Author: Mick Hartley

mixed families of Sunnis and Shiites, especially in Baghdad and Basra….

There is no doubt that there is a war in Iraq. It is important to know what kind of a war this is.

If it is a civil war, we should identify the two rival sides and decided which side we ought to support right down to victory.

If it is a sectarian war, the only way to end it is either by geographical separation, as was the case with Croatia and Serbia, or through massive foreign occupation, as is the case in Bosnia-Herzegovina. (There are over 50,000 NATO troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina, more than a decade after Western powers intervened to end the sectarian war. Iraq is nine times larger than Bosnia-Herzegovina but hosts only 150,000 foreign troops.)

What is happening in Iraq, however, is neither a civil nor a sectarian war, although elements of both exist within a broader context.

The war in Iraq is a political one between those who wish the new Iraq to succeed and those who want to ensure its failure. Those who want new Iraq to succeed represent the overwhelming majority of Iraqis of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. Those who want it to fail are made up of Saddamite bitter-enders, some misguided pan-Arab nationalists, death-squads financed by Tehran, and a variety of non-Iraqi terrorist outfits who have come to Iraq to kill and die in the name of their perverted vision of Islam.

ff who cared for more than 100 patients who had undergone suspicious transplant surgeries in China.

“The involvement of the People’s Liberation Army in these transplants is widespread,” Mr Kilgour said at a press conference.

Like many civilian hospitals in rural China, military hospitals turned to selling organs to make up for government funding cuts in the 1980s, the report said.

But military personnel could operate with much more secrecy, it said.

“Recipients often tell us that even when they receive transplants at civilian hospitals, those conducting the operation are military personnel,” the report said.

Hospitals in Canada’s biggest cities – Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto – confirmed “a substantial number” of Canadians had travelled to China for dubious organ transplants, Mr Kilgour said.

Pitch ‘n’ Putt with Beckett ‘n’ Joyce (via):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p856CfM64w8&w=425&h=350]

Chinese leader Hu Jintao gets the red carpet treatment in Khartoum, and pledges further support for Omar al-Bashir’s regime:

Chinese President Hu Jintao has agreed on a series of economic deals in Sudan, which China has protected from UN sanctions over the Darfur conflict.

China announced an interest-free loan to build a new presidential palace, and said it would build two schools. China already buys most of Sudan’s oil.

Mr Hu called for “dialogue” to find a peaceful solution in Darfur.

Clearly a top priority, that presidential palace. As for the dialogue over Darfur, well, as this note makes clear, sent to the NYT’s Nick Kristof from some of those involved (at Coalition for Darfur, to avoid the NYT subscription), even aid workers are now fair game:

Clarifications on party raided on 19/1/07 in Nyala was at 6 PM. There was no loud music, only music from a lap top. There was a little alcohol present, but nothing on the scale of other expat parties. The raiding party (from Nyala police, national security and HAC) had clear, premeditated plans as they came with a video camera. There were 3 Sudanese and 17 expats present plus 3 from AMIS. Everyone in the house was beaten and abused. The woman who was sexually assaulted was assaulted by a known HAC official. He must be held accountable. Nothing that happens in Nyala is by accident. Governor needs to be held accountable for the incident and its resolution….

The softly softly approach does not work with this regime. If an external body (EC, US, UN, NATO, etc.) is not willing to follow up threats with action, it is better for them to be quiet.

There’s increasing evidence that Hrant Dink’s assassin was not operating alone:

Four policemen have been suspended from duty after posing in front of a Turkish flag with the suspected murderer of an ethnic Armenian journalist. Another four security police have been transferred to other duties after film of the incident was shown on Turkish television, offering further apparent evidence that the killing may have had support from within the security forces.

It shows officials, some in uniform, arm-in-arm with Ogun Samast, who has confessed to the murder of Hrant Dink, the Editor of Agos, a bilingual Armenian-Turkish newspaper.

Mr Dink, 52, was hated by ultra-nationalists for his writings about the mass killing of Armenians on Ottoman soil during the First World War….

Since the murder on January 19, the media have been alleging some degree of involvement from within the state. Even Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister, has questioned whether the killing was the work of Turkey’s “deep state”— shadowy nationalist elements in the security forces willing to act outside the law. He has also acknowledged that exposing the “deep state” was almost impossible.

