When Turkish helicopter gun-ships fired on villages in Northern Iraq this morning, they certainly weren’t out to defeat the PKK. The attack which occurred on abandoned Kurdish villages came at dawn and it was a distinct ‘up yours’ not only to the Kurds in the North, but to the Bush Administration. It sends a strong signal to Washington that Turkey will defend its interests.
The Bush Administration has maneuvered itself into a similar position with the Kurds and the Turks as it has with the Shia and the Sunni. In short they’ve managed the impossible: to alienate everyone. The US government now officially supports the Kurds in the Northern provinces whilst declaring that the PKK is a terrorist organization. At the same time, the Turks are declared to be best buddies and allies, but are told that attacking Kurdish positions inside Iraq is a no-no.
The Huffington Post, which quotes aTurkish Colonel as its source reports that clashes have been going on for a whole day but that this is the first such strike inside the Iraki border.
This brings up two points:
1. The escalation in the North is the worst possible case scenario in which sporadic fighting in Iraq develops into an all out war between the Turkish forces and the Kurdish Peschmerga. The United States is now in such a position that it is unable to support the Turks and unable to prevent them from invading.
2. The fact that the US Government evidently feels it has the right to invade whomever and wherever they please but are able to dictate the rules to others is not going to sit well in the Middle East. It will increase the feeling that the USA is only focused on its own vested interests.
This latest step is a logical follow up to every single event so far and has been predicted by many people. It remains to be seen how the Bush Administration reacts to the latest developments but if history is anything to go by they’ll manage to eff it up. Stay tuned for an all out war in the North.
Brought to you by the Administration that would never have thunked it.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The Tale of Kasim
Kasim Al Safar is a name that is going to haunt the Pentagon for weeks if not months to come. No, he’s not one of Al Qaeda’s number two’s, he also isn’t head of some new, obscure but upcoming terrorist organization. In fact, Al Safar was a friend of the Bush Administration’s and may very well still be a friend of the Pentagon’s.
Not having learned that trusting people is a very different thing in the Middle East than it is here despite their run in with Allawi, the Bush Administration thought long and hard about how to quell the insurgency back in 2004 when it was rapidly gaining speed. Now you’re thinking: they entrusted Al-Safar with making sure that as few weapons as possible got into Iraq, a tactic which may have only slowed the insurgency a little, but which at least would have had some positive effect. You would be wrong.
Bush Administration officials paid Al-Safar large sums of money to import and distribute weapons in Iraq. They were supposed to go to the new police force and the new army. But Al-Safar, bless his soul is a business man so he set up a business selling guns. Quite illegally, but with apparently full knowledge of the Pentagon.
Now you’re thinking: clever! He and the USA could make money from these weapons by selling them to the ‘good guys’ instead of giving them away. Wrong! Kasim sold the weapons to whoever showed up with cash including insurgents that struck at US troops and terrorist PKK members who attacked Turkish troops with the very same guns. You can’t believe it can you? Nor could I. But the whole sordid tale of how the USA lost some 190,000 firearms in Iraq between 2004 and 2006 is in this New York Times article. To quote John Tisdale, a retired Air Force master sergeant who managed an adjacent warehouse:
“This was the craziest thing in the world, they were taking weapons away by the truckload.”
Not having learned that trusting people is a very different thing in the Middle East than it is here despite their run in with Allawi, the Bush Administration thought long and hard about how to quell the insurgency back in 2004 when it was rapidly gaining speed. Now you’re thinking: they entrusted Al-Safar with making sure that as few weapons as possible got into Iraq, a tactic which may have only slowed the insurgency a little, but which at least would have had some positive effect. You would be wrong.
Bush Administration officials paid Al-Safar large sums of money to import and distribute weapons in Iraq. They were supposed to go to the new police force and the new army. But Al-Safar, bless his soul is a business man so he set up a business selling guns. Quite illegally, but with apparently full knowledge of the Pentagon.
Now you’re thinking: clever! He and the USA could make money from these weapons by selling them to the ‘good guys’ instead of giving them away. Wrong! Kasim sold the weapons to whoever showed up with cash including insurgents that struck at US troops and terrorist PKK members who attacked Turkish troops with the very same guns. You can’t believe it can you? Nor could I. But the whole sordid tale of how the USA lost some 190,000 firearms in Iraq between 2004 and 2006 is in this New York Times article. To quote John Tisdale, a retired Air Force master sergeant who managed an adjacent warehouse:
“This was the craziest thing in the world, they were taking weapons away by the truckload.”
