|
| |
Archives
iraq
The posturing in Najaf continues. The US seems intent on destroying the village in order to save it.
Doubts over Sadr peace deal
Scepticism at rebel cleric's offer to end fighting as Iraqi military prepares for assault on Najaf
|
The radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was reported last night to have accepted a peace deal that could end the violent two-week uprising in Najaf and see his militia leave the city's Imam Ali Shrine.
Mr Sadr's spokesman confirmed that the cleric had accepted a proposal from the Iraqi national conference to pull his fighters out of the holy city and turn his militia into a political movement.
But there was scepticism whether Mr Sadr's offer was genuine or merely a negotiating tactic to forestall an imminent all-out attack on the shrine by Iraqi government forces, which were fighting the cleric's militia last night.
Hours before the apparent deal was announced, the Iraqi defence minister demanded the immediate surrender of the Mahdi Army militia and said that his soldiers were preparing to attack it.
Using bellicose language, Hazim al-Shaalan warned that he would "teach them a lesson they will never forget".
| |
[more]
Reporters get death threats from police
|
IRAQI police have threatened to kill every journalist working in the holy city of Najaf, where US forces are locked in a tense stand-off with Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army.
| |
[more]
Juan Cole and Helena Cobban both give excellent analysis on the fact that this whole battle for Najaf was set off by some Marines out to make a name for themselves with absolutely no comprehension that the could be brining the whole house of cards down on themsleves. Dumbfucks!
Muqtada declines to See Delegation
Marines Launched Attack without Approval
by Juan Cole
|
Alex Berenson and John Burns of the New York Times make the explosive allegation that local Marines in Najaf launched the attack on Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Militia on August 12 all on their lonesome, without direction from the Pentagon in Washington. At most, they had authorization from the American-appointed governor, Ali al-Zurfi, though he won't take responsibility for it all, either.
I studied colonial history with John S. Galbraith of UCLA, who was known for emphasizing the "Man on the Spot." That is, colonial officials and military men out in Malaya or Africa often made policy without reference to London. (Much of India was acquired in this way. It is amusing to go back and read the cautions of the British cabinet to British governors-general of the 18th century not to conquer more territory without permission).
If Berenson and Burns are right, American Men on the Spot are making crucial policy decisions that have the potential to affect the lives of all Americans and all Muslims. The Marines in Najaf were acting like just another militia, engaging in a local turf war with Muqtada and his men, and giving no thought to the consequences of behaving barbarically in the holy city of Najaf.
| |
[more]
Najaf: US command chain broken
by Helena Cobban
|
Yesterday evening I started to tease apart some of the political stuff that's been happening in Iraq, over the now-linked issues of Moqtada's stand-off in Najaf and the National Conference going ahead in Baghdad. Overnight, I started wondering about the decisionmaking on the US-forces side.
Who on the US side had made the decision to start and then maintain the confrontation against Moqtada? I wondered. The answers that are now starting to become available make depressing reading, and portray a command system for the US forces in Iraq that looks seriously broken.
| |
[more]
The imperfect media storm or George Bush and the Temple of Doom
|
In Iraq right now, the Bush administration is trapped in a Rube Goldberg-style machine of its own making as our confused and ludicrous maneuvers in Najaf have recently shown -- first, the threats of no negotiations; then the taking of the holy cemetery (with its two million dead); next the withdrawal of our forces from the cemetery; then an official position, in Colin Powell's words, of "squeezing" Najaf, that is, al-Sadr and his followers in the Shrine of Imam Ali (think siege), but quietly leaving open an entryway for food and reinforcements to arrive, followed by negotiations, their breakdown, the resending of our troops into the cemetery, and more "bloody" fighting, followed by a decision to pull back U.S. forces and send mainly Iraqi ones into the areas around the Shrine; not to speak of an initial implicit threat that American troops would take the Shrine, followed by the threat that Iraqi troops would be sent in to take the Shrine, followed by promises that the Shrine would not be touched, and so on and so forth. The fact is, there are probably no military actions the Bush administration can now take in Iraq, whether an "Iraqi face" is put on them or not, which are likely to work.
