August 2008
Monthly Archive
August 28, 2008
Have you ever wondered why the weather so often turns lousy just in time for the weekend? It’s a great annoyance to the Monday to Friday crowd who see blue skies while they’re on the job and rain clouds when they’re not.
Here in the south coastal area of British Columbia, last summer seemed to be a steady pattern of rainy weekends. It was more than just noticeable.
Spanish researchers claim to have found evidence that, in some parts of Europe at least, the weather really does follow a weekly pattern which they claim may be man-made. The team studied Spanish data from 1961 to 2004. Their analysis suggests that weekday work activity generates far more air pollution that drops sharply on weekends. This, in turn, causes changes in air circulation that result in rainier weekends. Or at least that’s the theory.
Out here we know a thing or three about rain. We get to study it steadily from November to May, year in and year out. We know there are a lot of sources of rain. El Nino, La Nina, and the Pineapple Express come to mind. Still, an urban link to weekly precipitation patters would be pretty interesting.
August 27, 2008
With several weeks remaining in the summer melt season, Arctic Ocean ice has already reached the second-lowest known level. Scientists find the degree of melt surprising given that we’ve had a relatively cold summer. The record melt happened last summer.
Arctic sea ice melting typically slows by now but this year the decline has remained steady. From The Star:
“It’s an unfortunate sign that climate change is coming rapidly to the Arctic and that we really need to address the issue of global warming on a national level,” said Christopher Krenz, Arctic project manager for Oceana.
“This is not surprising but it is alarming,” said Deborah Williams, a former Interior Department special assistant for Alaska. “This was a relatively cool summer, and to have ice decrease to the second lowest minimum on record demonstrates that global warming’s ongoing impact is profound.”
August 27, 2008
The Taliban are gradually retaking Kandahar City, the capital of Kandahar province, Canada’s remit under the NATO-led, International Security Assistance Force, ISAF.
The map above shows you the districts of Kandahar province, a couple of which you may find familiar – Panjwai and Spin Boldak. That’s where Canada’s combat troops seem to do the lion’s share of their fighting. The other districts you might never heard of before but, then again, there are some pretty big areas of Kandahar province where we don’t maintain a presence because we’re so grossly understrength.
In June the Taliban launched a stunning attack on Kandahar’s prison, killing the guards and freeing about 900-prisoners including about 350-Taliban. The impact of that hit and run raid is still being felt among the people of Kandahar City.
>The New York Times reports that, since June, confidence in the Karazi government has cratered:
“The prison break, on June 13, was a spectacular propaganda coup for the Taliban not only in freeing their comrades and flaunting their strength, but also in exposing the catastrophic weakness of the Afghan government, its army and the police, as well as the international forces trying to secure Kandahar.
In the weeks since the prison break, security has further deteriorated in this southern Afghan city, once the de facto capital of the Taliban, that has become a renewed front line in the battle against the radical Islamist movement. The failure of the American-backed Afghan government to protect Kandahar has rippled across the rest of the country and complicated the task of NATO forces, which have suffered more deaths here this year than at any time since the 2001 invasion.
A rising chorus of complaints equally scathing about the failings of the government can be heard around the country. The collapsing confidence in the government of President Hamid Karzai is so serious that if the Taliban had wanted to, they could have seized control of the city of Kandahar on the night of the prison break, one Western diplomat in Kabul said.
The only reason they did not was they did not expect the government and the NATO reaction to be so weak, he said.
In fact, interviews with local officials and other people here who witnessed the bold prison break and its aftermath show that the level of government organization and security was woefully inadequate around what was clearly a high-priority target for the Taliban.
There were only 10 guards at the prison that night and about 1,400 inmates, said Col. Abdullah Bawar, the new head of the prison. In the immediate aftermath of the prison break, terrified local residents closed their shops and the town was silent for days as people braced themselves for more violence, including a possible attack on the city.
“We don’t know exactly if the Taliban is powerful, we have heard that,” said Gul Muhammad, 35, a shopkeeper who witnessed the assault on the prison and was even thrown off his feet by the blast. “But when we see this kind of attack, it seems they are very powerful.”
