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November 30, 2006
| CO2 Emissions Accelerating Sharply | Environment |
Not only is humanity failing to curtail CO2 emissions, the rate of growth of emissions is actually accelerating — sharply. BBC (via CommonDreams):
The rise in humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide has accelerated sharply, according to a new analysis.The Global Carbon Project says that emissions were rising by less than 1% annually up to the year 2000, but are now rising at 2.5% per year.
It says the acceleration comes mainly from a rise in charcoal consumption and a lack of new energy efficiency gains.
The global research network released its latest analysis at a scientific meeting in Australia.
Dr Mike Rapauch of the Australian government's research organisation CSIRO, who co-chairs the Global Carbon Project, told delegates that 7.9 billion tonnes (gigatonnes, Gt) of carbon passed into the atmosphere last year. In 2000, the figure was 6.8Gt.
"From 2000 to 2005, the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions was more than 2.5% per year, whereas in the 1990s it was less than 1% per year," he said.
The finding parallels figures released earlier this month by the World Meteorological Organization showing that the rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 had accelerated in the last few years. [...]
"There has been a change in the trend regarding fossil fuel intensity, which is basically the amount of carbon you need to burn for a given unit of wealth," explained Corinne Le Quere, a Global Carbon Project member who holds posts at the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey.
"From about 1970 the intensity decreased — we became more efficient at using energy — but we've been getting slightly worse since the year 2000," she told the BBC News website.
"The other trend is that as oil becomes more expensive, we're seeing a switch from oil burning to charcoal which is more polluting in terms of carbon." [...]
How emissions will change over time is one of the factors considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body responsible for collating and analysing climate data for the global community.
"At these rates, it certainly sounds like we'll end up towards the high end of the emission scenarios considered by the IPCC," commented Myles Allen from Oxford University, one of Britain's leading climate modellers.
The "high end" of IPCC projections implies a rise in global temperature approaching 5.8C between 1990 and the end of this century.
"We need to think about radical alternatives to the belt-tightening approach," said Professor Allen.
"At the moment, the assumption is we will solve the problem by controlling demand; but regulating at the point of use is clearly not working." [Emphasis added]
Another in the long parade of stories telling us that what used to be thought of as worst-case global warming projections may actually turn out to be, if anything, conservative. It's all happening faster, the numbers bigger, than anyone expected.
An optimistic view has it that as humanity learns more about the dangers facing us, we'll do the rational thing and take measures to forestall disaster. But it's not happening. Instead, everybody's focused on the short run, taking the path of least resistance, trying to make it through today. In the best of all possible worlds, rising oil prices and the prospects of peak oil and global warming would motivate humanity to move away from using fossil fuels altogether. But the path of least resistance is to just burn coal instead of oil, so that's what will happen.
The runaway train hurtles cliffward. If you're not scared yet, maybe you should be.
Posted by Jonathan at 06:14 PM
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| Colin Powell: Call It Civil War | Iraq |
CNN's Hala Gorani (via ThinkProgress):
Well, within the context of the leaders conference in Dubai and also within the context of this debate, this semantics debate, over whether to call what is going on on in Iraq a civil war, the former Secretary of State Colin Powell says he thinks we can call it a civil war and added if he were still heading the State Department, he probably would recommend to the Bush administration that those terms should be used in order to come to terms with the reality on the ground.
This White House coming to terms with reality? Not going to happen.
Posted by Jonathan at 05:20 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 09:46 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
President Bush is trying to raise $500 million for the Bush Presidential library, not just a library, it will also contain a think tank — because when you think George W. Bush you think thinking. — David Letterman
President Bush is putting together his presidential library, and apparently the library is going to cost $500 million, which works out to $100 million per book. Expensive books. They're popouts. Conan O'Brien
President Bush is preparing to build his presidential library. Bush's is expected to cost $500 million. That's more than three times the cost of the Clinton library, and more than all the other libraries combined, which makes you wonder, how many Garfield books can there be? — Jimmy Kimmel
"It's not that the library is going to be extravagant. It's just that he's hiring Haliburton to build it. They're the best. — Jimmy Kimmel
Posted by Jonathan at 09:36 AM
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November 29, 2006
| Gingrich: "Reexamine Freedom Of Speech" | 9/11, "War On Terror" Politics |
Newt Gingrich proves once again that he's a dangerous extremist:
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism.Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.
"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994. [Emphasis added]
The well-worn recipe: make people afraid enough, and they'll give their freedom away, bit by bit. But once you give it away, you never get it back. Not without a fight.
Posted by Jonathan at 08:52 PM
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| Parting Shot | Humor & Fun Politics |
Posted by Jonathan at 08:40 PM
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| Ms Whoey? | Science/Technology |
This is so dumb, I'm speechless.
What were they thinking? How does Microsoft stay in business?
Posted by Jonathan at 11:19 AM
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Posted by Jonathan at 09:43 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Henry Kissinger says the war in Iraq is un-winnable. And if anybody knows how not to win a war it's Henry Kissinger. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 09:41 AM
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November 28, 2006
| Corporatism | Corporations, Globalization Environment |
Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", should be seen by as many Americans as possible. That includes kids. Especially kids. The film's producers thought so, too, so they offered 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association. The NSTA declined. Why? They don't want to piss off Exxon Mobil. WaPo:
At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the film; and they saw "little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members" in accepting the free DVDs.
Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film's theatrical run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.
Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.
That's the same Exxon Mobil that for more than a decade has done everything possible to muddle public understanding of global warming and stifle any serious effort to solve it. It has run ads in leading newspapers (including this one) questioning the role of manmade emissions in global warming, and financed the work of a small band of scientific skeptics who have tried to challenge the consensus that heat-trapping pollution is drastically altering our atmosphere. The company spends millions to support groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute that aggressively pressure lawmakers to oppose emission limits.
It's bad enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch of grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.
And it has been doing so for longer than you may think. NSTA says it has received $6 million from the company since 1996, mostly for the association's "Building a Presence for Science" program, an electronic networking initiative intended to "bring standards-based teaching and learning" into schools, according to the NSTA Web site. Exxon Mobil has a representative on the group's corporate advisory board. And in 2003, NSTA gave the company an award for its commitment to science education.
So much for special interests and implicit endorsements.
In the past year alone, according to its Web site, Exxon Mobil's foundation gave $42 million to key organizations that influence the way children learn about science, from kindergarten until they graduate from high school.
And Exxon Mobil isn't the only one getting in on the action. Through textbooks, classroom posters and teacher seminars, the oil industry, the coal industry and other corporate interests are exploiting shortfalls in education funding by using a small slice of their record profits to buy themselves a classroom soapbox.
NSTA's list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA's Web site on the science of energy. There, students can find a section called "Running on Oil" and read a page that touts the industry's environmental track record — citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the companies fought tooth and nail, by the way — but makes only vague references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video produced by API called "You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel," a shameless pitch for oil dependence.
The education organization also hosts an annual convention — which is described on Exxon Mobil's Web site as featuring "more than 450 companies and organizations displaying the most current textbooks, lab equipment, computer hardware and software, and teaching enhancements." The company "regularly displays" its "many...education materials" at the exhibition. John Borowski, a science teacher at North Salem High School in Salem, Ore., was dismayed by NSTA's partnerships with industrial polluters when he attended the association's annual convention this year and witnessed hundreds of teachers and school administrators walk away with armloads of free corporate lesson plans.
Along with propaganda challenging global warming from Exxon Mobil, the curricular offerings included lessons on forestry provided by Weyerhaeuser and International Paper, Borowski says, and the benefits of genetic engineering courtesy of biotech giant Monsanto.
"The materials from the American Petroleum Institute and the other corporate interests are the worst form of a lie: omission," Borowski says. "The oil and coal guys won't address global warming, and the timber industry papers over clear-cuts."
An API memo leaked to the media as long ago as 1998 succinctly explains why the association is angling to infiltrate the classroom: "Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future."
So, how is any of this different from showing Gore's movie in the classroom? The answer is that neither Gore nor Participant Productions, which made the movie, stands to profit a nickel from giving away DVDs, and we aren't facing millions of dollars in lost business from limits on global-warming pollution and a shift to cleaner, renewable energy. [...]
While NSTA and Exxon Mobil ponder the moral lesson they're teaching with all this, there are 50,000 DVDs sitting in a Los Angeles warehouse, waiting to be distributed. In the meantime, Mom and Dad may want to keep a sharp eye on their kids' science homework. [Emphasis added]
Corporations like Weyerhauser and Exxon Mobil have no ties to any landbase. They don't eat food, they don't drink water, they don't breathe air. They are machines programmed to follow one prime directive with single-minded ferocity: maximize profits. Maybe the people who work for Weyerhauser and Exxon Mobil are just like you and me, maybe they're not, but it probably doesn't matter much. Global corporations will continue to chew us up and spit us out, right up until the day the world ends (unless we stop them). It's hard-wired in the machinery.
Posted by Jonathan at 05:52 PM
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| Marines: Anbar Is Lost | Iraq |
A Marine Corps intel report has concluded that Anbar province is pretty much lost. WaPo:
The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province.The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that stood by its conclusions and stated that, as of mid-November, the problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. "The fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" remain the same, the official said.
The Marines' August memo, a copy of which was shared with The Washington Post, is far bleaker than some officials suggested when they described it in late summer. The report describes Iraq's Sunni minority as "embroiled in a daily fight for survival," fearful of "pogroms" by the Shiite majority and increasingly dependent on al-Qaeda in Iraq as its only hope against growing Iranian dominance across the capital.
True or not, the memo says, "from the Sunni perspective, their greatest fears have been realized: Iran controls Baghdad and Anbaris have been marginalized." Moreover, most Sunnis now believe it would be unwise to count on or help U.S. forces because they are seen as likely to leave the country before imposing stability.
Between al-Qaeda's violence, Iran's influence and an expected U.S. drawdown, "the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point" that U.S. and Iraqi troops "are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar," the assessment found. In Anbar province alone, at least 90 U.S. troops have died since Sept. 1. [...]
"Despite the success of the December elections, nearly all government institutions from the village to provincial levels have disintegrated or have been thoroughly corrupted and infiltrated by Al Qaeda in Iraq," or a smattering of other insurgent groups, the report says. [...]
