Iraq and Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty comes from an English rhyme dating from at least the late 1700s. As I'm sure most people know, Humpty Dumpty was an egg sitting on a wall, and an egg is held together by a shell. A shell is generally fragile, and when Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and broke, he could not be put back together again.

The area that "generally" is modern Iraq, Mesopotamia, has a prominent place in the story of mankind. Just briefly and superficially, modern Iraq had been part of the pre World War One "Ottoman Empire" of the Turks. The British fought the Turks there during World War One, when the Turks were allied with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The victorious British controlled the area after the war until the early 1930s, when they granted independence to Iraq, which became a kingdom; that is, ruled by a king, and the monarchy was Sunni Muslim. A revolution in the late 1950s ended the monarchy and replaced it with several military leaders over the next few years. Another revolution in the late 1960s brought the Ba'ath Party to power, which eventually brought military leader Saddam Hussein to rule Iraq. As you can see, Iraq has not been an easy country to govern.

Iraq is an overwhelmingly Muslim country, with a relatively small Christian segment, but its Muslim population is divided between a Shia sect majority and a Sunni sect minority. Ethnically, Iraqis are heavily Arabic,* but with a regional Kurdish population in the majority in the far northern area of the country.**

Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Muslim, and although he was a secular leader, religious division in Iraq was important, as was ethnic background, especially for the Kurdish population. Saddam ruled Iraq with an iron fist, invaded neighboring Iran (an overwhelmingly Shia Muslim majority country), invaded and occupied neighboring Kuwait, and ruthlessly suppressed Kurdish attempts at independence. Saddam's occupation of Kuwait in 1990 brought large scale military action against his forces by an American led coalition, which included other Arab and Muslim nations. After his defeat and a ceasefire, there were uprisings in Kurdish and Shia areas of the country, but Hussein responded with military actions to successfully put down the insurrections and keep himself in power, although through the United Nations, "no fly zones" were set up, which prohibited Iraqi aircraft to fly in certain parts of the country, thus limiting attacks on certain groups. The ceasefire agreement ending the war imposed tough trade sanctions on Iraq and called for Iraq to destroy all chemical weapons and to abandon any attempt to develop nuclear weapons. U.N. inspectors were to verify compliance with the destruction of chemical and biological weapons and production facilities, as well as verify that there was no development of nuclear weapons. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minster Tony Blair launched air and missile strikes in the late 1990s on a number of targets in Iraq, as Saddam interfered with weapons' inspectors, accusing some inspectors of being spies for the U.S.  

Following the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the U.S. and its allies commenced military operations in Afghanistan to chase the ruling Taliban from power, along with Al Qaeda operatives and trainees, who had been given sanctuary there by the Taliban. President George W. Bush and members of his administration, most notably, Vice President Dick Cheney, then tied Saddam Hussein to the Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11.*** With Saddam's interference with weapons' inspectors, the fear developed in the Bush administration and elsewhere, that Hussein was hiding various weapons and that he would get biological, chemical, and perhaps some type of nuclear weapon, all of these collectively known as "weapons of mass destruction, or 'WMD,' " into the hands of Al Qaeda terrorists. The administration began a concerted effort to present a case for war against Iraq to the American, and even the world, public. The 9/11 attacks had shaken not only the United States, but much of the world, as the attacks demonstrated the commitment of religious fanatics to wage war on those, even other Muslims, who did not share in their beliefs. This mindset led many Americans and others to assume the worst from the "evidence" provided by the Bush administration.**** Vice President Cheney assured Americans that invading forces would be greeted as liberators. (See NBC's "Meet The Press" for March 16, 2003)

The invasion of Iraq quickly toppled Saddam Hussein, who was found months later hiding in a hole outside his hometown of Tikrit. It didn't take long for the jubilation over Saddam's fall to turn to anger and despair, as the war ravaged country saw the emergence of armed religious factions and Al Qaeda groups fighting not only the occupying forces, but each other, creating a civil war type situation, with occupying forces and humanitarian personnel caught in the middle. Bombings and kidnappings became common, with many a terrible death attributed to both. So now there was an Iraq of Sunnis, an Iraq of Shia, and a northern region of Iraq of Kurds. All of this combined with an element of a nation unaccustomed to any form of democracy. Gradually "a general sense of order" came to be restored by the occupying forces, which also took to providing training for Iraqi police and military units, but periodic attacks on installations, occupying troops and Iraqi police and military units continued. A national election was held and a new Iraqi government, led by Shia Muslim Nouri al Maliki, as prime minister, was installed. With Iraq a majority Shia country, Sunnis feared exclusion in governing the country. The Kurds successfully secured regional self government, while remaining as a part of Iraq.***** With Americans growing increasingly disenchanted with American involvement (and mounting casualties) in Iraq, and with many Iraqis wanting to take full control of their country, President George W. Bush negotiated an agreement to withdraw all U.S. forces by the end of 2011, which indeed took place.

