Mad Canuck

Christmas in Canada

2007-12-24T22:12:00.001-05:00

This is my first Christmas since moving back to Canada from the United States, although for most of the six years I lived in the US we still came back to Canada for Christmas. Going back and forth between the two countries, I can easily see the differences.

As I wrote a couple of years ago, one big difference in the United States is that it seems people are afraid to wish each other a "Merry Christmas" out of fear of offending those who may not celebrate Christmas. So, they say "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" or other holiday-neutral sorts of things. That is certainly not a concern in Canada: according to a recent poll, fully 94% of Canadians celebrate Christmas, and so people here generally say "Merry Christmas" with impunity.

Perhaps the biggest difference is the number of non-Christians in Canada who have adopted some form of family Christmas traditions. Through all this, Christmas in Canada has evolved from a celebration of Christ's birthday into a religion-neutral family holiday that everyone seems to like. People put up lights and decorations on their houses, put up Christmas trees, exchange gifts, wish each other Merry Christmas, have Christmas parties, and don't worry about offending each other.

On our own block and in our own neighborhood we see this: an Indian Hindu family putting up brilliant lights on their house, a Chinese family coming over to exchange gifts, hijab-clad Muslim women rushing to finish buying last minute Christmas gifts at the mall, etc.

Some may argue that the religious meaning behind Christmas has become distorted, but the benefit is that the holiday has been disseminated to a broader audience. Given that more Canadians celebrate Christmas than celebrate Canada Day (our national holiday), Christmas is truly a national holiday for us, and one that unites us as Canadians.

For all of you, in Canada our outside, Merry Christmas!

Drivers License Stupidity

2007-12-22T15:16:00.000-05:00

Over the past few years, I have really marveled at how strange and convoluted the US policy is towards drivers licenses.

Prior to 9/11, in many states pretty much anyone could get a drivers license. You just go to your local department of motor vehicles office, show them proof of who you are (birth certificate, passport, etc.), they make you do a test to see whether you know how to drive a car, and they give you a license. Then, after 9/11, this got much more strict.

In New York, where I lived prior to returning to Canada, the laws were particularly dumb. To get a drivers license, you needed to show your social security card. This was fine and dandy, except that, as I wrote last year, the SSA does not issue social security cards to people not allowed to work in the US, including dependents (wife, children, etc.) of people who are legally allowed to work. If you did not have a social security card, you needed to go to the Social Security Administration and get a letter telling you that you aren't allowed to have one, along with proof of status in the country. Then, under the REAL ID act of 2005, New York had to tighten the policy even more so that people had to show proof of legal status in the country, and the expiry date of the passport would be set to expire on the same date as the person's status.

The issue this presented to my own family was for my wife. As I was in the United States legally on a work authorization, I was legally allowed to work, and when I went for my own drivers license I had a social security card to show the DMV. My wife, however, did not have a social security card, and had to go through a ridiculously convoluted process:

Go to the Social Security Administration, and fill out an application for a social security card, wait the hour or so in line and get rejected for a social security card (as she was not authorized to work in the US).
When she was rejected for the social security card, she had to ask the person at the counter for a letter saying she was rejected. Of course the person behind the counter has no idea why she was asking for this and so did not want to give her anything. My wife had to go through this process three times before she got the letter, finally bringing with her a copy of the page from the DMV saying she needed it.
Apply for the drivers license, bringing a copy of her passport, the I-94 form saying she was legally allowed to be in the country, and the letter from the SSA.

When my wife finished this, she got a drivers license, embossed in big red letters "TEMPORARY VISITOR: STATUS EXPIRES XXX" - an embarrasing "Scarlet Letter" drivers license that caused raised eyebrows every time she needed to show ID to buy a drink in a restaurant. It is good for us she got her drivers license before they introduced the requirement that it would expire every time her status expired - otherwise, she would have had to go through this convoluted mess once a year.

The basis of all of these efforts, the REAL ID act, etc. was the fact that the 9/11 terrorists used US-issued drivers licenses to board the airplanes they later flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

What people seem to have forgotten in all of this is that the primary purpose of a drivers license is not a form of ID, and not something to board an airplane with, it is a license to operate a motor vehicle. These same people also forget that foreign ID (foreign passports, drivers licenses, etc.) can also be used to board an airplane, and if the goal of restricting drivers licenses was to prevent something like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it would not have worked.

In many parts of the United States, it is very difficult to get around without a car, and people need to have one to be able to go to work, take the children to school, go to the grocery store or the mall, etc. It is generally possible to drive in the US with a foreign drivers license, however it is not possible to register a car in your name, and is generally not possible to get insurance.

In the United States, there is a vast number of illegal immigrants who do not have legal "visitor" status and cannot legally get any form of drivers license. Does this mean they will not drive a car? No, they are already here illegally, doing one more illegal thing will not hurt. So they will drive a car, either under a fake drivers license, someone else's license, or no license at all, and hope that nobody pulls them over for a speeding ticket.

This, in turn, puts a burden on the rest of the people in the United States - if these people cannot get insurance, and they get in an accident, the victim of the accident cannot get compensated.

Earlier this year, Elliot Spitzer, the governor of New York, proposed a solution for this problem - allowing the DMV to issue drivers licenses to illegal/undocumented immigrants. These drivers licenses would allow the bearer to drive a car, but would bear a note that they do not comply with the REAL ID Act. Spitzer's plan was ripped apart by many people, including those from his own party, resulting in him abandoning it. Personally I found these events saddening. Spitzer, by proposing this plan, demonstrated that he is one of the few politicians who truly understands the underlying issues around drivers licenses and immigration, and the response was for Spitzer to be pilloried in the press and Internet, and for his popularity to plummet. With the type of ignorance that was shown in this New York drivers license debate, I really question whether we will ever see a resolution to the problems related to immigration in the United States in our lifetime.

Guantanamo's First Trial: Omar Khadr

2007-10-15T19:54:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, a US military judge in Guantanamo Bay ordered that the trial for Omar Khadr, the Canadian imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, would resume on November 8.

Khadr is charged with murder, for allegedly throwing a hand grenade that killed US Army Sgt. Christopher Speer.

One thing I have noticed is that most of the news media have not done a good job at analyzing Khadr’s defense and his current legal status. If they did, I think many people would be quite surprised.

So far, the military trials in Guantanamo Bay have been surprising in terms of their transparency. Khadr’s military attorney, Lt. Cmdr Bill Kuebler has evidently been taking his role as Khadr’s lawyer very seriously. He has been very vocal, publicly lashing out at the judicial system setup to try his client and the other defendants, and being a very public advocate of his client’s defense. Kuebler has even traveled to Canada to speak to politicians and the press, to lobby Canadian politicians to "step up" for his client, and drum up support on behalf of his client. It is actually quite remarkable to see a military officer traveling to a foreign country to speak out against his own government. But, if this is the freedom Kuebler is accorded in defending his client, it speaks well for the fairness and transparency of the system he is operating in.

The military judge, Col Peter Brownback, has also shown himself to be a very level-headed judge, unafraid of stirring up controversy with his rulings. Col. Brownback was the same judge who dismissed the case against Khadr, ruling that the government had not determined him to be an “unlawful enemy combatant”, only an “enemy combatant”.

It is obvious from following the trial thus far that the military justice system is not acting as the rubber-stamp Kangaroo court that some members of the Bush administration perhaps hoped it would be. On the contrary, I would argue that Khadr has a better chance of getting a fair trial than he would in a civilian court in the United States itself.

Is Khadr an Enemy Combatant or an Unlawful Enemy Combatant?

Khadr’s defense is technical – nobody disputes the fact that he killed Sgt. Speer. The question is whether or not that killing could be considered murder.

The lynchpin in this case is whether or not Khadr is an “enemy combatant” or an “unlawful enemy combatant”. This is a very important consideration: in a war, soldiers kill each other, that in itself does not make them murderers. So long as the soldiers fight under the “laws of war” (i.e.: the Geneva convention), their actions are not considered murder.

Khadr was in Afghanistan, fighting for the Taliban (the government of Afgahnistan at the time) against a foreign invader. This makes Khadr an enemy combatant, but not an unlawful combatant. In fact, the only thing that has been alleged that makes Khadr an unlawful combatant is the fact he was not wearing a uniform when he was fighting the US Army.

I would expect Khadr’s lawyer to make a very big deal over this element in the case – because if Khadr is not an unlawful enemy combatant, then he is not guilty of murder.

What about a jury of his peers?

In the United States, cases of murder are tried in front of a jury of the defendant’s “peers”. This is fine and dandy, but in the case of Khadr, he really doesn’t have too many peers in the United States. Your typical American cannot relate to Khadr, and so putting together a jury that is not biased against him in some shape or form is unlikely.

Even if you do put together an unbiased jury, the prosecution could influence the jury against Khadr with talk of al-Qaeda, 9/11, showing pictures of Sgt. Speer’s dead body, etc. After the prosecution is done making their case in front of an American jury, the defense would have a real uphill battle.

One benefit to a military trial is that Khadr will be tried in front of a military tribunal – a team of legal experts in uniform, who are not only experts in military law (the Geneva convention, etc.).; they are also soldiers who are unlikely to be swayed by grisly photos, etc. and are thus less likely to allow this type of evidence to distract them from the defendant’s legal arguments.

Given the technical nature of Khadr’s defense (is he an “unlawful enemy combatant” or just an “enemy combatant”), a military tribunal is likely to be more objective.

What about the judge?

The judge in Khadr’s case, Col. Brownback, has demonstrated that he is not afraid to rule in favor of the defendant, no matter what the political impact of his ruling. In June, Brownback delivered a major setback to the government by throwing the case out of court – ruling that his court did not have the authority to try Khadr because Khadr had not been ruled an “unlawful enemy combatant”.

Brownback’s ruling was appealed by the government, but the appeals court did not rule that Khadr was an “enemy combatant” – instead they ruled that Col. Brownback’s court has the legal authority to determine whether Khadr is a legal combatant or not. Then, they sent the case back to Col Brownback.

By my estimation, this does not look good for the government’s case. Col. Brownback obviously takes his role very seriously, and will likely make a very objective assessment of Khadr’s status. Given Brownback’s prior history in the case, I’m sure many people in the government are not happy with having him as the presiding judge for the trial.

Double jeaopardy

One element of US law (from the fifth amendment to the Constitution) is the concept of double-jeopardy: a defendant can only be tried for the same crime once. Once a court rules that the defendant is not guilty, the government’s case is over - they cannot appeal, they cannot refile in another jurisdiction, etc.

In the case of Khadr, the only reason they are able to proceed to trial at this point is because Col. Brownback previously dismissed it on a technicality: ruling he did not have authority to try the case. If the case had actually gone to trial and Khadr had been found not guilty because he was determined as not being an enemy combatant (and therefore his actions were not murder), the government would not be able to refile the case later or appeal the ruling.

Timing

The timing of Col. Brownback’s ruling is very beneficial to the defense: they can essentially have their cake and eat it too. They are appealing the whole military tribunal process (that it is unfair, etc.) but at the same time are proceeding to trial while their appeal is ongoing.

If the military tribunal finds Khadr not guilty, the government cannot refile or appeal the case and the defense can just drop their appeal. However, if they find him guilty, the defense can continue to pursue their appeal, and if the appeals court rules that the military tribunal process was invalid, they will get a new trial anyway in a civilian court.

Conclusion

If I were representing Omar Khadr, I would be very happy with the current state of affairs as far as his legal defense. Khadr is likely to have a more fair trial in front of a military tribunal than a civilian court at this point, but even if the military tribunal finds him guilty, he still has a number of appeal routes.

Border Scaremongering

2007-09-30T12:55:00.000-04:00

This past Thursday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in the United States delivered a report to Congress titled "Security Vulnerabilities at Unmanned and Unmonitored US Border Locations". In its report, the GAO wrote how "in four states along the US-Canada Border, we found state roads that were very close to the border that CPB did not seem to monitor." To further emphasize its point, the GAO investigator took a red duffel bag containing containers marked "radioactive" and supposed bomb parts and walked across the border.

Gregory Kutz, the GAO managing director for special investigations told the Senate Finance Committee that, "Our work clearly shows substantial vulnerabilities in the northern border to terrorists or criminals entering the U.S. undetected."

Predictably, some US Senators went on a diatribe about the security of the Canadian border. Senator Charles Schumer said, "We cannot skimp on resources. We cannot spend more than $200 billion on the war in Iraq and then skimp on resources here. You can't play offense and not play defense."

As a Canadian, I frequently wonder why so many Americans are fixated with security of our shared border. Some Americans seem to view Canada as a safe haven for terrorists, and a virtual shopping mall for buying explosives and weapons. With all of the scaremongering in this report, you would think that someone could go to the local grocery store in Canada and pick up a few pounds of radioactive material to make a dirty bomb, or that when we order a hamburger at our local McDonald's, they ask us, "would you like some C4 with that?"

What people seem to forget is that this type of radioactive or explosive material in Canada is just as regulated and hard to come by as it is in the United States, and weapons are considerably more regulated than in the US. We can't just go buy this stuff very easily. People also seem to forget that Canada does not have any borders except the one with the United States - Canada does not have another border that terrorists can somehow sneak across, and getting into Canada by air is just as difficult as it is getting into the United States: most foreigners need a visa, and visa applications to Canada are screened just as thoroughly as the US screens theirs.

A foreign terrorist would be stupid to try coming through Canada, since they are doubling their chances of getting caught: they can get caught coming into Canada, they can get caught while they are here in Canada, and they can get caught while going from Canada to the United States. The 9/11 terrorists knew this - contrary to what some people believe, they did not go through Canada, they flew directly into the US and stayed in Florida while they were plotting their nefarious acts.

Canada is not a haven for terrorists. Canada is quite the opposite, as we proved last summer. And, given the extremely high cost of securing 4,000 miles of sparsely inhabited border, and that there is not a major problem with people sneaking across it (unlike the US's southern border), is spending all this money to secure the border with Canada a good investment? I think not.

To Charles Schumer's point about spending $200 billion in Iraq and scrimping at home, I would argue that this is exactly the correct thing to do. When considering a project, it is important to look at it in terms of a return on investment. You do not have enough budget to do all the projects you want to do, and so you look at where the money you invest can yield the best benefit for the American people. And, where would this money be best spent: spending tens of billions of dollars securing 4,000 miles of border and solving an imaginary problem, or spending this same money to solve a real problem - like providing healthcare to the millions of Americans who have no insurance, or buying better equipment for the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan? The answer is obvious.

I am back

2007-09-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

After a bit of a hiatus from blogging, I am now back. For those of my old readers who kept coming back now and then, thank you for your patience.

I am looking at Haloscan and notice a lot of old comments that I hadn't answered. To the commenters - I do apologize. I'll answer your comments in the next few days.

I'm not dead!

2007-08-20T21:30:00.000-04:00

Yes, the last two months I have not posted anything, and the past few I haven't posted as much as I used to.

It's been a lot of work getting used to my new job, moving back to Canada, and all that. In my new job I'm traveling a lot more than I did in my old job, and I hope to get to where I can start writing blog posts on airplanes.

So far this year, I've been to Paris, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Seattle, Norwalk, and Winnipeg. This week, I am traveling to New York again, then the following week to Bucharest, Romania. Later this year, I will be hitting Chicago, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Cincinnati, and New York again, and also visiting London and Cape Town. Surely I can find enough time on those flights to write some blog posts (I hope... ).

Lebanon, the Devil, and Idle Hands

2007-05-22T13:36:00.000-04:00

There is an old saying, “the devil makes work for idle hands.” Over the past few days, this saying has been proving itself out yet again in Lebanon.

Over the past three days, the Lebanese army has been fighting with a Palestinian militant group called Fatah al-Islam. According to news reports, the current clashes started when Lebanese security forces raided a building on Sunday to arrest Fatah al-Islam militants accused of robbing a bank in Tripoli. The militants fought back and attacked Lebanese army positions outside the Palestinian refugee camp where they are based, and the Lebanese army responded by striking targets within the refugee camp with tank shells and exchanging fire with Fatah al-Islam militants holed up inside.

Under the terms of the 1969 Cairo Agreement, Lebanon ceded control of the Palestinian refugee camps to what was at the time known as the PLO. Under this agreement, Lebanon’s army is barred from entering the camps.

Reading these news stories calls to mind one very disturbing question: why are Palestinian “refugees” still living in refugee camps in Lebanon when most of these so-called refugees were born there? Palestinian “refugees” migrated to Lebanon in 1948 when the state of Israel was founded.

Most of these Palestinian “refugees” did not flee the area now known as Israel – most have never even seen it, save those people over 60. In fact, the ones who made the decision to flee (those who were adults at the time) would now be over 80 years old today. The vast majority of the Palestinian “refugees” living in Lebanon were born in Lebanon, and many of their parents were born in Lebanon too, and yet because they are descended from actual refugees, they are not accorded the rights of Lebanese citizenship. They cannot vote, and there are many jobs they are barred from holding, and so unemployment and underemployment are rife. To add insult to injury, most of these “refugees” are kept in “refugee camps”, with insufficient size and inadequate infrastructure to support a burgeoning population. With this treatment, is it any wonder that Fatah al-Islam and other criminal gangs can get an easy foothold?

Someone who is born in a country but is not accorded the status of citizenship and the same rights as other citizens is not a refugee, he/she is a second-class citizen, much like blacks were in the southern United States during the “Jim Crow” days of segregation. And, when a group of people is kept in that state for multiple generations, is there any wonder that one is faced with a legion of young, angry men?

Israel isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Lebanon should know this, and the Palestinians should know this. Why, then, are Palestinians still living in refugee camps, and why are they still referred to as refugees in Lebanon? If this thinking does not change, these refugee camps will be permanent fixtures.

The true long-term solution to Fatah al-Islam and other criminal groups is to improve people’s economic prospects and integrate them into society. Granting full Lebanese citizenship to all Palestinians who were born in Lebanon would be a good start. Once this is done, the refugee camps can be integrated into the Lebanese environment as normal towns. Productive people are happy people, and unlikely to support groups like Fatah al-Islam.

Don Imus - a racist, or just ignorant

2007-04-10T09:34:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, the radio talk show host Don Imus got himself into quite a lot of trouble by describing the Rutgers women’s basketball team as a group of “nappy-headed hos”. Al Sharpton (whose radio show Imus appeared on after the incident) demanded that he be fired, many others were similarly outraged, and NBC ended up suspending him for two weeks.

Here is the transcript of the offending portion:

IMUS: So, I watched the basketball game last night between -- a little bit of Rutgers and Tennessee, the women's final.
ROSENBERG: Yeah, Tennessee won last night -- seventh championship for Pat Summitt, I-Man. They beat Rutgers by 13 points.
IMUS: That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and --
McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.
IMUS: That's some nappy-headed hos there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some -- woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like -- kinda like -- I don't know.
McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.
IMUS: Yeah.
McGUIRK: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes -- that movie that he had.
IMUS: Yeah, it was a tough --
McCORD: Do The Right Thing.
McGUIRK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
IMUS: I don't know if I'd have wanted to beat Rutgers or not, but they did, right?
ROSENBERG: It was a tough watch. The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors.
IMUS: Well, I guess, yeah.
RUFFINO: Only tougher.
McGUIRK: The Grizzlies would be more appropriate.

I asked my wife yesterday about this incident (she herself is black) and her point was very interesting: yes, the words Don Imus used were offensive, but they are no more offensive than when rappers use the same words. Why should Don Imus be held to such a high degree of scrutiny just because he is white and made the mistake of using some of the same words he’s heard rappers using on the radio?

I would take this a step further – I have some strong doubts that Imus even knew the correct meaning of the words he used when he used them. Did he even know that “ho” is a shortened form of “whore”? Imus and McGuirk seemed to use the word to refer to a tough woman, and not in any kind of sexual context, which suggests to me they didn't even know the real meaning. Should we blame Imus or McGuirk, or should we blame the media society from which they learned that word?

In most parts of society in the United States, it is not acceptable to wantonly class a bunch of random women as “whores”. If you listen to other genres of music (rock, pop, country, etc.) you won’t hear this. And yet, if you listen to rap or hip-hop, you hear the word “ho” used all the time. And, the rappers who refer to women as “hos” know exactly what the words means.

Is it not hypocritical to dance and sing along to some tune referring to women as “hos”, and then be harshly critical of Don Imus for using the same word?

Looking back at what Don Imus said, if we change the words around to something most white Americans would understand, Imus referred to the Rutgers women’s basketball team as a bunch of messy-haired whores – a very malicious thing to say about someone. The big question is, did he say this on purpose, or did he just grab onto a few words he’s heard on the radio; words for which he did not fully appreciate the meaning? If he did the latter, he is guilty of being ignorant and foolish, but not much else.

Yes, it is right to be indignant at Don Imus’ poor choice of words. But, we should be at least as indignant when we hear rappers and other musicians using the same words.

Y2K Deja-Vu

2007-03-10T20:56:00.000-05:00

Computer specialists rushing to patch systems and dire warnings about problems with computer scheduling. Did I just wake up in 1999 again?

Nope. This isn't Y2K, this is Y2K7. The year, the law rolling back the start date for daylight savings time kicked in.

I wrote about this law back when it was first passed in 2005. As I wrote then, the US Congress seems to have rushed this bill through, without giving any thought to the repercussions to the computer industry.

Over the past month, my staff at work have been busily patching every PC, laptop, server, network switch, phone system, firewall, VPN gateway, and everything else we own. We have spent weeks dealing with this problem, and I'm sure if you look around at many other companies, you will find a similar pattern. And all this nonsense just because some congressmen thought it would be nice for kids to be able to do their Hallowe'en trick-or-treating in daylight.

Shame on them!

There's No Place Like Home

2007-03-09T21:58:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay in blogging. Over the past month, I completed my move back to the Toronto area. It's been stressful, but now that I'm settled in, I really think it was worth it.

Guess I should edit my blogger profile.... ;)

Some small things I am enjoying about Canada that I missed while I was in the US:

Tim Hortons: Tim Hortons makes some of the best coffee and best donuts out there.

Poutine: A French Canadian dish of French fries, cheese curds, and gravy. This dish is very popular in Canada, but for some strange reason, I've never seen it south of the Canada/US border.

Chocolate: There are a number of chocolate bars in Canada you can't get in the US: Coffee Crisp, Aero, Caramilk, etc. Chocolate in Canada I find much nicer than the chocolate in the US. In the US, the chocolate is coated with wax to make it look better, but I find it has less taste. Canadian chocolate seems more flavorful.

The State of Public Facilities: Subway trains, buses, commuter trains, airports, etc. in Canada tend to be about the same level of decor and cleanliness you'd expect in the lobby of an "A" office building in Manhattan.

Of course, I'm sure I'm going to find some things to miss about New York over the next few months, and if you ask me in five or six months, I'll probably be able to rattle off a long list of things I miss about the Big Apple.

New job

2007-02-03T23:55:00.000-05:00

Sorry I've been so long to post. I started my new job just under three weeks ago and have been busy traveling since. In the past three weeks, I have not worked in one office for more than three days in a row, and have been traveling extensively. And, I'm preparing for my move back to Canada later in February.

I will start posting a bit more regularly once things calm down.

Wow...

2007-01-16T19:11:00.000-05:00

These two guys deserve medals. And, if I were President Bush, I would be flying them to Washington to present them personally:

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Two civilians thwarted an attempted terrorist attack Tuesday when a vehicle loaded with explosives attempted to crash through the front gate of a U.S. base in the Afghan capital, according to the U.S. military.

The two men, an interpreter and a security guard, dragged the apparent suicide bomber from the vehicle before he could detonate explosives, said Col. Tom Collins, the chief spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

"I think it's a pretty amazing and heroic event," Collins said.

He said that at about 9 a.m. Tuesday (10:30 p.m. ET Monday) a driver crashed his vehicle into Camp Phoenix, the base where the Afghan National Army and police are trained. The driver reached for what appeared to be a cord to detonate a bomb, he said.

"Amazingly, a couple of Afghans who just happened to be on the scene there realized what was happening," Collins said.

"Anyone's inclination would have been to run away but these guys are genuine heroes," Collins said.

New Job

2007-01-11T21:53:00.000-05:00

This is a busy week for me. I am wrapping things up at my old job. My last day at my current job is tomorrow (Friday) here in New York, and I report for work at my new job on Monday in Toronto. I will be spending two days in Toronto, then three days in Winnipeg, then I will be back in New York next week.

I expect I will be able to spend more time on my blog after I start my new job: one of my favorite times to write blog posts is from an airplane, and I will be spending lots of time traveling on airplanes in my new job.

To all my regular readers, thanks for your patience, you'll hear a lot more from me soon.

Saddam Execution Farce: Guard Arrested

2007-01-03T21:04:00.000-05:00

Earlier today, news reports from Iraq indicated that Iraqi authorities have arrested a guard over the release of an unauthorized cellphone video of Saddam's execution.

Frankly, I find this very disappointing. In my opinion, whoever took this video and released it is a hero, not a villain. He risked his own safety to show the world what really happened in that execution chamber. Iraq's government should be going after the idiots who were chanting "Muqtada, Muqdada, Muqdada!", not the person who took the video.

Some people need to get their priorities straight....

Saddam Execution Farce

2006-12-31T01:00:00.000-05:00

A little more than 24 hours ago, Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq, the result of his death sentence he received as a result of the Dujail incident. Throughout the trial, some Sunnis in Iraq felt suspicious of the whole judicial process, thinking it a sham; a kangaroo trial leading to the foregone conclusion of a death sentence. And, while the judges and court officials put out a great effort to allay these suspicions, these efforts were largely undone by the spitefulness and general lack of professionalism that surrounded Saddam's execution.

The timing of the execution seemed preplanned to spite the Sunni population in Iraq. Eid al-Adha (the feast of the sacrifice) is one of two major feasts in the Muslim calendar. Sunnis celebrate Eid al-Adha this year starting December 30, while Shias celebrate it one day later. Thus, Saddam's execution was held on the first day of the Sunnis' Eid.

A court official was asked by a news reporter why they chose to execute Saddam on the first day of Eid - he responded that Eid in Iraq starts on Sunday, despite the fact that for the Sunnis it started on Saturday.

Another element of the execution that was wrong was the taunting of Saddam Hussein by the executioners in the moments before his execution. This video was captured by a small video camera (likely a cellphone) by a witness to the execution, and it is plainly obvious why the video the Iraqi government released earlier in the day stopped prior to the trapdoor being opened.

After Saddam is put on the trapdoor and the noose is placed over his neck, he begins to quietly pray. His prayers are drowned out by one of the executioners and some members of the crowd shouting, "Muqtada, Muqdada, Muqtada!"

Saddam retorted from the gallows: "Muqtada? Is this how you show your bravery as men? Is this the bravery of Arabs?"

Members of the crowd drowned out Saddam with calls of, "Straight to hell!", and "Long live Mohammed Baqir Sadr!"

Finally, someone (perhaps one of the executioners) calls out to the crowd, "Please, I am begging you not to, the man is being executed."

At this point the trapdoor opens, Saddam drops, and the crowd erupts in cheers.

There are two things I find profoundly disturbing about this video. Firstly, is completely unprofessional for an executioner or witnesses to an execution to taunt the condemned man, drowning out his prayers with vicious taunts. The condemned man is set to die - why does it need to be made cruel? Did these men taunt Saddam using the name of Sadr on purpose, knowing their taunts would be captured on video?

In addition to the taunts, it is completely inappropriate for the crowd at the execution to be dancing and rejoicing. No matter how much one may dislike a man or his crimes, it is never right to rejoice over his death.

The barbarity of Saddam's execution, the video of it quickly released to Iraqi television, and the execution timed to coincide with the start of a holy day for Sunni Muslims but not for Shias - all of these things seem to be a carefully crafted message from members of the Shia dominated government to the Sunni minority: we don't care what you think, we are running things now, and we will do whatever we want without regard to you. And, in conducting the execution in this spiteful way, the execution team has damaged and undermined some of the credibility the court worked hard to build up, and Iraq has taken a further step towards fractionalism, and sectarian alienation.

A sad day for Iraq, for America, and for the world.

Happy Eid!

2006-12-30T01:57:00.000-05:00

I'd like to wish a happy and blessed Eid al-Adha (feast of the sacrifice) to all my Muslim friends around the world.

It is unusual this year - all three of the major monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) are celebrating holidays within a week of each other: last week was Channukah, Christmas was a few days ago, and Eid al-Adha starts today.

What is interesting about Eid al-Adha is that it celebrates a powerful lesson that is common to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism: the day the prophet Abraham was called upon to give his son Isaac as a burnt offering to God. In the end, God provided a ram for Abraham to sacrifice instead, but not before Abraham had made preparations and was ready to sacrifice his son. In Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, this story of Abraham provides the ultimate example of dedication and sacrifice. While all three of these monotheistic religions acknowledge Abraham's sacrifice as a powerful lesson, Islam is the only one that sets aside a holiday for it.

Eid Mubarak to all my friends around the world who celebrate it.

Saddam Executed

2006-12-30T00:59:00.000-05:00

Earlier today, Saddam Hussein was handed over from US custody to the Iraqi government and hanged. What will this mean for the situation on the ground in Iraq?

Absolutely nothing....

Saddam ceased to be relevant to the war on the ground the day he was driven out of power by invading US forces. When he was captured hiding in a spider-hole, he had as much to fear from being captured by many of his own countrymen as by the American forces. Since Saddam's capture, anyone with half a brain should have anticipated today's execution as the eventual outcome of the legal process Saddam was facing: even if Saddam was acquitted of one charge, or given a lenient punishment in another, there were so many charges facing Saddam that at least one was likely to result in a death sentence - and all it needed was one death sentence to have him hanged.

The Dujail killings, which Saddam was convicted and sentenced to die for, were not chosen because they were Saddam's worst crime - they were chosen because they were the easiest to prove: written execution orders bearing Saddam's own signature are hard to deny.

Many Iraqis loathed Saddam - even the Sunnis the American news media often paint as his supporters. I know more than one Iraqi Sunni who used to join the crowd in the streets shouting with the crowd, "With our spirit, with our blood, we will sacrifice for you, Saddam," while secretly hating Saddam all the while. Just because a show-dog will jump through a flaming hoop on command doesn't mean the dog likes doing it.

