Left I on the News

"One of his frustrations with me is that he believes we've been slow about giving him the tools necessary to protect the Iraqi people."

An amusing take on this is found in the New York Times article on the subject, which quotes an unnamed "senior administration official" about the meeting:

"This is not the United States and Iraq struggling for control of the steering wheel. This is the United States wanting Iraq to be firmly with the steering wheel in its hand, and the issue is, how do we get there as quickly as possible."

By the way, I originally titled this post, "The elephant in the room." I have not yet read a single article, or heard a single commentator, discuss this subject.

Wiley Miller (Non Sequitur)

Don't worry, though, statistics will show the unemployment rate is still going down. All the missing "employees" have either had a "buyout" or otherwise "retired" (i.e., gave up looking for work knowing it was futile).

More than 1,800 people are gathered in Havana to belatedly celebrate Fidel Castro's 80th birthday, an event he unfortunately is still too sick to attend. However, he did send a letter to be read to the participants, and I thought it interesting enough to reproduce parts of here. After spending a few paragraphs honoring the painter Oswaldo Guayasamín, whose Foundation is sponsoring the event, here's what's on his mind:

As long as the planet exists and human beings breathe, the work of creators will exist.

Today, moreover, thanks to technology, the work and knowledge that humanity has created throughout thousands of years is within everyone’s reach, even though it is not yet known how human beings are affected by the radiation from billions of computers and cell phones.

Recently, the prestigious World Wildlife Fund, based in Switzerland and considered internationally to be the most important NGO overseeing the global environment, stated that all of the measures taken by Cuba to protect the environment made it the only country on Earth that meets the minimum requirements for sustainable development. This is an encouraging honor for our country, but of little importance in the world, given the weight of its economy. That is why, on this past 23rd, I sent a message to President Chávez saying:

"Dear Hugo:

"By adopting a Comprehensive Energy Savings Program, you have become the most prestigious defender of the environment in the world.

"The fact that Venezuela is the country with the largest oil reserves is extremely important, and will make you an example that will draw along all other energy consumers to do the same, saving a countless amount of investment.

"Just as Cuba, a nickel producer, can mobilize resources worth billions of dollars for its development, Venezuela, with its exports of hydrocarbons, could mobilize trillions.

"If the rich industrialized nations were to achieve the miracle of reproducing throughout the planet – within several dozen years – solar fusion, having first destroyed the environment with hydrocarbon emissions, how will the poor nations, who constitute the immense majority of humanity, be able to live in that world?

"¡Hasta la victoria siempre!"

Finally, dear friends, who have done us the immense honor of visiting our country, I very sorrowfully take my leave of you, because I was not able to personally thank you and embrace each one of you. We have the duty to save our species.

Fidel Castro Ruz

November 28, 2006

Today's San Jose Mercury News finally bucks this trend with a story by one of my favorite mainstream reporters, Hannah Allam, herself a refugee of sorts (formerly the Baghdad bureau chief for Knight-Ridder, she's now part of the Beirut bureau of McClatchy). Allam profiles some of the 600,000 Iraqis living in Jordan (yes, that figure is for Jordan alone, and doesn't include "at least that many more [who] have fled to Syria, Egypt and other countries, testament to the viciousness of the war in their homeland.") As Allam notes, "the departed represent about 5 percent of Iraq's population of 27 million."

One of the most interesting parts of the article, similar to many of the things we read in years past (though not recently) from Riverbend on Baghdad Burning, is the intermingling of Shia and Sunni Iraqis in Jordan. There may be an "age-old" religious division between Shia and Sunni, but it certainly didn't manifest itself as a bloodbath until the Americans showed up to "liberate" the country.

George Armstrong Bush and his Last Stand

And here's another thing he's not going to do: urge any member of his own family to be one of those "troops on the battlefield," risking death to "complete" his "mission." The caption to the picture above is of course completely fanciful; the idea that George Bush might emulate George Armstrong Custer and actually place himself in danger is beyond laughable.

John Kerry was wrong when he asked his famous question, because the Vietnam War was no more a "mistake" than the invasion of Iraq. Both were quite deliberate manifestations of American foreign policy, of American imperialism. But the correct question, the one shown in the title of this post, is one I'm waiting for someone to ask this time around. Shouldn't this be the sign-off line for some columnist, some pundit, some talk-show host somewhere? Keith Olbermann, are you listening? "XXXX days since 'Mission Accomplished'" is getting old as a sign-off. I hereby surrender all copyright claims to this quote, if only you or anyone else will help popularize this question. Because it is the question that Americans need to be asking, now.

"And let me also say that there's been a lot of discussion within the American press about the need to adapt our strategy, a lot of discussion about Baker-Hamilton, a lot of discussion on talk shows, a lot in the press about ideas about the way ahead for Iraq. And it's important, I think, for the President to send the message to Prime Minister Maliki that while he is listening to all of these voices for ideas, is open to ideas, that in the end of the day to reassure Prime Minister Maliki that it is the President who will be crafting the way forward on Iraq and to reassure Prime Minister Maliki it will be done in a way that is cooperative with Iraq, rather than imposed on Iraq, so that we come out of this process with a strategy that is an Iraqi strategy and a strategy that we share and can support."

And why is the idea that it would be the Iraqis to decide on the appropriate "strategy" for "victory" so preposterous that it isn't even mentioned, much less discussed?

Sunset over Bodega Bay, CA

That's Bodega Head across the bay, and on the other side of the San Andreas Fault, which runs right through the Bay. The Bay joins the Pacific Ocean through a very narrow opening on the left side of this picture, just below the Head.

Remarkably, construction was actually begun on a nuclear power plant (!!) on Bodega Head, less than a quarter-mile from the Fault! Citizen action, however, put a stop to it, leaving only a hole in the ground (the "Hole in the Head") as its legacy.

