Hey Gord, About Those Three Detainees...

Still no word on those three Afghan prisoners Canadian forces handed over to Afghan authorities. For a while our so-called Defence Minister, Gordo O'Connor, tried to mislead Parliament and the Canadian public by claiming the International Red Cross was on to this and surely would have notified Canadian authorities if anything was amiss. Turns out Gordo was pulling that straight out of his ass.

So it's been weeks now since a controversy erupted about these detainees and still no sign of the prisoners or any indication of what happened to them - at least none that Gordo is going to share with you or me or even Parliament.

It turns out a visit to an Afghan prison really isn't conducive to a captive's health or even life, at least according to the US State Department:

"Security and factional forces committed extrajudicial killings and torture," the U.S. report says. Broader "human-rights problems included: extrajudicial killings; torture; poor prison conditions; official impunity; prolonged pretrial detention; abuse of authority by regional commanders; restrictions on freedoms of press, religion, movement, and association; violence and societal discrimination against women, religious converts, and minorities; trafficking in persons; abuse of worker rights; and child labour."

"Canadian troops usually turn detainees over to the Afghan National Police. The State Department said, "The ANP . . . was the predominant government institution responsible for security in the country. Its performance engendered mistrust among the local population, and reports of corruption and mistreatment of citizens in custody were widespread."

Of course Gord thinks that the Afghan National Police, the local gestapo, are a real asset to our troops in winning the "hearts and minds" of the locals in Kandahar province. The man is positively delusional.

How to Corrupt Democracy

We haven't been paying much attention to it here in Canada but a very dark scandal involving the forced ouster of 8 federal prosecutors is unravelling that depicts a calculated effort by the Bushies to undermine democracy in America.

Paul Krugman, writing in today's New York Times, describes the corruption of America's justice department:

"For now, the nation’s focus is on the eight federal prosecutors fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. In January, Mr. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, that he 'would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons.' But it’s already clear that he did indeed dismiss all eight prosecutors for political reasons — some because they wouldn’t use their offices to provide electoral help to the G.O.P., and the others probably because they refused to soft-pedal investigations of corrupt Republicans.

"In the last few days we’ve also learned that Republican members of Congress called prosecutors to pressure them on politically charged cases, even though doing so seems unethical and possibly illegal.

"The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office. The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance."

Krugman cites a study done by two professors into investigations and indictments of politicians since Bush took office. The score: 67-Republicans, 298-Democrats. He also pointed out how candidates backed by Karl Rove tended to find themselves blessed by an FBI "investigation" of a Democratic opponent that almost always evaporated after the election. Does that sound strangely familiar?

According to the ousted federal prosecutors, intimidation was used to try to keep them silent but it didn't work. Now the Democratic Congress can subpoena witnesses to hearings that may just get to the bottom of this dirty business. Krugman predicts, "...we'll learn about abuses of power that would have made Richard Nixon green with envy."

I think this is one story we may all want to follow.

Corrupt judiciary, indefinite detention without charge, secret trials - forget Richard Nixon, this sounds positively Stalinist.

As Long as You Confess on Church TV, It's Okay

Newt by name, newt by nature. The chrubic little salamander, Newt Gingrich, is testing the waters to see if he'd have a shot at the Republican presidential nomination for 2008.

Gingrich, considered the driving force behind the 1994 Republican sweep of Congress, remains very popular among US conservatives, even those who can keep their pants on.

Newt led the charge to impeach Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair. At the time, Repugs were literally gushing with family values indignation, so self-righteous that they spent many times more investigating Clinton than George W. did investigating the 9/11 attacks.

Now before you get into a presidential nomination campaign, common sense dictates that you first clear the decks. You gotta get rid of anything that smells, chuck it over the side, so that one of your rivals won't make you wear it later.

It turns out that Newt, like Clinton, has a problem with his pants. There was the mini-scandal of his first wife who, while beset by cancer, learned that Newt had taken up with another woman. That woman, in fairness, did become Mrs. Newt II. He did clean that mess up - sort of.