“This cassette is proof that the murderer and his partners in crime are not alone, and that people who, when necessary, can perform similar acts are spreading throughout the state apparatus — primarily the police and paramilitary organisations,” wrote Ismet Berkan, Editor of Radikal, the liberal daily newspaper….

Despite periodic official attempts to play down the implications, the Dink investigation continues to produce revelations pointing to complicity, or at least tacit support for the murder, from within state ranks.

First the Interior Ministry sacked the police chief and governor of Trabzon, the Black Sea town where Samast lived, for failing to act against what appears to be a hotbed of violent nationalism. Police were criticised for failing to keep tabs on Yasin Hayal, the man who admitted inciting Samast, since he was released from jail after serving a sentence for bombing a McDonald’s restaurant in 2004.

It was then revealed that an ultra-nationalist who had associated with Hayal was a police informer and had exposed plans to kill Mr Dink eleven months previously.

More on that alliance between the Left and Islamism. From Hugo Rifkind’s People, in the Times:

If pop brat Lily Allen ruled the country, she tells Q magazine, “I’d be pretty hardcore when it came to law reform. Thieves would have their hands cut off. A rapist would have his knob cut off.” She adds: “I’m definitely a leftie. Oona King is my role model.”

Well this is going to do wonders for that old Sino-Japanese entente:

When Japanese troops conquered the then-capital of China in 1937, historians agree they slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians in an orgy of violence known since then as the Rape of Nanking.

A Japanese nationalist filmmaker announced on Wednesday he is working on a documentary with a very different message: the massacre never happened.

The film, to be called “The Truth about Nanking” and completed in August, will be based on testimony from Japanese veterans, archival footage and documents that proponents say prove accounts of the killing are nothing more than Chinese propaganda.

“This will be our first effort to correct the errors of history through a film,” director Satoru Mizushima said at a Tokyo hotel, joined by a group of conservative lawmakers and academics who support the project.

Mizushima, president of a rightwing Internet broadcaster “Channel Sakura,” said he hoped to enter the film in international festivals late in the year. He is aiming to raise about 300 million yen (US$2.47 million; €1.89 million) for the effort.

The film is part of a gathering wave in Japan of “massacre denial” projects, mostly books, that attempt to debunk a slaughter that historians say killed at least 150,000 civilians. China says the death toll was as many as 300,000.

See here and here for earlier related posts.

ng the six months in question, the Islamic Republic would suspend enrichment of uranium.

In exchange, the Security Council would postpone its March session on the issue and would suspend the sanctions it already approved. Tehran would also insist on an undertaking from the United States not to take military action against Iran.

There are other signs that Tehran is trying to cool things down:

* It has not carried out its threat of suspending relations with countries that voted for sanctions, nor has it organized demonstrations by the usual suspects around the embassies of those nations.

* The regime has shown uncharacteristic timidity on the issue of its senior Revolutionary Guard commanders and intelligence officers who were arrested and are being interrogated by U.S. forces in Iraq.

* The Islamic Republic did not vote against a resolution passed by the U.N. General Assembly last week condemning the denial of the Holocaust. (This was an indirect correction for Ahmadinejad, who re-launched the Holocaust-denial debate last year.)

“We hear a moderate message from Tehran,” says a senior British official. “And that in a tone we had not heard since Ahmadinejad [became president].”

No word on Cambridge as yet:

The United Kingdom weighs 24,000,000 billion tonnes, and Oxford is the heaviest city, according to new research.

The study found that despite its mountains, Scotland is actually lighter than England and Wales, while Oxford weighs more than anywhere else, with Cornwall and North Scotland the lightest areas.

The figures make Britain heavier per square kilometre than Germany, but far behind Austria, which with its Alpine mountain ranges and rocky foundations is proportionately Europe’s heaviest country.

Scientists at the University of Technology in Vienna and at the University of Leeds calculated the weight based on the thickness of the earth’s crust in a given area.

increase their presence in Chad. Both the Sudan and Chad governments are taking advantage of conflict between different ethnic Chadian communities over access to land, water, livestock and other resources by arming them and using them to attack targeted civilian groups. However, generally groups perceived as “African” remain disproportionately affected by the violence.

This report documents evidence of the deliberate and targeted killing of communities, the rape and other crimes of violence against women, and the destruction of homes and civilian property in eastern Chad….