Author: R J Adams

Some of you out there in the blogosphere may possibly remember a certain country just to the west of Iran, called Iraq. It was in the news quite a lot, until about a year or so back, because the Americans and British were busy bringing democracy to the place.

Job done, the lads came home and left the Iraqis to enjoy their newly bestowed democratic freedom. All, that is, bar fifty thousand American troops, left behind to assist in teaching the manner of democracy.

Unfortunately, the Iraqi people are an ungrateful lot. They’ve not been quick to thank the Americans (or the British) for all the hard work that was done on their behalf. In fact, only this week – the anniversary of the old dictator’s capture – tens of thousands of Iraqis poured onto the streets, calling April 9th – the day US troops occupied Baghdad – the ‘Black Day’.

Here’s an excerpt from one of the region’s main blogs, Gorilla’s Guides:

There were demonstrations in several cities in Iraq marking the 2003-U.S. invasion and occupation of the country.

But the event, which toppled a dictatorial regime, had no words of praise as tens of thousands of Iraqis went to the streets lashing out at their U.S. occupiers and the factional leaders they brought with them.

These factional leaders currently administer the country, but their rule is reported to be as bad as that of the [dictator] Saddam Hussein, and for many Iraqis even worse.

The slogans, placards and pictures raised during the demonstrations carried grievances from which millions of Iraqis suffered under Saddam Hussein.

There were bereaved women, clad in black, asking for information about their husbands or sons, who disappeared and they still have no word about their whereabouts.

Thousands of women carried photos of their beloved ones who they said were languishing in Iraqi jails without trial and in detention centers they cannot reach and visit.

There were placards with anti-government slogans, demanding the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to issue credible information about the secret jails where his security forces torture his opponents.

Most heart-breaking was the sight of hundreds of women in down town Baghdad who carried pictures of husbands, sons and beloved ones they said had disappeared in the years since the 2003-U.S. invasion.^[1]

Now, that doesn’t sound to me like democracy.

America has an agreement with the Iraqi ‘government’ to remove all US troops by the end of this year. You’d think this would satisfy those Iraqis who fail to appreciate their liberation by the US/British.

Unfortunately, word is out that that a secret deal is being cut between ‘prime minister’ Maliki and the US government, allowing the US to keep troops in the country longer – probably till 2016, or maybe even 2020. Or, longer?^[2]

After all, they have spent lots of dollars building those big American bases^[3], and it seems a shame to let them rot away, unused.

One Iraqi not amused by this news is the cleric, Muqtada al Sadr. He’s the guy who commands the Mahdi Army, who definitely weren’t keen on democracy American-style, and caused lots of problems during the liberation.

^{Image courtesy: Christian Science Monitor}

Here, we see them tramping all over a mock-up US flag, last week, during the demonstrations.

Here’s another excerpt from Gorilla’s Guides:

A new slogan has appeared in the past week on walls in eastern Baghdad and some southern Iraqi towns. Scrawled in paint, it is a simple and, to many Iraqis, chilling promise: “The Mahdi Army is returning.”

On the buildings that line the streets and alleyways of neighbourhoods in the Shiite strongholds of north-eastern Baghdad, similarly foreboding messages admonish men against shaving their beards and women against forsaking the abaya for western clothing. Iraq’s security forces quickly whitewash over the warnings, only for them to reappear elsewhere.

They appear to be a calling card of the Mahdi Army which, at the height of its influence in Baghdad after the US-led invasion of 2003, prohibited Iraqis from watching football on television on the grounds that sport was against the teachings of Islam. It also operated death squads and fought US troops and Sunni militants with equal ferocity.

The feared Shiite militia was disbanded in 2008, but the prospect of its return has never been far from the minds of Iraqis. That possibility inched closer to reality when the Sadrist movement, which encompasses the Mahdi Army, won a prominent role in the government in last year’s elections.

It is not only graffiti that has heralded a revival of the Madhi Army. Muqtada al Sadr, the cleric who leads the Sadrist movement, has openly threatened to deploy it.

In an address read out to thousands of his loyalists in Baghdad on Saturday, Mr al Sadr said he would revoke the orders freezing Mahdi Army activity and instruct the militia to resume military resistance against US troops if they remain in Iraq after the end of this year.

Under an agreement between Baghdad and Washington, all US military personnel are due to leave by the start of 2012, but US defence chiefs have hinted that they would like a sizeable force to remain beyond that point to prevent a security vacuum.^[4]

There are those ‘conspiracy-theorists’ who have said the US had no intention of ever leaving Iraq. The vast sums spent on constructing massive military bases and ’embassies’ throughout the country were an assurance of US permanency.

