Scott Thomas Beauchamp

...is the real name of the source for The New Republic "Shock Troops" article that I discussed earlier. He has outed himself here. He is a real soldier, I checked him in the Army Knowledge Online database. As he claims, he belongs to the Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division. This saddens me actually. I would have preferred that The New Republic made this up out of whole cloth than imagine that a fellow soldier would deliberately spread this kind of misinformation. It's even worse that he belongs to the 1st Infantry Div, which is a unit that I went to war with, and it's the combat patch I wear on my sleeve, even though I'm authorized to wear several others (for those that don't know - whenever you go to war with a unit, you are authorized to wear that unit's patch on your right sleeve).

To add further to the coincidences, Pvt Beauchamp attended the University of Missouri-Columbia along with his wife, Elspeth Reeve, which is where I did my undergraduate work.

This also leads to another interesting point. Big surprise: Elspeth Reeve is actually a reporter for The New Republic! Not a big surprise: And from their writings, both her and Scott are both politically liberal and anti-Iraq War.

Also not surprisingly, Andrew Sullivan, and his buddy Matt Yglesias are disturbed that anyone even dare question "Scott Thomas". Part of the problem is that Sullivan is friends with the editor of TNR, and he even admits that he "hopes that every single aspect of his story is true".

For more perspective, I should also point out that both Sullivan and Yglesias are writers at The Atlantic, both initially supported the war but changed their minds when it became more politically palatable to do so, and both of them have not only never served in the military, but have held no jobs in their adult lives other than writing blogs and editorials. Yglesias writes:

as best I can tell nobody has yet brought forward any serious reason to doubt his story... They [Scott Beauchamp's critics] need to apologize to the people at TNR who've wasted huge amounts of time dealing with their nonsense. And they need to think a bit about the epistemic situation they're creating where information about Iraq that they don't want to hear -- even when published in a pro-war publication -- can just be immediately dismissed as fraudulent even though the misconduct it described was far, far less severe than all sorts of other well-document misconduct in Iraq.

Oh I see. So if, say, I make up a story about German soldiers sodomizing British prisoners in WWII, that's okay, as long as there is more severe misconduct that has been well-documented elsewhere? This goes back to the "fake but accurate" argument that people used to explain away the infamous fake Bush National Guard memos.

Incidentally, I only dismissed it after it described actions that I knew to be impossible (see below).

Andrew Sullivan writes:

Nothing has been disproved so far as I can tell. And the incident that seems to have created the fooferaw has actually been confirmed. Hewitt is unable to find a single factual inaccuracy

The mass-grave incident was not "confirmed" other than someone did find some children's skeletons. And in fact, one contractor claims the remains were handled responsibly. And not a single factual inaccuracy? How about this:

1) Not only has no one been able to corroborate his story about the woman in the dining hall, but no one has even seen anyone by that description at FOB Falcon. Nor can anyone explain why someone that badly injured would be on that particular FOB instead of a base with a hospital in the first place;

2) The antics he described with a Bradley Infantry Fighting are quite impossible for the many reasons I described earlier;

3) No one has corroborated his story about the mass grave (although some children's skeletons were found) or explained how someone could wear a child's skull under his ACH (helmet);

4 *Bonus*) Even if by some wild fluke everything he said was true, then he has still committed a crime in reporting it to his wife at The New Republic, rather than to his chain of command or military police.

Anyway, now he's really in hot water, and under an official investigation:

Maj. Kirk Luedeke, a spokesman for the base, said by e-mail: "We are conducting a formal investigation into the allegations made by Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp in the New Republic, so given that situation, I am unable to comment on the matter until the investigation is complete."

It's good to see the grown-ups taking charge again. I can't wait for the results. But who wants to bet, that even when he is officially uncovered as a fraud, his supporters will claim the Army framed him?

Since I found Scott Beauchamp's name in AKO, I have access to his email address as well. I was tempted to send him a pretty nasty letter, but I'll let the Army handle this the proper way. Apparently, they have temporarily taken away his access to a computer and telephone as well.

If I had the time could go on an on, but I don't have to. Little Green Footballs and Michelle Malkin have been all over this story, with more details than I have time to provide here.

By the way, now that his name is out, he even has his own wiki page. That was quick. Now back to my vacation...



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Freed Child Rapist, Part II

I have a little more information on the appaling decision by a Maryland judge to let an accused child rapist go free without a trial. First of all, an apology, I put an incorrect link to the story in my earlier post. It has been fixed, and here it is again. In summary, a Liberian man who was granted asylum in the United States was accused in 2004 of repeatedly molesting a 7-year girl over the course of a year. He hasn't been tried in the intervening three years because his attorney insists (and the court agreed) that to fully understand the charges against him he needed an interpreter in his native language of Vai.

But what makes it particularly fishy is that the man attended high school and community college in the US. Additionally, the official language of Liberia is English! But the judge, Katherine D. Savage, dismissed the charges because she said the delays interfered with the defendant's right to a speedy trial.

I have a question. What about the 7 year old girl's right to justice in this case? What about the rights of any future children that this man decides to prey upon?

If that isn't outrageous enough, Michelle Malkin has a few more details on her blog, along with copies of the court documents. Apparently, he was facing charges involving not just one but two girls. Incredibly, the documents also show a court interpreter being sworn in on the very day the charges were dismissed!

I also have a couple of things to add of my own. According to the Washington Post article:

The first interpreter stormed out of the courtroom in tears because she found the facts of the case disturbing.

I wonder how she feels now, knowing that she helped set this man free?

All is not quite lost yet. Prosecutors could (and should) appeal the judge's decision, and oversight agencies, including the State Bar, and the Maryland legislature should investigate what went wrong in this case, including the conduct of the attorneys and judge Savage.

In addition, the USCIS should reconsider the man's asylum request, although from past experience, I doubt they would bother unless they were put under pressure.



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Powerscourt Waterfall, Dublin Ireland

In Gaelic, I guess this would be called an "álainn eas". Part of the beautiful Irish countryside. These are the Powerscourt waterfalls a little ways south of Dublin.

Unfortunately, you have to pay a fee to see this natural wonder.

You know, driving on the right side of the road is an experience. Driving a manual transmission shifting gears with my left hand is also an experience. I am lucky that nobody was killed...

