The Flashlight March 23-30, 2007

THE FLASHLIGHT, March 24-30, 2007

Iraq

PBS, 3-23. By a vote of 218 to 212 the US House of Representatives attached a resolution to the Iraq War funding bill that would demand the withdrawal of US troops by Sept 1, 2008.
CNN 3-29. By a vote of 50-48 the Senate passed and Iraq War funding bill that would demand US withdrawal by April 1, 2008.
The President has threatened to veto the bill, and the majorities in the House and Senate are not large enough to override a veto. However, the funding for US armed forces in Iraq will run out next month so the President must negotiate with Congress.

CNN 3-27. In response to the claim of Sen. John McCain that the situation in Baghdad was now improving, Michael Ware, the Australian reporter who has been in Iraq since 2003, said that there was no improvement in the situation in Baghdad. No foreigner can go out on any street in Baghdad without security guards.

US Politics

W Post 3-27. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R. Neb.) a veteran of the Viet Nam War, said on ABC television that we are destroying our National Guard, our Army, and our Marine Corps and that we cannot sustain this.
PBS 3-25. Sen. Hagel said that the impeachment of Pres. Bush should be considered as a serious possibility because he is defying both Congress and public opinion.

NY Times 3-25. Former vice-president Al Gore was warmly received by committees in both houses of Congress. It was reported that an increasing number of business leaders and politicians outside Washington support him in his campaign against global warming.

NYTimes 3-26. A Pew Research Center study comparing the political situation of 2002 with that today reported that Democrats nationally have a 15% lead over Republicans. Government is now seen by a majority of 46 – 20 as the solution instead of the problem. 69% want the federal government to guarantee health insurance for all.

Iran
PBS 3-26. The UN Security Council unanimously banned arms exports to Iran and froze assets involved in uranium enrichment. Unexpectedly both Russia and China voted for this increase in sanctions.

Arab League Meeting

3-29. NY Times, Guardian, Reuters. A very successful Arab League meeting was held in Riyadh, led by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. In his opening speech the king described the US role in Iraq as illegal. He called for an end to the international boycott of the new Palestinian unity government. He invited Pres. Ahmedinejad of Iran to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia is Sunni and Iran is Shia, and they are traditional rivals).
Most important, the King urged the adoption of the 2002 Plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This would require that the Israelis withdraw from all territories occupied in the 1967 War: Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem and dismantle all Israeli settlements in those territories. It would require an end to the Israeli freeze of tax revenues due to the Palestinians. A Palestinian independent state would be created.
This plan is viewed favorably throughout the Middle East and Europe. Only Israel, backed by the US, has been refused to implement it. But Israeli prime minister Olmert said last week that he saw a “revolutionary change in the Arab world.” Unfortunately, Olmert’s favorable rating at home is even lower than that of Pres, Bush.

[Saudi Arabia may have the largest oil reserves in the world and has long been a close ally of the US and a friend of the Bush family. It has a population of only 24 million as compared to Iran, with a population of 69 million and Egypt, with 72 million. Although well supplied with US arms, it does not have military superiority over Israel.
The Arab League meeting last week marks an important turning point in the US-Saudi relations. King Abdullah’s condemnation of US activity in Iraq is not necessarily anti-American, but it is an open criticism of the Bush Administration.]

THE FLASHLIGHT, March 17-23, 2007

The Iraq War

CBS 3-18. On the fourth anniversary of the Iraq War, the US estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths is 59,000+ but other estimates are much, much higher.
Opposition to the War in Britain has risen to 82%.
CNN 3-19. In the US, opposition among the general public is 68%, while among Democrats only it is 91%. Of Iraqis, 71% are against the war.

` 3-19. A new Stanford Anti-War coalition announced an end to silence with a vigil for the military and civilian war dead.

3-19 ABC. Ross (Rocky) Anderson, Mayor of Salt Lake City, called for the impeachment of Pres. Bush and Vice-Pres. Cheney. He is a Democrat and a lapsed Mormon.

Demographic Crisis in China

China, once burdened with an excess of births, followed by a policy of one child only per couple, is now facing a glut of retirees. This glut will have to be supported by a dwindling group of working age young people. The total population, 1.4 billion, will have 200 million retires in 2015, and 430 million (one-third of the total population) in 2050.
Now 30% of college graduates are unemployed a year after graduation. Half a billion rural Chinese are not protected by social security in any form.
This situation is threatening, both economically and politically. Already, the age of retirement has been raised.