Today's news: "With 58 percent of the ballots counted, [leftist Rafael] Correa had a 65 percent to 35 percent lead over banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa" in the race for President of Ecuador. In other words, a landslide victory.

Saturday's headline and news: "Frustrating tie expected in Ecuador as two outsiders vie for presidency." "Many analysts predict a dead heat."

Although the article discusses only U.S. deaths (with a brief mention of coalition deaths), and the site is known primarily for that, for the last two years the site has at least tracked in a minimal way Iraqi deaths as well. Given the controversy over similar data from Iraq Body Count, this statement on his site is interesting: "This is not a complete list, nor can we verify these totals. This is simply a compilation of deaths reported by news agencies. Actual totals for Iraqi deaths are much higher than the numbers recorded on this site."

Anyway, an interesting article.

Two almost identical stories in the news these days about signs that people want taken down. In Colorado, a homeowner's association has demanded that a woman remove a "peace wreath" from her door, claiming (although the woman denies it) that it was a "divisive" anti-Iraq war "sign." And here in California, a display of hundreds of crosses on a privately-owned hillside has become controversial, thanks to a sign-ordinance violating sign reading "In memory of 28xx U.S. troops killed in Iraq." In this case the erectors of the crosses and the sign are antiwar activists, but, as with the "sign" in Colorado, the message is completely neutral; the only opposition to the war in Iraq contained in the signs is in the mind of the beholder.

Which is precisely why there is such a controversy. Supporters of the war simply can't handle the truth of what their support has wrought. 2800+ soldiers dead? Please, don't remind us. Out of sight, out of mind. In a similar, though not identical, way, to the other controversy circulating in today's news - the decision of some media (including the Los Angles Times and NBC News) to call what is happening in Iraq a "civil war." Of course it doesn't matter what name anyone wants to give to what is happening in Iraq, but the effort to give it some kind of "bad name" is today's version of yesterday's "no one is reporting the good news of all those 'rebuilt' schools" controversy.

In A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson famously says to Tom Cruise, ""You can't handle the truth." But at least Tom Cruise's character was asking for the truth. Here in the U.S., the truth is the last thing that supporters of the war are interested in.

How badly do they want avoid being reminded of the war they support? Just consider this aspect of the story from Colorado, remember, that's the one involving the almost completely innocuous peace wreath (emphasis added):

The subdivision's rules say no signs, billboards or advertising are permitted without the consent of the architectural control committee.

[Homeowners Association President] Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything. Kearns fired all five committee members.

Cataract Trail, Mt. Tamalpais, Marin County (north of San Francisco), CA

George Bush:

"The United States remains fully committed to supporting Lebanon's independence and democracy in the face of attempts by Syria, Iran, and their allies within Lebanon to foment instability and violence."

"We need to do everything we can, particularly at this moment, to protect democracy in Lebanon and the premiership of Prime Minister Siniora.

"And it underlines once again the absolute and urgent need for a strategy for the whole of the Middle East, that supports those who favour democracy and the proper way of resolving disputes everywhere."

The murder of more than a thousand Lebanese civilians? Silence. The murder of thousands of Palestinians? Silence. Ah, but the assassination of one member of the Lebanese government, that they have something to say about.

"The property rights of many Palestinians have been systematically violated in the course of settlement building."

We're not talking about the little hilltop trailer settlements here, but some of the largest settlements on the West Bank, including two of the three major settlement areas -- Ma'ale Adumim (population 32,000), and Ariel (population 16,000). A whopping 86% of Ma'ale Adumim is built on privately-owned Palestinian land according to the study.

Of course, whatever the ownership of the land itself, a full 100% of the population of these settlements is illegal according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of population onto occupied territories. And, although Israel claims the Fourth Geneva Convention doesn't apply to the West Bank, it's worth noting this, taken from an ADL document:

A special UN meeting in Geneva held on July 15, 1999. The closed-door meeting lasted a mere 45 minutes. However, a resolution was unanimously passed stating that the Fourth Geneva Convention does apply to Israeli settlements in the "occupied territories." [Quotes around the last phrase from the original]

Almost half a million people from 28 nations have benefited from Operation Miracle, a highly successful program started by Cuba that provides free [eye] surgery to low income patients.

A report issued by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health and presented at a recent parliamentary hearing informed that a total of 485,476 patients have been operated on including 290,000 Venezuelans.

The initial eye operations took place exclusively at Cuban hospitals, but with the objective of extending the program, similar surgical facilities were set up in other nations, always under the supervision of Cuban medical personnel.

Today, 13 ophthalmologic centers are in service in Venezuela, and similar facilities are providing services in Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Bolivia.

• Reuters: "Israel calls off air raid after Gaza protest"
• New York Times: "Israel Holds Fire as Gazans Rally at House"
• AP got the headline right: "Protests Force Israel to Halt Airstrikes" but lead with the opposite: "Israel called off airstrikes on the homes..."

Israel has been under pressure to avoid civilian casualties after an artillery shell killed 19 people, all non-combatants, in Gaza on November 8. Israel apologized for the civilian deaths and said a technical fault caused a targeting error.

Hours after the "human shield" protest, an Israeli aircraft attacked a car carrying Hamas militants on a crowded Gaza City street. Hospital officials said an elderly passerby died of his wounds after being hit in the strike.

Medical workers said the two men in the vehicle and two other passersby were wounded.

"When I come to Washington, I feel despair. When I'm in Iraq with my commanders, when I talk to our soldiers, when I talk to the Iraqi leadership, they are not despairing."

Capt. Stephanie A. Bagley and the military police company she commands arrived in Iraq in December 2005 brimming with optimism about taking on one of the most urgent tasks in Iraq: building a new police force.

Now, as the 21st Military Police Company approaches the end of a deployment marked by small victories and enormous disappointments, Captain Bagley is focused on a more modest goal.

