DebateGate

By OWEN WEST
WHEN the civilian hierarchy fails them, soldiers tend to seek solace in Clausewitz’s observation that war is an extension of politics. But in 2005 and 2006 the reverse was true in Iraq: the battle churned in place, steadily eroding the administration’s credibility and America’s psyche, while most politicians stood on the sidelines, content to hurl insults at one another until the battlefield offered a clear political course.

What was most remarkable, however, was the military’s inability to grab the reins and articulate a realistic war plan for Iraq. At home, recruiting, supply and deployment crises were solved; but in Iraq the generals continued to offer assessments of the fight that were as obviously inaccurate as those trumpeted by the politicians. The goal was to put Iraqi forces in the lead, but as a consequence, large-scale battlefield adaptation was scarce.

Today the civil-military relationship has righted itself, yet soldiers like me who believe that Iraq can be stabilized face a bitter irony. On one hand, the military is finally making meaningful adjustments to the complex fight. On the other, the politicians are finally asserting themselves. The tragedy is that the two groups are going in opposite directions.

Most Americans who have served side by side with Iraqi units, especially those of us who have been advisers to Iraqi companies and battalions, believe that significant numbers of our soldiers will be needed in Iraq for another decade. This timeline is about average for a classic insurgency, and optimistic for one so muddied by tribal feuds and religious hatred.

American soldiers in Iraq are constantly asked about our commitment to a fight we started. Most of the advisers I got to know during my most recent tour, which ended in February, were quick to try to assuage their Iraqi counterparts’ concerns and dismissive of the calls for withdrawal by American politicians, news of which trickled onto the battlefield during the winter. After all, the surge itself would not be fully under way until mid-summer. Surely the politicians would give it a chance to work.

The two Congressional votes last week establishing timelines for withdrawing American troops completely undermined such assurances. The confusion stems from an inherent contradiction in our politics: Though the burden of war is shouldered by few, the majority of Americans want to vacate Iraq, and the percentages are increasing. Something has to give.

We’re four years into a global conflict that will span generations, fighting virulent ideologues obsessed with expansion. It’s time for those who are against the war in Iraq to consider the probable military consequences of withdrawal. But it is also time for supporters of the war to step back and recognize that public opinion in great part dictates our martial options.

It’s hard for a soldier like me to reconcile a political jab like Senator Harry Reid’s “this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything” when it’s made in front of a banner that reads “Support Our Troops.” But the politician’s job is different from the soldier’s. Mr. Reid’s belief — that the best way to support the troops is by acknowledging defeat and pulling them out of Iraq — is likely shared by a large slice of the population, which gives it legitimacy.

It seems oddly detached, however, from what’s happening on the battlefield. The Iraqi battalion I lived with is stationed outside of Habbaniya, a small city in violent Anbar Province. Together with a fledgling police force and a Marine battalion, these Iraqi troops made Habbaniya a relatively secure place: it has a souk where Iraqi soldiers can shop outside their armored Humvees, public generators that don’t mysteriously explode, children who walk to school on their own. The area became so stable, in fact, that it attracted the attention of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. In late February, the Sunni insurgents blew up the mosque, killing 36.

If American politicians pull the marines out of Anbar, the Iraqi soldiers told me, they too will have to pull back, ceding some zones to protect others. The same is true in the Baghdad neighborhoods where the early stages of the surge have made life livable again.

Then America will be left with a dilemma: we could either vainly try to patrol Iraq’s borders to keep the murderous foreign insurgents out and the swollen ranks of Al Qaeda in, or we could make assaults every six months or so into fallen cities and neighborhoods, like the bloody fight to retake Falluja in 2004. Either way, the cost of quitting will be heavier fighting by American troops.

So how can we reconcile this military reality with the desire by the majority of Americans to reduce troop levels in Iraq? The current surge may provide an excellent opportunity, if we acknowledge two things: Iraq is now a law enforcement war and Iraqi security forces are best suited to fight it.

The surge must be accompanied by a commensurate surge in Iraqi troops. To date, the Iraqis have simply been shifting soldiers from other areas into Baghdad. But these are stop-gap soldiers — as are our own — when what we seek is permanence. The Iraqi government must double the size of its army, to 300,000 combat troops from 150,000 today. The American surge will give them the breathing room to do so, and a deadline by which it must be done.

