Fw: US battle plans begin to unravel

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Karim A G

To: Karim A G

Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 11:32 PM

Subject: US battle plans begin to unravel

 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FK20Ak01.html

 

Middle East

 

US battle plans begin to unravel By Michael Schwartz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the New York Times this week the first crack appeared in the armor of the "victory in Fallujah" facade maintained by the major US media since the battle began. Eric Schmitt and Robert Worth discuss a secret Marine Corps report that reveals the major bind the US has gotten itself into by sweeping through Fallujah and attempting to pacify it. This US strategy has created exactly the dilemma that many critics of the war had been predicting: in order to hold Fallujah the United States has to keep large numbers of troops there, and then the Americans will not have sufficient troops to handle the uprising elsewhere in the Sunni areas.

The problem is summarized thusly in the New York Times article: "Senior marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that if American troop levels in the Fallujah area are significantly reduced during reconstruction there, as has been planned, insurgents in the region will rebound from their defeat. The rebels could thwart the retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate the local population and derail elections set for January, the officers say."

Beneath this general problem lie three key problems that made the attack on Fallujah a desperation measure in the first place, and which is now creating a new and deeper crisis for the US military in its aftermath.

First, and most important, the people of Fallujah hate the Americans and support the guerrillas (even if they may have complaints about much of what they do). This means that as soon as the people return, so will the resistance, hidden from US view because virtually all the guerrillas are residents of Fallujah with supporters in the community. They will not be turned over to the US or to Iraqi police, and they will therefore begin to mount attacks on whoever is left to guard the US-installed local government.

Second, the US cannot depend on Iraqi police or military to fight this next phase of the "battle of Fallujah". Here's how this problem was reported by the Times: "Senior officers have said that they would keep a sizable American military presence in and around Fallujah in the long reconstruction phase that has just begun, until sufficiently trained and equipped Iraqi forces could take the lead in providing security. 'It will take a security presence for a while until a well-trained Iraqi security force can take over the presence in Fallujah and maintain security so that the insurgents don't come back, as they have tried to do in every one of the cities that we have thrown them out of,' General George W Casey Jr, the top American commander in Iraq, said on November 8. American commanders have expressed disappointment in some of the Iraqis they have been training, especially members of the Iraqi police force. Other troops have performed well, the officers have said."

The key thing here is that when the Americans entered the Fallujah battle they believed that the Iraqi forces would be ready to take over immediately after the city was cleared. But the mass defections and unwillingness to fight exhibited by the Iraqis have forced a drastic revision in these estimates, so that now US military leaders are forced to keep a US presence during the "long reconstruction phase" (read - "until the guerrilla attacks stop") while they wait (probably in vain) for a new cycle of training to produce an Iraqi force that is capable of resisting the guerrillas (the first three efforts to produce such a force have already failed - there is no reason to believe that the next will succeed).

The third problem is that the US simply does not have enough troops to hold Fallujah and also do all the other fighting that is now necessary. The Times reporters expressed it thus: "If many American troops and the better-trained specialized Iraqi forces, like the commando and special police units, are committed to Fallujah for a long time, they will not be available to go elsewhere in Iraq, possibly creating critical shortfalls." In other words, when the resistance drives the police and local government out of other cities (as they did recently in Samarra, Tal Afar and Mosul) the US will not have sufficient troops to recapture the cities, and they will have to allow them to remain in rebel hands, just as Fallujah remained in rebel hands for six months.

This is the ultimate denouement of the attack on Fallujah. The US is now faced with the choice of leaving Fallujah and allowing the shura mujahideen government that has ruled it since April to return to power, or allow the resistance to take power in many other cities. Either option will leave the US in a significantly worse position than it was in before the attack. As so many predicted, the attack on Fallujah has strengthened the resistance and weakened the US occupation.

And one final note: the only remedy for the third problem is a vast increase in the number of US troops in Iraq. And that means a draft in the United States.

Michael Schwartz , professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has written extensively on popular protest and insurgency, and on US business and government dynamics. His work on Iraq has appeared on ZNet and TomDispatch, and in Z Magazine. His books include Radical Politics and Social Structure, The Power Structure of American Business (with Beth Mintz), and Social Policy and the Conservative Agenda (edited, with Clarence Lo). He can be reached at ms42@optonline.net.

