Panglossian Notes

Iran - problem or just an excuse to change the topic?

I caught the PBS News Hour, or part of it, just about 30 minutes ago. The segment I watched dealt with Iran, prompted by the NYTs interview of the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad and Bush's flat response.

Two individuals were asked for their comments regarding what seems to be going on with the current US executive and its various degrees of saber rattling over Iran. One of the commentators was Gary Sick from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. The other commentator was a Jordanian who writes for an Arabic newspaper out of the US (I didn't get his name but will update once PBS makes their tonight show notes available online).

I was quite impressed by Sick - see the transcript of an earlier interview with National Public Radio .

Why?

Because his comments were what I guess would now be considered moderate and coherent. His opinion was that the US is not planning an attack on Iran - why would you be broadcasting it? - and that the current US Administration's focus on that country was really about trying to change the subject or focus from Iraq. It was refreshing not to have to listen to the usual aggressively opinionated commentator, no matter how well qualified on paper concerning the subject in question.

Although Sick indicated he didn't have any particular inside information he did say clearly that it would be unusual if there were not close ties between Iran and the current Shiite dominated Iraqi government. After all most of the key Shiite players in Iraq actually lived and were protected in Iran when Saddam, the Sunni, was in power.

Also, although he didn't show any sarcasm when he made the point, most US casualties are occurring in Sunni dominated areas at the hands of the "insurgents" who seem to be funded by - he was careful not to name any government -individuals living in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, all considered US allies.

He finished by cautioning that the rising Sunni-Shia conflict, which looks to be being fanned by the US and its ME allies, could end with the usual "unintended consequences" now a customary fall-out with US interventions for short-term reasons.

Technorati Tags: Middle East, USA

Winning friends?

The material on this video can't be good for US British relations. Simply more confirmation for those already convinced that the US military is populated with brutes.

Making it to YouTube also means it will be everywhere in the ME where it will likely add to the Sunni Shiite divide being encouraged in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The shots taken in the hospital make you wonder where all those billions of US dollars have actually gone. Just to think if the Harper characters had been in office we'd be there up to our eye-balls which I guess some would really like.

Technorati Tags: Media, USA

Afghanistan NATO what's going on, eh?

I hadn't planned on writing anything in this blog, except for the occasional jotting down of a lose thought here and there, until after February.

I have been writing drafts of short essays but just to sort out my own thinking on a number of matters, for example Afghanistan and the reason we are there.

In effect this has amounted to me doing Google searches sifting through the results and tagging any pieces turned up with an appropriate keyword for later reference.

I'm using Del.icio.us, of course, for tagging but aided by Pukka, not the 6' rabbit in Harvey, a shack or one of the fairy folk but, an application written in Cocoa and Cocoalicious another app., also written in the same language.

Having read Lt. Gen. Odom's testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, this morning (strongly recommended by David Kurtz over a TPM), my mind was certainly re-thinking how to approach the whole question of considering, again, us the "patch of snow" in Afghanistan. As the Gen said:

"Military operations must be judged by whether and how they contribute to accomplishing war aims."

which clears away all the flack normally trotted out by well-meaning simps either for or against, me included I guess, and focuses on a clear analytical criteria once you know what, our, or NATO or the US aims' are.

So, as the morning wore on, my reading became, I think, more focused until I flipped over to the Asia Times and read M K Bhadrakumar's article titled US elevates Pakistan to regional kingpin. As I was finishing the CBC National radio news was broadcasting a piece about the new contingent of troops from Petawawa heading over to Afghanistan.

How ironic, eh, or is it just me.

What's concerning about the piece in the Asia Times?

If M K is correct in his assessment of what has been happening over the last little while then we and the other members of NATO have shifted to being simply a US mercenary brigade. In this case being a potential back stop to some new US adventure in Iran. Whatever! If you have been reading anything about what is going on within Arab country's sympathetic or dependent on the US - Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt - you know that there is a growing and potentially dangerous animosity between Sunni and Shiite and although no one is saying it openly, it is assumed that local government's are behind the raising of old hatreds.