The idea is that, starting this fall, the Iraqi units would bulk up so the American units could begin to break up, moving to an advisory model in which the number of American soldiers embedded with Iraqi units triples while the overall United States force declines. Today many American patrols operate independently. In a year’s time, ideally, no American patrol would leave its base without a fully integrated Iraqi presence.

Oddly, the Congressional resolutions calling for withdrawal would allow for this continued American advisory presence, somehow not including these troops as “combat forces.” So even those members of Congress who voted for the resolutions could support bulking up the number of Americans assigned to Iraqi units without appearing as hypocrites.

The issue will be the numbers. A meaningful advisory force — both the embedded troops and the support personnel — would likely mean 75,000 Americans still in Iraq in the fall of 2008. This is about half of what we’ll have in place for the surge this summer, but more than the supporters of the resolutions might expect.

It will take political courage for these politicians to agree to the needed advisory forces. But it is the only way the Iraqis themselves will ever be able to make their country secure. And that is the one goal on which all Americans, those who support the war and those who “support the troops,” should be able to agree.

Owen West, a Wall Street trader and major in the Marine Reserves, has served two tours in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/opinion/01west.html?ei=5124&en=936cca4e5b9d77cf&ex=1335758400&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=print

 
Everyone knows that Shiites are fighting Sunnis in Iraq, and, in the eyes of many (most, I would say), this sectarian violence is just the long anticipated civil war finally coming to fruition. People who think that way must shake their heads in disgust (at Bush) when the they read stories like this one from yesterday's news:



Car bomb kills 55 at Shiite shrine in Karbala
Explosion near one of Islamic sect’s holiest sites wounds dozens

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A parked car exploded Saturday near one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines in the city of Karbala as people were headed to the area for evening prayers, killing 55 people and wounding dozens, officials said.
...
A car bomb exploded in the same area on April 14, killing 47 and wounding 224.
...
The Karbala blast occurred a few hundred yards from the Imam Abbas shrine, setting several cars on fire and causing chaos in the area. The explosion took place as the streets were killed with people heading for evening prayers at the Abbas shrine and the adjacent Imam Hussein shrine, two of Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrines.

Note that there is no mention of the possible role for al Qaeda in this attack. In fact, even when you know for sure that the perpetrators were named by the US military, all MSNBC reports is this:


The U.S. military has warned that such bombings were intended to provoke retaliatory violence by Shiite militias, whose members have largely complied with political pressure to avoid confrontations with Americans during the U.S. troop buildup.

Such bombings were intended by whom to provoke retaliatory violence by Shiite militias? Al Qaeda, obviously. It is their stated plan for Iraq and it is their consistent (and very effective) method. This bombing occurred at a revered Shiite mosque. Sound familiar? It should. First of all, it is what Zarqawi specifically said that al Qaeda would do:


The Shi'a in our opinion, these are the key to change. Targeting and striking their religious, political, and military symbols, will make them show their rage against the Sunnis and bear their inner vengeance...Then, the Sunni will have no choice but to support us in many of the Sunni regions.

Second, it is precisely how al Qaeda provoked a civil war in Iraq in 2006. In fact, later in the same news story, the reporter reminds us of a similar attack that was the single most significant event of the post-Saddam era:


In Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials declined to comment on Saturday about Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, 46, who was captured last fall on his way to Iraq, where he may have been sent by top terror leaders in Pakistan to take a senior position in al-Qaida in Iraq, the Pentagon said.

The insurgent group has claimed responsibility for some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq, including the bombing last year of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra, which touched off a fierce cycle of retaliatory sectarian violence.

Well, al Qaeda is a terrorist group, not an insurgent group, but at least the story mentions this critical detail about the origins of the civil war in Iraq. That's progress. Perhaps Americans will slowly wake up to the fact that the sectarian violence they lament was not a spontaneous result of the removal of Saddam Hussein. Instead, it was deliberately engineered by the very terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11.You can pretend that it is a different al Qaeda if it makes you feel better (many will do that as they awaken to what is going on), but I'm not sure why you would. Denial is irrational, even if it is understandable.