Fw: Bush Administration WANTS Arctic Meltdown

 

----- Original Message -----

From: John Steiner

To: Recipient List Suppressed:

Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 7:18 PM

Subject: Bush Administration Wants Arctic Meltdown

 From: "Fred J. Keyser" <fredjkeyser@san.rr.com>

 

Bush Administration Wants Arctic Meltdown

By Wayne Madsen 11-18-4

WASHINGTON, DC -- Speaking off the record, scientists studying the current warming of the Arctic region intimated that some officials in the Bush administration saw the loss of Arctic ice and the resultant opening of sea channels such as the Northwest Passage of Canada as a good thing for the exploration and retrieval of oil and natural gas from the endangered region.  Over 300 international scientists have just completed an extensive 1200-page report documenting their exhaustive 4-year Arctic Climate Impact Assessment study on the rapid warming of the Arctic. The study was commissioned by the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee at a ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council in Point Barrow, Alaska in 2000. On November 8, the scientists released a 144-page summary of their findings at a press conference in Washington, DC.  As if out of a scene from the Roland Emmerich's climate disaster movie, "The Day After Tomorrow," the U.S. State Department is criticizing the international panel's call to slow down Arctic warming by curbing greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere. The State Department, according to some scientists, is echoing the positions of oil companies and anti-environmentalist pressure groups like the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation, in dismissing the recent report on Arctic warming. In fact, President Bush has repeatedly referred to previous scientific studies pointing to the effects of global warming as "silly science" based on "fuzzy math." The chief State Department focal point on the Arctic warming issue is Paula Dobriansky, the Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, who is seen as a virtual mouthpiece for Vice President Dick Cheney, the oil companies, and the anti-environmental groups. She will be trying to minimize the impact of the Arctic warming report before she attends the November 24 meeting of the Arctic Council in Reykjavik, Iceland where the report will be officially released. Before her current stint at the State Department, Dobriansky was an international affairs adviser with the law firm Hunton & Williams, whose clients include a number of large energy companies, including Exxon Mobil.  The report concludes that Arctic warming has increased dramatically since 1954. Average Arctic winter temperatures have increased as much as 4 to 7 degrees F (3-4 degrees C) during the past 50 years and are projected to increase another 7-13 degrees F (4-7 degrees C) over the next 100 years. Over the past 30 years, the sea-ice extent of the Arctic has decreased 386,100 square miles (or Texas and Arizona combined). Since Arctic sea ice is declining at such a rapid rate, maritime access by oil exploration ships and tankers is viewed by the Bush-Cheney administration and their oil industry backers as an economic windfall because of increased access to Arctic resources. Timber companies are also excited about access to Arctic timber reserves from accessible Arctic seaports. Therefore, the Bush administration and their corporate sponsors want to downplay the environmental catastrophe that will be brought about by an anticipated complete loss of Arctic ice and the creation of an iceless Arctic Ocean by the end of the century. Already, British Petroleum and a Russian partner are using newly-opened shipping channels in the Russian Arctic to begin the off-shore drilling of natural gas.  The possible opening of the Northwest Passage to maritime shipping has already prompted Canadian warnings to the United States not to intrude on its national territory. The United States does not recognize Canadian sovereignty over its Arctic sea passages. This past summer, Canada's largest warship, a fleet of helicopters, and 200 troops engaged in Operation Narwhal, the largest Canadian military exercise ever held in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Narwhal was also noteworthy in that U.S. military participants and observers were not invited.  The Bush administration and their oil company supporters have also dismissed concerns that oil spills resulting from increased maritime access to Arctic waters cannot be cleaned up because no solutions have been discovered on how to deal with oil contamination in colder waters, such as the Arctic. They point to continued problems arising from the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989.  In addition to the loss of the Arctic icepack, scientists discovered that substantial melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet will continue and its eventual melting will raise global sea levels by about 23 feet (7 meters). That, coupled with glacial melting in the Arctic (in Canada, Alaska, and Russia) and Antarctic melting, will cause the sea to flood most of southern and coastal Florida (including the Keys and the Everglades), the Mississippi Delta (including the city of New Orleans), a number of near-sea level islands in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, and the expansion of tidal-influenced bays and rivers worldwide.  Arctic ice melt will also increase ocean salinity and this affects ocean currents that bring warmer waters to colder regions. Because saltier water results in colder water sinking, a decrease in salinity will result in colder water rising to the surface and threatening the thermohaline conveyor belt upon which Europe depends for its temperate climate [see Dale Allen Pfeiffer's writings on abrupt climate change and the thermohaline current in FTW, especially:  http://www.fromthewilderness.com /free/ww3/050504_climate_change_pt2.html -- ed.].  The effect is that while temperatures increase in North America and Asia, regional cooling will take place in Europe. The imbalance will affect agriculture and the overall eco-system.  The loss of snow cover in the Arctic will mean that less solar energy will be reflected back into space, thus adding to the warming of the Arctic's land and water surfaces. Unprecedented rainfall is already being witnessed on Greenland's Ice Sheet by the local Inuit inhabitants.  According to the Arctic warming report, the loss of Arctic ice and permafrost will also result in the near extinction of a number of species, including the polar bear, a number of seal species, walruses, caribou, reindeer, lemmings, voles, and migratory birds such as snow owls. The Indigenous People of the Arctic will be forced to relocate from floods, loss of permafrost, coastal erosion from killer storms, building collapse from destruction of permafrost, and loss of food supply. In addition, rising Arctic temperatures are permitting the invasion of destructive insects such as the spruce beetle which has already decimated 1.6 million hectares of white spruce and Sitka/Lutz spruce on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. In Sweden, invading moths have destroyed entire forests of birch trees. New species of birds entering the warmer Arctic tundra regions are also bringing with them a new disease - West Nile Virus, which threatens both humans and animals.  The Bush administration, in its unwillingness to appreciate the impact of Arctic warming and its desire for expanded oil sources, has incurred the wrath of the nations and peoples of the Arctic Council. These are Canada, Denmark, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, the Aleut International Association, Arctic Athabaskan Council, Gwich'in Council International, Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, the Saami Council along with observers France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Queen Elizabeth have both championed the efforts to reverse global warming as have Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman.  See also:  "An Arctic Alert on Global Warming," Peter N. Spotts, Staff writer of

