The Rag Blog

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The tiny, dusty shops of Kadhemiya are treasure chests filled with agate, turquoise, coral and amber. I used to spend hours in this colorful Baghdad market district, haggling over prices for semi-precious stones etched with prayers in Arabic calligraphy.

That was just before I left Iraq in 2005, when rings from Kadhemiya were simply sentimental reminders of a two-year assignment here. When I returned to Baghdad last month, however, I found a city so dramatically polarized that sectarian identity now extends to your fingers. Slipping on a turquoise ring is no longer an afterthought, but a carefully deliberated security precaution.

A certain color of stone worn a certain way is just one of the dozens of superficial clues – like dialect, style of beard, how you pin a veil – that indicate whether you’re Sunni or Shiite. These little signs increasingly mean the difference between life and death at the terrifying illegal checkpoints that surround the districts of Baghdad. In a surprise reversal, Shiite militiamen have usurped Sunni insurgents as the most feared force on the streets.

When I was last here in 2005, it took guts and guards, but you could still travel to most anywhere in the capital. Now, there are few true neighborhoods left. They’re mostly just cordoned-off enclaves in various stages of deadly sectarian cleansing. Moving trucks piled high with furniture weave through traffic, evidence of an unfolding humanitarian crisis involving hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced Iraqis.

The Sunni-Shiite segregation is the starkest change of all, but nowadays it seems like everything in Baghdad hinges on separation. There’s the Green Zone to guard the unpopular government from its suffering people, U.S. military bases where Iraqis aren’t allowed to work, armored sedans to shield VIPs from the explosions that kill workaday civilians, different TV channels and newspapers for each political party, an unwritten citywide dress code to keep women from the eyes of men.

I usually headline the eulogizing posts with “RIP…” and then the name of the person who died, but I’m not doing that for Ex-President Ford. Not because I bear him any specific ill-will. I don’t think he was a great, or even particularly good, President, but he also doesn’t seem to be as massive an asshole as the other men who have held the position of late. It’s because, maybe he should do a little thinking rather than going immediately into the rest phase.

The outlines of Bush’s “New Way Forward” or “Great Leap Forward” or “Long Walk Off a Short Pier” in Iraq is now fairly clear. It has three general thrusts: a large increase in troop numbers; a direct assault on the forces of Motqada al-Sadr; and, if possible, an expansion of the war beyond Iraq’s borders through a military strike on Iran.

The troop increase is now certain (if indeed it had ever been in doubt). In the past few days, with the nation distracted by the Christmas holidays (and by the ever-phony and genuinely idiotic “Christmas Wars” eating up media airtime), the Bush Faction has carried out a quiet coup – or perhaps a counterrevolutionary purge – in the military ranks. Top generals who openly opposed increasing the U.S. occupation force in Iraq have either announced their retirements or else have been compelled to crawl and eat their words in public recantations. (This moral cowardice is even more remarkable when you consider how weak, stupid – and deeply unpopular – is the “commander-in-chief” who has somehow overawed these stalwart soldiers. One can only imagine that some sort of blackmail must be involved.)

I thought it would be good to talk about the FBI because they talk about us. They don’t like to be talked about. They don’t even like the fact that you’re listening to them being talked about. They are very sensitive people. If you look into the history of the FBI and Martin Luther King-which now has become notorious in that totally notorious history of the FBI- the FBI attempted to neutralize, perhaps kill him, perhaps get him to commit suicide, certainly to destroy him as a leader of black people in the United States.

And if you follow the progression of that treatment of King, it starts, not even with the Montgomery Bus Boycott; it starts when King begins to criticize the FBI. You see, then suddenly Hoover’s ears, all four of them, perk up. And he says, okay, we have to start working on King.

I was interested in this especially because I was reading the Church Committee report. In 1975, the Senate Select Committee investigated the CIA and the FBI and issued voluminous reports and pointed out at what point the FBI became interested in King. In 1961-62 after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, after the sit-ins, after the Freedom Rides of ‘61, there was an outbreak of mass demonstrations in a very little, very Southern, almost slave town of southern Georgia called Albany. There had been nothing like this in that town. A quiet, apparently passive town, everybody happy, of course. And then suddenly the black people rose up and a good part of the black population of Albany ended up in jail. There were not enough jails for all who demonstrated.

A report was made for the Southern Regional Council of Atlanta on the events in Albany. The report, which was very critical of the FBI, came out in the New York Times. And King was asked what he thought of the role of the FBI. He said he agreed with the report that the FBI was not doing its job, that the FBI was racist, etcetera, etcetera.

Globalization and the new world order are profound failures. They are based on flawed economic logic that ignores need to have no government intervention in free markets controlled by supply and demand. Democracy can not be created by developing new economic markets based on government corruption. History indicates free states precede free markets. Political democracy creates economic democracy not the other way around.

