Target Centermass

Month: March 2005

  • Is Kofi Considering Quitting?

    It is often said that it’s lonely at the top. Apparently, it’s depressing at the top of a trash dump of corruption and international impotence.

    Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, is said to be struggling with depression and considering his future. Colleagues have reported concerns about Annan ahead of an official report this week that will examine his son Kojo’s connection to the controversial Iraqi oil for food scheme.

    Depending on the findings of the report, by a team led by the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, Annan may have to choose between the secretary-generalship and loyalty to his son.

    American congressional critics of the UN are already pressing him to resign over the mismanagement of the oil for food programme, and even his supporters have been dismayed by the scandals on his watch, including the sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in Congo.

    One close observer at the UN said Annan’s moods were like a “sine curve” and that he appeared near the bottom of the trough.

    Kojo, 29, was employed by a Swiss company, Cotecna, but left before it won one of the contracts under the oil for food programme. Last week it emerged he received up to $400,000 from the company. The UN confirmed that Kofi Annan three times met executives of the firm, twice before the award of the oil for food contract and once afterwards.

    Mark Malloch Brown, Annan’s British chief-of-staff, said the meetings were brief and had nothing to do with Cotecna’s contract. If some of the allegations against Kojo were confirmed, that would create “a very different situation, but for Kojo — not the secretary-general”.

    Kojo and Cotecna insist he had no part in securing the oil for food contract and that his work related to activities in Nigeria and Ghana.

    New scandals continue to erupt, however. One revelation last week was that the UN had agreed to pay legal fees for Benon Sevan, the disgraced head of the oil for food programme, out of the funds raised from the Iraqi oil sales.

    “Kofi Annan is going to find his position increasingly untenable,” said Nile Gardiner, an expert on the UN at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “There is a strong possibility he will resign voluntarily because of his declining credibility.”

    In the end Annan’s feelings may be more decisive than the facts.

    No loss at all, and I really hope he does blaze town.

    I wanted a snappier headline but had to settle for some weak alliteration. Where’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali when you really need him?

  • 4 U.S. Troops Killed by Afghan Landmine

    Shooting ranges are dangerous places, and those in the military are necessarily drenched in a ton of safety rules and safety briefings and cease fires for any and every little thing. Apparently, setting up a shooting range is also dangerous, if that range is to be located in a country that has seen decades-long warfare.

    Four U.S. soldiers died when their vehicle struck a land mine in central Afghanistan on Saturday, the military said. It was unclear whether the mine was freshly laid or a leftover from the country’s long wars.

    The soldiers were among a group of American and Afghan officials examining a potential site for a shooting range in Logar Province, 25 miles south of Kabul, when one of their three vehicles hit the mine, spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said.

    The bodies of the four dead, none of whom was identified, were airlifted to the main U.S. base at Bagram, Moore said. No one else was reported hurt.

    A truly tragic occurence, especially in a theater of operations that receives little media attention.

    Speaking of media attention, the Taliban has decided to ridiculously take credit for this mine and, in the interest of fairness, the Associated Press has given them equal time.

    A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast, but Moore said investigators suspected the mine was an old charge dislodged by recent rain and snow or that the vehicle had wandered into an unmapped minefield.

    Moore said U.S. troops first toured an area near the scene of Saturday’s incident about a week earlier searching for a site for a training range for the American-trained Afghan army.

    “We believe it was an old mine which could have shifted,” she said.

    Gov. Mohammed Aman Hamini said the incident occurred in a desert area crisscrossed by rough tracks.

    “It’s an old mine. There’s no traffic on the route they took, but the Russians used to use it because they were afraid of the main road,” Hamini told The Associated Press, referring to the Soviet troops which occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s.

    However, Mullah Hakim Latifi, a man who claims to speak for the Taliban, said its fighters detonated the mine by remote control.