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Vacation [Updated]

Family on our way to Ibiza in 2006, during my R&R leave from Iraq

I'll be on a much needed vacation for the next two weeks. I'm off to Dublin, Ireland, and then Saint Tropez in France. I will blog a little, but it will be light.

In the meantime, here are a few things you might want to check out. I haven't had time to discuss them in full:

Outrageously, an accused child rapist is set free because the court can't find an interpreter for him (even though he went to high school and college in the US!);

Anti-Semitism on the rise in the UK;

Turkey is complaining that Germany is finally getting realistic on immigration (240,000 Turks were allowed to enter as guest workers in the past, somehow there are over 2 million today).

The UK is finally having a substantial discussion on the immigration issue as well;

Speaking of the UK, new unpleasant details of a well-publicized honor killing;

On a different note, are you tired of using Photoshop to edit your photos? Here is a list of 10 free alternatives. I have tried half of them thoroughly now, and they are very good.

Update 07/27/2007 03:29:00 PM: Fixed broken link to the child rapist story.



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...and Disinformation from "The Nation"

September, 2006, The Iraqi sun is very powerful, even early in the morning

There is a rather long article that has created quite a buzz among the anti-war crowd. The article seems to be better researched than the above one from TNR, but it also contains claims that are likely fabrications, and it hasn't received a hard critique (until now).

It's called "The Other War", and it appears in the July 30th issue of The Nation:

The mounting frustration of fighting an elusive enemy and the devastating effect of roadside bombs, with their steady toll of American dead and wounded, led many troops to declare an open war on all Iraqis.

Veterans [these ones are anonymous, of course - JR] described reckless firing once they left their compounds. Some shot holes into cans of gasoline being sold along the roadside and then tossed grenades into the pools of gas to set them ablaze. Others opened fire on children. These shootings often enraged Iraqi witnesses.

This sounds pretty damning. I'll take the important parts of the article one step at a time. But to start with, The Nation's methodology is a problem:

The Nation interviewed fifty combat veterans, including forty soldiers, eight marines and two sailors, over a period of seven months beginning in July 2006. To find veterans willing to speak on the record about their experiences in Iraq, we sent queries to organizations dedicated to US troops and their families, including Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the antiwar groups Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War and the prowar group Vets for Freedom. The leaders of IVAW and Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of IAVA, were especially helpful in putting us in touch with Iraq War veterans. Finally, we found veterans through word of mouth, as many of those we interviewed referred us to their military friends.

My invitation must have been lost in the mail. With the exception of "Vets for Freedom", every one of these groups is vehemently anti-war. And, as in the last line, when you find people by friends who refer friends, you can see how your skewed sample is skewed even further. It's also worth noting that at least two of their interviewees are identified as conscientious objectors or military deserters, possibly much more.

True, you would be hard-pressed to find a soldier that is not critical of the war in some fashion. But if you randomly selected 50 soldiers, I am confident that the vast majority support the mission of the war, even if they would rather be home instead. The vast majority also wouldn't make routine claims of atrocities either, some of which are very suspect, as I will discuss below.

Here are some of the claims in the article:

1) Soldiers routinely busted up Iraqi homes during raids. One soldier shot a family dog for no reason and nobody reported it. One description:

"So what you'll do is you'll take his sofa cushions and you'll dump them. If he has a couch, you'll turn the couch upside down. You'll go into the fridge, if he has a fridge, and you'll throw everything on the floor, and you'll take his drawers and you'll dump them.... You'll open up his closet and you'll throw all the clothes on the floor and basically leave his house looking like a hurricane just hit it.

"And if you find something, then you'll detain him. If not, you'll say, 'Sorry to disturb you. Have a nice evening.' So you've just humiliated this man in front of his entire family and terrorized his entire family and you've destroyed his home. And then you go right next door and you do the same thing in a hundred homes."

My response: For Heaven's sake, this is war! You can't simply knock on the door in the middle of the day and ask the family to line up outside while you gently search their house. I'm sorry it's humiliating, but how else to handle such searches? One solution was to give the job of actually entering the homes to the Iraqi soldiers, but then you get a lot of complaints about that too. A lot of residents complain that the Iraqi soldiers/Iraqi police will steal anything valuable from the house.

2) Another complained that Officers weren't helping:

"For that mission, they'd only handed out the target sheets to officers, and officers aren't there with the rest of the troops."

My response: This was definitely not true in my unit, or in any unit I ever saw. Platoon leaders and company executive officers/commanders (who are all lieutenants and captains) are always expected to work right alongside their men in every facet of the mission. I never saw a unit that was an exception to this, and other officers would have a very low opinion of anyone who did this.


3) On results of the raids:

"We did find small materials for IEDs, like maybe a small piece of the wire, the detonating cord," said Sergeant Cannon. "We never found real bombs in the houses." In the thousand or so raids he conducted during his time in Iraq, Sergeant Westphal said, he came into contact with only four "hard-core insurgents."

My response: Often house raids don't reveal anything obvious because insurgents are smart enough to keep their weapons and explosives hidden away somewhere else. But it is common to find computers, cds, notebooks, etc with insurgent information on them. But this is all found later when it's passed up to intelligence analysts at a higher echelon. It won't be always obvious to the troops on the ground.

4) In November 2003, prisoners at Abu Ghraib rioted and several were shot. Army Reserve Spc Aidan Delgado claimed that one soldier had a photograph of himself taken standing over the corpse of a dead prisoner with his brains blown out. He had a spoon in his hand and was pretending to be eating the man's brains for the camera. Note: Delgado later filed for conscientious objector status to get out of the Army.

My response: I simply could not believe such a fantastic claim unless I had a chance to see and analyze the photo myself. The Nation claims they saw it, so have they released it? I do know that sometimes soldiers greatly exaggerate such incidents in order to help get their conscientious objector status approved.

5) Allegations of racism:

Iraqi culture, identity and customs were, according to at least a dozen soldiers and marines interviewed by The Nation, openly ridiculed in racist terms, with troops deriding "haji food," "haji music" and "haji homes." In the Muslim world, the word "haji" denotes someone who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca. But it is now used by American troops in the same way "gook" was used in Vietnam or "raghead" in Afghanistan.

My response: Oh the horror... This is perfectly normal for every war in history. During the American Revolution, the British were "Redcoats" and we were "Yankees". In WWI, the Germans were "huns", in WWII, they were "krauts". Was that racist, when they were, by and large, the same race as those they were fighting?