Saddam will undoubtely have some Iraqis mourning for him, and a few insurgent groups may launch attacks to coincide with Saddam's execution. But, will these attacks be any worse than the horrid situation Iraq is already embroiled in? Not likely.

Unfortunately, Saddam's death is not likely to make things any better in Iraq either - he ceased to be relevant there long ago.

Iran Sanctions: Tickling an Alligator

2006-12-26T01:16:00.000-05:00

Last week, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a set of sanctions against the government of Iran and a handful of Iranian companies and key individuals who are allegedly involved with Iran's nuclear enrichment program or their missile program.

Unfortunately, in order to get the buy-in from China and Russia, it seems the sanctions have been so watered down as to be completely ineffective.

They prohibit the sale of nuclear technology to Iran, except where that technology is for use in light-water reactors.
They sanction 10 Iranian companies, and 12 specific individuals employed by those companies, freezing their international funds, exempting contracts that were already signed when the sanctions were put into effect.

The exception for light-water reactors is a key item of note: it basically means that countries can still freely sell nuclear technology to Iran, so long as that technology is for light-water reactors. Another key item is the exemption for pre-existing contracts: this means that the Bushehr reactor that Russia is currently constructing for Iran can still go ahead without any glitches or delays.

Beyond these minor nuisance-sanctions, there is no real penalty against Iran for defying the world community on its nuclear technology.

Dealing with Iran is like dealing with an alligator: you need to either deal with it forcefully or leave it the hell alone. The toothless sanctions passed by the UN are rather like tickling the alligator - they may annoy it, but do nothing to stop it from wreaking havoc.

Worse yet, Iranian leaders may feel emboldened by last week's UN vote - after all, they scored a major victory. While the US was able to push through "sanctions" against Iran, they were so watered down by the time the negotiations with other security council members were done that they do not resemble sanctions in any conventional sense of the word.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-24T23:38:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I am currently in Canada enjoying the holiday with my parents and my own family.

To all my readers, I wish you all a joyous Christmas holiday along with your families.

Grass and Fences

2006-12-22T21:40:00.000-05:00

As I am preparing to move back to the Toronto area, I have been amazed at the kinds of remarks I've gotten from some of my American colleagues here in New York. Many of them seem a bit jealous: any of them who have visited Toronto said it is a wonderful city, and a few said they would love to live there. Some common things the Americans like about Toronto is the cleanliness of the place, the beautiful architecture, the low crime rate, the healthcare system, and the cost of housing. One senior executive I talked to said I was very lucky, and he "would move to Toronto in a second" if he had the opportunity.

The ironic thing is the sentiments of my American colleagues here sound so much like the jealous feelings my Canadian friends seem to have had towards me when I'd come up and visit. They'd look at me living in New York and think of all the bright lights in Times Square, and all the lifestyle here. Oddly enough, six years ago, before I moved to the United States, I was like that too - enough so that I packed up and moved.

There is an old saying: The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. This is particularly true when this fence is the Canada/US border. In looking at other countries, we always seem to look at society there through rose-colored glasses while looking more harshly at our own.

Trying to Banish Christmas

2006-12-15T01:23:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, a Toronto judge ordered a Christmas tree moved out of the courthouse lobby and into a less-frequented corridor, out of fear the tree would offend non-Christians.

What made me feel a real sense of pride in being a Canadian is the universal backlash that greeted this judge's decision, especially by the non-Christians she was trying not to offend. The president of the Muslim Canadian Congress, Farzana Hassan, gave perhaps the juiciest quote: "This is stupidity and takes political correctness to new heights. We should ban political correctness, not the Christmas tree."

Manuel Prutschi, the executive vice president of the Canadian Jewish Congress had a similar quote: "The presence of the Christmas tree is a symbol for a lot of people — believing Christians and perhaps non-believers — of a joyous holiday, and we respect that and acknowledge that."

As of a few minutes ago, the Globe and Mail article on the subject had gathered 132 comments, almost all of them lashing out at the judge's decision.

One thing I like about Canada is the unity we seem to find around Christmas time. Many immigrants like the way Christmas is celebrated in Canada, and adopt this holiday, even if it is not part of their own traditions. A large number of Canadians (including many non-Christians) put up Christmas trees and exchange gifts on December 25, even if they do not celebrate the religious aspects of the holiday. One of the Globe and Mail comments that seems to echo this sentiment the best:

Hamid Azari from Canada writes: This is sheer non-sense? Why can't I share and participate in the happiness of my neighbour, my friends and my fellow country man. Why would the happiness of my country man alienate me? Aren't there enough issues and divisions in this world in the name of religion etc. etc. that you are making an issue out a non-issue? As a born muslim, I beg you not to protect me in my name in this fashion. This is the height of absurdity. Enough of divisions. Enough is enough.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Moving back to Canada

2006-12-14T23:09:00.000-05:00

I have some big news that has been in the works for a few months now: I am taking a new job with a different company, and moving back to Canada. This new job is a major step up in my career: I am going from an Associate Director at a small New York based company to Vice President at a large multinational company.

In my new role, I will be based in Toronto, but I will be responsible for all of North America, and about three quarters of the people working for me will be here in the United States. So, I will be back here a lot, and will probably spend at least one week per month here in New York.

One thing that is both flattering and nerve-wracking at the same time: I am very young to have this level of job. I remember when I came to my current role, I was the second youngest person in my whole department, and yet I was the boss, and I was the youngest director in the history of the company. In my new role, this effect will be even more pronounced: as a Vice President, I will have two to three levels of management below me. I expect I will be 10 years younger than most/all of my direct reports (directors) and younger than most of their direct reports (managers) too. Their first interaction with me will likely be over the phone, but when they first meet me, I wonder how many will ask themselves, "who the hell is this kid?" I expect some people will try to dismiss me because of my age, and some may even try to test my authority. As a younger manager, it is not merely sufficient to be as good at what I do, I need to excel in order for people to overlook my age and respect me.

I will be going to Canada for Christmas holidays soon, which have now turned into a big househunting trip. I am both excited and nervous about the coming few weeks.

Only in New Orleans: scandal-tainted congressman re-elected

2006-12-10T14:47:00.000-05:00

Earlier today, I saw some news that I had trouble believing: congressman William Jefferson was re-elected to office.

This is the same guy who the FBI arrested a few months ago after finding $90,000 in cash hidden away in his freezer, a day after a company admitted paying him a $100,000 bribe.

Looking a bit into the story, the same white versus black nastiness that has pervaded New Orleans for decades seems to have reared its ugly head again. As the Washington Post explains:

Jefferson, 59, drew widespread support among blacks who are skeptical of the federal government's motives in its investigation of him. He repeatedly suggested the probe is groundless because he has yet to be indicted more than a year after the FBI raided his home in New Orleans.
Carter, 37, raised nearly five times as much money as Jefferson, but she was largely outflanked in the endorsement game. Jefferson picked up the backing of Mayor Ray Nagin and other prominent black politicians.

What is peculiar here is that Karen Carter herself is black, and despite this fact, Jefferson was able to portray Karen Carter as a "pawn of the white establishment" (as her father Ken Carter described), and through this scaremongering was able to get an overwhelming majority of the black votes in New Orleans.

I have written about New Orleans in the past, and only in this screwed-up racist cesspool of a city can I imagine this type of thing happening: a politician, who was caught red-handed with a $90,000 bribe stashed away in his freezer, getting re-elected, simply because of racial politics. No matter what Jefferson's political qualifications, no matter what his platform, no matter what color his skin is, the least thing one can demand from a politician is honesty. And, a man like Jefferson, who has proven himself so dishonest, should never be elected to political office.

As someone tainted by strong accusations of corruption, William Jefferson is a pariah in Washington, and any initiative he may propose will be inherently suspect. With much work to be done still to clean up from Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans needs a strong advocate in congress. With this scandal hanging over his head, William Jefferson will never fit this role again.

New Orleans residents did not cause Hurricane Katrina, and they did not cause the destruction that it wrought. But, they did have a choice in who to elect to office, and by re-electing William Jefferson, the residents of New Orleans failed to look out for their own interests. If New Orleans does not receive adequate government support after making such a stupid error, it will be their own undoing. By re-electing Jefferson, New Orleans dug its own hole.

Social Security Stupidity

2006-12-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

The US government is made up of a collection of various departments, and sometimes these departments make policies that are incompatible with the policies of other government departments. A very good example of this can be found in the Social Security Administration, and their refusal to grant social security numbers to people who are legally in this country but not allowed to work.

When someone comes to the United States on a temporary work visa (H1B, TN, etc.), that person is legally allowed to work here, however that person's dependents (spouse, children) are not. The Social Security Administration's (SSA's) policy is to give a social security number only to someone who is permitted to work here. And so, the recipient of the work visa is granted a social security number, but his dependents are not.

This creates problems with a number of other government departments, most notably the IRS. To claim a tax deduction for a dependent on your tax return here, you need to enter that person's social security number on the return. Because a visitor can't get a SS # for his dependents, the IRS allows you to apply for something called an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) for your dependents. An ITIN is the same format as a social security number, but it can only be used on your tax return, not for anything else. Thus, because of the SSA's refusal to give social security numbers to these people, the IRS has to manage a parallel program to give cards and numbers just so people can complete their tax returns.

The next problem this creates is with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in many states. In several states, you need a social security number to get a drivers' license. Depending on where a visitor and his dependents are from, this can create a classic "catch 22" for the visitor's spouse:

Depending on where it is from, you may be able to continue driving with your foreign drivers license, but you may be considered in violation of state law if you haven't converted this over to a state license if you're living in the state.
You can't get insurance on your car under your foreign license - you need to get your state license first.
You can't get your state drivers' license without a social security card.
You can't get a social security card because you're not legally allowed to work here (although you are legally allowed to live here, accompanying your spouse who is legally allowed to work).

Getting a drivers license when you are on a temporary visa is straightforward. Getting one when you are a dependent is not. I know one woman who came to the US on a K-1 (fiancee) visa to marry her husband, and could not get a drivers license for two years because of this situation: she wasn't allowed to work until her green card got further along, she was not allowed to get a SS# until she was allowed to work, and she couldn't get her drivers license without the SS#.

Another problem is that almost everything you do here in the US requires a social security number, as your credit report is tied to it. If you don't have a SS#, you can't open a bank account, can't get a credit card in your name, etc. So, while the primary visitor is allowed to work and do all this, his spouse is essentially stuck.

There are several reasons why this intransigence on the part of the Social Security Administration is incredibly selfish and stupid:

Because of it, the IRS is forced to run the ITIN program - a parallel program whose sole purpose is to give cards and numbers to people who the SSA refuses to give them to. The cost of the IRS having to run the ITIN program is far greater than it would cost for the SSA to simply give social security numbers to these people.
There is no security benefit to not giving social security numbers to visitors who are legally here. In fact, having a unique number to identify visitors would strengthen security.
Denying the spouses of visitors the ability to obtain a drivers license or credit puts an undue burden on many of these people.

A simple solution to this situation would be a change in policy at the Social Security Administration: to grant a social security number to anyone who is here in the US on a legal dependent status (H4, TD, etc.), and/or who needs to be claimed as a dependent on a US tax return. Implementing this policy would allow the IRS to shut down the ITIN program, and would result in significant cost savings, improved security, and streamlined processes.

Cloak and Dagger in London

2006-12-03T11:11:00.000-05:00

Over the past month, I have been following the news from London, about the poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. After more than three weeks of convalescence in a hospital, Litvinenko passed away on November 22, and the autopsy after his death identified a very unusual radioactive poison in his system: Polonium 210.

In the time since, the news media has not done a very good job of explaining to the public what this stuff called polonium is, and how it would have killed Litvinenko, and why this substance was so hard for British doctors to detect until after Litvinenko's death. So, I will take some liberty here.

Polonium is a naturally occurring radioactive substance. As natural uranium decays, one of the substances that is produced is polonium. Thus, it can be found in very small concentrations in natural uranium (which is how Marie and Pierre Curie first isolated it in 1898).

There are four types of radiation that can come from a radioactive substance: alpha radiation (two protons and two neutron together), beta radiation (tiny electrons or positrons), gamma radiation (high-energy photons), and neutron radiation (neutrons).

While this technical jargon may not make a lot of sense to many people, the important thing to note is that alpha particles are huge compared to the others. This means two things: alpha particles can't go very far (they can't even penetrate a piece of paper), but they do a lot of damage when they hit something. A guy on a bicycle can navigate through smaller spaces than a bus, but which would you rather be hit with if you're walking across the street?

What this means is that a radioactive substance that is an alpha emitter is not dangerous outside the body, as the alpha rays it emits cannot penetrate more than a couple of inches of air, and if you touch it, the alpha radiation cannot penetrate through the outer layer of your skin. But, if you ingest or breathe in the alpha emitter, that is another story, as the alpha particles will be emitted inside your body, and can do a huge amount of damage. But, the alpha particles cannot be detected outside the body.

Polonium is an alpha emitter. But, what makes it special is that it doesn't emit a gamma ray at the same time as it emits an alpha particle, which makes it really hard to detect. Gamma rays are easy to detect, but alpha rays, because they don't go very far, are not. This is why Litvinenko was sickened with symptoms of radiation poisoning, and yet no radiation was detectable from outside his body. The polonium, from within his body, did all the damage.

Another key consideration with polonium is it is very difficult and costly to obtain. It is not something you can buy off the shelf at your local hardware store. It must either be purified from uranium (a costly and time consuming process) or produced in a nuclear reactor. This does tend to suggest that someone such as a government entity may have been behind Litvinenko's poisoning, as it would be exceedingly difficult for anyone else to obtain sufficient quantities of this substance. It seems likely that the main reason for this particular poison being chosen was because of the difficulty with detecting it.

It also seems likely that whoever selected polonium as the poison of choice was hoping that it would kill Litvinenko quickly, and be prohibitively difficult to detect. In that situation, doctors would have been in a quandary to explain how a healthy man can suddenly die like that, and the death would have been chalked up to a mysterious death, and not a murder, and certainly not a state-authorized assassination. But, this did not happen. The dose of polonium administered to Litvinenko was too low to kill him quickly (perhaps a crucial error on the murderer/assassin's part). Instead, it left Litvinenko in a hospital bed with characteristic symptoms of radiation poisoning, conscious enough to talk to investigators and to write a deathbed letter accusing Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder. The fact Litvinenko's symptoms were so characteristic of radiation poisoning led to tests being conducted during his autopsy to identify the radioactive substance. And, the fact polonium is so rare in nature and difficult to obtain points a finger towards a state sanctioned assassination.

If this was really an assassination with polonium, I expect it will be the last we will ever see. The assassin/murderer would have been better off killing Litvinenko with arsenic or ricin or one of these other easier to obtain poisons. Yes, it would be more detectable, but once the poison is detected, it would have been easier for Russia to deny having anything to do with the murder. With it being done with polonium, however, the cloud of suspicion around Russia is much thicker, since they are one of the few countries that has the ability to produce it.

Busy Again

2006-11-29T00:21:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay in blogging - work is pure stress these days. Look for another post within the next few days.

Election Aftermath

2006-11-09T00:14:00.000-05:00

The election has passed, and the Democrats have won a majority in both the House and the Senate. What will this mean for the next two years?

On the short term, it may well mean an old fashioned Mexican Standoff. The Democrats control both houses, and thus can pass any legislation they like, or defeat any Republican-introduced legislation. However, they lack the two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate, which they would need to override a presidential veto on legislation the Democrats may pass. Thus, the Republicans can't get any legislation through either the House or the Senate without Democrat blessing, while the Democrats can pass any legislation they want, but can't override Bush's veto of it.

In short, neither party can get anything done without the consent of the other. Either the two parties can either play nice with each other in the "spirit of bipartisanship", or we have ourselves a classic Mexican Standoff. And, judging by the volume of attack advertising, smear jobs, and negative campaigning by both parties in this election, I think we are about as far from "bipartisanship" as we can get.

Over the next two years, I expect the US Government will be largely mired in deadlock, fruitlessly debating bills only to see them fall to either defeat or veto. Very little real work will get done, as the two main parties will use each bill as its next move in a grand chess game leading up to the next election. The Republicans will introduce bills they hope the Democrats will defeat, so they can score points with some constituents. Meanwhile, the Democrats will create "omnibus" bills, tacking their favorite elements of their political platform onto critical, popular, or politically sensitive bills - and since the President lacks a line-item veto, Bush can either sign the bill, or veto the whole thing, risking the damage this could do to the Republicans in the next election.

I expect the next two years will likely be very unproductive for the US government, and will likely be regarded as Bush's lame duck years.

Iraq On Edge

2006-11-04T20:56:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is the day the verdict against Saddam Hussein will be announced. No matter which way the verdict goes, there are likely to be some people who do not like it, and thus an upsurge in violence is likely.

Many mainstream news organizations (such as this BBC article) paint the biggest risk tomorrow as being, "violence from [Saddam's] Sunni Arab supporters". However, I personally think the biggest risk is either Saddam being found not guilty, or Saddam's sentence being less than the death sentence many people are expecting. If this occurs, we may see an Iraqi reaction similar to what we saw here in the United States 14 years ago when the police officers who were caught on videotape beating Rodney King were acquitted.

If Saddam is found not guilty, or given a lenient sentence, the people who felt the most victimized by Saddam (the Shia and Kurds) would start cooking up various conspiracy theories - that Sunnis somehow rigged the trial in favor of Saddam - and would create a backlash against the Sunnis in reaction to this perceived injustice. Since the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarrah earlier this year, some Shia militias in Iraq have been all too quick to foment conspiracy theories and exact their revenge on their Sunni brethren. Saddam getting off for the Dujail case would certainly make a convenient excuse for more of the same mayhem.

If, however, Saddam is found guilty and sentenced to death, I would expect the reaction would be much more muted for a couple of reasons. Saddam has been imprisoned for the past two years, and has generally ceased to be a relevant factor to the current war on the ground. As such, most Iraqis have more current things to worry about than the fate of Saddam. In addition, while Saddam does still have his loyal followers, he was not nearly as popular among the Sunni Iraqis as the news media here make him out to be. Many paid lip service to Saddam - attending rallies and pledging loyalty to Saddam without actually meaning it. Now that Saddam is no longer the big guy with the big guns backing him up, whatever feigned loyalty many of these folks had towards him is gone.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day - and for the sake of all the friends I know in Iraq, I pray that everything will be okay for them.

A Week from Hell

2006-11-01T21:09:00.000-05:00

This week has been a week from hell for me. I was supposed to be on vacation for the first part of the week - a vacation that I was forced to cancel for a couple of reasons.

The Aborted Trip to Canada

I was supposed to be taking the family to Canada for a few days. So, we spent a few hours on Saturday packing suitcases, and on Sunday, we loaded the family into my wife's car and we started our drive towards Toronto.

The weather was extremely windy on Saturday.

About halfway between Albany and Syracuse, my wife (who was driving) asked me about a light flashing on the dashboard: the "overdrive off" light. Normally, this light would be on steady if overdrive is switched off, and off otherwise. This time, it was flashing. I checked the car's manual and it didn't say anything about what a flashing overdrive light would mean, but I inferred that it must have something to do with the transmission. So, I told my wife we'd stop at the next rest area and check the transmission fluid level.

When we were exiting for the rest area, my wife commented, "wow, it's really windy, look at all the dust it's kicking up."

It didn't take long for me to realize what the dust was: "That's not dust, it's smoke, and it's coming from our car. Park the car and shut off the engine NOW!" After we parked the car and opened the hood, there was transmission fluid all over the place under the hood, and the distinctive smell of burnt oil.

We had the transmission of my wife's car rebuilt back in August and this was the first long trip we'd taken with it. Fortunately, this meant it was still under warranty. Unfortunately, though, we were way out of town.

So, I opened up my laptop computer in the rest area and looked up the nearest location for the company that serviced my transmission back in New York: it was in Albany, about 85 miles away. So, I called the American Automobile Association (AAA), which I'm a member of, and had them tow the car for an hour and a half along the highway (with me and my family crammed in the tow truck cab) back to Albany to the parking lot of the transmission shop, shoved my key under a door in an envelope, called a taxi to take me and my family to the Albany airport (where I figured I could get a rental car), and rented a car.

By this point it was after 5:00 in the afternoon, and I figured by the time we got to my parents' house it would be 2:00 AM. So we scrapped the trip and started the drive back home, and I got to listen to the sound of two crying kids in the back seat complaining they weren't going to see their grandparents.

The Mail Bombing

I still don't know exactly who my employer pissed off, but we seem to have pissed off someone.

Sometime in mid-morning on Monday, my helpdesk started getting calls from users that they could not get incoming mail from the Internet. After rebooting the email gateways and SPAM filters failed to correct the problem, my staff called me, and I looked at the problem. I soon realized that we had a denial-of-service attack being launched against us. We were getting hundreds of thousands of bogus messages coming in from hundreds of sources on the Internet, paralyzing our email gateways.

After several hours of work, and redeploying a powerful server as a temporary email gateway, we were able to get ahead of the flood after two days of disrupted email to the entire company. Now, email is flowing normally.

In short, a week from hell for me.

Kidnapped American Soldier

2006-10-25T01:21:00.000-04:00

A few more details were reported today by CNN about an American soldier who was apparently kidnapped in Baghdad yesterday:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Masked men grabbed a U.S. soldier, handcuffed him and forced him into a vehicle, the U.S. military said Tuesday, offering a relative's account of the kidnapping in Baghdad.

The soldier, who has not been named, was visiting the relative at a residence when the kidnapping occurred Monday night. He did not have permission for the visit, a military spokesperson said Tuesday.

Shortly after the abduction, the kidnappers reportedly contacted the relative on the soldier's cell phone, the military said.

The soldier is of Iraq descent, and apparently paid an unauthorized visit to some relatives in Baghdad for Eid al-Fitr, and was kidnapped while he was there.

The fact the kidnappers contacted the relatives suggests the motive for this kidnapping: money. Over the past two years, many Iraqis have been kidnapped. Those Iraqis who are from wealthier familes are much more at risk - and many Iraqis have chosen to allow the exteriors of their homes to fall into disrepair, drive beat-up old cars, etc. so that people may be less likely to kidnap them.

In the case of the American soldier, the kidnappers likely figure that, even if the US government does not pay them off, the soldier's family in the US has money, and may be inclined to pay, the kidnappers, rather than see the kidnappers "sell" their son to one of the jihadi groups who may may him the star of their latest beheading video.

Kidnapping for ransom money is a major problem in Iraq now. All of the friends I know from there have horror stories of kidnappings or attempted kidnappings of people they know. In most cases I have heard of, the kidnappers demand ransom, and quietly release the victim if the family pays up.

The fact that the kidnappers phoned the family from the soldier's own cellphone suggests that ransom money may be the motive. If they were simply planning to murder the soldier, why would they bother kidnapping him, and why would they bother phoning?

Eid Mubarak!!

2006-10-23T00:03:00.000-04:00

Eid mubarak (blessed Eid) to all of my Muslim friends around the world. I wish all of you a happy and safe Eid al-Fitr holiday with your families.

Arrogance and Stupidity

2006-10-22T00:06:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, a senior US diplomat named Alberto Fernandez gave a rather interesting interview on al-Jazeera. One of the more notable quotes:

We tried to do our best [in Iraq] but I think there is much room for criticism, because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq

Parhaps the strangest irony of this interview is that, no matter how stupid and/or arrogant one might think the US government has been in Iraq, it pales to the stupidity this Alberto Fernandez guy seems to have exhibited by doing this interview in the first place.

For a career diplomat in the State Department, doing an interview on al-Jazeera and calling one's bosses "stupid" and "arrogant" is not exactly the smartest career move one could make. Of course, the good news for the Bush administration is they now have a top candidate for that vacant consular position in Kinshasa, Ouagadougou, or whatever other remote diplomatic hell-hole they think is needing of Mr. Fernandez's services.

What to do about North Korea

2006-10-13T23:14:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, North Korea defied the world community and conducted a test of a nuclear weapon. Some have questioned the success of the test: based on the seismic measurements from neighboring countries, the yield was surprisingly low, suggesting the bomb may have been a partial dud. But, regardless of whether the test was fully successful or not, the fact that North Korea attempted to test a weapon sends a troubling signal to the rest of the world, confirming that North Korea is actively developing these weapons and is willing to defy the rest of the world in their use.

Now that North Korea has gone through with this test, the key question remains of what to do about it. And, in considering this question, it is important to realize that North Korea's nuclear weapons are more of an Asian problem then they are an American problem. Asian countries, especially Japan, China, and South Korea, are the ones within reach of North Korean missiles, and thus at the greatest risk. For this reason, this primarily Asian problem should be solved by a primarily Asian solution. The main role of the United States, if any, should be to encourage our Asian friends to take action to stop this menace, and to provide assistance if requested.

China and Russia, in particular, should be key to the solution here. As traditional allies of North Korea, China and Russia allowed this Frankenstein country to fester on their doorstep for the past fifty years. However, China and Russia did both discourage North Korea from pursuing its nuclear program - if China and Russia (both nuclear powers) wanted North Korea to have nuclear weapons, they would have just given the technology to them. The fact that they did not give this technology to North Korea suggests their attempts to discourage North Korea from developing this technology were genuine. And, because of this, North Korea's defying of this discouragement represents a major embarrassment for both China and Russia. Hopefully, this means these two countries will support taking action.

North Korea's provocative nuclear test deserves a strong response from the world community. And yet, a military attack on North Korea is the wrong answer, since it would cause unnecessary loss of life, and may backfire by galvanizing public opinion within North Korea. A better solution is to target North Korea's economy - a targeted series of measures intended to cause North Korea's already fragile economy to collapse. Some measures that could be key to this:

A military blockade: Simply slapping sanctions on North Korea is not enough here - there will always be someone willing to defy them. In a military blockade, all ships and aircraft to/from North Korea would be forced to land at a Chinese or Japanese port to be screened. Only certain types of goods (food, medicine, etc.) would be allowed through.
Cutting off oil supplies: North Korea is dependent on oil from China. Shutting off the spigots from China, and using the blockade to prevent oil imports from anywhere else (Iran, etc.) would cause North Korea's transportation infrastructure to grind to a halt.
Infrastructure impairment: Shutting down the electrical grid, major roadways, railroads, and all airports through targeted bombings of transformer stations, bridges, rail lines, and airport runways.
Inhibiting cash flow: Using the blockade to block ALL exports from North Korea, which would cut off North Korea's ability to raise foreign cash. In the resulting liquidity crisis, the value of North Korea's currency would collapse on the open market, making it more difficult for North Korea to import needed goods. Freezing all North Korean assets outside North Korea could help this effort as well.
Funding rebel groups: Providing local rebel groups with weapons and money.
Psyops: Dropping flyers, running radio stations, etc. to encourage North Koreans to support rebel groups.

North Korea's economy has been in trouble for a long time, and a concerted effort like this could cause it to implode. While this would be painful for the North Korean people, it is significantly less painful than a full-scale war.

One does not need to look far for a parallel to Korea. Like Korea, Germany was partitioned into two separate countries - one Capitalist, and one Communist. After the collapse of the Communist East Germany, the country became one again, and the Berlin wall fell. North Korea has the potential to undergo the same metamorphosis through a reunification with South Korea. The most likely way for this type of reunification to occur is for North Korea's economy and government to implode. This will likely happen at some point in the future anyway, but if the world community is able to bring about this eventuality sooner, the result will be less suffering for the North Korean people.

Canada's Payback

2006-10-12T21:52:00.000-04:00

Much to the consternation of your average American cop, one of Canada's bigger exports to the United States is marijuana. Some Canadian variants, like the infamous "BC Bud" are sold for a higher than normal street price due to their reputed high quality and potency.

Today, it seems, Canada got its own back (source):

OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) -- Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall.
General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.
"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices. ... And as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa, Canada.
"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.
Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.
"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hiller said dryly.
One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."

What's that sound? A bird? A plane? No, it's a laughing sound coming from all the DEA and US Customs offices across the country...

November Elections: The Foley Factor

2006-10-08T16:21:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the Iraq Factor, and its potential effect on the November elections. In the time since then, an even bigger factor has come up: the Foley Factor.

By now, pretty much everyone has heard of Mark Foley and his disgusting X-rated emails and instant messages to teenage male pages at the House of Representatives. What is less apparent is how much damage this will cause to the Republican Party in the upcoming election in November.

I personally think this scandal will cause significant damage to the Republicans, just because of the nature of the Republican party and who supports them. The bulwark of the Republican party's support comes from the southern "Bible Belt": fundamentalist Christians who believe in good old-fashioned "family values". And, Foley's lecherous, homosexual and pedophilic emails fall about as far away from those "family values" as you can get. For many fundamentalist Christians, homosexuality is an abomination before God, and thus seeing a grown man like Foley trying to seduce vulnerable teenagers into what they perceive as a sinful lifestyle is an anathema. If this scandal was surrounding a Democrat, it would not be as damaging (Democrat supporters tend to be more socially liberal), but for a Republican, it erodes at the party's core support base.

The key question in many of the voters' minds will be how early the Republican house leadership knew about Foley's revolting behavior. Early news reports indicate they knew in 2005 and chose to do nothing about it, but some other news reports have suggested concerns about Foley's behavior date back to as early as 2001.

The big problem for the Republicans is this scandal is just in its initial stages, and by the time voters go to the polls, the investigations will still be in their early stages, leaving voters with little to go by except their own instincts. And, if the poll released by Time Magazine today is any indication, these instincts may spell big trouble for the Republicans. In the nationwide poll, 80% of respondents were aware of the scandal, two-thirds believe that Republican leaders tried to cover up the scandal, and only 16% approve of the Republican party's handling of it. A quarter of the respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a Republican candidate as a result of the fiasco.

Between the Iraq factor and the Foley factor, the Democrats are seeming more and more likely to wrest control of the House and possibly the Senate as well this coming November.

