Part 33 (1/2)

Iraq I: Iraq vs. Iran, 19801988. Deaths uncertain, but estimated at as many as 500,000 on each side. Basically ended in a draw. Iraq vs. Iran, 19801988. Deaths uncertain, but estimated at as many as 500,000 on each side. Basically ended in a draw.

Iraq II: Iraq vs. United States, 1991. United States and allies lost about 200; Iraq about 24,000 military personnel and 6,000 civilians. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was thwarted and the country severely damaged by U.S. bombing. Iraq vs. United States, 1991. United States and allies lost about 200; Iraq about 24,000 military personnel and 6,000 civilians. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was thwarted and the country severely damaged by U.S. bombing.

Balkans: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia vs. various combinations of each other 19912001. As many as 250,000 deaths, most of them civilians. Resulted in dissolution of former Yugoslavia into several independent states. Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia vs. various combinations of each other 19912001. As many as 250,000 deaths, most of them civilians. Resulted in dissolution of former Yugoslavia into several independent states.

Afghanistan II: United States vs. Taliban, 2001present. United States and allies lost 758 through December 2007; Taliban casualties unknown. United States succeeded in overthrowing terrorist-supporting Taliban theocracy, but through early 2008 was unable to completely secure the country. United States vs. Taliban, 2001present. United States and allies lost 758 through December 2007; Taliban casualties unknown. United States succeeded in overthrowing terrorist-supporting Taliban theocracy, but through early 2008 was unable to completely secure the country.

Iraq III: Iraq vs. United States, 2003present. Through January 2008, American casualties were at about 4,000; Iraqi civilian deaths at more than 30,000. As 2008 began, United States had yet to stabilize Iraqi government. Iraq vs. United States, 2003present. Through January 2008, American casualties were at about 4,000; Iraqi civilian deaths at more than 30,000. As 2008 began, United States had yet to stabilize Iraqi government.

WHO'S UP, WHO'S DOWN Drug Traffickers: UP UP [image]