In Najaf, for instance, our soldiers kill large numbers of Iraqi "enemies" with few casualties, each set of deaths a visible military victory; while elsewhere in response resistance only spreads. As we "squeeze" Najaf, Sadrism bursts to life in other cities and, barely reported in our media, all sorts of protests burst forth. To offer just a few recent examples -- Ibrahim Jafari, a Shiite vice-president of the interim government in Baghdad and one of the few figures in it with any public support, vehemently criticized American assaults on Najaf as "uncivilized" and called for the withdrawal of American troops; the deputy governnor of Basra, which British troops have evidently largely ceased patrolling for the time being, called for southern secession from a Baghdad "responsible for the Najaf clashes"; the top Sunni religious body, "the Association of Muslim Scholars issued a fatwa, or religious edict, forbidding Muslims from offering any support to the forces of 'occupation'"; like half the provincial council for Najaf governate, the deputy governor of Najaf, Jawdat Kadhim Najam al-Quraishi, appointed by the Americans, resigned in protest against the assault, saying, "I resign from my post denouncing all the US terrorist operations that they are doing against this holy city."
What we may be seeing, as Paul Rogers comments, is a new "quasi-nationalist cause… starting to emerge that transcends the confessional communities and is becoming united in common opposition to the United States occupation and the Iyad Allawi regime. If this is indeed so, then a transition from insurgency to a more general uprising is certainly possible."
| |
[more]
photography
The Damage Done
|
It's easy to send soldiers off to war. It's a lot harder to face them when they come home.
| |
[more]
thanks to Conscientious
Sharon orders 1,000 homes in West Bank
Israel's prime minister is trying to fend off critics of his plan to pull out of Gaza with an expansion of settlements around Jerusalem
|
Israel announced plans for 1,000 houses in the West Bank yesterday, accelerating the expansion of the settlements.
The pace of construction is in marked contrast to the slow pace of its much-publicised withdrawal from the settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Peace Now, an Israeli group opposed to the settlements, said a minimum of 3,700 houses were being built, in addition to 600 announced earlier this month and the 1,000 yesterday.
Earlier this month the Guardian revealed that big infrastructure projects were under way to prepare for a new settlement to link Ma'ale Adumim and Jerusalem, enclosing Palestinian east Jerusalem.
| |
[more]
I've linked to this before. It's worth revisiting.
Rafah Today
|
Naji Abaas is 35 years old, he used to work as a tailor/dressmaker and never was enganged in any terrorist or political activities. His family consists of 4 members. They live in Beit Lahia, near Jewish settlements. The 2 children suffer from anemia and the family is very poor.
One day, while the family was sleeping at 7 o'clock, a group of Israli soldiers came with tanks to their street. They came to their house, smashed the door and entered the house while all family members were in bed. The faces of the soldiers were covered with paint, they did not look like human beings, all family members were shocked and filled with fear.
The soldiers destroyed all the furniture and all belongings of the family while they were shouting all the time. Nothing remained intact. Then they asked Naji to come to them, and handcuffed him, while anothzer soldier put his knee on the mother's neck, holding her head down this way, and saying bad and most insulting things to her. The woman cried and asked why the sodiers do this to her family, but instead of and answer, the soldier hit her head with his weapon.
The other soldiers continued to smash and destroy all the household items, and they found nothing but bread and tea in the cupboard, and started to make bad and cynical jokes about the poverty of the family.
After that, one of the soldiers hit into the face of the girl child Malak ... the mother asked him, why do you hit her, she is still a child? The soldier answered: we hit her because she has brown eyes, and we will take her with us, because she is our child, not yours, and you have stolen her from us!! But then he released the child.
Then the soldiers told the mother and 2 children to stand in the corner of the room and to stay there and not to move, or they would kill them.
| |
[more]
photography
Norman Carver Photography
>[more]
thanks to LensWork
economy
Twin Deficits at the Flashpoint?
|
June's enormous US trade deficit should be a wake-up call to America and the rest of the world. It is a direct manifestation of a lopsided global economy that remains biased toward unprecedented external imbalances. As long as the US continues to live well beyond its means and as long as the rest of the world fails to live up to its means, this seemingly chronic condition will only get worse. The imperatives of global rebalancing are reaching a flashpoint.