Haji Muhammad Musa Hotak, a member of Parliament from Wardak Province, near the capital, Kabul, warned that the gap between the people and the government had grown dire.
So wide is it, in fact, the situation reminds him of the end of the Communist era, when support for the government of the Soviet-backed president, Najibullah, began collapsing under the onslaught of the mujahedeen, who had waged a 13-year resistance in the name of Islam against successive Communist rulers.
The Taliban attack has also shaken local confidence in the international forces here and exposed the difficult situation of the understaffed Canadian troops in Kandahar, who have lost 90 soldiers in the last two and a half years in the province trying to contain an increasingly virulent Taliban insurgency.
On the night of the prison break, Canadian troops based in the town as part of the NATO-led international Security Assistance Force were busy dealing with a number of roadside bombs planted, apparently in a coordinated plan to divert the attention of security forces from the attack.
The failings make people wonder what the foreign troops are really doing in Afghanistan, said Mr. Daoud, the shopkeeper. “The Canadians are here, but things are getting worse and worse.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/world/asia/27kandahar.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
The core threat in this is in the loss of popular support for the central government. That lies at the heart of any insurgent’s strategy. Undermine confidence in the government and its forces and you can cause popular support for the government to collapse. Once the government loses the support of its people, the counterinsurgency forces defending the government come to be seen, not as protectors, but as oppressors unnecessarily dragging out their war and inflicting suffering on the people.
Incidents like the weekend’s American air bombardment said, by the Karzai government, UN observers, the provincial governor and the locals to have killed some 90-civilians, 60 of them children, acquire the significance of the Boston Massacre. Like the mythical Boston Massacre, it’s a great propaganda tool for the insurgency, one that has legs and traction.
Our military support is crucial to the Kabul government but more important is the support of the Afghan people. Once popular support is lost our troops become not the defenders of the people but the bodyguards of the Karzai government.
And this reveals where trying to fight a military war in response to the insurgents’ political war is all but doomed to failure. The Taliban can’t engage us in a military showdown. They don’t have the numbers. They don’t have the weaponry. They can, however, undermine their rival political force, the central government, by inflicting a thousand small cuts that the military force is powerless to prevent. An ineffective government coupled with government corruption, the drug barons, the warlords – all of these things work in favour of the insurgency. Helicopter gunships and Leopard tanks are irrelevant to this.
Kandahar City isn’t an isolated case. Many reports over the past few months reveal that the Taliban are closing in on Kabul. They won’t try to capture Kabul but they don’t have to. They merely need to cut the vulnerable ring road, surround the city and choke off its communications, transportation and trade routes.
What about the time factor? That, too, is on the insurgents’ side. They know that Westerners expect to see tangible victories and that their patience for results is limited. When their forces spend years fighting an unwinnable war and steadily lose ground, people at home want an end to it. Algeria, French IndoChina, Vietnam, and Afghanistan under the Soviets stand as examples of what tends to happen.
August 25, 2008
Polls show that the great majority of Canadians today get the idea of global warming.
Those that do, want something done about it even if they can’t really grasp what that something is.
Those who want something done to arrest global warming want that something done in time even if they’re unsure how much time we have to get that something done.
Read about global warming and associated climate change and you’re bound to hear of “tipping points,” which are points at which global warming and its spillover effects will be unstoppable.
Now, as I see it, it comes down to a question of which tipping point arrives first; the human tipping point or the climatic tipping point. We’d better hope it’s the human tipping point and hope that we reach it in time.
What’s the “human tipping point?” Consider it the point at which enough consensus exists to make effective global warming solutions not only possible but imperative. The point at which a sufficient majority of our species demands action that they cannot be ignored by our leaders or overwhelmed in nonsense by the denialists.
We’ll likely reach that human tipping point when enough of us understand that we can change our world and that if we don’t change, our world will change us all on its own.
If we don’t reach our tipping point before the earth reaches one or more of its climatic tipping points we may find ourselves playing catch up ball for the survival of our species.