Conceptually, one world government is based on the idea international banking and other corporate interests can take over world governments just as they did in America. Henry Kissinger, Council on Foreign Relations said: “Who controls the money controls the world.” Proponents favor open borders, free trade, and international control over economic issues, and elimination of the present concept of national sovereignty in favor of a more global perspective on world governance.

Most agree with NEW WORLD ORDER views of Kissinger, David Rockefeller, Jimmie Carter, George H. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and many other globalists that a few wealthy individuals can better manage world government and economic affairs than any other government model especially those that rely on people governed to make decisions. They think wealthy businesses are more intellectual and better capable of ruling in an orderly manner.

Institutional tools were developed to accomplish purposes of one world government globalists. The United Nations is the first organization that helped globalists create other world institutions under the guise of international trade treaties such as GATT, and NAFTA to promote greater world prosperity through trade. World banking consolidation was a necessity to control the world’s supply of capital so accessible money for expansion could be used as a tool to persuade other countries to join the system.

The World Trade Organization provides equal access to all markets but mostly the United States’ by international corporations and countries that get preferred trade partner status. This creates opportunity to break down national sovereignty even more. International banking institutions like Citibank Group and corporations like Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and a litany of others are fighting to secure their place in the New World Order. Nations who don’t comply are deprived of the American consumer market and World Bank financing.

WASHINGTON — Massachusetts lawmakers are set to launch a blizzard of investigations in the new Congress, probing issues such as wartime contracting, post-Katrina housing assistance, and the Bush administration’s relationship with Cuba and other countries in Latin America.

In what could be closely watched proceedings, two members of the Massachusetts delegation — representatives William D. Delahunt of Quincy and Martin T. Meehan of Lowell — are planning joint committee hearings to examine the administration’s Iraq war policies, particularly the reasons for the military’s lagging efforts to train Iraqi troops. Delahunt is in line to become chairman of the House International Relations Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations, and Meehan will take over the same subcommittee on the House Armed Services Committee.

Armed with the power to force sworn testimony for the first time after 12 years in the minority in Congress, members of the state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation are positioned to play major roles in investigating policies and actions that cut across the federal government and the business community.

“We could be the Bush administration’s worst nightmare come to pass, in terms of the questions we’ll be able to ask from positions of power,” said Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden, the dean of the Massachusetts delegation. “There are a lot of secrets that have been hidden from the American people in terms of the way business has been done for the past six years.”

Democrats in general say that when they become the majority party in Congress, they intend to shine a spotlight on administration policies and management, where the Republican power structure has done little to check the authority of the president. With the GOP powerless to stop them, Democrats say, they hope their oversight will protect taxpayer dollars and shape the political agenda going into the 2008 presidential election.

Bears appear to have stopped hibernating in Spain’s northern mountains, according to Spanish scientists who blame climate change for the behavior.

Of the 130 Cantabrian brown bears living in that region, a few females with cubs have been found awake in a season when bears – all bears – typically slumber.

They are the first bears known not to hibernate in Europe, naturalists from La Fundación Oso Pardo (the Brown Bear Foundation ) said.

“Mild winters mean that it is energetically worthwhile for the females to stay awake and search for nuts and berries,” Guillermo Palomero, the foundation’s president and coordinator of a national plan for bear conservation, told the Spanish daily El Pais.

Palomero added that other signs of winter bear activity have been observed “with absolute certainty” in the past three years.

While it is impossible to prove definitively that these changes in ursine behavior are the result of global warming, “everything points in that direction,” according to climatologist Juan Carlos García Cordón, professor of geography at the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain.

Normally bears begin hibernation between October and December, and remain dormant through most of the winter to bypass the scarcity of their food supply – mainly nuts and berries. They resume activity between March and May.

But according to Palomero, even for the Cantabrian male bears who do slumber throughout the winter, the hibernation period is getting shorter every year.

“We are seeing the most dramatic negative consequences of global warming in the most cold-adapted species,” University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan told Discovery News.

Parmesan is the author of the most comprehensive synthesis of the impact of climate change on terrestrial, marine, and freshwater species.

Published in the December issue of the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, her review compiles 866 scientific studies on the ecological effects of human-induced climate change and shows that global warming has already caused extinctions in the most sensitive habitats.

BAGHDAD – For years Salah Hussein, 26, had dreamed of having a child, but he never imagined that his wish would be marred by the death of his wife in childbirth.

Hussein’s wife, Fadiya, died of complications during a delivery which, doctors said, were caused by malnutrition and the stress of living in a war-torn country.

“We are a poor family and I couldn’t afford to buy her good food. This was not my fault but the fault of this destroyed country in which the conditions of the health sector are worsening day by day,” said Hussein who works as a barber in the capital, Baghdad.

Dozens of pregnant women with life-threatening conditions are being admitted to Iraq’s hospitals every month.

