New Orleans as a Casualty of Iraq
Bob Harris’s take on the story of how resources for levees and floodworks for New Orleans, along with the Louisiana National Guard, were diverted to Iraq, strikes me as balanced and right. The nation made a decision about priorities. Tax cuts and the Iraq War came first. In a world of finite resources, that decision had real-world consequences.
It is so sad to see a city die. Those poor, poor people. I had earlier hoped New Orleans had been spared, but as Billmon explains in the end Lake Pontchartrain was blown into the city and apparently there is no reason to think it will drain back away any time soon. (Last I knew, Bourbon Street was still largely spared, because being the old part of the city it was built on relatively high ground. The water at Bourbon and Canal street was still only knee deep. But the French Quarter without the rest of the city might soon become more of an antiquarian curiosity than a living set of traditions.)
Now there is looting. Maybe Americans can imagine now what Iraqis felt like when US troops stood aside and allowed massive looting, including of precious national heirlooms and the documentary history of the country in modern times. And imagine how mean it was in the midst of such chaos to just dissolve the military and send it home, as though Bush should now dissolve the national guards and send them home.
Events such as the collapse of some Antarctic ice shelves will contribute to a rising of sea levels over the next century.
Spenser Weart explains:
“At least one thing was certain. If temperatures climbed a few degrees, as most climate scientists now considered likely, the sea level would rise simply because water expands when heated. This is almost the only thing about global change that can be calculated directly from basic physics. The additional effects of glacier melting are highly uncertain (scientists were still arguing over how much of the 20th century’s sea level rise was due to heat expansion and how much to ice melting). The rough best guess for the total rise in the 21st century was perhaps half a meter
While such a rise will not be a world disaster, by the late 21st century it will bring significant everyday problems, and occasional storm-surge catastrophes, to populous coastal areas from New Orleans to Bangladesh. More likely than not, low-lying areas where tens of millions of people live will be obliterated. Entire island nations are at risk. Then it will get worse. Even if humanity controls greenhouse emissions enough to halt global warming, the heat already in the air will work its way gradually deeper into the oceans, so the tides will continue to creep higher, century after century.”
Global warming is what is causing the seas to rise. Burning carbon-based fuels adds to global warming as surely as smoking leads to lung cancer. Some of your friendly corporations will deny both things to you.
Science fiction is “good to think with” (in the phrase of anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss) on these issues. Look at Kim Stanley Robinson’s Forty Signs of Rain, which is reviewed here.
Less elegiac than Robinson’s thoughtful novel, and more of an adventure story, John Barnes’ Mother of Storms paints a graphic and unforgettable picture of what is likely to happen to the Carribean islands if warming waters produce more and bigger hurricanes.
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Weblogging Liability
The question of whether Weblog owners are legally liable for comments made by readers could be settled by a current lawsuit.
A lot of forces in US society are very upset about the emergence of an Information Democracy on the Web, and I think the courts will increasingly be invoked to close down free discourse. As regular readers know, rightwing Zionists have tried this tactic with me. The case discussed by the WSJ is complicated by a charge of revealing trade secrets, but that charge may be easy to trump up.
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1000 May be Dead in Kadhimiyah Stampede
The mortar attack by guerrillas on the Shiite worshippers heading for the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim made the crowd nervous and suggestible. Later on, it appears that someone shouted that there was a suicide bomber in the crowd. A stampede ensued that has killed some 800 persons and the death toll is expected to rise to 1000.
The stampede was a highly unfortunate result of nerves, rumor and mob behavior, and this incident is certainly an outcome of the guerrilla strategy of spreading fear and terror in Iraq.
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Zalmay Urges Further Revisions of Constitution
Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Government of Massacre
US Bombings Kill 56
The BBC is reporting Wednesday morning that guerrillas fired mortar shells at Shiite worshippers in Kadhimiyah who were going to the shrine of the seventh Imam, Musa al-Kadhim, to commemorate his death. Early reports are that they killed seven and wounded 36.
The guerrillas are attempting to provoke the Shiites to commit violence in turn on Sunni Arabs, in hopes that a civil war will ensue. Such a communal war could make it impossible for the US to remain in Iraq, and impossible for the new government to establish itself, opening the way for a coup by the guerrillas.
The top police officials of the cities of Kirkuk and Baghdad were assassinated on Tuesday. This is not a good sign.