The Iraq Factor: upcoming midterm elections

2006-09-26T22:29:00.000-04:00

On November 7, the United States goes to the polls for the 2006 midterm elections. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be up for election, along with 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate. The election presents a real opportunity for the Democrats: the Republican party currently holds the presidency, plus narrow majorities in both the House and Senate.

If the Democrats are successful in taking a majority in the House in this election, they will significantly change the dynamic in Washington, forcing the Bush administration to cater to their demands in order to get anything done. And, if they succeed in swinging the majority in the Senate as well, George Bush will serve out the remaining two years of his term as a lame duck president, his policies dependent on the opposing parties.

The stakes are high, and the Democrats know it. They also know from poll results that many voters are uneasy with many elements of the Administration's performance, much of which centers on Iraq and the War on Terror in general. Some examples:

The amazing disappearing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD): if you turn back to 2003, the whole purported reason for going to war in Iraq was because Iraq supposedly had an active program to develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, and thus presented a clear and present danger to the United States and its allies. They didn't.

The failure to catch bin Laden: Five years after 9/11, the SOB who masterminded the thing is still out there on the loose. To make it worse, the US forces had bin Laden pinned down in Tora Bora. If they had the resources there to do their own dirty work and had not been depending so heavily on Afghan proxy fighters with shifty loyalties, they'd have caught or killed bin Laden then.

Administrative bungling in Iraq: It can easily be argued that Iraq could have been a success had it not been for certain short-sighted management decisions. Disbanding the Iraqi security forces was arguably the single biggest error.

Guantanamo Bay: The legal quagmire is just becoming apparent here. The Bush administration setup the Guantanamo facility as a way to detain enemy combatants without giving them rights under the US court system - a true legal limbo. The Supreme Court ruled against this, giving detainees the right to challenge their detention in US federal court, and ruled against the administration's plan to try detainees with military tribunals. The administration's current attempt to alter the evidence standards for these tribunals, allowing classified evidence the defendant is not allowed to see and allowing confessions obtained under duress, seem likely to be thrown out by the Supreme Court even if they are passed by the House and Senate. One can easily imagine how angry the American public would be if a major terrorist was acquitted because the evidence obtained was done so under duress.

The Iraq war's effect on terrorism: Recent intelligence reports have suggested that the Iraq war has served as a rallying point for terrorist-supporting ideologies, and has proved a good recruiting incentive for terrorist groups. These reports suggest that the US is at greater risk of terrorist attacks now as a result of the Iraq war.

The failure of the Iraq war to meet its objectives: Three years ago, Americans had high hopes for Iraq developing into a model of democracy for the Middle East. Today, those hopes seem very far from being fulfilled.

The losses incurred in the Iraq war: More Americans have been killed in the Iraq war than died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And, if you look at the number of Iraqis killed, you have over ten times that number.

**********************************

I have not seen any Democratic attack ads drumming up any of these themes yet, but that does not mean they are not under development. If the Democrats choose to use ads like this, they will not likely want to roll them out until the voting gets closer, saving the worst of them for the few days before election.

This will be an interesting election indeed....

How you know you're overworked...

2006-09-19T23:22:00.000-04:00

Hello [my real name],
Where are you? Why are you not coming online?
Is everything Okay?

This was an email I got from a good friend of mine in Iraq last week, and if I hadn't replied to it, I'd probably have gotten a phone call or SMS the next day. The irony of this does not escape me - a friend of mine living in Iraq being worried about me in New York because I am not online as often as usual. Usually it would be me sending emails like this to friends in Iraq, not the other way around.

I guess I have been really overworked the last few weeks. Fortunately, my workload should be getting back to normal after that and I'll be blogging at my usual frequency. And, to the friend who wrote the email (you know who you are), yes, I'll be online too... :)

Labels

2006-09-17T23:37:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, I had to fill out a form to sign my daughter up for after school activities. Right in the middle of the form was this question:

Ethnicity:
__Caucasian __ African American __ Asian __ Hispanic __ Other

Questions like this pose a bit of a conumdrum for us in our household as to what to answer. Our children are biracial (black/white) - does this mean we should choose two answers, or should we choose "other".

Some people here suggest we should use the old mentality from slavery/segregation days, that if a child is partly black we should call him/her "black". For me, this seems backwards - the children have as much of my genetic material in them as my wife's, so in reality they are both black AND white. So, the logical conclusion would be to check both "caucasian" and "African American". That would be if it were not for my wife...

My wife detests the term "African American" - a term that was basically invented to avoid offending some overly sensitive people in this country. To my wife's point, she is not from Africa (her ancestors came from Africa hundreds of years ago), and she is not an American, and so neither word applies to her. So, whenever she is filling out a form and sees "African American", she will check the "other" box and write in "black".

And so, knowing my wife would not like it if I described our daughter as "African American", and knowing just describing her as "caucasian" when she looks more black than she does white would throw them off, I simply left the question blank.

Perhaps the bigger question is why this form was asking for ethnicity at all. Why do they need to know my daughter's ethnicity when I am signing her up for after-school activities? After all, they will plainly see what she looks like when she shows up.

People here in this country waste far too much time trying to label each other as "Caucasian", "African American", "Hispanic", or the like. Perhaps if we instead spent this time on trying to put past differences behind us, society would be better as a result.

Taking Canada/US relations to the next level(?)

2006-09-15T00:24:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Pictou, Nova Scotia at the invitation of Canadian foreign minister Peter MacKay. I remember a bit of surprise when I first heard about the trip - after all, Condi Rice just visited Canada in April. And, Pictou is a bit out of the way: a two hour flight to Halifax, followed by a 90 minute drive from the airport. It is not a major city in Canada at all. But, it is Peter MacKay's home town.

It didn't take long for some major news media on both sides of the border (including the New York Times and the Globe and Mail) to begin speculating that Condi Rice and Peter MacKay may have some sort of romance blossoming between them. Some interesting tidbits:
From the Globe and Mail:

At Tim Hortons, Peter MacKay and Condoleezza Rice playfully argued over who should pick up the tab for his tea and her half-regular-half-decaf coffee, black with Splenda.
They wrestled verbally, to and fro, until the clerk behind the counter insisted it was on the house.

From the New York Times:

Then, he said, “Something else I’ve learned about Secretary Rice is she loves the cool Atlantic breezes here in Nova Scotia, and she left the window open last night.” The audience tittered.
At the end of his speech, he took off his glasses, turned to Ms. Rice and said, “Please come back again.”
Ms. Rice, clad in a yellow jacket, black pencil skirt and black heels, also offered plenty of fodder. She repeatedly called Mr. MacKay “Peter” (he called her “Secretary Rice” or “Miss Rice”), confirmed the sleeping-with-the-window-open bit, and told the assembled local leaders that Mr. MacKay had introduced her to his family, including his father and stepmother, the night before.
Family is important, she said, with a sly smile, because “they remind you of the things you did when you were 5 years old.” Beside her, Mr. MacKay grinned and blushed.

The Calgary Sun even went to the extent of hiring a body-language expert to analyze footage between the two. Here is an excerpt:

And while others look for subtle signs, Pease says he sees raw, sexual energy. It's included in the way the two conservatives mirror one another's gestures.
"This is evident in every shot," he says. "(In one photo analyzed) they both show a facial cluster called 'restrained jubilation'. The tight-lipped smile, attempts to conceal the excitement each, particularly (she), feels."

It also doesn't take a lot of analysis to figure the two may be compatible. Both are physically attractive, both are into exercise, both love sports, both are conservative politicians, and both are single. My own suspicion is that they both may be attracted to each other, but likely felt too constrained by their professional roles to do anything about it.

Personally, I would be happy to hear news about Rice and MacKay becoming romantically involved. Condi Rice is a very intelligent and competent woman, and a very hardworking Secretary of State. She is someone I highly respect, and who I think stands a decent chance of being the next president. At the same time, it is a bit sad to see someone with as many good qualities as her sacrifice her own personal happiness just because she worries what the press might write about it, or what the American public might think about it. After all, women politicians always seem to be held to a different standard than men, and while it is okay for male politicians to have lives, female politicians are supposed to be prudes. But, I really think this mentality is based on outdated notions that are overdue to be discarded.

In reality, I suspect this kind of publicity would not hurt either of their careers. In the case of Condoleezza Rice, it may even help her career: it would humanize her in the eyes of the American public, many of whom tend to see her as a technocrat, and help many Americans to more readily identify with her. If she is planning to run for president in two years, this kind of publicity can be valuable.

Of course, all of this is just speculation, and it is difficult to know if these rumors are true. But, it will be mildly disappointing if they turn out to be false...

The Waziristan Sellout

2006-09-09T12:48:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, the government of Pakistan signed a "peace" deal with a collection of militant groups in the restive North Waziristan region calling themselves the "Pakistani Taliban". Pakistan's Dawn daily newspaper reports the details of the agreement:

The agreement envisages that the foreigners living in North Waziristan will have to leave Pakistan but those who cannot leave will be allowed to live peacefully, respecting the law of the land and the agreement.

Both parties (army and militants) will return each other’s weapons, vehicles and communication tools seized during various operations.

It said that tribal elders, Mujahideen and Utmanzai tribe would ensure that no-one attacked law-enforcement personnel and state property.

“There will be no target killing and no parallel administration in the agency. The writ of the state will prevail in the area”, the agreement said.

It said that militants would not enter the settled districts adjacent to the agency.

The agreement said that the government would release prisoners held in military action and would not arrest them again.

Tribesmen’s ‘incentives’ would be restored, it said and bound the administration to resolve disputes in accordance with the local customs and traditions.

It said the government would pay compensation for the loss of life and property of innocent tribesmen during the recent operation. There will be no ban on display of arms. However, tribesmen will not carry heavy weapons.

Let's see if we can summarize this in a bit more direct language:

The Taliban in North Waziristan will gently ask the foreign (al-Qaeda) terrorists who are living there to leave. But, if they don't want to leave, they are welcome to stay as long as they "live peacefully."
The Pakistani government will release all of the terrorists it captured during the operation in North Waziristan, give them their weapons back, and not arrest these terrorists again.
The Pakistani government will stop hunting down terrorists in the North Waziristan region.
Terrorists and tribesmen in North Waziristan will be free to brandish weapons as they walk around the place, so long as they are not "heavy weapons". (not that I can see a terrorist wanting to drive around town in a tank anyway)
The Pakistani government will pay money to the people in North Waziristan to compensate them for any damage they caused in trying to hunt down terrorists.
Pakistan agreed to have any disputes resolved according to "local customs", presumably in a tribal court who will likely find in favor of the terrorists no matter what the dispute.

In short, a very one-sided agreement in favor of the "Pakistani Taliban" militants in Waziristan. Pakistan has essentially surrendered and run away with its tail between its legs, giving in to every demand the militants made of them.

This type of agreement would be disturbing enough under normal circumstances, but is particularly insidious here. One thing worth pointing out: Waziristan is the region where it is widely suspected that Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, and all the other various terrorist leaders who fled from Afghanistan are hiding. Does this agreement mean Pakistan has just given amnesty to bin Laden?

A few days ago, ABC News conducted a phone interview with Pakistani military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan and asked him this exact question. After the interview was published, the Pakistani government alleged that Sultan was "grossly misquoted", however ABC News has the interview recorded on tape. Was this a misquote? Judge for yourself:

Q. ABC News: If bin Laden or Zawahiri were there, they could stay?

A. Gen. Sultan: No one of that kind can stay. If someone is there he will have to surrender, he will have to live like a good citizen, his whereabouts, exit travel would be known to the authorities.

Q. ABC News: So, he wouldn't be taken into custody? He would stay there?

A. Gen. Sultan: No, as long as one is staying like a peaceful citizen, one would not be taken into custody. One has to stay like a peaceful citizen and not allowed to participate in any kind of terrorist activity.

General Sultan said today it was "hair splitting" to speculate whether troops would be sent in if bin Laden was found in North Waziristan.

"If someone is found there, we will see what is to be done," General Sultan said today. "Pakistan is committed to the war on terror, and of course we will go after any terrorist found to be operating here," he said.

Does this sound like a misquote? I think not.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just been sold out. Sold up the river by our allies in Pakistan, who decided it was acceptable to make a deal with the devil, and allow this devil to continue living and operating from its soil. Now that Pakistan has made this deal, the terrorists have free rein to continue operating in the Waziristan region: setting up training camps, running command and control centers, etc. So long as they "keep the peace" and do not target their nefarious works against Pakistan, they are welcome to stay there under the terms of this agreement.

The repercussions from this "peace" agreement will be felt around the world. Terrorists leaders in Waziristan will be able to freely direct the murderous activities of their followers in Iraq, Europe, East Africa, and even here in America, and we are left with no recourse. The Pakistani authorities who signed this "peace" agreement should be ashamed of themselves!

Wanted: An Iraqi Hamid Karzai

2006-09-04T00:48:00.000-04:00

It is interesting to compare the recent history in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both countries are made up of a patchwork of divergent ethnic groups. Both countries were invaded and had their governments overthrown by US and allied forces: Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. And yet, the outcomes since the invasion cannot have been more different.

In Afghanistan, the various tribal groups came together in a gathering called a loya jirga, and hammered out a constitution. The process was not without controversy, but the constitution was generally accepted, and the first real democratic elections in Afghanistan's history were held in 2004 under its auspices. Now, Afghanistan's economy is experiencing positive growth for the first time in decades, and is definitely exhibiting positive progress.

In Iraq, the process of developing the constitution was mired in political fights and distrust between the ethnic and religious groups that made up the constitutional assembly - a process that ended with the final version of the constitution being rammed through despite the objections of the Sunni Arab representatives. Each election they have had in Iraq has been sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, and the country's security situation has degraded to the point of civil war.

What is so different between these two places? It would be a fallacy to say that Afghanistan was less divided before the war: Afghanistan has long been the domain of warlords and tribalism, and the various ethnic groups are divided by tradition, and even language.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two boils down to one man: Hamid Karzai. As the interim president of Afghanistan in 2002, Karzai had possibly the worst job on the planet, having to negotiate with and earn the respect of the various warlords in Afghanistan, men with divergent interests, and men who had the ability to either make or break Karzai. Karzai was successful in this endeavor and in 2004 won a new mandate as the country's president.

What Iraq is sorely lacking is a true leader: someone who can garner the respect of the Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, and Kurds, and work to bring peace between these groups. Yes, each of these groups has their own leaders, but they are only interested in promoting the interests of their constituencies and not the country as a whole. Yes, Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minster appointed by the Americans was even-handed in his approach, but Allawi is a technocrat. Allawi's thought processes were good, but Allawi's lack of real charisma limited his ability to carry out bridge-building between the ethnic and religious groups in Iraq and put a stop to ethnic/sectarian violence.

What Iraq needs is an Iraqi version of Hamid Karzai: someone with real charisma, who can earn the respect of the Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds, and build bridges between these groups without leaving any group feeling like he is favoring one over the other. Sadly, a leader like this has not stepped into the forefront, and thus Iraq has continued its descent into its abyss of violence and chaos.

The Iran Conundrum (Part II)

2006-09-01T21:07:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, I first wrote about the Iran Conundrum. Since then, nothing concrete has been done to stop the situation, and Iran has continued in its uranium enrichment activities. Last night, the deadline imposed by the UN Security Council for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment activities was flagrantly ignored by the Iranian government, which is continuing to pursue its nuclear ambitions. It is now up to the UN Security Council to determine the next steps for what to do about Iran.

If recent history serves as any guide, the UN Security Council will probably not do much. After all, Russia and China, both of whom have veto power over any UN Security Council resolution, have consistently resisted pressure from the United States and others to get tough on Iran. If they did not act before, why should they act now? So, if recent history serves as a guide, we can look forward to another several weeks of wrangling at the UN Security Council, which would be eventually followed by a vague resolution "condemning" Iran, or possibly a set of emasculated sanctions that have no real effect on limiting Iran's capabilities. Another oil-for-food scandal, here we come!

At the same time, I cannot understate the severity Iran's nuclear program poses to stability in the Middle East region. As I have written in the past, it is troublingly easy to make a nuclear weapon, the only really difficult part is getting your hands on the ingredients. Weapons-grade enriched uranium or plutonium is not something you can buy at your local grocery store - it is extremely difficult, dangerous, and expensive to manufacture. And, the same process that makes reactor-grade enriched uranium can be used to make weapons-grade enriched uranium, which is why the existence of a uranium enrichment program in a country like Iran can be worrisome.

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has been very vocal about his hatred of Israel, referring to it repeatedly as a blot that needs to be wiped off the map. However, Ahmedinejad must know that Israel would not go down without a fight. If Iran were to have nuclear weapons and seek to use them against Israel, the other challenge would be hitting a target that far away: Iran does not share a border with Israel - to hit Israel from Iran requires a flight over both Iraq and Jordan - a distance of over a thousand miles. Iran does not have missile technology that could accurately hit a target at that distance. And, even if Iran does figure out how to hit Israel with a nuclear weapon, they must realize that Israel's nuclear capability and missle technology far exceeds its own.

Unfortunately, Iran does have a possible solution to this puzzle: Hisballah. Many of the missiles Hizballah used against Israel over the past month were provided by Iran. Imagine how different the war would have been if a few of those missiles had been long range, and nuclear-tipped: Haifa and Tel Aviv would be radioactive piles of rubble. As a guerrilla group, Hizballah does not have as much to lose as an army representing a country.

I am sure Israel's government knows all of this too. The key question is how long they will tsand for it. Will they allow Iran to continue developing nuclear technology, knowing that if they are successful, this technology may end up in the hands of Iran's Hizballah allies and used against them. Or, will Israel take unilateral action to stymie Iran's nuclear ambitions. I expect the latter course is the more likely - Israel has done it before (to Iraq in 1981), and would likely do it again if they needed to. Israel's government must also realize that if Iran is successful in developing nuclear technology, its own long-term existence in the region will become much more tenuous.

The next few months will be interesting indeed....

Inbox Syndrome (updated)

2006-08-26T09:53:00.000-04:00

The one big problem with going on vacation is coming back. This gets worse when you're in management: all of the people who depend on you to make decisions, who will not have certain meetings without you present, take the matters that require your input and defer them until you get back. So, you walk into the office on Monday morning and get slammed.

That was my week this past week - a hectic week of running from meeting to meeting, returning phone calls, answering the hundreds of emails that had piled up during my absence, and working ridiculously long hours to get caught up.

Unfortunately this didn't leave much time for blogging. I'm working on catching up on that now... ;)

Update

First it was inbox syndrome, now it's "Major Project Go-Live Syndrome". There is a major project going live in two weeks, and another one going live at the end of September. I am the project manager for both, so I haven't had much time to blog over the last week or so. You can look for a new post from me in the next three days.

London Terrorists Named

2006-08-11T01:29:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, the Bank of England issued an order freezing the assets of 19 of the London terrorist suspects who had allegedly planned to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic headed to the US. In issuing this order, the Bank of England named the 19 suspects affected by the order:

ALI, Abdula, Ahmed
Date of birth (DOB): 10/10/1980
Address: Walthamstow, London, E17

ALI, Cossor
DOB: 04/12/1982
Address: Walthamstow, London, E17

ALI, Shazad, Khuram
DOB: 11/06/1979
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

HUSSAIN, Nabeel
DOB: 10/03/1984
Address: London, E4

HUSSAIN, Tanvir
DOB: 21/02/1981
Address: Leyton, London, E10

HUSSAIN, Umair
DOB: 09/10/1981
Address: London, E14

ISLAM, Umar
DOB: 23/04/1978
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

KAYANI, Waseem
DOB: 28/04/1977
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

KHAN, Assan, Abdullah
DOB: 24/10/1984
Address: London, E17

KHAN, Waheed, Arafat
DOB: 18/05/1981
Address: London, E17

KHATIB, Osman, Adam
DOB: 07/12/1986
Address: London, E17

PATEL, Abdul, Muneem
DOB: 17/04/1989
Address: London, E5

RAUF, Tayib
DOB: 26/04/1984
Address: Birmingham

SADDIQUE, Muhammed, Usman
DOB: 23/04/1982
Address: Walthamstow, London, E17

SARWAR, Assad
DOB: 24/05/1980
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

SAVANT, Ibrahim
DOB: 19/12/1980
Address: London, E17

TARIQ, Amin, Asmin
DOB: 07/06/1983
Address: Walthamstow, London, E17

UDDIN, Shamin, Mohammed
DOB: 22/11/1970
Address: Stoke Newington, London

ZAMAN, Waheed
DOB: 27/05/1984
Address: London, E17

"The Explosive Cocktail"

2006-08-10T20:05:00.000-04:00

A CNN article today tried to shed some light on the liquid explosive the London terrorists were trying to use to blow up airplanes:

A senior congressional source said it is believed the plotters planned to mix a British sports drink with a gel-like substance to make a potent explosive that could be ignited with an MP3 player or cell phone.
The sports drink could be combined with a peroxide-based paste to form a potent "explosive cocktail," if properly done, said a U.S. counterterrorism official.
"There are strong reasons to believe the materials in a beverage like that could have been part of the formula," the official said.

Like most news articles, this one contains a few elements of truth, but is likely wrong in other areas. In particular, I cannot think of anything strong enough in a sports drink that could be used to make an explosive that could take down a plane.

More likely, the terrorists were planning to use a different, and more chemically potent liquid (perhaps acetone) in the sports-drink bottle and combine this with the peroxide-based paste on the plane. Acetone looks just like water, and if you dissolve green dye in it, it would look like Gatorade. Acetone peroxides are notoriously explosive, and one (triacetone triperoxide - or TATP for short) is a common explosive used by terrorists. Most recently, TATP was reportedly used in the London subway bombings.

In short, the liquid in the bottle may have been planned to look like a sports drink, but there is no way I can see it could have actually been the sports drink.

In short, making a passenger drink a few gulps of any "beverage" they are bringing on the plane would catch this type of thing. Acetone is quite toxic and so are all the other liquids I know of that are potent enough to make explosives. This is why, for example, they are currently making mothers drink some of any baby formula or breastmilk they are bringing on airplanes.

Liquid Explosives: The London Terror Plot

2006-08-10T14:52:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, British and Pakistani authorities busted a major terrorist plot to simultaneously detonate explosives aboard multiple airplanes traveling from Britain to the United States. According to news reports, the terrorists were planning to carry bottles of a "British version of Gatorade", mix them with a gel-like substance and detonate them with an MP3 player.

As a trained chemist myself, I am surprised they have ever allowed passengers to bring liquids onto airplanes at all, especially since 9/11.

Many of the terrorist threats around airplanes that have come to light prior to this one have involved terrorists bringing premanufactured explosives onto an airplane. However, it is quite feasible for a terrorist to actually make the explosive compound on the plane itself. Essentially a plot like this would work as follows:

The terrorist would bring two chemicals with him onto the plane: Compound A and Compound B. Both Compound A and Compound B are chemically stable. Compound A would likely be a strong acid (which would almost always a liquid), while Compound B may be a liquid, solid pellets, or a powder.
While on the plane, the terrorist would mix Compound A with Compound B and shake the container. The strong acid (Compound A) would then react with Compound B to produce Compound C - a chemically unstable molecule capable of detonation.
Depending on what Compound C is, it may spontaneously detonate on its own, or the terrorist may have to detonate it with a spark, by heating it, or by passing an electric current through it.

This same method could also be used to produce a poison gas that would kill most/all of the passengers on the plane. For example, in gas-chamber executions in the United States, a solid (sodium cyanide) is dropped into a liquid (sulphuric acid) to produce a poison gas (hydrogen cyanide).

There are many chemical combinations that could be used to wreak mayhem onboard an airplane, but most of them involve a bottle of a rather nasty liquid (such as a strong acid) being combined with some other chemical. If the terrorist cannot bring the liquid component on the plane, the rest of the plot will fail.

The major problem with liquids is that many of them look alike. Sulphuric acid and nitric acid look just like water, and if you put some sort of dye in them, they could be made to look like any beverage someone might want to bring on the plane: bottled water, Coca Cola, Gatorade, etc.

If we know that terrorists are plotting against us, and we know this type of attack is possible, there is a compelling reason not to allow passengers to bring liquids aboard the plane. In addition, there are very few reasons that someone actually needs to bring liquids on a plane. They serve drinks on the plane, and a mother who is formula-feeding her baby can bring powdered feed, and mix it with water on the plane. Yes, passengers may want to bring bottles of alcohol from exotic destinations, or things like this, but those items can be stored in checked luggage. Travelers regularly bring colognes, travel-sized shampoo bottles, and the like, which are are too small to store enough liquid chemical to cause real damage - perhaps these in small quantities could be allowed, but I would suggest the majority of liquids should be prohibited from being carried onboard an aircraft by a passenger.

Given the risks of allowing liquids on planes, and the plot that came to light today, I would not be surprised if the current ban on passengers carrying liquids is continued for a long time.

On the lighter side: Caribana Parade

2006-08-10T13:11:00.000-04:00

This week, I am on vacation in Canada. On Saturday last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Caribana parade, a major Caribbean-style carnival they hold in Toronto every year. This year was one of the best they've ever had: over a million people attended the Saturday parade, and despite that, there were no significant incidents of violent crime.

Here are a few pictures I took:

Some of the costumes in the Caribana parade are quite expansive. Some take months to build and can cost thousands of dollars. This was one of the more impressive costumes I saw.

Here is a close-up of the same guy as the photo above.

This costume was pretty.

I was amazed to see these small kids in the parade. The girl on the right looks no older than 4. These kids are taking a break from dancing, and are riding on the parade float.

A steel drum band on a parade float. There were several in the parade.

A dragon costume.

I found this float a bit funny. The poster on the left is an ad for Riyad Mohammed, the real-estate agent (whose picture looks a lot like the guy in white standing on the float). The one on the right is for "DJ Riyad", a party disc-jockey whose float this is. I wonder if Riyad Mohammed the real-estate agent and DJ Riyad are the same person.

Like most of the floats, this one had a generator, a major sound system, and was festooned with a large array of speakers booming out soca and reggae music. This particular DJ was quite good.

Another steel drum band.

A costume (taken from the back).

Another costume.

This costume was huge.

A group of masqueraders dancing.

A group of masqueraders resting during a pause in the parade.

Another steel drum band.

Two costumes.

A masquerader dancing behind the cab of a parade float truck.

Lebanon: Qana Deja-Vu

2006-07-30T10:48:00.000-04:00

An unfortunate attribute of conducting war from the air is it's a lot harder to verify that your target is your enemy....

Ten years ago, in April 1996, Israel was pursuing Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon against Hizballah targets. After announcements from the Israel Defense Force telling residents of several South Lebanon towns to flee, about 800 residents of Qana took shelter at a Fijian UNFIL camp near Qana. In a horrific miscalculation, Israeli artillery shelled the UNFIL compound, killing over 100 innocent civilians (including many women and children), seriously injuring another hundred, and seriously injured four Fijian troops serving at the UN post. The resulting public outcry, especially within Israel, brought Operation Grapes of Wrath to a screeching and premature halt.

Now, ten years later, Israel is again running a major campaign against Hizballah, and just this morning, we have another tragic targeting decision regarding the town of Qana, as described by Haaretz:

At least 54 Lebanese citizens were killed, at least 37 of them children, in the IAF strike on a building early Sunday, Lebanese police said. Dozens of others were reportedly trapped in the rubble. Several houses collapsed and a three-story building where about 100 civilians were sheltering was destroyed, witnesses and rescue workers said.

Here is a link to several photographs of the aftermath of the Qana bombing.

Like 1996, the Israeli government quickly issued a statement of "deep regret" about the bombing, and promising an investigation.

It will be interesting to see how the reaction to this incident plays out within Israel, and in the United States. Already, Condoleezza Rice has stated that it is time for a cease-fire, and has remained in Israel to negotiate this with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The key, however, will be the public reaction within Israel. Israel is a democracy, and images of dozens of dead children being pulled from the rubble of a building destroyed by an Israeli bomb will not likely be well received there. As for the reaction within Israel and its supporters, an interesting sampling can be found in the comments section of the Haaretz article about the incident. Some of the most disgusted-sounding comments there were posted by Israelis and Jews. Here are some excerpts:

Title: The end of the war
Name: McR of Tlv City: Tel Aviv State: Israel

This is the end of the war

Title:practically ashamed to be pro-Israel
How can Israelis seriously ask those of us who have traditionally supported them--politically, financially, intellectually--to go on defending this kind of crap?The attacks on Lebanon have now become a disaster of the first order. One that could have been avoided.Hizbollah wanted Israel to react this way... and sadly, Israelis were eager to oblige. Israel has grossly over-reacted, perpetuated the crisis, failed to defeat Hizbollah (indeed, Israel may have greatly strengthened the hand of Hizbollah/Syria/Iran in the region), it has appeared intransigent & unimaginative in the eyes of the world, it has caused a major humanitarian disaster (for everyone to see)... and as a result, Israel has caused a considerable number of its supporters abroad to reassess their unflinching defense of Israeli policy.I`ll always be pro-Israel, in my heart. But I simply refuse to *let my voice be heard* defending this mindless, myopic, self-defeating reaction any longer. G-d help you, Israel.

...

Title: Disgusted Jew
Disgusting. Savage. Barbaric. Those are the words to describe the Israeli government today.Never again will I speak out in defense of Israel.Never again will I cringe when people call us murderers and terrorists.Never again will I donate a penny to any pro-Israel organization.You want to act like animals, do it on your own and stop demanding money and help from good Jews around the world that don`t want to be tainted with your disgusting actions.

Lebanon: waiting for the other shoe to drop

2006-07-16T15:27:00.000-04:00

I've been watching the news over the past few days with mixed feelings. On one side, I feel the Israeli reaction to the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was a major overreaction: rather like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer or killing an ant with a 155mm howitzer. Israel should realize that Hamas and the Palestinian people do not speak with one voice, and the Palestinian cabinet ministers they took prisoner and the people who work in the offices they bombed likely had no advance knowledge of the assault.