Prime Minister Al Maliki has maintained close relations with neighboring Shia majority Iran, and his relations with other Middle Eastern nations is more sketchy, especially with those, like Saudi Arabia, which have a Sunni majority. Since the withdrawal of occupying forces, attacks on public places and on military and police installations have continued, seemingly more by some radical and militant Sunnis.****** More recently, "ISIS" ("Islamic State of Iraq and Syria"), a highly radical Sunni militia group and offshoot of Al Qaeda, has been advancing deep into Iraq from Syria, threatening the capital of Baghdad. This has brought a call to arms by Shia religious and public leaders to defend the city and to defeat ISIS, which, if reports are correct, and they certainly seem to be, has massacred untold numbers of Iraqis in the areas they have captured. In the north, the independent minded Kurds have a substantial army of their own to guard their territory, and their forces have generally been deemed to be much better than many of the Iraqi forces that have thus far faced ISIS. Many Iraqi units collapsed with barely a fight, and reports indicate that many men discarded their uniforms and threw away their weapons. The U.S. is in the process of sending about 300 "advisers" to Iraq to provide further training and such to Iraqis. To me, the idea that 300 men with such a task will have a major impact is ridiculous. "My guess" is, the men will act as "spotters" to call in American airstrikes (or missile strikes), if the President decides to so act.

Recent polls show that Americans now think the invasion of Iraq was not worth the cost. The problem is, the invasion, which found no weapons of mass destruction, may have toppled Saddam Hussein, but it also toppled the Humpty Dumpty of Iraq from his wall, and while the rhyme dates from the 1700s, no one has yet figured out how to put Humpty back together again. The situation is terrible, with few, if any, good options, but the sending of any major U.S. forces has so far been ruled out by the President and it seems even some typically bellicose members of Congress are reluctant to call for armed intervention, but we'll see, since if some had their way, the U.S. would have troops stationed in far more places around the world than we already do.

* The Arabic language is part of the Semitic family of languages, which includes Hebrew, among others.

** The Kurds are closely related to the Persians, and the Kurdish language (and its dialects) is Indo European, making it related to English, but further down the family tree.

*** For a little more on the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, see my article: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2013/02/its-about-coalitions-not-purity-part_25.html

**** To be clear here, not all Americans were convinced by the administration provided "evidence," nor were the leaders of many other nations, as the military coalition assembled by George W. Bush was nowhere near the size of that put together by his father in 1990. "Generally," polls showed around 60% of Americans supported a war against Iraq with U.N.approval, but slightly less than 50% supported such a war without U.N. approval. (See prewar polls by Gallup, ABC/Washington Post, CNN/USA Today)

***** In theory, the Kurds had been granted a form of regional self rule by Saddam long before, but he never adhered to the agreement, instead using force against the Kurds. Such "semi-autonomous" setups are not unknown, as the long contested German majority areas of "Alsace-Lorraine" in France achieved such after World War Two, and likewise, as did the German majority area of South Tyrol in Italy after World War Two. In these cases, much self government was granted, which guaranteed the German language and cultural heritage of the regions, but the areas also remained a part of France and Italy, respectively, and the people were citizens of those respective nations. Finland too was a largely self governing grand duchy of the Russian Empire during the 1800s and up until 1917.

****** Just from news reports I've seen, not all Sunnis support ISIS, and indeed many fear ISIS, which has a reputation for atrocities, and has been imposing strict Islamic law in conquered areas. Americans take note! This is what can happen when super reactionary groups want to take a country far back in time.

WORD HISTORY:
Far-This word goes back to Indo European "per," which the notion of "beyond." Its Old Germanic offspring was "ferro," ^ which meant "beyond, further." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "feorr," which meant "distant, far, remote" (also used in terms of time), and this later became "far." The other Germanic languages have: German has "fern," Low German "feern," West Frisian "fier," Dutch "ver," Danish and Norwegian "fjern," Icelandic "fjar-," and Swedish "fjärr."

^ The Indo European "p" often became "f" in its Old Germanic offshoot.

Will Putin Now Take Advantage?

With Iraq drawing the attention of the U.S. and many in Europe, will Russia's Vladimir Putin, somewhat quiet in the last few weeks, now make further moves against Ukraine? Ukrainian military actions against the pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine have been somewhat limited, but what if Ukrainian leaders decide to let their military forces actually do more to crush the rebels? This will undoubtedly land Putin on the hot seat, since if he takes military action of his own, even heavier economic sanctions from other nations against Russia will likely result, but if he sits still, the pro-Russian rebels are apt to be crushed.