Humans' use of drugs, at least for mystical and medicinal reasons, dates back at least fifty thousand years, according to archaeological finds in the Shanidar cave in Iraq. Use of the opium poppy dates back to 10,000 BCE. And drugs certainly played an occasional role in international relations. In the mid-nineteenth century, for instance, the French and English used military force to push China into legalizing the use of opium from British-ruled India.But drug trafficking really began to play an increasing role in geopolitics in the latter half of the twentieth century. In the 1960s and 1970s, both U.S. and Chinese spy operations alternately fought and propped up drug warlords and drug-financed regimes in Southeast Asia. Drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico grew to exert substantial influence on those countries' political and legal systems.In Afghanistan, the radical Islamic group the Taliban played both sides: When they were in charge of the country, the Taliban cited Islamic tenets against drug use and dealt harshly with Afghanistan's prolific opium poppy farming. After being overthrown by a U.S.-led military coalition in 2002, the Taliban formed a coalition with the country's opium smugglers to finance the group's comeback efforts. By the end of 2004, an estimated 75 percent of the world's opium came from Afghanistan.There were plenty of customers for it. A 2004 United Nations report estimated the world's drug-abuser population at around 185 million people. Another report estimated that the illegal drug black market had grown from $450 billion a year to $900 billion a year from 1992 to 2002, making illegal drugs the single most lucrative commodity in the world. Traffickers often invested drug profits in legitimate enterprises. In Colombia, for example, drug lords poured millions into the country's cattle business.In addition to its role as a source of governmental and legal corruption, drug trafficking also played an increasing role during the last part of the twentieth century in the spread of other illicit goods internationally, such as Ukrainian gangs trading guns to Colombian cartels for cocaine. Intravenous drug use also contributed to the spread of HIV.Like legitimate enterprises, drug dealing profited from economic globalization. The Internet, satellite phones, lowered tariffs, and relaxed currency controls all made it easier to move goods and money. At the same time, despite spending huge sums of money on interdiction, the restrictions of geographic borders and sometimes uneven levels of cooperation with police in other countries hampered law enforcement authorities. At best, the international war on illegal drugs was an ongoing stalemate as the twenty-first century began.Communists: DOWN DOWN Despite its heady success in the fifteen or so years after the end of World War II, the Communist ideology, particularly as espoused by the Soviet Union, wasn't able to make as much headway as the 1960s unfolded.One reason was the sobering effect of the Cuban missile crisis. Both sides in the cold war recognized there was a limit to how much they could push each other without risking dire consequences. Rising nationalism in third world countries in Latin America and Africa resisted influence from both sides. Some countries, such as India, played both sides against each other. And the resurgence of Islam as a driving political force in the Middle East hampered Communist efforts to expand its influence in that region.The United States also played a role. Determined to slow down revolutionary activities often financed by the USSR and other Eastern European Communist states, the United States began funneling arms and money to anticommunist forces in nations such as Angola, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Afghanistan. In the fall of 1983, U.S. troops were directly involved when they invaded the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada to topple a Communist-backed regime.Meanwhile, the natives were getting restless at home inside the European Communist Bloc. In 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to suppress an effort by the Czech government to liberalize judicial and other policies. In 1981, the Soviets intervened in Poland to head off similar attempts at reform. Soviet troops were also sent to Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up a Communist regime there.Such intervention was costly-and the Soviets just didn't have the dough to pay for it, keep up with the West in the increasingly expensive modern arms race, and fulfill basic government jobs such as feeding its people.In Asia, China was going through its own cultural and economic upheavals and paid less attention to extending the reach of communism. Vietnam, exhausted from its long war, began seeking to normalize relations with the West, and in 1991 it withdrew from neighboring Cambodia.By the middle of the 1980s, Soviet leaders were openly encouraging other European Communist nations to stop looking to the USSR for everything and to start developing their own political and economic reforms. They did so with enthusiasm.In August 1989, Poland convened its first non-Communist government since 1948. By the end of 1990, governments in Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Albania, and Hungary had followed suit. And by the end of 1991, the Soviet Union had itself dissolved.As of 2007, only five states controlled by a single-party Communist system-the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam-still existed.Terrorists: ALL OVER THE PLACE ALL OVER THE PLACE Defined by the CIA as ”the premeditated use or threat of extra-normal violence or brutality by sub-national groups to obtain a political, religious or ideological objective through intimidation of a large audience,” terrorism has been around in one form or another at least as long as have government and organized religion.But in the latter half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, terrorist groups had changed in several ways from their predecessors. They became less tightly knit organizations and more loosely affiliated networks; less political and more religious in their motivations; more likely to be international in their members.h.i.+ps; slower to take credit for their actions; more indiscriminate in their choice of targets, and less clear in what they wanted to accomplish through a specific terrorist act.

”Today's terrorists don't want a seat at the table, they want to destroy the table and everyone sitting at it.”-Member of the U.S. National Commission on Terrorism in 2000

Starting in the late 1960s, the targets of terrorism seemed to gravitate from the specific to the general. In 1978, the Red Brigade kidnapped and killed the Italian interior minister; in 1979, the Irish Republican Army a.s.sa.s.sinated Earl Mountbatten of England; in 1985, the Palestinian Liberation Front seized an Italian cruise s.h.i.+p and murdered a wheelchair-bound American tourist.In 1983, a suicide bomber killed 63 people at the U.S. Emba.s.sy in Beirut, Lebanon; this was followed by a similar attack that killed 240 U.S. Marines in a barracks in the same country. In 1988, bombs believed to have been planted by Libyan terrorists destroyed a pa.s.senger airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 269 people. In 1995, a religious cult used nerve gas on a Tokyo subway, killing a dozen people and sickening hundreds more.And on September 11, 2001, nineteen terrorists armed with box cutters and affiliated with the radical Islamic group al-Qaeda hijacked four U.S. commercial airliners. One crashed into the Pentagon in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.; one into a Pennsylvania field as pa.s.sengers tried to retake control; and two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Nearly three thousand people were killed in the worst terrorist incident in history.