"I just want to get everyone home," she said. In the past several weeks, Captain Bagley, 30, barred her troops from foot patrols in the most violent neighborhoods and eliminated all nonessential travel. "I'm just not willing to lose another soldier," she said.

As the death toll among American troops has risen in Baghdad, and the security plan has faltered, Captain Bagley's soldiers say they have tried to resist the urge to question the larger American enterprise here, whether it was right or wrong to come to Iraq in the first place, whether and when American troops should leave. They are here to do a job, they say, and are duty-bound to complete it.

But Captain Bagley has asked herself those questions "all the time," she said. She ponders whether it has all been worth her soldier's leg or her soldier's life. She wonders what the American command will do to turn things around.

Her discouragement is plain, but she keeps her deepest thoughts private, in part because she wants to protect her soldiers from doubt at this most critical time in their lives. She knows that their job is difficult enough without the suggestion that their sacrifices may have been in vain. "You can't pass it along to your soldiers," she said. "You can't question it. It would lead to the destruction of the company. You got to keep it together."

The company has done everything it could to help rebuild Iraq, she said, but now they want to go home. "It's been a very frustrating year," she said. "We all want to get out of here."

The company’s challenges crystallized in a moment late last month during a routine assignment. Some of her soldiers had gone to the Baya Local Police Station, one of 18 local stations in the troubled southern outskirts of Baghdad where her unit has worked this year. They were picking up a contingent of Iraqi policemen for a daily patrol of Dora, an especially violent neighborhood here in the capital.

On these patrols, the Americans, swaddled in Kevlar from head to hips, travel in Humvees and other armored vehicles. The Iraqis, wearing only bulletproof vests, ride in soft-skinned pickup trucks and S.U.V.’s, the only vehicles they have.

The Iraqi policemen begged the Americans not to make them go out. They peeled off their clothes to reveal shrapnel scars from past attacks. They tugged the armored plates from their Kevlar vests and told the Americans they were faulty. They said they had no fuel for their vehicles. They disappeared on indefinite errands elsewhere in the compound. They said they would not patrol if it meant passing a trash pile, a common hiding place for bombs.

Having said all that, Gates at least understands his position as a privileged American and, while he's not doing anything to change the fundamentals of the world economic divide, at least he's using his money to try to alleviate some of the symptoms, as we first learned about here back in 2004. Today's San Jose Mercury News features a lengthy interview with Gates in which he touches on that subject:

Q So you are saying those of us who live in the United States exist in a sort of bubble in terms of not understanding the suffering and problems of those in the developing world.

A Absolutely. I've said many times that if we just re-sorted the world so that you randomly lived next to the majority [and knew] how the majority of people lived, you'd say, "Oh my God, her baby just died of malaria; my God, look at that dirty water." And the IQ applied to this thing would be a thousand times bigger, because whenever you describe this to people, or they go out to these areas, they come away very affected.

Most people don't see these conditions at all. Do they know what visceral leishmaniasis is, that it kills 300,000 people a year? The way (the news media) documents things like plane crashes . . . I don't understand why are they running those articles, because that's not the tragedy that happened that day; it's the ongoing set of diseases, some of which are unique to these tropical countries.

"They don't really like patents. They like medicine. Cuba's drug pipeline is most interesting for what it lacks: grand-slam moneymakers, cures for baldness or impotence or wrinkles. It's all cancer therapies, AIDS medications, and vaccines against tropical diseases.

"That's probably why US and European scientists have a soft spot for their Cuban counterparts. Everywhere north of the Florida Keys, once-magical biotech has become just another expression of venture-driven capitalism. Leave it to the Cubans to make it revolutionary again."

Incidentally, Gates was in town to collect a philanthropy award at the (San Jose) Tech Museum. It was exactly one year ago that Cuban scientist Dr. Vicente Verez Bencomo was honored, in absentia (courtesy of the U.S. government), at those same awards ceremonies. Dr. Bencomo, who no doubt has a budget substantially less than $1 billion/year, nevertheless developed an incredibly important vaccine against Haemophilus influenza type B (Hib), a bacteria that can cause meningitis and pneumonia and is estimated to be responsible for 200,000-700,000 childhood deaths annually around the world.

I can't end without sharing one light moment from the interview. Asked his opinion about Google, Gates had this to say:

They're in this honeymoon phase of, Google can do anything at all times. If it was rumored they were doing pizza, you'd think it was going to be zero calories and free.

The government of President George W. Bush shamed the United States into international isolation after it rejected a UN resolution defending the human right to food.

After a week of UN debates on humanitarian affairs, US diplomats were the only ones to vote against a resolution supporting the Right to Food.

The related text was sponsored by an unusual majority of 131 countries, and another 44 UN member states yesterday voted in favor.

A team of psychologists has an explanation for why money can't buy happiness.

Pictures of dollar bills, fantasies of wealth and even wads of Monopoly money arouse feelings of self-sufficiency that result in selfish and often anti-social behavior, according to a University of Minnesota study published Friday in the journal Science.

So what's the twist? This:

Doctors told Stewart in April that he had cancer of the esophagus and it had spread to his liver. He has been lucky, he says, to get into a clinical trial at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. But...the treatment costs more than $16,000 a month.

His insurance company won't cover the cost of the treatment, which has left him concerned about his finances and his family.

At the very least, an "apparently" is warranted in these stories.

Results from recent clinical trials made with the humanized monoclonal antibody HR3, obtained by specialists from the Center for Molecular Immunology (CIM), show promise in the possibility of using this antibody in the treatment of head and neck tumors.

Dr. Agustin Lage, director of the CIM, broke the good news at a press conference during the opening session of an Immunotherapy Workshop taking place simultaneously with the Biotechnology Havana 2006 convention.