WORD HISTORY:
Forth-This goes back to the Indo European root "per/por," which meant "move or go forward." This gave Old Germanic "furtha," with the same general meaning. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "forþ" (meaning "forwards, onwards, move away from a place"), with the last letter being an Old English form later represented by "th," which gave English "forth," and it has endured as such for centuries. Other Germanic languages have: German "fort," which implies movement away from someplace or someone, as in "sie ist fort" ("she is gone"), Low German "foort" (forth, away) Dutch "voort" ("forth, away"). Frisian apparently no longer uses a form of the word, although it once did, and Old Norse, the forerunner of modern Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Swedish. also had a form, which apparently died out at some point.

Do They Have Any Idea Where That Airplane Is?

NOTE: It has now been one year since this plane was reported missing. From all I've read or heard on the news, no debris has ever been found, nor were there any reports of an explosion or unexplained fire reported by people on land, that might have indicated a ground crash. Just think of the poor families having to deal with the unexplained disappearance of their loved ones. I did this back in June of 2014, but I wanted to post it again.  

Back on March 8 of this year (2014), Malaysian Flight 370 was reported missing with 239 passengers and crew on board. The torture for the families of the missing people has had to be terrible. Since the very beginning there has been a farcical attempt by Malaysian authorities to explain where the plane might be, with all sorts of twists and turns. All the inept handling of the situation has caused even more excruciating pain for the traumatized families. Various nations, including the United States and China, have committed resources of some type to trying to locate the plane, which authorities have assumed crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean. In this modern, mixed up, crazy world we live in, where technology has given governments the likely ability to know what their citizens ate for breakfast, these same countries can't locate, or even state with total certainty, what the hell happened to a large airplane carrying 239 people. I just wish the authorities would come out and state the obvious, "We don't know where this plane is." Further, if they don't know where it is, how do they know it didn't land somewhere? I know that's wishful thinking, but it's hardly less credible than all of the places they say this plane went down. Authorities have had this plane located all over the place, but nothing has been found, not even debris of any kind. A scriptwriter couldn't make up the kind of stuff the poor families have had to put up with.

WORD HISTORY:
Bit-This word, closely related to "bite," and generally meaning "a small amount," goes back to Indo European "bheid," which had the notion "to split." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "bitanan," meaning "to bite," and then the derived noun form "biton," meaning "a bite." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "bita" ("a piece bitten off, a morsel"), which later became just "bit," with the meaning expanding to "a small amount." This also came to be used for "the piece on a drill" and "the piece for a horse's mouth," and it likely influenced the computer term "bit," which is a contraction of "binary digit." The other Germanic languages have forms of the word which are the same as English "bite," but German has "bißchen" (also written "bisschen") and the more southern "bissel," ^ both meaning "a little, a bit, a small amount;" and Low German has "beten," meaning "a small amount, a bit," thus the same general meanings as their English cousin.

^ The Germanic dialects that spread southward in Europe underwent some pronunciation changes (called "sound shifts"). These dialects generally spread into hilly and mountainous terrain, as compared to northern Europe, and they came to be called "High German," which later came to provide much of the basis for modern standard German. One of the sound changes was "often" for "t," which became "s" or "ss" in High German; thus English has "kettle," but German has "Kessel" (all German nouns are capitalized), English has "white," but German has "weiss," and, as above, English has "bit," but German has "biss(chen). The "-chen" is called a diminutive; that is, it makes something "smaller" or "endearing;" thus "bißchen" = literally "a small bite."

"It's About Coalitions, Not Purity" Part Forty-Two

"Medicare Prescription Benefit"

Before I move directly to George W. Bush's second term, I want to touch on the Medicare changes enacted in late 2003, which resulted in a great deal of prescription drug coverage being added to the program, but the law didn't fully take effect until 2006, during Bush's second term. The 2003 Medicare reform law pushed by President Bush had many complexities and not all prescriptions were covered under all circumstances. The bill was controversial on both sides of the aisle. While most Democrats had favored providing a prescription coverage element to Medicare for some time, they also generally charged the Bush proposed legislation gave too much power to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries,* and that it further pushed "a move toward privatization," ** with the Medicare Advantage segment. Hardline conservatives generally opposed any expansion of Medicare, citing the costs and the deficits being run in the federal budget. Prior to the congressional vote, the Bush administration released a projected cost of $400 billion dollars for the prescription plan over ten years, but within weeks of passage, the administration released a new cost projection of more than $500 billion over the same time period, especially bringing more criticism from conservatives. The final bill was passed and signed into law by President Bush. The vote in Congress: House of Representatives vote: 220 for (204 R-16 D) and 215 against (25 R-189 D- 1 I) and the Senate vote: 54 for (42 R-11 D-1 I) and 44 against (9 R-35D), 2 not voting (2-D).***

* The law prohibited Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices, and the law required seniors to choose an insurance company or HMO for the prescription benefit, but that participation in the prescription program was purely by individual choice; that is, it was voluntary.

