The Flashlight, July 21-27, 2007

THE FLASHLIGHT, July 21-27, 2007

Iraq

Az-Zaman 7-24. Shia militias now control both Baghdad and Basra. In Baghdad, Palestinians are being murdered, kidnapped, and expelled from iraq. In the three southern provinces, the Shia parties and their militias have drawn up a list of 3,000 former Sunni Baathists suspected of participating in the massacre of Shia rebels in March 1991. It is believed that many will be executed without trial, and the liquidation has begun. Panic prevails.

NYTimes Editorial 7-25. The recently revealed Bush Administration two year plan of further US military operations in Iraq was condemned because the US military cannot execute it without grievous losses in quality, readiness, and morale. The plan assumes that Iraqi politicians, which have not acted responsibly in the last four years, will do so during the next two years.
Maureen Dodd called Bush’s regime as the Reign of Error.

` NYTimes 7-26. A House resolution passed by a vote of 399 to 24 rejected permanent US bases in Iraq and US economic control over the oil resources of Iraq. Next week Rep. John Murtha will add a new withdrawal plan to the military spending bill. It will come to a vote in September after the coming Congressional recess.

Press TV. 7-27. Internet. Iraqi Draft Oil law. Interview by Mehran Derakhshandeh with Raed Jarrar, Iraqi consultant to the American Friends Service Committee.
The oil law now being considered by the Iraqi Parliament has nothing to do with revenue sharing, as the US press mistakenly suggests. The actual revenue sharing law is currently being considered by the Iraqi Council of Ministers, and the Bush Administration is not pressing for its passage. Rather, it is pressing for the draft oil law now in Parliament that provides for operation of international oil companies in Iraq under Production Sharing Agreements that would give large percentages of oil revenues to these companies. There is no need for such agreements because there is no risk in producing Iraqi oil: its locations are well known. Moreover, it is very cheap to produce. So the Iraqis are resisting the law providing for these agreements with foreign companies.. .

Afghanistan

7-26. NYTimes Editorial. It urged the US not to send any more conventional troops to Afghanistan, saying it would do more harm than good. The terrorist training camps have moved to Pakistani tribal territory. The best way to fight insurgents is through better intelligence, special forces, pragmatic politics, and economic development. In the last five years the national wealth of Afghanistan has doubled, and the population of Kabul as increased four times to four million.

Lebanon/Israel

An-Nahar, 7-23. Hizbollah has reorganized and claims its rockets can now strike any place in Israel, including Tel Aviv

United Kingdom

7-24-25. The UK is suffering from the worst flooding in sixty years. Large numbers of people are without clean drinking water. Oxford has had to be evacuated. The costs will be high.


US News

NYTimes 7-26. The Dow Jones Index dropped 286 points to 13,473, on account of poor new home sales in June and the threat of a credit crunch. European stock markets also fell sharply.

NY Times 7-26. The White House is resisting the threat of subpoenas for its staff by claiming executive privilege, and if this goes to court it could play out until the end of Bush’s term. The situation of Attorney Gonzales is more dangerous, since FBI Director Robert Mueller has contradicted his testimony to Congress concerning his visit to the bedside of John Ashcroft to promote an NSA program in violation of privacy rights of US citizens. .

Book Report

[Christopher Hitchens. God is Not Great; How Religion Poisons Everything.
The author’s sophisticated criticism is against fundamentalism of all kinds, not Quakerism. His best chapters are 2) Religion Kills 4) A Note on Health, in Which Religion can be Hazardous and 13) Does Religion Make People Behave Better? His expose of Mormonism is timely. ]

The Flashlight, July 14-20, 2007

THE FLASHLIGHT, July 14-20, 2007

Iraq
`
PBS 7-13. Since 2008, a total of 118 journalists have been killed in Iraq, mostly Iraqis.

CBS 7-15. 74% of Americans think the Iraq War is going badly.

US News

Roman Catholic Class Action Lawsuits

NY Times 7-15. Lawyers for 508 class action plaintiffs about sex abuse by the Roman Catholic Church in the Los Angeles Arch- diocese have won a settlement of $660 million dollars, the highest since the controversy began in 2002. As a result the Archdiocese will have to sell property and go into debt. According to CBS, the total that the Church has had to pay out in the US on account of such lawsuits is $2 billion dollars.

Economic Inequality

NY Times 7-15. 15,000 families, constituting 1/100th of a percent of US families, each with an annual income of $9.5 million dollars or more, now receive 5% of the national income.
7-19. The Dow Jones Index rose to 14,000.

Security

CNN. 7-17. According to the new National Intelligence Estimate, the threat of Al-Qaida to the US has increased

Japan

NY Times 7-17. An earthquake measured in Japan at 6.8 on the Richter Scale, killed 9 and injured 900. Hundreds of buildings were flattened and thousands of people were homeless.


North Korea

NY Times 7-16. It has been confirmed that North Korea has shut down its nuclear reaction, a response to the arrival of a shipment of fuel oil from North Korea.

Health

CNN. 7-19. 15% of US teenagers are now rated as obese. In order to help those over 250 pounds who have little hope of reducing by diet and exercise, a new form of surgery is being undertaken. Surgeons insert an adjustable elastic band around the entry to the stomach. This is less risky than a gastric bypass just above the entrance to the intestines. The band is tightened by injecting air into it. In the first year the patient, with counseling, can lose 30% of excess weight, with the prospect of eventually losing 50% of excess weight by gradual tightening of the band. This operation costs $15,000 - $20,000.