Dr. Lage said that test results received in trials held in Cuba and other countries such as India, China and Germany, showed a significant reduction in the malignant lesion of certain brain tumors (almost all of them non-treatable by surgery ) and of pharyngeal carcinomas.

And all this works both ways, of course. The Cuban scientists (and others from around the world) would have benefited from the American scientists, and the Americans would have benefited from the Cubans. And Americans, and Cubans, and the people of the world, would have been better off, as science took one more step or many steps, large or small, towards alleviating the suffering of the world's people.

That's what the blockade - not just a blockade of trade but a blockade of knowledge - is doing.

The president said there was much to be learned from the divisive Vietnam War — the longest conflict in U.S. history — as his administration contemplates new strategies for the increasingly difficult war in Iraq, now in its fourth year. "It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful — and that is an ideology of freedom — to overcome an ideology of hate."

And as for Cuba, haven't the liberals been saying for years that the only way to overthrow Communism in Cuba is with McDonalds, not with a blockade? Well, since Bush clearly thinks that the "ideology of freedom" (i.e., his and most capitalists' word for "Capitalism") has triumphed in Vietnam thanks to McDonalds et al., surely he must agree that war, even economic war, is not the way to achieve that same goal in Cuba.

Alas, George Bush isn't actually capable of thinking through the consequences of his assertions. So I'm afraid it's more war in Iraq, and continued economic war against Cuba, for the foreseeable future.

The Air Force has conducted more than 2,000 airstrikes in Afghanistan over the past six months, a sharp increase in bombing that reflects the growing demand for American air cover since NATO has assumed a larger ground combat role, Air Force officials said.

The intensifying air campaign has focused on southern Afghanistan, where NATO units, primarily from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, as well as American Special Forces have been engaging in the heaviest and most frequent ground combat with Taliban rebels since the invasion five years ago.

The NATO forces are mostly operating without heavy armor or artillery support, and as Taliban resistance has continued, more air support has been used to compensate for the lightness of the units, Air Force officials said. Most of the strikes have come during "close air support" missions, where the bombers patrol the area and respond to calls from ground units in combat rather than performing planned strikes.

Of particular interest is the asserted reason for the airstrikes: "The NATO forces are mostly operating without heavy armor or artillery support." The reason this is interesting is because, as I have also written, there is no chance that the U.S. is ever going to provide such heavy weaponry to the Iraqi forces they are supposedly training; no chance because, if they did, the chance that those weapons would be turned on the Americans would be almost a certainty. Which means that, unless we stop them, the future of Iraq is precisely what is on view in Afghanistan - Americans delivering indiscriminate death from the air.

Contrary to myths about media coverage of the Vietnam War, the American press lagged way behind grassroots antiwar sentiment in seriously contemplating a U.S. pullout from Vietnam. The lag time amounted to several years -- and meant the additional deaths of tens of thousands of Americans and perhaps 1 million more Vietnamese people.

A survey by the Boston Globe, conducted in February 1968, found that out of 39 major daily newspapers in the United States, not one had editorialized for withdrawing American troops from Vietnam. Today -- despite the antiwar tilt of national opinion polls and the recent election -- advocacy of a U.S. pullout from Iraq seems almost as scarce among modern-day media elites.

For the first time in six years, the number of Americans struggling with hunger fell in 2005, the Agriculture Department said.

Last year, 35 million people suffered food insecurity, meaning they didn't have the money or resources to get enough food for active, healthy living. The number was 38 million in 2004.

"People before profits" isn't just a slogan. It's an imperative.

Los Angeles Times:

Bring the Cuban terrorist to justice
The U.S. must not release a man accused of blowing up a Cuban jetliner. A third-party country could be the answer.
November 15, 2006

IT IS TIME TO BRING Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to justice. Dithering on the part of the U.S. is leaving the nation open to charges of hypocrisy in the war on terror — specifically, to the charge that some forms of terrorism are more acceptable than others.

The 78-year-old Posada is lionized by hard-line anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami. He stands accused of conspiring to blow up a Cuban airliner in 1976, causing 73 deaths. He denies involvement, but newly declassified documents place him at planning sessions for the attack.

Posada has boasted of bombing hotels in Havana that resulted in one death and 11 injuries. In 2000, a Panamanian jury convicted Posada and three other terrorists of plotting to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro, and they were jailed. Outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, however, pardoned the four — some believe as a favor to the White House.

A naturalized Venezuelan citizen, Posada was arrested in spring 2005 for entering the U.S. illegally. An immigration judge has since blocked his deportation to stand trial in either Venezuela or Cuba because of concerns about the fairness of any proceeding in those countries. The Bush administration now faces a choice between trying Posada in this country or setting him free in February.

Letting him walk would clearly be an outrage, and trying him in a U.S. courtroom after refusing to hand him over to Venezuela would create a perception problem across Latin America. The State Department has approached a few countries to take Posada, but all have refused.

It isn't clear whether Spain is one of these nations, but the Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero should be encouraged to resolve this impasse. Madrid is a credible interlocutor between Washington and Latin America, and Spanish courts have a recent tradition — thanks in large measure to crusading magistrate Baltasar Garzon, who pursued former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, among others — of aggressively taking on cases of universal jurisdiction.

Washington should broker a deal that allows Posada to be tried in a third country whose principled neutrality is not questioned in this case — even if it means upsetting some Cuban Americans in Miami or putting up with some embarrassing revelations about CIA activity among the exile community.

The alternative is for the U.S. insistence that nations band together to fight the war on terror to sound hypocritically self-serving.

While the Times' call for Luis Posada Carriles to face long-overdue justice is welcome, real justice calls for him to be tried in Venezuela. It is in Venezuela, not Spain or any other country, in which Posada faces outstanding charges for the murder of 73 people via the mid-air bombing of Cubana Flight 455 in 1976.