[Report author Col. Peter] Devlin wrote that attacks on civilians rose 57 percent between February and August of this year. "Although it is likely that attack levels have peaked, the steady rise in attacks from mid-2003 to 2006 indicates a clear failure to defeat the insurgency in al-Anbar."
Devlin suggested that without the deployment of an additional U.S. military division — 15,000 to 20,000 troops — plus billions of dollars in aid to the province, "there is nothing" U.S. troops "can do to influence" the insurgency. [Emphasis added]
The threat of pogroms. A daily fight for survival. US/Iraqi forces no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency. This isn't how Marines normally talk. It must really be a hell on earth.
Posted by Jonathan at 02:08 PM
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| Tuesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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Posted by Jonathan at 10:05 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Every year, President Bush gets to pardon one turkey, and this year it was Donald Rumsfeld. — David Letterman
Posted by Jonathan at 09:53 AM
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November 27, 2006
| Money Makes Meanies | Science/Technology |
Via Digby, an interesting psych experiment examining the link between money and selfishness. LA Times:
Pictures of dollar bills, fantasies of wealth and even wads of Monopoly money arouse feelings of self-sufficiency that result in selfish and often anti-social behavior, according to a study published in the journal Science.All it took to discourage college students from contributing to a University Student Fund were 15 short phrases such as "a high-paying salary." Those primed by money-related phrases donated an average of 77 cents, compared with $1.34 for students exposed to neutral phrases like "it is cold outside."
"The mere presence of money changes people," said Kathleen Vohs, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota and lead author of the study.
Money makes it possible for people to achieve their goals without asking for help. Therefore, Vohs and her colleagues theorized, even subtle reminders of money would inspire people to be self-reliant — and to expect such behavior from others.
A series of nine experiments confirmed their hypothesis. For example, students who played Monopoly and then were asked to envision a future with great wealth picked up fewer dropped pencils for a fellow student than those asked to contemplate a hand-to-mouth existence.
Money also influenced how people said they preferred to spend their leisure time. A poster of bills and coins prompted students to favor a solitary social activity, such as private cooking lessons, while students sitting across from posters of seascapes and gardens were more likely to opt for a group dinner.
"Money changes people's motivations," said co-author Nicole Mead, a psychology graduate student at Florida State University. [Emphasis added]
The root of all evil, and all that. Meanwhile, the Scrooges will scoff — but then they would, wouldn't they. Bah, humbug!
Posted by Jonathan at 05:54 PM
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| "This Is Civil War" | Iraq |
Michael Ware has long been one of the truly indispensable Western journalists reporting from Iraq. He never dissembles, never engages in euphemism. Watch this (via Atrios):
It just keeps spinning out of control, ratcheting up and up. It's pretty much impossible to imagine how it can better before it gets very much worse.
The US has so much to answer for.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:53 PM
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| Monday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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Posted by Jonathan at 10:31 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
According to the Washington Times, there's a revolt brewing among Republicans in the House. People are, of course, shocked by this. There are still Republicans in the House? — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 10:28 AM
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November 25, 2006
| Addicts | Environment Ethics |
More and more, I think we're fucked — we in the industrialized world, especially. The fundamental problem is that we're never going to voluntarily change course to the radical degree needed to stave off disaster. All of the trends that point to disaster — greenhouse gas emissions, depletion of nonrenewable resources, worldwide ecosystem destruction, species extinctions, etc. — are accelerating. In fact, the rate at which they're accelerating is accelerating. We see where it's all heading, and still we can't stop ourselves. We're addicts, addicted to comfort, power, artificial stimulation of all kinds, and like most addicts we’ll never recover without first hitting bottom — that's if we manage to recover at all. We'll take the path of least resistance until it ends in disaster and stops being the path of least resistance.
Here's a story that strikes me as the perfect epitome of what I'm talking about. BBC:
Marine scientists say the case for a moratorium on the use of heavy trawling gear in deep waters is now overwhelming and should be put in place immediately.A new report prepared for the UN indicates the equipment is doing immense damage to the ecosystems around seamounts, or underwater mountains.
Its analysis shows bottom-trawling is being used in regions which harbour particularly sensitive corals. [...]
Bottom-trawling uses huge nets armed with steel weights or heavy rollers.
Boats drag them across the seafloor to catch species such as orange roughy, oreos, alfonsino and roundnose grenadier.
The technique is very effective but smashes everything in its path, ripping corals and sponges from the sea-floor — removing the habitats on which the fish and other diverse organisms depend.
It is practised by relatively few vessels — perhaps no more than 200 worldwide — and accounts for about 0.2% of the total world catch.This meant the scale of the destruction was out of all proportion to the gain in terms of the value of the fishery, said Dr Alex Rogers, a senior research fellow at the Zoological Society of London, UK.
"It's the equivalent of clearing old-growth forest to collect squirrels. It's a practice on land that just wouldn't be acceptable," he added. [...]
Scientists think there may be 100,000 or more of the underwater mountains distributed around the world's oceans.
They attract aggregations of the planktonic organisms that form the food base of marine ecosystems. "We call it trophic focusing," Dr Rogers told BBC News.
Prominent in these deep — 1,000-2,000m down — ecosystems are vast "forests" of slow-growing corals and the very high densities of fish that are now the target of industrial trawlers.