On the other hand, I do think Israel's response to the attack from Lebanon has thus far been fairly restrained. I was alarmed last week when I first heard the rhretoric from Israeli politicians threatening to "turn back the clock 20 years in Lebanon", but I am glad that the attacks in Lebanon thus far have exercised a lot more restraint than this:

The attacks on Beirut's airport punched holes in the runway and took out the fuel depot. The apparent goals of these attacks were to prevent Hizballah from resupplying, and to prevent Hisballah from transporting the two captured soldiers outside Lebanon - since according to news reports, Israel had intelligence that Hizballah was planning to transport the captured soldiers to Iran. Punching holes in the runways and blowing up the fuel depots effectively shut down the airport, but are the least expensive components to repair (certainly less expensive than if they'd bombed the terminal).
The attacks on Beirut's airport appear to have been done using precision munitions that prevented damage to more expensive items there: the terminals, and various commercial aircraft sitting on the tarmac. Consider this picture below (source): note the holes punched in the runways, but the undamaged $150 million terminal building and the undamaged aircraft owned by various airlines (each of which are worth tens of millions of dollars), and undamaged houses beside the airport.
The bombing of an airport runway on a Lebanese military base seems to have been for the same purpose.
The bombing of bridges and the road from Syria to Lebanon seemed a continuation of the dual goals of preventing Hizballah from resupplying, and to prevent them from transporting the captive soldiers out of the country.
From news reports, the bombings in Lebanon have been concentrated in Hizballah strongholds, including Hizballah buildings in southern Beirut.

Israelis should be intelligent enough to realize that Lebanon is not their real enemy here. The enemy is Hizballah. Hizballah is like a cancerous tumor that has grown within Lebanon for the past few decades. Like other tumors, Hizballah may be contained within the victim, and may be made up from parts of its victim, but does not act in the interests of the victim. And, like other tumors, Hizballah may lie benign for many years, and suddenly turn malignant, as it seems to have now. Like other cancer victims, many in Lebanon may wish for Hizballah to be gone, but have thus far been unable to effect this desire.

Despite the initial rhetoric of the Israeli government against Lebanon, they seem to have realized that Lebanon is not their true enemy. The fact that Israeli officials have not repeated the "turn the clock back" rhetoric, and that Israel has not escalated to a wholesale destruction of Lebanese infrastructure (electrical grid, etc.) supports this suggestion.

Perhaps Israeli officials have realized that Hizballah's support comes more from the Syrian and Iranian government than from the Lebanese government. When Iranian-made rockets land in Haifa, it is logical to wonder how Hizballah got these advanced rockets to begin with. Likewise, when it is learned that Hizballah is using Syrian ammunition to attack Israel, Syria becomes implicated. And, when Israel has intelligence suggesting that Hizballah is planning to fly its captured soldiers to Iran, this strongly suggests the collusion of elements of the Iranian government.

Knowing this, one must wonder when the next shoe will drop in this fight. If Israel knows that Iran and Syria were behind Hizballah's attack on its territory, will they be content to sit idly by and pretend that they were not involved? This does not seem like Israel's style. Instead, I would expect Israel's attack on Syria and Iran to be fierce, and to be delivered with much less restraint than was exercised in Lebanon. Why hasn't Israel given any hint of this so far? Perhaps they are adhering to the words of the famed Chinese general Sun Tzu:

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected. These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.
Sun Tzu: "The Art of War"

If I were living in Syria or Iran right now, I would be worried. Very worried...

Hisballah: Baiting the Hook

2006-07-12T21:01:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, Hisballah operatives from southern Lebanon crossed into northern Israel, killing three Israeli soldiers and taking two as prisoner. Israel reacted quickly, launching airstrikes against bridges and other infrastructure in southern Lebanon, and sending Israeli troops into Lebanon in search of the captured soldiers. Israeli army chief Lt. Gen Dan Halutz was quoted as threatening to "turn back the clock in Lebanon 20 years" if the soldiers are not released.

The capturing of these Israeli soldiers seems to me like Hizballah baiting the hook. Over the past several days, they've observed the disproportionate reaction Israel has had to Palestinian militants capturing one Israeli soldier. Hisballah leaders likely thought to themselves, "if they'd do all that over one soldier, one can imagine what they'd do if we captured two."

Hizballah has a few reasons for wanting to goad Israel into invading Lebanon: most notably, pulling Israel into a wider conflict with Syria, and perhaps Iran also. From Hizballah's perspective, the timing of such a conflict could not be much better:

Israel's closest ally, the United States, is already tied up in another conflict in Iraq.
Israel's forces are already involved in an incursion in the Gaza Strip.
Syria, Hizballah's major sponsor, was pressured to remove the bulk of its security forces from Lebanon just a year ago. Helping Lebanon fight off an Israeli incursion would provide Syria a convenient excuse to send its forces back in.
Iran, Syria's other major sponsor, has elected a hardline president who has been calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" for months, and is perhaps looking for an opportunity to put his money where his mouth is.

Unfortunately, if Hizballah was baiting the hook this morning, Israel was biting it this afternoon, with its cabinet authorizing "severe" retaliation against Lebanon. In doing so, Israel is playing straight into Hizballah's plan.

Prospects for peace in that part of the Middle East are really not looking good tonight. I just hope this violence does not spiral into a more widespread conflict.

Idiot terrorist plot: New York tunnels

2006-07-08T23:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, the New York Daily News broke a story about an al-Qaeda plot to detonate explosives in the Holland tunnel, the goal of which was to flood lower Manhattan with water, much like New Orleans was flooded after Hurricane Katrina.

An interesting idea, except for one major engineering problem: Manhattan is above the level of the Hudson River. The reason New Orleans was flooded when the levees were breached was because it is below the level of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. New York, on the other hand, does not need levees to protect it from the Hudson River - Manhattan is a natural island above the water level. Even if they succeeded in rupturing the tunnel wall, it would only cause flooding in the subway system - and nothing that could not be quickly fixed.

Another major engineering problem is the strength of the tunnels, and the amount of explosives this would require. The terrorists allegedly planned to bring explosives in backpacks onto a PATH train connecting New Jersey to New York City. When you realize that these explosives would need to not only rupture the train car, but would need to get through the concrete and steel-reinforced tunnel tube, and 40 feet of bedrock above, with the pressure of the river water pushing down on the bedrock and tunnel walls (and acting against the force of the explosive), you realize the amount of explosive needed to accomplish this task is monumental. And these guys were planning to carry this explosive onto the train in backpacks?

What a bunch of idiots....

And I thought Haditha was bad... now comes Mahmoudiya (updated July 6)

2006-07-06T11:05:00.000-04:00

Original Post (June 30)

Fresh news from the Washington Post today:

BEIJI, Iraq -- Five U.S. Army soldiers are being investigated for allegedly raping a young woman, then killing her and three members of her family in Iraq, a U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Friday.

The soldiers also allegedly burned the body of the woman they are accused of raping.

Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of coalition troops in Baghdad, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged killing of a family of four in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, the U.S. command said. It did not elaborate.

....

The killings appeared to have been a "crime of opportunity," the official said. The soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but had noticed the woman on previous patrols.

Absolutely disgusting.... words cannot express the revulsion we should feel at a crime like this.

Update (July 1)

The Washington Post published a new article today on the alleged rape and murder in Mahmoudiya, which gives a bit more insight into the incident. Some excerpts:

Mahmudiyah police Capt. Maaly Hassan Felayh said the killings in March took place in a rural neighborhood called Stream Three, three miles south of the town center.

...

Another local resident, Sadeq Muhammed al-Janabi, a farmer, said the woman who was raped and killed was an elementary school teacher.

The Associated Press issued a report that provided some additional details:

The Americans entered the Sunni Arab's family home, separated three males from the woman, raped her and burned her body using a flammable liquid in a cover-up attempt, a military official close to the investigation said. The three males were also slain.

The soldiers had studied their victims for about a week and the attack was ``totally premeditated,'' the official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. The family had just moved into the home in the insurgent-riddled area around Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad.

Australia's Herald Sun had some additional details:

In Baghdad, the US military issued a sparse statement, saying only that a criminal investigation had been ordered into the alleged slaying of a family of four in Mahmoudiya, 30km south of Baghdad.

According to a senior US Army official, the incident was revealed by a soldier during a routine counselling-type session. That soldier did not witness the incident, but heard about it.

A second soldier, who also was not involved, said he overheard soldiers conspiring to commit the crimes and later saw bloodstains on their clothes, the official said.

One other disturbing detail: one of the three males who were allegedly killed was a child.

The news coverage of this incident is just starting to build momentum. We still do not know the woman's name, or the names of her family members who were killed, and we have not seen pictures of them. I expect these details will start to come out in the next few days as the news media continues to investigate this incident.

Update (July 3, 12 noon):

The Washington Post published more details about the case today. The rape victim was a 15 year old girl named Abeer Qasim Hamza. Here are a few excerpts from the Washington Post article:

BAGHDAD, July 2 -- Fifteen-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza was afraid, her mother confided in a neighbor.

As pretty as she was young, the girl had attracted the unwelcome attention of U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint that the girl had to pass through almost daily in their village in the south-central city of Mahmudiyah, her mother told the neighbor.

Abeer told her mother again and again in her last days that the soldiers had made advances toward her, a neighbor, Omar Janabi, said this weekend, recounting a conversation he said he had with the girl's mother, Fakhriyah, on March 10.

...

Before leaving, the attackers fatally shot the four family members -- two of Abeer's brothers had been away at school -- and attempted to set Abeer's body on fire, according to Janabi, another neighbor who spoke on condition of anonymity, the mayor of Mahmudiyah and a hospital administrator with knowledge of the case.

...

Janabi was one of the first people to arrive at the house after the attack, he said Saturday, speaking to a Washington Post special correspondent at the home of local tribal leaders. He said he found Abeer sprawled dead in a corner, her hair and a pillow next to her consumed by fire, and her dress pushed up to her neck.

"I was sure from the first glance that she had been raped," he said.

...

Death certificates viewed Sunday at the Mahmudiyah hospital identified the victims as Fakhriyah Taha Muhsin, 34, killed by gunshots to her head; Qasim Hamza Raheem, 45, whose head was "smashed" by bullets; Hadeel Qasim Hamza, 7, Abeer's sister, shot; and Abeer, shot in the head. Abeer's body also showed burns, the death certificate noted.

On a separate note, the Associated Press reported today that a former soldier was charged in US District Court with rape and murder. Here is an excerpt from CNN:

(AP) -- An Army veteran of the fighting in Iraq has been charged in federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina, with murder and rape in a March 12 attack on an Iraqi family.

Steven Green, who has been discharged from the Army, was arrested in recent days in North Carolina, two federal law enforcement officials said Monday.

The fact that this case has progressed so quickly, and that charges have already been filed just a week into the investigation, suggests that the evidence here is very strong.

Update (July 3, 4 PM):

The Associated Press has released a few more details:

Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former Army private first class who was recently discharged because of a "personality disorder," appeared in a federal magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte Monday.

...

Prosecutors said Green and others entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where Green shot the three relatives, and he and another soldier raped the woman and killed her. According to an accompanying affidavit, photos taken by Army investigators in March showed a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."

FBI agents arrested Green on Friday in Marion, N.C. He is being held in Charlotte without bond pending a transfer to Louisville, Ky.

The case is being handled by federal prosecutors there because Green, who served 11 months with the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., is no longer in the military. According to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, he was given an honorable discharge "before this incident came to light. Green was discharged due to a personality disorder."

He faces a possible death sentence if convicted of murder.

...

According to the affidavit's account, the soldiers changed their clothes before going to the woman's residence to avoid detection. Once there, the affidavit said, Green took three members of the family _ an adult male and female, and a girl estimated to be 5 years old _ into a bedroom, after which shots were heard from inside.

"Green came to the bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them. All are dead,'" the affidavit said.

The affidavit is based on interviews conducted by the FBI and investigators at Fort Campbell with three unidentified soldiers assigned to Green's platoon. One of the soldiers said he witnessed another soldier and Green rape the woman.

"After the rape, (the soldier) witnessed Green shoot the woman in the head two to three times," the affidavit said.

Update (July 3, 5 PM):

Here is a picture of Steven D. Green (center) the accused ringleader of this rape/murder being escorted from the US Federal Courthouse in Charlotte after his first court appearance today:

Photo: Patrick Schneider of the Charlotte Observer

The Charlotte Observer adds a few other interesting details about Steven Green:

He was due to return a rental car in Fort Campbell over the weekend. Records show he is registered to vote in Midland, Texas.Green was arrested and charged by civilian authorities because he's no longer in the Army, but he could be reinstated into the service and tried in a military court, an Army spokesman said.

Update (July 3, 8 PM):

Here is a link to the the 10 page long criminal complaint, filed on Friday in US District Court in the Western District of Kentucky, against Steven D. Green. In this complaint, Green is charged with violations against Title 18 of the United States Code, sections 7 (Special Maritime & Territorial Jurisdiction), 1111 (Murder), 2241 (Aggravated Sexual Abuse), and 3261(a)(2) (Criminal Offenses by Certain Members of the Armed Forces).

The criminal complaint is quite disturbing to read. According to this complaint, Green and three other soldiers plotted the rape for a week. They changed into dark clothing so as not to be seen. After arriving at the house, Green first took three members of the victim's family (her mother, father, and little sister) into a room, closed the door, and shot them dead with an AK47 the men found in the house. Then, Green and one other soldier raped the woman, and after they were done, Green took the same AK47 and shot her in the head. After returning to the base, the men removed their blood-stained clothing and burned it.

The criminal complaint has a few differences versus the Washington Post investigation. The number and sex of the victims are the same in both accounts, however the criminal complaint estimates the rape victim's age as 25 years old (while the Post investigation has her as a 15 year old girl). It is important to note that the criminal complaint estimates the victim's age, based on the appearance of her partially burned body as seen in pictures from the crime scene. It is quite feasible that one could mistake the body of a 15 year old girl in that condition as being 25 years old. It is also important to realize that the FBI did not know the identity of the victims when the complaint was released - this only came to light today with the Washington Post article.

I wonder if any additional charges will be added as a result of the victim's young age, now that her identity is known.

Update (July 6):

The LA Times published a report today, titled In Cold Blood: Iraqi Tells of Massacre at Farmhouse. In the article, they interviewed Abu Firas Janabi, a cousin of Abeer's mother Fakhriya. Janabi described the family as simple subsistence farmers making their living off a small plot of land, and that Abeer, like many peasant girls her age, was not in school and seldom left the house.

Janabi and his wife were the first on the scene after the murders, as described in this excerpt:

"Never in my mind could I have imagined such a gruesome sight," Abu Firas Janabi said of the day in March when his cousin, Fakhriya Taha Muhsen; her husband, Kasim Hamza Rasheed; and their two daughters were slain and their farmhouse set ablaze.

"Kasim's corpse was in the corner of the room, and his head was smashed into pieces," he said. The 5-year-old daughter, Hadel, was beside her father, and Janabi said he could see that Fakhriya's arms had been broken.

In another room, he found 15-year-old Abeer, naked and burned, with her head smashed in "by a concrete block or a piece of iron."

"There were burns from the bottom of her stomach to the end of her body, except for her feet," he said.

"I did not believe what I was seeing. I tried to fool myself into believing I was in a dream. But the problem was that we were not dreaming. We put a piece of cloth over her body. Then I left the house together with my wife."

Janabi also accompanied Abeer's two surviving brothers (who were at school that day) to the US Army base in Mahmoudiya to visit a high-ranking US Army officer who had wanted to express his condolances:

The investigator told him that a high-ranking U.S. officer wished to pay his condolences to the family. The next day, he brought Fakhriya's cousin, Mohammed, to the base along with the two boys to meet the commander.

"He hugged the children and kissed them several times," Janabi said. "It was hard for him to control his tears."

One of the more interesting quotes in the article is this one:

Janabi said he learned of the inquiry involving the soldiers last week, and an American investigator asked him to tell his side of the story.

"He was saying that he wants to find out the truth," Janabi said. "I told him I didn't want any money or compensation. The most important thing is that the criminal must be punished in a punishment in the same level of the crime he committed. He must not be imprisoned for four to six months and that is all."

I don't think Janabi has to worry about anyone getting off with a slap on the wrist in this case. From these allegations, Steven D. Green is perhaps the best example in a long time of why certain crimes carry the death penalty here.

Cold Blooded Murder

2006-06-28T22:58:00.000-04:00

Even more depressing news from an already depressing part of the world: a Palestinian militant group announced they had "executed" 18 year old Israeli settler Eliyahu Yitzhak Asheri, who had been kidnapped in the West Bank on Sunday. A body found near Ramallah appears to be that of Asheri. More detail here.

I am not going to mince words here - Asheri may have been a settler, but murdering him in cold blood is a completely despicable act. I hope that someone, whether it be the Palestinian authorities or the Israelis, catch the bastards who murdered Asheri and bring them to justice.

Update:

Israeli radio is reporting that a West Bank militant has been arrested in connection with Asheri's murder.

Abusing the "T" word

2006-06-25T16:39:00.000-04:00

Terrorism.... what is terrorism?

Earlier today, eight Palestinian militants infiltrated a military base in Kerem Shalom, Israel, using a 300 meter tunnel they had constructed underneath the Gaza security fence. They blew up an armored personnel carrier and attacked a tank and a watch-tower, killing two Israeli soldiers, wounding several more, destroying the tank and taking one Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, as prisoner. More details here from Haaretz.

According to Palestinian militant groups, the attack was in response to Israel's killing of Palestinian militant leader Jamal Abu Samhadana by an airstrike this month.

One thing that I find annoying about this attack is the verbiage used in the news media. The Palestinians who carried out the attack are "terrorists", the dead soldiers were "murdered", and the Israeli soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit was "kidnapped". However, when the situation is reversed, an attack by Israel on the Palestinians is a "targeted killing", an "airstrike", a "shelling", or something similar, and Palestinian militants are "captured" by Israel.

The use of words like "terrorism", "murder", and "kidnapping" in this case is inappropriate. The Palestinians militants attacked an Israeli military base from which attacks had previously been launched into Palestinian territory. In a state of war, a military installation like this is a valid military target. The events this morning were a guerrilla attack, not terrorism. For the Israelis, this makes the Palestinians who carried out this attack enemies, but it does not automatically make them terrorists. There is a big difference between a guerrilla attack and a terrorist attack.

Calling events like this terrorism dilutes the concept of terrorism, and dilutes the revulsion we should all feel when seeing real acts of terrorism. Hijacking or blowing up airplanes is terrorism. Wantonly murdering innocent civilians is terrorism. A bombing on a bus or in a restaurant is terrorism. Shooting schoolgirls or farmers walking a bit too close to your sniper tower is terrorism. Crashing planes into the World Trade Center is terrorism. And, wantonly shooting artillery shells (by Israel) or Qassam rockets (by Palestinians) into populated areas is terrorism. Terrorism is evil, terrorism is wrong, and terrorism is something that none of us in the civilized world should stand for.

Let's not dilute the concept of terrorism by lumping guerrilla attacks against military targets into it.

Miami Terror Arrests: the unstated link

2006-06-24T00:07:00.000-04:00

Miami terrorist suspects, source Miami Herald

Yesterday, seven men in Miami were arrested for planning to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. The Miami Herald named the five suspects as Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Rotschild Augustine, Lyglenson Lemorin, and Stanley Grant Phanor. The Guardian provides some detail behind the investigation:

Over several months of meetings, Mr Batiste allegedly swore a loyalty oath to al-Qaida and outlined his plans for a "full ground war" in which his group would "kill all the devils we can". He provided a shopping list of demands, including radios, bullet-proof vests, machine guns, binoculars, cars, and $50,000 (£27,500) in cash, the indictment alleges. The undercover operative also provided Mr Batiste with camera equipment, which he used to collect footage of the Sears Tower and the Miami FBI building.

The man who Batiste met with, who he thought was an al-Qaeda terrorist was actually an FBI agent, leading to the arrest of the group. Five of the group are US citizens, one is an illegal immigrant from Haiti, and one is a legal permanent resident ("green card" holder).

One link that many in the news media seem to be missing is to an American group called the Nation of Islam, the American religious group founded in Detroit in the 1930s and currently led by Louis Farrakhan. The members of the Nation of Islam call themselves Muslims, but their beliefs and practices are radically different from mainstream Islam - to the extent that many mainstream Muslims do not consider members of the Nation of Islam to be Muslim at all - this article explains some of the reasons behind this. The Nation of Islam holds the belief that blacks are the original humans and God's chosen people, and that whites are a race of "devils" created to torment and oppress God's chosen people (blacks).

Two things that lead me to suspect the link between this group in Miami and the Nation of Islam:

All of the suspects are black, and most are American citizens. None of the suspects have any ties to the Middle East (the root of mainstream Islam) or southeast Asia. If this group were mainstream Muslims, I would expect at least one or two of their members would have their origin or ancestry from one of these places. The Nation of Islam, however, is made up almost entirely of black Americans.
The Nation of Islam often refer to whites and Jews as "devils". The leader of this Miami terrorist group said he wanted to blow up the Sears tower to kill all the "devils" he could - I wonder if he was referring to whites and Jews in that statement.

Do I think the Nation of Islam as a whole had anything to do with the nefarious plot these guys in Miami were working on? Of course not! But, it seems plausible this group may have been an splinter group of the Nation of Islam, or received some inspiration from them.

Canadian terrorist arrests

2006-06-23T00:28:00.000-04:00

Canada is one of these countries that doesn’t generate much news – at least the kind of news that gets much mention outside Canada. That all changed three weeks ago…

Like many Canadians, I was shocked on the first Saturday of June, when I read the news and heard about the police breaking up a terror cell, confiscating explosives, weapons, and arresting several young Muslim men who had planned to wage a bombing campaign against Canadian government targets. The next day’s headlines were no less amazing: four hundred police officers had been involved with the bust, seventeen suspects were arrested, and additional suspects connected to the case were arrested in Britain. And, several of the suspects were from Mississauga, the same upscale suburb of Toronto that I lived in for five years.

When I first read the headlines, I was in shock – this did not sound like the Canada I know, and certainly did not sound like the Mississauga I know. Canada is one country where Muslims have generally blended well with the population, keeping their own identity, but respecting the identity of others and contributing to the mosaic of Canadian society and the Canadian political system.

In the days that followed the arrests, several pundits began questioning Canada’s immigration system and Canada’s multiculturalism program - the encouragement of immigrant groups to retain their own identity while contributing to a larger mosaic. Some painted a picture of a system that was broken, and suggested that the existence of this terrorist cell was evidence of the failure of Canada's multiculturalism concept.

I’d argue the exact opposite: the reason these terrorist plots were foiled before they could cause any damage was the direct result of Canadian multiculturalism. The integration of Muslims into Canadian society are actually one of the best successes of Canada’s multiculturalism program. In many parts of the world, Muslims live is isolated banlieues or ethnic ghettoes, have little interaction with mainstream society, and are largely disaffected from the political system; whereas in Canada, many Muslims live in mixed communities, are politically active, and are well represented in Canadian politics. In many parts of the world, there is considerable enmity between Jews and Muslims, but in Canada these groups tend to get along just fine. And, in the case of this terrorist plot, Muslim Canadians were the ones who tipped off the authorities to suspicious behavior of some plotters, allowing them to monitor this group for a long time, resulting in 17 arrests in Canada along with others in the United States and Britain.

Let us consider how far removed from the mainstream some of these miscreants were. At least six out of the seventeen suspects arrested were regular attendees at this tiny storefront mosque called the al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, sandwiched between a convenience store and a Pakistani kabab restaurant in Mississauga. The eldest of the suspects, and the apparent spiritual leader of the younger people in the group, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, was a volunteer at this tiny mosque and was one of about half a dozen people who regularly led prayers there. Many of the remaining 16 young men who were arrested were former students of Jamal, or people who had fallen under Jamal's influence.

News reports about Jamal paint a classic picture of a man in midlife crisis. At 43 years old, Jamal's neighbors have not seen him holding down any sort of job, while his wife pays the bill by driving a school bus. With nothing to do but mope around the house and be miserable, Jamal spent his time by volunteering at this tiny mosque. He started out cleaning the carpets, and was eventually allowed to become one of about half a dozen men who took turns leading prayers there. Jamal's neighbors describe him as simply quiet and unfriendly, but at the mosque, his pent-up anger translated into an angry vitriol. Fellow mosque members describe him as being “more aggressive” than the other prayer leaders, and where, according to the Washington Post, his “angry view of the world, and his belief that the West is at war with Muslims, boiled over.”

About a year ago, Wajid Khan the elected member of parliament for the area (and himself a Canadian Muslim) was invited to speak at the al-Rahman Center, and Qayyum Jamal, who was leading prayers that day, was supposed to introduce him. Instead of an introduction, however, Jamal started on a personal diatribe, telling the congregation that Canadian troops are in Afghanistan to rape Muslim women. Wajid Khan, in a Reuters interview described Jamal as an "idiot" with "piss-poor" command of the English language, and spoke about what happened next:

"I just got up right away and I pushed him aside and started to address the crowd and criticised him for talking nonsense. People agreed with me, that this was bullshit." … Khan said he had been told that angry members of the congregation later confronted Jamal outside the center and "kind of roughed him up" to show their displeasure.

Jamal used his position at the mosque to spend time with teenagers and young men: impressionable people who could infuse his extremist concepts. The Globe and Mail interviewed several teenagers in the Mississauga area where Jamal lived, who told stories about all the times Jamal had joined them for soccer games or cricket matches, and of the lessons he taught at the mosque. But, as the same Globe and Mail article pointed out, some parents and others at the mosque were starting to see through Jamal's rosy exterior:

One of the mosque's board members, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a few parents barred their children recently from attending the mosque because they were worried about Mr. Jamal's growing influence. If Mr. Jamal is guilty of terrorist scheming, the centre will have to shoulder "some blame" for allowing him to propagate his hard-line version of Islam on vulnerable young minds, the board member told The Globe.

"In that sense, maybe we should be more vigilant," he said. "If something happened on your watch, even though you may not be condoning it or promoting it, you have to be careful."

In summary, the existence of a small fringe group of seventeen people is not sufficient cause to judge a community of almost a million people in Canada. In fact, I would argue that the fact this fringe group was not able to obtain enough support for their cause, and was turned in by members of their community is evidence of how well this community has integrated itself into the mosaic of Canadian society. In short, success, not a failure, of Canadian multiculturalism.

Update coming soon

2006-06-18T16:29:00.000-04:00

I am currently typing my next blog post, which talks about the terror arrests in Canada two weeks ago.

A modern Romeo and Juliet story gets foiled (updated yet again)

2006-06-14T23:28:00.000-04:00

Original Post (June 9):

This story is just unreal.... a 16 year old American girl from a small town in Michigan tricked her parents into getting a passport for her, under the ruse that she was planning a bus trip to Canada with one of her friends. This past Sunday, her parents found out the whole bus trip story was a lie, and the next day, they found their daughter missing. The parents called the police, who tracked her to a flight from Detroit to Amman, Jordan, en-route to Tel Aviv, Israel.

Their daughter was en-route to meet up with a 25 year old Palestinian guy from Jericho, who she had met on MySpace.com, and who had apparently bought her a plane ticket.

More from CNN (along with a picture of the girl):

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- A 16-year-old girl who flew to the Middle East to see a man she met on MySpace.com was detained in Jordan and was headed home Friday, an FBI spokesman said.

U.S. officials persuaded Katherine Lester to take the return flight from Amman, FBI Special Agent Robert Beeckman said from the agency's Detroit office.

Katherine had disappeared from her home in Gilford, in eastern Michigan, on Monday and apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, said Tuscola County Undersheriff James Jashinske.

The sheriff's department contacted the FBI, which traced the teen to a flight from New York to Amman, Jashinske said. On Thursday night, her family received word from U.S. officials that she had been stopped as she arrived in Amman en route to Tel Aviv, Israel.

The Saginaw News adds even more:

Investigators learned that she boarded an airplane bound for Amman at JFK International Airport in New York, said Tuscola County Undersheriff James E. Jashinske. The craft was to continue from Amman to Tel Aviv, Israel, on Thursday.

...

Shawn Lester said her daughter vanished from home Monday, a day after she exposed a lie about planning to travel to Canada with a longtime best friend.

With two bags packed, Lester drove her daughter Sunday to a Bay City bus station, where the friend's family was to meet them. When they didn't show, her daughter demanded her mother leave her there to wait.

Suspicious, Shawn Lester called the family and learned there was no trip. She brought her daughter home.

Katherine Lester was sleeping when her mother left the house Monday morning. When the mother returned at 2 p.m., the teen was gone -- and so were her bags.

This story has a few interesting elements. It seems this girl was leading a double-life for a long time. The girl's parents probably had no idea she had a MySpace account (or perhaps even what MySpace is), or who she was talking to online. The girl's mother Shawn Lester described her as never having had a boyfriend, but for her to want to go off on such a long trip to meet the man from Jericho, she must have known him for a long time, perhaps even a year or two. Perhaps she had no interest in a boyfriend in her small Michgan home-town because she already had one online. Evidently, she knew her parents would object to the relationship - the fact she hid it from them for so long, and created such a complex façade to conceal her trip abroad suggests she suspected she knew what her parents would think and chose to conceal it from them.

The story also exposed an interesting legal situation. The police confiscated the family's computer to conduct an investigation, and are probably trying to see if the guy from Jericho had done anything illegal - chatting online with a 16 year old is perfectly legal (at least in Michigan), but soliciting her for sex is not. If the police do find evidence on the computer's hard drive, the issue gets more complex - if he was in Jericho at the time he was chatting with her, the big question would be whether it violates Palestinian rather than Michigan law. Another interesting legal situation is that there is apparently no law barring a 16 year old with a valid passport traveling internationally without her parents' consent. The Jordanian authorities detained Katherine Lester in Amman and were successful in convincing her to return to the US, but if she had insisted on continuing to Israel, it is not clear whether there would have been any law that could have stopped her.

Perhaps the most interesting element in the story will be what happens next, as Katherine Lester is on her way back to Michigan. Will she continue her online relationship with the guy in Jericho? And, what will happen in a bit over a year from now, when she turns 18 and is old enough that her parents can no longer stop her?

An interesting story indeed...

Update (June 12):

After a long search for links, I hit pay dirt today. Here is what appears to be the link to Katherine Lester's friend's MySpace profile, a man who goes by the screen name "Abdullah Psycho" on MySpace (the "Psycho" part seems to be in reference to his music). If you see the entries in his Friends column, you'll see what appears to be Katherine Lester's own profile.