The Times errs in claiming that "An immigration judge has since blocked his deportation to stand trial in either Venezuela or Cuba because of concerns about the fairness of any proceeding in those countries." Cuba has not even sought the extradition of Posada, and the refusal to extradite him to Venezuela is not due to any concern for "fairness," but rather to the uncontested testimony at his hearing that he would likely be tortured in Venezuela. And who was it that the U.S. prosecutor allowed to present that uncontested testimony? Joaquin Chaffardet, Posada's lawyer, former boss in the Venezuelan secret police, former business partner at the time of the airline bombing, and someone who was indicted, though not convicted, for organizing the prison break which sprang Posada from a Venezuelan jail in the first place!

Justice in the Posada case not only demands that Posada be tried, but that five men who are now starting their ninth year in U.S. prisons be freed immediately. Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González - collectively known as the Cuban Five - were sent to the U.S. to monitor and disrupt the terrorist plots of Posada, Orlando Bosch, and other right-wing Cuban-Americans in Miami. In return for doing the job that the U.S. government should have been doing, and saving the lives of innocent people, that same U.S. government arrested them, falsely charging and convicting them of conspiracy to commit espionage. The outrageous injustice of their imprisonment cries out to be rectified.

It's long past time not only to try Posada for his crimes, but to free the Five!

In that regard, it's essential for Americans to understand the price they are paying for this blockade. Among those costs are the cost to health care and scientific research, as exemplified by something happening this week in Havana:

A dozen US researchers were unable to attend the International Congress "Biotecnología 2006," with sessions continuing in this capital Wednesday, after being denied permission from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The forum presented on Tuesday a new synthetic product with anti-tumoral properties patented by a team of Cuban scientists from the Havana-based Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).

According to Granma daily, the first phase of the clinical test in 31 uterine-cancer patients has already been completed, and it was further evidenced that secondary reactions are minor when compared to conventional therapies.

American businesspeople who are losing potential profits by being unable to trade with Cuba are practically the only Americans (outside of leftists such as myself) to raise their voices against the blockade. It's time for the scientific community, and for all Americans, to add their voices and put a stop to this inhumane policy.

"There is no question that the Iranian threat is not just a threat for Israel, but for the whole world. The fanaticism and the extremism of the Iranian government, and the fact that the leader of a nation such as Iran can threaten the very existence of another nation, as he does towards the state of Israel, is not something that we can tolerate or would ever tolerate, and certainly not when we know that he is trying to possess nuclear weapons."

And today, one day later, a day of amazing coincidences:

• Plutonium was alleged found in an Iranian nuclear waste facility. "Traces" thereof, traces of some unspecified amount but I think we can guess it's measured in nanograms.
• A major article appearing on the front page of the Daily Telegraph alleges that Iran is "training the next al-Qa'eda leaders." The article itself claims that "If al-Qa'eda is agreeable to appointing al-Adel and other al-Qa'eda figures currently based in Iran to senior positions, the Iranians have agreed to provide training facilities and equipment," but, appearing today on MSNBC with Chris Matthews, the author, Con Coughlin, went much further, claiming that Iran is already operating al Qaeda training camps, and sending trained fighters to both Afghanistan and Iraq. He also raised the specter of Iran giving al Qaeda a non-existent "suitcase nuke" from their non-existent supply of nuclear weapons, so al Qaeda could blow up a major Western capital.

The U.S. is already overcommitted in Iraq (and to a lesser extent in Afghanistan), and Israeli talk about the possibility of their military action against Iran is, in my opinion, more intended to convince the American audience about the alleged danger posed by Iran than anything else. Most likely, all of these new (and old) accusations are designed to ratchet up the pressure on Russia and China to go along with strong sanctions on Iran, thus weakening Iran and setting them up for a future assault when imperialism is ready, in much the same way that Iraq was set up for the 2003 invasion. Nevertheless, these developments have to be treated seriously, and treated as if the possibility of invasion or other attack is very real.

U.S./U.K./Israeli hands off Iran!

Here's McCain on Meet the Press:

I believe that there are a lot of things that we can do to salvage this, but they all require the presence of additional troops.

Now, if you want to, to give up on, on Iraq, then fine, and take the consequences. I think there will be chaos in the region. But we need to control the—this insurgency, we need to embed people with the police and the military, we need to clear and hold—and “hold” is the important part—so we can expand areas of security. There’s a lot of things that we can and must do. But if we don’t want to do that, fine, but that is a decision that I think will have profound consequences. I’m not prepared to go to an American family and tell them, “Well, you know, we’ll—you just stay there for a while and we’ll delay this withdrawal and defeat for a year or two,” I’m not prepared to tell them that. I’m prepared to tell them that if we have the will to win, we will do what’s necessary to win. But I’m not interested in seeing a scene of the American Embassy on the, the roof of the American embassy in Saigon multiplied a thousandfold.

As for the helicopters on the roof, I say, "Bring 'em on!"

Everyone's favorite villain John Bolton will soon be gone. Does anyone think that any other American representative to the U.N., even (or should I say especially) one appointed by President Hillary Clinton or President Al Gore, would have cast their vote differently?

As with Donald Rumsfeld, it can seem satisfying to rejoice when those who are the arrogant face of American policy are given the boot. But in both cases, the forces really determining the policy they were implementing are unchanged.

"I have to say that, scientific method or no scientific method, I find this very hard to believe, given the state of public health (water, etc.) and actual health care (hospitals, etc.) in Iraq. Perhaps the only thing that explains it is that, after a decade of sanctions, things were already so much worse than 'normal.' Imagine if their baseline had been the 1980's."

Thousands of Iraqis are believed to have died from shortages of medicine, vital equipment and qualified doctors, despite an infusion of nearly half a billion dollars from U.S. coffers into this country's healthcare system, Iraqi officials and American observers say.

