Category: Iraq

Oil prices: Neck high by the 4th of July?

June 6, 2008
EconomyGlobal WarmingInternationalIraqLegalRepublicansWhite House
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Oil prices jumped $11 a barrel to a new high above $139 a barrel. An analyst from Morgan Stanley predicted prices could reach $150 by July 4. According to WTAE in Pittsburgh:

A falling dollar and growing tensions in the Middle East are also pushing prices higher.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery has traded as high as $136.62 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices hit a previous record of $135.09 a barrel on May 22.

There’s more bad news:

Congressional auditors said that if oil and natural gas prices stay as high as they’ve been in recent months, the government could lose as much as $53 billion over the next 25 years in energy royalties because of an adverse court ruling.

The Government Accountability Office said the soaring price of crude oil and natural gas also means the windfall that companies will enjoy from the court ruling also could increase by billions of dollars.

The impact on the American economy will be staggering. Prices in all areas will rise even more, while the value of the dollar continues to fall.

Currently, $1 American will buy €0.6342.

Thanks, George.

History and Barack Obama

June 5, 2008
Barack ObamaElectionsGLBTGlobal WarmingHillary ClintonInternationalIraqPhilosophicalRepublicansWhite House
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Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, and Hillary Clinton is ready to call it quits on Friday or Saturday:

‘Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington, D.C., to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity. This event will be held on Saturday to accommodate more of Senator Clinton’s supporters who want to attend,’’ her communications director Howard Wolfson said.

For months, the right wing has been calling on Republicans to vote for Clinton in open primaries. I have a long-time Republican friend who told me he took a Democratic ballot in Illinois to vote for Hillary Clinton, because Republicans thought she was the easy win.

Or was that just more Republican “Strategerey,” as “W” would say? Were they really hoping for Obama? Could it be that the last several months were just a ploy to set up Obama as the nominee, and usher in an easy win for John McCain?

I don’t think so. McCain has reason to worry. If Hillary and Barack do finally embrace sometime this weekend, it’s history.

History.

This entire primary season has been about history, and I’m extremely proud to be a Democrat. It was the Democrats who had a woman and a black man as the last “men” standing from an outstanding field of potential nominees.

A woman and a black man, front and center, as our potential nominees. Think about that when the Republicans roll out their closet minorities onto that Minneapolis stage in September. The Republicans play lip service to those who have been stepped on in history.

The Democrats nominate them to lead.

Hillary Clinton deserves our thanks. She and Barack have written a new history together.

I’m thinking of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present. It’s often said that history is written by the winners, but that doesn’t mean those who lost didn’t write history. Zinn tells the history of the United States through the eyes of those who did not fare as well as white men. This is a history that has gone unnoticed for too long in the schools, but is finally making its way into mainstream textbooks in the grade schools and high schools.

A more recent publication by Dahr Jamail, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, tells the same sad story again. Thanks to the Internet, we don’t have to wait hundreds of years to hear the people speak. Jamail and those working with him give voice to Iraq, reporting different voices from the Iraqis than the mainstream press, the “embedded” journalists, would tell.

History, rewritten. And last night, rewritten again by Barack Obama.

As we finally enter the last months of this presidential campaign, we must remember first that John McCain is a good man who served this country well. His wife, Cindy, is a wonderful humanitarian. They are good Americans, but that is not enough.

John McCain is the wrong choice for president.

John McCain has closely allied himself with the philosophy of President George W. Bush. He didn’t have to embrace Bush, but he did. John McCain is running a campaign to continue the policies of George Bush. But more than seven years of history, and ages before that for anyone who has studied history, demonstrate the failures of those many policies that have left the United States with a dollar weaker than both the Euro and the Canadian dollar.

I recall my first meeting with Senator Obama at “the Barn” in Olympia Fields. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., had introduced Barack Obama to a relatively small group of elected officials who had gathered to learn more about the man, who was running for the U.S. Senate at the time. He was approachable, and he listened. No Secret Service. No huge, screaming crowds. Just Barack Obama making his case to a small gathering of elected officials. He listened to me. He spoke with me. I was satisfied that I had been heard.

He listens.

It’s time for change — a radical break from the imperialist policies of the past seven-plus years. It’s time for healing, to reestablish relationships and rebuild our squandered credibility with the rest of the world.

It’s time for history.

It’s time for Barack Obama.

4063 dead Americans in Iraq, 1.2 million dead Iraqis

April 30, 2008
AmericaIraqWhite House
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The numbers are all over the place. As we reach the end of April, we owe it to the deceased to remember those who gave their lives.

The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count shows 51 Americans killed in Iraq in April. The most recent press release from the Department of Defense reports the following:

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died April 28 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their forward operating base with indirect fire.

