Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

[metalman]

meanwhile, back in iraq...

Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes targeting Kurdish rebels bombed villages deep in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing one woman and forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes, local officials said.

UK has left behind murder and chaos, says Basra police chief

The full scale of the chaos left behind by British forces in Basra was revealed yesterday as the city's police chief described a province in the grip of well-armed militias strong enough to overpower security forces and brutal enough to behead women considered not sufficiently Islamic.

As British forces finally handed over security in Basra province, marking the end of 4½ years of control in southern Iraq, Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. "They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world," he said in an in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV.

Pakistan Has Eight Suspected Human Cases of Bird Flu

Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Five members of a family in Pakistan are among eight people who may be the country's first human cases of bird flu, the World Health Organization said. At least one brother died.

if confirmed, isn't that the first human-to-human transmission of bird flu? and isn't that a really big deal?

maybe it's just me, but it feels like next year is going the be a military, economic, financial market once-every-100-years cluster-fuck.

[Guest]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

meanwhile, back in iraq....

Now the world will have a chance to see how splendidly Southern Iraq (and the Iraqi nation) progresses, having finally booted out the neo-colonial venal opportunistic British troops who were fomenting factional terror to further their own Machiavellian ends.

This is a bright new dawn for Basra and all of Iraq! When the US troops are finally booted out as well, the country will finally be free to burst forth into all the promise, reconciliation, and vigorous reconstructive efforts which had been brutally repressed and sabotaged by Western nation occupation. It's only a matter of time! ...

[metalman]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

Now the world will have a chance to see how splendidly Southern Iraq (and the Iraqi nation) progresses, having finally booted out the neo-colonial venal opportunistic British troops who were fomenting factional terror to further their own Machiavellian ends.

This is a bright new dawn for Basra and all of Iraq! When the US troops are finally booted out as well, the country will finally be free to burst forth into all the promise, reconciliation, and vigorous reconstructive efforts which had been brutally repressed and sabotaged by Western nation occupation. It's only a matter of time! ...

so i was re-watching mel gibson's apocalypto movie. it's the best, in spite of gibson's, er, shortcomings.

the best part is the end when the spaniards show up. they did bad things to the natives, but nothing like what the natives were doing to each other.

let's hear it for civilization.

[jk]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

i believe that other bird flu clusters involved multiple people all of whom had contact with the livestock. the fact that a number of family members died doesn't prove human-to-human transmission.

[c1ue]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

the best part is the end when the spaniards show up. they did bad things to the natives, but nothing like what the natives were doing to each other.

This sounds like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Sure, there were some terrible practices going on.

But then, did this REALLY justify:

Over the first century and a half after Columbus's voyages, the native population of the Americas plummeted by an estimated 80% (from around 50 million in 1492 to eight million in 1650

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europea...opulation_loss

[metalman]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

This sounds like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Sure, there were some terrible practices going on.

But then, did this REALLY justify:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europea...opulation_loss

yes, but not on purpose. european bugs got 'em.

[Rajiv]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

From the wiki entry

The European and Asian lifestyle included a long history of sharing close quarters with domesticated animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, and various domesticated fowl, which had resulted in epidemic diseases unknown in the Americas. Thus the large-scale contact with Europeans after 1492 introduced novel germs to the indigenous people of the Americas. Epidemics of smallpox (1518, 1521, 1525, 1558, 1589), typhus (1546), influenza (1558), diphtheria (1614) and measles (1618) swept ahead of initial European contact,^[1][2] killing between 10 million and 112 million^[3] people, about 95% to 98% of the indigenous population.^[4][5][6] This population loss and the cultural chaos and political collapses it caused greatly facilitated both colonization of the land and the conquest of the native civilizations.^[7]

Estimates of the population of the Americas at the time Columbus arrived have varied tremendously. This population debate has often had ideological underpinnings. Some have argued that contemporary estimates of a high pre-Columbian indigenous population are rooted in a bias against aspects of Western civilization and/or Christianity. Robert Royal writes that "estimates of pre-Columbian population figures have become heavily politicized with scholars who are particularly critical of Europe often favoring wildly higher figures."^[8] Since civilizations rose and fell in the Americas before Columbus arrived, the indigenous population in 1492 was not necessarily at a high point, and may have already been in decline. Indigenous populations in most areas of the Americas reached a low point by the early twentieth century, and in a number of cases started to climb again.^[9]