Raging sectarian violence as well as theft, corruption and mismanagement have drained health resources and made deliveries of supplies difficult. Exacerbating the crisis, hundreds of doctors have been killed, and thousands have fled Iraq. The child mortality rate, a key indicator of a nation's health, has worsened since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to Iraqi government figures.

Healthcare in Iraq once was first rate. Medicine and hospital care were free, doctors well-educated and respected. But neglect by former President Saddam Hussein and years of United Nations sanctions laid waste to the system.

The nation's health has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s, said Joseph Chamie, former director of the U.N. Population Division and an Iraq specialist.

"They were at the forefront," he said, referring to healthcare just before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "Now they're looking more and more like a country in sub-Saharan Africa."

On the numeric front, the article gives us this:

At one of the busiest hospitals in Baghdad, five people die on average every day because the staff does not have the equipment to treat heart attacks and other commonplace illnesses and injuries, said Husam Abud, a doctor at Yarmouk Hospital. That translates to more than 1,800 preventable deaths a year at that hospital alone.

Whatever the case, one thing we know for sure. Thanks to the "help" they've received from imperialism, Iraqis are not worse off than they were before the invasion. They're much worse off.

Completely absent from any of the coverage of this story is any hint whatsoever of the nature of this "threat," and I don't mean which subways are being targeted. To hear or read the coverage, one would think that "terrorism" is simply something that people are attracted to for its own sake. Any clue that there might be a reason why 1500 people in Britain might have chosen to follow this path, other than the usual nonsense about 73 virgins, is completely absent. Equally absent is any explanation about how it might be possible to eliminate this threat in "a generation." Are all the terrorists, and every person who might possibly become one, going to be killed or jailed in that time?

The idea that British (and, of course, U.S.) foreign policy, as seen in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iran in particular, might have anything to do with this threat? Completely, utterly, totally missing from the discussion. Can't go there. Wouldn't want to acknowledge that changes in that policy would be orders of magnitude less expensive in lives and "treasure," and infinitely more effective in ending the terrorist threat.

"Years from now, when America looks out on a democratic Middle East growing in freedom and prosperity, Americans will speak of the battles like Fallujah with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima."

- George Bush, speaking at the dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps

"The American people have put their feet on the right path by ... realizing their president's betrayal in supporting Israel, so they voted for something reasonable in the last elections."

- Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, a.k.a. Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaida in Iraq

Once more into the breach, dear friends.

Earlier today, when I wrote about the latest claim that 150,000 Iraqis have died, the AP article linked to didn't mention the numbers from the Johns Hopkins study at all, nor did it clarify who was included in this latest estimate of 150,000, nor did it mention the basis of the estimate.

Now the article has been updated and all three problems are remedied, but not any of the other issues that I raised. And once more I am going to have to clarify for at least my readers, if not for the AP and the rest of the media, that a bowl of apples is not the same as a bowl of apples and oranges. The new estimate, we are told, includes "civilians, police and the bodies of people who were abducted, later found dead and collected at morgues run by the Health Ministry" (and the 150,000 is simply an extrapolation from the "100 bodies/day" brought to morgues and hospitals). But "civilians, police, and dead abductees" hardly covers all the Iraqis who have been killed by this war. There seems to be neither any recognition of that fact, nor any understanding of the fact that the "controversial" Johns Hopkins report ("controversial," apparently, because it "was dismissed by President Bush and other U.S. officials as not credible") measured the mortality rate for all Iraqis, not just those in particular categories.

Cuba has been flooding some poorer parts of the region with doctors and humanitarian workers since the tsunami tragedy in Indonesia on Boxing Day, 2004. Swathes of the Pacific, from Kiribati to East Timor, are becoming dependent on Cuban medical aid, and the Cubans appear to be winning hearts and minds. Following the Java earthquake in May, teams of doctors were quickly flown to affected areas.

Indonesia's regional health co-ordinator, Ronny Rockito, said the two Cuban field hospitals and 135 workers made a bigger impact on the humanitarian crisis than the work of any other country.

"I appreciate the Cuban medical team; their style is very friendly and their medical standard very high," Mr Rockito said. "Everything is free and [there is] no support from my government. We give thanks to [Cuban President] Fidel Castro. Many villagers begged the Cuban doctors to stay."

Cuba, one of the world's few surviving communist nations, is quietly expanding relations in the Pacific region, and Canberra and Washington are said to be watching developments with concern.

Fearing the example of commitment, solidarity and unselfishness that has earned the physicians the gratitude and respect of the people in the nations where they are working, the "concerns" are an irrefutable demonstration of the two countries’ "vocation" to defend human rights.

Defeat one was the defeat of the American project to intimidate the Nicaraguan people with the usual range of threats and bullying, and their election of pseudo-Sandinista Daniel Ortega (however little confidence one may have in him).

Defeats two and three occurred today in the U.N. General Assembly. To no one's surprise (except perhaps George Bush, who doesn't seem to expect bad things to happen to him in elections), the General Assembly voted for the 15th consecutive year (!) to condemn the U.S. "embargo" (virtual blockade) against Cuba, with the usual resounding vote of 183 to 4 (Voting "no" with the United States were Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau. Micronesia abstained. Nicaragua and Iraq did not vote.).

But this year, the vote featured a twist. This year, the U.S. managed to pressure Australia into introducing an amendment to that resolution, which would have added "a paragraph saying that the U.S. measures were motivated by 'valid concerns' about the lack of freedom in Cuba and called on Havana to release political prisoners." What utter nonsense. Without even getting into a defense of these usual charges against Cuba, which I have covered on many occasions here, what if they were true? How many other countries in the world does the U.S. maintain an embargo/blockade on? Are you telling me that there are no other countries which have a "lack of freedom" and which hold political prisoners in this world? For goodness' sake, Israel has slaughtered more Palestinians this month than the alleged number of political prisoners held in Cuba. And unlike the United States, which is holding hundreds of prisoners (including, at least for a while, some American citizens) without any charges whatsoever, there isn't anyone in jail in Cuba who has not been tried and convicted on laws which were in effect at the time they committed their crimes.