Mrs. Newt II held the title from 1981, the end of Newt I, until 2000, the arrival of Mrs. Newt III. That's when it came out that Newt had decided to trade up again, this time to current wife, Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide more than 20 years younger than he is.

Before launching his campaign, King Grinch decided to seek absolution in a TV interview with Focus on the Family founder and fundamentalist uber zealot, James Dobson. The way Newt described it, he was plainly the victim of the whole, sorry business:

''There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them,'' he said in the interview. ''I look back on those as periods of weakness and periods that I'm ... not proud of."

Oh, c'mon Newt - just a little bit proud, really, eh? You can still score the young'uns.

Drink Nevada Dry

No, it's not a new soft drink, it's what Las Vegas is doing to the rest of the state.

Trying to maintain vast lawns, pools the size of small lakes, fountains and golf courses in a rapidly growing city stuck in the middle of a desert takes a lot of water, a lot more than Las Vegas gets from its 4 inches of annual rainfall.

The city now wants to build a pipeline to drain Nevada aquifers, some 300 miles to the north. Ranchers in that area are less than pleased, especially as they already face shortages from depleted groundwater reservoirs. The city's water commissioner concedes that even the dwindling supply of rural groundwater won't be enough to meet future needs of Las Vegas.

The long term solution, she says, would see Las Vegas pay to build and operate desalination plants along the California or Mexico coast and trade the freshwater from that source for a greater share of the Colorado river flow. Maybe somebody should tell her the Colorado is already under severe stress.

"Quickly"? Is He Joking?

Enviromin John Baird says Canada is going to move "quickly" to regulate pollution from all industrial sectors. That's a promise vague enough to sail an oil tanker through.

"Regulating" pollution isn't necessarily the same as reducing it or eliminating it. The US also regulates pollution and, under its regulations, GHG emissions are expected to increase 20% over the coming decade. That doesn't mean they're not regulating, they are. We've been given plenty of notice that Harpo's bottom line is also "intensity based" regulation, so we too are going to regulate possibly hefty increases in our already excessive GHG emissions.

The other little Harpo dodge came straight from the mouth of our Furious Leader: "We are working through the Kyoto [protocol] process to try and get international action ... that will involve all of the world's major emitters, and as you know, currently, most of the major emitters are not part of the protocol or at least have no targets under the protocol. So these are efforts that are important that we will continue to work on."

So, we're going to "try" to get international action and, after all, you can't blame us if China and India and the US don't hop on board, right? Those are weasel words, weasel talk, something Harpo has in abundance.

The international answer to fighting global warming has to be found in one place, the World Trade Organization. We need to change WTO rules to permit carbon taxes, a form of tariff levied against the exports of those countries that will not act responsibly to cut - as in actually reduce - their GHG emissions in accordance with scientific recommendations. Nations that don't should be penalized, hit in their pocketbooks, while nations that do should be rewarded. Make it a paying proposition and you'll quickly find meaningful global warming initiatives universally embraced. If someone has a better solution, I'd love to hear it.

You'll know Harpo is serious about international action and not merely using it as a dodge when he comes out strongly in support of carbon taxes. Don't hold your breath.

Speaking Truth to Power

I wish Harpo was in Chicago. If he was, maybe he'd load up on a lot of wisdom about the international turmoil now underway in Afghanistan and elsewhere. There's plenty of it to be had in the Windy City from the roughly 3,000 international affairs thinkers gathered there for the annual, International Studies Association convention.
Here, according to James Travers, writing in the Toronto Star, are some of the words of wisdom Harper could find helpful:

"Politicians stiffening national backbones won't find renewed strength in this sampler drawn from four intensive days. There's no guarantee imposing democracy controls terrorism, that being over there necessarily makes us safer over here or, most importantly, that the hope of reconstructing Afghanistan as a stable, modern state is guided by a common blueprint.

"None of that is idle musing. Academic and think tank business is booming in the failed states/security sector and the result is a lot of empirical holes in subjective cloth.

"For example, research predicts that violent groups will cling to their methods even after becoming political parties, Western powers become targets by intervening in essentially local conflicts, and practical short-term tactics make nonsense of the theoretical long-term Afghanistan strategy."

