school courtyard during breaks. The boy was told that he and his friends could sit where they liked.
“The following morning white students had hung three nooses there. ‘Bad taste, silly, but just a prank,’ was the response of most of Jena’s whites.
“‘To us those nooses meant the KKK [Ku Klux Klan], they meant, “Niggers, we’re going to kill you, we’re going to hang you till you die,”‘ says Caseptla Bailey, a black community leader and mother of one of the accused. The three white perpetrators of what was seen as a race hate crime were given ‘in-school’ suspensions (sent to another school for a few days before returning).
“Jena’s major industry is growing and marketing junk pine. Walk down the usually deserted main street and you will not find many black employees. Bailey, 56, is a former air force officer and holder of a business management degree. ‘I couldn’t even get a job in Jena as a bank teller,’ she said. ‘Look at the banks and the best white-collar jobs and you’ll see only white and red necks in those collars.’
“Billy Doughty, the local barber, has never cut black men’s hair. ‘They just don’t come here,’ he mumbled. ‘Anyway, their hair is different and difficult to cut.’
“The majority of blacks live in an area known as Ward 10. Many homes are trailers, or wooden shacks. Rubbish lies in the streets. On ‘Snob Hill’, where the whites live, the spacious gardens and lawns are trimmed, the gravelled drives boast SUVs and nice new saloons. Only two black families live there. A teacher from Jena High had enough money to buy his way in. But when he arrived local estate agents refused to show him a ‘white’ property even though several were advertised in the local paper (‘they’re all under contract,’ the agents lied). The teacher eventually went to see one white owner and offered him cash. ‘The guy preferred green [dollars] to black, so I got the property,’ laughed the teacher, ‘but since we moved in three years ago we haven’t been invited by a single neighbour.’
“On 30 November, someone tried to burn Jena High to the ground. The crime remains unsolved. That same weekend race fights between teenagers broke out downtown, and on 4 December racial tension boiled over once more in the school. A white student, Justin Barker, was attacked, allegedly by six black students.
“The expected charges of assault and battery were not laid, and the six were charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. They now face a lifetime in jail.
“Barker spent the evening of the assault at the local Baptist church, where he was seen by friends to be ‘his usual smiling self’.
“Nine days later, with the case technically sub judice, the District Attorney made the following public statement to the local paper: ‘I will not tolerate this type of behaviour. To those who act in this manner I tell you that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and with the harshest crimes that the facts justify. When you are convicted I will seek the maximum penalty allowed by law. I will see to it that you never again menace the students at any school in this parish.’
“Bail for the impoverished students was set absurdly high, and most have been held in custody. The town’s mind seems to be made up.”
Hurricane Katrina tore the roof off the illusion of Southern equality and the trial of the Jena Six proclaims that the vilest forms of Southern racism are alive and well. Their hatred and intolerance are the powerful fuel of the emerging political right.
May 19, 2007
General Rick Hillier has been responsible for setting the new tone of Canada’s armed forces – tough, macho, trained killers – and he’s starting to reap the rewards of his juvenile claptrap.
The proof of this particular pudding is in the type of young person now trying to enlist in Canada’s military. A study of the recent recruits has found an increasing number “…are prone to displaying traits of social disobedience, intolerance toward ethnic groups and being fatalistic.”
The Toronto Star reports, “A profile drawn up in the study shows that today’s average potential military recruit is ‘proud and intense,’ a ‘crude hedonist’ and drawn to transgressive behaviour – or breaking the rules. Potential recruits are also driven by the need for social status and ‘to belong,’ and feel a lack of confidence in the future.”
“The potential recruits tend to show an affinity for social Darwinism, characterized by the view that only the strongest members of society will survive. Violence and sex are also prominent interests associated with potential soldiers, according to the study, by Montreal-based polling firm CROP Inc.
“This contrasts, the study says, with those already enrolled in the army, who have upstanding qualities, including a commitment to duty and ethical concerns. They also seek enriching experiences and have a capacity to deal with uncertainty.
“The new report says the standing of the Canadian Forces has clearly risen since the Somalia scandal, thanks to a general alignment between military values and Canadian values.
“It found that Canadians are becoming more deferential to authority and more receptive to the need for strong homeland security, law and order and national pride.”
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