Certainly it is racist sometimes. But "haji" is really just a name. When I first arrived in 2003, "haji" was such a common term that many just thought it was a normal word. Some were actually surprised when the Division ordered us to stop using it.

6) A Specialist Resta was told not to treat a wounded Iraqi who came asking for medical help:

We were told from the first second that we arrived there, and this was in writing on the wall in our aid station, that we were not to treat Iraqi civilians unless they were about to die....

My response: WRONG. Unless the aid station was making up its own rules. The rules were (and are still) simple: you treat anyone for life, limb, loss of eyesight, or anything that we caused. This might or might now have applied to the Iraqi described in the article. Usually we did whatever we could, and interpreted the rule as flexible as possible. But it is unfortunate to turn away sick Iraqis, and I myself had to do it a few times. It is also unfortunate that some soldiers are very rude when enforcing this rule, but there is a reason for their frustration. Sometimes you get days when dozens of Iraqis come to your gate asking for medical help. You just can't treat them all; the military medics and doctors are set up and budgeted to have the resources to treat our own people, plus prisoners. That's about it. Since US care is better than Iraqi hospitals, they would simply be overwhelmed otherwise.

7) On reckless behavior:

Iraqi civilians, including children, were frequently run over and killed [by US convoys].

My response: It galls me when people loosely use terms like "frequently". How many are we talking about? My first unit in Iraq, the 1-1 Cavalry squadron, did hit and kill one woman in a vehicle accident. One in the entire 15 months of our tour from 2003-2004. We had to pay her family compensation, and this was considered a very unusual event.

8) A Specialist Joe Hatcher, of San Diego, claimed that troops often shot civilians and then planted a weapon on the victim to make it look like a legitimate kill.

My response: This is one of the most outrageous claims of all. If it's a lie, its an outrageous lie, and if it's true, it's equally outrageous that Spc Hatcher did not report this when he saw it. Frankly, if he's out of the Army, he needs to be ordered back on active duty immediately to testify when/where he saw this, and on possible charges of failing to report a crime. I hate it when criminals like this get treated as heroes for telling their stories to the media. If he is telling the truth, he is just as guilty as everyone else involved. Treat him as such.

9) On the rules of engagement:

Lack of a uniform policy from service to service, base to base and year to year forced troops to rely on their own judgment, Sergeant Jefferies explained. "We didn't get straight-up rules," he said. "You got things like, 'Don't be aggressive' or 'Try not to shoot if you don't have to.' Well, what does that mean?"

My response: PURE BULL. The rules of engagement are given to soldiers before and during their entire tour. In every Division I served with, every soldier was expected to have a copy in their wallet, at a minimum. Some were required to carry the cards in their helmets as well. Yes, the ROE sometimes changed a bit, but the bottom line was always the same. Don't shoot at someone unless your unit is in danger, or they just attacked you. Period.

10) Allegations of shooting people at traffic check points:

Sergeant Flatt recounted one incident in Mosul in January 2005 when an elderly couple zipped past a checkpoint. "The car was approaching what was in my opinion a very poorly marked checkpoint, or not even a checkpoint at all, and probably didn't even see the soldiers," he said. "The guys got spooked and decided it was a possible threat, so they shot up the car. And they literally sat in the car for the next three days while we drove by them day after day."

My response:Here's another example of treating a war criminal like a hero. If Sgt Flatt is telling the truth, then he needs to testify about this incident. I am a little skeptical, however. Women in Iraq don't just go driving around without their families knowing about it. Someone will come looking for them. And it's against Islam to simply leave a body sitting out for several days. I don't see how that would happen. The only times I ever saw bodies simply left where they were, was when we had reason to believe they were booby trapped by insurgents, and even then, the body was guarded and only remained there for about 48 hours while the Iraqi Army waited on their ordnance disposal team to show up.

Don't get me wrong. War crimes and atrocities do happen. But at this point I have heard enough false claims to be very, very skeptical, especially when the allegations are vague, or when certain parts just don't ring true. I invite the editors of The Nation to put me in contact with some of their sources, or to speak to me themselves.

Update: At the Daily Kos, the anti-war crowd is going wild. And according to Little Green Footballs, one of the authors of The Nation piece, Laila Al-Arian, is the daughter of islamic Jihad kingpin Sami Al-Arian.

I thought I was alone! Another fisking here.

UPDATE 18/09/2007 01:20:00 AM:
Kind of a late update, but I should have linked to this related article by Robin at "Chickenhawk Express" a long time ago. This is brilliant:

But when you tally up the actual names of people quoted in the article, there are only 29 vets identified by names. Of the 29, 48% are members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) while 6% are members of Vets for Freedom. The rest of the numbers break down like this... 24% IAVA members and 17% had no "official" ties to any organization per a Google search.

See if some of these names ring a bell.... Geoffrey Millard, Garett Reppenhagen, Kelly Dougherty Jeff Englehart, Camilo Meija, Aidan Delgado and Michael Harmon. These are some of the more "active" anti-war activists involved with IVAW. Anytime there is a news piece about an anti-war protest or hunger strike or "street theater" protests, you'll find at least one of these names.

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More Disinformation from "The New Republic"

BIFV, Camp Slayer, Jan 2004

This week, The New Republic ran a piece called "Shock Troops" (available to subscribers only) which is a collection of outrageous lies spread by their "source" whom they call "Scott Thomas" (a pseudonym, of course, to protect his identity). I'm not going to go into great detail, because the claims have been thoroughly debunked here, here and here, among other places, but to summarize:

"Scott Thomas" claims to be a low-ranking infantry soldier based out of forward operating base (FOB) Falcon in Baghdad. Among other things, he claims:

1) On one occasion, a woman contractor or soldier, whose face and hair were badly burned from an IED, was eating in the dining hall when soldiers around her loudly began making fun of her appearance and making sexually suggestive remarks until she fled the dining hall in disgust.

2) The driver for "Scott Thomas"'s Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (see picture above for what they look like) was a reckless driver and loved to run his vehicle into walls, concrete barriers, and over dogs in the road.

3) His unit found a children's mass grave site south of Baghdad, and one soldier took part of a child's skull and wore it on top of his head, and thereafter enjoyed wearing it on missions under his helmet.