Awareness of al Qaeda is slowly growing in the minds of mainstream media reporters who have been hamstrung by the civil war schema that they simply cannot get out of their heads. Even so, there is not the slightest mention of the fact that al Qaeda was probably behind yesterday's bombing. Millions upon millions of readers of countless stories like this all over the world will read about that bombing and then shake their heads at the escalating "civil war" in Iraq. And then they will rage at George Bush for what he has done. Here is CNN's coverage of that event, and, again, not the slightest hint that this was an attack by al Qaeda (because, I assume, the reporter thinks this was part of the civil war). The CNN story even notes that this was a suicide bomber. Many stories fail to mention that key detail. It is important because virtually all suicide bombers are members of al Qaeda, as I detailed here. As such, this bombing was not part of that civil war. It was another atrocity designed to provoke a civil war that has largely abated since the troop surge began. That's the key distinction, and it cannot be emphasized often enough. People just don't get it, so it needs to be explained repeatedly until they do. In fact, what's missing from discussions by Bush and McCain and others who have the details right is the emphatic statement that these attacks are not part of the civil war; they are attempts by al Qaeda to provoke a civil war. Just stating that these attacks were perpetrated by al Qaeda does not go far enough to change the thinking of those whose minds are ensnared by an obsolete civil war schema. You have to specifically tell them that they are wrong to think like that. That gets their attention (because they are under the comfortable impression that the civil war debate was settled long ago), and it momentarily arouses disbelief (trust me -- I've been down this path with people many times). When they are presented with incontrovertible facts regarding the role of al Qaeda in Iraq in a moment of disbelief, it has been my experience that minds change (including liberal minds). But you have to directly assert that these attacks are not examples of the civil war in action, nor do they represent sectarian violence. If you don't, people have great difficulty assimilating the idea that attacks by Sunni al Qaeda against Shiite civilians do not constitute examples of sectarian violence/civil war.

Here is the current (inaccurate) schema:


It is a civil war involving escalating sectarian violence between between Shiite militias and Sunni "insurgents" (Sunni Baathists who once worked for Saddam allied with Sunni al Qaeda)

Almost all news reporters describe events from Iraq after those events are forced through this obsolete way of thinking. Here is the vastly more accurate schema:


Sunni al Qaeda is not trying to win a civil war against the Shiites. Instead, they want the Shiite militias to kill Sunnis in large numbers. The civil war between the Shiite militias and the Sunnis is de-escalating (not escalating); what's escalating are attacks by al Qaeda to re-ignite the civil war that they previously triggered by bombing the Golden Mosque in Samarra

When you draw the contrast between these two schemas, minds change. Bush needs to draw the contrast, and he needs to do it often. Just telling people that al Qaeda is behind these sensational attacks does not give them a new way of thinking, so they just process the information through their pre-existing schema.

The CNN story also notes this:


The bombing occurred as people were heading to evening prayers.

As such, this attack was:

(a) specifically designed to...
(b) indiscriminately slaughter...
(c) innocent civilians.

If that isn't a terrorist attack, what is? Even so, neither MSNBC nor CNN described the attack as such. The problem with people on the right is that they call all combatants in Iraq "terrorists." That's wrong because some are fighting against US and Iraqi military forces. Those insurgents are the enemy, but they aren't terrorists. The problem with people on the left (like reporters at CNN and MSNBC) is that they won't call anyone a terrorist, even when they carry out an atrocity like this. It's freaky, yet it is so common it goes unnoticed.

I believe that reporters who write stories like this are engaging in journalistic malpractice because they know perfectly well that the US military attributes these attacks to al Qaeda in Iraq and they know perfectly well they are acts of terrorism by any reasonable definition of that word. Just because you don't want to reinforce Bush's claim that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror is no reason to be deliberately misleading when presenting the news from Iraq. But this story by Reuters in the Washington Post got the details right, and it should serve as a shining example for other reporters who might be interested in reporting the news in an accurate way:


KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed 57 people and wounded nearly 160 near one of Iraq's most revered Shi'ite Muslim shrines in the city of Kerbala on Saturday, in an attack likely to inflame sectarian tensions.
...
The attack bore the hallmarks of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, which U.S. and Iraqi officials accuse of trying to tip Iraq into full-scale civil war between the majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs, once dominant under Saddam Hussein.

The U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said on Thursday al Qaeda was bent on committing what he called "sensational" attacks designed to fuel more sectarian violence.