The number of deaths caused by European-indigenous warfare has proven difficult to determine. In his book The Wild Frontier: Atrocities during the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee, amateur historian William M. Osborn sought to tally every recorded atrocity in the area that would eventually become the continental United States, from first contact (1511) to the closing of the frontier (1890), and determined that 9,156 people died from atrocities perpetrated by Native Americans, and 7,193 people died from those perpetrated by Europeans. Osborn defines an atrocity as the murder, torture, or mutilation of civilians, the wounded, and prisoners.^[10]

This last figure -- since it is based on historical documentation (which would be primarily European) would probably be an overestimate of the number of Europeans killed, while being an underestimate of the Native Americans killed

[metalman]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

From the wiki entry

This last figure -- since it is based on historical documentation (which would be primarily European) would probably be an overestimate of the number of Europeans killed, while being an underestimate of the Native Americans killed

another stat i read from a reliable source is that the current murder rate among tribes in new guinea today is higher than during the peak death rate during ww2. as bad as "civilization" can get, lack of it is worse.

[Rajiv]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

I think, more relevant is the treatment of Native Americans e.g. The Trail of Tears

Between 1790 and 1830 the population of Georgia increased six-fold. The western push of the settlers created a problem. Georgians continued to take Native American lands and force them into the frontier. By 1825 the Lower Creek had been completely removed from the state under provisions of the Treaty of Indian Springs. By 1827 the Creek were gone.

Cherokee had long called western Georgia home. The Cherokee Nation continued in their enchanted land until 1828. It was then that the rumored gold, for which De Soto had relentlessly searched, was discovered in the North Georgia mountains.

n his book Don't Know Much About History, Kenneth C. Davis writes:

Hollywood has left the impression that the great Indian wars came in the Old West during the late 1800's, a period that many think of simplistically as the "cowboy and Indian" days. But in fact that was a "mopping up" effort. By that time the Indians were nearly finished, their subjugation complete, their numbers decimated. The killing, enslavement, and land theft had begun with the arrival of the Europeans. But it may have reached its nadir when it became federal policy under President (Andrew) Jackson.

The Cherokees in 1828 were not nomadic savages. In fact, they had assimilated many European-style customs, including the wearing of gowns by Cherokee women. They built roads, schools and churches, had a system of representational government, and were farmers and cattle ranchers. A Cherokee alphabet, the "Talking Leaves" was perfected by Sequoyah.

n 1830 the Congress of the United States passed the "Indian Removal Act." Although many Americans were against the act, most notably Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett, it passed anyway. President Jackson quickly signed the bill into law. The Cherokees attempted to fight removal legally by challenging the removal laws in the Supreme Court and by establishing an independent Cherokee Nation. At first the court seemed to rule against the Indians. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Court refused to hear a case extending Georgia's laws on the Cherokee because they did not represent a sovereign nation. In 1832, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee on the same issue in Worcester v. Georgia. In this case Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign, making the removal laws invalid. The Cherokee would have to agree to removal in a treaty. The treaty then would have to be ratified by the Senate.

By 1835 the Cherokee were divided and despondent. Most supported Principal Chief John Ross, who fought the encroachment of whites starting with the 1832 land lottery. However, a minority(less than 500 out of 17,000 Cherokee in North Georgia) followed Major Ridge, his son John, and Elias Boudinot, who advocated removal. The Treaty of New Echota, signed by Ridge and members of the Treaty Party in 1835, gave Jackson the legal document he needed to remove the First Americans. Ratification of the treaty by the United States Senate sealed the fate of the Cherokee. Among the few who spoke out against the ratification were Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, but it passed by a single vote. In 1838 the United States began the removal to Oklahoma, fulfilling a promise the government made to Georgia in 1802. Ordered to move on the Cherokee, General John Wool resigned his command in protest, delaying the action. His replacement, General Winfield Scott, arrived at New Echota on May 17, 1838 with 7000 men. Early that summer General Scott and the United States Army began the invasion of the Cherokee Nation.

Painting by Robert Lindneux Woolaroc Museum

[c1ue]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

yes, but not on purpose. european bugs got 'em.

True, but I have my doubts as to whether Cortes could have accomplished what he did were there not the presence of the plagues.

Sure made his credentials as 'god from over the sea' pretty strong eh?

[FRED]

Re: Turkey bombs northern Iraq: Iraq officials

i believe that other bird flu clusters involved multiple people all of whom had contact with the livestock. the fact that a number of family members died doesn't prove human-to-human transmission.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says limited human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 avian influenza virus may have occurred in Pakistan.