    “We’ve said again and again that we would resume our holy war in the spring,” Latifi told AP by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

    Ummm … yeah, sure. Listen, Queen Latifi, setting off a mine by remote control, with no other action or ambush activity, against soft targets in the open is either stupidity or a lie. Either way, it’s a silly way to claim the resumption of your holy war, which so far has consisted mainly of “Holy shit! Run away!”

    Back to the Associated Press, let’s see how they wrap up the story.

    According to Defense Department statistics, 122 American soldiers have now died since U.S.-led forces invaded to oust the former Taliban government for harboring al-Qaida militants after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

    Many have been killed in accidents, including by mines left behind by Soviet troops or the Afghan factions who then fought each other.

    A U.S. military policeman died March 15 when his vehicle hit what appeared to be an old mine in western Afghanistan.

    The worst incident occurred in January 2004, when an explosion at an arms dump in southeastern Ghazni province killed eight American soldiers.

    The 17,000 American troops still in Afghanistan also face a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency. The U.S. military says its air and ground operations along the Pakistani border killed 12 people in the past week. Eight were suspected militants while four were civilians, including three children.

    Quagmire! Baby-killers!

  • Colombians Find Drug-Smuggling Sub

    You’ve got to hand it to the supply side of the drug trade — it certainly is resourceful.

    Authorities discovered a submarine-like vessel Friday still under construction by drug traffickers who planned to use it to smuggle cocaine, the head of Colombia’s secret police said.

    Eduardo Fernandez said the fiberglass submarine was nearly complete when police found it near the Pacific Ocean, in Tumaco, 370 miles southwest of Bogota.

    “The ingenuity of drug traffickers is amazing,” Fernandez told The Associated Press.

    He said the vessel would have been used to carry cocaine to speed boats offshore, which would then take the drugs to Central America or Mexico, for eventual delivery to the United States.

    The discovery came after authorities were tipped off to pieces of fiberglass and other construction material being transported to where the submarine was being built.

    Fernandez didn’t provide details of its size. But Colombian authorities have caught drug traffickers using subs on a few occasions. They have been small, fiberglass vessels that travel just below the surface. But in 2000, police on a raid of a warehouse near Bogota were stunned to find a 100-foot-long steel submarine being built to transport up to 150 tons of cocaine.

    Sure, the spice must flow, but I didn’t expect it to flow ‘neath the waves.

  • Obligatory March Madness Post

    About those March Madness brackets I was working on, well, they ain’t worth the computer memory they’re stored on now. Really, they didn’t survive the opening weekend.

    Hey, I won the office pool back in 2000, so I figure I’m still in the black for many years to come.

  • Escape Tunnel Found at Iraqi Prison

    I always loved Hogan’s Heroes. It was so fun to watch Col. Hogan outsmart and manipulate that silly inept German, Col. Klink (skillfully portrayed by the late Werner Klemperer). Oh, the tunnel system those POWs had! They could move about at will, and had a great map attached to a bunk. Poor ol’ Sgt. Schultz — he knew nothing!

    Ahh, but the real world is slightly different.

    U.S. troops believe they have thwarted a massive escape from one of the coalition’s main prison camps in Iraq, Pentagon officials said Friday.

    A 600-foot-long (183-meter) escape tunnel with an exit point outside the prison camp walls was discovered Thursday at Camp Bucca in southeastern Iraq.

    The tunnel is believed to have been dug with improvised tools. Military authorities discovered it after a tip initiated a campwide search.

    The tunnel is about 10 feet below ground and 2 to 3 feet wide.

    Pentagon officials did not know how long the tunnel had been under construction.

    Camp Bucca houses about 5,600 detainees.

    That no one had used it to escape so far was verified by a head count of prisoners, which found all accounted for. But the tunnel appeared to be completed and ready to use, and officials speculate that detainees were waiting to use it when the weather turned poor and visibility on the ground was low.

    The discovery of the tunnel also solved another mystery camp officials were trying to figure out.

    Machinery that pumps sewage out of the prisoners’ toilet system has been getting jammed with sand and dirt. Apparently, it was caused by soil that detainees have been disposing of while digging the tunnel.