Speaking in Washington, Petraeus said al Qaeda was now "probably public enemy number one" in Iraq.
...
Four years after U.S-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq has been riven by violence that has killed tens of thousands.

The turmoil escalated when suspected al Qaeda militants destroyed one of the holiest shrines to Shi'ites in the Iraqi town of Samarra in February 2006.

Is all of that clear enough for you? This latest suicide bombing attack was not part of the civil war. It was not Sunni al Qaeda engaged in sectarian violence designed to defeat the Shiites. Instead, it was Sunni al Qaeda trying to goad Muqtada al Sadr's Shiite militias into once again killing hundreds of Sunnis every week (as they were doing back in the Fall). That's the third force at work, and it is now public enemy number one. It always was, but people are only slowly awakening to the idea. Lawrence Kudlow just wrote a column drawing attention to this increasingly undeniable fact.

In light of all of this, when you rage at George Bush for the violence in Iraq, your anger is misplaced. The Muslim world knows that it was al Qaeda, not Bush, who did this (even if you don't):


The blast occurred at a checkpoint on an approach to the golden-domed al-Abbas shrine, situated among shops and restaurants in the holy city. The area was crowded at the time, witnesses said.

Television images showed a man running down a smoke-filled street holding a lifeless baby above his head. Smoke was rising off the child. Ambulances had rushed to the scene in Kerbala, 100 km (70 miles) southwest of Baghdad.

Still think this is an immoral war? If so, your idea of morality is foreign to me. Don't be so morally righteous that you become prepared to surrender to al Qaeda without even realizing it. They are primitive savages, and they did this intentionally. What's more, they plan to keep doing it until Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi manage to engineer our unconditional surrender, and then they'll be free to do a lot more of it. If you don't believe me, then believe Zarqawi. He devised the plan that has been implemented with stunning success in Iraq. Because it is a wretched terrorist telling you what is coming and not George Bush, perhaps you will believe him. You should.

UPDATE: I just noticed a link to this story on freerepublic.com:


BAGHDAD, April 29 (Reuters) - The political battle in Washington over a Democratic plan to pull U.S. troops from Iraq is being exploited by al Qaeda, which has stepped up attacks to hasten a withdrawal, Iraq's foreign minister said on Sunday.

Hoshiyar Zebari said Iraq had become "entangled" in domestic politics in the United States, where there is growing impatience for progress in reconciling the country's warring sects.

U.S. President George W. Bush has vowed to veto a war spending bill that requires combat troops to begin withdrawing by Oct. 1. Congress, which is controlled by the Democrats, plans to send the bill to Bush on Tuesday.

"This plays out very badly here," Zebari said in an interview with Reuters, making the first substantive government comment on the political tussle.

"It shows the administration is not united. And everybody watches this development, al Qaeda, the anti-democratic forces who are fighting us."

He pointed to an increase in car bomb attacks blamed on al Qaeda that have caused the civilian death toll to stay high despite a major 10-week-old operation by U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad, the epicentre of the violence.

"This recent escalation you have seen was expected, just to show the Baghdad security plan is not working. If this plan were to fail, then the next step is for the multinational forces to withdraw. That is their simple strategy," Zebari said.

Al Qaeda's strategy is simple, but it is also amazingly effective. It has even magically caused Democratic leaders to adopt an eerie code of silence on the issue of al Qaeda in Iraq. Using some sort of secret mind-control ray beam (I guess), al Qaeda directs Democrats to robotically talk about going to Afghanistan to fight terrorists. Meanwhile, al Qaeda slaughters hundreds of innocent Shiites every month Iraq -- right before your very eyes -- which mainstream media reporters then obediently mischaracterize as "sectarian violence." It's creepy. I feel like I've just slipped into the Twilight Zone...


links embedded or otherwise

Kimba touched on this earlier:


A LOOK AT NON-CORN-BASED ETHANOL:


Biomass can also be derived from residue left behind after forest products have been harvested or from the elements of corn left in the field to rot after the grain has been harvested. Cellulosic ethanol comes from the part of the corn plant not used for food.

So, in addition to corn grain-based ethanol, Tennessee has an array of potential new energy sources from biomass - cellulosic ethanol. This expands ethanol's potential availability well beyond corn grain, which greatly expands our alternative fuel options - and in no way competes with any utilization of corn.