Friday, November 9, 2007
The Torture of Mukasey's Confirmation
Last night George B. Mukasey was unfortunately confirmed as AG to follow in the footsteps of Alberto I-Do-Not-Recall Gonzales, which I am sure he will do diligently. His confirmation sends very much the wrong message to the world about the position of this country on torture and it was a confirmation which was brought about by another spineless show by the democrats who allegedly believe that anyone in Leadership at the Department of Justice was better than no leader at all. I beg to differ, but that is for another time.
I’ve read a lot of material going back and forth about torture and whether waterboarding is torture and whether what the Americans did to Iraqis at Abu Ghraib constituted torture or not and whether it was OK to torture someone if you had an imminent threat. There is an easy way to determine this so I looked up and arranged to have dinner with Dr. Uwe Jacobs, Director of Survivors International, a non profit organization based in San Francsisco.
Survivors International or SI aid victims of torture in a number of ways and to do so, they established a protocol which is designed to determine whether a person has been tortured or not. Their guidelines and protocol for determining the occurrence of torture has been adopted by the United Nations and is effectively a manual for psychologists, doctors and nurses and others around the globe for ascertaining the incidence of torture. In short, Dr. Uwe Jacobs’ opinion on torture is quite categorical and his opinion is that there is not the least smidgen of doubt, that waterboarding leaves deep long lasting psychological scars and quite unquestionably constitutes torture.
The United States Department of Torture, which must exist by now and if it doesn’t, it should, may beg to differ, but they are by far in the minority. Being American doesn’t make one automatically right and the Global View is that waterboarding is torture. To quote Dr. Jacobs:
“It’s insane that there’s a debate about it.”
Then we of course get to the discussion about imminent danger. That is that some say that torture is justified if one believes a person to have information which could save hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. This is a bogus argument which has been confirmed as being erroneous time and time again. Information obtained under duress is not reliable, that’s the bottom line. But even if it were, what then?
Simply put, torture of any kind crosses an ethical boundary which, when crossed, puts one on the same footing as the evil which one is purportedly attempting to prevent. It even sets the precedent which gives others carte blanche to do the same and worse. A society that tortures, for whatever reason, can no longer claim to be civilized. It’s a simple as that and a society that tortures, can also no longer claim the moral high ground nor the distinction of being a victim. A society that tortures becomes oppressor and tyrant.
That is why George B. Mukasey should never have been confirmed as Attorney General of the United States. Someone who cannot distinguish this simple fact should not even be running Saddam Hussein’s Justice Department.
I’ve read a lot of material going back and forth about torture and whether waterboarding is torture and whether what the Americans did to Iraqis at Abu Ghraib constituted torture or not and whether it was OK to torture someone if you had an imminent threat. There is an easy way to determine this so I looked up and arranged to have dinner with Dr. Uwe Jacobs, Director of Survivors International, a non profit organization based in San Francsisco.
Survivors International or SI aid victims of torture in a number of ways and to do so, they established a protocol which is designed to determine whether a person has been tortured or not. Their guidelines and protocol for determining the occurrence of torture has been adopted by the United Nations and is effectively a manual for psychologists, doctors and nurses and others around the globe for ascertaining the incidence of torture. In short, Dr. Uwe Jacobs’ opinion on torture is quite categorical and his opinion is that there is not the least smidgen of doubt, that waterboarding leaves deep long lasting psychological scars and quite unquestionably constitutes torture.
The United States Department of Torture, which must exist by now and if it doesn’t, it should, may beg to differ, but they are by far in the minority. Being American doesn’t make one automatically right and the Global View is that waterboarding is torture. To quote Dr. Jacobs:
“It’s insane that there’s a debate about it.”
Then we of course get to the discussion about imminent danger. That is that some say that torture is justified if one believes a person to have information which could save hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. This is a bogus argument which has been confirmed as being erroneous time and time again. Information obtained under duress is not reliable, that’s the bottom line. But even if it were, what then?
