Month: February 2004

Nestled inside another Economist article is this little tidbit about the Iraqi governing council’s take on freedom of the press:

Though appointed and not elected, the council is reasonably representative of Iraq’s various groups. But it also has its flaws, one of which is a growing allergy to criticism. Its members say they believe in a free press but have shut down, albeit temporarily, the Iraqi operations of two of the Arab world’s most popular satellite channels.

The current count of Americans killed in Iraq is 548. According to The Economist, the number would be much higher if the military was not outsourcing the more dangerous jobs:

What the figures suggest is that the number of attacks is going up even more sharply, though the number of potential American targets is going down as their force is reduced in size. Moreover, the American and British armies have hived off a lot of dangerous jobs (driving military vehicles, for instance) to contract workers, mostly Asian, whose deaths rarely get listed. The many British security companies in Iraq tend to hire people from Nepal or Fiji to guard bases. Another British-run company, Erinys International, now deploys 14,000 Iraqis to guard Iraq’s oil installations.[Emphasis added]

An internet search turned up nothing. If any readers have leads on this hidden component of the occupation, I would welcome some links.

Back in 2000, Justin Raimondo wrote an article called “An Electronic Pearl Harbor?” about curious Kosovo war-related hacker attacks and the role of Network Solutions, the then-monopolist of Internet domain names. Interested readers can revisit this story in Sold Short: Uncovering Deception in the Markets by famed short-seller Manuel Asensio.

Short-sellers are, essentially, people who bet that certain stocks will fall. It’s risky business; a stock can rise more than it can fall so gains are limited but losses are theoretically unlimited. And as the old trader ditty says: “He who sells what isn’t his’n, must buy it back or go to prison.” Short-sellers have a bad reputation but during the height of the millennial excesses, while the Feds were chasing a New Jersey high school student, Asensio was uncovering deception in the markets and posting the information for free on his website (much like Antiwar.com posted warnings about the domestic terrorist threat while the government was busy aiding jihad in the Balkans).

Asensio’s book primarily chronicles his successes, but in a chapter called Abusing the Process, in a section called “Fiends [sic] in High Places: Network Solutions,” he details a notable failure:

“Network Solutions (Nasdaq: NSOL) achieved its fortune on the basis of a government affirmative action contract that was snatched up by a huge, money-laden defense contractor. The contractor then leveraged this prize many times over by working the political system, applying a political headlock at the highest levels of the federal government. …

“In March 1995 McHenry and his partners sold Network Solutions for $48 million to Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), a huge, privately owned, astonishingly well-connected defense contractor based in San Diego.

“SAIC has about $4 billion in annual revenues, roughly 80 percent of which are derived from federal contracts. SAIC board members include Retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who was offered the job of defense secretary by Bill Clinton, and two retired generals, from the army and the air force. Past board members have included former Defense Secretary William Perry; Melvin Laird, Nixon’s defense secretary; Donald Hicks, former head of research and development for the Pentagon; and former CIA directors Robert Gates and John Deutsch. The firm and its executives contribute over $100,000 to political campaigns in each election cycle. …

“All of the facts indicated to us that NSOL should not have been successful in retaining the interests that if did in the domain-name registry. The amount of money it was allowed to change for its registry service is offensive. The terms were imposed on the market through the influence that Network Solutions has with the federal government. That’s what makes this case completely different from any other company we’ve publicly shorted.

“When you’re dealing with the president of the United States and the secretary of commerce, you’re beyond the law and beyond logic. These people create the rules. We bet … on free market forces. There was a lot of money involved here – and a lot of companies that could do the job. We believed that potential competitors in both the registry and registrar services were going to balance out Network Solutions’ political power. But SAIC’s influence in the federal government was greater than the force of the free enterprise system, stronger than those competitors that were willing and able to provide better services at far lower cost than Network Solutions. Who would have thought it? Not I – not at the time, anyway.”

More:

Buy Sold Short: Uncovering Deception in the Markets (and help Antiwar.com)!

Read “Network Solutions: By Any Other Name, a Monopoly.com,” by Debra Sparks.

Read “An Electronic Pearl Harbor?” by Justin Raimondo.

Read “Jonathan Lebed: Stock Manipulator, S.E.C. Nemesis – and 15,” by Michael Lewis.