"A steady supply of walk-in suicide bomber recruits is a product of new anger over infidel boots on Islamic soil and not just a manifestation of more deeply rooted grievances.

"And in Afghanistan the goal of winning hearts and minds is being pushed further over the horizon by the day-to-day damage of air strikes in a war fought among the people and by anti-drug policies that make farmers poorer and more vulnerable to corrupt officials."

This isn't revolutionary thinking, far from it. It's actually very conventional wisdom that is simply not heard very often and even more rarely heeded.

First the "Bush Doctrine", Now This

I've written several comments about the quiet arms races underway - in the United States, China, India and even Russia. In no small part, these have been - if not triggered, certain accelerated - by America's unilateralism under George Bush and the infrequently mentioned, bellicose "Bush Doctrine" in conjunction with lesser provocations such as Bush's space doctrine.

George Cheney-Bush has done a great deal of damage to multilateralism and global order. His foreign policy is built on coercive acquiesence ("you're either with us or against us"), not concensus. It is premised on "strength beyond challenge" and not just pre-emptive war but preventative war - war on the pretext of preventing war even if the perceived threat is only "emerging." These are the policies of mad men, something that hasn't gone unnoticed in Beijing and Moscow.

Everybody that matters is going for their guns, strapping on the six-shooters, and, while no one is willing to admit it, they're beginning to mosey on down to the corral.

Now it's Russia's turn. According to The Guardian, Russia is about to unveil a new military doctrine of its own, one that holds NATO and the West as Russia's greatest danger.

In a statement posted on its website, Russia's powerful security council said it no longer considered global terrorism as its biggest danger. Instead, Russia was developing a new national security strategy which reflected changing "geo-political" realities, and the fact that rival military alliances were becoming "stronger" - "especially Nato".

There have been changes in the character of the threat to the military security of Russia. More and more leading world states are seeking to upgrade their national armed forces. The configuration has changed," the council said.

"In particular Russia has been incensed by the US administration's plans to site two new missile interceptor and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"Senior figures in the Russian military yesterday told the Guardian they were infuriated by what they regard as Nato's "relentless expansion" into "post-Soviet space" - the countries of former communist eastern Europe and the Baltic. Russia felt increasingly "encircled" by hostile neighbours, they said.

"Yesterday Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Washington had failed to explain why it wanted to site missile bases on Russia's doorstep. President Putin has ridiculed the US claim that the bases are designed to shoot down rogue missiles from Iran or North Korea, claiming their real target is Russia's nuclear arsenal.

"'We have been discussing this issue with our American colleagues. But most of our questions have remained without coherent answers,' Mr Lavrov said.

"The chairman of Russia's academy of military science, Mahmoud Garayev, said Russia could no longer afford to ignore the threat from Nato. Drugs and terrorism were an irrelevance, he said."

It's not as though no once could've seen this coming. George H.W. Bush presided over the end of the Cold War. His Frat Boy kid may have just brought Cold War back from the grave.

The Malevolence of the Far Right

I don't always agree with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman but I have to agree with his take that the Walter Reed hospital scandal is just one manifestation of how George Bush has tried to run the country as though there was no war at all:

"Mr. Bush summoned the country to D-Day and prepared the Army, the military health system, military industries and the American people for the invasion of Grenada.

"From the start, the Bush team has tried to keep the Iraq war 'off the books' both financially and emotionally. As Larry Diamond of Stanford’s Hoover Institution said to me: 'America is not at war. The U.S. Army is at war.' The rest of us are just watching, or just ignoring, while the whole fight is carried on by 150,000 soldiers and their families."

Welcome to the world of the far-right, a world in which you run huge deficits, fight a war on borrowed money and slash taxes for the rich. There is something genuinely pernicious about people like that.

Kipling's Advice? - Beware

News Alert! We're not the first group to think we can overwhelm the native Afghans with our superior technology and intelligence. They've been playing this game for centuries, since the days of the ancient traders.

