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8. april 2006
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More evidence that John Bolton is an insensitive bully:
When Bolton became president of the council on Feb. 1, he announced that he wanted council meetings to start promptly at 10 a.m. And not only did he want punctuality, he wanted a briefing from someone in the U.N. Secretariat, which Secretary-General Kofi Annan heads, every single day _ even when there was no other council business.
During the month-long experiment, the U.S. ambassador kept tabs on which council members were on time or late and senior U.N. officials appeared every morning to brief on topics ranging from Haiti's elections to the conflict in Darfur and prospects for peace in Ivory Coast.
It's was a collective sigh of relief among lazy UN delegates when his month-long presidency ended on March 1st. Now it's business as usual, and the secretariat can sleep late again.
9:33:58 PM 
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Sixty Canadian scientists call on the government to open the Kyoto accords to renewed debate.
As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate-change plans. This would be entirely consistent with your recent commitment to conduct a review of the Kyoto Protocol. Although many of us made the same suggestion to then-prime ministers Martin and Chretien, neither responded, and, to date, no formal, independent climate-science review has been conducted in Canada. Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation of the protocol in Canada will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science.
Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future. Yet this is precisely what the United Nations did in creating and promoting Kyoto and still does in the alarmist forecasts on which Canada's climate policies are based. Even if the climate models were realistic, the environmental impact of Canada delaying implementation of Kyoto or other greenhouse-gas reduction schemes, pending completion of consultations, would be insignificant. Directing your government to convene balanced, open hearings as soon as possible would be a most prudent and responsible course of action.
While the confident pronouncements of scientifically unqualified environmental groups may provide for sensational headlines, they are no basis for mature policy formulation. The study of global climate change is, as you have said, an "emerging science," one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system.
And also:
"Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise."
It is extremely damaging to the debate that both media attention and public funding goes to the most extreme voices. While there is agreement among scientists that the planet is undergoing "climate change" (which would be true at any time in the Earth's history since it started cooling 4.5 billion years ago or so), and that human emissions contributes to it, this is a far cry from the apocalypticism we constantly hear. And, behind the headlines, the fact is (as these Canadian scientists tell) that the climate models consistently fail to predict what we see. The models have typically gotten the tropics vs arctic changes upside down, they are wrong about which layers of the atmosphere experience most warming. The models fail to understand the role of water vapor, the strongest climate gas. So when climate scientists tell us what will happen in 50 or even a 100 years, after missing spectacularly in predicting today's weather, it is certainly time to be skeptical.
When you talk to scientists and science students, you'd be surprised that some of the most skeptical are those who know the most, and the most confident are those people who flunked math in primary school.
Via Tim Blair, who also links to Scott Burgess' excellent take on Greenpeace and other eco-nuts. By a first approximation, assuming that the nuttiest environmentalists are always wrong is a safe bet.
8:38:55 PM
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Some experts are warning of a possible downside to Britain's public smoking ban.
Smoke-free bars and public houses will attract more female customers and could fuel the rise in binge drinking among women, a report warns.
It points out that as bars and pubs become more appealing venues to women, female customers are more likely to consume larger amounts of alcoholic drinks than before.
And because women are marrying later, they are spending more time in pubs and other venues that serve alcohol, where they are more likely to meet men.
The rise in alcohol consumption among women is causing serious concern for the Government. Doctors say liver disease is now being seen in younger people.
Heh. Give them a cigarette before the alcohol gets to them.
7:42:21 PM
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Seymour Hersh has a long article in The New Yorker about the Bush administration's plans to stop Iran's nuclear programme, and, even more ambitiously, achieve regime change. Obviously one section of the article gets all the attention, and that is his assertion that Pentagon and certain people in the White House insists that tactical nuclear weapons remain on the table.
One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year. (Iran has acknowledged that it initially kept the existence of its enrichment program hidden from I.A.E.A. inspectors, but claims that none of its current activity is barred by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.) The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete.