I'd go farther and say it looks all too coincidental and likely sponsored by the US. Very unsettling, particularly for what seems to be the innocents we keep sending over to the ME and I don't just mean the troops looking to have an adventure and actually legally shoot someone but also our MPs and the boy idiot MacKay. Who if anyone briefs our so-called leaders, is this getting first world warish: stups in charge and innocents still believing in some "good war" or worst "a missionary calling".

Back, just a little, to the irony I mentioned. It has to do with what the troops think they are doing and what actually goes on. So you should also check out the interview mentioned by M K of Richards - the Brit.. Seems there really is no problem with Pakistan and everything is under-control and on course so why are our poor MP twits the last to know.

But better still is M Ks mention of

... a significant step was taken by the Afghan Parliament when it approved on Wednesday the formation of a National Reconciliation Commission. Speaking in Parliament, the enigmatic veteran Wahhabi leader Abdul Rasul Sayyaf strongly urged dialogue with the Taliban. Sayyaf couldn't have spoken in a vacuum. In a checkered political life spanning four decades, he has kept links with Saudi Arabia, the ISI, the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and Karzai. Who precisely motivated him on Wednesday, it is not easy to tell.

M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times
January 27, 2007

Hmm. Abul Rasul Sayyaf, what a guy, eh. Say his name along with some of the simps rationale for us being in Afghanistan: bring freedom and enlightenment to women. Too too funny right.

First I guess we need to sort out the different ways of spelling peoples names.

There is:

Abul Rasul Sayyaf,

Abdul Rabb Rasoul Sayyaf,

Abdul Rabb al-Rasuul Sayyaf, or

Abdur Rab Rasul Sayyaf.

Want to pick?

On a US and soon to be Canadian no-fly list this would be 4 separate guys but they are all the same wonderful person. All the same guy to be clear.

Abul Sayyaf is however defined on the web as:

"a small gang of terrorist thugs claiming to seek a separate Islamic state for the Muslim minority in the Philippines; uses bombing and assassination and extortion and kidnapping; "In 2001 Abu Sayyaf kidnapped twenty people and beheaded one of the American captives""

thefreedisctionary.com

[I couldn't resist putting the link to the thuggees in the definition I copied from thefreedictionary too funny for words? Last century's terrorists being used to define this century's rumbustious characters]

And I guess this maybe not a bad definition of the entity Abul Sayyaf which is a Philippine's group, right?

Wonder where it could have come from? Ah, the mysteries of Asia combined with the Pacific and why that name? Just do a little checking and have your own fun making some connections.

M K says Abul Rasul Sayyaf is an "enigmatic veteran Wahhabi". Maybe we should leave it at that. If we did then the troops, our troops, wouldn't have to deal with the messiness of the real world. They could be just "supported" and believe they are dealing with the century's first "good war".

But let's not.

Here's a picture of the charmer along side Massood (read whatever account you'd like of his leaving), Abul Rasul Sayyaf is in the foreground. Some say that Abul Rasul Sayyaf arranged the passes for the phony TV interviewers to meet with Massood and kill him. Both were part of the Northern Alliance.

Kathy Gannon has, I think, the most chilling tale of some of Abul Rasul Sayyaf's carrying on before the taliban, restored order and before they also lost their minds.

"... Many of the mujahedeen's atrocities - seven-year-old Maryam whose throat had been slit, the rape and scalping of Ghulam Jan's wife and the wives of friends - had been committed by Sayyaf's men when he was Rabbani's deputy prime minister. ....."

Kathy Gannon
I is for Infidel
ISBN 1-58648-312-9

Kathy is more explicit then Human Rights Watch on the charmer (search for Ittihad if the link doesn't jump to the section) but she was there and maybe more emotional about what she saw.

What I particularly like, though scalping is a nice touch and do remember our boys and girls are over there laying out sheets of "goodness", is that Mr. Enigmatic is quite likely one of the group that originally invited the USs old buddy Osama to Afghanistan.