In the last couple of centuries these backward, impoverished, primitive and feudalistic people have driven out two British and one Soviet invasion. They've learned that, given enough commitment and willingness to sacrifice, they can easily outdo us in coping in terms of adversity, sustaining casualties over a protracted campaign, and maintaining popular belief and support for their cause. That's why they're able to boast that "you have all the watches but we have all the time."

These people aren't a bunch of Supermen. They don't have secret powers. We, like those armies that went before us, have the power, the technological powers of military sciences and weaponry. They're willing to take clearly losing odds but why? Maybe because they're about the first of the modern-age guerrillas. Maybe because they've been at this great game for so much longer than we have that they believe, truly believe, they can win this. And - maybe because they're right.

More than a century ago, this is how Rudyard Kipling wrote of Afghanistan:

If you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains

And the women come out to cut up what remains

Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

And go to your God like a soldier.

Kipling learned from these people a century ago that they play to win, so much so that they'll risk annihilation should they lose. They're willing to go twenty years, they're willing to go fifty. We can kill them off in droves but they know that new generations will follow to replace them.

Here, ask yourself this. Name the last bunch of foreigners to defeat these people. To whom did these Afghans last surrender, to whom did they accept defeat and yield? Who has conquered these people, how, and where are these conquerors now? No points for coming up with those who've merely tried.

Then ask yourself this. Who, among the generals, who keep drifting in and out of this counter-insurgency, has had practical, hands-on experience in the field, commanding a company or a battalion or a regiment, in a successful counter-insurgency?

Far be it for me to claim these Afghans can't be defeated. They can, given enough manpower deployed over enough time under rules brutal, even barbaric enough to tame civilian and insurgent alike. But are we ready to go that far back to the time and place where their wars are fought, even today, and would we really be willing to welcome home our soldiers if we did?

It's Not Going to Happen

Maybe we really are lemmings but in just about every corner of the northern hemisphere there are signs that governments are dragging their heels on effectively reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Global Warming poster boy, the United States, says the best it can do is a 20% increase in GHG emissions over the next decade. Our own prime monster, Harpo, seems intent on following suit with his own "intensity based" targets. The two emerging, economic superpowers - India and China - have shown little commitment to curbing GHG emissions although China has been talking a lot about it lately. Now we have the European Union, the place where many hopes were anchored, beginning to balk. From Spiegel online:

"France and 10 other countries, including several in central Europe, have already indicated that they are uncomfortable with binding targets or quotas.

"The EU currently accounts for about 14 percent of global greenhouse emissions. Yet, as emerging economies such as China and India grow, Europe's share of the worlds emissions are receding. China is already second only to the United States in its CO2 pollution. On Monday China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao announced that the country would do more to save energy and cut pollution, but he didn't set any specific targets.

"The left-wing Die Tageszeitung writes.

"'To reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in a market economy, it has to be made more expensive ... The easy way is to implement an environment tax: The increase in income from energy consumption then flows directly towards reducing other taxes and expenditures.'

"'Some European Union countries obviously want to prevent an agreement on binding emissions targets -- and do not want to accept penalties in the case of failing to meet these commitments.'

If Europe folds and fails to put in place binding and effective measures to reduce GHG emissions, I expect it will set the tone for the remainder of our northern hemisphere. Washington and Ottawa will certainly use it for all it's worth to justify their own lax GHG policies and our vacillation will undoubtedly be pounced upon by China and India for the same purpose.

That's not to say that the day isn't coming when all of these nations finally get the "GHG" problem. As drought, floods, violent storms, warming, desertification and population migration reach a certain threshold of destruction and economic disruption, attitudes will change. The problem is that threshold is very likely to be past the tipping point.

Well, at least we can't say we didn't have one last opportunity to confront the problem and do something meaningful. Of course, we'll be gone by then. It'll be the generations we've bequeathed this to that will do the talking. I can only imagine what they're going to think of us.

If we continue to treat the solutions, imperfect as they are, as a burden rather than an opportunity, we're heading down a path where we'll eventually confront much greater burdens that will dictate our future for countless generations to come.