It has gradually become apparent that meeting this challenge may be in the hands of mankind, not our governments. I’m not sure there are enough governments capable of acknowledging and taking independent action if only to persuade and cajole holdouts into coming on side. Some nations have to start this and, so far, it’s been a pretty piecemeal, muddled effort. That’s in part because there are inevitable economic side effects of action. There are downsides. The trade off is limited downsides voluntarily sustained now or far greater downsides involuntarily sustained later.
Governments gave up posterity as a quaint and obsolete notion a long time ago and, in doing that, they deprived us of the mindset we require to tackle global warming. You see, respecting posterity entails leadership. It means persuading the electorate to do without something for the benefit of their country in the future. Our leaders aren’t much into that any longer. They choose not to lead but to follow. Leadership has given way to manipulation. Appealing to fears, prejudices and greed is much easier, faster and more effective. It requires little by way of integrity, courage or vision. And yes, we’ve been conditioned to accept just that.
Many ask why do these things now when the really bad effects won’t be felt during our lifetimes? It makes some perverse sense. Why do without for someone else? The answer is because what lies in store for that “someone else” will be the consequences of our actions. We’ve already set in motion processes what will afflict future generations. What gives us the right to continue that, to make life that much worse for them? What gives us the right to enjoy luxuries today that will cost the lives of women and children in less fortunate places?
Do you have that right? Do you think that’s right? Don’t go sidestepping for the exits, arguing that the science isn’t in or that there’s nothing we can do about it anyway. You’re already doing something about it and what you’re doing is already being felt around the world and will create even more suffering in decades and centuries to come if it’s not stopped. What we’ve done in two or three generations is going to be paid for in scores, possibly hundreds of generations to come.
Do you think it’s all right to walk down a local street, pick out a stranger and gut-shoot them so they die a slow and painful death? No, of course not. Do you think it’s okay to go to the Third World and do that same thing? I’m sure you don’t. Why then do you think it’s okay to do that environmentally? Is it because you don’t construe it as an act of violence? Is it simple “out of sight, out of mind?” Is it because you’ve taught yourself to look away and not think about it?
Change is coming and it’s inevitable. Look at it like a tsunami. You’re sitting at your beachside resort when the warning comes in of a possible earthquake-generated tsunami. So, do you remain in your deck chair savouring that Corona moment or do you pack up and head for high ground? You’re just a layman. You don’t know for certain that a tsunami is on the way. The experts don’t know positively either but they believe there’s a very real risk of a killer wave and we don’t second guess them, we react.
The devastation that will be created by unchecked anthropogenic global warming will make the worst tsunami look insignificant in contrast. On every point of the planet, every square metre, our lives will change. There’ll be no spot unaffected, nothing. A few places will actually improve in some ways but the number of them will be dwarfed by the lands and regions rendered uninhabitable. And once you render vast areas uninhabitable it brings change, often unwelcome consequences, to every other place.
There won’t be any new Edens created by global warming. That’s just silly. Adam and Eve had Eden all to themselves. There might have been the odd, troublesome snake but there was no horde at the garden’s gate pushing its way in.
Taking effective action to fight global warming on both fronts – remediation and adaptation – doesn’t mean reducing ourselves to penury. That’s the fear you’ve been conditioned to respond to talking.
Think about this. As you read this, and I mean this very instant, the sacrifice required to fight global warming is as minimal as it’s every going to get. Right now. Next month, next year, a decade from now that sacrifice is going to be much greater and, here’s the thing, the longer you wait the less choice you’re going to have on dealing with the problem. Time is not on your side, it’s not on our side. The problem is steadily getting bigger and nastier while our options are just as steadily getting smaller and nastier.
The human tipping point we need to reach won’t be found in any world capitols. It’s in your mind and in the mind of every other member of our species. That’s where the tipping point, our tipping point, has to be grown. That’s where the decisive impetus for action will emerge.
Global warming. It’s a problem that’s all in your mind.
August 23, 2008
Posted by MoS under
Bush,
NATO
1 Comment
Dear George:
Your friends called today and asked me to speak to you, sort of a one man intervention if you like.
The trouble, George, is that you’re a dummy, a moron. You just can’t resist your compulsion to screw with things until they break, can you?
You screwed around with Iraq – broke it. You screwed around with Afghanistan – broke it. You screwed around with your army. Broke that too. You screwed around with your economy and, guess what? You broke it. You screwed around with Social Security but you were stopped in time although you almost broke it too.