Richard Clarke has said that it was the taliban that invited Mr Osama to that dusty place. But he is mistaken. It was the Northern Alliance, US buddies, that allowed bin Laden in and allowed him to set up training camps before the taliban restored some order to the place and before they themselves went nuts.

And we have the boy idiot playing in this game. The drooling monkey from some Nova Scotia potato patch. Christ, all fucking mighty. And idiot man Stockwell, we should put sex-offenders into general prison populations, Day looking after our safety.

Well, least the troops going over to fight the "good war" and defend the approved barbarians aren't encumbered with Ross rifles, so maybe we've learned something in the ninety years since Vimy.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Asia Times, Canada, NATO

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair or "yo Blair"

For some Sunday fun and amusement, after all the hanging stuff from Iraq and Nunavut here's a quick look at Tony, "yo", Blair's old Oxford band.

The reformed version of the group, "The Ugly Rumour", is getting set to release a single before the poodle leaves office or is arrest for selling lord-i-ships to the entrepreneurial class of the "old country".

Some background on our boy Tony's previous musical career, plus a link to the stop the war page with more info. and this teaser about a coming video to promote "The Ugly Rumour's" single:

"A video starring George Galloway MP and Tony Blair's sister-in-law Lauren Booth as police officers will be available soon to publicise the track."

It would have been fun to watch "The Trail of Tony Blair" on channel 4 also, but I don't seem to be able to make the on-line connection, oh well maybe it will make it to YouTube.

Technorati Tags: Politicans, Politics, Silly, World Affairs

Hanging is Nunavut's Preferred Suicide Method.

It's been a good start to the year for Nunavut.

First there were the 3 murders over in Cambridge Bay. On top of the interesting fact that the victims were left outside, under blue tarps (To protect the crime scene? A blizzard meant the investigators couldn't get in), the murders allowed the various problems facing the territory to get some more national media coverage.

And now the new suicide season, with a double header hanging in Iqaluit, has been kicked off with a bang.

Hanging is the preferred way to go for non-qallunaat Nunavummiut (a.k.a. Inuit), even though there are lots of firearms in communities, hunting after all is still an important way to get food on the table and the local culture maybe under stress but the taste for country food hasn't been lost, yet, completely. Also, pills aren't normally an option in the North because of the expense and difficultly obtaining them. After all in a place where mouthwash is under lock and key at the Northern stores, Scope parties you know, you are likely to struggle getting enough over-the-counter barbiturates to go to sleep. Also, if you could afford them, where would you buy them, there is still only one drug store in the territory, I think. So it would have to be from the hospital, health center or nurses station - too many questions there for the determined suicide.

The last, as far as I can tell, detailed look at suicide in the North was completed the year before Nunavut split from the Northwest Territories, 1998. Although the study was examining suicide in the NWT it distinguished between what became Nunavut and what stayed the NWT. The study noted that hanging, as a method, was on the rise.

Method of Suicide

Our review of coroner's cases revealed hanging as the most frequent
method of suicide used by both sexes (13 or 77% of females, and 36 or
59% of males). Among the 68 Inuit who committed suicide, 46 (68%) died
by hanging and 20 (29%) died from a gunshot wound. Of the 10 non-Inuit
suicide cases, 7 (70%) died from a gunshot.

Source:
Suicide in The Northwest Territories: A Descriptive Review
Public Health Agency of Canada

To be continued..........

Technorati Tags: Arctic, Canada, Nunavut

A Book for the Hangmen of Iraq?

I was just looking through my Machinery's Handbook, the Seventeenth Edition, for some precise details on cooking brown Thai rice and this old index card fell out. I can't remember from which of the many libraries I've visited that I may have lifted it.

I always use my Machinery's Handbook for cooking. I find it much better as a reference source than say some of M.F.K. Fisher's books. It's the preciseness of the Industrial Presses book that wins hands down, eh.

Curiosity thanks to a guy from Ann Arbor

Technorati Tags: Curiosity, Neck Tie Parties

LOSING YOUR HEAD TO THE HANGMAN IN IRAQ?