Dr. Mayada Youssif, a gynaecologist at Baghdad’s Kadhimiyah hospital, believes that pregnant women are falling ill due to the insecurity and poverty that Iraqis have to live with as a result of the conflict.

Many women give birth in environments where no-one is equipped to recognise an impending emergency. In some cases travelling to hospitals is the last resort because of insecurity, curfews, road blockages and fear of acts of violence.

“Insecurity has forced women to stay at home during their whole period of pregnancy, and they look for a doctor only when they are feeling really ill or feel, near to delivery time, that conditions have become too dangerous,” Youssif said.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF has said that Iraq’s maternal mortality rates have increased dramatically over the last 15 years. In 1989, 117 Iraqi mothers out of 100,000 died during pregnancy or childbirth. That ratio has now increased by 65 per cent.

‘In recent days, as you know, there has been a great deal of publicity on the Baker-Hamilton plan for dealing with the problems the United States faces in Iraq and for restarting the peace process on the Palestine problem. I have found, however, very little analysis of the plan in the press. Clearly, it focuses on issues so important , one is tempted to use that often misused term “vital,” not only for Americans but for the whole world that it deserves the closest possible scrutiny. As you will see in the following comment, I find serious weaknesses in it. The most serious is that it sets out objectives or desires without identifying feasible means to achieve them.

In the last few days, various moves have been made by the Bush administration that call into question its serious evaluation of Baker-Hamilton. One that received a great deal of attention is the announcement of its intent to add another 20,000 troops to the American contingent in Iraq. Those of us who remember Vietnam will hear echoes. There we were told time after time that just a few more thousand troops and a few more months would lead us to “victory. One difference from Vietnam is of critical importance. It is that there we were not seriously considering, as apparently we are, further action in another country. Today, there are signs that we have hovered on the brink of war with Iran for at least the last six months. As you may know, I have written on this danger on my website (www.williampolk .com). I think we are edging closer. Among the signs – and there are many — that point in this direction is one that I do not find reported in the American press: the Selective Service System announced three days ago that it is preparing its first test since 1998 of the draft.

All the above considerations make a careful consideration of American options on the Middle East a prime civic duty for all Americans. These include the detailed plan which Senator George McGovern and I developed in Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now (New York: Simon and Schuster, October 2006) and the Baker-Hamilton study, The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward – A New Approach (New York: Vintage, December 2006). Mr. Hamilton graciously wrote to say that “The report has helped to spark a renewed debate about the direction of U.S. policy, and he appreciates the substantial contribution that you and Senator McGovern have made to that debate.” Our book speaks for itself; here I want to [analyze] the Baker-Hamilton Plan:

I don’t know where Amy J. St. Eve received her law degree. Maybe through a mail correspondence course run out of a mail drop in Bibo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. Surely, she didn’t attend one of the law colleges here in America. But then, the way things are going, maybe she did. Increasingly, in Bushzarro world, that it to say neocon world, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights do not say what they mean or mean what they say.

“In Chicago, a federal judge recently permitted two Israeli agents to testify anonymously against two men accused of aiding the Palestinian group Hamas, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization since 1995. Judge Amy J. St. Eve said that the right to learn a witness’ identity was ‘not absolute’ and that the use of pseudonyms for the Israeli agents was justified because of their assignments,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

St. Eve, obviously, does not have even a rudimentary understanding of the Sixth Amendment. It declares “the accused shall … be confronted with the witnesses against him” and says nothing about protecting witnesses. Reading the amendment, one would deduce that if the accused, for whatever reason, is unable to face his accusers, the state does not have a case.

During my last trip to Venezuela, covering the December 3, 2006 presidential elections for Axis of Logic, I had the opportunity to closely observe the voting procedures in a number of election stations in Caracas. During that time, I submitted 4 reports about the elections and the people in my second Venezuelan series, Observing the Revolution – The December 3, 2006 Presidential Election. Since my return to Boston, I have described my observations of the electoral process in Venezuela to a number of people in private conversations. Their responses have been so strong that I decided to pass my observations on to our readers. My fifth and final installment in this series is a simple description of the voting procedures which I and others observed during this historic election.

On December 3rd, my good friend, Augusto Montiel, a Deputy (senator) in the National Assembly drove Andy Goodall, Coordinator of Venezuela Solidarity UK and me through two areas of Caracas. The first was Altamira, a wealthy section of Caracas. The second was largest Barrio in Latin America, Petare, in the sector José Félix Ribas. We observed the voting process in election stations in both of these Caracas neighborhoods. The procedures were identical.

In the days prior to the election, mock voting was broadcast on national television to explain the voting procedure to the people to prepare them for the big day.

At 6:00 AM on November 30 the presidential campaigns were ended as required, according to Venezuelan law. After this time, no campaigning is permitted to continue until the CNE (National Election Commission) reports the official count of the votes. Likewise, no news organization is allowed to support either candidate in any way or to report on exit polls or partial returns – or to suggest who may be the winner during this period.