Update 2 (June 14):

Like a good wine, this story seems to get better with age. Here is a bit more detail that came out today:

NABLUS, West Bank (AP) - The mother of a West Bank man who invited a 16-year-old American to the Mideast to get married says she is distraught that the teenager has returned home and hopes to bring the couple together.
Sana Jinzawi says she was waiting at the airport in Tel Aviv to pick up Katherine Lester, who met her 20-year-old son Abdullah on the popular MySpace.com Web site.
...

``She was going to sign a marriage contract as soon as she got here,'' the mother said, adding she told Lester to ``bring a pink dress for the engagement party and a white dress for the wedding.''
``She wanted to convert to Islam and wear the head covering and live with us and adopt our culture,'' Sana Jinzawi said.

Sana Jinzawi was also quoted as having "no idea" that Katherine's parents didn't know about the wedding plans.

For the past few days, I'd been curious if those two had been communicating online since Katherine got back to the States after her aborted trip. Both of their "Last Login Date" fields in their MySpace profiles had stayed current, suggesting they were both coming online every day. Then, earlier today, Katherine left this public comment on Abdullah's profile:

Hi baby!!! I MISS U!!! I swear you are so adorable. I love you and noone will change that ever. You are my hero baby, ..my life and i will always be here for you. You are my husband and no matter what ppl say nothing will change that. You are My habibi, ..and u will aways be my habibi. I love you so much...I cant wait to be with you and to hold your hand and to whisper in your ears that i love you, ...I want to be with you forever and ever, .I love u, .. MWAH

I am sure Katherine knows full well that her family know about Abdullah's profile (after all, they were the ones who provided it to the news media). And, she obviously knows full well that whatever she writes there in public will be seen by whatever news organizations are monitoring that site, and various bloggers (a few open-minded ones like me, and several more not-so-open-minded ones too). It seems like a public message to the world that she is still just as determined as she ever was, and she doesn't care who knows it, or what they think of it.

As for me, the more I read about this story, the more genuine it seems. Abdullah (at least from his site) seems like a decent person. As for Katherine, from her picture you can see she likely could have her pick of almost any of the guys in her school if she wanted to, and thus it's obvious to me Abdullah was not any kind of "last resort". They're both a bit young to be thinking of marriage, but it's not unheard of. If they're still that serious about it in a year when Katherine turns 18, I would not be surprised to see them follow through with it.

Speaking from my own experience, a friendship or romance that starts on the internet can be very strong. My wife and I got our start in a long-distance Internet relationship before we got married, and I know others who have done the same. It can work, and in many cases, it is a recipe for a good relationship, since you first get to know each other without physical attraction clouding your judgment.

I wish Katherine and Abdullah all the best in their current relationship and in deciding what to do for their futures.

Israeli shelling bears its ugly fruit (updated)

2006-06-13T11:57:00.000-04:00

Original Post (June 11):

Over the past several months, Israel has repeatedly shelled "empty" areas of the Gaza Strip, in an attempt to scare off would-be launchers of Qassam rockets. Two days ago, this shelling bore fruit.

A farmer named Ali Ghalia took his family to one of these "empty" areas of beach to have a nice quiet picnic with his family. The family's picnic was blown apart, allegedy by a rocket or a shell fired by an Israeli gunboat, leaving 12 year old Huda Ghalia walking back and forth among the dead bodies of her family and wailing.

Here is an English translation of this heart-wrenchingly horrible story (hat-tip Digital Oasis).

12 year old Huda Ghalia

BEIT LAHIA (Gaza Strip), June 10, 2006, (WAFA)- The tears have not yet left the innocent face of the astonished girl, Huda Ghalia 12, who lost yesterday 7 members of her family while they were enjoying their weekend at the shore of Beit Lahia town, north of Gaza. Huda and her sisters and brothers were happy for enjoying their first weekend together without thinking of homework as they have just finished their school exams.

Ghalia family went to a semi-virgin area at the sea shore. The white sandy heaps and little wild plants scattered at the northern parts of the shore. The Ghalia family preferred to set closed to the shore. The children were so happy to play with water and the white and clean sand. Their mothers were happy to see the rare smiles on the faces of their sweets. Huda's father, Ali, 45, a farmer, cocked corn before playing cards with other family members. Hanadi, 18 month, was laying in her cradle while her mother, Hamdiyya, was shaking it smoothly.

These enjoyable moments did not continue for a long time. The Israeli navy gunboats shot two bombs between the enjoying people. Ali hailed a taxi and demanded the family members to evacuate the scene as soon as possible. They collected their luggage and the children collected their toys and left the dangerous place. Huda, who was lightly wounded in the arm, said that her family left the scene of bombardment and sat between the white sandy heaps, waiting for the taxi. "I was eating corn and my mother was breast feeding Hanadi, 18 month. Other children were playing with toys, and my sister Amani, 22, was hugging her baby, Mohammed," the astonished child said while she was crying. My sisters Sabreen, 3 was making domes with sand and Ilham, 7, was laughing at her. Ilham was trying to pick up a piece of corn and asked me not to be far because the taxi is coming.

"Suddenly, a rocket hit our family, I was far just several meters. The rocket fallen between my mother, father sisters and brothers, the dust was so intensive that I did not see any thing," she said while laying on her bed at Kamal Udwan Hospital.Seven members of the family were killed on the spot, the father Ali, 45, his son Haitham, 6 months, daughter Hanadi, 18 months, daughter Sabreen 3, daughter Ilham 7, daughter Alia 25 and Ali's second wife Raifa 26. Several other children and girls were wounded."I was so scared and fled away for several meters, and then I came back. I saw my brothers and sisters bleeding. I saw a head and hands but did not realise for whom they belong. I saw my father, he was dead and lied on the heap."Eyewitness, Moneer Ghabin, said that he saw the "unbelievable and horrible" scene at the sea soon after the bombardment.

"My friends and me have just arrived the sea to enjoy our week end, we heard a strong explosion, we went to inspect what happened, it was unbelievable and horrible," Ghabin said. "Huda was running between the sandy heaps as she was looking for something. She was moving like a shuttle between the parts of bodies of her family, she was scared, astonished, surprised and crying," Ghabin said. We visited, Saturday, Ghalia's family. Ayham, 20, the son of Ali, said that he was talking to his father just seconds before the crime. "When the shell hit us I do not know what happened, just after seconds I realised that my family was turned into a heap of flesh, unconsciously, I carried a hand or a leg I do not know to whom it belongs, I did not know what to do, and do not know why it was happened," Ayham said. We moved to the scene of the crime, yellow corn covered with red mud.

Pinky orange coloured shoes of children were among different toys scattered near a mattress saturated with blood.The white sand was turned into red mud where a tuft of little girl's hair and pieces of flesh were covered with a kite.Tens of people gathered at the scene gazing at the shoes and toys of children. They where astonished for what happened.Samir Kullab, 33, was carrying his bag leaving the shore. His children were following him when he said that the Israelis commit the crime because "they feel angry to see Palestinians enjoy their life".Kullab said that he did not know why it was happened and "promised" that he will never come or allow his children to come to see the sea again.

It is good to see that some of the most vocal and shocked-sounding media response to this horrible event was in the Israeli press, such as this article in Haaretz. The problem is that being shocked is just not enough: it must translate into action. Artillery shells are a blunt-force instrument - how many more orphans like Huda Ghalia does Israel need to produce before the Israeli government orders a stop to this indiscriminate method of killing its Palestinian neighbors?

For the solution to this cycle of violence, perhaps we can look no further than Huda's brother Aiham, one of only three family members to survive the attack:

Despite having lost nearly his entire family, Aiham refused to speak of revenge. "Every state and people has good and bad people. I know there are people in Israel who want peace and others who want war. It's not clear to me now how we will go on, we've lost everything," he said.
Source: Haaretz

I wish there were a few more people like Aiham on both sides of this conflict...

Update (June 13):

Since I wrote this post, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has been conducting its own investigation, and according to this CNN article, they are planning to announce an interesting conclusion:

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- An explosion on a Gaza beach that killed seven people last week was caused by explosives planted there by Palestinian militants, not artillery fire from an Israeli navy gunboat, Israeli military sources said.
...

An Israeli commando unit used the beach to enter Gaza for a mission in recent weeks, prompting the militants to place the mines, the sources said.

Intelligence information gathered by Israeli investigators showed that Hamas quickly removed the remaining mines from the beach after the blast, the sources said.

A blast from a landmine is certainly a plausible explanation. After all, what the witnesses saw was a gunboat offshore, saw the explosions, and concluded (reasonably) that the explosions were from rounds fired by the boat. But, they did not actually see the rounds fired from the gunboat.

So, now we have a problem: the Palestinians believe that the Ghalia family were hit by a round fired by an Israeli gunboat (a plausible and logical explanation), and the Israeli Defense Force has concluded that the Ghalia family stumbled into a landmine (another plausible and logical explanation). Who is right? The problem is, there is so much distrust between those two sides that the Palestinians are not likely to believe the Israeli authorities, and vice-versa.

Big Pharaoh made a very good suggestion in his post earlier today: an international inquiry. Of course, such an inquiry would need to be conducted by someone who is viewed by both the Palestinians and Israelis as impartial, and it would help if both sides were to agree to a cease-fire while the inquiry is going on. As for which country to have run such an inquiry, a nation that has relations with both sides (such as Turkey, Jordan, or perhaps even Russia) would be high on the list, or a nation that has little engagement with either side (such as Japan or Brazil) may work well too. An inquiry by a truly unbiased commission would hopefully produce a result that could be accepted by both sides.

Stirring up the Pot

2006-06-12T21:18:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, someone forwarded me an interesting article about the Iraq War, written by the American author and journalist Greg Palast. Greg is no stranger to controversy, having spent much of his journalistic career digging up dirt on corporate malfeasance and various politicians, and this article is no exception to his track record of creating controversy.

I found Greg Palast's article interesting and provocative when I first read it, and wrote him on Saturday to request permission to republish it in full, with comments enabled, in the hopes of stimulating some good discussion here. As I've pointed out before, this blog has a very multinational readership, with readers and commenters from around the world, and I am hoping this article may stimulate some good debate - and since Greg's own site does not have a comments section, I think this will be especially valuable. I heard back from a member of Greg's staff today, and so, here is the article, reprinted in full, with the author's permission.

Greg's article focuses on Jay Garner, the retired general who helped setup the Kurdish safe-haven after the first Gulf War, and who was abruptly dismissed and replaced by Paul Bremer early after the US invasion of Iraq.

According to this article, and an earlier interview with Garner, he was fired because of his insistence to proceed quickly with elections, and to quickly put Iraqis in charge of whatever privatization was to be done. According to Garner, his ideas did not fit with a policy document he refers to euphemistically as "The Plan", and thus Garner was out and Paul Bremer was in.

Is this article a big conspiracy theory, or is there truth to it? Was Jay Garner fired because he was incompetent, or because was not willing to play the part of a "yes-man"? And, was there a plan to sell off Iraq's assets, and what would the proceeds have been used for?

Decide for yourself:

UNREPORTED: THE ZARQAWI INVITATION
By Greg Palast
Republished here with permission

They got him — the big, bad, beheading berserker in Iraq. But, something’s gone unreported in all the glee over getting Zarqawi … who invited him into Iraq in the first place?

If you prefer your fairy tales unsoiled by facts, read no further. If you want the uncomfortable truth, begin with this: A phone call to Baghdad to Saddam’s Palace on the night of April 21, 2003. It was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on a secure line from Washington to General Jay Garner.

The General arrived in Baghdad just hours before to take charge of the newly occupied nation. The message from Rumsfeld was not a heartwarming welcome. Rummy told Garner, Don’t unpack, Jack — you’re fired.

What had Garner done? The many-starred general had been sent by the President himself to take charge of a deeply dangerous mission. Iraq was tense but relatively peaceful. Garner’s job was to keep the peace and, to use the President’s words, “Open Iraq’s arms to democracy.”

Unfortunately for the general, he took the President at his word. But the general was wrong. “Peace” and “Democracy” were the slogans.

“My preference,” Garner told me in his understated manner, “was to put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can and do it in some form of elections.”

But elections were not in The Plan.

The Plan was a 101-page document to guide the long-term future of the land we’d just conquered. There was nothing in it about democracy or elections or safety. There was, rather, a detailed schedule for selling off “all [Iraq’s] state assets” — and Iraq, that’s just about everything — “especially,” said The Plan, “the oil and supporting industries.” Especially the oil.

There was more than oil to sell off. The Plan included the sale of Iraq’s banks, and weirdly, changing it’s copyright laws and other odd items that made the plan look less like a program for Iraq to get on its feet than a program for corporate looting of the nation’s assets. (And indeed, we discovered at BBC, behind many of the odder elements — copyright and tax code changes — was the hand of lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s associate Grover Norquist.)

But Garner didn’t think much of The Plan, he told me when we met a year later in Washington. He had other things on his mind. “You prevent epidemics, you start the food distribution program to prevent famine.”

Seizing title and ownership of Iraq’s oil fields was not on Garner’s must-do list. He let that be known to Washington. “I don’t think [Iraqis] need to go by the U.S. plan, I think that what we need to do is set an Iraqi government that represents the freely elected will of the people.” He added, “It’s their country … their oil.”

Apparently, the Secretary of Defense disagreed. So did lobbyist Norquist. And Garner incurred their fury by getting carried away with the “democracy” idea: he called for quick elections — within 90 days of the taking of Baghdad.

But Garner’s 90-days-to-elections commitment ran straight into the oil sell-off program. Annex D of the plan indicated that would take at least 270 days — at least 9 months.

Worse, Garner was brokering a truce between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. They were about to begin what Garner called a “Big Tent” meeting to hammer out the details and set the election date. He figured he had 90 days to get it done before the factions started slitting each other’s throats.

But a quick election would mean the end of the state-asset sell-off plan: An Iraqi-controlled government would never go along with what would certainly amount to foreign corporations swallowing their entire economy. Especially the oil. Garner had spent years in Iraq, in charge of the Northern Kurdish zone and knew Iraqis well. He was certain that an asset-and-oil grab, “privatizations,” would cause a sensitive population to take up the gun. “That’s just one fight you don’t want to take on right now.”

But that’s just the fight the neo-cons at Defense wanted. And in Rumsfeld’s replacement for Garner, they had a man itching for the fight. Paul Bremer III had no experience on the ground in Iraq, but he had one unbeatable credential that Garner lacked: Bremer had served as Managing Director of Kissinger and Associates.

In April 2003, Bremer instituted democracy Bush style: he canceled elections and appointed the entire government himself. Two months later, Bremer ordered a halt to all municipal elections including the crucial vote to Shia seeking to select a mayor in the city of Najaf. The front-runner, moderate Shia Asad Sultan Abu Gilal warned, “If they don’t give us freedom, what will we do? We have patience, but not for long.” Local Shias formed the “Mahdi Army,” and within a year, provoked by Bremer’s shutting their paper, attacked and killed 21 U.S. soldiers.

The insurgency had begun. But Bremer’s job was hardly over. There were Sunnis to go after. He issued “Order Number One: De-Ba’athification.” In effect, this became “De-Sunni-fication.”

Saddam’s generals, mostly Sunnis, who had, we learned, secretly collaborated with the US invasion and now expected their reward found themselves hunted and arrested. Falah Aljibury, an Iraqi-born US resident who helped with the pre-invasion brokering, told me, “U.S. forces imprisoned all those we named as political leaders,” who stopped Iraq’s army from firing on U.S. troops.

Aljibury’s main concern was that busting Iraqi collaborators and Ba’athist big shots was a gift “to the Wahabis,” by which he meant the foreign insurgents, who now gained experienced military commanders, Sunnis, who now had no choice but to fight the US-installed regime or face arrest, ruin or death. They would soon link up with the Sunni-defending Wahabi, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was committed to destroying “Shia snakes.”

And the oil fields? It was, Aljibury noted, when word got out about the plans to sell off the oil fields (thanks to loose lips of the US-appointed oil minister) that pipelines began to blow. Although he had been at the center of planning for invasion, Aljibury now saw the greed-crazed grab for the oil fields as the fuel for a civil war that would rip his country to pieces:

“Insurgents,” he said, “and those who wanted to destabilize a new Iraq have used this as means of saying, ‘Look, you’re losing your country. You’re losing your leadership. You’re losing all of your resources to a bunch of wealthy people. A bunch of billionaires in the world want to take you over and make your life miserable.’ And we saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines, of course, built on — built on the premise that privatization [of oil] is coming.”

General Garner, watching the insurgency unfold from the occupation authority’s provocations, told me, in his understated manner, “I’m a believer that you don’t want to end the day with more enemies than you started with.”

But you can’t have a war president without a war. And you can’t have a war without enemies. “Bring ‘em on,” our Commander-in-Chief said. And Zarqawi answered the call.

*********

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Penguin Dutton has released Greg Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War. Subscribe to his commentaries, and watch his reports for BBC Newsnight TV at www.GregPalast.com.

Full comments are enabled on this post, and for those of you who are new to my blog, I rarely delete any comments, but please keep them civil. Let's hear what you think - I'll chime into the discussion soon....

Zarqawi Killed

2006-06-08T12:52:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, the news came out that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a bombing attack, along with a key lieutenant Sheikh Abd al-Rahman. Here is more from CNN:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A painstaking, weeks-long intelligence operation, acting on tips from Iraqis and his own network, led to the U.S. airstrike that killed "al Qaeda in Iraq" leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military said Thursday.
The U.S.-led coalition's most wanted man in Iraq was killed Wednesday evening in a U.S. airstrike on a safe house near Baquba, according to U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell.
"Last night was the first time that we have had definitive, unquestionable information as to exactly where [al-Zarqawi] was located, knowing that we could strike that target without causing collateral damage to other Iraqi civilians and personnel in the area," Caldwell said.
In addition, Iraqi security and coalition forces conducted 17 simultaneous raids in Baghdad and its outskirts at the time of the attack, Caldwell said.
"A tremendous amount of information and intelligence was collected" from the raids, he said, "and is presently being exploited and utilized for further use. I mean, it was a treasure trove; no question."

This news could not have come at a much better time. With all the negative news and open investigations running about the alleged Haditha massacre, the US forces need all the good news they can get.

To conclude, I'll share a comment I got this morning on my Instant Messenger from one of my friends in Iraq (a Sunni Arab in this case) on how that family and others in the area took the news of Zarqawi's passing:

we had a celebration in the house
we called the relatives and our friends
to tell them
it was just like Eid
i am so glad
he was very bad guy
and did many bad things in the name of Islam
and now he is in HELL
the two woman were his assistors too btw

I couldn't have said it better myself...

Out of Town

2006-06-05T15:13:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the delay in posting and responding to comments - I'm in Denver on a business trip for a week. You can look for a new post from me in the next couple of days.

Tarnished Glory: Haditha (updated)

2006-05-26T22:08:00.000-04:00

Original Post (May 26)

In late November, many of us here in the United States picked up our newspapers and read a small article about a roadside bomb exploding in Haditha, killing 15 Iraqi civilians and an American soldier, a 20 year old Lance Corporal named Miguel Terrazas from Texas. Like many of us here in the United States, I read this article at the time, briefly pondered how callous these insurgents were to detonate this bomb in a crowd of civilians, and then forgot about the incident.

Fortunately, Time Magazine did not forget about the incident, and after their investigation found that the US military's version did not fit with the evidence they had gathered, they confronted the US military about it in January, prompting an investigation. Here is an excerpt of Time's March 19 article that broke this scandal open:

Eman Waleed, 9, lived in a house 150 yards from the site of the blast, which was strong enough to shatter all the windows in her home. "We heard a big noise that woke us all up," she recalls two months later. "Then we did what we always do when there's an explosion: my father goes into his room with the Koran and prays that the family will be spared any harm." Eman says the rest of the family—her mother, grandfather, grandmother, two brothers, two aunts and two uncles—gathered in the living room. According to military officials familiar with the investigation, the Marines say they came under fire from the direction of the Waleed house immediately after being hit by the ied. A group of Marines headed toward the house. Eman says she "heard a lot of shooting, so none of us went outside. Besides, it was very early, and we were all wearing our nightclothes." When the Marines entered the house, they were shouting in English. "First, they went into my father's room, where he was reading the Koran," she claims, "and we heard shots." According to Eman, the Marines then entered the living room. "I couldn't see their faces very well—only their guns sticking into the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny." She claims the troops started firing toward the corner of the room where she and her younger brother Abdul Rahman, 8, were hiding; the other adults shielded the children from the bullets but died in the process. Eman says her leg was hit by a piece of metal and Abdul Rahman was shot near his shoulder. "We were lying there, bleeding, and it hurt so much. Afterward, some Iraqi soldiers came. They carried us in their arms. I was crying, shouting 'Why did you do this to our family?' And one Iraqi soldier tells me, 'We didn't do it. The Americans did.'" Time was unable to speak with the only other survivor of the raid, Eman's younger brother, who relatives say is traumatized by the experience. U.S. military officials familiar with the investigation say that after entering the house, the Marines walked into a corridor with closed doors on either side. They thought they heard the clack-clack sound of an AK-47 being racked and readied for fire. (Eman and relatives who were not in the house insist that no guns were there.) Believing they were about to be ambushed, the Marines broke down the two doors simultaneously and fired their weapons. The officials say the military has confirmed that seven people were killed inside the house--including two women and a child. The Marines also reported seeing a man and a woman run out of the house; they gave chase and shot and killed the man. Relatives say the woman, Hiba Abdullah, escaped with her baby.

As the father of two young children myself, I find it very difficult to read this story. I try to imagine my own daughter in the place of little Eman Waleed, try to imagine how she might feel seeing me murdered in front of her eyes, and the kinds of nightmares she would suffer from for years after, as she grows up missing her parents in some distant relative's home.

When I first saw this story, I did not write about it - after all, the Time article had several conflicting sources, and I wanted the US military to complete its investigation before forming my own opinion. The investigation is still going on, however some preliminary results were leaked today, and they are not looking good:

The defense official discussed the matter Friday only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the investigation. He said the evidence found thus far strongly indicated the killings in the insurgent-plagued city of Haditha in the western province of Anbar were unjustified. He cautioned that the probe was not finished.

Once the investigation is completed, perhaps in June, it will be up to a senior Marine commander in Iraq to decide whether to press charges of murder or other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Three officers from the unit involved — 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. — have been relieved of duty, although officials have not explicitly linked them to the criminal investigation.

To summarize, the Time article presented two versions of the Haditha story: one by some local Haditha residents, and another by the US military. Based on the military's own investigation, the Haditha residents' version of the story seems to be the most accurate.

The US military has many inventions at its disposal, but a time machine is not one of them, and if there was a massacre in Haditha we cannot go back in time to fix it. What is important now is how the investigation is conducted and what is done with the result.

To all the Americans reading this: are you in favor of this alleged massacre of Waleed Eman's family being carried out in your names? If we as a society allow ourselves to brush this incident under the carpet, we are responding with a resounding "YES" to this question. If we brush this incident aside, we become an accessory after the fact: accomplices, cohorts, and co-conspirators, just as guilty as if we were there pulling the trigger for the miscreants. We cannot just turn a blind eye to this sort of heinous act being carried out in our names.

I am glad that the US military is taking this incident seriously and conducting an investigation. While the results of the investigation may be troubling for both ourselves and the Iraqi public, the results of trying to brush it under the carpet it would be worse.

Update (May 30)

Storm clouds are gathering in Washington, according to this article by CNN....

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Some members of Congress have been told to brace for the fallout from potential charges of murder and cover-up stemming from an inquiry into an alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines, sources say.
Military investigators strongly suspect that what happened in the western Iraqi city of Haditha last November was a rampage by a small number of Marines who snapped after one of their own was killed by a roadside bomb, the sources told CNN.
Pentagon sources told CNN that at least 24 Iraqis were killed.
Sources told CNN on Monday that the investigation is substantially complete, and that charges -- including murder charges -- could be filed sometime in June. And, sources said, investigators have concluded there was a cover-up -- but won't say if it is limited to the handful of Marines who did the killings.

The pieces are starting to come together. Reading between the lines, it sounds like the military's own investigation has wrapped up, but the findings are so shocking and odious, and so likely to provoke public outrage that they decided to hold off on releasing them for a few days to allow for briefing key members of congress, and allow the Marines and lawmakers some time to figure out how to mitigate the upcoming maelstrom.

Of course, there is very little that can be done to mitigate details trickling out like this excerpt from the LA Times:

Briones said he took pictures of at least 15 bodies before his camera batteries died. He said he then helped other Marines remove the bodies and place them in body bags. He said his worst moment, and one that haunts him to this day, was picking up the body of a young girl who was shot in the head.

"I held her out like this," he said, demonstrating with his arms extended, "but her head was bobbing up and down and the insides fell on my legs."

As he spoke, his mother, Susie Briones, 40, a Hanford community college teacher, who was sitting beside him at the kitchen table, silently wiped away tears.

Earlier she confided to a reporter that her son called frequently from Iraq after he experienced nightmares over the little girl.

"He called me many times," she said, "about carrying this little girl in his hands and her brains splattering on his boots. He'd say, 'Mom, I can't clean my boots. I can't clean my boots. I see her.' "

Panic on a Florida School Bus

2006-05-25T11:07:00.000-04:00

Let's imagine a scenario for a moment....

You're a young man, 20 years old. You've pushed yourself through high school, and after a lot of convincing of your parents, you have been given the opportunity to study abroad in a far-away country. This far-away place is strange to you, the customs are strange, the clothing people wear is strange, and even the language they speak is strange. In fact, you're worried that you may not succeed in your program of study because of all the cultural and language differences, so you sign up for a 1 year program to study the strange language, and become acclimatized to the strange culture and customs before you begin your program of study.

You've been in this strange place for a full school year from September to May, and have found it very peculiar: the way people walk, the way they interact in public. One of the strangest things you've seen is that every day as you're walking to school, you walk past a large group of people about your age gathered at a street corner just at the edge of your university campus, where a funny-looking orange bus picks them up and takes them to some unknown destination. You are curious about who this group is, and what this orange bus is for - you've never seen an orange bus on the university campus, and have never seen any of your classmates arriving in one.

One day in May, after your classes are mostly wrapped up for the year, you decide to find out what is up with this funny looking orange bus and this crowd waiting on the street corner. One morning, you and a friend of yours wait around alongside this group, and when the orange bus pulls up, you get on with them to see where it's going. You're surprised when the bus driver barely notices you getting on the bus, and more surprised when he doesn't make you pay a fare, and you and your friend sit in the back of the bus laughing and talking to yourselves about it. Of course, this surprise pales when the bus arrives at its destination (a local high school), and you and your friend are abruptly removed from the bus and hauled off to jail in the back of a police car.

If you and your friend were from Europe or perhaps Japan or China, you would probably not have had such an unwelcome reception at the high school, and the whole incident would have been laughed off as a simple act of ignorance by a pair of hapless visitors. But, you and your friend are not from Europe or Japan or China, you are from Saudi Arabia, the language you were speaking in the back of the bus with your friend is Arabic... and as a result you are both in a whole heap of trouble.

The two men are named Mana Saleh Almanajam (23 years old) and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran (20 years old), both shown at left, both enrolled in the full year English as a Second Language pre-university program at Southern Florida University in Tampa. The bus they boarded was one that picked up high school students from a street corner right at the edge of the USF campus, taking them to a local school called Wharton High School. More details are shown here and here.

Several bloggers, most notably Michelle Malkin, have talked about this issue and raised the spectre of possible terrorist attacks, considering the two men lied by initially telling the police they were from Morocco (when they were from Saudi Arabia), and making up a few versions of why they were on that bus. I personally think the incident is much more benign than this:

1. The two are simple college students, from a far-away place. They probably had no idea that the funny-looking orange bus was only for students of a particular high school. It's not as if there is a sign on the bus saying "Private Property - do not enter", the only words on it are "School Bus", and perhaps a sign indicating the route.
2. Being young and a bit reckless, they decided to go find out where the bus went, and perhaps explore Tampa a bit, not knowing this was not a permitted activity.
3. The bus driver did not challenge them when they first got on the bus, and allowed them to get in and sit down. Perhaps if the bus driver or one of the students on the bus had told the two men they were not allowed to be on the bus, they would have left.
4. After being pulled off the bus and questioned, they made up a few excuses for being on the bus. They might have done this because they knew they didn't have a good reason to be on the bus at all. Perhaps they were just riding it to see where it goes.

It is truly unfortunate that, 5 years after 9/11, we still need to be so paranoid about anything that an Arab does in this country. As Arab visiting students, these two men were expected by the system to be virtual house hermits, to stay below the radar, to never do anything unusual, and never bring any attention to themselves. Thus, when they made a simple mistake, they were considered suspected terrorists, and the full heavy hand of the law was brought down on them.

The Iran Conundrum

2006-05-20T23:05:00.000-04:00

What is easier to make: a car, or a Molotov cocktail?

A Molotov cocktail, obviously...

Let's think about this for a second: both a car and a Molotov cocktail use gasoline for fuel, however, the car uses it for a peaceful civilian purpose, and the Molotov cocktail uses it for a weapon. The car harnesses the gasoline's energy in a controlled manner to propel it, while the Molotov cocktail uses the gasoline's energy in an uncontrolled fashion to maim, kill, and burn. And, the car requires a much higher degree of engineering skill to design and build, since it is harder to burn gasoline in a controlled fashion than to burn it in an uncontrolled fashion.

Let's consider how this relates to Iran....

What is easier to make, a nuclear reactor, or an atomic bomb?

A scary question indeed. And, when you realize the correct answer is the atomic bomb, it becomes even scarier. Both a nuclear reactor and an atomic bomb use the same type of fuel: fissile nuclear material such as enriched uranium or plutonium. However, the nuclear reactor requires much more work to design and build, since the goal for a reactor is to harness nuclear power in a safe and controlled manner. A weapon, which harnesses the same nuclear power but in an unsafe and uncontrolled manner is much easier to design. In fact, the only really hard part is producing the fissile nuclear material to make it.