As the hooded head rolled towards some of the witnesses none seemed to shrink back but also and, maybe this is good, none appeared to kick out. You really do have to be thankful for any semblance of civilization in the present day Iraq, I guess. So not beginning an impromptu game of soccer in the execution chamber is an indication that we can be optimistic?

If you'd been Bush or Blair, or even maybe good old boy John Howard from down-under, trying to toady up, I'd bet one of them couldn't have resisted a kick.

"Just an involuntary reflects to a disgusting thing rolling towards him", the line to be used by whose ever shmuck press secretary or handler had to deal with real people the next day.

That, the disgusting thing had been planted, just a few moments before, on top of someone's shoulders and had controlled that someone's breathing, thinking, all the normal human do-dads associated with living, would have been of no consequence.

It was a disgusting thing and it was rolling.

"Amateurs always make a mess of things."

Anonymous

Or do they? Hmm.

====================

From: Canadian Corrections

1890 - Canada’s executioner was John Radclive (Radcliff). He held this position until 1912 when he died.

1913 - With the loss of Radclive in 1912, there was a need for an experienced hangman for the Dominion. Arthur English, an ex-English army officer serving in the Middle East as an executioner was unofficially approached by the Canadian government to move to Canada.

English came from a family of executioners who worked in England for almost 300 years and whose uncle was then an official hangman in England under the pseudonym of John Ellis. English accepted the offer and moved to Montreal where he took the trade name of Arthur Ellis after his uncle.

1935 - Ellis’ last hanging was done at the famous Bordeaux Jail in Montreal on 28 March 1935. Ellis had been called to Montreal to execute Leon Gagliardi, Angelo Donafrie and Mrs. Thomasina Sarao after they were found guilty of killing Nicholas Sarao in an intricate insurance scam.

Ellis was now 71 years old and had either assisted at or performed over 600 executions throughout his career in England, the Middle East and Canada. He was a master at his trade, yet this hanging would be his last because of a disastrous set of events that had him boycotted from further hangings. It seems that when Ellis went to weigh Mrs. Sarao at the Women's Jail he was not permitted access and had to be satisfied with the weight handed to him on a piece of paper. Based on the weight given to him Ellis calculated the length of rope needed to break Mrs. Sarao's neck.

On the morning of the hanging Mrs. Sarao walked to the gallows some 32 pounds heavier than what had been scratched on the piece of paper and when she plunged to her death the extra weight supplied enough force to decapitate her. It was not the first execution in which Ellis had miscalculated the condemned person’s weight.

On August 25, 1926, Ellis was called to carry out the execution of 240 pound Dan Prockiw at Headingly Jail. Prockiw, a former real-estate owner in Winnipeg, had been convicted of the March 18th beating death of his common-law wife, Annie Cardno. The drop was too much for Prockiw’s heavy body and the result was it jerked his head right off his body.

However because it was a woman that was decapitated, the execution of Mrs. Sarao marked the end of Ellis' 22-year career as Canada's "Official" Hangman and it effectively ended the practice of allowing the public to attend hangings. Ellis died three years later in his hotel room in Montreal. Although open public hangings were discontinued since about 1869, members of the public could still acquire a pass to attend a hanging inside the jail walls.

Technorati Tags: Chaos, Law & Order, Pinheads, Politicians, Shmucks, The Guardian

2 Non-news items from Afghanistan and 1 real news item

I've just finished trolling around a few places and want to provide, as the title says 3 links to items on Afghanistan. 2, the usually boring non-news news run-of-the-mill type "stuff" about H. Clinton and the new US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, off for some sight-seeing in Asia. Gates, first, by way of Brussels to pick up some chocolates and clean under-wear for President, I-can't-leave-my-palace-in-Kabul-without-getting-my-ass-shoot-off, Karzai. 1 link, however, is, at least to me, news because it tells me something I didn't already know maybe really going on over in Afghanistan.

The 2 non-news items first.

Clinton's piece here:

“I’m encouraged by the progress in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is tottering,” Clinton said. “We’ve got to get more support there to make sure we try to finish off the Taliban and al-Qaida that are regrouping, coming across the border. We expect a big spring offensive.”