My Response: The first claim probably sounded credible to the civilians at TNR, but it is impossible. Anyone badly injured is evacuated out of the country. They aren't just left hanging around, especially on a FOB. A burn victim, particularly burns of the face and skull, requires very careful treatment, and FOB Falcon has an emergency medical clinic only. The closest thing to a real hospital is in the Green Zone, and for serious injuries they only keep soldiers/civilians there only until they are stable enough to be evacuated to Landstuhl hospital in Germany. Moreover, I just can't imagine a scenario where soldiers would be allowed to ridicule an IED casualty without getting their asses handed to them by someone in charge. In all-male units, soldiers are a little more tolerant of sexually suggestive remarks, but they damn sure take IED victims seriously and would never tolerate such a display. Add to all this that a woman burned like that would be fairly noticeable, and out of all the soldiers and official army sources who responded to this story, no one can remember a woman by the description at FOB Falcon.

The second claim is extremely improbable. First of all, outside visibility is poor in a Bradley (soldiers don't ride standing up in the hatch like they did back in 2003) and the things are loud, lumbering machines, so running over a dog is extremely difficult. But even more impossible is the claim that the driver regularly smashed his vehicle into people's walls and concrete barriers. Patrols wear down the tracks on these vehicles, and they constantly need to be replaced. Spare tracks are not easy to come by, and hammering them back together is long tedious work, which is done by the vehicle crew themselves (at least it was when I was there). Any Bradley commander would immediately replace someone who treated the vehicle like that, no ifs, ands or buts.

The third claim is equally impossible. First, an Army spokesman has said that no new mass grave sites have been found south of Baghdad. Second, I don't understand how a child's skulltop (or even most adults) would fit over a grown man's head. Plus, it would be impossible to wear something like that inside the Army's advanced combat helmet without causing pain. It just doesn't wash.

But people eat this stuff up. I can't help thinking about Jesse Macbeth, another soldier who made outrageous claims about Fallujah that were embraced by the anti-war blogosphere until he was uncovered as a fraud.

As Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit said:

THE TROOPS USED TO BE HEROES. Then the media made them victims. Now it's making them evil, like the hordes of "Jenjis Khan." This will make betraying them more palatable.

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Another Way to Undermine the War

March 2007, Gen Petraeus speaks to an Al-Arabiya reporter in East Baghdad (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Davis Prid).

I guess that when you are an armchair warrior, doing your best in the blogosphere to undermine the war effort as much as possible, even bashing on Bush and Cheney from your laptop in the comfort of your living room must get old after awhile. So it must be fun to take a little diversion and assassinate the character of one of our finest generals instead.

At Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald portrays General David Howell Petraeus, commander of coalition forces in Iraq, as a partisan hack for the Bush administration (and Andrew Sullivan agrees). This is simply because, -gasp- he allowed himself to be interviewed by Hugh Hewitt (a conservative writer for the Weekly Standard), and because he is -double gasp- optimistic about the War in Iraq!

For the partisan issue, I would like to point out that earlier this year, Petraeus was unanimously confirmed to his position and rank of four star General by a heavily Democratic US Senate.

And more importantly, would it make any sense to appoint an anti-war general to command the Iraq theater? Wouldn't it be irresponsible for Petraeus, or anyone else in command, to go around telling all the troops the war is lost? Has it ever occurred to either of these posers that no matter what his personal feelings are, the reality is that American troops are on the ground in Iraq, and the Generals are not the ones who decide when/if we can bring them home. So while we are there, for the sake of the lives of the men in theater, Gen Petraeus needs to give us, and the enemy, the impression that we are determined to win. Of course, common sense doesn't come easily to some people. Frankly, I feel like nothing would satisfy people like Greenwald and Sullivan other than a General who will turn rebel and set his guns on Bush himself.

Incidentally, laughably, Greenwald describes himself as "neither liberal or conservative", despite the fact that he writes for the most liberal magazine in the country, continually bashes on Bush and the war from his blog (and in two best selling books), and is openly gay and considers himself married to a Brazilian man.

But really who has more credibility? Well, I will be happy to stack up the military experience of Glenn Greenwald, and Andrew Sullivan against General Petraeus any day. Not only have Greenwald and Sullivan never gone to war, they have never served in the military, and as far as I can tell have never visited a combat zone, nor is it likely that they personally know anyone who has. I also have yet to find any evidence that they have ever even visited the Middle East or have even studied it in any meaningful manner. Opposing the war is one thing, but baseless attacks on generals and soldiers (see next post) are something else. Exposing pseudo-experts like these is one of the reasons why I created this blog in the first place, and boy it feels good (even if I don't have anywhere near their readership yet).




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Americans are Still Being Held Hostage in Iran

I gave much of the background of these cases in an earlier post here. But in an update, there are now four Americans confirmed held in Iran, and two of them were forced to make "confessions" of spying on Iranian TV yesterday.

Their names are Kian Tajbakhsh, Haleh Esfandiari, Parnaz Azima and Ali Shakeri. Another American, Robert Levinson, has not been confirmed held but has been missing since March of this year.

Tell, me where is the outrage in this country? Or worldwide? There was plenty of outrage over the detention by the USA over Jose Padilla, who is a US citizen. Why so little is said about these four (or five) US citizens? For that matter, why does Evin prison (where the women are held) get only a tiny fraction of the worldwide condemnation of Guantanamo? Not only is Evin far worse than Guantanamo, but no outsiders are allowed to visit or inspect it. It is also a site for execution by stoning.

Incidentally, I feel have to give you a good idea just what is entailed in stoning. The victim is bound, wrapped in a white sheet (including the head), and buried up to his/her (usually her) chest to prevent protecting herself. Then several others take a good long time throwing golf-ball sized jagged stones at her head. It is slow and excruciatingly painful. She can't move or avoid the stones hitting her skull, eyes, or face. When it is finished, and the victim is taken out of the hole, what you see is a white wrapped figure with a dark red head, for the wrapping around the head has become totally soaked in blood.

So when people compare Iran and the US, and complain that the US has the death penalty too, you can tell them that the United States doesn't do it by torturing people to death. And they only execute convicted murderers. Not adulterers, blasphemers, prostitutes, homosexuals, or rape victims. I think that's a big difference.

And if you think I'm overreacting, keep in mind that in 2003, a Canadian named Zahra Kazemi was raped, tortured, and killed in Evin prison. No one was held accountable for the outrage.