A unit of corn ethanol, made from grain, yields about 40 percent more energy than it takes to produce that unit, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

A unit of cellulosic ethanol yields more than 500 percent of the energy that goes into producing it. In contrast, gasoline made from petroleum returns 20 percent less energy than it takes to produce it.

That's why cellulosic ethanol is the future of energy.

Since cellulosic ethanol can already be made in the lab, the next challenge is to make it at the commercial scale.


The only political downside is that this isn't likely to win the kind of enthusiastic support from corn farmers that corn-based ethanol enjoys. But it seems to me that ethanol from waste biomass is a lot better than ethanol that's made from . . . food.


http://instapundit.com/archives2/004645.php

Junk Science: Light Bulb Lunacy
Thursday , April 26, 2007

By Steven Milloy
How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb? About $4.28 for the bulb and labor — unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about $2,004.28, which doesn’t include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.

Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favor of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) — a move already either adopted or being considered in California, Canada, the European Union and Australia.

According to an April 12 article in The Ellsworth American, Bridges had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter’s bedroom: It dropped and shattered on the carpeted floor.

Aware that CFLs contain potentially hazardous substances, Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The DEP sent a specialist to Bridges’ house to test for mercury contamination. The specialist found mercury levels in the bedroom in excess of six times the state’s “safe” level for mercury contamination of 300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter.

The DEP specialist recommended that Bridges call an environmental cleanup firm, which reportedly gave her a “low-ball” estimate of $2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began “gathering finances” to pay for the $2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn’t cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.

Given that the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFLs in the average U.S. household is touted as saving as much as $180 annually in energy costs — and assuming that Bridges doesn’t break any more CFLs — it will take her more than 11 years to recoup the cleanup costs in the form of energy savings.

Even if you don’t go for the full-scale panic of the $2,000 cleanup, the do-it-yourself approach is still somewhat intense, if not downright alarming.

Consider the procedure offered by the Maine DEP’s Web page entitled, “What if I accidentally break a fluorescent bulb in my home?”

Don’t vacuum bulb debris because a standard vacuum will spread mercury-containing dust throughout the area and contaminate the vacuum. Ventilate the area and reduce the temperature. Wear protective equipment like goggles, coveralls and a dust mask.

Collect the waste material into an airtight container. Pat the area with the sticky side of tape. Wipe with a damp cloth. Finally, check with local authorities to see where hazardous waste may be properly disposed.

The only step the Maine DEP left off was the final one: Hope that you did a good enough cleanup so that you, your family and pets aren’t poisoned by any mercury inadvertently dispersed or missed.

This, of course, assumes that people are even aware that breaking CFLs entails special cleanup procedures.

The potentially hazardous CFL is being pushed by companies such as Wal-Mart, which wants to sell 100 million CFLs at five times the cost of incandescent bulbs during 2007, and, surprisingly, environmentalists.

It’s quite odd that environmentalists have embraced the CFL, which cannot now and will not in the foreseeable future be made without mercury. Given that there are about 4 billion lightbulb sockets in American households, we’re looking at the possibility of creating billions of hazardous waste sites such as the Bridges’ bedroom.

Usually, environmentalists want hazardous materials out of, not in, our homes.

These are the same people who go berserk at the thought of mercury being emitted from power plants and the presence of mercury in seafood. Environmentalists have whipped up so much fear of mercury among the public that many local governments have even launched mercury thermometer exchange programs.

As the activist group Environmental Defense urges us to buy CFLs, it defines mercury on a separate part of its Web site as a “highly toxic heavy metal that can cause brain damage and learning disabilities in fetuses and children” and as “one of the most poisonous forms of pollution.”

Greenpeace also recommends CFLs while simultaneously bemoaning contamination caused by a mercury thermometer factory in India. But where are mercury-containing CFLs made? Not in the U.S., under strict environmental regulation. CFLs are made in India and China, where environmental standards are virtually non-existent.

And let’s not forget about the regulatory nightmare known as the Superfund law, the EPA regulatory program best known for requiring expensive but often needless cleanup of toxic waste sites, along with endless litigation over such cleanups.

We’ll eventually be disposing billions and billions of CFL mercury bombs. Much of the mercury from discarded and/or broken CFLs is bound to make its way into the environment and give rise to Superfund liability, which in the past has needlessly disrupted many lives, cost tens of billions of dollars and sent many businesses into bankruptcy.