Science: Anthropology

` Geneticists and neuroscientists have been making rapid progress in understanding the brain and reconstructing the human past. They no longer have to rely on stones and bones dug up from the ground. The evidence is found in genetic samples from living people and MRI pictures of the brain.
CBS 3-22. The specific part of the brain where personal moral choices are made is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. It has been known as the conscience or the superego. This is where the “still small voice” speaks.

Book Review. Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn; Recovering the Lost History of our Ancestors. 2006.
Geneticists now believe that human speech began with a mutation in the muscles of the face and mouth which occurred in about 50,000 b.c. in Ethiopia. From that location, the 5,000 original humans migrated over the whole globe. (They are no longer believed to be descendants of Homo erectus).

Since then human evolution has continued with further mutations. These mutations were specific to certain regions inhabited by different races. Race is no longer defined by skin color, but by continent of birth. Caucasians are found in Western Eurasia, the Middle East, North Africa, and a large part of India. There skin color varies from white to almost black. Chinese, Japanese, et al. are in East Asia.
Two genes influence brain functioning but scientists do not yet know just how. The microcephalic gene appeared 37,000 years ago and is widespread among Caucasians and East Asians. It is less frequent among sub-Saharan Africans.
The ASPM gene appeared 6,000 years ago. It is common among Caucasians, less common among East Asians, and non-existent among sub-Sahara Africans.
Scientists now believe before 15,000 b.c. warfare was chronic among all human populations. The human skeleton and cranium were heavier than they are now. Around 15,000 b.c., when human began to leave the hunting-gathering lifestyle and settle down in the Fertile Crescent (Near East), the human skeleton and cranium became lighter, more “gracile.” Scientists think that this was correlated with more conciliatory, cooperative behavior that enabled people to live more peacefully.

The discoveries of the geneticists run contrary to the thesis of Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, 1997. He attempted to explain the difference in human achievement and progress in terms of environmental factors, such as the availability of animals fit for domestication, and the distribution of lethal germs.

Authors of world history have long recognized that the most important inventions prior to the twentieth century occurred almost entirely in Western Eurasia and East Asia. (e.g. Mary K. Matossian, Shaping World History. 1997.)

The results of tests of cognitive ability in the US show marked differences in the performance of different ethnic groups. But up to now, these differences have been attributed to environmental differences. Reputable scientists have rejected as “racist” the work of writers like Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve, 1994, who suggested that genetic differences may play an important role in cognitive ability.

[The above findings run counter to the belief in equality as often understood. They also run counter to the belief in the peaceful character of primitive peoples and the ancestors of civilized peoples. However, growing scientific knowledge and the ability to modify genes suggests that improvement may be possible.]

March 9-16, 2007

THE FLASHLIGHT, March 9-16, 2007

The Most Important Cause of the Iraq War Emerges

THE IRAQI OIL LAW

NYTimes, Antonia Juhasz, “Whose Oil is it Anyway?” op ed. 3-13.
Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves, by most estimates. If you include the oil sands of Canada, that would put Iraq in third place. If you demote Saudi Arabia, which may be lying about its reserves, that would put Iraq in first place. Moreover, Iraqi oil is easy to extract and refine, and therefore very profitable to produce.
The world’s biggest private oil companies are Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Chevron, and BP [British Petroleum]. They have unknown hundreds of billions in cash and equipment. Who is better able to rebuild Iraq’s oil pumps, refineries, and pipelines? Then there is the Halliburton Co., which took 2.3 billion dollars in profits last year. It is the second largest provider of oilfield services in the world. (CNN 3-12).
For many months, if not several years, there has been dickering over a new oil law for Iraq. The mainstream US press has been reporting only on the problem of equitable distribution of oil profits to the three main ethnic groups in Iraq, but silent on issue of the role of foreign oil companies in Iraqi oil production and profits.
On February 26, 2007 the Iraqi Cabinet approved the draft of a new oil law which will be submitted to the Iraqi Parliament in a few days. Antonia Juhasz, a world oil expert employed by Oil Change International (UK), a watchdog group, has given us the following summary of the new Iraqi oil law. The new law would take the majority of Iraq’s oil fields out of the hands of the Iraqi government and give them to private foreign companies for a generation or more.