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No Easy Way Out

Road block in Al-Bayaa, Baghdad, March 2004

Anne Applebaum, a columnist at Slate, wrote a dead-on-target article in regard to the Iraq War:

Hillary Clinton has a three-point plan; Barack Obama has a move-the-soldiers-from-Iraq-to-Afghanistan plan. House Democrats have a plan to take most troops out by next March; Senate Democrats have a plan to take them out by April. Some Senate Republicans want the president to shrink the size of the U.S. military in Iraq; other Senate Republicans want to let the surge run its course. Search the Web, listen to the radio, watch the news, and you can hear people arguing that if only we had more troops, fewer troops, or no troops at all, then everything would be OK again.

What is missing from this conversation is a dose of humility. More to the point, what is missing is the recognition that every single one of these plans contains the seeds of potential disaster, even catastrophe.

I do have my own plan to win the war (not that anyone is likely to listen), but it would entail radically changing the tactics we have been using so far. I will discuss it in a later article.

The bottom line is, it looks like too many people are living in the moment. The "get out now" crowd doesn't seem to want to think about the inevitable bloodbath after the US pulls out (although ironically, many of them are the same ones asking us to send troops to prevent mass killings in Darfur), and the "stay the course" crowd doesn't seem to acknowledge the unfortunate reality that US and UK public opinion is increasingly so opposed to the war that eventually "stay the course" will not be an option.

The irony is, as wars go, it isn't even that bad. According to the latest released data, 3909 coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq as of today, 3622 of them Americans. Compare this to the 8,226 killed during the Battle of Iwo Jima alone, or the over 58,000 US dead from the Vietnam War. I'm not trying to minimize any tragedies here; in fact, some of these were men that I served with. But compared to other wars, less than 4000 in more than 4 years is incredible. Part of this is the guerrilla nature of the war, part of it advances in lifesaving technologies, but probably the biggest factor is the interceptor body armor which has saved countless American lives. Of course, besides the human casualties, you have the financial cost, which has been estimated at between $5-12 billion per month. It's the human cost, however, the produces the most outrage.

Machiavelli's "The Prince" has a relevant passage here:

Those can be called well used (if it is permissible to speak well of evil) that are done at a stroke, out of the necessity to secure oneself, and then are not persisted in but are turned to as much utility for the subjects as one can. Those cruelties are badly used which, though few in the beginning, rather grow with time.... Hence it should be noted that in taking hold of a state, he who seizes it should review all the offenses necessary for him to commit, and do them all at a stroke.... For injuries must be done all together, so that, being tasted less, they offend less

In other words, if those 3,909 soldiers were all killed during the short push to Baghdad in March 2003, and none at all during the long guerrilla war afterwards, the public outcry over the cost would actually be much less. But adding, on average, 2-3 war deaths every day for the past four years keeps the cost of the war ever fresh in the public's mind. Add to the mix that those doing the reporting are, in general, hostile to the war and love to report coalition failures, and you have a combination that is very hard to beat in the court of public opinion, no matter how much logic, reason, or facts you have to back up your case.




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Oil, part II: Imagine a Future Without Oil - Might Not be as Wonderful as You Expect

Petroleum use: USA vs. 20 other leading nations

There is no doubt the United States is so oil dependent it's not even funny. As the chart to the right from The Economist shows, US petroleum consumption is higher than many other leading nations combined (You can click on the image to make it easier to read). Now there are several reasons for this high consumption, other than our comparatively low gasoline prices:

1) The United States is larger than most other countries and has greater travel needs. About 67% of our petroleum is used for transportation.

2) Most of the largest airlines in the world are registered in the USA, and the airline industry uses about 10% of the world's transportation fuel.

3) The US also has enormous fuel needs for its military; the US Air Force alone uses 70% of all fuel needed by the US government.

4) It's also our consumer culture; a large amount of petroleum is used for purposes other than fuel, such as plastics, medicines, food items, cleaning solvents, industrial lubricants, asphalt, and a host of personal products, like hairspray, aftershave, and Vaseline.

5) The US consumes a lot of heating fuels, for home and industry, such as heating oil, propane, butane, and ethane.

In any case, what if we were not so oil dependent? Weaning ourselves off a commodity that is used to fund a lot of terrorism would make me ecstatic. But unfortunately, the truth is the picture may not be as pretty as you might think.

The problem is, all the current contenders to replace oil cause as many (or more) problems than we already have now. The possibilities include hydrogen fuel cells, battery powered cars, hybrid cars, or switching to ethanol.

Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are, in fact, the greatest thing ever. Instead of smog, they emit water vapor! But getting the hydrogen fuel is an extremely expensive process that burns up a lot of energy itself (of course, this is greatly ironic, since hydrogen is the most common element in the Universe). So this option is not viable for awhile.

In the 1970s, all the talk was of the electric car. I saw one in 1976, when I was a boy. Someone brought one to a party to show it off, and it was wonderful. It looked futuristic, drove smoothly, and was so quiet it was eerie. Unfortunately, except for golf carts, the electric car never caught on for various reasons, some of which are the subject of great debate.

The documentary "who killed the electric car" set up one heck of a nice web site, and makes a lot of good points. But they also tread into the realm of conspiracy theories. I can accept that oil companies might have pressured the public to resist it, but the auto industry too? They claim the auto industry is "guilty" of killing the electric car because:

Not only would a successful electric car program cannibalize sales of conventional cars, but the electric car costs the auto industry in other ways: lacking an engine, it saves the driver the cost of replacement parts, motor oil, filters, and spark plugs. The EV1’s regenerative braking system, in which the car’s electronic controls handled much of the work of slowing down the car, spared the car’s mechanical brake system from wear. Brake parts and repair is a billion-plus dollar industry alone.

"Cannibalize sales"? That's not a problem if the same car company is the one making the product that's being "cannibalized"! That would be like motion picture studios refusing to make any more films because that would be "cannibalizing" sales of movies already on the market.

And how big an impact would it be on the parts market? Electric cars would still need lubricants, seats, windows, tires, windshield wipers, etc, etc. I'm just not convinced that the market for spark plugs is enough to impel the car companies to refuse to sell something that the public will buy. Besides, a great deal of these parts are not made by the manufacturers themselves. When it says that "brake parts & repair is a billion dollar industry alone", you need to factor in that much of that money goes to overhead, local brake shops, and independent manufacturers. Besides, they might have less wear, but any electric car still needs brakes!