America, you lost. I won.-9/11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui shouting after he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the attacks, May 3, 2006

The attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Center underscored the ability of terrorists to take advantage of modern communications and transportation systems to export terror to virtually anywhere. It also demonstrated the ”trans-nationalism” of modern terrorists. By 2005, according to the CIA, the group responsible for the attack, al-Qaeda, led by the charismatic fanatic Osama bin Laden, had branches or allies in sixty-eight countries.In response to the September 11 attacks, the U.S. declared a ”war on terrorism” that eventually led to American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. But the effectiveness of the effort was debatable. In September 2006, a National Intelligence Estimate compiled from sixteen U.S. spy agencies concluded that the U.S. effort, particularly in Iraq, had only fueled the idea of jihad, or holy war against the U.S. in the Middle East, and encouraged the formation of more terrorist cells and groups.

THE BREAST MILK IS OKAY, THE LIP GLOSS ISN'T GOING TO FLY Most people don't get any closer to the front lines of the war on terrorism than an airport terminal-and that's plenty close for most people. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Transportation Security Administration was formed in the United States to ferret out potentially dangerous items before they could be smuggled aboard flights.What's considered ”potentially dangerous” ebbs and flows with the times. After abortive attempts to smuggle liquid explosives aboard flights from London to New York in August 2006, for example, virtually all liquids were banned. This was later amended to allow things such as small amounts of baby formula and breast milk. In 2006, TSA agents confiscated 11.6 million cigarette lighters. Then the rules were changed in August 2007 to allow most normal lighters to be carried on.Still, confiscated items, almost all of which are thrown away, do add up: Between 2002 and 2005, sixteen million ”potential weapons,” ranging from chain saws to plastic swords from Disneyworld, were seized by the forty-three thousand folks who make up the TSA. That's an average of fourteen thousand a day.While the vigilance has certainly played a part in preventing any new 9/11-type occurrences, the system isn't foolproof. In March 2007, an airline employee managed to smuggle a duffel bag onto a flight from Orlando, Florida, to Puerto Rico. It contained thirteen handguns, an a.s.sault rifle, and eight pounds of marijuana.

Oil Prices: UP UP It was a cla.s.sic example of economic coercion-or a textbook case of international pouting. Either way, the 1973 world oil crisis had impacts that lasted far beyond the decade of the seventies.It began in mid-October, with the announcement by oil-producing countries in the Middle East that they were cutting off oil s.h.i.+pments to countries that had either supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War, or had declined to support Egypt and Syria. Sensing an opportunity, other oil-producing nations who were members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to jack up their prices.The result was a severe oil shortage in many Western countries that had since the end of World War II become increasingly dependent on imported oil to fuel industry and transportation. And the impacts of this were immediate and widespread.In the United States, the world's largest consumer of oil, the price of gasoline rose by mid-1974 to an average of 55.1 cents a gallon ($2.29 in 2007 dollars), a 43 percent increase from mid-1973. Overall inflation soared, and the world was pushed into a general economic recession.Not all countries suffered. In the Soviet Union, which actually exported oil, higher prices meant increased foreign currency, which propped up the USSR's sagging economy. In j.a.pan, the shortage spurred j.a.panese automakers to focus on more fuel-efficient cars and turned manufacturers' attention from heavy industry to electronics. Brazil began to focus on developing fuel from sugar (which it had in abundance) instead of oil (which it didn't).Industrialized nations also either began or accelerated ways to conserve energy (the United States, for example, dropped the freeway speed limit to fifty-five miles per hour), increase domestic oil production, and develop alternative energy sources.In 1979, OPEC nations took advantage of the uncertainty of oil supplies from the Middle East because of the revolution in Iran to again jack up oil prices. The action again jarred many industrialized nations.Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, increased oil production-spurred in part by some OPEC nations getting a bit greedy-resulted in something of a glut on the world market, and prices were relatively stable.As the twenty-first century moved through its first decade, however, demands for oil surged as giant countries such as China and India began developing their industries and transportation systems. At the beginning of 2008, the price of oil broke the one-hundred-dollar-a-barrel mark, and declining reserves made it increasingly unlikely that the world's supply would meet future demands.Technology: OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF SIGHT Shortly after a.s.suming the papacy in April 2005, Benedict XVI issued a ”thought of the day” to the Roman Catholic faithful-via a text message on his cell phone.Yup, communications had come a long way since an April day in 1973 when a forty-four-year-old electrical engineer named Martin Cooper hefted a thirty-ounce apparatus to his ear while walking along the street in New York City and made a telephone call, to an engineer who worked for a rival company.In fact, the last half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first saw a vast herd of technological advances that simultaneously made life simpler and easier, and more maddeningly complex:

ERROR, ERROR ERR...