You screwed around with NATO and, if it’s not already broken, it’s damned close. You idiot.
NATO, it’s an “alliance” George, not your goddamned Foreign Legion. An alliance depends on mutual commitments, George. Mutual covenants forged from mutual interests.
You screwed with NATO until it became bloated and almost meaningless. It’s got 26-members now. Can you name all of them, George? Of course you can’t. And you want to shove Ukraine and Georgia into the bag before you’re done.
Here’s an idea, dummy. A mutual defence alliance has to be made up of nations that are actually willing to defend each other. That little prerequisite defines the territorial limits of NATO. That limit ended somewhere in Central Europe, say Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Beyond that, who cares? Here are a few pointers from today’s Guardian you should think about:
“The new Nato states in the Baltics and central Europe are not, unlike the US or Britain, preoccupied with terrorism, Afghanistan, or Iran’s nuclear potential. Their bugbear is the Kremlin. The Czechs and the Poles have agreed to host the Pentagon’s missile defence system not because they worry about Iranian missiles, but because they feel more secure by having US troops permanently on their soil for the first time.
…The Nato-led coalition’s lack of success in Afghanistan has exposed divisions caused recriminations, with Germany bearing the brunt of the criticism for its reluctance to put its forces on the frontlines.
Germany has also been central to the Georgia crisis, highlighting the limits of Nato’s policies towards Russia and its post-cold war policy of expanding into the countries around Russia’s rim.
In a report on the Georgia crisis to be released on Monday, the European Council on Foreign Relations says: “Moscow is well aware that few Nato members want to extend a mutual security guarantee to a country at war with Europe’s biggest neighbour.”
This cuts to Nato’s policy flaw. “The main question is, are you willing to go to war for Tbilisi? I think the answer is no,” said the EU official.”
Let’s be honest, George. This expansion into the Balkans and Caucasus is all about expanding your nation’s sphere of influence into these regions. This is the expansion of America’s sphere of influence right up to Russia’s doorstep. This isn’t about NATO, the Alliance is only America’s beard on this one. You’re just using NATO to legitimize your neo-conservative policy agenda.
“Are you willing to go to war for Tbilisi?” The question answers itself and in that answer lies the stupidity of expanding a supposed, mutual defence Alliance to Russia’s borders. You want to put American forces in Tbilisi, George? Who’s stopping you? Go ahead, just don’t try to cloak it as a NATO initiative when it’s yours, all yours.
I remember another George Bush, the one who led a legitimate coalition to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. I remember how, after the guns fell silent, that other George Bush stood up and proclaimed the advent of a “new world order.” That guy must be in tears by now. You screwed with that new world order, George – and you broke it. Idiot.
George, you’ve only got a few months left to go, so why don’t you just back off. Send Condi home, give her the rest of the term off. Ditto for Dick. Hell he’s going to need the few months that are left just to burn records and documents, maybe go “hunting” with a few people who know too much. But whatever you do, just leave NATO alone, George. There’s a chance, slim though it may be, that NATO might survive once you’re gone.
August 22, 2008
Has George w. Bush really folded his hand? Might John McCain have to oversee the withdrawal/expulsion of American troops from Iraq? The mind boggles at the possibilities.
Iraq’s foreign minister says negotiators have hammered out a deal calling for the withdrawal of all American combat forces by the end of 2011.
There are two potential snags. The American committment to depart is “condition based” which seems to leave plenty of wiggle room for claims that conditions aren’t quite right yet. The second issue is just what the tens of thousands of troops that remain after the withdrawal of combat troops will actually be doing. They’ll supposedly be delegated to training and support duties. Perhaps.
Will conditions be right by 2011 for the withdrawal of American combat forces? Maybe, but don’t count on it. The Kurds and the Arab Iraqis are still hanging around the OK Corral where they’ll settle the Kirkuk question. The Kurdish Autonomous Region (where flying the Iraqi flag is prohibited) is fiercely determined to establish its claim to Kirkuk and the neighbouring oil fields.