Yah, yah, yah. Funny isn't that there seems to have been only one script written for any type, hue or nationality of politician when speaking of that place. Clinton's lines are almost identical to "boy-wonder" MacKay-the-goof's brilliant insightful meanderings when he paid his last visit.

And Gates' here:

Gates will meet with Karzai, the top US commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, and the commander of the 33,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), General David Richards of Britain.

His visit comes less than a week after President George W. Bush announced plans to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, further stretching US forces.

But Gates will query US and NATO commanders on whether they have enough troops and other resources to deal with the surge in Taliban activity, a senior US defence official said.

The United States has 22,000 troops in Afghanistan, about half of them with ISAF and the other half dedicated to counter-terrorism missions and training the Afghan army.

In his talks with Karzai, Gates is expected to reaffirm US commitment to Afghanistan's central government and discuss ways it can extend its reach and influence beyond Kabul.

Now for the last item which seems to have some news and which I haven't seen mentioned in the MSM here. Of course I don't actually buy hard copies of newspapers any longer so it could have appeared and I didn't see it. Here's the link to a story in the IHT by Carlotta Gall:

SPERWAN GHAR, Afghanistan

The road that cuts through the heart of this district tells all that is going wrong with NATO's war in Afghanistan.

To fight their way into this area and clear it of Taliban insurgents, NATO troops bulldozed through orchards, smashed down compound walls and even houses, and churned vineyards and melon fields to dust.

Reconstruction projects were planned, but never materialized. Even after NATO forces plowed through the area, the Taliban were able to wage a guerrilla campaign with roadside bombs and suicide attacks, keeping aid workers at bay.

Now, without any other reconstruction aid, NATO forces are championing the $5 million thoroughfare as their primary gift to local people. But displaced and buffeted by both the Taliban and NATO forces since May, they are homeless, fearful, and far from being won over. They say the road was forced on them, at the cost of their land and livelihoods.

"We are compelled to be happy about the road," said Hajji Baran, 48, a farmer from a village in the district, Panjwai. "They are building the road and they are not going to stop, but in fact we are not happy about it."

"We have been displaced for nine months and no one has asked us how are we managing," he said. "This is a kind of cruelty. In fact we are selling our wives' jewelry to support our families."

Oops-a-daisy, eh, these stories aren't showing up in the one script booklet being passed around are they?:

After NATO forces and U.S. special forces mounted their operation to clear the area of insurgents in September, the assistance programs were not ready. Then the Taliban filtered back within days.

"We are all scratching our heads as to why the aid has not rolled out faster," said a Western diplomat familiar with Panjwai. "It's not for a lack of resources."

"We are meeting basic needs, but when it comes to sustainable livelihoods and jobs, it's not happening," the diplomat said.

NATO's struggle to secure the area inevitably hampered reconstruction and deterred the thousands of displaced villagers from returning home. Aid workers who started to venture into the area to start assistance programs complained of continued insecurity and even of coming under fire from NATO forces. The result was that very little assistance arrived.

"There was a lull, and for three weeks they did nothing," said Andrew Douglas, operations manager of an agricultural development group in Afghanistan. "They were going round talking and handing out candy," he said.

Ah, finally the reason for that road:

As for the road, he [Major Stephen Murray, the acting military commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team] said that the military needed a straight road that was more easily secured. Over the last few months, Canadian troops were repeatedly ambushed on the old road, which twisted and turned through the hamlets and walled farmsteads. He was in intensive discussions with the local people to work out a fair deal for people whose land it crosses, he said.

To finish off an observation on following the shoot-to-build approach to countering a non-tradition enemy and some effects of it, (I haven't seen any mention of sending people home because of their "reacting badly under the stress" in the MSM here. Incidentally could that phrase be a euphemism for what some might think it is - scared, understandable, but then trigger happy? Ah, that 4th generation, eh.)