The Christian Science Monitor. November 9th, 2004  http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1109/p01s03-sten.html  "Satellites Record Weakening North Atlantic Current," NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center press release. April 15th, 2004.  http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0415gyre.html  http://www.fromthewilderness.com /members/111104_arctic_meltdown.shtml

Fw: The Murder of Margaret Hassan by Robert Fisk

At the end of this article, Fisk mentions that al Zarqawi and the Sunni insurgents have denied holding or killing Margaret Hassan, pointing out that they released two Italian aide workers recently.  In the videos of her appeals-   In the background of these appalling pictures, there were none of the usual Islamic banners. There were none of the usual armed and hooded men. There were no Qur'anic recitations. And when it percolated through to Fallujah and Ramadi that the mere act of kidnapping Hassan was close to heresy, the combined resistance groups of Fallujah--and the message genuinely came from them--demanded her release.

 

So who killed her, and why?  Was it a US propaganda ploy to distract from the atrocities its army is inflicting on Fallujah?   Shame, shame, shame!

 

In the name of the God of truth and justice,  Carol Wolman

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Karim A G

To: Karim A G

Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 7:22 AM

Subject: What Price Is Innocence Now Worth?

 http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk11182004.html

 

November 18, 2004

What Price Is Innocence Now Worth?

The Murder of Margaret Hassan

By ROBERT FISK

After the grief, the astonishment, heartbreak, anger and fury over the apparent murder of such a good and saintly woman, that is the question her friends--and, quite possibly, the Iraqi insurgents--will be asking. This Anglo-Irish woman held an Iraqi passport. She had lived in Iraq for 30 years, she had dedicated her life to the welfare of Iraqis in need.

She hated the United Nations sanctions and opposed the Anglo-American invasion. So who killed Margaret Hassan?

Of course, those of us who knew her will reflect on the appalling implications of the videotape (sent to Al Jazeera yesterday and apparently showing her execution). Her husband believes it is evidence of her death.

If Margaret Hassan can be kidnapped and murdered, how much further can we fall into the Iraqi pit? There are no barriers, no frontiers of immorality left. What price is innocence now worth in the anarchy that we have brought to Iraq? The answer is simple: nothing. I remember Margaret arguing with doctors and truck drivers over a lorry-load of medicines for Iraq's children's cancer wards in 1998. She smiled, cajoled and pleaded to get these leukaemia drugs to Basra and Mosul.

She would not have wished to be called an angel--Margaret didn't like clichés. Even now I want to write "doesn't like clichés". Are we really permitted to say that she is dead? For the bureaucrats and the Western leaders who today will express their outrage and sorrow at her reported death, she had nothing but scorn.

Yes, she knew the risks. Margaret Hassan was well aware that many Iraqi women had been kidnapped, raped, ransomed or murdered by the Baghdad mafia.

Because she is a Western woman--the first to be abducted and apparently murdered--we forget how many Iraqi women have already suffered this terrible fate; largely unreported in a world which counts dead American soldiers but ignores the fatalities among those with darker skins and browner eyes and a different religion, whom we claimed to have liberated.