Visit Asensio.com.

Read “American Interventionism and the Terrorist Threat,” by Jon Basil Utley.

Read “Washington Behind Terrorist Attacks in Macedonia,” by Michel Chossudovsky.

In addition to knowing that 548 soldiers have been killed, 9500+ wounded — many missing arms, legs and eyes — and almost 1000 having been treated for psychiatric problems, military personnel will have to worry about the residual effects of depleted uranium and other chemical poisons they have come into contact with. Medical professionals and researchers as yet have no prognosis of what the future holds for our returning troops, but contact with much lower doses and far less exposure time to DU during Gulf War I has already been blamed for many serious and persistant medical complaints. In what appears to be an effort not to sound alarmist, there is almost a ho-hum attitude in today’s Stars & Stripes’ article which leaves you with the impression that if all the Army forms are correctly filled out by returning troops, there will be nothing to worry about. These statements by Army Col. Allen Kraft, director of force health protection for Europe Regional Medical Command and U.S. Army Europe, furthers the feel-good euphoria. You will note that although data collection is barely in its infancy stage, he already “knows” that cigarette smoking is more dangerous than DU:

… people need to keep things in perspective. Ingesting particles of depleted uranium certainly isn’t desirable, Kraft said, but he noted that people who smoke do their body more harm. In a place such as Iraq, medical officials are just as concerned about other toxicants, from oil field emissions to lead paint. DU, Kraft said, “is on the low end of the totem pole” of things to worry about. The word ‘radiation’ scares people,” Kraft said, “but you are exposed to [levels of] radiation every time you step outside.”

Even back in May 2003, scientists were already debating the dangers of DU exposure to troops and civilians in Iraqi.

“Depleted uranium is toxic and carcinogenic and it may well be associated with elevated rates of birth defects in babies born to those exposed to it,” said McDermott, who is a physician. Before the current war, Iraqi doctors were blaming high rates of cancer and birth defects in Basra and other southern cities on U.S. munitions fired 12 years ago — when fighting was concentrated along the southern border with Kuwait. Iraqi officials claim their number of cancer patients has risen 50 percent in 10 years, although complete medical surveys have not been conducted. Some U.S. veterans also blame certain mysterious symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome on DU exposure.… read

The British, in December 2003, were also a bit more open about the potential hazards of DU.

Depleted uranium shells used by British forces in southern Iraqi battlefields are putting civilians at risk from ‘alarmingly high’ levels of radioactivity. Experts are calling for the water and milk being used by locals in Basra to be monitored after analysis of biological and soil samples from battle zones found ‘the highest number, highest levels and highest concentrations of radioactive source points’ in the Basra suburb of Abu Khasib – the centre of the fiercest battles between UK forces and Saddam loyalists. Readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks in Basra reveal radiation levels 2,500 times higher than normal. In the surrounding area researchers recorded radioactivity levels 20 times higher than normal. … read

I sincerely hope our young men and women will not have to pay the ultimate “friendly-fire” price for having served. The sooner we bring them home, the less exposure to DU and other toxins they will have. As for the people of Iraqi who will have to permanently live with this nightmare …

From this week in Antiwar.com, seven questions for the warmongers:

1. What is “harassment & interdiction”?

2. How much mustard gas would it take to level a city?

3. Is any nation on earth safe from the president’s new and improved doctrine of preemption?

4. Why do we send this man $3 billion/year?

5. Is Clifford May really defending democracy?

6. What distinguishes a “hero in error” from an ordinary liar?

7. And, oh yeah, what’s cooking in Afghanistan?

Brendan O’Neill plucks some aged Belgian babies off of bayonets in this outstanding piece on Saddam’s fabled people shredder. Among the story’s propagators who have yet to comment on O’Neill’s article are Glenn Reynolds (see also this) and National Review‘s James S. Robbins, Kathryn Jean Lopez, and Clifford May. I’m sure you’re dying to hear their responses as much as I am, so feel free to send them any questions you might have: Reynolds-pundit@instapundit.com, Robbins-melos777@hotmail.com, Lopez-klopez@nationalreview.com, May-info@defenddemocracy.org. Let me know if you strike up any interesting correspondence.