"But if there are species which you really shouldn't fish, these are the ones," said Dr Rogers. "The orange roughy lives for up to 150 years or more; they don't mature until they are 30 or 40 years old; their reproduction is very sporadic; they are very vulnerable to overfishing."
At these depths, life processes are long and slow.
The team has compared the distributions of commercially trawled fish, fishing effort and coral habitat on seamounts.
This shows a broad band of the southern Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans between 20-degrees and 60-degrees-south where bottom-trawling activities are likely to have a particularly deleterious impact.
Campaigners are concerned because vast swathes of this band are beyond the authority of national or regional fisheries' regulation. They want proper management of these gaps established as soon as possible.Most bottom-trawling is conducted by northern fleets from developed nations. The European Union bloc undertakes the largest effort, with Spain operating the majority of its boats. [Emphasis added]
We have no trouble seeing that the trawlers are acting insanely: destroying ecosystems that will take decades, centuries, or millenia to recover, for a one-time profit. If their activities were visible to us all, instead of buried under the sea — out of sight, out of mind — perhaps there would be more outrage. Clear-cutting old-growth forests to harvest squirrels.
But here's what's really crazy. The trawlers are acting "rationally" according to the tenets of mainstream economic theory. The deep-sea ecosystems replenish themselves only very slowly. A sustainable harvest would take only a very few fish per year, using methods that preserve the surrounding ecosystem. But that would yield an extremely low — or perhaps even negative — rate of return. You can get a much higher rate of return by "clear-cutting" and taking the proceeds and investing them. Especially since the profits are private while the costs, in the form of destroyed or degraded ecosystems, are public, borne by us all — so-called externalities. Besides, if you don't "clear-cut", somebody else will — the tragedy of the commons. Economic theory says the "rational" thing to do is to seek to maximize profits. So it's not just the trawlers who are insane.
This example is so egregious — so few ships wreaking so much damage — that it seems hard to deny that the moral thing to do, if one had the opportunity, would be to sabotage or sink as many of these ships as possible. But this example is only a microcosm of what's happening everywhere, in all spheres of activity, all over the world. (So it's an example worth remembering, since it exemplifies the issues so starkly.) Does the same moral argument apply more broadly? Is it time to start throwing wrenches into the gears of industrial civilization? Is it time for an intervention?
Posted by Jonathan at 02:28 PM
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| Saturday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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Posted by Jonathan at 12:02 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
The Democrats, it's less than two weeks since they took power and already they're fighting among themselves. Say what you want about the Republican Congress, those guys were always on the same page. — Bill Maher
Posted by Jonathan at 11:58 AM
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November 24, 2006
| Friday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 08:05 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
A new poll finds that 60 percent of Americans think George W. Bush is a worse president than his father. However, President Bush's advisers cheered him up by telling him he's the second best George Bush who's ever been president. — Conan O'Brien
Posted by Jonathan at 08:03 AM
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November 23, 2006
| A Thanksgiving Carol |
Pharyngula had a nice Thanksgiving idea — Arlo singing Alice's Restaurant:
Happy Thanksgiving.
Posted by Jonathan at 09:12 PM
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| Thursday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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Posted by Jonathan at 10:25 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
President Bush on Monday met for more than an hour with the independent panel examining strategic options for Iraq and cautioned afterward that while he's open to new ideas, he'd like them to come only from people who agree with him. — Amy Poehler
Posted by Jonathan at 10:21 AM
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November 22, 2006
| BBC RFK Program | Black Ops |
The BBC special dealing with new evidence in the RFK assassination that I referenced yesterday has been uploaded to YouTube.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Today, of course, is the anniversary of the other Kennedy assassination, that of JFK.
Posted by Jonathan at 01:54 PM
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| Hortatory Talk | Humor & Fun Iraq |
General Shinseki and the Iraq war's only instance of 20/20 foresight. Jon Stewart:
Posted by Jonathan at 12:51 PM
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| The "Take This War And Shove It" Act | Iraq |
PoorMan (via Atrios) has a brilliant suggestion:
[Let's] introduce a bill to let soldiers get a General Discharge, no strings attached, if they give two week's notice. Call it "The Take This War And Shove It Act".
If a war isn't important enough or viable enough to retain the support of the people who have to fight it, why should they be forced to continue? Are they not free citizens of a republic?
Ok, it's never going to happen. But the very idea sure clears away the cobwebs.
Posted by Jonathan at 12:11 PM
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| Just A Few Months More | Iraq |
Fabius Maximus samples statements by pundits and public officials regarding the time horizon in Iraq:
“And it is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”
February 7, 2003
Donald Rumsfeld, then-Secretary of Defense
Speaking at a “TownHall Meeting” held at Aviano Air Base, Italy
"I think the next few months will be crucial."
July 3, 2003
Senator Pat Roberts (Republican - Kansas)
"Looking at what we have today in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, and looking at the whole region and how infectious it can be for positive or for widespread trouble in the world, I think we may be going through a series of weeks and months that are crucial to the future history of freedom and stability. The determination of the British people, the Royal Airforce (RAF) and the Battle of Britain and Dunkirk success, if it was a success, probably saved not just Britain, but the Western world at that time. I am convinced that there is going to have to be a determination by the American people, military, particularly American military, quality and quantity, not just presence but capability, and a confidence in the Iraqi people that they can have a stable and representative government.