Killed were:

Pfc. Adam L. Marion, 26, of Mount Airy, N.C. He was assigned to the 171st Engineer Company, North Carolina Army National Guard, Saint Pauls, N.C.

Sgt. Marcus C. Mathes, 26, of Zephyrhills, Fla. He was assigned to the 94th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), located at Fort Polk, La.

Sgt. Mark A. Stone, 22, of Buchanan Dam, Texas. He was assigned to the 94th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), located at Fort Polk, La.

Antiwar.com places the official tally of American wounded at 29829, but estimates the total is somewhere between 23000 – 100000.

Tallying the number of Iraqis killed is more difficult. Iraq Body Count puts the number of Iraqi civilian deaths at somewhere between 83,221 and 90,782. Why not an exact count?

The Iraq Body Count (IBC) records the violent civilian deaths that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention in Iraq. Its public database includes deaths caused by US-led coalition forces and paramilitary or criminal attacks by others.

IBC’s documentary evidence is drawn from crosschecked media reports of violent events leading to the death of civilians, or of bodies being found, and is supplemented by the careful review and integration of hospital, morgue, NGO and official figures.

Systematically extracted details about deadly incidents and the individuals killed in them are stored with every entry in the database. The minimum details always extracted are the number killed, where, and when.

Confusion about the numbers produced by the project can be avoided by bearing in mind that:

  • IBC’s figures are not ‘estimates’ but a record of actual, documented deaths.
  • IBC records solely violent deaths.
  • IBC records solely civilian (strictly, ‘non-combatant’) deaths.
  • IBC’s figures are constantly updated and revised as new data comes in, and frequent consultation is advised.

Just Foreign Policy puts the number of Iraqis killed due to the invasion at 1,205,025. These figures are much higher than the IBC. The editors admit their count is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited by media. They explain their rationale at arriving at the higher figure, saying their number is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003:

That study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then. The graphic above provides a rough daily update of this number based on a rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count. (See the complete explanation.)

The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US invasion.

This devastating human toll demands greater recognition. It eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible. Little wonder they do not publicly cite it.

Sadly, the truth lies somewhere in between, and it is unlikely that we will get accurate figures any times soon.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are now opposed to the invasion of Iraq, but these sentiments are too late for the dead. The Bush Administration was quick to cite the overwhelming support of American citizens at the start of the war. Now that public support for the invasion has all but vanished, we will forever remember Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent , “So?”

After all, no one in his family died.

And the President?  His girls didn’t enlist.   Indeed, Jenna’s getting married in May.  We can’t be thinking about Iraq and all … that.  The media will be showing up soon to cover the wedding and poppy’s joy — while somewhere in Iraq, more will die.

How surreal.

Army Pfc. Shane D. Penley dies a hero

April 17, 2008
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Army Pfc. Shane D. PenleyA hero stares back from Eternity.

Another young man has died in Iraq. Just out of high school, Sauk Village native Shane D. Penley died April 6 from wounds suffered while on duty at a guard post. He was 19.

This one hits close to home. Shane graduated from Bloom Trail High School in Steger, IL, and wanted to be a police officer. A senior at Bloom Trail who knew Shane shared the shock with me that students felt when they learned the news. Children meeting adulthood head on, victims of war in our back yard.

The Times in Munster, IN, shares thoughts from Shane’s father, David Penley:

“He always wanted to be a hero,” David Penley said from the family’s Sauk Village home. “He’s our little hero. I’m sure whatever the situation was, he stuck his neck out there. He was very brave, very brave.”

Mr. Penley shared times when he and his son would work out together or play baseball.

“He could run circles around me, even before his training,” he said.

Memories of Shane’s childhood and a former babysitter who called him “Tarzan”:

“I guess because he would run around with his bleached blonde hair, and in his diapers (he looked like Tarzan),” David Penley said.

When we count the total number of soldiers killed in Iraq, the number of Iraqi civilians, the billions spent, watch gas prices spiral out of control, or tally our national debt, we pause and reflect. The big numbers have a story to tell on their own.

But here, the only number that counts is “one”. One more life lost. One too many.

Thank you, Pfc. Penley. Thank you, sir.

Two Children Also Died In Baquba Sunday…

March 23, 2008
InternationalIraq
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Easter Sunday Green Zone bombings, Baghdad, Iraq

Easter Sunday was just another violent day in Iraq, with four American soldiers and 58 Iraqis killed today in violence around the country. The worst was in the Green Zone, above. The four American dead pushes the United States total to 4,000 officially reported.The grim email announcements from various news sources are arriving now.

According to The New York Times:

As many as 20 mortar shells were fired Sunday at the heavily fortified Green Zone, one of the fiercest and most sustained attacks on the area in the last year.