Al-Hayat: U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad held a news conference Tuesday with Sunni politician Adnan Dulaimi, in which he alleged that it was still possible to introduce amendments into the text of the constitution presented to parliament by the drafting committee, before it is voted on in a national referendum on October 15. He said it was up to the Iraqis to discuss whether amendments could still be made.
Shiite politicians on the drafting committee disagreed vehemently with Khalilzad: “Influential Shiite lawmaker Khaled al-Attiyah, a member of the constitution drafting committee, insisted Tuesday that “no changes are allowed” to the draft “except for minor edits for the language.”
Dulaimi himself renewed his rejection of the constitution as presented, saying it did not reflect the aspirations of the Iraqi people. He said the Sunni Arabs would make every effort to see that it went down to defeat in the referendum. He also called for the dismissal of the Minister of the Interior [something like our director of the FBI], Bayan Jabr, because of his political affiliations (he is a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq). He alleged that the police commandos of the interior ministry were led by “political parties” (i.e. SCIRI). He also accused these security forces of committing massacres against the Sunni Arabs. Khalilzad stood there at the podium while Dulaimi made these serious accusations against the government to which Khalilzad is an envoy.
This event is truly extraordinary, and I am afraid that it does not reflect well on the job Khalilzad is doing in Baghdad.
What would Americans think about it if the British ambassador in Washington held a joint press conference with an American politician; if the ambassador alleged that the US constitution could be tinkered with by himself, Bush and Hilary Clinton; and stood there while that politician accused Attorney General Alberto Gonzales of having 36 political enemies kidnapped and shot in the head?
Dulaimi had been the head of the Sunni Pious Endowments Board, a governmental body that oversees the religioius properties of Sunnis in Iraq. He became too outspoken for the elected government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite, so Jaafari summarily dismissed him in July. In the Saddam period, Sunnis appointed the members of the Shiite pious endowments board, so I suppose it was delicious for Jaafari to put the shoe on the other foot. All this is to say that Dulaimi’s objectivity could possibly be compromised.
Al-Jazeera reported pro-constitution demonstrations by Shiite followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani on Tuesday. (One big risk of Khalilzad’s tampering is that if he does succeed in removing the clause that says that parliament may not pass civil legislation contrary to Islamic law [not "rules" or "standards" as the wire service translations have it, but "Law"]– then Sistani may turn against the constitution. If he ordered the Shiites to reject it, they would, to a person.
Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawir, the highest-ranking Sunni politician in Iraq, has criticized the new constitution and warned that it could strengthen ethnic sub-nationalism. He said he has not decided yet whether to ask his own supporters to oppose it in the October 15 referendum.
The official spokesman for the (Sunni) National Dialogue Council, Salih Mutlak, revealed efforts to form a united front to fight the constitution, which would include the nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He said, “We are trying to meet with all those who oppose federalism, since the issue cannot be considered solely a Sunni one. It concerns all, including the Shiites who do not want to see Iraq partitioned.”
The more secular-leaning politicians in parliament began a new drive to form a secular front, in an attempt to bring down the Shiite religious parties that dominate the government, charging that they had “failed to fulfill the aspirations of the citizens.”
Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari criticized the Arab League for having neglected Iraq. (The Arab League consists mainly of Sunni Arab nationalists, many of whom had a soft spot for the Iraqi Baath Party. Behind the scenes, Arab League member governments are extremely disturbed that the new constitution does not specify Iraq as an Arab state any more. Many probably blame this development on Iranian, Shiite influence on Dawa and SCIRI, as well as on US/Israeli pressure [Sunni Arab protesters against the constitution in Iraq are calling it a "Jewish" constitution because they believe it serves the interests of Israel in breaking up and weakening Iraq].
An source in Iraqi security said Tuesday that US bombardment of houses in the Qaim area had left at least 56 persons dead. The US was attempting to target safe houses used by Monotheism and Holy War, the terrorist organization.
Pepe Escobar explores the influence of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and his Qom context.
Timur Kuran suggests that the theocratic socialist policies of the Shiite Dawa Party are at the root of some of the disputes over the constitution in Iraq.
Al-Sabah: Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rejected the behavior some of his followers in Najaf, who made inappropriate comments to shopkeepers there. He said that these Shiites were brethren of his followers and should be treated well. He went on to criticize the governor of Najaf for failing properly to provide security to the shrine of Imam Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. The governor belongs to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a party that is rival to the Sadrists.
Iraqis are still suffering from severe power shortages.
The general in charge of the US Air Force says that he expects US warplanes to remain in Iraq even after the ground forces are withdrawn.
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