There is a Cold War precedent for targeting deep underground bunkers with nuclear weapons. In the early nineteen-eighties, the American intelligence community watched as the Soviet government began digging a huge underground complex outside Moscow. Analysts concluded that the underground facility was designed for “continuity of government”—for the political and military leadership to survive a nuclear war. (There are similar facilities, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, for the American leadership.) The Soviet facility still exists, and much of what the U.S. knows about it remains classified. “The ‘tell’ ”—the giveaway—“was the ventilator shafts, some of which were disguised,” the former senior intelligence official told me. At the time, he said, it was determined that “only nukes” could destroy the bunker. He added that some American intelligence analysts believe that the Russians helped the Iranians design their underground facility. “We see a similarity of design,” specifically in the ventilator shafts, he said.
A former high-level Defense Department official told me that, in his view, even limited bombing would allow the U.S. to “go in there and do enough damage to slow down the nuclear infrastructure—it’s feasible.” The former defense official said, “The Iranians don’t have friends, and we can tell them that, if necessary, we’ll keep knocking back their infrastructure. The United States should act like we’re ready to go.” He added, “We don’t have to knock down all of their air defenses. Our stealth bombers and standoff missiles really work, and we can blow fixed things up. We can do things on the ground, too, but it’s difficult and very dangerous—put bad stuff in ventilator shafts and put them to sleep.”
But those who are familiar with the Soviet bunker, according to the former senior intelligence official, “say ‘No way.’ You’ve got to know what’s underneath—to know which ventilator feeds people, or diesel generators, or which are false. And there’s a lot that we don’t know.” The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”
He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”
This claim is now spreading like wildfire in the international press (like, here, from the notoriously unreliable Norwegian press agency NTB). It is being translated into the claim that President Bush actually plans to use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran, which just sounds insane. It is one thing to make contingency plans for worst case scenarios just in case, another entirely to actually think this is something the US is even close to pursue now.
Hersh's article actually considers a lot of the debate, unfortunately, as usual, citing anonymous sources supporting every claim.
One important fact is how devastating to US Middle East policies, including the struggle in Iraq, any military action against Iran would have. The following may well be correct.
A retired four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, “the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.”
Is that you, Wesley Clark? It could well be General Barry McCaffrey, but it does sound like something Clark would say.
There are reasons to believe that if Iran is attacked, which may well become necessary, the war in Iraq will be immediately lost.
3:34:31 PM
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Robert Mugabe's insanity kills, according to a UN report:
Zimbabwe's women have an average life expectancy of 34 years and men on average do not live past 37, it said. [...]
Zimbabwean women have the lowest life expectancy of women anywhere in the world, according to the report. [...]
According to the BBC's Africa editor, David Bamford, the latest figures are extraordinary for a country like Zimbabwe, which until 20 years ago, had a relatively high standard of living for Africa.
Tragic outcome.
2:55:47 PM
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The Associated Press, maybe somewhat surprisingly, has an interesting article on the effort of the US Marines to stabilise western Iraq and prevent terrorists from slipping over the border from Syria.
The strategy, implemented after a large-scale U.S. and Iraqi offensive in the area last November, is in part a reaction against a common U.S. military tactic in Iraq of relying on patrols that depart from sprawling bases on the edges of cities.
"You've got to be in the towns, live among the people, eat with them ... until the people start telling you where the bad people are," said Lt. Col. Julian D. Alford. "If you live on the (bases) outside the city and come in for patrols, you're not going to win this."
But the new strategy also illustrates how the situation in Iraq varies dramatically from region to region. As opposed to most areas of Iraq where U.S. troops are starting to hand over bases to Iraqi troops, this majority Sunni far western portion of Anbar province lags behind — with sufficient numbers of U.S. and Iraqi troops having just arrived.
U.S. commanders view the border region as key because they say foreign fighters coming from Syria can be intercepted here before they reach more populated parts of Iraq. Suicide bombings in Baghdad and other cities have dropped because of this strategy, commanders say.
It's too early to be overly optimistic, but the last months there has been a marked decline in terrorist activity across the board in Iraq. Deadly attacks still happen, like the devastating suicide bombing earlier today, but the terrorists are suffering from their lack of endgame options. Their hope of victory is that either the US opinion presses forth a retreat before the midterms (or, alternatively, a Democratic party victory makes this happen afterwards), or, maybe more likely, the political process in Iraq collapses. Both are of course real possibilities, but that is all the terrorists can hope for.
1:05:47 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.05.2006; 13:03:30.
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