US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

take a deep breath ican.
sit down
just think about what you say for a while
the IPCC is a bunch of amateurs? is that it?

so who, apart obviously from ican711, do or would you recognise as expert in this field?

Opponents of the global warming theory
Some of the most visible opponents of the global warming theory from within the scientific community have been

Patrick Michaels from the Department of Environmental Services at the University of Virginia
Robert Balling of Arizona State University
Sherwood B. Idso of the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory [5] (http://www.uswcl.ars.ag.gov/)
S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist and professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia
Richard Lindzen of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ross McKitrick
Bjørn Lomborg
Petr Beckmann (anti-global warming treaties)
Lester Hogan (anti-global warming treaties)
Frederick Seitz (anti-global warming treaties, accepts the temperature rise as real, but not yet properly explained)

But why should you be any different than most castroites (i.e., my label for those who think different people should be governed by different rules)?

What a hero Fidel Castro is.

Informed Comment

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

Monday, May 09, 2005

8 US Servicemen Killed Over Weekend

The NYT reports that guerrillas killed 8 US servicemen in separate incidents over the weekend. On Sunday, bombings in Samarra and Khalidiya killed 3 US servicemen. In Haditha on Saturday, guerrillas attacked and captured a hospital, killing 3 US Marines and a sailor when the US attempted to take it back.

What is going on in Sunni Iraqi cities, which might account for this violence (which is typically reported curtly and in a shadowy fashion by the US military and American press)? Al-Zaman has a report today (it gives joint credit to Reuters and AFP) that might shed some light on it. Al-Zaman says Ramadi and some of the towns around it were gripped by a civil rebellion on the part of virtually all the townspeople on Saturday and Sunday. It comes in response to the Friday prayers sermons in the city's mosques and calls by the city's clergy, who called for a strike to protest against the US encirclement of the city and against what they called random arrests, which have resulted in the imprisonment of many young men of Ramadi. Everyday life has ground to a standstill. The streets are empty of passers-by, shops are shuttered, and bazaars are closed. Schools, universities and government offices are likewise closed. The US military has addressed the population with loudspeakers mounted on cars, calling on them to end the civil strike and to refuse to obey the armed militias in their midst.

The council of Sunni clergy in the city spread around a pamphlet that complained that ever since the US occupied the city, virtue and honor no longer had any value. The practices of the illegal Occupation were aimed at achieving its illegitimate aims, from daily killings to attacks and round-ups to the imprisonment of free persons in a forest of jails. The latest outrage was the encirclement of the city, cutting it off and isolating it from its environment through barricades, such that all have been grievously harmed. It called on townspeople to protest these practices with a two-day strike over the weekend

If the Al-Zaman report is at all accurate, it suggests that the counter-insurgency campaign in Ramadi to date is a political failure, whatever its tactical successes.

The Washington Post says that US military commanders are putting more emphasis now on combating the foreign jihadis. Seems to me like they should begin with making friends of Ramadi and Mosul, instead.

On Saturday, Guerrillas in Baghdad targeted a convoy of vehicles of the sort used by notables with a massive bomb that tossed armored SUVs about like toys, and left 29 dead and 54 wounded, as a small mushroom cloud billowed into the sky. Two American security guards were among the dead. A school bus also appears to have suffered damage, but the casualties among the school children had not been reported when this Tribune story was filed.

Few commentators, when they mention such news, point out the obvious. The United States military does not control Baghdad. It doesn't control the major roads leading out of the capital. It does not control the downtown area except possibly the heavily barricaded "green zone." It does not control the capital. The guerrillas strike at will, even at Iraqi notables who can afford American security guards (many of them e.g. ex-Navy Seals). If the US military does not control the capital of a country it conquered, then it controls nothing of importance. Ipso facto, Iraq is a failed state.

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by Mesopotamian al-Qaeda, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. [As readers know, I think the Baathists and old Iraqi military are behind most of these attacks, not Zarqawi.] A pamphlet attributed to Zarqawi is circulating in Baghdad, according to al-Hayat, that threatens an attack on the American homeland. The pamphlet was distributed at Friday prayers at several mosques in Baghdad. The pamphlets called for a jihad or holy war against the Americans and the new Iraqi security forces. One said, "The infidels can expect nothing from us save the sounds of weapons and explosions, until they depart from our land and leave us to live in accordance with our Holy Law. And we shall chase them to their land, so that they will pay the poll tax as a subject population."

Former ministers flee as Iraq begins corruption inquiry
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
09 May 2005


Former Iraqi ministers are fleeing the country because of reports that the new administration may prevent them going abroad while accusations of corruption are being investigated.

The incoming government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who completed his cabinet yesterday, has pledged to fight pervasive corruption among officials. The outgoing administration of Iyad Allawi was regarded as highly corrupt by Iraqis.

Officials say that some former ministers have left Iraq in the past few days because they fear they will be detained if they try to leave later. "I have heard that [the government] are considering preventing any minister of the former government leaving the country," said Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister and veteran political leader. The new administration is able to do this under emergency legislation introduced by Mr Allawi.

Iraqi businessmen say that since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein the government machinery has become corrupt. "I am thinking of pulling out of business entirely in Iraq," said one businessman. "Officials at every level demand bribes just to do their jobs so there is no profit left for my company at the end of the day."