The shelling sent thick plumes of dark gray smoke over central Baghdad and ignited a spectacular fire on the banks of the Tigris River. It ushered in a day of violence that claimed the lives of four American soldiers and at least 58 lraqis around the country.

American military officials said the soldiers were killed by a homemade bomb about 10 p.m. as they patrolled southern Baghdad in a vehicle, pushing the number of American service members killed in Iraq closer to 4,000. Another soldier was wounded in the attack.

This in spite of repeated claims by the Bush Administration that the increase in troop levels has reduced violence across the country.

The Soldier’s names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense.

MSNBC provides more analysis on the numbers:

Last year, the U.S. military deaths spiked along with the Pentagon’s “surge” — the arrival of more than 30,000 extra troops trying to regain control of Baghdad and surrounding areas. The mission was generally considered a success, but the cost was evident as soldiers pushed into Sunni insurgent strongholds and challenged Shiite militias.

Military deaths rose above 100 for three consecutive months for the first time during the war: April 2007, 104; May, 126 and June at 101.

The death toll has seesawed since, with 2007 ending as the deadliest year for American troops at 901 deaths. That was 51 more deaths than 2004, the second deadliest year for U.S. soldiers.

Our wounded far outnumber our dead:

But a hallmark of the Iraq war is the high wounded-to-killed ratio, partly because of advances in battlefield medicine, enhanced protective gear worn by soldiers and reinforced armored vehicles.

There have been about 15 soldiers wounded for every fatality in Iraq, compared with 2.6 per death in Vietnam and 2.8 in Korea.

The saddest note comes at the end of the NYTimes story:

Two children in Baquba, a 10-year-old and an 8-year-old, also died Sunday. They were playing in a street when a homemade bomb hidden under some garbage detonated, killing them instantly. When the authorities reached the scene, the security official said, all they found were pieces of the children’s bodies.

Happy Easter.

Five Years Later….

March 20, 2008
InternationalIraqPhilosophical
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What can I say? I’m told by some that 3,992 American soldiers dead in Iraq is not a bad number. After all, there were many more people killed in World War II.  I should just accept that number.  Is that a just comparison?  Is the war in Iraq at all just?

But this one really irks me….

We have spent $504.01 BILLION in Iraq so far. And John McCain tells us we should not be concerned about that.

The truth is, I am concerned, and you should be concerned also.

When you look at Wall Street, consider the fact that we have spent over $504.01 BILLION so far in Iraq, and we can’t afford that.

So far, we have lost this many soldiers’ in Iraq: 3,992.

Thus far, our Commander-in-Chief, George W. Bush, always sympathetic to the losses of the soldiers, has attended this many funerals: 0.

The Iraqis have lost 1,183,173 people, according to Just Foreign Policy. If you prefer more conservative estimates just based on news reports, then we’re looking at these figures: 82,249 – 89,760.

Our National Debt at this instant is: $9,391,442,204,727.53, according to the U.S. National Debt Clock. When you visit, the figure will no doubt have increased. If anyone has a more accurate source for our National Debt, I’m all ears.

So, here we are. I’ve heard from young people who have commented, “At least we’ve lost fewer lives than in World War II.” And somehow I’m supposed to understand what that really means.

The sad and sorry fact is, whoever wins the Oval Office in November will have to deal with the aftermath of a President who pursued a horrible policy for personal reasons. That’s it. There were no facts to back up any of the claims of this White House administration.

Policy for personal reasons — and we’re at war.

And we’ve only begun to pay….

Women Suffer in Iraq

March 6, 2008
InternationalIraq
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There aren’t many stories in the United States media about how highly women are generally regarded in Islam.  Many choose to focus on how repressed women are, often without cause.  Muslims I have come to know in the Chicagoland area are proud to share who they are, and how poorly the American media has told their story.

Iraq is a different story.  The American occupation has not helped, according to journalist Dahr Jamail.  While no one denies that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, women actually fared better in Iraq prior to the American invasion:

Former dictator Saddam Hussein maintained a relatively secular society, where it was common for women to take up jobs as professors, doctors and government officials. In today’s Iraq, women are being killed by militia groups for not conforming to strict Islamist ways.

Basra police chief Gen. Jalil Hannoon told reporters and Arab TV channels in December that at least 40 women had been killed during the previous five months in that city alone.

Read the rest of Jamail’s account here.

“George Bush Is A Genius!”

January 1, 2008
EconomyHumorIraqWhite House
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We all thought George Bush had no idea what he was doing. Little did we know he knew exactly what he was doing:

Thanks to Politics After 50 for pointing the way to this wonderful segment from the comedy of Bremner, Bird and Fortune, a satirical British television program.