They also suggested that Maliki and his gang were an American puppet government, empowered to do US bidding; one demand being to pave the way for a continued US presence.

Of course, conspiracy-theorists spring up everywhere these days with the most absurd ideas. I’m just glad, where Iraq was concerned, that I wasn’t one of them.

No, I wasn’t……I wasn’t! Well, okay, perhaps I was.

But, maybe, it won’t be long before Iraq is once again center-stage on our TV screens. I hope not, because it will mean more of its people are needlessly dying in the furtherance of ‘Western democracy’.

And, likely, more Americans, as well.

^{[1] “Iraqi protesters describe April 9, the day U.S. troops occupied Baghdad, as ‘the black day’” Gorilla’s Guides, April 11th 2011}

^{[2] “Senior US military official in Iraq advocates keeping some troops longer” CSM, April 13th 2011}

^{[3] “Iraq bases” FCNL, December 2008.}

^{[4] “Certainly there will be new battles next year” Gorilla’s Guides, April 13th 2011}

Filed under: That one sure went well

Question: What happens to a country when the education system is left to rot for a few decades?

Answer: The population grows ever more ignorant of matters it should really be cognizant of.

Take America’s so-called ‘national debt’, as an example.

For years, both Democrats and Republicans have played politics with the education of America’s children. In 2006, George W Bush proposed cutting spending on education by $3 billion, to help fund his two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Remember his underfunded and mismanaged ‘No Child Left Behind’ program, that left more children behind than it helped?

Keeping people in ignorance, as any third world dictator will tell you, makes them much more malleable to manipulation.

Then comes said manipulation: “America is heavily in debt and we cannot leave these levels of debt for our grandchildren. Only we (the Republicans) are sufficiently responsible to force the government to take serious action to lower the debt.”

Most Americans today have no idea what the national debt is, and relate to it in much the same way they relate to their own household debt, which is exactly what the Republicans want them to do.

As a consequence, when Americans are asked whether politicians should vote to raise the debt ceiling – an essential task, without which the economy would collapse (a matter Republican’s are not heard hollering from the rooftops) – the result is:

• 46% are opposed to raising the debt ceiling.
• Only 16% are in favor.

When respondents were told that failing to raise the debt ceiling will cause America to default on its debt repayments, and advised of the consequences of that default:

• 62% were opposed to raising the debt ceiling – a rise of 16%.
• 32% were in favor.

Even when informed of the dire consequences of not raising the debt ceiling, almost two-thirds were still doggedly demanding it should not be raised. This is a spectacularly transparent example of the effects of propaganda on the poorly educated.

For those still in any doubt of a) the effects of not raising the debt ceiling, and b) the manipulation by Republicans (to their own political advantage) of the term, ‘national debt’, listen carefully to what Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has to say in this interview on MSNBC last night.^[1]

In case anyone was left in any doubt after listening to Robert Greenstein, who is likely one of the most expert people in America on budgetary policy, the national debt is nothing like a maxed out credit card. There is, however, one similarity: if Tea Party Republicans succeed in their threats to filibuster the bill to raise the debt ceiling, and it isn’t passed, America’s credit rating will plunge throughout the world. Future American borrowing (which every nation needs to do) will cost much more. Just as credit card interest rates are hiked for bad payers, so will America’s be hiked.

This means a plunging economy, many lost jobs, and an almost certain return to recession, or more likely, economic depression.

Why would Republicans want to bring that about? The only possible answer is to gain political power. Yet again, politicians are playing fast and loose with the lives of those they’re elected to serve.

Republican politicians got themselves elected last November on a ticket of fiscal responsibility. Since then, they’ve dragged the US government through a mire of budget-cutting bills and debates. All of which, they say, is in the interests of ‘cutting the debt’ for the future of America.

To achieve this end, one of the measures Republicans intend to implement is cutting Social Security, but you’ve just heard Robert Greenstein say that Social Security is running a surplus each year. $4 trillion dollars of the ‘national debt’ is money purloined from the Social Security trust fund by previous administrations – in the case of George W Bush, to fund the Iraq war.

A not insignificant proportion of the so-called ‘national debt’ is nothing more than one US government department owing another US government department. Hardly a matter over which America’s grandchildren will lose sleep.

No sensible person would deny it is a good thing to reduce debt. America needs to do so. Cutting spending is one way, but it always, always, falls more heavily on those already struggling to make ends meet.