As each CFL contains 5 milligrams of mercury, at the Maine “safety” standard of 300 nanograms per cubic meter, it would take 16,667 cubic meters of soil to “safely” contain all the mercury in a single CFL. While CFL vendors and environmentalists tout the energy cost savings of CFLs, they conveniently omit the personal and societal costs of CFL disposal.

Not only are CFLs much more expensive than incandescent bulbs and emit light that many regard as inferior to incandescent bulbs, they pose a nightmare if they break and require special disposal procedures. Should government (egged on by environmentalists and the Wal-Marts of the world) impose on us such higher costs, denial of lighting choice, disposal hassles and breakage risks in the name of saving a few dollars every year on the electric bill?



http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,268747,00.html

Industry caught in carbon ‘smokescreen’
By Fiona Harvey and Stephen Fidler in London

Published: April 25 2007 22:07 | Last updated: April 25 2007 22:07

Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits.

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.

Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway.

The growing political salience of environmental politics has sparked a “green gold rush”, which has seen a dramatic expansion in the number of businesses offering both companies and individuals the chance to go “carbon neutral”, offsetting their own energy use by buying carbon credits that cancel out their contribution to global warming.

The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary sector rising to $4bn in the same period.

The FT investigation found:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank that went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found “serious credibility concerns” in the offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.

“The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it,” he said.

These concerns led the bank to ignore the market and fund its own carbon reduction projects directly.

Some companies are benefiting by asking “green” consumers to pay them for cleaning up their own pollution. For instance, DuPont, the chemicals company, invites consumers to pay $4 to eliminate a tonne of carbon dioxide from its plant in Kentucky that produces a potent greenhouse gas called HFC-23. But the equipment required to reduce such gases is relatively cheap. DuPont refused to comment and declined to specify its earnings from the project, saying it was at too early a stage to discuss.

The FT has also found examples of companies setting up as carbon offsetters without appearing to have a clear idea of how the markets operate. In response to FT inquiries about its sourcing of carbon credits, one company, carbonvoucher.com, said it had not taken payments for offsets.

Blue Source, a US offsetting company, invites consumers to offset carbon emissions by investing in enhanced oil recovery, which pumps carbon dioxide into depleted oil wells to bring up the remaining oil. However, Blue Source said that because of the high price of oil, this process was often profitable in itself, meaning operators were making extra revenues from selling “carbon credits” for burying the carbon.

There is nothing illegal in these practices. However, some companies that are offsetting their emissions have avoided such projects because customers may find them controversial.

BP said it would not buy credits resulting from improvements in industrial efficiency or from most renewable energy projects in developed countries.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/48e334ce-f355-11db-9845-000b5df10621.html

Black and White Decisions

Some time ago, I was watching an old Humphrey Bogart detective movie and it struck me that the fictional jobs of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe would have been a lot easier if they had cell phones. In fact, a lot of those great old plots don't make any sense at all in the age when you can reach just about anybody at just about any time. It used to be that filmmakers could keep characters in the dark and build dramatic tension just by taking them away from telephones. An actor could pick up a phone and say, "The line's been cut," and you knew that ominous music would follow automatically.

 

Cell phones, of course, have made that staple scene a joke, but that doesn't mean that we've all learned to use this new technology to its best advantage. For example, we know that criminals who commit home invasions routinely lift the receiver off the first telephone they come across, preventing anybody who might be in the house from using another extension to call the police. So if you're serious about home security, you should sleep with a cell phone on the nightstand.

 

The response by Virginia Tech authorities to the shootings last week makes the point even more clearly. The proof is that, minutes after the shootings began, blogs started posting information sent by eyewitnesses who used "text messaging" cell phones and other mobile devices. Many students, however, didn't learn about what was happening until hours later, and then through a less modern technology -- the bullhorn. This was, sadly, a crisis response from the era of black and white movies, not the age of the Internet and IM.

 

It's not just about technology though. When the first two shootings took place earlier in the day, the university decided to go on with business as usual. After the fact, critics are saying there should have been a campus-wide lockdown. But that reasoning frames the administration's decision in "top-down" terms -- the authorities making decisions for the people instead of letting the people make decisions for themselves.