Of greater concern, and not-so-funny, is an “oil revenue law that the American government is forcing down the throats of the Iraqi people, which will of course give the Americans control of most of the Iraqi oil.”

Check out HandsOffIraqiOil.org for information on that.

Iraq – Actually Twice As Bad

December 30, 2007
CongressIraqRepublicansWhite House
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Leave it to the Republicans to finally let the truth slip out.

Iraq is twice as bad as any of us thought.

For years now — yes, years — I’ve been using the National Priorities  Project as the quintessential barometer for how much the United States is spending in Iraq.  Turns out the NPP was wrong, by half.

No fault of their own.  The NPP says the United States is spending $275 million per day.  The truth is closer to $480 million per day.  That is, if you believe the Republicans.  I have the Bad Astronomer to thank for this woeful news.  Once again, he has “one-upped” the Liberal bloggers.

He cites Senator Ted Stevens in the Washington Post.  Stevens actually used the revised figures to demonstrate the need for more money.  According to Stevens:

The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism — nearly $15 billion a month — came last week from one of the Senate’s leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq.

“This cost of this war is approaching $15 billion a month, with the Army spending $4.2 billion of that every month,” Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a little-noticed floor speech Dec. 18. His remarks came in support of adding $70 billion to the omnibus fiscal 2008 spending legislation to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, as well as counterterrorism activities, for the six months from Oct. 1, 2007, through March 31 of next year.

So it’s even worse than we all thought.

So, where does that leave us with the numbers?  Do we actually know how much money we’ve spent in Iraq?

Our national debt right now is estimated to be at $9.127 trillion.  We have lost 3901 American soldiers in Iraq.  At least 80,137 Iraq civilians have been killed, although some estimates put the total much higher than 100,000.  And somewhere between 23,000 and 100,000 American soldiers have been wounded in Iraq.

Are all of these numbers not related to each other?  What possible solution can we count on while many of the most prominent members of Congress are running for President?

Does anybody care about this crisis?  Or is it all just useful for the current campaigns?

Prosecuting The Damned

December 27, 2007
IraqLegalPhilosophicalRantRepublicans
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We’ve heard the stories before. Soldiers in Iraq have committed suicide, others have attempted. The Army is prosecuting, according to The Washington Post:

In a nondescript conference room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside listened last week as an Army prosecutor outlined the criminal case against her in a preliminary hearing. The charges: attempting suicide and endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq.

Her hands trembled as Maj. Stefan Wolfe, the prosecutor, argued that Whiteside, now a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed, should be court-martialed. After seven years of exemplary service, the 25-year-old Army reservist faces the possibility of life in prison if she is tried and convicted.

Military psychiatrists at Walter Reed who examined Whiteside after she recovered from her self-inflicted gunshot wound diagnosed her with a severe mental disorder, possibly triggered by the stresses of a war zone. But Whiteside’s superiors considered her mental illness “an excuse” for criminal conduct, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

At the hearing, Wolfe, who had already warned Whiteside’s lawyer of the risk of using a “psychobabble” defense, pressed a senior psychiatrist at Walter Reed to justify his diagnosis.

“I’m not here to play legal games,” Col. George Brandt responded angrily, according to a recording of the hearing. “I am here out of the genuine concern for a human being that’s breaking and that is broken. She has a severe and significant illness. Let’s treat her as a human being, for Christ’s sake!”

I can’t even begin to comprehend what is happening here. Our fighting men and women are placed in extreme danger, in Hell. Their time in Iraq is extended. Some are sent back for two or three tours of duty. And some simply cannot take it any more.

This is not at all an article advocating suicide, nor an admission that this is the only alternative for those fighting in Iraq. If any of our veterans or soldiers currently serving read this, I have the utmost respect for you and your service to this country. I cannot imagine what you have gone through, or what you are going through if you are serving now.

This country is far too punitive, in every respect. We can’t build prisons fast enough. We have a problem, and our only solution is, “Lock-em up!” But prisons do not build a healthier society.

We all get one shot at life. Some have chosen to serve the United States of America in the Armed Services, and our Coward-In-Chief has put them in harms way. The Coward-In-Chief has yet to attend a single funeral for one of the fallen. The Coward-In-Chief never served, and neither have his children.

The Coward-In-Chief has damned these young people to Hell-on-Earth.

Those who command should spend more time with those who know something about the so-called “psychobabble”, and realize what they are doing to our young people.

Prosecution for an attempted suicide? This is a solution only for those who have ceased thinking, or those who have given up looking for solutions. We need to ask the big questions, and cease the clichés. Soldiers attempting suicide is a real problem, and these petty, simplistic prosecutions are no solution for those trapped in Hell.