** Like with everything medical, changes to Medicare in 1997 were complex and to try to keep this as simple as possible, the law introduced "Medicare + Choice," which generally allowed seniors the option of having a private insurance company (or HMO) plan to cover their basic part of Medicare (hospital stays, physicians and outpatient tests and procedures), "plus" other coverage and pricing structures beyond those of traditional Medicare, but with Medicare paying a standard fee to the private companies for each senior. The insurance companies "could" charge seniors a monthly premium or higher copays for certain services, in addition to their premiums going directly to Medicare. The 2003 changes to Medicare brought prescription coverage to traditional Medicare, which the private plans usually already offered, which brought changes to how the private plans were to be compensated by Medicare. The "Medicare + Choice" program was renamed "Medicare Advantage." Critics of both the 1997 and 2003 changes argued that with seniors who were better off financially able to essentially pay for extra services outside of Medicare, that eventually only the poor and sickly seniors would be left in traditional Medicare, making them vulnerable to cuts in medical benefits, and perhaps an eventual abandonment of Medicare altogether by politicians, as healthier seniors and those with more financial means could actually save money and get better coverage by going to private plans. Remember, private companies have to make a profit and the easiest way to do so is to insure people who are healthier and thus "less likely" to use expensive medical services. Of course this was before the health care reforms of 2010.

*** Just a note: Later, Republicans Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum criticized "entitlements," but both voted "for" the Medicare expansion in 2003. Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was no longer in Congress at that time, offered support for the legislation, later to join in the criticism of entitlements.    

WORD HISTORY:
Shave-This word goes back to Indo European "skahb," which meant "to scrape, to scratch." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "skaban(an)," with the same meanings, which then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "sceafan/scafan," meaning "to shave, to scrape." These then became "shaven" (meaning "to shave"), before the modern version. Later the noun form, "a shave," was derived from the verb from the notion "something shaven" or "something shaved off." Both "shaven" and "shaved" are used for participle forms, with "shaven" especially used as an adjective, as in, "The witness said the man has a clean shaven face." "Shaved" is also the past tense form, shared with the now archaic "shove" (long "o"). By the way, English also once had the noun "scafa," which meant "plane;" that is, "tool for planing, shaving wood," but modern "shaver" "seems" to be derived or patterned after it. The other Germanic languages have: German "schaben" ("to scrape," "to plane," also somewhat less often, "to shave"), also the German noun "Schaber" ("scraper"); Dutch and Low German "schaven" ("to plane"); West Frisian "skave" ("to scrape, wear down"); Swedish "skava" ("to scrape"); Icelandic "skafa" ("to scrape"). Neither Danish nor Norwegian "seem" to use a form of the word in their standard modern languages.

"What If I Can't Make A Gazillion," Is Not The Important Question

"What if I can't make a gazillion," is not the important question. The far more important question for most people is, "What if I can't make enough to support myself or my family?" Let's stop worrying about trying to soothe the insatiable egos of millionaires and billionaires and focus on the rest of society. The super wealthy won't miss one meal or be forced to sleep under a bridge or in an alley or in substandard housing, or forgo medicine or medical treatment, or plastic surgery, or hair implants, or a trip to Paris to sample the latest French wine. They'll be just fine, except for their insatiable egos, which will be just as insatiable, even if they make a gazillion ... or two ... or ten. They are NOT a poor, oppressed minority.

WORD HISTORY:
Corn-English has a couple of words "corn," but this is the noun meaning "grain." It is related to "kernel," and it goes back to the Indo European root "ger," which had the notion, "wear down;" thus also, "to mature," which produced "gerhanom," which meant "grain;" that is, "a larger grown object 'worn down by maturity.' " This gave Old Germanic "kurnan/kurnam," meaning "a small seed from a plant." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "corn," where it has remained for centuries and centuries, and which meant "grain." The discovery of the New World and the native plant "maize," a term picked up by Spanish from the Caribbean Islands, came to be applied to the plant itself, from the idea of the kernels being "corn;" that is, "grains," but that more exclusive, specific meaning remains largely North American English, although this is certainly understood and used in other English speaking areas, including in England itself, where the dual meanings exist. The other Germanic languages have: German "Korn" (grain),^ Low German "Koorn" (grain, see German note below), Dutch "koren" (grain, maize^^), Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Swedish all have "korn" (grain), with varying degrees as to the frequency of usage. Frisian no longer uses a form of the word, although it had "korn."

^ The German noun "Korn," meaning "grain," is grammatically neuter; thus "das Korn," but German also has the grammatically masculine form, "der Korn," which is a type of schnapps made from grain, which in the Low German of the northern part of Germany is "Koorn."

^^ The Dutch were once involved in the New World for a time. Whether they picked up the maize=corn meaning then, or borrowed it from English, I'm not sure.