July 10, 2003
Representative Ike Skelton (Democrat - Missouri)
Speaking at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee
[Question: When you speak of victory, how do you define it today in Iraq?]
MCCAIN: Probably when the people of Iraq are governing themselves. That's probably the best benchmark, and that probably could happen sooner rather than later, as far as being directly related to the return of the basic services – the electricity, the water, the sanitation, the law enforcement – those kinds of things. … And I'm not sure how long it would be, but I don't think that we have time on our side. I think it's critical that we act quickly by sending more troops there. And if not, we run the risk of the Iraqi people turning against us.
[Question: Are you thinking 6 to 12 months? Or do you think that's dreaming at this point?]
MCCAIN: I don't know because I don't know how quickly we're going to act in the form of sending troops. I don't know how quickly we're going to be able to provide them with the security. So, it's sort of up to us. But I would argue that the next three to six months will be critical.
September 10, 2003
Sen. John McCain (Republican - Arizona)
Speaking on CNN’s “American Morning”
"The next six months in Iraq – which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there – are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."
November 30, 2003
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
"The next six to seven months are critical."
December 1, 2003
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (Democrat - NY)
Quoted in the Washington Post on November 30, 2005
"The important thing is to realize we are about to enter into a very critical six months … We have got to get on top of the security situation properly and we have got to manage the transition. Both of those things are going to be difficult."
January 4, 2004
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
Speaking during a surprise visit to Iraq
"Iraq now faces a critical moment."
May 24, 2004
President Bush
Speaking at the United States Army War College
"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a UN-approved Iraqi-caretaker government made up of – I know a lot of these guys – reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it. It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?"
June 3, 2004
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air”
“The next few months will be critical as the new government must establish security, continue to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, and prepare the Iraqi people for national elections scheduled for January 2005.”
July 22, 2004
Senator Richard G. Lugar (Republican – Indiana)
Statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
"What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war."
October 3, 2004
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on CBS's “Face the Nation”
"Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile."
November 28, 2004
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
“There are rare occasions when two distinct geopolitical processes reach a pivot point at the same time, that precise place where the evolution of a process takes a critical turn. Last week saw three such points. In Iraq, the security network around the guerrilla leadership appeared to be breaking wide open.”
March 1, 2005
George Friedman, Stratfor
“As the political process evolves, further government victories could be in the offing. Intense negotiations on the formation of the Cabinet, involving the United Iraqi Alliance, Kurdish List, Sunnis and other factions, have already begun. With Sunnis incorporated into a new government, progress on the political front likely will lead to further success on the battlefield as U.S. and Iraqi forces continue to keep pressure on the insurgents with raids, arrests and all-out offensive operations. These developments ultimately will support the U.S. strategy of turning the combat burden over to an emboldened and maturing Iraqi army.”
March 23, 2005
Stratfor
“Washington has moved beyond the military stage of the U.S.-jihadist war and is now in the phase of negotiated settlements.”
April 6, 2005
Stratfor
"I think the next nine months are critical."
June 29, 2005
Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq
Speaking on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”
“This attack probably will be instrumental in turning the Iraqis against the militants, especially the transnational jihadists who are not only seen as using the general insurgency in Iraq for their cause (which has very little to do with the Sunni community's grievances or Iraqi nationalism), but now seem to have reached the point where they will not shirk from killing children as part of their attack plans.”
July 13, 2005
Stratfor
“I think the next 18 months are crucial."
July 18, 2005
General Barry R. McCaffrey, retired
Quoted in the Washington Post on November 30, 2005
“I have long been invested with ensuring the development of a peaceful, democratic Iraq. We are nearing the resolution of that process, and the next months will be critical.”
August 4, 2005
Ambassador John Bolton, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Statement to the Security Council
“But the fact is these next six months are going to be very critical in Iraq, not just the constitution writing, referendum, the election, but also within that six months' period, we're going to see whether the Iraqis are really going to be capable of defending themselves, governing themselves and supporting themselves.”
August 18, 2005
Senator Chuck Hagel (Rep- Nebraska)
Speaking on CNN’s “Situation Room”
"I think we're in the end game now…. I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional election – that's my own feeling – let alone the presidential one."
September 25, 2005
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on NBC's “Meet the Press”
“The next 75 days are going to be critical for what happens”
September 29, 2005
General George Casey, Commanding General of coalition forces in Iraq
Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee
"… Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time."
September 28, 2005
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
“And the developments over the next several months will be critical – as General Casey and General Abizaid and the secretary made very clear over the course of last week – as the constitutional referendum in the mid part of this month, the general elections in mid-December and then the subsequent formation of a new government all take place.”
October 5, 2005
Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, Former Commander, Multi-National Transition Command Iraq and NATO Training Mission Iraq
News Briefing
As always, whenever the Bush administration helps to pull off an election in Iraq, you have to hand it to them. Poor job on occupation, no doubt, but this thing keeps muddling through. … Meanwhile, a lot of Sunnis are shifting from fighting the system altogether to working within the political process. This is crucial. … Iraq is doing just fine given all poorly planned occupation (F to the neocons, C+ to the officers doing their best in a crappy situation on the ground).