 

At the very least, everyone should have known that a double homicide had taken place and that the killer's whereabouts were unknown, so that every individual could have decided what was the appropriate response to that kind of danger. There are various technologies that could have been used to get that information out, from mass e-mails and automated phone calls to instant messaging.

 

This lesson should be applied to homeland security, and now more than ever. Al Qaeda, intelligence sources are reporting, is intensifying efforts to strike Western targets. The West is going to be facing this problem for a long time to come.

 

After the 9/11 attacks, plans were put in place to create a system that should allow citizens to receive local emergency information via messaging, and to report suspicious or terrorist activities. These plans will have benefits in situations such as the Virginia Tech incident, as well.

 

However, it’s not just security technologies that need to change, but also the old black and white era attitudes of those who administer them.

http://abcradio.com/article.asp?id=396005&SPID=15663

Monday, 23 April 2007 
Just back inside some civilized wire (Camp Fallujah) and am reading Harry Reid's declaration then track back on the war in Iraq being lost.

The odd thing--is that I think there are parts of Al Anbar province where the war may be over and we just don't realize it.

The following post explains.

Tribal Mojo

Driving along the four-lane highway from Habbaniyah to Ramadi there are the usual coalition check points, Iraqi Army Outposts, markets, black market gas stations and Police Stations.

But, off the main highway, on the access roads leading back into the Euphrates canal country, every half mile, gun men wearing Keyfahs and wielding AK-47s man road blocks--and they are the best allies we can have against the jihadists.

Months ago Michelle Malkin and others blogged about a very simple power point presentation by a Marine Civil Affairs Officers.

That presentation is now taking hold along the Euphrates river valley.

THE AO

The 3rd Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment's AO runs upstream along the West bank of the Euphrates from Fallujah to Habbaniyah to Husabayh Jawal South of Ramadi.

The area is bordered by the desert mesa, lake Habbaniyah and the Euphrates and populated in a series of villages through the fertile canal country.

Predominantly Sunni, some parts of the area resemble a Baathist retirement community with homes that would put John Edward's to shame.

The economy is mostly agricultural with some light manufacturing.  The markets are vibrant and business is brisk.

It has also had a large Baathist Insurgent presence that used to cooperate with the Jihadist elements.

THE AWAKENING

Last Summer few Sheiks, notably around Ramadi flipped to the coalition and government side of the conflict.

The tribes sent levies to the Police Academies in Baghdad and Amman, Jordan.  They have also started taking matters into their own hands with some men from each clan and tribe defending their villages.

What I saw in Husabayah Jawal was not the Iraqi Police or the Iraqi Army, but the beginings of the end of the insurgency in Iraq.
 
Whether they are the Sons of Al Anbar, Sawa, TAA, the militia or the Tribal Neighborhood Watch, tribes and clans across across the Euphrates river valley are taking charge of their own security with back up from the Marines.

 
Not IP, not militia, this man is a volunteer standing post at a check point leading to his village.  By agreement with the Chief of Police in Habbaniyah, local tribes and clans can establish a Provisional Security Force. 


MAYLAYA PRECEDENT

In the Maylaya Emergency, a communist insurgency running from 1948-1960, the British formed a police station in every village augmented by a Home Guard of men from the village.

The Communist Guerillas of Maylaya, like the jihadists of Iraq, engage in campaigns of terror and intimidation against the locals.  These campaigns don't usually involve bombings, but resemble the shake down schemes of the most the most violent organized crime gangs.

The strength of the insurgents comes from the inaction of the people and their unwillingness or inability to stand up for themselves.

In Mayalya, the fledgling Police and Home Guard were backed up by the British Military.

With the strength of the military to back them up in a fight, the Police and Home Guard soon began to effectively combat the terror and intimidation campaigns in the villages and provided intelligence on Communist operatives in the villages.

THE AWAKENING

The Iraq variant of the Home Guard emerged last year as many of the top sheiks, some who had opposed the coalition and some who had a foot in both camps saw that AQIZ was not following through on their promises and that the coalition was following through on their promises.

The other point that flipped the Sheiks is the simple fact that no one except for the hard core jihadists want to live under Sharia law--which is all the jihadists have to offer.

The Sheiks, sub-sheiks, former military leaders including a hero of the Iran/Iraq war who lived in the Khalidiayah area began the process of standing up neighborhood watch check points.