America's record $55.8 billion trade deficit in June was a shocker. Annualized, it is equivalent to a $670 billion shortfall, or 5.75% of nominal GDP. Nor can this deterioration be explained away by surging oil prices. Excluding petroleum products, the trade deficit for goods still widened by $2.7 billion in June -- an enormous swing by any standards. The plain fact of the matter is that America has never come close to running such an outsize external deficit before. By way of comparison, the last time the US had a "foreign trade problem" was in the latter half of the 1980s; back then, the trade deficit (as measured on a national income accounts basis) peaked out at 3.2% of GDP in the second quarter of 1987. Needless to say, that was not the most tranquil of times in financial markets. As America's external imbalance widened in mid-1987, the dollar came under sharp downward pressure and US interest rates were pushed higher. Those were the classic manifestations of a current account adjustment that many (myself included) believe were at the heart of the stock market crash of October 1987. Today's external imbalances dwarf those of 17 years ago.
| |
[more]
A Central Banker's Nightmare:
Inflation and Slow Growth Together
|
One of the dirtiest words in the economic lexicon is making the rounds again: stagflation.
Defined as a noxious blend of stagnant growth and rising prices, stagflation last appeared in force in the 1970s, when it bedeviled U.S. policy makers and gradually degraded the standard of living of average Americans. Economists long thought a repeat to be extremely unlikely.
But now, they are starting to worry again. The fundamental problem: Oil prices are kicking up inflation across the world, at precisely the same time that economic growth appears to be slowing. If oil prices keep climbing, and inflation rates exceed growth rates, some economists say the U.S., Asia and other regions could face a troubling scenario in which policy makers have to fight some of the same demons that plagued the U.S. back in the days of disco.
"Oil at $45 a barrel is a stagflation problem," warned economists at UBS Ltd. in a recent research report. By their reckoning, sustained prices at that level would slow global growth rates by almost half a percentage point in 2005 and by about one percentage point in 2006. Perhaps more important, such prices would push inflation up by about the same amount -- giving the world its first taste in years of what stagflation can be like.
| |
[more]
thanks to daily KOS
phototgraphy
Christoph Morlinghaus
[more]
thanks to coincidences
silence
thanks to Yolanda Flanagan
libraries
Questia
|
The World's Largest Online Library of Books
Questia is the first online library that provides 24/7 access to the world's largest online collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences, plus magazine and newspaper articles. You can search each and every word of all of the books and journal articles in the collection. You can read every title cover to cover. This rich, scholarly content -- selected by professional collection development librarians -- is not available elsewhere on the Internet. Undergraduate, high school, graduate students, and Internet users of all ages have found Questia to be an invaluable online resource. Anyone doing research or just interested in topics that touch on the humanities and social sciences will find titles of interest in Questia.
To complement the library, Questia offers a range of search, note-taking, and writing tools. These tools help students locate the most relevant information on their topics quickly, quote and cite correctly, and create properly formatted footnotes and bibliographies automatically. Questia provides a comprehensive research environment to meet students' academic needs.
| |
[more]
There is a monthly charge for this library. I wish I could afford the money and the time to read some of what I found here. Great resource. I did a search for one of photography's great artists, and one of my favorites, — Paul Strand. It came up with 75 books, 22 journal articles, 18 magazine articles, 3 newspaper articles, and 1 encyclopedia article. All the sources are available to be read in full. Cool!
voting
Suppress the Vote?
by Bob Herbert
|
The big story out of Florida over the weekend was the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Charley. But there's another story from Florida that deserves our attention.
State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.
| |
[more]
photography
Steven Scardina Photography
[more]
thanks to LensWork
war against some terrorists
If You Want War, Get Used to Blood
|
What we have to do is develop the backbone to suck it up and get right on with our business. We cannot afford to bring the whole country to a halt every time a bomb goes off. We are going to have to be like the British during the blitz – stiff upper lip and all that.
God willing, we will eventually elect a president smart enough to realize that the terror is caused by our foreign policy and that the only way to end the terrorism is to change our policies. But until we do, we will just have to get used to some blood on our streets.
It's not as if we aren't already used to it. Our homegrown terrorists, commonly called criminals, murder an average of 15,000 Americans every year, and, of course, our favorite machine, the automobile, takes out another 40,000 or so folks every year.