The bottom line is that the electric car never caught on simply because the public didn't demand it. The automakers are in the business to make money, and if there was enough demand, electric cars would be everywhere.

For several years now, automakers have offered electric/gasoline hybrid vehicles and sales are lower than original expectations. Last year they accounted for only 1.5% of all vehicles sold. 1.5%!! And this is with gasoline prices at an all-time high! So you can understand why automakers are reluctant to take the full plunge and start offering fully electric-powered cars and trucks. Toyota is now developing a "plug-in" hybrid car which will depend much more on it's electric motor and get 100 miles to the gallon. If it sells, that will be wonderful, but from the public's reaction in the past, I am skeptical.

In any case, even a fully electric car cannot totally save us here. No one has been able to design a workable electric passenger plane or cargo ship, so we would still need fuel; the batteries in such a plane would be too heavy, and without the ability to "recharge" on the high seas, electric ships would be in trouble. Of course, there are many military vessels that run off electricity generated from a nuclear reactor, but no one wants to make this available to the general consumer.

So, for a very long time, we will still need fuel. Of course, the fuel could change, and that's where ethanol comes in. Various US Presidential candidates have made ethanol an issue to show they are serious about getting rid of our oil addiction.

Ethanol is essentially pure grain alcohol, usually derived from corn. But to use it on a large scale has three drawbacks: 1) Requires conversions to pipelines (ethanol is more corrosive than gasoline), pumps, and cars; 2) Crops require tremendous amounts of water; and 3) You still get pollutants in the form of greenhouse gases.

Still, many nations, including Germany, have offered subsidies to promote the use of ethanol and growth of ethanol producing crops. But in a rude reminder to people who think Europe has limitless room for immigration and population growth:

in its first major report on bioenergy, the United Nations tried to temper enthusiasm over biofuels last week, warning that the diversion of land to grow crops for fuel will increase prices for basic food commodities.

This is already happening. Switching the burden of our fuel needs from the Middle East to our own farms is taking its toll, because there is only so much farmland to go around. For example, the price of certain foodstuffs like pasta is going up, and so are things like tequila, and beer, which is certain to outrage ordinary Germans.

But if we got rid of the oil, it would be worth it right? No more dependence on Middle Eastern despots or even South American ones like Hugo Chavez... Could we then forget about the Middle East? With no more reason to interfere in their affairs, no more wars, correct?

I'll put aside for a moment that in spite of what some wrongheaded people claim, the West doesn't get involved in Middle East conflicts just to safeguard oil. But even if they did, we would still face problems. Here's the ironic but unfortunate reality that the alternative energy movement is heading toward: If we simply replaced our gasoline powered vehicles with something else, the Middle East would implode. And implode big time. In other words, if we stopped using oil, then for awhile we would have more war, not less.

The problem is, there is practically nothing else in Middle East other than oil. Buried in an interesting article at Pajamas Media, is this incredible statement:

Minus oil, the total value of the non-petroleum exports of the 22 members of the Arab League plus Iran is less than the exports of Finland. Without oil, the main exports of the Near East would be carpets, dates and honey.

Any successful alternative energy source would cause the price of oil to plummet, and so would the entire wealth of the Middle East. There is nothing else there. At all.

Convoy in Kuwait, March 2003. Nothing but dust as far as the eye can see

Those of you who have visited anywhere in the great Arabian peninsula know that there literally is nothing there but oil (and most regions don't even have that). The Arabian desert is not even like a great sandbox; a better way to describe it is as a sea of dust, almost as dry and lifeless as the surface of the moon.

To make it worse, many Arab countries are lacking not only in natural resources, but in human ones. Anywhere from one-fifth (in Saudi Arabia) to one-half (in Kuwait) of the population of wealthy Arab states are actually foreign workers; the native population is sorely lacking in knowledge in medicine, computer science, engineering, etc. According to Forbes:

Some 70% of the Saudi population is under the age of 25. At least 30% are unemployed, and even more, though it is unclear just how many, are grossly underemployed. Many spend their days hanging out in the malls, their nights at Omar's place on Palestine Street. All are disaffected, searching for something that will energize them.

Even though the Saudi government is spending 35-40% of it's budget on education, it's not doing much good. Maha Akeel, a journalist with Arab News, argues that:

young Saudis are not studying the subjects the society needs.

We cannot have 80% of our college students graduating in history, geography, Arabic literature and Islamic studies and we barely have enough students graduating in science, engineering or from the medical schools.

And of course, add to this that one half the potential work force is doing even less. Women make up 55% of college graduates, but an astoundingly low 5% of the workforce.

These same young, privileged, and unemployed Saudis are particularly vulnerable to turning toward jihad to find meaning in their lives. It's no coincidence that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. Now, imagine the oil money dries up. Serious economic downturns helped propel people like Hitler, Mussolini, and Lenin into power. How well do you think a nation of unemployed, young, Islamic men will react?

Right now, there are just no easy answers here, which coincidentally, is also true of the war in Iraq and is the subject of my next post.




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Flickr Account

Cute Iraqi girl

I had put this off for too long. My own photos are now up on Flickr. Enjoy!

Right now, I have up a sampling of my Iraq pictures from 2003-2004. In the next few days I should have all my favorite pictures up, including subjects other than Iraq.

I tried to upload only the more interesting photos I have. Here is another piece of advice: if you have a Flickr account, don't just dump every photo you have into it. It will just hurt your reputation, and people may never see your good stuff.

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Great New Blog

Found a great new blog today by "RobertD", a military retiree: "Thereby hang's a tale". Unlike 99% of blogs discussing the Iraq War, he is writing about actual military preparedness, and the way the actual fighting is going, not just the way the political fighting is going. This is, frankly, something I constantly have to remind myself about - not to get caught up in too much useless political bickering.

I don't agree with everything he says, but I wish him the best.

Incidentally, on my blogroll to the right are some quality web sites that don't get giant amounts of traffic. This is a suggestion for all new bloggers. Why link to ridiculously popular sites like Instapundit, Little Green Footballs, Huffington Post, or Perez Hilton? These sites usually get over a million hits a day, and if you are new, they are highly unlikely to link to you, or even notice that you exist.