Libby Guilty on Four Counts

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty of two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice. Libby was acquitted of a single count of lying to the FBI.

The verdict came after 10-days of jury deliberations following a 7-week trial.

Libby's lawyers announced they'll file a motion for a new trial and, if that doesn't work, they'll appeal the convictions.

The Coalition Strikes Back

It's On! Or at least we're told it's on. About 4,000 British soldiers, along with about 300 Canadians and 1,000 Afghans have launched a campaign in Helmand province in the region of the Kajaki dam where the Brits have wrestled with insurgents all winter.

This time NATO is taking on more than just the Taliban. They're also targetting the drug trade and what are now called "narco-terrorists."

The offensive, named "Operation Achilles", isn't intended to fix and destroy the insurgents but to drive them out of the area and win the "hearts and minds" of the locals.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. With the bulk of Britain's combat troops committed to this area the Taliban could choose to exploit their absence in other parts of the province. Or the insurgents could choose to lay low and bide their time until NATO declares victory and returns to its garrisons.

The worst possibility is that the Taliban have deliberately drawn the bulk of Britain's combat force to the Kajaki area to make it easier for them to strike elsewhere. This wouldn't be the first time Afghan guerrilas have played that trick.

Paying For Our Own Poison

Maybe that's the way we need to look at the coal-fueled world, especially China. We ship our manufacturing jobs over there where they use cheap labour, lax environmental laws and a coal-fired economy to produce cheap goods we then buy. Put another way, we're driving their coal-driven economic miracle.

But it's not just attractively priced Chinese products we're getting out of this. We're also getting the end-products of all of that burned coal and that seems to be hitting us hard just when we least need it.

A team of researchers from Texas A&M university believe that coal soot discharged into the atmosphere by India and China could be responsible for some of the freakish weather we've been experiencing in Canada and the US.

They believe the particulate pollution drifts high over the Pacific where it results in cloud change and more intense storms - the sort that battered Vancouver over the winter. They believe these intense storms will change wind patterns globally.

Renyi Zhang, an atmospheric scientist at A&M, told the Globe:

"'You are probably going to have extreme weather, cold winters or warm winters. I just can't say. The impact needs to be further evaluated,' he said.

"'The bottom line is that if you change the weather in one region you are going to change the weather everywhere and you are going to change the climate, basically.'

"He and his colleagues reached their conclusions using satellite data collected between 1984 and 2005, as well as climate models. He says he knows it is controversial to suggest that winter storms may in part be man-made.

"'First we found the evidence that storms are getting stronger. Second, we believe we have made a link to the pollution in China. People may have different opinions.'

We need to get to the bottom of this - fast. What is the point of paying India and China for their products if it's going to mean also allowing them to deliver meteorological mayhem to our shores? The longer we wait the harder this is going to be to correct. The planet may just not be able to afford the economic miracles of China and India.

Our Trigger-Happy Partner

They have to do better than this or we have no business fighting alongside them.

The US Army is blaming purported insurgents for its actions in calling in an airstrike with two, 2,000 lb. Mk. 84 bombs on a house that left five adult civilians and four children dead. It was the insurgents that made them do it, right?

These murderous buggers better realize that they can't claim it was the insurgents, real or imagined, that made them call down two, massive aerial bombs on a house. No, that decision, and the death of the innocents that inevitably resulted from it, lies directly with the American forces who called in the airstrike.

This was nothing short of butchery. The fact is they didn't give a damn how many people they killed, insurgents or innocents, in that airstrike. Those lives meant nothing, absolutely nothing, to those involved in these homicides. These people do not deserve our support, much less the sacrifice of the lives of our own soldiers. If they want to slaughter civilians, they don't need our help.

Now, Do We Treat Him?

Doctors have discovered a blood clot in Dick Cheney's leg. It's the sort that could be fatal if left untreated. No word yet on whether the doctors have decided he's worth saving.

We're Number One!

We are, Numero Uno and all that but there were a lot of duds in the competition.

Canada came out tops in a BBC survey asking respondents to rate 12-countries - Britain, Canada, China, France, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Russia, the United States and Venezuela - as having a positive or negative influence in the world. The broadcaster surveyed 28,000 people to come up with its results.