A few months ago, I wrote about the technical difficulties in enriching uranium; and we should all be very thankful that it is as hard to enrich uranium as it is. It is greatly troubling, however, when a less-stable country such as Iran begins a uranium enrichment project, because it is this same process that can be used to make weapons-grade enriched uranium. And, once a country has a working nuclear reactor, a key by-product contained in nuclear waste is plutonium. So, by either diverting some enriched uranium from the enrichment program, or by reprocessing the nuclear waste from a reactor, it is possible to obtain the main ingredient for an atomic bomb. And, as I wrote previously, getting your hands on the main ingredient is the only really difficult part in making a nuclear weapon.

What is even more troubling than Iran having access to nuclear materials is the possibility that Iran might sell these materials, or even a working bomb to a terrorist group they are reputed to support, such as Hezbollah or al-Qaeda. Imagine the destabilizing effect of a terrorist nuclear weapon being detonated in Baghdad, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Dubai, or Amman.

Iran's current government getting its hands on nuclear weapons is a scenario the world should strive to avoid. However, the big question is how to stop Iran from doing so. So far, the world community has been trying the diplomatic approach, but diplomacy isn't working. Sanctions won't help much - look at the effects they had in Saddam's Iraq, enriching Saddam while driving his people into poverty. The military alternative isn't pretty either, with the United States already stretched thin in Iraq, and after three years of war, the American people lack the stomach to invade another country. A Yugoslavia-style bombing campaign is a real possibility, but would Iraq erupt like a tinderbox afterward, as pro-Iranian Shia militias turn on American troops?

The Iranian nuclear situation is a real problem, and one without an easily identifiable solution. Diplomacy is, by far, the best approach, but if it fails, "Plan B" may end up being very, very ugly.

The Netherlands Loss, America's Gain

2006-05-17T21:59:00.000-04:00

For those of us here in the United States, you should get used to seeing this face, as you'll probably be seeing her in the news a lot in the coming years.

The face is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, undoubtedly one of the most controversial figures in Europe. Hirsi Ali, originally from Somalia, went to the Netherlands as a refugee in 1992, became a citizen, and since 2003 has been serving as a member of parliament. What makes Hirsi Ali controversial, however, is her critical views on Islam and on women in Islam, which have earned her numerous death threats from Islamic extremists in the Netherlands. Two years ago, when Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered, the letter pinned to his body was a death threat against Hirsi Ali.

And, in a real shocker, she has resigned her seat in the Dutch parliament and is moving to the United States.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has faced an assault on two major fronts this past week. A few days ago, a group of fellow owners in the building she lives in won a court injunction forcing her to leave - the result of the constant threats on her life, and the security apparatus necessitated by it (armed guards, bulletproof glass, etc.). Then, on another front, it was revealed that she was untruthful on her refugee application in 1992, lying about how she's arrived in the Netherlands and her true family name. The Dutch immigration minister announced that Hirsi Ali's citizenship was null and void, and that her passport was being revoked. Shortly after this, Hirsi Ali announced that she is resigning her seat in parliament, leaving the Netherlands, and taking up a fellowship with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

If Ayaan Hirsi Ali does come to Washington, I am sure we will be seeing a lot of her in the newspapers - she does not seem the type to stay on the sidelines.

I have a great respect for people who are willing to jeopardize their own wellbeing to promote ideas they believe are right. People like Ayaan Hirsi Ali benefit our society by questioning the status quo and stimulating constructive debate; and, it is through this debate that our society continually improves itself. For this reason, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is now the Netherlands' loss, and America's gain.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad's Letter to George Bush (Full Text)

2006-05-09T22:32:00.000-04:00

Earlier today the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the Iranian national news agency, released the full text of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to US president George Bush.

The letter was surprising to me in a number of ways. I was surprised a few days ago when I heard it had been sent to George Bush, and today, I was even more surprised when I got to read it for the first time - the content was not at all what I'd expected. When I first heard about the letter, I had expected it to focus on the Iranian nuclear situation and ways to resolve it. Instead, the letter glosses over the nuclear subject and touches mainly on several other Iranian concerns. Perhaps the most curious part of the letter was that Ahmadinjad appealed to George Bush on largely Christian religious terms - probably the last thing I'd have expected from Iran.

The real audience for this letter seems not to be George Bush, it seems to be the American people and others in the West. I'm sure Ahmadinejad (or his advisors) knew that within a short time of his letter's full text being released, it would be posted and dissected on a few blogs like mine.

Perhaps Ahmadinejad isn't quite as looney as I'd originally made him out to be...

So, without further ado, here is Ahmadinejad's letter, with some creative comment from yours truly.

"In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,

Interesting how he refers to "God", and not "Allah" at this point, although he uses "Allah" later. I expect Ahmadinejad is trying to do a bit of bridge-building, perhaps realizing that many American Christians do not realize that "Allah" is just the Arabic word for God, and that Arabic-speaking Christians call God "Allah" also.

Mr George Bush, President of the United States of America, For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, especially in political forums and amongst university students.

Now, have a look at this sentence. It seems a bit awkward in English, and there are some errors in it: in this context, "sometime" should be two words ("some time"), and there should be a word "about" inserted after "thinking".

There are other grammatical errors later in the letter, and I'm not sure what to make of them. It suggests to me that whoever wrote this letter does not have English as his first language. But, a professional translator probably would not have made such basic mistakes.

Did Ahmadinejad write the letter in English himself?

Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hope that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.
Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God, feel obliged to respect human rights, present liberalism as a civilization model, announce one’s opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, make “War on Terror” his slogan, and finally, work towards the establishment of a unified international community – a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, but at the same time, have countries attacked.

Perhaps the last sentence I'd have expected to see in this letter, from the hardline Muslim ruler of Iran. I'm not surprised to hear Ahmadinejad refer to Jesus (who Muslims revere as a prophet), and I'm not surprised to hear him refer to Jesus as the "great Messenger of God" (Muslims think of Jesus this way too), and expected the "PBUH" ("peace be unto him") annotation after His name (Muslims usually write this after using the name of someone they consider a prophet). I am very surprised, however, to see Ahmadinejad refer to Him as Jesus Christ, as the word Christ has very specific meaning in Christianity that I'd be surprised to to hear Ahmadinejad wanting to express.

Most of my Muslim friends refer to Jesus but leave off the "Christ" part.

The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city, or convoy for example, the entire village, city or convoy (are) set ablaze.

Another grammar error - the word "are" should be inserted before "destroyed".

Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years.

Whoah!! I've heard of adding a "fudge factor" to numbers, but those are ridiculous! Even the anti-war blogs list the Iraqi civilian casualties as under 40,000. And, while 40,000 people killed is big, and is certainly nothing to be happy about, it is not "around one hundred thousand people".

At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women – as occupation troops – put in harms way, taken away from family and loved ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of ailments; while some are killed and their bodies handed to their families.

Let's see... the US has been in Iraq for 3 years now, and "everyday" soldiers commit suicide. So, we should expect at least a thousand soldiers dead from suicide at this point? Yeah, right....

Well, at least he didn't have to fudge the "hundreds of billions of dollars" number.

On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with.
Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way towards another goal; nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the imposed war on Iran Saddam was supported by the West.
Mr. President, You might know that I am a teacher. My students ask me how can these actions be reconciled with the values outlined at the beginning of this letter and duty to the tradition of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the Messenger of peace and forgiveness? There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.
European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too. I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system. For that matter, I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, i.e. the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH), human rights and liberal values.

More references to Jesus Christ.

And here we go in Israel...

Young people, university students, and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them.
Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times.

Perhaps Ahmadinejad needs to study his world history a bit better. Canada, the United States, Mexico, all the rest of the countries in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, etc., etc. - all were "new countries".

Now, I'm not a big fan of how Israel has treated the Palestinians either, but at least let's get our facts straight.

Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist. They show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel.

And if you pull up a globe from 200 years ago, you will not find a country named "Canada" on it either.

I tell them to study the history of WWI and II. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families.
Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained?
Mr. President, I am sure you know how – and at what cost – Israel was established:-Many thousands were killed in the process.
-Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.
-Hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive plantations, towns and villages were destroyed.
This tragedy is not exclusive to the time of establishment; unfortunately it has been ongoing for sixty years now.
A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures, and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison. Such a phenomenon is unique – or at the very least extremely rare – in recent memory.

Well, at least he got this last part right: this is much of the basis of much of my own criticism of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

Another big question asked by the people is “why is this regime being supported?” Is support for this regime in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH) or Moses (PBUH) or liberal values? Or are we to understand that allowing the original inhabitants of these lands – inside and outside Palestine -- whether they are Christian, Moslem or Jew, to determine their fate, runs contrary to principles of democracy, human rights and the teachings of prophets? If not, why is there so much opposition to a referendum? The newly elected Palestinian administration recently took office. All independent observers have confirmed that this government represents the electorate. Unbelievingly, they have put the elected government under pressure and have advised it to recognize the Israeli regime, abandon the struggle and follow the programs of the previous government.
If the current Palestinian government had run on the above platform, would the Palestinian people have voted for it? Again, can such position taken in opposition to the Palestinian government be reconciled with the values outlined earlier? The people are also asking “Why are all UNSC resolutions in condemnation of Israel vetoed?” Mr. President, As you are well aware, I live amongst the people and am in constant contact with them -- many people from around the Middle East manage to contact me as well. They do not have faith in these dubious policies either. There is evidence that the people of the region are becoming increasingly angry with such policies.
It is not my intention to pose too many questions, but I need to refer to other points as well.
Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations? You are familiar with history. Aside from the Middle Ages, in what other point in history has scientific and technical progress been a crime? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilized for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether? If such a supposition is true, then all scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc. must be opposed.

Now, he's hinting around at the whole nuclear issue. Not directly talking about it, just hinting around at it.

Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to.
Mr. President, Don’t Latin Americans have the right to ask why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported? Or, Why must they constantly be threatened and live in fear? The people of Africa are hardworking, creative and talented. They can play an important and valuable role in providing for the needs of humanity and contribute to its material and spiritual progress. Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don’t they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth – including minerals – is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others? Again, do such actions correspond to the teachings of Christ and the tenets of human rights? The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d’etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country’s progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.
Mr. President, September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies.
All governments have a duty to protect the lives, property and good standing of their citizens. Reportedly your government employs extensive security, protection and intelligence systems – and even hunts its opponents abroad. September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services – or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren’t those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial? All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens. For some years now, the people of your country and neighbors of world trouble spots do not have peace of mind. After 9.11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people -- who had been immensely traumatized by the attacks -- some Western media only intensified the climate of fear and insecurity – some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic? American citizens lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their place of work and at home. Who would be happy with this situation? Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity? Some believe that the hype paved the way -- and was the justification --for an attack on Afghanistan. Again I need to refer to the role of media.
In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles. The main pretext for an attack on Iraq was the existence of WMDs. This was repeated incessantly -- for the public to finally believe -- and the ground set for an attack on Iraq.
Will the truth not be lost in a contrived and deceptive climate?

You mean like the sort of climate where Internet usage and blogging are censored like they are in Iran?

Since Mr. Ahmadinejad seems to be so interested in the teachings of Jesus these days, perhaps he may find this one interesting:

"Or how can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself don't see the log in your eye? Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck in your brother's eye." (Luke 6:42)

Again, if the truth is allowed to be lost, how can that be reconciled with the earlier mentioned values? Is the truth known to the Almighty lost as well?
Mr. President, In countries around the world, citizens provide for the expenses of governments so that their governments in turn are able to serve them.
The question here is “what has the hundreds of billions of dollars, spent every year to pay for the Iraqi campaign, produced for the citizens?” As Your Excellency is aware, in some states of your country, people are living in poverty. Many thousands are homeless and unemployment is a huge problem. Of course these problems exist – to a larger or lesser extent -- in other countries as well. With these conditions in mind, can the gargantuan expenses of the campaign – paid from the public treasury – be explained and be consistent with the aforementioned principles? What has been said, are some of the grievances of the people around the world, in our region and in your country. But my main contention – which I am hoping you will agree to some of it – is: Those in power have a specific time in office and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures.
The people will scrutinize our presidencies.
Did we mange to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment? Did we intend to establish justice or just supported especial interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, made a few people rich and powerful -- thus trading the approval of the people and the Almighty with theirs’? Did we defend the rights of the underprivileged or ignore them? Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them? Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the specter of intimidation and threats? Did we tell the truth to our nation and others around the world or presented an inverted version of it? Were we on the side of people or the occupiers and oppressors? Did our administrations set out to promote rational behavior, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity or the force of guns, intimidation, insecurity, disregard for the people, delaying the progress and excellence of other nations, and trample on people’s rights? And finally, they will judge us on whether we remained true to our oath of office – to serve the people, which is our main task, and the traditions of the prophets -- or not? Mr. President, How much longer can the world tolerate this situation? Where will this trend lead the world to? How long must the people of the world pay for the incorrect decisions of some rulers? How much longer will the specter of insecurity – raised from the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction -- hunt the people of the world? How much longer will the blood of the innocent men, women and children be spilled on the streets, and people’s houses destroyed over their heads? Are you pleased with the current condition of the world? Do you think present policies can continue? If billions of dollars spent on security, military campaigns and troop movement were instead spent on investment and assistance for poor countries, promotion of health, combating different diseases, education and improvement of mental and physical fitness, assistance to the victims of natural disasters, creation of employment opportunities and production, development projects and poverty alleviation, establishment of peace, mediation between disputing states, and extinguishing the flames of racial, ethnic and other conflicts, were would the world be today? Would not your government and people be justifiably proud? Would not your administration’s political and economic standing have been stronger? And I am most sorry to say, would there have been an ever increasing global hatred of the American government? Mr. President, it is not my intention to distress anyone.
If Prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph, or Jesus Christ (PBUH) were with us today, how would they have judged such behavior? Will we be given a role to play in the promised world, where justice will become universal and Jesus Christ (PBUH) will be present? Will they even accept us? My basic question is this: Is there no better way to interact with the rest of the world? Today there are hundreds of millions of Christians, hundreds of millions of Muslims and millions of people who follow the teachings of Moses (PBUH). All divine religions share and respect one word and that is “monotheism” or belief in a single God and no other in the world.
The Holy Koran stresses this common word and calls on all followers of divine religions and says: [3.64] Say: O followers of the Book! Come to an equitable proposition between us and you that we shall not serve any but Allah and (that) we shall not associate aught with Him, and (that) some of us shall not take others for lords besides Allah; but if they turn back, then say: Bear witness that we are Muslims. (The Family of Imran)
Mr. President, According to divine verses, we have all been called upon to worship one God and follow the teachings of divine Prophets.
“To worship a God which is above all powers in the world and can do all He pleases.” “The Lord which knows that which is hidden and visible, the past and the future, knows what goes on in the Hearts of His servants and records their deeds.” “The Lord who is the possessor of the heavens and the earth and all universe is His court” “planning for the universe is done by His hands, and gives His servants the glad tidings of mercy and forgiveness of sins” “He is the companion of the oppressed and the enemy of oppressors” “He is the Compassionate, the Merciful” “He is the recourse of the faithful and guides them towards the light from darkness” “He is witness to the actions of His servants” “He calls on servants to be faithful and do good deeds, and asks them to stay on the path of righteousness and remain steadfast” “Calls on servants to heed His prophets and He is a witness to their deeds” “A bad ending belongs only to those who have chosen the life of this world and disobey Him and oppress His servants” and “A good end and eternal paradise belong to those servants who fear His majesty and do not follow their lascivious selves.” We believe a return to the teachings of the divine prophets is the only road leading to salvation. I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (PBUH) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth.
We also believe that Jesus Christ (PBUH) was one of the great prophets of the Almighty. He has been repeatedly praised in the Koran. Jesus (PBUH) has been quoted in Koran as well: [19.36] And surely Allah is my Lord and your Lord, therefore serve Him; this is the right path. Marium Service to and obedience of the Almighty is the credo of all divine messengers.
The God of all people in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the Pacific and the rest of the world is one. He is the Almighty who wants to guide and give dignity to all His servants. He has given greatness to Humans.
We again read in the Holy Book: “The Almighty God sent His prophets with miracles and clear signs to guide the people and show them divine signs and purify them from sins and pollutions. And He sent the Book and the balance so that the people display justice and avoid the rebellious”.
All of the above verses can be seen, one way or the other, in the Good Book as well.
Divine prophets have promised: The day will come when all humans will congregate before the court of the Almighty, so that their deeds are examined. The good will be directed towards Haven and evildoers will meet divine retribution. I trust both of us believe in such a day, but it will not be easy to calculate the actions of rulers, because we must be answerable to our nations and all others whose lives have been directly or indirectly affected by our actions.
All prophets, speak of peace and tranquility for man -- based on monotheism, justice and respect for human dignity.
Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world -- that are the result of disobedience to the Almighty and the teachings of prophets – and improve our performance? Do you not think that belief in these principles promotes and guarantees peace, friendship and justice? Do you not think that the aforementioned written or unwritten principles are universally respected? Will you not accept this invitation? That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets?

Another surprising section for me. I would not have expected this type of argument from the leader of Iran. It is interesting that Ahmadinejad did not mention Mohammed, only Jesus and the chain of Old Testament prophets that are recognized by both Islam and Christianity.

Mr. President, History tells us that repressive and cruel governments do not survive. God has entrusted the fate of men to them. The Almighty has not left the universe and humanity to their own devices.
Many things have happened contrary to the wishes and plans of governments. These tell us that there is a higher power at work and all events are determined by Him.
Can one deny the signs of change in the world today? Is the situation of the world today comparable to that of ten years ago? Changes happen fast and come at a furious pace.
The people of the world are not happy with the status quo and pay little heed to the promises and comments made by a number of influential world leaders. Many people around the world feel insecure and oppose the spreading of insecurity and war and do not approve of and accept dubious policies.
The people are protesting the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots and the rich and poor countries.
The people are disgusted with increasing corruption.
The people of many countries are angry about the attacks on their cultural foundations and the disintegration of families. They are equally dismayed with the fading of care and compassion. The people of the world have no faith in international organizations, because their rights are not advocated by these organizations.
Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems.
We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point -- that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: “Do you not want to join them?” Mr. President, Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.
Vasalam Ala Man Ataba’al hoda Mahmood Ahmadi-Nejad President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

All in all, a surprising letter in a number of aspects. Yes, Ahmadinejad fudged a few numbers, and made a few bogus arguments. But, he did make some decent points, and the overall letter seemed to be constructive in tone, with none of the caustic rhetoric and vitriol that Ahmadinejad has developed a reputation for. It's not any kind of major diplomatic breakthrough, but at least this type of communication is a step in the right direction.

Update (May 10)

You gotta love New York. For anyone who thought bloggers were prickly, you should try some of the New York tabloids. How's this for a headline:

The Mouss that Roared (updated)

2006-05-03T19:24:00.000-04:00

Original Post: April 5

Is Zararias Moussaoui a dangerous terrorist, or just a narcissistic raving lunatic? Or is he both? Ever since Moussaoui was captured in the weeks before 9/11, I have often wondered the answer to that question, especially given his weird behavior in court. Moussaoui's conduct in court has drifted between near-comical disdain, and self-destructive undermining of his own case.

Most recently, Moussaoui decimated his own defense case by admitting in front of the jury that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth plane and fly it into the White House.

Before being muzzled by Judge Leonie Brinkema, Moussaoui's conduct in the early part of the trial was even more bizarre. Acting as his own counsel, he submitted a flood of handwritten filings to the court, lashing out at Brinkema, Ashcroft, and the whole court system. Rather than going into a detailed descripion, I'll let Moussaoui speak for himself.

Perhaps the looniest of the written briefs Moussaoui filed is this one, titled "KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT DUMHAM (sic)," where Moussauoi petitioned the judge to, "shut the mouth of her wannabe superstar," - Moussaoui's own lawyer Frank Dunham.

Another comical one is this, where Moussaoui asks Judge Brinkema to send Attorney General John Ashcroft a "coupon" asking whether Moussaoi is the "20th Hijacker", the "5th plane Pilot Missing in Action", "I Ashcroft don't know", or "let's kill him anyway."

This next one is just totally bizarre, petitioning the court that the "5th PLANE MUST LAND ON MOUSSAOUI RUNAWAY (sic)", and that the "Court of Appall (sic)" should force the "uncompetent" Ashcroft to disclose the 5th plane is "missing in action".

If I didn't know Moussaoui was in jail, I'd think he was drunk or perhaps stoned on marijuana when he wrote this. I can't imagine someone in their right mind writing this, can you?

This next rant starts out with an all-caps diatribe towards "Death Judge Lieoni Brinkema" (note the play on the judge's first name).

This next rant is addressed to the "Court of Appall of 9th Circus". This childish play on words seems like something I'd expect to find written in crayon.

This next filing asks Judge Brinkema to "stop playing games with my life."

Or this "FREEDOM OF INFORMATION" rant aimed at the "Court of Appall of the 4th Circus".

Or this one ranting about "ASHCROFT POLITICAL SENSURE (sic) OF THE TRUTH".

Is Zacarias Moussaoi a dangerous terrorist or a raving lunatic? Senior al-Qaeda detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed have described Moussaoui as too unstable to have been used for the original 9/11 attacks - a "misfit" who refused to follow orders. Certainly there is an abundance of evidence showing Moussaoui's connections to al-Qaeda, but nothing other than his own testimony connecting him to 9/11.

Is it possible that Moussaoui's stunning admission in court was nothing but a self-aggrandizing lie; an attempt to pump up his own ego, to make others think he was the big bad terrorist he never was able to be? Perhaps Moussauoi's own statement to FBI agent James Fitzgerald explains his mindset, that it is "different to die in a battle ... than in a jail on a toilet." Moussaoui evidently preferred a quick death where some might view him as a martyr, over a slow and ignominious rotting away in a jail cell.

Who is Moussaoui? To me, he seems rather like the Inspector Clouseau of terrorism, the bungling and narcissistic idiot who none of the other terrorists trusted to get the job done. Don't get me wrong, a lunatic like Moussaoui would be quite dangerous with a weapon, and I would not want to see him out walking around on the street. But, does Moussauoi deserve the death penalty, or to be committed to an insane asylum?

Update: April 13

Moussoui took the stand today in the penalty phase of his trial, against his own lawyers' advice, and completely trashed his own case. Over the span of three hours, Moussaoui launched into a tirade, testifying that he had "no regret, no remorse" over 9/11, that he is willing to kill Americans "anytime, anywhere", and that his only regret about 9/11 was that there weren't more attacks: "I just wish it could have gone on the 12th, the 13th, the 14th, the 15th, the 16th, the 17th. We can go on and on."

Moussaoui even made the bizarre prediction that he would be released soon, saying he had a dream that George Bush would have him released before his term is up.

What is troubling to me about Moussaoui's tirade is that it seemed too much like a calculated attempt to scare the jury into sentencing him to death. First, he tries to offend everyone on the jury and to make the jury hate him, then he makes the jury fear what he'd do if he got out of jail, then he raises the spectre of him getting out of jail by talking about his dream of Bush releasing him. It troubles me that Moussaoui may be doing a lot of lying, aggrandizing, and exaggerating here, in a calculated attempt to get himself the death panalty. Here are two quotes from Moussaoui that seem to belie his mental state:

"The greatest jihad in Islam is to speak the truth and be executed for it." (one of Moussaoui's filings to the court)

"It is different to die in a battle ... than in a jail on a toilet." (Moussaoui's statement to FBI agent James Fitzgerald)

Is Moussaoui speaking the truth, or is he just seeking "martyrdom" in his own mind? From his behavior, Zacarias Moussaoui wants desperately to be executed - he wants America to kill him.

And, a bigger question: are Moussaoui's delusions about martyrdom and his own narcissistic behavior evidence of a deeper underlying psychiatric illness?

Update (May 3)

The jury has reached a sentence: life in prison. And, in doing so, I think they proved the effectiveness of the US justice system.

Zacarias Moussaoui is definitely someone I am glad to have behind bars, but at the same time, given his apparent insanity, he is not someone I would feel comfortable executing. Moussaoui is a deranged lunatic, with grandiose narcissistic illusions of being a warrior in a cohesive global jihad against the "great Satan", and of being a key player in the 9/11 attacks. But, just because Moussaoui, in his own deranged mind, believes this fallacy to be real does not make it real; and just because his deranged mind believes that he merits the death penalty does not mean that he really does merit this ultimate punishment.

Fortunately, the jury was able to see through Moussaoui's façade and through all the hype and rhetoric surrounding this case, and was able to reach a just sentence.

"A Day without an (illegal) Immigrant"

2006-04-30T10:44:00.000-04:00

"A Day without an Immigrant" - this is the name for a massive protest/boycott/general strike that is scheduled tomorrow (May 1), where organizers are hoping for millions of immigrant workers to stay away from work, in protest against proposed US legislation to crack down on illegal immigration.

As a foreign worker myself, I am decidedly unimpressed by all this, as I'm sure many in my situation are also. As I recently wrote about the proposed legislation, the only people who the US is cracking down on are illegal immigrants - people who broke the law by evading US legal authorities and circumventing US border controls to enter the country without permission. And so, most of the people behind this protest are either illegal immigrants themselves, or their supporters. Let me make this clear: legal immigrants generally don't mind the US getting its border under control, it's only illegals who have something to be concerned with.

Let's pause for a moment and consider just how stupid this whole protest is. If you are doing something illegal, is it really wise to go out in a public protest and draw attention to yourself? Can you imagine a group of drug dealers holding a street protest against a crackdown on drug smuggling? Or, how about a group of pedophiles holding a protest against a crackdown on kiddie porn? Of course not! However, in the case of the illegal immigrants, they seem to sense that the Department of Homeland Security lacks the spine and/or political will to do what common sense suggests here...

Like coming up with a new name for this protest: The Great American Round-Up. You start by sending out the National Guard and Homeland Security officers to the parade sites to round up as many protesters as they can catch. Then, you check each person's legal status in the US, and deport the ones who don't belong. After the rest of the protesters figure out what's going on, most will scatter in panic and *poof*, no more protest. Then, as the next stage in the "Great American Round-Up", you set up an anonymous tip line, for coworkers and employers to report people who did not show up for work on Monday, prompting checks on each person's legal status.

Wishful thinking, unfortunately... I'm sure the protesters are correct that Department of Homeland Security lacks the spine for an operation like this.

Iraq's Mail System

2006-04-27T12:46:00.000-04:00

Neither snow nor rain
Nor heat nor gloom of night
Stays these couriers
From the swift completion
Of their appointed rounds.
Herotodus (484 BC - 430 BC)

And in the case of Iraq: nor terrorists, nor car bombs, nor kidnappings, nor murders, nor carjackings....

One thing that has suprised me, and which many people do not realize, is that despite all of the violence and discord in Iraq, the postal system there is fully functional, and quite reliable. Sitting here in the United States, you can drop a letter in the mail, or take a parcel to the post office, addressed to an ordinary person in Iraq, and a couple of weeks later that person will get it. Now, I'm not talking about sending mail to US soldiers - the military has its own mail delivery system, so you'd expect those to get through. I'm talking about mail to ordinary civilians.

Over the past year, I've sent a few small packages to Iraq, and all got through in about two weeks. Back in March, I mailed a 6 pound box to some friends in Mosul, and they got it just three weeks later, intact and undamaged. It is amazing to think about the challenges that had to be surmounted to get these items to their destinations.

From what I've been able to figure out, mail to Iraq from the United States is first flown to Bahrain by the US Postal Service, where it is flown into Baghdad by DHL (a subsidiary of the German post office Deutsche Post). In Baghdad, the mail destined to US soldiers is separated off from the mail going to Iraqi civilians, and the civilian mail is handed to the Iraqi postal system.

Two weeks ago, the Times of London published an article about the Iraqi postal system and the dedicated employees who work there. Well worth the read.

Blaming the victim: Duke rape case

2006-04-25T00:07:00.000-04:00

Over the past couple of weeks, the news headlines here in the United States have paid a lot of attention to a rape case at Duke University. The story behind this case seems to be straight from a John Grisham novel: a group of white students, all members of the lacrosse team at an Ivy League university, and most from well-to-do backgrounds, hire a couple of local black strippers for a party, and allegedly lure one of them into a bathroom and brutally gang-rape her.

Despite the heavy news coverage of the incident, the news articles have been decidedly vague on what actually happened. Perhaps the best source of information is the Probable Cause section of the search warrant that was used to search one Duke lacrosse player's dorm room. According to the search warrant, the victim and a coworker were both hired as strippers for a private party. Shortly after they started performing, the guys got "excited and aggressive", and one guy picked up a broom handle and told the women, "I'm going to shove this up you." After that, both women ran out and were about to drive off, when one guy came out, apologized, and asked them to stay. After they both went inside, a couple of the guys allegedly pulled the victim into the bathroom, locked the door, and gang-raped her for over half an hour.

Since the case has become public, several blogs and news outlets have jumped on the story, and some have lashed out at the accuser, revealing her full name, and a few embarrassing details from her past, and tried to make her look like a money-grubbing liar trying to milk a few college students out of their tuition money.

It is all too easy to dismiss the victim in this case. After all, she is a stripper, a divorced mother with two children, and someone with multiple prior criminal convictions. One might argue that the victim deserved it because she is working as a stripper. Or, perhaps one might argue that she seduced the boys in an attempt to get money from them, Or that she must be lying because, well, someone with her background who works as a stripper must be immoral and can't be trusted.

But, in all the news coverage about the victim, one point stood out: she is a full time college student herself.

Let's try to put this together a bit: a young woman who perhaps got pregnant a bit too early, got into a bad marriage, and after having two kids, the marriage fell apart. Alone, a single mother with two kids to support, she tries to make the best for herself and her children. And, while stripping may not be a very desirable job, it is one of the few jobs a woman in her position could do that would bring in enough money to pay her college tuition and feed her young family, and for which the working hours do not interfere with her class schedule.

If you dig a bit further, and pull up the victim's criminal record, you will see that all four of her criminal convictions were from a single night, where she had too much to drink and took her client's car out for a drunken joy-ride. The judge evidently didn't think this was a major crime: he only put her on probation and ordered to take a DWI course - one of the most lenient sentences he could have imposed. If you take this in context, this one night of misadventure is not a major impugnment of the victim's character.