Link to the little guys. They need it more, and will notice you for it. I found the "Thereby hang's a tale" blog specifically because the author linked to me from his site.





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Oil, part I: "No Blood for Oil!"

Protester parody comic by J.J. McCullough, available here

"No Blood for Oil!" - A timeless expression, whose dishonesty has done nothing to diminish its popularity in the least. Check out this quote by Philosophy Professor George Caffentzis, University of Southern Maine, on ABC, February 2003:

The slogan "No Blood for Oil" on this level rejects the obvious gangster behavior the Bush Administration (and the Blair echo) with brevity and justice. S/he who affirms it wants to stop this act of brigandage pure and simple and treats Bush's and Blair's "high-minded" (and poorly crafted) rationalizations for invasion as crude, shameful parodies of justice...

Though plunder is definitely part of the Bush Administration's plan there are other more global issues suggested by the slogan...

The protester's sign's slogan has been interpreted on three different levels so far: first, as a refusal to spill blood for the plunder of Iraq's oil resources; second, as a refusal to spill blood in order to impose privatization and "free market" practices on the oil industry internationally; third, as a refusal to spill blood to preserve the rules of the neoliberal global regime. On the final level, I want to think about "No Blood for Oil" as a revolutionary slogan similar perhaps to the "Land, Peace and Bread" of the Russian Revolution

"No Blood for Oil" started as a popular slogan back in 1990-1991 during the build up to the first Gulf War. I was in college at that time and remember several protests on the University of Missouri Campus, mostly by former or current students who were fixated on the 1960s and dressed the part: men with long hair, dirty beards, loose army surplus clothing and tie-dyed t-shirts underneath. Women with short hair, no makeup, and combat boots on their feet. 1960s reminiscence was quite the fad at that time, and the Gulf War played right into it, as a proxy for those wishing to relive the days of Vietnam protests. Students who supported the Gulf war mostly ignored them, but a few teased or laughed at them. But most students frankly didn't care one way or the other. They were far more concerned with watching the buildup on TV (no Internet at the time), getting drunk, getting laid, and maybe their course work too.

In any case, the slogan "No Blood for Oil!" was everywhere. Not just on my campus, but all over America, and Europe too. It did have some relevance to the issues at the time; after all, Kuwait was one of the world's most important oil reserves.

But here's what was really weird: all the protests were aimed against coalition forces, especially the United States, even though they were not the ones who seized the oil fields or stole any oil. On the other hand, when Saddam invaded Kuwait in the first place, none of these protesters were to be found, even though Saddam did expressly invade for the oil; not only to seize the Kuwaiti oil fields but also to provide his oil tankers more harbor access to the Persian Gulf. So I just could not reconcile why there were thousands of noisy protesters over the US & allied war to liberate Kuwait, but not a peep from the "peace" crowd over Iraq's initial invasion of Kuwait.

Well, calling them a "peace" crowd was not always accurate. For example, in 1991:

As antiwar protests in Madison escalated in January, some activists turned to violent rhetoric and even violent actions--similar to the evolution of the Vietnam War protest movement. In one instance, protesters attempted to break into a nationally-televised basketball game at the University of Wisconsin Field House, prompting a scuffle between demonstrators and basketball fans. In another case, protesters pounded repeatedly on the doors of Madison's federal building, while others burned an American flag nearby. (The full article is long, but worth reading)

After the Gulf War, we did set up new air bases in Saudi Arabia (which greatly angered Al-Qaeda), but we didn't steal anyone's oil. Ditto for the Iraq war. In spite of this, you have many people on the fringe who still think the war is all about taking the oil for ourselves. Even respected authors like Noam Chomsky buy into this nonsense. He appeared once on "Real Time" with Bill Maher back in November 2004 (his appearance was rare; he generally avoid interviews, and only appeared here by video feed, perhaps to avoid facing real questions):

CHOMSKY: The United States invaded Iraq to gain control of one of the major sources of the world’s energy, right in the heart of the world’s energy producing regions, to create, if they can, a dependent client state, to have permanent military bases, and to gain what’s called “critical leverage” – I’m quoting Zbigniew Brzezinski – to gain critical leverage over rivals, the European and Asian economies. If you hold the – it’s been understood since the Second World War, that if you have your hand on that spigot, the source of the –world – main source of the world’s energy – you have what early planners called “veto power” over others.

Those are all very – Iraq is also the last part of the world where there are vast, untapped, easily accessible energy resources. And you can be sure that they want the profits from that to go primarily to U.S.-based multi-nationals and back to the U.S. Treasury, and so on. Not to rivals. There are plenty of reasons for invading Iraq.

Andrew Sullivan was also on the show that day (along with Rep. Pat Schroeder). Normally, I disagree with him on just about everything, but nonetheless he had a simple and brilliant response, which infuriated Chomsky supporters:

SULLIVAN: Because there are no ideas about – there are no two – there is either freedom or not; there is either democracy or not. If the United States wanted to invade and get oil supplies, we could invade and control purely the oil fields.

MAHER: I agree.

SULLIVAN: And we could control that and get all the oil we wanted.

MAHER: Okay.

SULLIVAN: This is nonsense. He [Chomsky] knows it’s nonsense.

MAHER: No.

SULLIVAN: And—

SCHROEDER: We don’t know that he knows it.

SULLIVAN: I assume he’s smart enough to know he’s lying.

He may be backsliding a bit though. A couple days ago, he ran a column penned by someone else claiming that oil (in the larger geopolitical view) was the real reason for the war after all (Incidentally, the columnist blatantly lies in claiming that both the Downing Street Memo and Paul Wolfowitz "admit" that WMD was not the reason for the invasion).

Contrast Chomsky to someone who actually knows better, because he lives it. "Omar", an Iraqi blogger who runs the "Iraq the model" web site, said this in Dec 2003:

There had been a perspective that is widely spread among Arabs and the anti war, even some Iraqis, that America came to Iraq to steal the oil and other natural resources from Iraq (I don't know if anyone supports this idea in the USA) and I’ve got sick of seeing this ridiculous idea written on the walls in Baghdad or on signs held by the supposed peace activists or even being spoken in interviews on al-jazeera or other Arab media by those who pretend that they care for the interests of the Iraqi people.
I wonder how their brilliant, clear thinking got to that nonnegotiable conclusion!!?