Bottom slot went to Israel then Iran and the US.

Canada topped the list followed by Japan and France. Britain, China and India were also viewed somewhat positively.

"'It appears that people around the world tend to look negatively on countries whose profile is marked by the pursuit of military power,'' said Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, which conducted the research along with pollster GlobeScan.

"Countries that relate to the world primarily through soft power, like France and Japan and the EU in general, tend to be viewed positively,'' he added.

"Pollsters questioned about 1,000 people in 27 different countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Mexico and Australia; as well as four predominantly Muslim countries: Egypt, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia; and two countries with large Muslim populations: Lebanon and Nigeria."

Maybe somebody should tell Harpo that we don't need to brandish a lot of guns, Canada is already pretty well respected without them.

Firepower Backfires

Tanks and artillery and jet fighters are great - when you're fighting someone else's tanks and artillery and jet fighters. In tackling an insurgency, however, relying on mega-firepower actually increases your already high chances of failure.

There's a new study out making this very point. From the Washington Post:

"Two political scientists recently examined 250 asymmetrical conflicts, starting with the Peninsular War. Although great powers are vastly more powerful today than in the 19th century, the analysis showed they have become far less likely to win asymmetrical wars. More surprising, the analysis showed that the odds of a powerful nation winning an asymmetrical war decrease as that nation becomes more powerful.

"The analysis by Jason Lyall at Princeton University and Lt. Col. Isaiah Wilson III at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point shows that the likelihood of a great power winning an asymmetrical war went from 85 percent during 1800-1850 to 21 percent during 1950-2003.

"The same trend was evident when the researchers studied only asymmetrical conflicts involving the United States. The more industrialized a powerful country becomes, the more its military becomes technologically powerful, the less effective it seems to be in an asymmetrical war.

"Essentially, what Lyall and Wilson are saying is that if you want to catch a mouse, you need a cat. If you hire a lion to do the job because it is bigger and stronger, the very strength and size of the lion can get in the way of getting the job done."

"While the findings are of immediate interest because of the situation in Iraq, the social scientists are really trying to address a systemic issue: America has gotten stuck in the Hollywood notion that a military with ever more powerful armaments is a more effective military.

"Reversing that view will be difficult because it calls into question the utility of giant defense projects, Lyall said. Also, the findings lend credence to the politically unpopular notion that successfully prosecuting an asymmetrical war, such as the one in Iraq, requires a large fighting force and, possibly, high casualties as troops asked to blend in with local populations become vulnerable targets for insurgents."

The Lyall and Wilson analysis is useful if only for restating a reality that's been heard repeatedly before - by everyone, it seems, except our political and military leaders. The most important weapon in fighting an insurgency is a massive number of boots on the ground - not tanks, or fighter jets or artillery - but enough soldiers to actually secure the countryside. So long as the insurgents can come and go relatively unmolested, they're almost guaranteed to win.

You can't control, you can't secure a territory the size and nature of Kandahar province with a battle group of 1,000 soldiers. It can't be done. That's why we wind up calling in air strikes and artillery on civilians, unnecessarily handing a tactical victory to our enemies. That's why we wind up dependent upon corrupt, local security forces whose main contribution seems to be to drive the population into the arms of our enemy.

The latest American manual on counter-insurgency warfare says we need 25-soldiers for every 1,000 locals, living where they live, keeping them safe from the insurgents day and night. In Kandahar province we need a force of 22,000 minimum. Oh well, only 21,000 left to go, eh?

American Fascists - Hedges on Creationism

Taken from American Fascists.

Chris Hedges on Creationism:

"The danger of creationism is not that it allows followers to retreat into a world of certainty and magic - which it does - but that it allows all facts to be accepted or discarded according to the dictates of a preordained ideology. Creationism removes the follower from the rational, reality based world. Signs, miracles, and wonders occur not only in the daily life of Christians, but also in history, science, medicine and logic. This belief system becomes the basis for understanding the world, and random facts or data are collected and made to fit into the belief system. If facts can't be made to fit, they are discarded or treated as misguided opinions.