Another thing that really disturbs me about this case is the degree of premediation that seems to have existed. Why did a group of white college students specifically select two black strippers for their party? They could have just as easily selected white or latina women. Did they hire these women from the start with the goal of humilating and degrading them?

An even more disturbing thought: why did they find no DNA evidence in the rape kit, even though the victim showed physical trauma and signs of rape? I think back to the guy holding the broom stick and threatening to "shove this up" the victim, and shudder at the possibilities here. It would certainly explain the lack of DNA evidence....

Perhaps the lacrosse players' own words best describe their mindset. The day after the alleged rapes, one of the lacrosse players (Ryan McFayden) allegedly sent this disgusting email, which was later forwarded to the police:

To whom it may concern

tomorrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over to edens 2c. all are welcome.. however there will be no nudity. i plan on killing the bitches as soon as the walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex.. all besides arch and tack please respond

*shudder*.... And the author of this email is supposed to be a student at an Ivy League college? A future leader of the American business world? Lord help us....

As a white man myself who is proudly married to a beautiful black woman, I am completely disgusted with this case. Beyond my disgust, I am disappointed with the kneejerk reaction of some journalists and bloggers, who I think have been far too quick to lay the blame at the feet of the victim. Let's let the court system and the jury do their job - if the students are guilty, lock 'em up, and if not, let them go.

Update (April 25)

Well, it seems the victim isn't the only one with a prior criminal history:

Finnerty and two former lacrosse teammates from Chaminade High School in New York are charged in the assault case. Jeffrey O. Bloxsom, 27, told police that the trio attacked him without provocation after calling him gay, court records say. Bloxsom, a Fairfax, Va., real estate agent, suffered a cut lip and bruised chin.

On March 23, the day 46 Duke lacrosse players were ordered to provide DNA samples in the rape investigation, Finnerty appeared in Superior Court in Washington on the assault charge. He received a deal in which the charge would be dismissed if he performed 25 hours of community service and was not arrested for six months.
Source: The News & Observer

Finnerty's assault charge was dropped as part of a pre-trial intervention program, which allows the perpetrator to avoid the stigma of having a criminal record. The judge ruled today, though, that Finnerty's arrest in this case violated the terms of the pre-trial intervention, and his assault charge is now back on for trial in July.

Another question is whether this recent history of violent criminal activity will cause Finnerty any problems in the Durham rape case. I suspect it may...

Update 2 (April 25)

The News & Observer has published an excellent profile on the victim. An excerpt:

On March 24, when The News & Observer reported that 46 lacrosse players had been ordered to submit DNA, the woman spent the morning inside her parents' home as her two young children explored the yard.
As she stepped off the screened-in porch, a gym bag slung over one shoulder, she was met by a reporter. Upon learning that reports of her allegations had surfaced in the newspaper, she put a hand over her mouth and gasped. Tears welled in her eyes.
She reported the incident, she said, because many men don't believe forcing a woman to have sex is a "big deal." She pulled her 7-year-old son toward her on the sidewalk.
"I'm just trying to get on with my life," she said softly.
Since then, she has not spoken publicly.

Click here to read the rest.

Ottawa Trip

2006-04-22T01:07:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the delay in blogging: I was in Ottawa, Canada for Easter weekend. Here are some pictures I took with my camera there on Sunday.

This picture is of the center block of the Canadian parliament buildings. The area around the parliament buildings is called Parliament Hill, and the center block is the main building where both the House of Commons and Senate chambers are, as well as the offices for the prime minister, and other important leaders.

This is the East Block of the parliament buildings, which is used for offices for members of parliament. There is also a West Block, which looks almost identical.

This picture is the Museum of Civilization, as seen from Parliament Hill. The Museum is just on the other side of the Ottawa River, in Hull, Quebec - a beautiful building.

This building is the National Art Gallery, as seen from Parliament Hill.

Happy Easter!

2006-04-16T12:02:00.001-04:00

Happy Easter to all of my readers, I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable holiday today with your families.

On the lighter side...

2006-04-16T00:15:00.000-04:00

Seeing as today is Easter, I thought I'd toss in something a bit funny, courtesy of some bonehead working at my local grocery store in New York a few weeks ago.

Can anyone spot what's wrong with this picture?

Let's have a closer look. We have "Al Safa Halal - The Name you can Trust" on the outside of the cooler. Let's have a closer look at what's inside the cooler...

Ham. Hmm... what an interesting marketing concept these Al-Safa guys have... halal ham. I wonder what they'll come up with next.... halal bacon, or maybe halal beer, or maybe they can even tap the Jewish market and start selling kosher lard or perhaps kosher cheeseburgers.

Of course, if the folks at al-Safa knew the name of my grocery store, I expect they'd try to add a few more dishes to their menu, perhaps "flame broiled store manager", or possibly "deep fired stockboy."

The GED Fallacy

2006-04-11T23:42:00.000-04:00

This week's edition of Time Magazine ran an interesting article on its cover titled Dropout Nation, in which Time lifts the lid a bit on the dropout rate in the United States. According to the article, many juristictions in the United States have been covering up high dropout rates through creative reporting mechanisms, where a student who drops out of school but answers that he/she plans to take the General Educational Development (GED) tests are not counted in the statistics as dropouts. However, according to the Time article, when you add in those who leave saying they will take the GED, the overall dropout rate across the country is more than 30%.

Given the high education rate in the United States, coupled with the fact that most low-end jobs are either being shipped overseas or being done by low-paid illegal immigrants, dropping out of high school in 2006 in this country is economic suicide: a ticket to a lifetime of backbreaking hard work, low pay, and living paycheck to paycheck - or worse. Why would someone willingly put themselves in this situation?

...unless that person thinks he/she has an easy way out. Something like the GED.

For those unfamiliar with the GED, it is a series of five exams that evaluate a candidate's skills in Reading, Writing, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science. If a candidate passes the exams, he/she is given a diploma that is supposed to be the equivalent of a high school diploma.

Of course, one major problem with the GED is that concept of equality. A GED is not a high school diploma. Some people may treat it as one, but others may not.

As a hiring manager myself, I have screened over a thousand resumes and interviewed over a hundred candidates over the last several years, and I know what to look for. When people write a resume, they tend to embellish on the good stuff and leave out the bad stuff, so as a manager, I try to read between the lines, to look for things that suggest trouble. And for me, seeing a GED on someone's resume or job application is a huge red flag.

Why, you might ask. Here is the logic: a GED is something you get when you fail to finish high school the normal way. Perhaps the candidate was unmotivated and didn't push himself. Or, perhaps he was rebellious, had a poor sense of self-discipline and failed to succeed in school. Or, worse yet, perhaps he was a troublemaker and got expelled from school. In any case, all of these traits that can make a person fail to adapt to the structured environment at high school are just as likely to make a person fail to adapt to the even more structured environment in most companies. For me, if I see a GED on a resume, I am quite likely to toss the resume into my trash can unless I see some other redeeming qualities, and even then, the candidate can expect a grilling in the interview over why he/she did not finish high school the normal way.

Likewise, just as the GED does not adequately set a person up for improving his/her work prospects, it does not set that person up for success in college/university either. According to this report published a few years ago on the topic, 95% of GED recipients who go on to a four-year university program fail to complete it (probably by flunking out), as compared to 25% of those who enter the program with a regular high school diploma.

Given the poor prospects of a GED recipient, does it really make sense that the program continued to be promoted as an equivalent alternate path? Does it really make sense to give teenagers an option: either they can sit in class and do their homework for four years, or they can stop all that, study a bit, go write five tests, and spend their time hanging out with their friends instead? Should that really be a choice?

Personally, I think the GED may have outlived its usefulness. The program was originally created in the 1940s as a way for soldiers returning from World War II who had left before finishing high school to not have to go back to high school in their twenties. However, in today's society, the same situation that created the GED no longer exists, and the fact that we leave it on the table as an option only encourages some frustrated teenagers to look at it as a valid option.

Propaganda Blow-Back

2006-04-10T20:26:00.000-04:00

This morning, the Washington Post ran an article on its front page that left me fuming. In this article, titled "Military Plays up Role of Zarqawi," the Post cites "internal military documents," and "officers familiar with the program," alleging that the United States has launched a propaganda campaign to "play up" the role of Zarqawi in the Iraqi insurgency, in order to turn Iraqis opinions against the insurgents by "playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners."

To quote the Post article:

For the past two years, U.S. military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi's role in the insurgency. The documents explicitly list the "U.S. Home Audience" as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.

The US Home Audience?! Wait, that's a little differnet. Isn't propaganda supposed to be the stuff of George Orwell, that rampant disinformation that repressive countries feed their unsuspecting public? The stuff that caused us to be thankful we grew up in a free country so as not to be subject to it? What the hell is a propaganda campaign doing being devised with the US Home Audience as one of its broader targets?!

The Post describes this propaganda campaign as including, "leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, Internet postings and at least one leak to an American journalist."

Leaflets, hmm.... Those who have been reading Iraqi blogs for a while may remember this leaflet, showing a burning house and reading, "They didn't think that we saw them, but those who work with al-Zarqawi are being watched. If you helped al-Zarqawi or his people, your house will be like this one."

I'm sure whoever dropped this on my friend Najma's roof in Mosul over a year ago did not imagine a copy of it being photographed and put up on a blog where people here in America can read a translation of what's written on it. It is infuriating to think that, if the Post article is correct, this leaflet and others like it may have been geared to overinflate Zarqawi; to play up his role and turn ordinary Iraqis against the insurgency, and in the process, to deceive all of us.

What is more infuriating is to think back to all of the news we have read over the past three years, and to wonder how much it was truth and how much was distortions and outright lies.

It is easy to understand why some American authorities might want to pump up Zarqawi's image - Zarqawi is one of the easiest terrorists to hate. From his allegiance to al-Qaeda (the same organization that crashed the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11), to his brutal beheadings of hostages (including at least one, Nick Berg, who he allegedly beheaded himself), to his group's brutal bombing of a Palestinian wedding in Jordan, Zarqawi has earned himself a reputation as a monster. Many Americans would be quite willing to support a war against a guy like Zarqawi and his organization, but some Americans would likely be less willing to support a war against a group of home-grown insurgents, who do not have the terrorist connections of Zarqawi.

The trouble is, when you start telling lies, you erode people's confidence in everything you say. Like the boy who cried "wolf", if the American authorities start lying to the American public along with the rest of the world community and gets caught, their credibility is shot. People won't believe them anymore about much of anything and will get their information from other sources.

If the Post article is true, the main question left on the table is how endemic this alleged domestic propaganda campaign is. Is it a systemic problem, or the act of a few overzealous psyops people?

Americans love the United States because of its American values and freedoms, and a domestic propaganda campaign goes so far against those American ideals I don't even know where to start. Five years ago, terrorists attacked America, and if people here allow the country to dilute and warp the values that make the country great in reaction to those attacks, the terrorists have scored a major victory. Likewise, America invaded Iraq three years ago in an attempt to bring these same freedoms there, but a propaganda campaign just sullies them. As I have written before, I am a big believer in liberty and free speech, but just as I love free speech, I hate disinformation. Let's get real, and let's be truthful - both to the Iraqi people, and to ourselves.

Welfare and Illegal Immigration

2006-04-02T18:12:00.000-04:00

In the whole debate on illegal immigration here in the United States, one factor has been mentioned time and again: illegal immigrants are often doing dirty, unpleasant, and low-paying jobs that Americans do not want to do. Several areas of the economy, such as slaughterhouses, poultry processing plants, janitorial services, car washes, and certain construction trade depend disproportionately on illegal immigrants to meet their labor needs.

It comes as no surprise to most Americans that the vast majority of illegal immigrants here are from Mexico. I have a number of friends in Mexico, all of whom are well educated and middle class. In fact, many Americans who travel to Mexico are surprised to see the modern freeways and nice cars and learn that many Mexicans live quite well in Mexico. Of course, those Mexicans have no interest in sneaking off across the border and working as a janitor. Typically, the ones we see here are the poor, unskilled, and uneducated ones - the people who could not get a decent job in Mexico.

One major factor that is not discussed much is the welfare system. Here in the United States, we have a generous welfare system. If a person does not have a job (perhaps because he/she does not want one), the government will give that person money, food stamps, subsidized housing, and other benefits. In some cases, someone may earn an equivalent living standard on welfare as he/she would working in one of these dirty unpleasant jobs that are often left to illegals.

By contrast, in Mexico, there are very little in the way of welfare programs. You work, or you and your family go hungry. This is precisely why many poor Mexicans are willing to risk their lives to sneak across the US border to find work, since they are able to find work that pays more than similar work would in Mexico.

As a taxpayer, I don't enjoy the concept of paying people to sit on their butts and do nothing, while businesses are having to resort to hiring illegal workers to do these unpleasant jobs these folks don't want to do. Allowing unskilled immigration is fine, but we should try to make full use out of our own unskilled workforce first before resorting to it.

Jill Carroll Released

2006-03-30T09:11:00.000-05:00

This morning, while I was waking up out of my sleep, I heard on the clock radio the news report that Jill Carroll was released in Baghdad today. I jumped out of bed with a big smile on my face.

I've written about Jill a couple of times over the past couple of months (see my earlier articles here and here). In my last article, I drew an analogy with the appearance of Jill in the latest video along with some of the statements surrounding the video and the varied treatment of farm animals: a farmer may bond with his horse, but does not allow himself to develop sympathy for the other animals he plans to kill for food. Based on her appearance in that video and the statements around it, I predicted that the kidnappers did not plan on killing Carroll. I am very glad to see I was right.

I also suspect Jill might have been freed a few weeks ago if it were not for the bombing of the al-Aksari shrine and the resulting violence. The timing, and the fact that nobody seemed to be close to catching the kidnappers seems to suggest the kidnappers wanted to send a message: "we could have killed Jill Carroll, but we didn't." I also expect they knew the release would be well received on the Iraqi street, and did not want it to be overshadowed by the hubbub surrounding the shrine bombing.

I am happy for Jill and her family. I also feel very happy for my friends Baghdad Treasure and Twenty Four Steps to Liberty right now, who both worked alongside Jill and consider her a good friend.

Cracking Down on Illegal Immigrants

2006-03-26T17:07:00.000-05:00

Back in December, the US House of Representatives passed a bill (House Resolution 4437), cracking down on illegal immigration. This bill is to be introduced in the senate this week. In reaction to this bill, massive protests were held yesterday in a number of cities, including about 500,000 people in Los Angeles. So, I decided to see what all the fuss was about and read through the whole bill (yes, all 250 pages of it).

Personally, I support this legislation. In my review, I found it to be an extremely well thought-out bill that does a number of much needed things.

Perhaps the biggest thing this bill offers is mandating a more effective system for employers to verify employment eligibility of workers. Under the current system, employers are required to make employees fill out an I-9 form and view and obtain copies of supporting documentation proving an employee is eligible to work, but there is no verification mechanism to guard against forgery. This new system will provide this, and will also alert authorities if a single social security number is being repeatedly used (a possible indicator of immimgration fraud).

The bill also provides for increased border security along the US/Mexico border by building double-layer fencing along a sizeable portion of it. Another major component is outsourcing some border security to local governments by empowering local Sheriff's departments in each of the counties along the Mexican border to arrest and detain illegal immigrants, and providing them federal funding to do so. The building of additional detention facilities is mandated by the bill, to provide sufficient jail space to detain illegal immigrants until their cases can be heard and they can be deported.

Some other components of this bill:

Making it a felony to be in the United States illegally.
Increasing penalties for alien smuggling and immigration fraud.
Increasing penalties for violent or drug crimes committed by illegal aliens.
Eliminating the Diversity Immigrant Program ("Green Card Lottery")
Automatically deporting illegal aliens arrested for drunk driving.

My overall sentiment towards this bill is, "it's about time." The United States has tried to have its cake and eat it too for far too long - making legal immigration overly difficult while turning a blind eye to millions of illegal immigrants living and working within the country. If you cannot control your own borders, you cannot stop terrorists, drug smugglers, gang hitmen, and other undesirables from entering as well. Some protesters yesterday complained that this legislation criminalizes millions of people, but this is not true: these individuals became criminals the minute they crossed into the US in violation of US immigration law. This bill merely increases the penalties for this crime.

House Resolution 4437 is an extremely well thought-out piece of legislation. It cracks down on illegal immigration, but also includes a number of checks and balances to prevent its misuse. As a foreigner living in the United States myself, I fully support this legislation and the House's attempt to protect America's borders.

Beyond Words

2006-03-19T01:21:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow (Monday) is the third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, an anniversary nobody seems to be celebrating. Good news from Iraq has become more and more scarce over the past few months, while the constant flow of bad news has gone unabated. Iraqis have very little to be happy about today, and I can't say I blame them.

Over the past two years, I have become friends with a number of Iraqis who I've met through blogging. One, I have already met in person. For a few others, I feel confident I'll get to meet in the not too distant future. If it were not for these friends, it would be somewhat easy for me to tune out the news about Iraq, to put it aside and just go on with my own life. But, it is more difficult to do this when I personally know people affected by it. Like my friend Hassan, who has been stuck in his house for the past three weeks, or Najma, hnk, and Sunshine, who had a mortar round hit their school in Mosul and had an uncle of theirs mistakenly shot by American troops. Perhaps my friends Baghdad Treasure and 24 Steps to Liberty have had it the worst - as professional journalists in a war zone, they have had the unpleasant job of gathering facts and writing articles about all the death and gloom around them. Is it any wonder these folks have been miserable lately?

As for me, I am simply beyond words. Like many people here in the United States, I felt optimistic three years ago about American troops going to liberate Iraq, and felt good that we were doing something positive. Right now, I am just sad about how things have turned out. I know the United States meant well with much of what it did with Iraq, and I know they have stayed the course over the past three years out of a genuine desire to leave Iraq in a better situation than they found it in. But, despite all the lives lost, and three years of hard work, it is quite obvious that there is still a long road ahead, and that Iraq is really no better today than it was three years ago.

Back in December, I wrote that I was still bullish about Iraq's long-term prospects. I still do feel this way, but I think it may take a bit longer to get there due to some of the recent setbacks. On the long term, I think Iraq will be very successful, but I feel bad for the people who are living there in the present, and I am concerned for the wellbeing of my friends.

French protesters don't quite get it

2006-03-18T00:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, 300 people were arrested in France in a series of violent protests over a new French labor law. This law relaxes France's traditional protectionist labor practices a bit by allowing employers to fire workers under 26 years old who have been working for them for less than two years for no reason.

I personally think this labor law is flawed, but for the opposite reason the French workers are protesting. I think the concept of being able to fire workers at will is great, I just think a law like this should apply to all workers, not just those under 26.

Here in the United States most states have a concept called "employment at will". Under employment at will, a worker may quit his job anytime he wants, and the company can fire him anytime they want. You don't need a good reason - you could fire someone because you don't like the color of the shirt he wore to work that day.

This may sound brutal, but it works. Just because you CAN fire someone doesn't mean you WILL, and if you fire people too often, you'll pay for it: the morale of your team will suffer and you'll find your reputation will prevent you from hiring good staff. But, because the employer knows firing is always an option, they do not need to be as cautious about taking a chance on hiring someone who may not quite fit their mold: an effect that benefits younger workers, minorities, and immigrants. Likewise, employees know that if they start to slack off, they run the risk of termination, and as a result push themselves to keep their performance up. Employment at will, and legal concepts like it make it easier for employers to run their businesses efficiently, and thus makes them more competitive.

As I wrote a few months back, France's protectionist labor laws have not served France well, because the only true beneficiaries of these types of laws are lazy workers - good workers don't benefit, because employers wouldn't want to fire them even if they could. But, these labor laws do hurt disadvantaged groups (minorities, lower skilled workers, immigrants, etc.), and hobble the French economy by discouraging investment. The violent riots that took place in France in November were partly caused by the negative effects of these protectionist laws.

Israel and Palestine - a year of change

2006-03-16T21:25:00.000-05:00

It should come as no surprise to an outside observer that the simmering dispute between Israel and the Palestinian people is a main cornerstone of many disagreements between the West and the Arab World. Arabs feel a sense of brotherhood with the Palestinians and hate Israel's treatment of them, and when we realize this disdain can be easily extended to those nations who are friends of Israel we can see the root of much of the angst towards the West in the Arab world, and the true catalyst of terrorism.

This being said, if someone figures out how to fix the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians, and build a lasting peace that is well accepted by both sides, it will cut off a major source of support for terrorism, and will likely lead to a wider détente between the Arab world and the West.

The possibility of fulfilling this dream falls within the hands of the Israeli and Palestinian leadership. Ten years ago, we almost had peace, thanks in large part to the pragmatic late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist shortly before he could cement the deal with the Palestinians. In the years since then, Ariel Sharon came to power (a man reviled by Palestinians for his role in the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon) , and the icing started to melt off Yasser Arafat's Fatah party as the Palestinians started to view them as corrupt and ineffective.

However, since Arafat's death a little over a year ago, the leadership of both Israel and Palestine have been greatly shaken up, and the results seem promising.

Palestinian Elections

The recent Palestinian parliamentary elections were a real shakeup, with Hamas winning a majority government. As I wrote previously, I am not convinced that Hamas winning this election is a bad thing - in fact, I tend to think it may be a good thing.

The Palestinian elections bore a striking relationship to our recent election in Canada. Like the Canadian Liberal party, the ruling Fatah party had gotten way too comfortable, and had allowed corruption, ineptitude, and apathy to corrode its ranks. The Palestinians voted in large numbers for the party they viewed as the most likely to put together a competent government, the least likely to fall prey to the temptation of corruption. Many of these voters were not voting FOR anyone, they were voting against corruption, against ineptitude, against apathy, and against Fatah, and so they cast their ballots for the party they viewed as most likely to beat Fatah: Hamas.

Unfortunately, Hamas also had a militant wing attached to it, has a policy calling for the destruction of Israel through armed conflict, and is viewed as a terrorist organization by much of the rest of the world.

However, as I had predicted a few weeks ago, power has a tendency to moderate one's views. It is easy for Hamas to wage violence and to complain about how someone else is running government, but when they're handed the reins of power themselves, a greater sense of reason is needed. For Hamas, their first swimming lesson was being thrown headfirst into the deep end, as Israel and some Western governments threatened to withhold the aid funding the Palestinian government is dependent on for its functioning.

Already, Hamas leaders have tempered some of their rhetoric and have hinted they would negotiate with and possibly recognize Israel under certain circumstances. In addition, since Hamas has more street credibility with Palestinian militants than the former government, it seems they would be more able to rein in militants in order to meet their end of any agreement they might accede to.

Changes in the Israeli Political Landscape

For most of his tenure as Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon has had to deal with a dichotomy of interests within his own Likud party. On one side, there were the hard-core Zionists, and on the other side the more moderate voices. Israel's recent Gaza pullout was strongly opposed by the hard-core Likud members, and resulted in Ariel Sharon leaving Likud and forming a new party called Kadima. Sharon was successful in bringing over a number of other moderate and popular Israeli politicians from both Labor and Likud.

Of course, just weeks after forming Kadima, Sharon himself was felled by a stroke, leaving behind him a huge power vacuum. And so, the party that was Sharon's brainchild will be going into its maiden election on March 28 without Sharon.

Israel's Election

Israel is having an election on March 28. Who Israel elects will have a huge impact on the prospects for peace in the region. Ariel Sharon, while popular in Israel, was reviled by Palestinians as the "Butcher" and was viewed by them as an obstacle to peace. For the prospects for peace to be revived, the Israelis will need to choose a leader who is strong and able to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians; to compromise without selling out Israel's interests.

Of course, for such a negotiation to be possible, it will also be necessary for Hamas to abandon its annihilistic policy towards Israel, and allow themselves to negotiate with an atmosphere of mutual respect. Good faith negotiation is a two-way street, you give things, and take other things, and if you do it right, both parties can come out satisfied.

I will be watching the Israeli elections very closely, as the ripples emanating from it will be felt around the world.

No, I'm not dead!

2006-03-15T20:01:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delays in posting, folks. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, between work and having relatives come down from Canada to visit me here in New York. I'm working on a couple of new posts which should be up in the next day or two.

Guantanamo Bay: Interesting Reading

2006-03-08T20:33:00.000-05:00

On Friday, the US government released a real treasure trove of Guantanamo Bay related documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The material had all been released earlier but in a "redacted" format (with some text blacked out). This time, it was released with names and all. The documents are divided into three sections:

Testimony of Detainees before the Combat Status Review Tribunal
Testimony of Detainees before the Administrative Review Board
Administrative Review Board Summaries of Detention/Release Factors

The last one of these contains a summary of the case against each detainee, while the other two contain their raw testimony before the tribunal and/or ARB.

This set of documentation provides a real snapshot of the types of people the US is holding in Guantanamo Bay, and the reasons for their continued detention. It also exposes the real quandary the US government faces in determining what to do with these men. From the released documents, many of these men were not al-Qaeda terrorists, they were simple Taliban foot soldiers, whose only "crime" was to pick up a weapon and use it in combat against US forces. The problem is, many of these men expressed a hatred for the United States and all it stand for, and if released would likely pick up a gun and go find a place to continue their fight where they left off. So, what do we do with them?

The fact that many of these people were captured enemy combatants makes them valid prisoners of war, but does it make them criminals? And, if it doesn't, what is the US going to do with these people when the military operations in Afghanistan come to an end? I expect these questions will be a thorn in the side of the Bush administration for the next couple of years...

Anti-Semitic Cartoons

2006-03-06T00:00:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, shortly after the Mohammed cartoon controvesy broke out, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri launched its own cartoon contest, looking for the 12 "best" anti-Semitic cartoons about the holocaust.

The Iranian newspaper probably did not expect a response like this: an Israeli Jewish blog holding its own anti-Semitic cartoon contest, except this one only open to Jewish cartoonists. To quote one of the authors, “we’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published! No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”

Jews, at least here in the United States, are the masters of self-deprecating humor. Feel like a good laugh? Find a Jewish guy and ask him/her to tell you a joke about Jews or Jewish life and you'll be laughing your head off for an hour. A huge percentage of the stand-up comics here in the United States are Jewish: guys like Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope, George Burns, and even the Marx Brothers have done a good job of making people laugh by poking fun at themselves and their own culture for many years.

So, should it really surprise anyone that some Jewish bloggers decided to start their own anti-Semitic cartoon contest to outdo the Iranians?

Of course, this Jewish anti-Semitic cartoon contest is a bit of old news: Sandmonkey and a a few others wrote about it three weeks ago before they published much. Now, though, it's March 5, I still haven't seen the twelve Iranian holocaust cartoons, but the Israeli blog has published 24 of them (exactly double the number Hamshahiri promised to publish).

Hats off to these guys - it takes a real sense of self-confidence to laugh at yourself, and even more self-confidence to make jokes about yourself and encourage others to laugh.

Spinning the Truth: Force-Feeding of Detainees in Guantanamo Bay

2006-03-03T20:52:00.000-05:00

Over the past few days, there has been some controvery over the force-feeding of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Starting in August 2005, a group of detainees started a hunger strike to protest their confinement there - according to the New York Times, by the end of December there were 84 detainees involved. In reaction to the hunger strike, the US military has started force-feeding detainees, which has resulted in a drop from 84 hunger strikers at the end of December to just four now.

Several groups have protested the force-feeding of detainees. Some, including Amnesty International have even referred to it as "torture". A few days ago, Indymedia published some pictures of a protest in London by a group of doctors, who decided to demonstrate the technique of force-feeding an unwilling detainee by force-feeding one of the protesters in front of the US embassy. The technique they demonstrate is particularly brutal, showing the detainee being pinned down onto the hard asphalt while a tube is shoved up his nose.

Now, as I've written before, I'm no fan of the Guantanamo Bay facility, but let's get real here. Being force-fed may be unpleasant, but it is not torture.

The technique used for force-feeding prisoners is not unlike that used to feed comatose patients in hospital. A tube is inserted into the nose, and it goes through the sinuses, back around into the throat, and down into the stomach. Liquid food (with a similar consistency to a milkshake) is injected with a large syringe through the tube and into the stomach.

And, while hospital patients with feeding tubes are usually unconscious, there are times where a similar technique is used while the patient is conscious. A few years ago, I had a test called esophageal manometry done on me, where a tube, thicker than that used for force-feeding, was inserted through my nostril, into my nose, and down into my stomach. I remember gagging on the tube as it was inserted, and how the test was extremely unpleasant and something I would not want to repeat. But, it was not painful, and I certainly would not consider it torture.

In fact, the only real difference between the test I underwent and force-feeding in Guantanamo Bay is that I was a willing recipient. To assist with this process (and prevent the type of brutal situation the protesters above illustrate) the US military have reportedly employed special "Emergency Restraint Chairs" (shown below) for force-feeding. These chairs are made by a company called E.R.T., Inc., who describe the chair as "like a padded cell on wheels", designed to restrain a combative or self-destructive prisoner without injuring him/her and without impairing normal breathing.

While these chairs may be uncomfortable, the fact is, they are better than trying to hold down a prisoner by force (as in the protest photos above), and they are less likely to allow the prisoner to be injured in the process.

Keep in mind, a hunger strike is a very slow form of suicide. The prisoner gradually wastes away and eventually gets sick, and if the self-imposed starvation is allowed to continue, will eventually develop complications and die a slow and painful death. If administering food (by force if necessary) will prevent this horrible death from starvation, is this not a more humane action than allowing the prisoner to starve himself?

Let's not spin the truth here: force feeding may be unpleasant, but it is certainly not torture. In fact, one could easily argue that starving oneself to death is a form of torture, and that force-feeding is actually stopping this self-inflicted torture on the part of the prisoners.

Don't get me wrong - I do not like Guantanamo Bay. But, if you're going to hold prisoners there, do it right, and if some of the prisoners are trying to commit suicide through starvation, it is a fundamental and moral duty of those guarding them to intervene and prevent them from doing so. And, if that means force-feeding them, than so be it.