    I fault not the prisoners for trying. I do, however, question prison oversight for the attempt coming this close to fruition. Better security procedures have to be considered, as a sizable influx of these prisoners would be a great boost to a terrorist movement that seems to be shaken by events of late.

  • Iraq TV Helps Break Holy Warrior Mystique

    I must say that the headline and leading paragraph had me intrigued.

    Say the word mujahid– or holy warrior – these days and many inhabitants of Baghdad are likely to snigger.

    I had my doubts quickly, however, with the second paragraph.

    An appellation once worn as a badge of pride by anti-American insurgents has now become street slang for homosexuals, after men claiming to be captured Islamist guerrillas confessed that they were holding gay orgies in the popular Iraqi TV programme Terror in the Hands of Justice.

    I think the terrorists are scum, a bunch of cowardly bastards. While this article is worth a read and it’s nice to know that the Iraqis are seeing something besides pro-terrorist propaganda (e.g. al-Jazeera, CNN), I still feel a need to apologize for the worst side effect of the Iraqi campaign — the export of the horror of “reality” TV. It was obviously another shortcoming in the planning of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis.

    It started innocently enough.

    When the programme first aired two months ago, it mostly featured non-Iraqi Arabs who claimed to have entered the country to aid the insurgency, reinforcing many Iraqis’ belief that the insurgency is driven by foreign extremists such as al-Qaeda.

    In time, however, the programme began to feature men who said they were petty criminals, killing “collaborators” for a few hundred dollars’ bounty.

    In fact, the US and Iraqi security forces have for some time claimed to have ample evidence that many insurgent attacks were launched by out-of-work soldiers desperate for money. Some well-known insurgent captains had former lives under the old regime as gang leaders.

    In recent weeks, however, the insurgents’ confessions have become increasingly at odds with the movement’s reputation for stringent Islamic austerity.

    One long-bearded preacher known as Abu Tabarek recently confessed that guerrillas had usually held orgies in his mosques, secure in the knowledge that their status as holy warriors would win them forgiveness of their sins.

    Hopefully for the Iraqi people, sanity will soon reign.

    Sabah Khadim, spokesman for Iraq’s interior minister, says that the programme may have run its course, and should be reviewed.

    He denies that the confessions were extracted by torture but has his doubts as to whether those confessing are being truthful or simply saying whatever they think their captors want to hear. He also has reservations over whether the display of prisoners on television violates the Geneva Convention.

    But, Mr Khadem says, the programme has been immensely effective in getting Iraqis to come forward with information about guerrillas, leading to a surge in the number of insurgents captured.

    “If this were not an emergency situation, we would not have run this,” he says. “But it is an emergency situation, and this produces results.”

    Now, if only we could get rid of some of this crap on our own airwaves , I would really believe that civilization is progressing.

  • DoD Gives New Health Insurance to Reserves

    Here’s a bit of good news for members of the National Guard and Reserve components activated or facing activation. It’s surprising, but something like this has slipped by for so long.

    A new health care plan, with coverage comparable to that enjoyed by federal employees under the Blue Cross and Blue Shield health insurance plan, will be available to eligible members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families April 25, Defense Department officials announced today at the Pentagon.

    The new plan, called Tricare Reserve Select, will serve as a bridge for reserve component members entering or leaving active duty who are not covered by civilian employer or other health insurance plans. It applies to all reserve component personnel who have been activated since Sept. 11, 2001, and who agree to continued service in the Selected Reserve. The coverage will be applied retroactively, officials said.

    Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Charles Abell, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs Thomas Hall, and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. William Winkenwerder announced the plan at a Pentagon news conference.

    “We are committed,” Abell said, “to providing the proper combination of compensation and benefits that will allow us to attract and retain the world’s best fighting force.”