The Iraqi National Oil Company would control only 17 of 80 known oil fields, leaving the rest to foreign oil companies. These companies would not have to invest all their earnings in the Iraqi economy, share new technologies with Iraq, or hire Iraqi workers. They would operate under contracts called “production sharing agreements” lasting 20-35 years. Today such agreements are used now only in the production of 12% of the world’s oil because they give private companies such a high degree of ownership, control, and profits. National governments today try to manage their own oil production and to limit access by foreign companies.

Any private foreign company is eligible to bid for a contract under the new Iraqi law. But in the presence of 140,000 US troops in Iraq and four permanent military bases near completion, the US oil companies appear to be in the most favorable position to compete for oil contracts.
For a more detailed critique see zmag.org, March 15, 2007, article by Munir Chalabi, “Political comments on the draft of the Iraqi oil law.”

[If the US withdraws its troops, the private oil companies can hire more “security guards” – read mercenaries – to protect their operations in Iraq. The profits from Iraqi oil could be used to pay the guards. The profits could also be used to buy Iraqi political leaders and keep them bought. Money corrupts, and oil money corrupts absolutely]

The Iraqi Oil Law and the US Congress
upi.com/Energy (United Press International) 3-14

The new supplemental appropriations bill in Congress, which provides additional funding for the war in Iraq, contains an important condition: that the Iraqi Government must approve the new Iraqi oil law, which gives US oil companies access to Iraqi oil fields. The bill in the House of Representatives makes continued US military support of the Iraqi Government conditional on acceptance of the new oil law. Rep. Dennis Kucinich opposes this provision. The supplemental bill, with the above provision, will be debated in the US House and in the Iraqi Parliament next week. In the Iraqi Parliament, two major political parties and the Oil Workers Union oppose the acceptance of the Iraqi oil law.

In the light of the oil news, the significance of other events of the week is also emerging.

Long Term Escalation in Iraq

NYT 3-9. It now appears that the “surge” of 21,500 troops, (plus 7,000 mentioned as an afterthought), is in fact the beginning of a long-term escalation. Pres. Bush has said that as long as he is in office, he will not withdraw the troops because we have to “fight terrorism” and “finish the job.” Both our top generals in Iraq now, Petraeus and Odierno, have asked for more troops. [They will probably get them at least until the oil companies have moved in.] Bush and his crowd are not the only ones who advocate long American occupation of Iraq:

Sen. Hilary Clinton declares her position on US troop withdrawal from Iraq

NYTimes, 3-15. Hilary said that if she were elected President she would keep some troops in Iraq to fight al-Qaida, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds, and support the military forces of the Iraqi Government. She said that the al-Qaida threat is “right in the heart of the oil region.”
[How is this different from the position of the Bush Administration? Great strategic thinking, Hilary. Al-Qaida is a world-wide organization, and the threat it constitutes can be used to justify US military occupation anywhere on earth. Yet in fact, the US is mainly concerned, in terms of relative amount of spending, about uprooting al-Qaida in the oil rich Muslim areas of the Middle East. Iraq is a country in the heart of the oil region, and if Americans can control it, they will more likely to be able to control the whole region.
So think the imperial Americans, who have grossly underestimated the power of low-tech guerrilla warfare and underground facilities.]

Halliburton Moves Headquarters to Dubai

CNN 3-12. While keeping one headquarters in Houston, the powerful Halliburton Company announced it is setting up new headquarters in Dubai, where corporate taxes are light, to manage its expected new activities in Middle East oil production. Now it will not have to pay US taxes on the income it gets from these Middle East activities.
Remember Dubai Ports World, the company that the Bush family backed to manage six major US ports? Remember that Vice-President Cheney is a former CEO of Halliburton and a buddy the managers of big oil?

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D., Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Halliburton’s move is an insult to US taxpayers who paid the tab for Halliburton’s no-bid contracts and endured its overcharges for years. According to Quaker journalist Helene Collins (of “Just World News” and the Christian Science Monitor), US investigators of fraud and abuse in the use of Iraq reconstruction funds found that Halliburton accounted 2.7 billion out of the 10 billion in misused funds.

[Rumor on the Internet has it that Israel will bomb Iran within 30 days and that the US dollar will crash as a result of world wide outrage.

More cheerfully,
US Evangelicals Condemn Torture

Guardian, 3-13. The National Association of Evangelical Christians, representing 45,000 churches, has condemned all forms of torture.