October 17, 2005
Thomas P. M. Barnett
“We are entering a make or break six month period, and I want to talk about the steps we must take if we hope to bring our troops home within a reasonable timeframe from an Iraq that's not permanently torn by irrepressible conflict. …
“To those who suggest we should withdraw all troops immediately – I say No. A precipitous withdrawal would invite civil and regional chaos and endanger our own security. But to those who rely on the overly simplistic phrase "we will stay as long as it takes," who pretend this is primarily a war against Al Qaeda, and who offer halting, sporadic, diplomatic engagement, I also say – No, that will only lead us into a quagmire. …
“To undermine the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat forces linked to specific, responsible benchmarks. At the first benchmark, the completion of the December elections, we can start the process of reducing our forces by withdrawing 20,000 troops over the course of the holidays. …”
October 26, 2005
Senator John Kerry (Democrat – Mass)
Speech at Georgetown University
“And we're seeing a lot of them [officials from the Iraqi government] because this is a critical time in Iraq going into the elections, and it is very important that these elections produce an outcome, that it reflects the will of the Iraqi people, that results in a government – that is broadly based, drawing from all elements of the Iraqi society, that gets stood up quickly and is a strong government that can take the kinds of difficult, economic and security decisions that the new government is going to have.”
November 10, 2005
Steve Hadley, National Security Advisor
Comments at White House Press Briefing
"We've got, I think, six months."
Nov. 17, 2005
Senator John W. Warner (Republican -Virginia)
Quoted in the Washington Post on November 30, 2005
“Instead, we need to refocus our attention on our mission — of our mission on preserving America’s fundamental interests in Iraq. And there are two of them, in my view. One, we must ensure that Iraq does not become what it was not before the war — emphasize “was not before the war” — a haven for terrorists, a jihadist stronghold. And we must do what we can to prevent a full-blown civil war that runs the risk of turning into a regional war. To accomplish that more limited mission and to begin redeploying our troops responsibly, it seems to me we have to make significant, measurable progress toward three goals, and you only have about the next six months to demonstrate that progress.”
November 21, 2005
Senator Joseph Biden (Democrat - Delaware)
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations
“What the debate is telling us is that we have come to a defining moment in the war and in U.S. policy toward the war. … The administration's position in Iraq is complex but not hopeless. Its greatest challenge is in Washington, where Bush's Republican base of support is collapsing. If it collapses, then all bets will be off in Iraq. Bush's challenge is to stabilize Washington. In fact, from his point of view, Baghdad is more stable than Washington right now. …”
November 21, 2005
George Friedman of Stratfor
“I served in the last year of World War II in the Navy. Franklin D. Roosevelt did just exactly that. In his fireside talks, he talked with the people, he did just that. I think it would be to Bush's advantage. It would bring him closer to the people, dispel some of this concern that understandably our people have about the loss of life and limb, the enormous cost of this war to the American public, and we've got to stay firm for the next six months. It is a critical period, as Joe and I agree, in this Iraqi situation to restore full sovereignty in that country and that enables them to have their own armed forces to maintain their sovereignty. …
[Question: “What happens if not enough Iraqis step forward to defend their country?”]
“At that point then we have to come to the realization that the program has not met the target and we have to determine what we're going to do. I would not want to posture what that decision would be. You'll have to wait. You shouldn't speculate. We'll have to wait for those six months.”
November 27, 2005
Senator John W. Warner (Republican -Virginia)
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press”
“But it was necessary for the president to go out and reinforce to our troops and the other coalition forces and to the world that we have a resolve in these next four to six months in Iraq which are critical to bring about achievement of our goals. … We should not at this time in these critical four to six months be worrying about a timetable to withdraw or even talking about it.”
November 30, 2005
Senator John W. Warner (Republican -Virginia)
PBS “Online Newhour”
"[The Iraq elections are] necessary, not sufficient … [the] next six months are going to tell the story. Two important things. What’s the government going to look like? If it’s Mr. Mahdi who ends up representing the SCIRI Party, who’s aligned with Iran, then we got a real problem.
December 18, 2005
Senator Joseph Biden, Jr. (Democrat - Delaware)
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation”
"We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together."
December 18, 2005
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation”
"We're at the beginning of I think the decisive I would say six months in Iraq, OK, because I feel like this election – you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it."
December 20, 2005
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on PBS's Charlie Rose Show
"The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it – and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful."
December 21, 2005
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
“We have reached a crucial test in Iraq. … Whatever the explanation, this is the crucial moment. The elections were held and a political track was set. If this offensive derails the negotiations, it will be a defining moment in the war. If the negotiations go forward anyway – for any of the reasons discussed above – then the probability of a drawdown in the war in 2006 is very real. In the end, the reasons for the offensive are less clear than its potential significance. As they say, this is it.”
January 6, 2006
Stratfor
"I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand."
January 23, 2006
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on the Oprah Winfrey Show
"I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob. We've got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they're not, in which case I think the bottom's going to fall out."
January 31, 2006
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on CBS; program is uncertain and not been verified.
"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq."
March 2, 2006
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on NBC's “Today”
“Ashraf Qazi, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, told the Security Council in an open briefing this morning that the next six months in Iraq are going to be critical.”