Anyway, this maneuver by the Americans was to no avail - the amendment was resoundingly defeated, 126 to 51 with five abstentions. In your face, John Bolton and George Bush (and John Howard).

Update: Felipe Perez Roque's eloquent speech at the U.N., not only denouncing the U.S. economic war against Cuba but explaining in detail its extent, is now online. Since I don't write enough for my Australian readers, I'll reprint here the section which deals with the "Australian" amendment that went down to defeat:

Ladies and gentlemen, is this amendment really an expression of a genuine concern for Australia? No. It is only proof of its abject submission to the government of the United States.

But, in addition, Australia does not have the moral authority to try to refer to the human rights situation in Cuba.

The Australian government is an accomplice of U.S. imperialism. It is a kind of “junior imperialist,” always at the ready in the Pacific to follow its mentors in Washington. It not only collaborated with them and sent troops together with the U.S. Army to the war in Vietnam, in which four million Vietnamese people lost their lives, but also enthusiastically participated, by sending more than 2,000 troops, in the invasion of Iraq, a pre-emptive and totally illegal war. There are still 1,300 Australian soldiers in Iraq despite the fact that just 22% of the Australian population supports that particular venture.

The Australian government, which subjects the Aboriginal population of its country to a veritable regime of apartheid, does not have the moral authority to criticize Cuba. The Australian government, which supports the U.S. torture center in Guantánamo, and backed summary trials before military courts of prisoners who are ill-treated and tortured there, including Australian prisoners, does not have the moral authority to criticize Cuba.

Iraq's health minister said about 150,000 have been killed by insurgents since the war started, giving the government's first overall casualty estimate.

Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said about 150,000 Iraqis have been killed by insurgents since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

For every person killed about three have been wounded in violence since the war started in March 2003, al-Shemari told reporters during a visit to Vienna. He did not explain how he arrived at the figure, which is three times most other estimates.

Finally, the claim that this number is "three times most other estimates." Actually I'm not aware of any other "estimates." Iraq Body Count counts (not "estimates") the number of civilian dead reported in English-language media. That's an undercount of the total number of dead (and doesn't even include non-civilians), but not an "estimate." The Johns Hopkins study, which is not mentioned in the AP article at all, was a scientific study which produced a scientifically valid number with error bars, not an "estimate." As for other numbers which get cited in the press, like that of George Bush, those can't even be considered a "guesstimate," much less an "estimate."

Two things we know for sure. The U.S. government and the media will keep spinning the numbers to keep them as low as possible, and whatever the correct number, there are one hell of a lot of Iraqis (and others) dead who would be alive today were it not for U.S. imperialism.

The doomed man waved his arms, pleading for recognition as a friend, not an enemy.

"Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" the NFL star shouted, again and again.

• One of the four shooters had recently had PRK laser eye surgery. He said although he could see two sets of hands "straight up," his vision was "hazy."
• The second said he was "excited" by the sight of rifles, muzzle flashes and "shapes."
• A third said he saw two figures, and just aimed where everyone else was shooting.
• And the final shooter, the squad leader, had 20-20 eyesight, but claimed he had "tunnel vision."

Months' of investigation have gone into sorting out the cause of Pat (expletive) Tillman's death. During that time alone, not to mention the years which preceded, tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans have been gunned down by American forces, and thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese have been similarly murdered by Israeli forces using U.S. weaponry. How many of those deaths have occurred under similar circumstances - failure to reliably identify the target before firing (or dropping a bomb or firing a missile or artillery)? And how many of those will be given months' of investigation? None (although we'll hear claims in some of the cases that "an investigation is ongoing"), because the lives of those victims are considered worthless, especially compared to the life of Pat (expletive) Tillman.

Someone else agrees with me:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez applauded the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and suggested President George W. Bush should quit as well.

"Heads are beginning to roll," Chavez said during a news conference Wednesday. "It was about time he resigned. The president should resign now."

Israel was placed on high security alert Wednesday, hours after Israel Defense Forces artillery shells struck a residential area in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun early Wednesday, killing at least 18 Palestinians and wounding dozens of others.

Eight children and seven women were among the dead, the Palestinain Health Ministry said, adding that 18 of the victims were members of the Athamna family.

Khaled Radi, a Palestinian Health Ministry official, said all of those killed were civilians. According to witnesses, the victims were sleeping when the 15-minute barrage of shells first hit.

Radi also said at least 40 people were wounded, all civilians. Four hospitals are treating the wounded across Gaza.

I'm not sure if Stephanie McMillan is recommending not voting at all, but I doubt she is. Because, while the choice of voting for Tweedledum and Tweedledumber (or TweedleImperialist and TweedleImperialister) isn't one I'm going to make, and while I am annoyed (like Stephanie, apparently) at being asked to vote for some new tax or some new bonds for something you can't say no to like clean water or education but never given a chance to vote against spending hundreds of billions of dollars on war, there still are things I cast my vote for that are real and do matter. Here in California, just to name two, there's a ballot proposition to force parental notification of abortions, and another (Prop. 90) which elevates private property rights to even higher levels than they are now, and would for all intents and purposes abolish zoning laws and prevent governments from planning rational uses of land.

So, the meaningless choices on the top of the ballot notwithstanding, go vote.

One note on the quotes around "Iraqi." We all know that the defendants have been in the custody of Americans, not Iraqis. But tonight on BBC, something else was revealed. The BBC reporter had to get permission from the Americans to interview the defense lawyers. Yes, you read that right. Not the defendants. The defense lawyers.