And now let's remember the other, earlier videos. Margaret Hassan crying. Margaret Hassan fainting, Margaret Hassan having water thrown over her face to revive her, Margaret Hassan crying again, pleading for the withdrawal of the Black Watch regiment from the Euphrates River.

In the background of these appalling pictures, there were none of the usual Islamic banners. There were none of the usual armed and hooded men. There were no Qur'anic recitations. And when it percolated through to Fallujah and Ramadi that the mere act of kidnapping Hassan was close to heresy, the combined resistance groups of Fallujah--and the message genuinely came from them--demanded her release.

So, incredibly, did Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda man whom the Americans falsely claimed was leading the Iraqi insurrection, but who has definitely been involved in the kidnappings and beheadings. Other abducted women were freed when their captors recognised their innocence.

But not Margaret Hassan, even though she spoke fluent Arabic and could explain her work to her captors in their own language. If anyone doubted the murderous nature of the insurgents, what better way to prove their viciousness than to produce evidence of Margaret Hassan's murder?

What more ruthless way could there be of demonstrating to the world that the US and Interim Prime Minister Iyad Alawi's tinpot army were fighting "evil" in Fallujah and the other Iraqi cities?

 

 

Fw: Trust God, Not Man by Charley Reese

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Karim A G

To: Karim A G

Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 12:57 AM

Subject: Trust God, Not Man

 http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese135.html

 

Trust God, Not Man

by Charley Reese
by Charley Reese

I wouldn't personally base a vote for president on the issue of gay marriage or abortion because both are activities in which one need not participate, whether they are legal or illegal.

Nevertheless, Christians and other religious people have a perfect right to advocate their moral positions in the public arena. The idea that one can have a purely secular morality disconnected from religious beliefs is nonsense.

All morality has its origins in religion of some kind, and laws are reflections of morality. There is no purely practical reason why it is wrong to steal and to kill, yet virtually all societies recognize that those activities are wrong. Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and other religions condemn them, and religions preceded the modern state.

Nazism and communism should stand as warnings to those who think you can build a rational society devoid of religious beliefs. Millions of people were murdered under those systems, and why was that? Because without religion, one can make a perfectly logical and reasoned argument for murder. Why should society spend the money to maintain the lives of the hopelessly insane or retarded? Why shouldn't the government round up and execute people it considers a threat? Does not the greater good trump the fate of individuals?

If indeed there is no God, then human life is just an accidental phenomenon and no more valuable than that of a mosquito. As we saw in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, societies without God create rivers of blood. In a crazy way, humans will always be under a god – if not the God of the universe, then the state will become God. Personally, I prefer the one in the sky to the one in the uniform.

Western civilization was built on the foundation of Christianity. That's a fact, not an opinion. A lot of sinning notwithstanding, the laws and institutions of the West were derived from Christianity. It is no accident or whim that Europe was long known as Christendom. It is no accident that George Washington said a man who was an enemy of religion was also an enemy of the republic.

Unfortunately, the West is losing its Christian moorings. Europe today is far more secular than the United States. The Europeans could not even bring themselves to acknowledge Christianity in their new constitution.

In the United States, the push is on to lock Christianity up in its church buildings. Keep it out of politics. Keep it out of the public arena. Well, this militant secularism is one way to commit national suicide. Washington's comment was connected to the fact that it was impossible for a free republic to exist with immoral people. Cut people loose from the moral moorings of religion, and the state will have no choice but to step in and control them. Remember, it's always a choice between the God in heaven or the God who commands the army and the police.

One of the favorite canards of the secular folks is to blame wars on religion, but the truth is that the all-time champion murderers have always been atheists. Nobody in human history murdered more people than Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot. The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history, and not one of its wars was about religion.

One piece of sophistry employed by the secularists is the claim that "you have no right to impose your morality on other people." That's bull. Every law in every law book in the land is an imposition of morality on other people. The only question is whose morality is going to be imposed. What the secularists are really up to is imposing their morality on Christians and other people of faith.

I really believe the future of America depends on whether we experience a revival of the spirit. If we don't, if the secular trend continues, then politics won't save us. In fact, politics devoid of God will doom us.

Liberals hate it when I say this, but the Third Reich was secular liberalism carried to its logical conclusion. That's plain enough if you study the Third Reich and compare it with the positions advocated by today's secular liberals. It is always a fatal error to put one's trust in man instead of in God.

November 13, 2004