March 15, 2006
http://www.un.org/News/ossg/hilites/hilites_arch_view.asp?HighID=522
“If there is ever going to be an end game in Iraq, we are now in it. Operation Swarmer, launched Thursday, seemed designed to attack jihadists in the Sunni regions. The key to the U.S.-Sunni conversation has been getting the Sunnis into the political process and, as a result, getting the Sunnis to help liquidate the jihadists. If Swarmer was launched on the basis of Sunni intelligence, and if that intelligence turns out to be accurate, it will be a key event in recent Iraqi history. Those are big "ifs," of course. At the same time, if the Sunnis are joining the political process, then it is time for Iran to negotiate its final price on Iraq, and that appears now to be happening. Taken together, this is not the end, but the beginning of the end game, and success is not guaranteed.”
“The Beginning of the End Game”
Mar 17, 2006
Stratfor
"Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if they don't, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us."
April 23, 2006
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on “CNN Late Edition with Wold Blitzer”
"Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months – probably sooner – whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."
May 11, 2006
Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist
Speaking on MSNBC's “Hardball”
“We would say that the next six weeks, rather than months, will show us where things are.”
“Core Issues in Iraq”
May 22, 2006
Stratfor
“The violence in Iraq will surge, but by July 4 there either will be clear signs that the Sunnis are controlling the insurgency – or there won't. If they are controlling the insurgency, the United States will begin withdrawing troops in earnest. If they are not controlling the insurgency, the United States will begin withdrawing troops in earnest. Regardless of whether the deal holds, the U.S. war in Iraq is going to end: U.S. troops either will not be needed, or will not be useful. Thus, we are at a break point – at least for the Americans.”
“Break Point”
May 23, 2006
George Friedman, Stratfor
“The next six months will be critical in terms of reining in the danger of civil war. If the government fails to achieve this, it will have lost its opportunity.”
June 7, 2006
Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to Iraq
Interviewed in Der Spiegel
“Second, international oil companies have been waiting for two things before investing in the Iraqi oil complex: a domestically chosen, internationally acceptable representative government, and an end to the insurgency. The first has happened; the second may finally be in sight.”
“Iraq: The Implications of Al-Zarqawi's Death”
June 08, 2006
Stratfor
“If we are right and this is the tipping point, then things just tipped toward a political settlement. This will become clearer over the next few days. Violence will certainly not disappear, but it should reduce itself rather rapidly if the Sunni and Shiite leadership have put out the word. We thought this was the week for something to happen, and something has. Now to find out if it was what we were waiting for, and to find out if it will work.”
Jun 09, 2006
“Al-Zarqawi and the Tipping Point”
Stratfor
“This is a decisive period for everyone and everyone knows it. The next six months will determine the future of Iraq.”
October 5, 2006
General George Casey, Commanding General of coalition forces in Iraq
Official statement after a 39-nation meeting in Warsaw to discuss “the challenges facing Iraq and the US-led coalition."
"Time is short, level of violence is great and the margins of error are narrow. The government of Iraq must act. The government of Iraq needs to show its own citizens soon and the citizens of the United States that it is deserving of continued support. The next three months are critical. Before the end of this year, this government needs to show progress in securing Baghdad, pursuing national reconciliation and delivering basic services."
September 19, 2006
Lee Hamilton, former Congressman (Democrat – Indiana), member of the Iraq Study Group
“The next six months are likely to be critical in determining whether the situation in Iraq turns worse or whether we may yet salvage a measure of political stability that addresses our long-term security interests in the region.“
Rep. Mark Udall (Democrat - Colorado)
June 22, 2006
These people don't know what they're doing. They have no idea where we're headed or what needs to be done. They're clueless. Utterly clueless, but that doesn't stop them from lecturing the rest of us, endlessly.
Why is anyone still listening to them?
Posted by Jonathan at 11:41 AM
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| Wednesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 08:59 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Tomorrow at the White House, President Bush will pardon the turkey. And today, Dick Cheney spent all day torturing it. — David Letterman
Posted by Jonathan at 08:55 AM
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November 21, 2006
| Olbermann On Bush And The Lessons Of Vietnam | Politics |
Bush says the lesson of Vietnam is that "we will succeed unless we quit." Olbermann takes him to school:
Excellent. Watch it.
Posted by Jonathan at 03:17 PM
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| Bobby | Black Ops |
I once shook Bobby Kennedy's hand. In April, 1968, the Pennsylvania primary brought Kennedy's campaign to the Penn campus, where I was an undergrad. Standing in a slow-moving open convertible, he reached out to the crowd of students and others lining 34th Street in West Philly. I was able to grasp his hand and look into his face, very briefly, and it was a moment I still remember vividly.
Two things struck me at the time. One was that the back of Kennedy's hand was all scratched up from all the people who'd been grabbing his hand over the course of the campaign. People responded to him like he was a rock star. More striking, though, was the look in Kennedy's eyes. He looked cornered, haunted, scared to death. I was shocked. It had been less than five years since his brother's assassination, just a couple of weeks since Martin Luther King's, so he had good reason. Still, it wasn't something I'd expected to see. A month and a half later, Kennedy himself was assassinated.