Science: Physical Anthropology

Guardian 3-13. A human jawbone found in Morocco has been dated at 160,000 years of age. That is within the 200,000 to 100,000 estimated range of the time of appearance of our species, Homo sapiens sapiens. The new jawbone is 100,000 older than the earliest human remains found previously. The jawbone has been placed in the National History Museum of London. The report on it is found in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

March 3-9, 2007

THE FLASHLIGHT, March 2 – 9, 2007

The New Iraqi Oil Law

[The text of the new draft Iraqi Oil Law, in Arabic and in English, is now available on Al-Ghad.org, voice of the “democratic left” of Iraq based in the UK., 1-15-07 and 2-20-07. Commentaries on it may be found in The Nation and Mother Jones, 3-1-07, Z-Net 3-2-07, middle eastonline.uk 3-05-07, and Alternet 3-6-07.. There has been no mention or discussion of this law in the mainstream American media. For further information go to Google News and search for “Iraqi Oil Law”] .

The Iraqi Oil Law, now approved by the Iraqi Cabinet, will be submitted to the Iraqi Parliament this month. It may be difficult to get a quorum because many members of Parliament have fled the country. [But somehow “the willing” will probably be found.]

The law provides for a new Federal Oil and Gas Council to be controlled by the Prime Minister, bypassing Parliament. The law sets no minimum level for state participation in its operation.. Foreign firms may operate in Iraq, and the law does not cap the amount of profits they may be allowed. Most details remain to be specified. [And the devil may be in the details].

The law leaves the ownership of Iraq’s oil in the control of the Prime Minister and his advisors. Foreign companies must bargain for access by “Exploration Risk Contracts.”
In a free market, China has plenty of cash to bargain for access to Iraqi oil. .But the US, by virtue of its military presence in Iraq, has the advantage. The Oil Ministry in the present Iraqi government is considered very corrupt. But how will security be provided for the oil industry?

[Last week The Flashlight reported from truthdig that Halliburton had almost completed four “permanent” US military bases in Iraq, expected to last 20-30 years, and which can accommodate the landing of any airplane. The news was probably conveyed by Vice-President Cheney to many heads of state on his recent world journey. This appears to be the “new” plan of the Administration. Actually, Halliburton started the construction of the four bases four years ago but kept it secret. An unknown number of US troops serve as guards of Iraqi oil facilities.]

The principal opponent of the draft oil law is the Federation of Iraqi Oil Unions, headed by Hassan Jum’ah ‘Awwad al-Asadi] See infor@al-ghad.org]

US Public Opinion and Iraq

3-4. NBC. Two-thirds of Americans polled opposed continuing the Iraq War.
Democrats Plan for Withdrawal

3-8 CNN. The House Democrats disclosed a plan to pull US troops out of Iraq at the end of August, 2008. If Bush cannot certify that the Iraqi government is meeting its military, economic, and political benchmarks this year, the Democrats want to move the mandatory pullout date up to the end of 2007. Regardless of benchmarks, US troops are to be redeployed out of Iraq by Mar. 1, 2008, according to the Democratic plan. Some will be sent to Afghanistan to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The House bill adds money for health care for returning veterans. The Senate Democrats are considering a similar bill.
A few hours later, Pres. Bush, en route to Brazil by air, threatened to veto any Democratic sponsored bill for troop withdrawal. Republicans are not lining up with the Democrats, and its takes a two-thirds Congressional majority to override a veto. [The Democrats know this, of course, but they are responding to public demand that they show backbone.]

Veterans Medical Care

3-3 PBS and NYTimes 3-5. The attention of most Americans this week was on the scandalous neglect of wounded war veterans after they become outpatients. A story in the Washington Post last week started the uproar by revealing disgusting conditions in Walter Reed outpatient facilities, and this was the tip of an iceberg. Veterans have been unable to get the attention either of Congressional or military leaders. Now that the two-party system has been restored in Congress, hearings are being held about the neglect of veterans. The Secretary of the Army has been fired, and more heads may roll.
Early information suggests two major causes of the scandal. As with FEMA the Bush Administration followed a policy of outsourcing and privatizing the management of post-op veteran care, thus driving competent government professionals from service. Since body armor and military doctors have saved many more lives than expected, the prewar budget underestimated the number of wounded.