    Abell said that while large numbers of National Guard and Reserve members have health insurance through their employers, the department “recognizes the importance of maintaining a continuity of care as they transition from their employers to serve with us and then back, as well as the need for some of them who may be self-employed or who work for small businesses to have health coverage.”

    […]

    Winkenwerder praised the members of the National Guard and Reserve. “They have shouldered a tremendous share of the global war on terror in which we are deeply engaged,” he said, “and they have performed exceptionally well.

    “They mobilized and deployed side by side with active duty forces, many serving in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Winkenwerder continued. “They served with pride and loyalty. And while we have, in the past, offered full healthcare benefits for these servicemembers, and for their families, this change will shortly offer a more comprehensive benefit for transition back to private life, and, importantly, the opportunity for those who have served in contingency operations, the option for obtaining Tricare coverage on a longer term at very attractive rates.”

    I also wanted to blog this because Winkerwerder is a funny name, and I’m not above that (the name Jihad Ballout still makes me chuckle).

  • U.S. Death Rate Down in Iraq Since Elections

    Progress. Slow but steady progress.

    The rate of U.S. deaths in the Iraq war has fallen sharply since the historic January elections as American military leaders tout progress against the insurgency but warn of a long road ahead.

    March is on pace for the lowest monthly U.S. military death toll in 13 months, and the rate of American fatalities has fallen by about 50 percent since the parliamentary elections in which millions of Iraqis defied insurgents to cast ballots.

    Defense analysts noted that while violence aimed at U.S. forces has declined in the 7 1/2 weeks since the election, insurgent attacks on Iraqis have escalated. They added that previous lulls in attacks on U.S. forces in the two-year war have been followed by intense periods of violence.

    “We have seen a downward trend in attacks,” Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said on Thursday, calling the elections a turning point.

    “There’s still a very good chance that they (insurgents) can do some spectacular events. But the situation does get better each day, all the time,” Boylan added.

    At the current pace, the U.S. military death toll in March will reach about 35. That would be the lowest monthly death toll since 20 U.S. troops died in February 2004, the smallest count of the war. But that proved to be a temporary lull followed some of the most bloody months of the war that spring.

    Analyst Charles Pena said gauging the progress of the war against insurgents is months, if not years, away.

    “I think what you get is a mixed picture in Iraq,” said Pena of the Cato Institute. “Whatever progress we’re making in terms of violence against U.S. troops, it is being offset by violence against Iraqis and Iraqi security forces.”

    Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, seemed to agree.

    “The average counter-insurgency in the 20th century was about nine years, so it takes time to snuff out the insurgency. And also, I think you know, most insurgencies are defeated by political means rather than necessarily by military means,” Casey said in Washington earlier this month.

    Since the election, the rate of U.S. military fatalities in Iraq has been about 1.7 per day, compared to about 3.4 per day from November to election day — a 50 percent drop. It is also about one-fifth lower than the rate experienced from the start of the war until the election.

    November through January marked one of the bloodiest periods of the war for U.S. forces, with the Falluja offensive in November and insurgents staging a deadly series of attacks before the election. The 137 U.S. troops killed in November was the highest monthly toll of the war, and the 107 killed in January was the third highest.

    The official Pentagon count released on Thursday listed 1,519 U.S. military deaths since the March 2003 invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein. It said another 11,442 U.S. troops have been wounded.

    Casey said he was not ready to declare the elections a “tipping point” toward victory.

    “We’re in a good position following the elections, but … we have a lot of work ahead to get to our final objective in Iraq,” Casey said.

    Here’s a graphical representation that agrees (current month figures are latest projected), from GlobalSecurity.org. Please note the the two largest spikes (APR 04 and NOV 04) were during American offensives and the third largest (JAN 05) was when the terrorists failed to stop the elections.

    US KIA as of 24-MAR-05

    Note, the mission continues. It is not accomplished, but it is progressing.

    I say again for the dense, the mission continues.

  • Kyrgyz Opposition Sieze Power

    The dominoes keep falling, and this time things may be coming up tulips.