Simply put, torture of any kind crosses an ethical boundary which, when crossed, puts one on the same footing as the evil which one is purportedly attempting to prevent. It even sets the precedent which gives others carte blanche to do the same and worse. A society that tortures, for whatever reason, can no longer claim to be civilized. It’s a simple as that and a society that tortures, can also no longer claim the moral high ground nor the distinction of being a victim. A society that tortures becomes oppressor and tyrant.
That is why George B. Mukasey should never have been confirmed as Attorney General of the United States. Someone who cannot distinguish this simple fact should not even be running Saddam Hussein’s Justice Department.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
State of the Nation
George W. Bush, President of the United States and pride of some straggling remains in the Republican Party signed a measure on September 28 2007, to increase the limit on the debt ceiling to $9.815 trillion, representing an increase of over a trillion, more than ten percent. Five weeks later the US debt has reached and breached $9 trillion for the first time.
Reuters reports:
In approving the debt limit increase, Congressional lawmakers said the $850 billion increase should be large enough to allow the government to continue borrowing into 2009
The amazing thing is that Congress and the Senate went right along with it and no one is batting an eyelid. Why? Because the way the Republican leadership has structured the fiscal year and the strains of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are exerting a monumental toll on the US economy. The Democrats are afraid to pull funding because the Democrats are afraid of pretty much everything these days especially of being called unpatriotic.
Of course the picture still looks rosy, the DOW hovering around 14,000 points threatening again to break records and the NASDAQ is climbing new highs daily. But the stock market is not an indicator of national fiscal health. Especially during the recent developments regarding globalization, US companies have really become Chinese companies or Eastern European companies. There are emerging markets all over the world in which you automatically partake if you invest in an American product. The ever weakening dollar is also allowing the US trade deficit to shrink but at what cost?
This well known graph shows how the National debt, which soared under Reagan and Bush 41 actually dropped under Clinton. It is actually possible to reduce the National debt whilst increasing expenditure on health care and education. It actually works if one isn’t busy pandering to one’s friends in the defense industry.
Quo Vadis America? Of course there will be a gaggle of Neocons who adamantly deny that there’s anything wrong and if one listens to FOX News it would appear that everything was right. But it is not and the collapse of the housing bubble should tell us there is more afoot. But this isn’t a country where introspection has any room to grow. It’s a country where the sub-prime disaster is already treated as a minor ache. The financial catastrophe that is still sending shock waves around the globe has been forgotten by many here.
But who are we forgetting? There are still families floundering in the rough seas of foreclosures and evictions, families left with very little on their backs whilst their properties are snapped up for a pittance by the wealthy. Sure it is everyone’s responsibility when they borrow money to know what they are borrowing at how much and from whom. But many people don’t have the necessary education to make them leery of low interest AMRs and do not understand the mechanics of negative amortization. They were suckered in to purchasing expensive real estate by people promising them the moon. They were coerced into making false income statements by agents only intent on selling. An entire real estate bureau was shut down recently here in the Bay Area in California, the heads led off in handcuffs and all the computers confiscated because they convinced low income families to falsify their income statements in order to qualify them. This may seem like a small thing but it points at a bigger picture. A country obsessed with racing ahead and damn the consequences.
But the consequences are the people of this country. They are being trodden on as the gap between rich and poor yawns open again. Everyone who calls themselves a patriot should be concerned about this because America is not the lump of earth upon which we sit, but the people who populate it and under the Bush Administration’s Fiscal Disaster Tour they are the ones who ultimately will have to pay the balance.
Reuters reports:
In approving the debt limit increase, Congressional lawmakers said the $850 billion increase should be large enough to allow the government to continue borrowing into 2009
The amazing thing is that Congress and the Senate went right along with it and no one is batting an eyelid. Why? Because the way the Republican leadership has structured the fiscal year and the strains of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are exerting a monumental toll on the US economy. The Democrats are afraid to pull funding because the Democrats are afraid of pretty much everything these days especially of being called unpatriotic.