Tensions have been simmering as the Kurd’s secret police have been doing a little ethnic cleansing of their own, driving out Arabs and increasing the Kurdish population in advance of a referendum that has already been postponed to avoid an outright clash. Now the Arab and Turkmen population are pushing back.
Kirkuk has always been the 800 pound gorilla of Iraqi unification. It speaks volumes that, five years after the overthrow of Saddam, this critical issue remains unresolved.
Also unresolved are Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia and the freshly armed Sunni militias of the Awakening movement that have allied with American forces to drive out al Qaeda terrorists. Sadr, who is currently laying low, remains a political threat to the Maliki government and its Badr militia. That one is going to have to be sorted out.
And Iraq’s Shiite government has now moved on the Sunni militias’ leadership. The Baghdad government has issued orders to arrest 650-top Awakening Council leaders. The move is giving American generals fits. They fear the Iraqi move could drive the former Sunni guerrillas back into the arms of the insurgency and undo many of the gains that have resulted in a significant reduction of American casualties.
Many American military leaders admit it was the Awakening movement, not the surge, that has been truly responsible for the decline in American fatalities.
August 21, 2008
Three more gone. Same sad story. Foot patrol encounters hidden improvised explosive device – booby trap. The three dead were combat engineers attached to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, the PPCLI. A fourth member of the patrol was severely injured.
One of the dead, Sergeant Shawn Eades, was on his third tour of Afghanistan.
August 21, 2008
And no, I didn’t write it. Instead, it’s a brilliant piece by Seumas Milne explaining why the Afghan fire is bound to spread and what we’re doing to fan the flames:
August 21, 2008
Here are a few home truths to keep in the back of your mind while weighing our progress in this maniacal war without end on terror:
1. An otherwise winnable war can be lost by bad military leadership.
2. An otherwise winnable war can be lost by bad political leadership.
3. Wars are rarely lost at the 11th hour. The groundwork for failure is often laid early in the game.
4. Wars are usually lost long before the losing side realizes it has failed. The outcome of a war may be conclusively decided long before the losing side has sustained enough damage to acknowledge the fact.
5. Superior technology and firepower are a poor substitute for competent political and military leadership.
6. Time is a precious and limited commodity in warfare. Fatigue sets in quickly and can be fatal.
7. Rarely are wars fought for the reasons fed to the public.
Pretty much each of these truths comes to bear on the way in which we perceive the war in Afghanistan. Our military leadership has been haphazard – at best. Read General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24. This eye opener essentially digests the experiences and lessons of asymmetrical warfare since the days of the Romans. The players change, their weapons change, but the core principles survive. Then, having read that enlightening work, apply its recommendations to what we’ve been doing in Afghanistan. Sorry, I can ‘t do that for you, there’s far too much material involved. Just, please, don’t tell me we have the slightest hope of “winning” in Afghanistan until you’ve at least read the manual (which is, by the way, available, at no charge, in PDF format on the internet).
You don’t need to take some measly 4-star American combat general’s word for it. Read Caesar, read T.E. Lawrence or so many others. You’ll find it all there. But – don’t argue Afghanistan with me until you’re able to discuss the salient aspects of guerrilla warfare.
By Petraeus’ own writings, we’re making every mistake in the book (including FM 3-24) in Afghanistan. I so wish the ghost of Colonel Lawrence had been around to whisper a bit of this reality to General Hillier before he cajoled his way through Paul Martin’s office and on into Kandahar. Which leads me to bad political leadership.
I fully accept that Paul Martin fell for a song and dance act on Afghanistan. If, as Martin aides claim, he only approved it on Hillier’s assurance that the forces could take it on and take on another major mission at the same time, what was Hillier doing giving this assurance? Either Hillier was smart enough to know that wasn’t true – or he wasn’t smart enough to know whether it was true. No matter which end you approach this from, it was lousy military leadership.
Then, as the enemy grew in strength and the mission took on burdens far beyond the worst-case scenario given Martin – Hillier did nothing to see that the Canadian force was appropriately reinforced.