"When facts are treated as if they were opinions, when there is no universal standard by which to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship or in the reporting of the events of the day, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe, where there is no possibility of reaching any conclusion not predetermined by those who interpret the official, divinely inspired text."

Should NATO Demand American Restraint?

Let's see:

1. We're in Afghanistan because another bunch of foreigners, al-Qaeda, used the place to train and prepare for the attacks of 9/11. America was attacked and NATO responded.

2. We're still in Afghanistan almost six years later because the country we're supporting under the NATO charter chose to go off on a lark of its own in another country, Iraq.

3 We're still in Afghanistan because the bulk of the ground forces the US has deployed in the region are stuck in Iraq and can't be sent to Afghanistan.

4. Now, America is toying with the idea of taking on another Muslim state, Iran.

5. An American attack on Iran could unite the Muslim people, within Iran and throughout the rest of the world of Islam, whether Shia or Sunni, and bring them to see our efforts as part of a genuine crusade against Islam.

6. NATO forces in Afghanistan are stuck smack in the midst of the Muslim world, surrounded by worrisome countries like Pakistan and - oh my, Iran.

We already have an unmanageable front to our south and east, the border with Pakistan. American airstrikes on Iran would open another front, this time to the west.

Now, our forces on "the mission" are already overstretched. What lies in store for them if the White House brings a new bunch of problems in from the west, from Iran?

I think our leaders, Harpo included, need to demand unequivocal assurances from the Bush regime that it won't attack Iran so long as our own people are in harm's way in neighbouring Afghanistan. We're already paying the price for their Iraq adventure. We don't need to fight Iranians also.

Damned Idiots!

Why, oh why, can't they figure this one out.

Trigger happy US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan are going on a spree killing civilians. You could also say they're on a massive recruiting drive - for the Taliban.

Yesterday following a suicide bomber attack, American troops opened fire on a group of civilians, mowing down 16 of them. The US military admits that after first claiming they victims were likely killed by insurgent gunfire.

Today - well today they're killing kids. The way the US military spokesman puts it, they spotted two guys with guns going into a house so they called in an airstrike on the place.

They called in massive firepower on a residence without knowing who was inside because they "saw" or thought they saw a couple of men with guns in a country where people just tend to have guns.

The airstrike killed 5 adults and 4 children between the ages of 6-months and 5-years.

The US military admits the aircraft dropped two, TWO THOUSAND POUND BOMBS, on the residence. What in God's name is anyone thinking when dropping two, one-ton bombs in a residential area? These are "area weapons." They kill everyone - innocent or suspect - within their huge blast area.

If this is the way we - and our allies - are going to conduct this war, it's time we got out because we have lost the moral high ground we like to boast about so much. This isn't warfare, it's butchery. Gunning down civilians in the street, blowing up kids in their homes. If those were our townspeople lying dead in the street and our kids' corpses in the rubble of their home, how do you think we would react?

We all have to share some part of this. Our leaders are determined to wage this war on the cheap. We don't have a fraction of the troops needed for this job. That both increases their vulnerability and limits their options when they do fight back. We're using the indiscriminate overkill of aerial bombardment because it's comparatively cheap and we don't care enough about these civilians to do this job properly.

Remember, this is a war for the "hearts and minds" of the Afghan people. What goes through those hearts and minds when word of these atrocities gets out, and it quickly does? Is this a preview of how we're going to fight the Taliban's spring offensive this year, by waging our war against insurgent and civilian alike?

Just in case you're curious, here's some information on the Mk. 84, 2000-pound bomb used on this house:

The Mk. 84 (pictured above) carries 945 lb of Tritonal, high explosive. It is capable of forming a crater 50-feet wide and 36-feet deep. It generates lethal fragmentation to a radius of 400-yards.

Let's do the math. Anything standing within a 2,400 foot diameter circle of this bomb can be killed. A 50-foot wide crater, 36-feet deep is pretty much going to obliterate a mud house and everyone inside. Now, try dropping two of these.