Libby Verdict

3-5 CNN. Scooter Libby was found guilty on four out of five counts of perjury and related charges.

New Nukes Planned

NYTimes. The Bush Administration announced Livermore National Laboratories to be the winner in a competition to design the nation’s first new nuclear weapon in a decade. If Congress approves, it will begin a long expensive process to replace America’s present nuclear warheads in the next few decades. Sen. Feinstein is opposed.
The FCNL is preparing to fight a huge new military appropriations bill.

US Finance

CBS 60 Minutes 3-4. David Walker, Comptroller General of the US, reported that the retirement of baby boomers is about to produce a tsunami of
financial obligations which wage earners will not able about to sustain. In particular, the present health care system is wasteful and unless drastically reformed it could bankrupt the US government. Economic growth alone, he emphasized, cannot solve the problem. A financial catastrophe is in the offing. He said that it is necessary to l) increase revenue, meaning to raise taxes; 2) cut spending and 3) reform entitlements.

.New Oil Technologies

NYTimes 3-5. New technologies are making it possible to increase production of gas and oil in old sources. New methods of extraction and new processing of heavier oils are available. [This may serve to reduce US dependence of Middle East oil and control petroleum prices.] However, drastic cuts in petroleum consumption soon are necessary to control global warming.

The US Family

Washington Post 3-4 and 3-7. A dwindling percentage of households are married couples with children: 23.7%, half of the 1950’s high. The highest percentage of such couples are college educated and affluent. This reflects the increase in income inequality in the last three decades and the growing economic stress on the working class.

Science: Anthropology of the British Isles.

According to genetic studies of the population done by Stephen Oppenheimer at Oxford University, both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that remain in the majority. Only minor additions were made by the invading Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans.

The original and still basic population of the British Isles came from Spain about 16,000 years ago and spoke a language related to Basque. The Angles and Saxons did not bring the English language to England: it was already there.

The Flashlight Feb. 24 - Mar 2, 2007

THE FLASHLIGHT, February 24 – March 2, 2007

Iraq

2-27 PBS. The Iraqi Government has invited Syria, Iran, and the US to a conference. This is in accord with the recommendation of the Iraqi Study Group.
Two aircraft carrier groups are now in the Persian Gulf. There is speculation that an air attack on Iran is in the offing. But perhaps not. (see below).
` 3-1. Guardian. In Baghdad a team of four expert military advisors to General Petraeus say that they have only six months to win the war in Iraq. If not, they face a full collapse of political and public support for the war that would force US military forces to hastily retreat. Their reasoning is as follows:
1. There will be a complete disintegration of the international coalition in Iraq [that already has started].
2. As the British leave southern Iraq, there were be increasing violence there.
3. As casualties rise, morale will decline.
4. If it is clear that Bush’s “new” policy is not working by Labor Day, Bush may be forced to start a phased withdrawal.

Truthdig.com. 3-1. According to Pentagon whistleblower Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, ret., four permanent U.S. military bases have been completed secretly in Iraq by Halliburton. Any kind of plane can land in them. They can hold over 110,000 troops. The bases are built to last 20 to 30 years. The US will not turn them over to any Iraqis.

[Possibly, the aircraft carriers may be used to evacuate US Iraqi friends, as they did for our Vietnamese friends at the end of the Viet Nam War. Also, in the fall the US may move most of its troops to its four secure bases and wait for the Iraqis to fight things out among themselves.. If such plans are being circulated in Washington, that would explain the reluctance of many “moderate” Democrats and Republicans to support a phased withdrawal now.]

U.S. News

Veterans outpatient scandal

March 1-2. CNN. The general in charge of Walter Reed Hospital and the Secretary of the Army have been relieved of duties on account of the scandal in the negligent treatment of injured veterans, exposed by the Washington Post. There have been complaints since 2003 but the military officials in charge have not responded adequately. Sec.of Defence Gates says he is outraged.

US Politics

Giuliani now leads as the Republican candidate, McCain slips down. Obama now leads Hilary as the Democratic candidate, with Gore in third place. Gore won the Academy Award for his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, but has not indicated that he will run for President. He has both the money and name recognition that would be necessary.

US Health
3-2 NYTimes. According to CBS/NY Times poll, a majority of the American people put health care paid for by national health insurance at the top of their domestic agenda. They are willing to pay more taxes for it.