As suicide bombings have taken their toll on the NATO forces, who took over command of southern Afghanistan from American forces in 2006, they have frequently resorted to lethal force, calling in air strikes and firing on approaching cars, often killing and wounding civilians and further worsening the public mood.

"They said we came to bring peace to this country," said Abdur Rahim, 35, as he lay in a hospital bed. He was shot in the back by British soldiers after their convoy was hit by a suicide bomber. The soldiers shot at least eight civilians as they drove through the town. "Why are they shooting the people?" he said. "Is this peace?"

After suffering 13 suicide bombs in 14 days in Kandahar, some Canadian soldiers had to be repatriated because they were reacting badly under the stress, according to one diplomat in Kabul.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, IHT, NATO, Politicians

The Saddam Lynching

So who or what to believe about the Saddam "lynching"?

We have the US MSM - check the New York Times - telling everyone who will listen that it was the dastardly Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that rushed to kill Saddam this last Saturday night.

According to the NYTs article linked above, Bush and his boys and girls were counseling caution and checking that all the legal "t's" and "i's" are crossed and dotted.

But others think that Bush and the gang are actually overjoyed that the killing took place quickly: see Gwynne Dyer's article, as well, Chris Floyd's blog commenting on the NYTs article.

The best comment I've read on the lynching style proceedings surrounding what was the actual hanging of Saddam is at Patrick Lang's site here.

So, was it the Bush characters or Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cronies that rushed the execution?

My money is on the Bush characters as the culprits and the lynching type trappings are just more of the usual incompetent peccadilloes that now are so firmly associated with this US administration's handling of any matter.

Postscript:

One of the reporters - John F. Burns - who wrote the the NYTs article linked above, was on the PBS news show "The Nightly News with Jim Lehrer" tonight.

And low and behold he was commenting on the hanging and the Bush or US administration's potential response.

Guess what?

Burns reported that the US administration, as well as the US military in Iraq, was viewing the rushed, and less than dignified, proceedings on Saturday night as a sign of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government's incompetence and in the future there would be US fist banging and the demanding of accountability regarding Iraqi government handling of the local troubles.

Knowing, or more accurately suspecting (see Brad DeLong's recent questioning of Burns et al reporting at the NYTs), that that McGill graduate John F. Burns is bucking to substitute for Judith Miller at the "Grey Lady", I'm a little wary about his enthusiastic reporting on any matter.

I usually wait for the other shoe to drop so-to-speak with any of his speculations.

In this case reporting that the Bush characters and military are unhappy with the shenanigans over the weekend likely really just means that he is starting to set-up for what a number of ex-US military types think will be the result of a "surge" strategy. A messy fiasco with more and more US deaths not to mention the poor Iraqis but blamed on the incompetence - as demonstrated by the hanging - of the struggling Iraqi government.

Technorati Tags: Iraqi, Media, New York Times

The PLAN for Afghanistan. ha, ha, ha.

Turn your head for a minute to enjoy the holidays and Nato and the US are all over the place. This would now seem to be the usual case for these two.

Always good, I guess, to be experimenting around with different approaches at this important time with a crucial aspect of strategy: "spray, don't spray, no spray, no, no, let's plough instead".

Since we are in this new stupid "good holy war" I wonder if it wouldn't be too much to ask our boy Ricky "Blimp" Hillier to quite slicing turkey or whatever PR stunt he does during holidays if there is any consistent PLAN for this little fiasco.

"A CAMPAIGN of enforced crop-spraying to destroy the opium poppy fields will get under way in southern Afghanistan in the next few weeks, despite fears that it will undermine attempts to win the battle for hearts and minds with the Taliban.

British defence and diplomatic sources claim the campaign is the result of “US political interference” and is throwing Nato plans into turmoil. Coupled with the imminent replacement of the British general commanding Nato troops with an American, the sources predict a breakdown in security.

The spraying is likely to damage legitimate crops that farmers grow to feed their families. It could increase support for the Taliban at a time when Nato and the Afghan government are trying hard to persuade the population that they should back international reconstruction efforts."

The Sunday Times
December 31, 2006

Technorati Tags: Afganistan, NATO