Look at it this way. Hillier got the PM to sign on – and openly told Canadian TV cameras – that the 2.500-strong force was sufficient because we were going into that large province but only to kill “a few dozen …scumbags.” Given the history of Afghanistan, all its troubles and associated circumstances and perils, how could anyone say that? You don’t take on missions – voluntarily, even beggingly – unless you’re absolutely certain that the force you take will be able to cope with a worst-case situation. And then, when that worst-case situation emerges and catches you shorthanded, you do nothing to increase your numbers to the size of the force you ought to have taken in there when you first outlined the mission?
Imagine a Canadian general going to the prime minister of the day and coming out with approval for a war that will utterly exhaust our armed forces and leave them much less able to deal with any other threat anywhere, including Canada itself, that may emerge – and for years, possibly generations. Imagine that. Yet, somehow, that’s precisely what’s staring us in the face right now. If Hillier didn’t warn Paul Martin off this godawful predicament, he ought to come out and explain why not? The Canadian people need an answer from The Big Cod on that one.
Sorry, ladies and gents, but winding up where we are right now , given all the clues and indicators, was foreseeable as at least “possible” if not straight out “probable.” Why did this seem to come as such an unimagineable surprise by our military leaders?
Our political leadership failed – and continues to fail us. I don’t believe you need to have much expertise in military history to see this coming down the line. Somehow Paul Martin accepted some pretty baseless assurances when he and his organization ought to have known better. But if benign gullibility is Martin’s crime, his successor’s has been far more culpable. Harper wants to be one of the boys, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of the other English-speaking democracies, the good old white boys.
Harper’s leadership on Afghanistan is entirely politically-driven. That’s bad news for the troops because it means their mission is compromised by a political agenda. The best trained, best equipped and most capable and motivated troops cannot overcome weak political and military leadership.
The Afghanistan war, or at least our chapter of it, began in 2001. Now we’re in the bottom half of 2008. In the course of those seven years a lot has changed, not much of it for the good.
Afghanistan remains a failed state. Why? One reason is the destabilizing role of the insurgency, a problem compounded by the chaos in neighbouring Pakistan. That, however, is only one reason and there are others. Another key reason is that a strong Afghan state with a powerful central government is not in the interests of some very key players, among them the warlords (to whom we’ve handed over most of the country) and the drug barons.
It’s no accident that Hamid Karzai remains the mayor of Kabul. He exercises only those powers the warlords are willing to give him and we’re not doing a damned thing about that. Why? Because that would risk bringing us into conflict not only with a Pashtun insurgency but also with the Hazara, Turkmen, Tajik and Uzbek leadership. We’d be at war with everybody.
Time is a precious commodity in warfare and seven years is an almost unbelievable amount of time for a war and yet, as Milne noted in the previous piece from the Guardian, we’ve not achieved a single objective we had for invading and occupying Afghanistan.
There’s no faulting our troops in this. They’re not responsible for the abject failure of their leadership, political and military. The soldiers at the sharp end are doing a terrific job. They’re well trained, committed and very capable but they can’t overcome their shortage in numbers or the fundamental flaws inherent in “the mission” that will deny their efforts any meaningful victory.
It was stunning to read last week that the National Post itself has clued in to the fact that we’re woefully understrength in Afghanistan. Wow, and it only took them seven years to notice! Even the Spot understands that we can’t win in Afghanistan with the paltry forces we’ve deployed to Kandahar. Maybe if the Spot can figure that out there’s hope yet that our politicians and generals may also reach that same state of belated enlightenment.
August 20, 2008
Fort Chipewyan, just downstream from the fabled Athabasca Tar Sands, seems to be raking in a lot of “firsts.” For one there’s the incidence of cancer among the local natives. But wait, there’s more!
Now there’s Petrofish, a new type of Goldeye – with two mouths.
A Parks Canada official from the Woods Buffalo National Park had a look at the mutant before handing it back to the Mikesew Cree nation. A report has been sent to Alberta’s Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program (RAMP), a cooperative that includes the Harper Department of Fisheries and Petrobucks, the Tony Clement Department of Dirty Needles, the Alberta environment department and silly walks, oilsands corporations and a few natives thrown in for good measure (those who haven’t already contracted cancer).
Local natives are treating the mutant fish with alarm but, then again, they would, wouldn’t they?
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