The neighborhood watch is supported by the Police District and Mayor.  The Marines keep a close eye on the volunteers who man the check points but have no official involvement in their activities.

The Anbar Awakening is allowing one of the key aspects of counter insurgency operations to begin--population control and control of movement in and out of areas.

IP RISING

In Khalidiyah, a city that used to be the farthest outpost of the Sassanid Empire, the local neighborhood watch has grown from a few tribal levies to something that is begining to resemble an actual police force.

As recruits are graduated from the police academy, they are mentored by PTT 6, based in Habbaniyah and the MNFWTC which provides advanced courses in use of small arms.

Further up stream, in Husabahy Jawal, the local neighborhood watch mans check points on the roads leading into the villages.

Each clan village in the area north of Habbaniyah is hemmed in by the Euphrates and a series of canals.  There is only one way in and out and the local neighborhood watch knows who should be there and who shouldn't.  If you shouldn't be there, the locals...well, they don't take kindly to strangers.

 
The only people allowed through the check point are residents of the village and Marines.  The Police Chief provides the neighborhood watch with sand bags, Hesco barriers and some concertina wire to fortify their position.


The Marines, operating out of small platoon and squad sized patrol bases are constantly in the villages.

With accurate census data, the patrolling Marines are able to move beyond suspicion and factually determine if a person should or should not be in the area and if their explanations make sense.  They are also able to determine if new cars come into the area or if a car permanently disappears from the area for no plausible reason.

The IP and neighborhood watch, being from the area take it the next level as they have lived in the village for decades.  They know who belongs and who doesn't on sight.

Once security is established, the PTT works to develop a professional police force.

It is obviously an uphill battle.  But the slow starts at success in the Khalidiyah station show what can be done.

Detainees are booked, evidence is collected, bagged, tagged and logged.

The network of informants used by the Police has led to several High Value Individuals being detained with troves of valuable information--laptops, thumb drives, cell phones.

PATRONAGE

The Sheiks, the arbiters of power in Anbar for centuries, are loath to give up their power to a professional police force based on merit, a police force beholden to civil law instead of tribal patronage.

But the Sheiks are also tired of the capriciousness of the Jihadists and of appearing powerless before their tactics of terror.  While many of the Sheiks doubtlessly supported elements of the insurgency, they saw their power would be cut off by the Sharia courts.

For people used to being courted for their political sway, the approach of the jihadists was dead end.  The Americans, even the units doing Hammer and Anvil, were a better alternative. 

The foundations of the Tribal Mojo are not found in Hammer and Anvil clearing operations or in mere presence patrols.

The foundations are found in showing that the Marines can wage effective counter insurgency operations which start with figuring out who should be somewhere (census), who shouldn't be there and effective targetting of the Jihadists (data base).

As the same Marines work the same clan area (small patrol bases), trust is developed.  As trust is developed tips come in.  Terrorists are busted and the locals become more willing to flip over to the coalition side and the next step is a neighborhood watch that can be made into a police force.

Are the militias rag tag looking?  Yes.  Are they professionally operated?  No.  Do they conform to Western standards?  No.  Are they effective against the jihadists?  Yes.

So effective that the Marines who actually work the patrol bases and combat outposts say everything is really boring and their main job is as QRF for the neighborhood watch.

As for my time in Husabayh Jawal and Khalidiyah, it was really boring, but boring is good.

OBSTACLES TOWARD COMPLETION

The only barrier left overcome in 3/6 upstream AO is the slow moving bureacratic regime.

Because the neighborhood watch is approved by the local Police District but not by the MOI and Coalition, the Marines cannot directly support them.

The Mayor of Habbaniyah and the Chief of Police have deputized the men who serve, but there are too few slots at the police academies.  If they have not attended the academy they are not sworn officers and therefore cannot be supported.

The final phase that could secure 3/6 upstream AO would be sending the watchmen to a police academy and then having PTT 6 work with them to move beyond a secure check point and into professional police work.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A Marine Officer offered this thought to me, "could it be that we have won the war but are too dense to realize it?"  From what I saw in Khalidiyah, I would say we are on track.  Time will tell if the watchmen and IP will continue to progress and eventually choke out the jihadists.  But from what I saw in my time, maybe they already have.

 
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