Well I found that the answer is so simple, that even a blind man can see...heh.
I have read some statistics about the economy of the USA and I found that the (GDP) of America is something around (11,000 billion) dollars, while that of Iraq is about (18 billion) dollars (regarding the current rate of oil export), which means that the (GDP) of USA = 611 times the (GDP) of Iraq.
Another interesting result is that America can make that (18) billions in only 14 hours!.
Everyone knows that the American forces need about (4 billion) dollars/month for their supplies, operations and reconstruction work.
I find it so naive for someone to think that the USA is spending 4 billions a month to "steal" 1,5 billions.
The USA has already spent (or assigned) over 200 billion dollars, which requires the Americans to wait for over 10 years to get their money back.
What a great investment!!!
And that's only in the case that America is "stealing" all the oil or money of Iraq, while as a matter of fact, all the money that oil yields is spent to provide food, medications and of course to pay salaries to the Iraqis.
The war was never for oil itself, the aims of the war were freeing the Iraqi people, destroying Saddam's WMD's, fighting international terrorism and the spread of freedom and democracy in the M.E.

Some Iraqis say that Iraq is a wealthy country and that America came here to steal our fortune, and I ask them what f***ing fortune? Saddam has driven Iraq bankrupt and even worse, Iraq is now drowning in debts.

Omar's English is not as refined as Prof Caffentzis or Chomsky, but he his experience and common sense speaks volumes over their mountains of nonsense.

Incidentally, if you are interested in a response by an oil company, here is an eloquent statement by David J. O'Reilly, CEO of Chevron:

Although public opinion appears more positive in the developing world, a majority in Europe and North America view us unfavorably. In the U.S., the number of people who say the industry provides “a much needed, valuable resource” is no greater than those who see us as “motivated by greed.”

I’m sure that many of us, at one point or another, have thought: when I joined the industry, people felt more positively. That was certainly the case 35 years ago, when I started as a young engineer straight out of university.

While the slogan was not really apt for either Desert Storm or Iraqi Freedom, there will always be some conflicts relating to oil. For example, one of the great sticking points in ethnic battles in Iraqi cities like Kirkuk is over rights to the communal oil revenues. So if you really want to stop fighting over oil, the best way is to find an alternative energy source - or is it..? I will discuss this in part II.

Note: Lesson learned here. This started as a very short article and soon ballooned out of control. Even in two parts I have to be careful to keep the size manageable.



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Medical Bills Do Not Cause "Half of All Bankruptcies"

This veers a bit from the mission of this web site, but I really feel I need to put one common myth to rest. In the health care debate, many people claim that "half of bankruptcies are caused by medical bills".

Michael Moore is the most recent prominent person to make this claim, and CNN doesn't even bother to challenge this important point, while they engage him on other aspects of his recent film "SiCKO". The claim comes from an oft-cited but poorly understood 2005 Harvard study. There is a copy of the misleading AP report (which is all most people read) here.

The claim is simply not true unless you stretch the meaning of "caused" and other words in the English language to lengths they were not intended to go.

The biggest problem is the study considered any medical bills over $1000 to be the "cause" of the bankruptcy, no matter how much other debt the family racked up. This is explained very well on the "Volokh Conspiracy" legal web site:

"...the authors do not compare the amount of medical debt they found to other debt or obligations that bankrupt debtors had. So, for instance, they would count as a medical bankruptcy a debtor who had $1,001 in medical bills, even if that debtor had say $50,000 in student loans, car loans, and other debt. It would be absurd, it seems to me, to say that the $1,001 in medical expenses "caused" that bankruptcy. Nonetheless, it would counted in this study, because the authors do not control for medical debt as a percentage or in relation to the debtors overall debt."

There were some other huge problems with the study as well. It included "uncontrolled gambling," "drug addiction," "alcohol addiction," "death in the family", and the birth or adoption of a child as "a medical cause". Now, yes, some people can chalk up gambling or drug/alcohol addiction as a mental health illness, but it is misleading to conclude that because someone gambled away his family savings, that constitutes a "medical cause".

Birth/adoption of a child does run up a lot of bills, but, for the average person, the majority of those are not medical. Similarly "death in the family" can rack up expensive funeral and legal costs, but not medical at all, unless there was a lengthy hospitalization beforehand. In that case, however, it's the hospital care that caused the medical debt, not the death afterwards.

Lest there be any doubt, however, even most of the surveyed group didn't look at their own problems as medical: "only 28.3 percent of the survey group claimed that their bankruptcy was substantially caused by "illness or injury."

Not surprisingly, one of the co-authors of the flawed study was Steffie Woolhandler, well-known as a die hard advocate for a nationalized health care system. If we are going to set up universal health care, let's do it under an honest debate. This is too important to play these kind of games.

And I should point this out too - everyone says the Europeans have it, and it works, so why can't we? My family has used the German health care system and it is very good. But the United States has two problems it would need to fix first, otherwise universal health care would become phenomenally expensive and untenable (even more so than now):

1) You can't have open borders and a generous welfare state at the same time. Even the most die-hard socialists grudgingly concede this. Many border hospitals have already gone bankrupt (most estimates say 60 in California alone) due to illegal immigration. Right now, hospitals have to treat anyone with emergency care, which already caused plenty of bankruptcies (including one in Bisbee, AZ, not far from where I lived at that time). Adding routine care to that would be astronomical (of course, preventive care sometimes reduces emergency care in the long run, but most of the burden of that is on the individual: eat right, exercise, not smoke, etc. The hospital can't do that for you).

The USA also has the additional distinction of being one of the few (if not the only) western industrialized nation that grants citizenship to anyone born there, even to illegal immigrant parents. That's already a huge incentive for people to cross the border illegally; add onto that all expenses paid, courtesy of the US taxpayer, and the lure is more attractive still.

2) Our current tort system would massacre it (this could take up a whole column by itself). Bottom line is, US health care costs are already enormous due to the never-ending lawsuits against doctors, hospitals, and drug companies, who have to pass that cost on to the consumer. Right now, lawsuits are generally limited by the amount of the insurance policy of the doctor or hospital (although some self-insure, or go without). But the federal government has far deeper pockets than any insurance company - the nation would go broke either being sued left and right, or be forced to pay to bail out hospitals driven into bankruptcy.



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