The first attempt to send a message via the Internet was between scientists at UCLA and Stanford University in 1969. The system crashed when the sender got to the g g in in login. login.

-The development of the microprocessor paved the way for the manufacture and sale of ”personal” computers that could be used in the home. By 2007, nearly 270 million personal computers were being sold throughout the world each year.-Originally designed to be a tool for military and scientific intelligence sharing, the Internet became the twentieth century's version of the telegraph. Only the Internet was much more. Coupled with the personal computer, the Internet allowed the development of e-mail and the World Wide Web, a vast electronic compendium of information, opinion, and ideas (oh yeah, and p.o.r.n.)-The development of incredibly powerful microscopes and other tools in the 1980s led to a new scientific field: nanotechnology, which allows scientists to manipulate individual molecules and atoms. Want a stereo system that can sit on the head of a pin? They can do that. Just don't drop it.-Of course all that technology advancing can make one hungry. So in 1967, a U.S. company began marketing a microwave oven that could fit on a countertop and was reasonably safe. By 1975 in the United States, microwave ovens were selling faster than gas ranges, and popcorn has never been the same.

Back to the cell phone. By 1970, scientists had figured out a way to hand off calls from tower to tower. By 1980, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission got around to allocating enough bandwidth to accommodate the growing demand for cell phones, despite their c.u.mbersome size and high price. By 1987, cellular phone subscribers in the United States had reached more than a million.

DOES THIS COME WITH A WAGON TO CARRY IT IN?.

A 1983 Motorola model cell phone weighed nearly two pounds, was shaped like a brick, and cost $3,500.

In Great Britain, meanwhile, engineers were developing a system that allowed cell phone users to send text messages by tapping in letters on the phone's keypad. The first system was in place by 1995; by 1999, more than a billion messages a year were being sent.By 2005, it was estimated about seven hundred million cell phones were being sold each year around the world, with the number expected to top one billion by 2009-meaning that about 40 percent of the world's population would be using the ubiquitous little b.u.g.g.e.rs.Accessorized with cameras, digital music players, and access to the World Wide Web, cell phones had revolutionized modern life, from papal text messages to warning entire populations of looming disasters.In fact, according to a 2004 survey by the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology, the cell phone was the invention people hate the most-but can't do without. Incredibly (or not) it beat out alarm clocks and television.

Major a.s.sa.s.sinations of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries a.s.sa.s.sinations have been viewed throughout human history as an expedient and emphatic-if brutal-method of making a political statement, and the last sixty years have been no different. Here are a few you should probably know something about:John F. Kennedy. The thirty-fifth U.S. president was shot and killed while traveling in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. A crazy former U.S. Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested after the shooting. Two days later, Oswald was shot and killed by a Dallas nightclub owner named Jack Ruby as Oswald was being moved from the Dallas jail. The thirty-fifth U.S. president was shot and killed while traveling in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. A crazy former U.S. Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested after the shooting. Two days later, Oswald was shot and killed by a Dallas nightclub owner named Jack Ruby as Oswald was being moved from the Dallas jail.

Martin Luther King, Jr. The n.o.bel Peace Prizewinning minister and U.S. civil rights leader was in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, to support striking sanitation workers. He was shot and killed while on the balcony of a Memphis motel. An escaped convict named James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder. Ray died in prison in 1998. The n.o.bel Peace Prizewinning minister and U.S. civil rights leader was in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, to support striking sanitation workers. He was shot and killed while on the balcony of a Memphis motel. An escaped convict named James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder. Ray died in prison in 1998.