And, while we're on the subject of that "landmark" "Iraqi" "justice," just a brief reminder that there are many people - Tariq Aziz for one and Gen. Amer al-Saadi for another, who as far as we know are still being held illegally by American forces, three and a half years after surrendering voluntarily to the Americans. Aziz at least was accused of something (basically being part of a regime that lost a war), although a trial doesn't seem to be in the offing (I'm not sure he's actually been officially charged with anything). Gen. al-Saadi has been charged with...absolutely nothing.

But let's all pretend to be shocked.

Non-Americans should take note that The Simpsons is shown on the FOX Network which, despite identical (I think) ownership, is not FOX News. As will be evident from this clip.

Update: Courtesy of the comments, a link to the complete segment (6 1/2 minutes).

Before turning to that, a bit of a reminder about the Dujail case. Back in May, I explored the claim that "250,000 acres of palm groves and orchards" had been razed in Dujail after the assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein. After analyzing the claim as highly improbable if not impossible, I discovered, by the admission of the New York Times reporter (John Burns) who had reported the claim, that there was no basis for the number whatsoever other than prosecution claims (an admission, by the way, which never found it's way into the Times).

So now let's look at the Anfal campaign. I always start at Wikipedia, which "informs" its readers that "The Anfal campaign, which began in 1986 and lasted until 1989, is said to have cost the lives of 182,000 civilians in the mostly rural areas of Kurdistan, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International." Well now isn't that interesting. Because Human Rights Watch actually says "By our estimate, in Anfal at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 persons, many of them women and children, were killed out of hand between February and September 1988." Do note the opening words "by our estimate." Because, unlike the Johns Hopkins Study, this wasn't actually a scientific study, as Human Rights Watch openly admits: "Two experienced field researchers...spent six months in northern Iraq between April and September 1992, gathering testimonial information about the Anfal." Now without any question serious human rights abuses, serious crimes, were documented by HRW. But nothing which could make their numbers anything more than what they in fact say they are - "an estimate."

And Amnesty International? Again, the claim that they have used a number of 182,000 is simply false. Here's what they actually say: "Amnesty International collected the names of more than 17,000 people who “disappeared” in this wave, but Kurdish sources put the total at over 100,000." And later, they even add, "However, during the 1991 uprisings, hundreds of people who had “disappeared” in the 1970s and 1980s were discovered alive in secret underground prisons."

Bottom line? There isn't any evidence of "200,000" deaths as I heard on the news tonight, or the "182,000" that Wikipedia falsely attributes to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Nor can I find any evidence that any actual epidemiological study of the deaths was ever conducted.

The conclusion is hardly surprising. When accusations are made against one of the "bad guys," no actual proof is required for the media (and others) to dutifully repeat the accusations. When data are collected showing the truth about American crimes, the standards suddenly become rather different.

*There are, of course, different ways to state the results of the latest Johns Hopkins study. Some prefer to cite the "most probable" number of 655,000 deaths. But since that number is the top of a bell curve, there is actually a 50% chance that fewer deaths than that have occured. I prefer making statements that I know to be true with 95% accuracy. Here's where it gets tricky. The Lancet paper has some very confusing aspects. The "most probable" number includes all deaths, violent and non-violent. But the only error bars that the paper quotes, 425,000 to 795,000, are for the violent deaths only. So if we take the minimum number of violent deaths (425,000), and add to that the number of non-violent deaths (estimated at 53,000), we arrive at a figure of 478,000, which I round up to 480,000. That's not a perfect number, since there are error bars on the 53,000 as well (not specified in the paper), but it's as close as we can come to a number that we "know" (with a high degree of certainty) is true. Not, as I have noted elsewhere, that it matters in some philosophical sense, or even in a legal sense. Whether George Bush is responsible for the deaths of 50,000 Iraqis or 500,000 Iraqis, the fate he deserves is the same.

And what better image for the Iraq war, a war which the vast majority of Americans, even many politicians and military officers, acknowledge "shouldn't have happened" but, which, despite that recognition, most of those same people still persist in the bizarre idea that it has to be kept going. So we can presume that these same people would have been cheering on Roy Riegels as he ran the wrong way, in the misguided hope that their team would "win" if only he kept going.

But it didn't work that way for Roy Riegels and Cal. And it isn't going to work that way for the U.S. in Iraq either. Continuing to do something that is wrong will never turn out right.

"Let's just stipulate that everyone in America not in a straight jacket or part of a terrorist sleeper cell wants America to "win" -- and center the debate on what, exactly, the president and the GOP mean by victory."

And there's nothing whatsoever crazy about that.

As for being part of a "sleeper" cell, I'm afraid I, and the tens of thousands of people who regularly demonstrate in the streets against the U.S. occupation, are a bit too "out" for that.

* The full link to this article is http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/rosie-david-and-wolf-w_b_32927.html; for some reason Blogger seems to be hiccuping on that. Perhaps it's too long.

Billmon has a long post up today about the moral ambiguity of the situation, in particular the murder of the two Palestinian women yesterday acting as human shields. But the facts, which seem to be most thoroughly covered in this Los Angeles Times article, say otherwise. Here's the "money section":

The lead group of women approached the besieged mosque on foot on a wide street, shouting at the Israelis to leave Gaza. Soldiers turned from the mosque and opened fire.

An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers had spotted two male militants hiding among the women and fired at them. Footage filmed by Reuters and other news organizations showed no men in the crowd at the time.

And, just a reminder that, while there are indeed Palestinians firing rockets into Israel (rockets which "have caused panic, property damage and six deaths in the last three years," i.e., fewer deaths than the number of Palestinians killed in just a few hours yesterday), the vast majority of the people being killed wholesale by the Israelis, and described by the Israelis and the corporate media as "militants" or "gunmen," are nothing more than people defending their land against invaders from another country. As with the comparable situation in Iraq, these people are no less "innocent" than the "innocent civilians," and their deaths are no more "acceptable" than those of the civilians.