Of course the picture still looks rosy, the DOW hovering around 14,000 points threatening again to break records and the NASDAQ is climbing new highs daily. But the stock market is not an indicator of national fiscal health. Especially during the recent developments regarding globalization, US companies have really become Chinese companies or Eastern European companies. There are emerging markets all over the world in which you automatically partake if you invest in an American product. The ever weakening dollar is also allowing the US trade deficit to shrink but at what cost?
This well known graph shows how the National debt, which soared under Reagan and Bush 41 actually dropped under Clinton. It is actually possible to reduce the National debt whilst increasing expenditure on health care and education. It actually works if one isn’t busy pandering to one’s friends in the defense industry.
Quo Vadis America? Of course there will be a gaggle of Neocons who adamantly deny that there’s anything wrong and if one listens to FOX News it would appear that everything was right. But it is not and the collapse of the housing bubble should tell us there is more afoot. But this isn’t a country where introspection has any room to grow. It’s a country where the sub-prime disaster is already treated as a minor ache. The financial catastrophe that is still sending shock waves around the globe has been forgotten by many here.
But who are we forgetting? There are still families floundering in the rough seas of foreclosures and evictions, families left with very little on their backs whilst their properties are snapped up for a pittance by the wealthy. Sure it is everyone’s responsibility when they borrow money to know what they are borrowing at how much and from whom. But many people don’t have the necessary education to make them leery of low interest AMRs and do not understand the mechanics of negative amortization. They were suckered in to purchasing expensive real estate by people promising them the moon. They were coerced into making false income statements by agents only intent on selling. An entire real estate bureau was shut down recently here in the Bay Area in California, the heads led off in handcuffs and all the computers confiscated because they convinced low income families to falsify their income statements in order to qualify them. This may seem like a small thing but it points at a bigger picture. A country obsessed with racing ahead and damn the consequences.
But the consequences are the people of this country. They are being trodden on as the gap between rich and poor yawns open again. Everyone who calls themselves a patriot should be concerned about this because America is not the lump of earth upon which we sit, but the people who populate it and under the Bush Administration’s Fiscal Disaster Tour they are the ones who ultimately will have to pay the balance.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Deadliest Year So Far
Yahoo News reports:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks in Iraq on Monday, the U.S. military said, making 2007 the deadliest year for U.S. forces in the country.
The Idea behind the Iraq War may have been born out of diverse concepts, a gaggle of politicians all wanting something personal, something for themselves. But with the fourth year coming to a close and about 800 to 900 troops dying each year it's a wonder that anyone still thinks this was worth it.
Of course republicans are trying to hold their breaths until 2009, see no evil, do no evil and hear no evil style, when, in a wheesy explosion of halitosis laden dusty musty air, they'll blame the Democrats for the failure in Iraq. They will do it. Mark my words.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks in Iraq on Monday, the U.S. military said, making 2007 the deadliest year for U.S. forces in the country.
The Idea behind the Iraq War may have been born out of diverse concepts, a gaggle of politicians all wanting something personal, something for themselves. But with the fourth year coming to a close and about 800 to 900 troops dying each year it's a wonder that anyone still thinks this was worth it.
Of course republicans are trying to hold their breaths until 2009, see no evil, do no evil and hear no evil style, when, in a wheesy explosion of halitosis laden dusty musty air, they'll blame the Democrats for the failure in Iraq. They will do it. Mark my words.
Off Topic - Follow Up
As many of you know, my wife and I have had a bit of a bumpy ride this year with good things and not so good things happening all at once. I always feel that I should share this stuff with my online community as it's part of who I am.
Following my orchiectomy I had a week of rest but was soon fit enough to work again. We more or less got our house ship shape to move in to, the floors got done and most of the trim was finished. The biggest problem is that although the house is larger in square footage than our apartment was, it has only one large closet, whereas our previous abode had four. Closets are great spaces for rubbish and useless items to accumulate and when you move to a new home where these unsightly medicine balls and giant hammock chairs that one’s partner thought at one stage were such a great idea to buy, cannot be stored out of sight, one has a problem. A small one I admit but there you go.
One of the reasons for my lack of posts is also that ComCast screwed up getting us set up with our internet and television connections and in fact, we still don’t have a home phone. I hated the idea of switching to ComCast but it will save us money in the end if their lousy service doesn’t drive me round the bend first.