Remember, you are highly unlikely to be a victim of a terrorist attack. All you have to do is to not go bonkers when someone else is killed. When the attack comes, watch it once and then turn off your TV and go on with your life.
| |
[more]
photography
DICK SANDERS PHOTOGRAPHY
|
During 1997 and early 1998 I spent most of my Saturday afternoons camped outside of Sam's Market, a convenience store in my (then) hometown of Joshua Tree, California, where I had set up a portable studio to make formal portraits of local citizens as they stopped for milk, beer, cigarettes, and ice cream. My intent was to explore the idea that "people anywhere can stand for people everywhere," and thus serve as a metaphor for the human drama. I do believe the work is a fiction, not depicting individual lives, but showing our common humanity. Here is an excerpt from my artist's statement in 1998: In this show you will see everything from Leonardo Da'Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' to Henry David Thoreau's 'quiet desperation.' If the work succeeds, you will also see yourself."
| |
[more]
thanks to LensWork
conservatism
What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?
|
Liberals in the United States have been losing political debates to conservatives for a quarter century. In order to start winning again, liberals must answer two simple questions: what is conservatism, and what is wrong with it? As it happens, the answers to these questions are also simple:
Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.
Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.
These ideas are not new. Indeed they were common sense until recently. Nowadays, though, most of the people who call themselves "conservatives" have little notion of what conservatism even is. They have been deceived by one of the great public relations campaigns of human history. Only by analyzing this deception will it become possible to revive democracy in the United States.
| |
[more]
thanks to wood s lot
fish
Deep Sea Creatures (image heavy)
[more]
thanks to Geisha asobi blog
it's a birthday
It was a busy week last and I forgot to notice that I started this blog August 10, 2000. Four years. What a strange trip it's been.
iraq
Pay attention here. I think the shit is about to hit the fan. I hope I'm wrong.
Iraqi Conference on Election Plan Sinks Into Chaos
|
A conference of more than 1,100 Iraqis chosen to take the country a crucial step further toward constitutional democracy convened in Baghdad on Sunday under siege-like conditions, only to be thrown into disorder by delegates staging angry protests against the American-led military operation in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
After an opening speech by Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, delegates leapt out of their seats demanding the conference be suspended. One Shiite delegate stormed the stage before being forced back, shouting, "We demand that military operations in Najaf stop immediately!"
Shortly afterward, two mortar shells fired at the area where the meeting was being held landed in a bus and truck terminal nearby, killing 2 people and wounding at least 17.
| |
[more]
Talks Fall Apart for Shiite Rebels and Iraq Leaders
|
Truce talks between Iraq's interim government and Moktada al-Sadr's rebels collapsed Saturday, prompting American commanders to prepare new battle plans for breaking Mr. Sadr's grip on this holy city and the Imam Ali mosque, the Middle East's most sacred Shiite shrine.
Soon after the talks broke down, American marines and soldiers lined up in tanks and armored vehicles at their base in Najaf, with some anxiety but ready to begin an offensive. Instead, it was called off, for the second time in recent days.
| |
[more]
Najaf: turning point for whom?
by Helena Cobban
|
One week into the present Battle of Najaf it seems clearer than ever that Allawi and his US backers are determined to win this battle in a way that imposes a humiliating defeat on Moqtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army.
From his side Moqtada also seems to have dug in his heels. The possibility of a face-saving-all-round outcome seems to have almost disappeared.
It is not yet clear who will "win" this showdown. Militarily, of course a large, very well-armed US force, backed up by extremely lethal airpower and augmented by some local Iraqi forces would seem to have a large advantage over a few hundred-- perhaps 1,500 at most--lightly armed Mahdi fighters. (Urban fighting, however, can be really brutal. Do the US Marines there really have the guts for it?)
But as every first lieutenant should understand, the "Battle" of Najaf will not be won on the military battlefield. It will be won in the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, and in that arena the US/Allawi forces are almost bound to lose any all-out showdown.
| |
[more]
US/Allawi have overplayed their hand
|
Following up on this post here Thursday, it now seems clear to me that in forcing the confrontation against the Mahdi Army in Najaf, the US-Allawi forces seriously overplayed their hand. And over the next few days we will see what consequences they have to take for that.
[...]