A better way is to increase national income, or the amount the US government receives. A fair system of taxation, with everybody paying according to their means and the wealthiest paying the most, is a more sensible approach to cutting national debt. It’s the one Republicans and some Democrats) are most obstinately against.

I wonder why?

To even suggest not raising the debt ceiling in this country is to propose plunging this nation into economic chaos. No responsible politician, who truly wanted to serve his/her country, would entertain the notion.

That some do is, at best, grossly irresponsible, and, at worst, verging on traitorous.

^{[1] “Robert Greenstein” AmericanProgress.org, 2008}

Filed under: Playing politics with people

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a land where freedom reigned supreme and rules and regulations were minimal, leaving us free to enjoy ourselves as we wished, without fear of repercussions?

Nineteen year-old, Keisha Wall, probably thinks so…

……She’s presently serving two and a half years in a British prison.

Sixty-three year-old, Christine Lyon, isn’t thinking anything. She’s dead.

Driving a school bus in America gives an almost bird’s-eye view of other road users. It’s amazing what drivers get up to when they think no-one’s looking.

One particular activity occupying the minds and hands of Illinois motorists in abundance, requires no reticence or guilt whatever. It’s perfectly legal and is the pastime of many motorists navigating the morning or afternoon commute.

Perceiving drivers with one hand on the wheel and the other holding a cellphone to the ear, while driving around our local town, is almost the norm. So many do it, it’s difficult to decide if it’s them in the majority, or those of us sufficiently sane to pull over and stop, before making or answering that call.

Forty-two countries have laws banning the use of cellphones while driving (though some do allow hands-free sets). These include most of Europe, Australia, China, Brazil, Chile, Israel, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Zimbabwe, to name just a few. Many other countries (the statistics are for 2009) are in process of formulating legislation to outlaw the practice.^[1]

The United States of America is not on the list.

Not all of the US is so irresponsible. It was Alistair Cooke, in one of his many “Letters from America”, who taught us that Suffolk County, Long Island, was the first place in America to pass a law making it a crime to use a cellphone while driving:

…..No exceptions – doctors, bus drivers, taxi drivers, nobody – and it’s a bill that has received national attention and will doubtless by copied far and wide.”^[2]

That was back on January 1st 2001. New York followed suit within a year. In both cases, hands-free devices were exempted.

Sadly, it was a bill that was certainly not ‘copied far and wide’. Of the fifty-two states of the USA, only five have imposed bans on cellphone use while driving: California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, New Jersey, and the previously mentioned, New York. Some have partial bans in place, usually restricting teen use – as though adults are somehow better equipped to multi-task while driving. Most allow hands-free devices.

While some nations do differentiate between hand-held cellphones and hands-free devices, research has confirmed there’s really no difference between the two when it comes to killing and maiming people.

We’ve come to regard the drunk driver as a menace to society. Few of us would entertain sympathy for anyone who kills another human being while driving under the influence of alcohol. Yet, research strongly indicates that the drunk behind the wheel actually has better control of the vehicle than a sober person using a cellphone, or a hands-free device.^[3]

This research is not new. It’s from 2006. So, why is it being largely ignored by legislators?

The reason is simple. Most Americans say they believe using a cellphone while driving is wrong, but those same Americans still do it. They believe it’s wrong for others to do it, but just like the drunk driver whose ego tells him he has the skill to drive under the influence, Americans believe they themselves, as individuals, are capable of driving safely while using a phone.

They are, of course, wrong. Accident statistics prove it, beyond any doubt.

People need protecting from themselves more often then they realize. That’s why we have legislation. Not only is it to safeguard us from the actions of the other fellow, it’s to protect us from ourselves.

No-one can say for certain how many lives are lost each year on America’s roads due to cellphone usage. What is known for sure is that it’s a lot. It’s now also been revealed that hands-free devices are no safer than ordinary cellphones, in their ability to distract drivers and cause accidents.

Nineteen year-old, Keisha Wall, is serving two and a half years in a British prison. She can consider herself fortunate. In Britain, the offense carries a maximum penalty of fourteen years behind bars. While driving her car, Wall glanced down at her cellphone to check a text message she had just received.

Sixty-three year-old, Christine Lyon……

…was the woman she killed while doing so.^[4]

So please…

^{[1] “Countries that ban cell phones while driving” Cellular-News}

^{[2] “Wake Up To Summer” BBC – Letter From America, June 25th 2001}

^{[3] “Cell phones as dangerous as drunk driving” cnet News, July 1st 2006}

^{[4] “Reading text message killer driver jailed” BBC, April 11th 2011}

Filed under: Don’t talk and drive