I started chemo-therapy on Thursday last week and after a day of feeling fine on Friday, I spent the entire day Saturday blowing my cookies although there were no cookies to blow. It got so bad that I ended up in the ER where they filled me up with fluids, gave me an intravenous anti-nausea drug and sent me home, telling me to come back if it should start up again. So far no hair loss to report, although that isn’t something that’s been worrying me: first off I have a lot of it (hair that is) and secondly, it would spare me the expense of a haircut due in December. My next round of chemo is in three weeks and I’m hoping to be better prepared.
With regards to my wife’s pregnancy, it looks like we may lose one of the twins, which does not seem viable to survive, another pretty common IVF occurrence. Its been hard to live with that fact but we are grateful to be pregnant at all so we’re hoping the second baby will survive and be fine.
There’s still a lot of work to be done on the house itself and I have to somehow work in order to keep some kind of income flow going but all in all and considering everything we’ve been through we’re doing well. Not least because of the extraordinary support from our community and friends - even clients - which is quintessentially American in its selflessness. It just wouldn’t happen to the same degree in other countries and we are bother extremely grateful for it.
Following my orchiectomy I had a week of rest but was soon fit enough to work again. We more or less got our house ship shape to move in to, the floors got done and most of the trim was finished. The biggest problem is that although the house is larger in square footage than our apartment was, it has only one large closet, whereas our previous abode had four. Closets are great spaces for rubbish and useless items to accumulate and when you move to a new home where these unsightly medicine balls and giant hammock chairs that one’s partner thought at one stage were such a great idea to buy, cannot be stored out of sight, one has a problem. A small one I admit but there you go.
One of the reasons for my lack of posts is also that ComCast screwed up getting us set up with our internet and television connections and in fact, we still don’t have a home phone. I hated the idea of switching to ComCast but it will save us money in the end if their lousy service doesn’t drive me round the bend first.
I started chemo-therapy on Thursday last week and after a day of feeling fine on Friday, I spent the entire day Saturday blowing my cookies although there were no cookies to blow. It got so bad that I ended up in the ER where they filled me up with fluids, gave me an intravenous anti-nausea drug and sent me home, telling me to come back if it should start up again. So far no hair loss to report, although that isn’t something that’s been worrying me: first off I have a lot of it (hair that is) and secondly, it would spare me the expense of a haircut due in December. My next round of chemo is in three weeks and I’m hoping to be better prepared.
With regards to my wife’s pregnancy, it looks like we may lose one of the twins, which does not seem viable to survive, another pretty common IVF occurrence. Its been hard to live with that fact but we are grateful to be pregnant at all so we’re hoping the second baby will survive and be fine.
There’s still a lot of work to be done on the house itself and I have to somehow work in order to keep some kind of income flow going but all in all and considering everything we’ve been through we’re doing well. Not least because of the extraordinary support from our community and friends - even clients - which is quintessentially American in its selflessness. It just wouldn’t happen to the same degree in other countries and we are bother extremely grateful for it.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Bomb Everyone
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. That is excellent advice and someone should really offer it to the Bush Administration who’s latest Brilliant Plan No. 246 is to bomb the Kurds!
The Herald Sun reports:
THE Bush Administration is considering air strikes, including cruise missiles, against the Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq.
The question is, who will be left in Iraq as a friend when you’ve managed to strip power away from the Sunnis, repeatedly attacked and killed the Shia in raids and finally bomb the only real ally you have with cruise missiles?
In a region that is moving rapidly towards total conflagration after being ignited by the current US Administration in what is possibly the dumbest move in political history, they continue to fan the flames and pour gasoline to feed the fire they started again and again.
The only explanation is that they WANT World War III. If anyone has a better one, please – I’m all ears.
The Herald Sun reports:
THE Bush Administration is considering air strikes, including cruise missiles, against the Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq.
The question is, who will be left in Iraq as a friend when you’ve managed to strip power away from the Sunnis, repeatedly attacked and killed the Shia in raids and finally bomb the only real ally you have with cruise missiles?
In a region that is moving rapidly towards total conflagration after being ignited by the current US Administration in what is possibly the dumbest move in political history, they continue to fan the flames and pour gasoline to feed the fire they started again and again.
The only explanation is that they WANT World War III. If anyone has a better one, please – I’m all ears.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