The next few days could well be a turning point for the US position in Iraq. If I were Karl Rove--which thank God I am not--I would have to be seriously wondering how an electoral victory come November can possibly be plucked out of this crock of chaos, misery, and imminent defeat.
| |
[more]
Iraqi Troops to Take Lead In Battling Sadr's Forces
|
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi will send Iraqi troops to Najaf to battle a Shiite Muslim militia, Iraqi officials and U.S. commanders said Saturday after peace talks collapsed between the interim government and rebellious cleric Moqtada Sadr.
| |
[more]
Offensive resumes in Najaf, prompting desertions of Iraqi troops
|
The officers, most of them decorated veterans from the former regime, shook their heads at the thought of Iraqis battling Iraqis on sacred soil. Several said they would resign immediately if senior officers ordered them to serve in Najaf. They asked to withhold their names for fear of reprimand.
"I'm ready to fight for my country's independence and for my country's stability," one lieutenant colonel said. "But I won't fight my own people."
"No way," added another officer, who said his brother - a colonel - quit the same day he received orders to serve in the field. "These are my people. Why should I fight someone just because he has a difference in opinion about the future of the country?"
| |
[more]
US poised for killer blow against Muqtada
|
Once again, US armed forces appear on the verge of winning a decisive military victory in Iraq - this time in the holy city of Najaf. And once again, they appear closer to losing the
larger wars for a stable and friendly Iraq and for an Islamic world that will cease producing anti-US terrorism.
That is the rapidly growing concern of Middle East and Islamic specialists as US Marines, after a week of fighting, captured virtually all of central Najaf on Thursday, including the home of Mehdi Army leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and launched a final siege of the Imam Ali Shrine, which is considered the world's holiest by some 120 million Shi'ite Muslims.
| |
[more]
pilgrimage
I've added another page on my trip to DC and New York. This page covers the last day in DC and my first night in New York City.
Gordy and Madelane's Great Pilgrimage
Observations and Digressions
Day 5 — Part 2
[more]
Here are links to the other entries. More entries later.
Introduction
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5 — Part 1
big pharma
The Drug Profiteers
It’s time to rein in the biggest drug peddlers of them all — the pharmaceutical industry. Author Marcia Angell talks about how to fight the other drug war.
|
Medicare was enacted in 1965 with no provision for outpatient prescription drug benefits for seniors. You point out that drugs were cheaper, people took fewer drugs and seniors could afford to buy what they needed. Today, because many seniors don't have supplemental insurance or collective bargaining power, prices are highest for the people who most need drugs. Will the recent Medicare reforms help?
The Medicare drug benefit that was just passed in late 2003 will do very little to help senior citizens because it specifically prohibits Medicare from bargaining with drug companies for lower prices. All large private insurers already do this. So do some government programs such as the Veterans Affairs (VA) system. Medicare would be the biggest purchaser of all. It would have enormous bargaining power. The pharmaceutical industry did not want that to happen and they made sure it would be explicitly prohibited. And it was. What we are left with is a drug benefit that is inadequate to begin with. It has this huge donut hole for example. As prices increase at the rate they are now, and they'll probably increase at least that fast, [the benefit] will quickly be washed out by rising prices.
| |
[more]
The $200 Billion Colossus
"When I say this is a profitable industry, I mean really profitable. It is difficult to conceive of how awash in money big pharma is."
|
What's true of the eight-hundred-pound gorilla is true of the colossus that is the pharmaceutical industry. It is used to doing pretty much what it wants to do. The watershed year was 1980. Before then, it was a good business, but afterward, it was a stupendous one. From 1960 to 1980, prescription drug sales were fairly static as a percent of U.S. gross domestic product, but from 1980 to 2000, they tripled. They now stand at more than $200 billion a year. Furthermore, since the early 1980s, this industry has consistently ranked as the most profitable in the United States˜by a long shot. (Only in 2003 did it fall from that position to rank third among the forty-seven industries listed in the Fortune 500.) Of the many events that contributed to their sudden great and good fortune, none had to do with the quality of the drugs the companies were selling.
| |
[more]
visuals
Kunstformen der Natur
[more]
thanks to Everlasting Blort
boring family stuff
My son Robby had a lawn party last month and I'm finally getting the pictures up.
Robby's lawn party
|
|
|
|