Yesterday, on what would have been Kennedy's 81st birthday, filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan published an article on possible involvement of CIA operatives in the assassination. Excerpts from the Guardian:
[David Sanchez] Morales was a legendary figure in CIA covert operations. According to close associate Tom Clines, if you saw Morales walking down the street in a Latin American capital, you knew a coup was about to happen. When the subject of the Kennedys came up in a late-night session with friends in 1973, Morales launched into a tirade that finished: "I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard." [...]Working from a Cuban photograph of Morales from 1959, I viewed news coverage of the [RFK] assassination to see if I could spot the man the Cubans called El Gordo — The Fat One. Fifteen minutes in, there he was, standing at the back of the ballroom, in the moments between the end of Kennedy's speech and the shooting. Thirty minutes later, there he was again, casually floating around the darkened ballroom while an associate with a pencil moustache took notes.
The source of early research on Morales was Bradley Ayers, a retired US army captain who had been seconded to JM-Wave, the CIA's Miami base in 1963, to work closely with chief of operations Morales on training Cuban exiles to run sabotage raids on Castro. I tracked Ayers down to a small town in Wisconsin and emailed him stills of Morales and another guy I found suspicious — a man who is pictured entering the ballroom from the direction of the pantry moments after the shooting, clutching a small container to his body, and being waved towards an exit by a Latin associate.
Ayers' response was instant. He was 95% sure that the first figure was Morales and equally sure that the other man was Gordon Campbell, who worked alongside Morales at JM-Wave in 1963 and was Ayers' case officer shortly before the JFK assassination.
I put my script aside and flew to the US to interview key witnesses for a documentary on the unfolding story. In person, Ayers positively identified Morales and Campbell and introduced me to David Rabern, a freelance operative who was part of the Bay of Pigs invasion force in 1961 and was at the Ambassador hotel that night. He did not know Morales and Campbell by name but saw them talking to each other out in the lobby before the shooting and assumed they were Kennedy's security people. He also saw Campbell around police stations three or four times in the year before Robert Kennedy was shot.
This was odd. The CIA had no domestic jurisdiction and Morales was stationed in Laos in 1968. With no secret service protection for presidential candidates in those days, Kennedy was guarded by unarmed Olympic decathlete champion Rafer Johnson and football tackler Rosey Grier — no match for an expert assassination team.
Trawling through microfilm of the police investigation, I found further photographs of Campbell with a third figure, standing centre-stage in the Ambassador hotel hours before the shooting. He looked Greek, and I suspected he might be George Joannides, chief of psychological warfare operations at JM-Wave. Joannides was called out of retirement in 1978 to act as the CIA liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigating the death of John F Kennedy.
Ed Lopez, now a respected lawyer at Cornell University, came into close contact with Joannides when he was a young law student working for the committee. We visit him and show him the photograph and he is 99% sure it is Joannides. When I tell him where it was taken, he is not surprised: "If these guys decided you were bad, they acted on it."
We move to Washington to meet Wayne Smith, a state department official for 25 years who knew Morales well at the US embassy in Havana in 1959-60. When we show him the video in the ballroom, his response is instant: "That's him, that's Morales." He remembers Morales at a cocktail party in Buenos Aires in 1975, saying Kennedy got what was coming to him. Is there a benign explanation for his presence? For Kennedy's security, maybe? Smith laughs. Morales is the last person you would want to protect Bobby Kennedy, he says. He hated the Kennedys, blaming their lack of air support for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. [...]
Morales died of a heart attack in 1978, weeks before he was to be called before the HSCA. Joannides died in 1990. Campbell may still be out there somewhere, in his early 80s. Given the positive identifications we have gathered on these three, the CIA and the Los Angeles Police Department need to explain what they were doing there. [Emphasis added]
O'Sullivan's documentary was aired last night on BBC2. The BBC website has some video and photos, but they're available only to viewers in the UK. If you're in the UK, please consider uploading to YouTube, or email images and clips to me. People here in the US need to see this material.
Posted by Jonathan at 01:46 PM
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| Global Warming Killing Off Species Faster Than Expected | Environment |
Global warming is forcing adaptations and extinctions among plant and animal species at a much faster rate than anyone anticipated. AP:
Animal and plant species have begun dying off or changing sooner than predicted because of global warming, a review of hundreds of research studies contends.These fast-moving adaptations come as a surprise even to biologists and ecologists because they are occurring so rapidly.
At least 70 species of frogs, mostly mountain-dwellers that had nowhere to go to escape the creeping heat, have gone extinct because of climate change, the analysis says. It also reports that between 100 and 200 other cold-dependent animal species, such as penguins and polar bears are in deep trouble.
"We are finally seeing species going extinct," said University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan, author of the study. "Now we've got the evidence. It's here. It's real. This is not just biologists' intuition. It's what's happening." [...]
Parmesan reports seeing trends of animal populations moving northward if they can, of species adapting slightly because of climate change, of plants blooming earlier, and of an increase in pests and parasites.
Parmesan and others have been predicting such changes for years, but even she was surprised to find evidence that it's already happening; she figured it would be another decade away.
Just five years ago biologists, though not complacent, figured the harmful biological effects of global warming were much farther down the road, said Douglas Futuyma, professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York in Stony Brook.
"I feel as though we are staring crisis in the face," Futuyma said. "It's not just down the road somewhere. It is just hurtling toward us. Anyone who is 10 years old right now is going to be facing a very different and frightening world by the time that they are 50 or 60." [Emphasis added]<