    Demonstrators in the central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan have siezed that country’s seat of government and forced the country’s long-time president to flee his office, political observers and reporters in the nation’s capital of Bishkek tell CNN.

    It was what amounted to a swift and popular shift of power.

    Opposition leaders are attempting to establish a smooth, stable transition after a day of passionate demonstrations that led to the toppling of the Ashkar Akayev government.

    “The Akayev government, for intents and purposes, is no longer in charge,” a Western source told CNN.

    “I’d say the new government is in the process of being formed. The leaders of the opposition realize they need to put together a regular, working government for the Kyrgyz people.”

    There are reports that Akayev, his family and his advisers have left the country.

    As usual of late for the region, Publius Pundit is all over the story, as Daniel Berczik has put together a nice collection of related links and analysis.

    Don’t go popping the champagne corks just yet, though, as some see the upheaval in Kyrgyzstan as an opportunity for radical Islamists.

    Although the Bush administration supports pro-democracy movements, the turmoil in the region also has created a potentially dangerous opening for extremist Islamic parties.

    Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, has a following among the young in Central Asia. It has called for Islamic rule to replace secular governments and unite the Muslim world. And its pamphlets criticize U.S. bases established in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to support the war on terror.

    A senior Western diplomat in Tajikistan confirmed that Hizb ut-Tahrir’s influence is growing across the region, particularly among the young who are looking for alternatives to what they perceive as corrupt, totalitarian regimes with links to the Soviet past.

    The United States has not declared Hizb ut-Tahrir a terrorist organization because it does not advocate violence, but the diplomat said some of its literature is virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic and could inspire violence.

    We are truly living in interesting times.

  • US Deserter Denied Canada Asylum

    I blogged in December about Jeremy Hinzman, the coward who had deserted his comrades as they went to Iraq, instead applying in Canada for refugee status. Well, Canada’s decision was handed down today, and Hinzman’s hopes of staying yellow in the Great White North were denied.

    A former US soldier who quit the army in protest against the Iraq war has been denied refugee status in Canada.

    Jeremy Hinzman, 26, was the first to receive an answer from a number of US deserters seeking Canadian residency.

    Mr Hinzman, who served in Afghanistan in a non-combat role, left the 82nd Airborne Regiment when he was deployed to Iraq.

    Correspondents say the decision may affect eight other ex-servicemen, but improve Canadian-US relations.

    In its judgement Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board said Mr Hinzman had not convinced its members that he would face persecution or cruel and unusual punishment if he were sent back to the US.

    Board member Brian Goodman wrote in the judgement: “The treatment does not amount to a violation of a fundamental human right, and the harm is not serious.”

    Mr Hinzman’s lawyer said he planned to appeal, and that they remained confident of success.

    “He is disappointed. We don’t believe that people should be imprisoned for doing what they believe is illegal,” Jeffry House told Canadian TV.

    Man, I really hope that is a misquote.

    Mr House also settled in Canada after dodging the US military draft during the Vietnam War.

    Well, maybe it’s not.

    If Mr Hinzman’s appeal is not successful, his final option would be a direct plea to Canada’s immigration minister for leave to remain on compassionate grounds.

    He faces up to five years in prison if he fails and is returned to the US.

    Mr Hinzman fled his unit in January 2004, shortly before the 82nd Airborne was due in Iraq.

    He had served three years in the army, but had asked to be classified as a conscientious objector ahead of deployment to Afghanistan in 2002.

    Mr Hinzman now lives with his wife and young son in Toronto, where his case has been championed by Quakers and anti-war activist groups.

    I have little sympathy for a volunteer who runs out on his fellow soldiers. Okay, maybe a touch of sympathy, as I’ll stand by my original conclusion from December:

    Should any such deserters elect to return, I would like to see Hinzman and his ilk given a choice: prison or finish service in one of the historical roles of conscientious objector, such as a medic or chaplain’s assistant. See, I have a heart, especially for Quaker Buddhists.

    See, I have a heart.