The Silent Majority

2006-02-24T21:44:00.000-05:00

Let's take a break from serious topics for a bit and talk about something a little more fun...

One thing I have noticed is that over the past few months, this blog has gotten more visitors, and my visitors have been getting more diverse. A few months ago, almost all my visitors were from the US and Canada, while these days, I have regular readers in the United States, Canada, Britain, Iraq, Finland, Israel, Palestine, France, Russia, Iceland, Australia, Libya, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, and even Iran.

The picture at left shows a typical snapshot of one page of 20 visitors from yesterday. For me, it is interesting to see all the different colored flags of people from all over the world and know they've all come by to read what I've written.

Of course, most visitors here (like any blog) never leave comments, and so I only know them by IP address. I don't know anything else about them. So, if you're part of the "silent majority" here, the ones who come and read, but don't comment, this post is for you. Please click on the "comments" button and tell me a bit about yourself. Where are you from, and what do you like (or hate) about my blog?

I'm curious to see what kind of responses I get on this post...

Update

Add Taiwan into the list of countries I mentioned above. "Trebuchet" - thanks for the link!

Al-Aksari Shrine Destroyed in Samarra

2006-02-22T23:35:00.000-05:00

Question: What's the difference between an insurgent and a terrorist?

Answer: This...

Early this morning, a group of terrorists blew up the al-Aksari shrine in Samarra, Iraq, one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam. Now today, many people are wondering if this event will trigger a civil war in Iraq between Shia and Sunni. Shia Iraqis reacted angrily today, torching 29 Sunni mosques in Baghdad and murdering three Sunni imams. In Basra, Shia militias broke into a prison and took away ten Sunni militant prisoners whose dead bodies were later found tortured and riddled with bullets.

I had conversations today with three Iraqi friends of mine, all Sunnis, who spoke with a sense of nostalgia when they described the al-Aksari shrine. Driving from Mosul to Baghdad, they used to enjoy looking at it. The beautiful golden dome was visible from the road and served as a landmark that the car was almost in Baghdad. To the people of Samarra (a predominantly Sunni city), the golden dome probably had more nostalgic value, even for people who are not Shia. One does not have to be a Shia, or even a Muslim to appreciate the beauty of this building.

Which leads one to question whether any Iraqi in his right mind would blow up such a beautiful and historic building. This seems to suggest the attackers may be foreign terrorists who care little about Iraq's history and care more about the pursuit of their own goals.

The al-Aksari shrine bombing bears the hallmark of an al-Qaeda attack. In particular, the strategy behind the attack seems to be taken straight from the letter Zarqawi wrote to senior al-Qaeda leadership in 2004, and which was intercepted and published by the US. In that letter, Zarqawi describes Iraq's Shia majority as "the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom." He outlined the following strategy on how to deal with Shia:

These in our opinion are the key to change. I mean that targeting and hitting them in [their] religious, political, and military depth will provoke them to show the Sunnis their rabies . and bare the teeth of the hidden rancor working in their breasts. If we succeed in dragging them into the arena of sectarian war, it will become possible to awaken the inattentive Sunnis as they feel imminent danger and annihilating death at the hands of these Sabeans.

In other words, Zarwaqi was suggesting the best way to solve the Shia problem was to provoke them into fighting back, to try to setup a larger sectarian conflict between Iraq's Sunni and Shia, so that the Sunni (who Zarqawi seems to figure as better fighters) would destroy the Shia.

This letter was written in 2004. Now, in 2006, Zarqawi, or someone following Zarqawi's game plan seems to have struck a decisive blow in the pursuit of its diabolical goal. Whoever blew up the al-Aksari shrine was trying to provoke a civil war between Sunni and Shia in Iraq.

The long-term result of today's destruction will really depend on how Sunni and Shia religious leaders in Iraq handle the situation. This attack will either provoke a major round of violence between Sunni and Shia, or may actually have the opposite effect, unifying the Iraq Sunni and Shia against the foreign terrorists who likely perpetrated this act.

Fixing America's Oil Dependency

2006-02-19T19:48:00.000-05:00

The United States economy is like a drug addict, whose body has become so dependent on the substance it craves that it will do almost anything to get it. The drug of choice for the American economy is not cocaine or marijuana, however, it is oil.

While the United States does produce some oil domestically, it imports far more, and a key problem is the countries from which the US imports oil. Much of the world's most readily available oil sits in countries whose policies are not well aligned with those of the US: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, etc. America's dependence on foreign oil is indirectly funding Iran's nuclear program, just like it indirectly funded the 9/11 terrorist attacks on its own soil.

The need for oil has sometimes caused the US to take short-sighted actions, propping up undemocratic regimes in order to protect its oil supply-chain. How different would world politics be if there was no oil in the Middle East?

Successive US presidents have articulated the need to wean America from its dependency on foreign oil, but none have articulated an effective way to do it. Perhaps simple economics is the key...

What many Americans do not realize is there are commercially viable alternative fuel sources today. One of these is synthetic gasoline, which can be made from coal using a method called the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process. The F-T process was originally developed in Germany in the runup to World War II to produce a ready supply of gasoline in the coal-rich but oil-poor nation, and was used to provide fuel for the German and Japanese military forces. In later years, companies in South Africa, most notably a company named Sasol, continued work on the F-T process and built a number of coal-to-oil plants. Other companies, including Mobil, Shell, and Exxon have also conducted research into F-T chemistry and have built some limited-scale synthesis plants.

Another alternate fuel source sits north of the border, in the Canadian province of Alberta. Yes, Canadian oil is "foreign oil", but Canada's policies are much more closely aligned with the United States than Saudi Arabia or Iran. It is estimated that the tar-sands of Alberta hold over a trillion barrels of oil, more than the combined reserves in all of the Middle East. However, while the oil in the Middle East flows readily from the ground, tar sands must be dug up, taken to a processing plant, and the oil extracted. In addition, the tar-sands oil is "heavy oil", which requires more refining to achieve gasoline and other useful products.

The key problem with both of these technologies is the cost. Until a couple of years ago, oil was hovering at about $20 a barrel, rendering synthetic fuel and tar-sands oil unprofitable However, with oil hovering over $50 a barrel, these types fo technologies can become more commercially feasible.

If the US government wants to accelerate the process of weaning the US economy off foreign oil, the key would be to shift the financial balance, making foreign oil uncompetitive, while making fuel from alternate sources more so. One way to do this is through import duties. By slapping duties on oil imports, and using these duties to subsidize fuel from alternate sources, the US can make itself more self-reliant for its energy needs.

Of course, these import duties would probably not be popular, as they would undoubtedly result in a price-spike at the gas pumps, and so it would take a brave politician to attempt to implement them.

Cartoon Violence: is the sky really falling?

2006-02-18T17:17:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about the spiteful Mohammed caricatures that were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and the resulting backlash. As I explained, the cartoons were a deliberate insult by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper against Islam and Muslims in general, and I can easily understand their outrage at them.

However, this does not explain or excuse some of the nonsensical violence that has taken place over the past few days. While the bulk of the protests around the world have been peaceful, some hooligans and warmongers have channeled the anger resulting from the cartoons into a backlash against local Christian communities (none of whom had anything to do with the cartoons), or against other interests.

In Lebanon, a week ago, the violent protest that resulted in the torching of the Danish embassy in Beirut also resulted in a rampage of destruction through a predominantly Christian neighborhood surrounding the Danish embassy. Fortunately, in that confrontation, nobody was killed, however many innocent people had their homes and property damaged or destroyed.

In Libya yesterday, ten protesters were killed in a violent protest at an Italian consulate in Libya. They were protesting the actions of Italian cabinet minster Roberto Calderoli, who had worn a T-shirt displaying the offensive drawings under his suit to a television interview, and unbuttoned his shirt the interview to reveal it.

And today, in northern Nigeria, according to news reports, an anti-Christian riot resulted in at least 16 people being killed (most of whom were Christians beaten to death in the street), and 10 churches burned, along with at least 20 businesses and 10 automobiles.

What is truly sad about all three of these incidents is that the targets of the violence had nothing to do with the cartoons at all. In the case of the Italians, even before the violent protest, the Italian prime minister had called for Calderoli's resignation. And, in Nigeria and Lebanon, the local Christian community had absolutely nothing to do with the Danish cartoons, and in fact many of them found the cartoons completely distasteful.

To understand the real cause behind some of this violence it is necessary to look beneath the surface, at the seething anger that existed in each of these locations long before the offending cartoons had even been drawn. Like a pot of water, the cartoons may have caused it to boil over, but if the water was not already at the boiling point before the cartoons came along, nothing much would have happened. In the case of Libya, it was a colony of Italy for dozens of years preceding World War II. In one of her earlier posts, Highlander, a Libyan blogger, holds little back when describing the Italian colonial period:

The Italian aggression and terrorism against Libya was extremely brutal. Thousands of innocent men, women and children were killed. Their homes were burnt down, their crops destroyed, their wells filled with cement, and copies of their Koran stepped upon. Many women were raped. Thousands of other Libyans were detained in concentration camps in the hot desert. Their properties were confiscated. Others perished under the most repressive conditions. Furthermore, the Italians, had laid about 170,000 landmines all over the country. These landmines have killed and are continuing to kill and maim many Libyans.

How much of the anger vented at the Italian consulate in Libya was about the cartoons, and how much of it was pent-up anger at Italy's colonial legacy in Libya?

The violence against Christians in Lebanon and northern Nigeria is disturbing, but it is also worth noting that both of these countries have had a painful history of violence between Christians and Muslims. In the case of Lebanon, the country was decimated by a 15 year civil war between these groups, which ended only in 1990. And, in the case of northern Nigeria, tit-for-tat violence between Muslim and Christian militia groups, like this, this, and this, has been simmering in this area for over two hundred years. The violence in Nigeria goes beyond inter-relgious rivalry, and includes both tribal and political dimensions. How much of the anger that was directed at Christians in Lebanon and Nigeria was caused by these cartoons, and how much of it was pent-up anger from prior causes?

I expect many bloggers today will latch onto these Nigerian riots and, like Chicken Little, will tell us all that the sky is falling; that the riots in Nigeria are a case in point that we are faced with an imminent clash of cultures between Islam and Christianity. I do not subscribe to this theory, and if you take these three episodes of violence in the local context, you will easily realize they were just the latest chapter in a long history of conflict in each of those areas.

Mohammed Cartoons: the children's book

2006-02-13T17:57:00.000-05:00

The whole cartoon controversy that I wrote about a few days ago was sparked after Danish author Kaare Bluitgen had difficulty finding an illustrator for his book, "The Koran and the Life of the Prophet Muhammad". This book, which has reportedly been "flying off the shelves", was written "to explain Islam to Danish children."

Bluitgen's book was published a month or so ago, and here is a link to the illustrations of Mohammed out of it. The illustrations include a couple of battle pictures, including one showing a warrior being impaled by a spear through the neck, and another picture showing Jews being beheaded with swords and impaled with spears.

Isn't this is supposed to be a children's book? Do little children really enjoy books showing beheadings and impalings in gruesome detail? Or, was this book written more for adult consumption and to kick up a fuss?

Update: February 14

Some people in the comments section don't seem to understand my point here. My point is not what is historically correct or not. My point is what is appropriate to be included in a children's book.

If I were writing a children's book about Christianity, there are a few paragraphs I would definitely not select to illustrate in graphic detail:

Joshua 6(20)
20 So the people shouted, and the trumpets sounded. When they heard the blast of the trumpet, the people gave a great shout, and the wall collapsed. (E) The people advanced into the city, each man straight ahead, and they captured the city. 21 They completely destroyed (F) everything in the city with the sword—every man and woman, both young and old, and every ox, sheep, and donkey.

Matthew 2(16-18)
16 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the male children in and around Bethlehem who were two years [g] old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men. (L)
17 Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:
18 A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping, [h] and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be consoled, because they were no more. (M) (N)

Numbers 25(6)
6 An Israelite man came bringing a Midianite woman to his relatives in the sight of Moses and the whole Israelite community while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw [this], he got up from the assembly, took a spear in his hand, 8 followed the Israelite man into the tent, [c] and drove it through both the Israelite man and the woman—through her belly.

Judges 19 (23-25)
20 "Peace to you," said the old man. "I'll take care of everything you need. Only don't spend the night in the square." 21 So he brought him to his house and fed the donkeys. Then they washed their feet and ate and drank. (I) 22 While they were enjoying themselves, all of a sudden, perverted men of the city (J) surrounded the house and beat on the door. They said to the old man who was the owner of the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him!"
23 The owner of the house went out and said to them, "No, don't do [this] evil, my brothers. After all, this man has come into my house. Don't do this horrible thing. (K) 24 Here, let me bring out my virgin daughter (L) and the man's concubine now. Use them (M) and do whatever you want [h] to them. But don't do this horrible thing to this man."
25 But the men would not listen to him, so the man seized his concubine and took her outside to them. They raped [i] her and abused her all night until morning. At daybreak they let her go. 26 Early that morning, the woman made her way back, and as it was getting light, she collapsed at the doorway of the man's house where her master was.

Are these valid Bible quotes? You bet! Would these be ones I'd want to illustrate in graphic detail for a children's book about the Bible? Definitely not!

Just because something is historically correct doesn't make it suitable for children. After all, the purpose is to provide information to children about a topic, not make them have nightmares for a week about it. Some of the illustrations in this "children's book" seemed far too graphic to me for a normal children's book.

Blizzard of 2006

2006-02-12T20:44:00.000-05:00

Today was a nice day to stay indoors. Consider these two pictures, taken at 3:00 PM yesterday afternoon here at my home just outside New York City....

And contrast against these two pictures taken today at about 12 noon today. It's hard to believe it was less than 24 hours between the time these pictures were taken.

Of course, the biggest problem here in the New York City area is that people here have NO IDEA how to drive correctly in snow. You see them slipping and sliding and slamming into each other when weather like this comes around. If you go to areas like Buffalo, New York or parts of Canada, where they get snow all the time, people get used to it, but here, you see a lot of accidents in weather like this as people fail to adapt their driving habits to the road conditions and lose control of their cars.

Jill Carroll Video: reading between the lines

2006-02-11T15:17:00.000-05:00

On a number of occasions I have been on farms, and it is interesting to observe the difference between the way the farmers treat horses versus the way they treat chickens, cows, etc. A horse is typically a pet - an animal that is kept at the farm for companionship and enjoyment. The farmer may ride the horse, but will spend hours cleaning the horse's stable, grooming the horse, petting the horse, giving the horse treats, and will give the horse a name. A cow or a chicken, on the other hand, may live on the same farm as the horse, and the cow may even graze in the same pasture, but it will not be groomed, petted, or given treats, and will not even be given a name.

There is one main reason for this: the horses are being raised as pets, the cows and chickens are being raised as food. And, when the farmer sends the chickens and cows off to slaughter, he doesn't want to feel bad about it. So the farmer never allows himself to get too close to the cows or chickens, or to develop any sort of emotional attachment to them.

There are some interesting parallels between life on the farm and the Jill Carroll video that came out on Thursday. The video of Jill was delivered to Al Rai, a Kuwaiti TV station, along with a letter. CNN reported yesterday that Jassim Boodai, the chairman of Al Rai, had obtained "fresh" information about Jill from the same source who had provided the tape. Boodai reported that Jill Carroll was being held in a "safe house" in central Baghdad, owned by one of the kidnappers, where she was living with several other women, and "sharing the house chores."

There are a few interesting things to note here:

The "safe house", owned by one of the kidnappers, is presumably his own house, and the "several other women" are presumably female members of the kidnapper's own family: his wife, daughters, sister, mother, etc. Jill Carroll is not just locked up in a room somewhere, she is "sharing the chores" with the other women in the house, and in that context, Jill's fluent Arabic would mean there would be no barrier to her mingling and interacting with those women, and perhaps even being friendly with them. To those women, Jill is no longer a nameless American, she is Jill Carroll - a woman who has been living with them and sharing meals with them for over a month.

In fact, Jill's attire in the latest video suggests that she may have befriended at least one of the women she is staying with.

When Jill was kidnapped, she was wearing an all-black abaya (see the top picture above). In the latest video, Jill is shown wearing a pretty green and black patterned one-piece hijab (headscarf), seen at left, which she is wearing folded in just the right way over her head. A hijab is a very personal article of clothing, much like a blouse or skirt. It can be plain and ordinary, or can be colorful, and a fashion-conscious Muslim woman may spend hours shopping for one, and color-coordinating the hijab with her other clothes.

This particular hijab looks like one that someone took some time shopping for and selecting. Either this hijab was loaned to her by one of the women she is staying with, or it may even be a gift that one of them bought for her.

The fact the hijab is a one-piece hijab and worn correctly is also evidence she may have befriended one of the women she is staying with. Jackie Spinner, the Washington Post reporter who recently returned from Iraq and who knew Jill recently commented, "Jill and I both wore headscarves, two-piece things that you don't really have to hook--it's difficult to get your scarf to look exactly how an Iraqi woman wears her scarf if you haven't done it since you were an adolescent. So you can cheat and use these two-piece things that you just flip over your head." The hijab Jill is wearing in the video is the one-piece type, which she may have needed some help getting right

It is also important to note that Jill looked well rested, well fed, and in good health, all signs that she has been well looked after by the people she is staying with.

While it is impossible to be certain, all of these things seem to suggest the kidnappers may not be planning to kill Jill. If they were, they would be keeping her locked up somewhere by herself, and would certainly not be exposing her to one kidnapper's family members and allowing the family members to develop an emotional attachment to her. Now that the kidnappers have housed Jill this way for a month, it would be much more difficult for them to kill her.

Try to imagine that kidnapper, making a decision that it's time to kill Jill and, being bombarded with cries of "Daddy, PLEASE don't kill her!" from his daughters and seeing his wife and mother reduced to tears. It would take a truly hard-hearted man to be able to follow through on his plan after all that.

Of course, the big unanswered question is what was in the letter that accompanied the video. The fact that Al Rai declined to report the content of the letter and handed it over to the US military suggests it was something quite sensitive. Al Rai reported that it imposed a new "final deadline" of February 26 for their demands to be met, but did not say anything else. I suspect the letter had an instruction that its contents were not to be published, and listed what the kidnappers real demands were (possibly something quite different from what they said publicly about freeing women prisoners).

I'm sure the next few weeks will be an anxious wait for Jill's relatives and friends, but I would look at this last video as a positive development.

Freedom of Speech and the Mohammed Cartoon Backlash

2006-02-07T22:49:00.000-05:00

Scroll down for updates.

Original Post: February 4, 2006

Over the past week or so, many parts of the Middle East have erupted in outrage at a series of twelve caricatures of the prophet Mohammed that were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten back in September. This dispute has been simmering under the surface for some months, but really came to a head last week, with large protests, Danish companies boycotted, and Danish flags burned in the street.

When I first heard about the controversy, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, and even today I remain somewhat ambivalent. On one side, several of the cartoons that Jyllands-Posten published strike me as racist and deliberately insulting, and as such, I cannot blame Muslims for being offended by them. However, on the other side, I think some parts of the Middle East have taken the backlash against Jyllands-Posten and against Denmark too far.

Before I get started, I should point out I'm a strong advocate of freedom of speech. However, it is important to realize that freedom of speech is a two-way street. Freedom of speech protects one's right to express an opinion, it does not protect one against the backlash that may result from doing so. For example, being here in New York, freedom of speech allows me to wear a Boston Red Sox jersey to Yankee Stadium, but I would probably find myself the brunt of jokes, insults, and abuse. And that's just a baseball game...

In the case of Jyllands-Posten, they decided to test the limits of freedom of speech by seeing how much they could get away with, rather like one might test the patience of one's neighbor by throwing a rock through his window or calling his mother a whore. They knew that drawing images of prophets in Islam is offensive, and they did it anyway as a deliberate insult. And if you think this wasn't deliberate, the caricatures were laid out in a full-page spread, surrounding this explanation:

The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule. It is certainly not always equally attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is less important in this context. [...] we are on our way to a slippery slope where no-one can tell how the self-censorship will end. That is why Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has invited members of the Danish editorial cartoonists union to draw Muhammad as they see him.

According to this background article, Jyllands-Posten invited forty artists to submit drawings of Muhammad, and only twelve responded. Of the twelve carricatures, three of them drew Muhammad in a very respectful light:

The face of Muhammad as a part of the Islamic star and crescent symbol. His right eye the star, the crescent surrounds his beard and face.
Muhammad standing peacefully with a halo in the shape of a crescent moon.
Muhammad as a peaceful wanderer, leading a donkey through the desert at sunset.

If Jyllands-Posten had stopped at these three cartoons, or had published another nine like them to make twelve, there would have been minimal or no controversy. Yes, Muslims consider drawing caricatures of Muhammad to be haram, but it is at least if they were all in good taste, things would not be that bad. But, Jyllands-Posten didn't stop there...

The next five cartoons were blatantly racist and stereotypical, and each seemed to be a very deliberate and calculated insult:

Muhammad's head wearing a turban fashioned as a bomb, with a lit fuse and the Islamic shahada (creed) written in Arabic on the front of the bomb. This is the one cartoon that offended many Muslims, since it symbolizes that the entire net product of their religion is evil and murder.
An abstract drawing of crescent moons and Stars of David, and a poem on oppression of women "Prophet! daft and dumb, keeping woman under thumb"
Two angry Muslim warriors rush in with a sabre and a bomb, while Muhammad tells them, "Relax guys, it's just a drawing made by some infidel South Jutlander" (Dutch slang for someone from the "middle of nowhere")
A crazed-looking Muhammad holding a dagger and with a black bar censoring his eyes. He is flanked by two panic-stricken women wearing niqaabs (veils covering all but their eyes).
Muhammad standing on a cloud, greeting dead suicide bombers with "Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins!"

And then, as if to say to the world, "yes, we know we are stirring up a maelstrom here," the next four cartoons seem to poke fun of the predicament Jyllands-Posten were setting up for themselves:

An olive-skinned boy in front of a blackboard, pointing to the Farsi writing, which translate into "the editorial team of Jyllands-Posten is a bunch of reactionary provocateurs". The boy is labelled "Mohammed, Valby school, 7.A".
A nervous artist, shakingly drawing Muhammad while looking over his shoulder.
The journalist Kåre Bluitgen, wearing a turban with an orange dropping into it, with the inscription "Publicity stunt". In his hand is a stick drawing of Muhammad. An "orange in the turban" is a Danish proverb meaning "a stroke of luck."
A police line-up of seven people, with the witness saying: "Hm... I can't really recognise him". The guy on the right in the lineup is journalist Kåre Bluitgen, carrying a sign saying: "Kåre's public relations, call and get an offer".

In short, the entire exercise of Jyllands-Posten publishing these cartoons was a calculated and deliberate insult, which is one reason so many educated Muslims were offended by them. As Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, even a dog can tell the difference between being stumbled over and being deliberately kicked.

At the same time, I think many of the protests in the Middle East have gone too far. Protesting is okay, burning flags is okay, boycotting products is okay. In fact, all of those things fall within the same protection of "free speech" that protected Jyllands-Posten's right to publish the drawings in the first place. But, issuing death threats is not, and neither is calling for "death to Denmark", imploring al-Qaeda to bomb Denmark, or any other violence. I do hope people are able to work though this controversy without anyone getting killed over it.

Update: February 7, 2006

Unfortunately, since I wrote this post, the lunatic fringes seem to have come out on both sides of this debate. On one side, the Islamic lunatics have latched onto this issue, burning embassies, issuing death threats, clashing with police, trashing neighborhoods, and one alleged murder case in Turkey. On the other side, we have the lunatics in Europe and America who insist on stoking the fire by printing more copies of these offensive carricatures.

To both sides: give it a rest!

To those in the West: As I mentioned earlier in this post, these cartoons are not nice, they were commissioned as a calculated insult to all Muslims around the world (not just the fanatical ones). Jyllands-Posten had the legal right to publish these photos, but did it have the moral right? Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD. For other newspapers to go on printing these cartoons again and again is only perpetuating this insult and dragging this whole issue out.

And, to the Muslims around the world: Freedom of speech is a good thing, and just like Jyllands-Posten had the right to publish these cartoons, you have the legal right to express your outrage at it. But freedom of speech has its limits in that it should not be used to foment violence. Freedom of speech is cool; protesting is cool; boycotts are cool. However, burning embassies, calling for the beheading of people, and inciting terrorism are not cool - not cool at all.

It seems some of these protests are starting to get out of hand, and perhaps Muslim religious leaders should be trying to put this issue to bed soon. You've made your point, and with a few exceptions, generally done so peacefully, and shown the world that you can stand together and make a point without large amounts of death, violence, or terrorism. If you call it a day now, and make a peaceful end to these protests, you've proven the cartoons wrong about you. I'd suggest, it's time to call it a day.

Sorry for the delay in blogging!

2006-02-01T18:48:00.000-05:00

The last week has been insanely busy for me at work - sorry for the delay in blogging! I'm expecting to have a new post up in the next day or so.

Blackberry/NTP Patent Lawsuit: Technology Scaremongering

2006-01-26T23:47:00.000-05:00

I don't often blog about work, but today is one exception. As the IT director at my company, I am responsible for technology selection for over a thousand computer users, and over the past two years, under my direction, the company has invested heavily into Blackberry technology (handhelds, Blackberry Enterprise Server, etc.), which our users love.

Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the Blackberry handheld, have been embroiled in a patent lawsuit with a smaller company called NTP since 2001. Earlier this week, the litigation seems to have come to a head, as the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case, leaving RIM open to an injunction from a trial judge that may potentially shut down the service in the US.

I have been watching the lawsuit closely, and have made the conscious decision to continue investing in Blackberry technology. For me, Blackberry technology is the best out there, and the benefit of using Blackberry technology far outweighs the risk.

The email below is a broadcast email I sent today to my entire company explaining my position on the issue:

01/26/2006 03:01 PM
To: All Employees
Subject: Blackberry Legal Woes

As many of you may have heard, Research in Motion (RIM), the company behind the Blackberry handhelds many of us use, is presently involved in a patent dispute in US federal court with a company called NTP. NTP claims that Research in Motion is infringing on five of its patents, while RIM is disputing the validity of the patents. Some news media and pundits have raised the spectre of the Blackberry service being shut down as part of this legal action. These concerns were amplified by this week's refusal of the US Supreme Court to hear RIM's appeal of a lower-court ruling, leaving RIM open to an injunction by a trial judge.

We in the Information Technology department have been closely following this litigation and feel the business risk of the Blackberry being shut down is relatively small. The company suing Research in Motion is a small patent-holding company called NTP. NTP does not make a competing technology platform, and is only looking for royalty payments from RIM's US revenue. The threat of a court injunction shutting down Blackberry is something we view as legal posturing - a method by NTP to compel Research in Motion to pay NTP the royalties it feels it is owed.

While there are other technologies for wireless remote email access, Blackberry's technology is the best on the market. As such, we are continuing to invest in and deploy Blackberry technology here. In the unlikely event that Blackberry's service is shut down by a court injunction, we anticipate such a shutdown would be very brief, as it is in neither NTP's nor RIM's interest for any such interruption to remain in effect on the long term. It is also important to keep in mind that Blackberry technology is used extensively by many US federal and state government agencies, police departments, fire departments, ambulance services, and as such there would be a great deal of impetus on NTP, RIM, and the courts to quickly resolve any legally imposed interruption

We expect the RIM and NTP dispute to be ongoing for some time, however in the end we expect the issue to be resolved without an interruption of service.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the Blackberry/NTP lawsuit or our continued use of Blackberry technology, please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,
IT Department.

Palestinian Elections Tomorrow

2006-01-24T21:28:00.000-05:00

What a week for elections. Yesterday, we saw Canada vote out the Liberals in favor of a Conservative minority government. Now, tomorrow, the Palestinians go to the polls for their parliamentary elections.

The Palestinians election bears one key resemblance to the Canadian election: the ruling Fatah party has been in power for a long time, and has developed the same "l'état, c'est moi" attitude as the Canadian Liberal party: where the party members seem to feel they have each the inalienable right to govern. This type of attitude can easily lead to corruption, irresponsible decisions, and ineffective governance, and many Palestinians are fed up with it.

Of course, where the similarity ends with the Canadian election is who the main alternative to the governing party is. In Canada, that party was the Conservative party, but for the Palestinians, that other party is Hamas: a group considered a terrorist organization by many countries including the United States and Israel.

In tomorrow's election, Hamas is likely to garner a number of votes from people who are not voting so much FOR Hamas as AGAINST Fatah. In this type of "rejection voting", a strategic voter will vote for the party he/she feels is most likely to beat the one he/she wants out, and in this case, that party is Hamas.

What would happen if Hamas gains a sizeable number of seats? What would happen if Hamas ends up winning the election outright? There are many people in Israel and the US who are very concerned about this possibility.

There is another facet to this, though. If Hamas wins the election, it will bring them to the negotiating table. The Palestinian Authority under Fatah may have been willing to negotiate, but it has shown itself to be incapable of holding up its end of the deal by reining in militants. Hamas, on the other hand, speaks for many of the militants and would probably have more success in reining them in. Thus, while it would be tougher for Israel to negotiate a peace deal with Hamas than to negotiate with Fatah, at least Hamas would be more capable of holding up its end of the bargain.

The BBC's James Reynolds asked representatives of Hamas and the current Israeli government if they would be willing to negotiate with each other if Hamas wins power in this election. Dr Aziz Salem Dwaik, a Hamas candidate in Hebron answered, "this is a choice that we will take into consideration whenever we feel that the Israelis are accepting our rights and admitting that we have rights in Jerusalem, we have rights all over the area where the Israelis built settlements and built the Israeli annexation and confiscation wall."

When asked if Israel would deal with Hamas, Israeli cabinet minister Meir Sheetrit said, "if they change their agenda formally, making action, to say we are cancelling those items on the agenda that are talking about exterminating the state of Israel and joining the route of the road map to make peace with Israel, I cannot avoid the possibility of talking to them - especially if they have been elected."

While these types of statements are definitely not conciliatory, they do leave room for negotiation. One might even argue that bringing Hamas into the political fold and engaging them in negotiations with Israel might even help the peace process on the longer term. Who knows?

This week will be an interesting week indeed...