Cartoon in the New Yorker, 7-21:
“Seven Deadly Virtues”

1. Morning perkiness
2. Un-called for thrift
3. Total honesty
4. Over-seriousness
5. Gossip prudery
6. Guilt mongering
7. Fitness obsession

The Flashlight, July 7-14, 2007

THE FLASHLIGHT, July 7-14, 2007

[Editorial Note. Az-Zaman, founded in 1997, is owned and edited by a wealthy Iraqi, Saad al-Bazzaz, who is based in London. He employs a team of outstanding writers. This is the best-known Baghdad daily paper.]

Iraq

NYTimes 7-13, Lead editorial. The Bush Administration, refusing to acknowledge failure, is twisting the facts about the situation in Iraq. Eight months ago CIA Director Michael Hayden said the situation was hopeless, and it still is.
As in the case of the Viet Nam War, the US has no effective government partner there that it can back. Nor is there an Iraqi military that can act independently of US troops.
New intelligence shows that al-Qaida has rebuilt itself and is fortified in a safe haven in Pakistan.
George Bush is dangerously delusional and delaying any change in policy.

` Az-Zaman, 7-10. Since 2003, five hundred Iraqi scientists have been killed. They came from all ethnic groups. A total of 17,000 scientists, doctors, and other professionals have left Iraq.

CNN, 7-8. Madeline Albright says the political bottom is falling out in Iraq, and it has become a failed state. A three-way division of the country is likely between Sunni, Shia, and the Kurds. Iran has been greatly strengthened by this US disaster.
CNN 7-9. It is reported that Iraqi politicians are telling civilians to arm themselves. The Maliki government is on the brink of collapse.
CNN 7-10. Michael Ware in Baghdad said that no reduction in the militias is possible, since they constitute the basis of political power, such as it is. PBS. 7out of 10 Americans want the troops out Iraq by April, 2008. The Democrats in Congress propose bills to do just that. But not enough Republicans have joined them yet to pass the bills.


US News

Origins of the Iraq War

New York Review of Books. 7-19. Thomas Powers, “What Tenet Knew.” Tenet claims that the false report issued by the CIA on the presence of WMD in Iraq was not an “honest error” as he claims. The report disguised shaky sources, minimized doubts, excluded alternative explanations, and exaggerated the significance of trivia.
As a result, Colin Powell’s famous speech to the UN asking for support for the Iraq War was based on a pile of falsehoods. There were no aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons, no yellowcake uranium from Niger, and no connections between al-Qaida and Saddam. There were no weapons of mass destruction at all in Iraq.

Michael Moore’s Sicko
This effective documentary has received mostly good reviews. [I have seen it and recommend it. It compares well with Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. ]

Retired Bush Surgeon General Speaks Out

PBS 7-10. Dr. Richard Carmona said that the Bush administration marginalized him. They refused to listen to his scientific advice on birth control and stem-cell research, saying that the policy had already been decided upon. They tried to make Dr. Carmon a propagandist for positions in which he did not believe.

Egypt

The Economist, 7-7. Female genital mutilation (surgical removal of the clitoris), usually performed on twelve-year olds to “purify” them and make them more eligible for marriage, has now been banned by the government with the support of Muslim and Christian clergy.

The Arctic

Guardian 7-11. Now that global warming has opened a slender Northwest Passage across the far north of North America briefly in the summer, there is growing competition for positions and resources there. Canada, the US, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland are active competitors. The area may be rich in oil, gas, diamonds, silver, copper, zinc, and fish stocks.

International Progress

CNN 7-11. Japan Airlines (JAL) has installed combination toilets/bidets on its liners, in order “refresh the parts that other airlines cannot reach.” [A sneaky trick to crush the competition.]

The Flashlight, June 29 - July 6, 2007

THE FLASHLIGHT, June 29 – July 6, 2007

Iraq

Az-Zaman 6-29. There are now only three major Iraqi power groups: the Mahdi Army, Shia, led by Moqtada as-Sadr; the Supreme Islamic Council, Shia together with its Badr Brigade; and al-Qaida, Sunni. [but there are also hundreds of kin-based, ethnic based, and religion-based small groups].

Az-Zaman. 7-3. An Iraqi general said that in Baghdad attacks against US and its allied forces had increased, while attacks on civilians had declined. The fifteen Sadrist deputies returned to Parliament.

Az-Zaman, 7-4. Major General John Batiste, in testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives, said that the Iraqi Army is still weak, unreliable, and ill-equipped. He said:
“Historically the army in the Middle East is permanently ineffective because of social factors rooted in Arab culture: the secrecy, megalomania, showing off, the gap between social classes, the inability to coordinate, and the lack of individual freedom and security….Our experience in the last four years is that most Iraqi units will not show up to fight and will not stand up to face a rebellion – for thousands of reasons.”

CNN 7-5. CNN predicts that in September the American military commanders will ask for more time to operate in Iraq.

United Kingdom

7-2 and 7-3 CNN. Three botched car bombings in Britain led to the arrest of seven male physicians and a woman lab technician married to one of them. They had Islamic sounding names. They were in their mid to late twenties. This was the first terrorist case involving physicians. Previously they had been considered above suspicion.

US Politics
Mic
NYTimes 7-4. The second quarter presidential fund raising results are in and overall the Republicans raised a lot less than the Democrats. Obama led with $32.5 million, Clinton with $27 million; Romney dropped from $20.5 million in the first quarter to $14 million in the second. McCain raised only $11 million and had to lay of most of his staff; Giuliani declined from 17 in the first quarter to 15 in the second. Fred Thompson is about to announce his candidacy as a Republican. Michael Bloomberg hovers.

CNN 7-5. Senator Pete Dominici, R., broke with Bush on Iraq policy, joining Republican Senators Lugar and Voinovich.

The

The

The

The