Anwar Sadat. President of Egypt beginning in 1970, Sadat was the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel. In 1978, he and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin reached an accord that earned them a shared n.o.bel Peace Prize. It also earned Sadat an a.s.sa.s.sination, on October 6, 1981, by a squad of insurrectionists. Several hundred were implicated in the a.s.sa.s.sination, but no one did much prison time. President of Egypt beginning in 1970, Sadat was the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel. In 1978, he and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin reached an accord that earned them a shared n.o.bel Peace Prize. It also earned Sadat an a.s.sa.s.sination, on October 6, 1981, by a squad of insurrectionists. Several hundred were implicated in the a.s.sa.s.sination, but no one did much prison time.

Indira Gandhi. The prime minister of India made the country a nuclear power in 1974. But she also came down hard on dissenting groups. Two Sikhs who were part of Gandhi's bodyguard unit machine-gunned her down in a garden on October 31, 1984, to avenge an army raid she had ordered on a Sikh temple to dislodge extremists. Her murder sparked anti-Sikh riots across India that resulted in the deaths of more than a thousand people. The prime minister of India made the country a nuclear power in 1974. But she also came down hard on dissenting groups. Two Sikhs who were part of Gandhi's bodyguard unit machine-gunned her down in a garden on October 31, 1984, to avenge an army raid she had ordered on a Sikh temple to dislodge extremists. Her murder sparked anti-Sikh riots across India that resulted in the deaths of more than a thousand people.

Yitzhak Rabin. The two-time prime minister of Israel was yet another n.o.bel Peace Prize winner who ended up a.s.sa.s.sinated. Rabin was shot and killed on November 4, 1995, at a peace rally, by a right-wing Israeli law student who opposed the peace accord Rabin had reached with Palestinian leaders. The student, Yigal Amir, was sentenced to life in prison. The two-time prime minister of Israel was yet another n.o.bel Peace Prize winner who ended up a.s.sa.s.sinated. Rabin was shot and killed on November 4, 1995, at a peace rally, by a right-wing Israeli law student who opposed the peace accord Rabin had reached with Palestinian leaders. The student, Yigal Amir, was sentenced to life in prison.

Ben.a.z.ir Bhutto. The daughter of a Pakistani prime minister who was executed after a military coup, Bhutto was herself twice elected that country's prime minister. She returned from exile in 2007 to again run for prime minister. But on December 27, 2007, she was killed while leaving a campaign rally. As of early 2008, her killers had not been caught. The daughter of a Pakistani prime minister who was executed after a military coup, Bhutto was herself twice elected that country's prime minister. She returned from exile in 2007 to again run for prime minister. But on December 27, 2007, she was killed while leaving a campaign rally. As of early 2008, her killers had not been caught.

Some others:Ngo Dinh Diem (1963): first president of South VietnamMalcolm X (1965): black Muslim leaderGeorge Lincoln Rockwell (1967): founder of the American n.a.z.i PartyRobert F. Kennedy (1968): U.S. senator and presidential candidateWasfial-Tal (1971): prime minister of JordanFaisal (1975): king of Saudi ArabiaMujibur Rahman (1975): president of BangladeshHarvey Milk (1978): gay rights leader and San Francisco supervisorGeorge Moscone (1978): mayor of San FranciscoRajiv Gandhi (1991): Indian prime minister, son of Indira GandhiMohamed Boudiaf (1992): president of AlgeriaZoran Dindijc (2003): prime minister of Serbia

SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE...

Change of Heart [image]

As early as the 1700s, scientists had experimented with the idea of replacing damaged human organs with new parts, either organic or mechanical. In 1954, surgeon Joseph Murray conducted the first successful human kidney transplant, and in 1960, Stanford University doctors Norman Shumway and Richard Lower transplanted a heart into a dog, which lived for three weeks.But the first human heart transplant was left to a fifty-five-year-old South African surgeon who had trained with Shumway's Stanford team. Christian Neethling Barnard had become interested in repairing or replacing organs early in his career, after a patient gave birth to an infant with a fatally irreparable heart. On December 3, 1967, Barnard's team took nine hours to move the heart of Denise Ann Darvall, twenty-five, who had been struck by a car, into Louis Washkansky, a fifty-five-year-old businessman who suffered from gross heart failure and was dying.