Silflay Hraka

The Ninth Circle of Hell, No Waiting

The person who Carolina should get rid of is not Matt Doherty, but Dick Baddour. Stabbing a couch in the back like this is unforgivable. Doing it to one with a winning record is unfathomable. Doherty was screwed from the start thanks to the inept recruiting of Bill Guthridge, nice guy though he was, and had just begun to turn the corner when Baddour cut him off at the knees.

In his first three years as Carolina’s basketball coach, Dean Smith had only one winning season. If Dick Baddour had been athletic director then, that would have been it for Dean Smith, and God only knows what the program would look like now.

Carolina is supposed to be different. We’re supposed to have some damn class. But it seems we’re fresh out. I hope this “national search” fails, miserably. I hope Roy Williams gives us the finger. No coach with an ounce of sense or a stable position should come here, because we just forced a guy who won 53 games in three years to resign. I hope the players transfer and Clemson wins in Chapel Hill next year for the first time, ever. I want UNC-Wilmington to out-recruit us, and for the Carolina basketball program to not make the NCAA tournament for the next 20 years. I hope Matt Doherty goes to Duke and kicks our ass twice a year until he’s 112.

Because right now, it’s no less than we deserve.

Updates: The Sporting News calls Baddour “witless”, and also notices the giant sucking sound where Carolina’s class used to be.

The Indianapolis Star – Monday: Meet with players and their uncles. Tuesday: Meet with players and their best friends from high school who think they should go for 30 a game. Wednesday: Meet with players and Shirley, their favorite Waffle House waitress.

Here’s an adult who cares what you think. Pay Doherty back.

The Mercury News - The whispers and innuendo were beneath a program of Carolina’s class, and Baddour, Moeser and Smith did nothing to stop them. Doherty yelled, cursed and threw players out of practice? So what! Grow up and deal with it. If anything more egregious happened, Baddour and Moeser should say so.

Carolina’s leadership, from Moeser down, is house-of-cards weak. Why, they don’t even know when to force a resignation. Here Williams is chasing a national championship for Kansas this week, and now his alma mater creates a circus, replete with questions about his possible candidacy.

Transcript of the Baddour press conference.

The official statements of Doherty, Baddour, and Chancellor Moeser.

Kyle Still, Carolina student and blogger, also has some thoughts on Doherty.

The Charlotte Observer – A university is more than a collection of stately old buildings and new ideas. It’s a place where young women and men argue, debate, exchange ideas and pursue truth.

“Hark the sound of Tar Heel voices, Ringing clear and true.”

An opposing view, but one that nonetheless endorses the viewpoint that it was Doherty’s attempt to be his own man that doomed him.

Heart of Stone

This is going to sound very unsympathetic, but I can’t help it. The story of our soldiers killing the vanload of women and children is playing on the television news more than I am comfortable with. Is it a tragedy? Yes. Do I wish it could have been avoided? Absolutely. But the fact is, it can’t be avoided. If a van, bus, car, motorcycle, scooter or tricycle does not stop when requested by our military, we do not have much of a choice but to open fire on the vehicle. If women and children are in the car then we will have to deal with them as casualties of war, but we cannot afford to take that risk.

I find it incredibly funny, not ha-ha funny, but “Hey, isn’t that odd?” kind of funny, that the Iraqi government will show these deaths as evidence that the coalition forces are targeting civilians and wish to kill as many innocent people as possible. At the same time, the Iraqi military will put women and children in front of their tanks and vehicles as human shields. If you think for one minute that they actually give a rat’s ass about the people killed in that van then you have not been paying attention. I’m sure that Peace Mongers have already made up posters with this incident as further evidence that we should not be fighting this war, but their anger is misplaced. I’m sure those Peace Mongers don’t really understand what our troops are going through, and many of them are participating in these marches simply because their friends are, or because marching for peace just sounds like the right thing to do. Many of my students blindly attend peace gatherings because “Who wouldn’t want peace?” WE ALL WANT PEACE JACKASSES!!!! It’s just sometimes people feel we have to wage war to get a more stable peace. Do NOT take this as a whole-hearted endorsement of this war, because it is not. It’s just that we are at war, and I WILL NOT participate in actions that the soldiers could take as a lack of support. Saying, “We support our troops, but not the war” is the lamest thing I have heard in weeks, and the people saying that are missing the boat. We are at war, and I will support our troops. Perhaps I will protest by not participating in “Support for War” marches, but not by peace marches either.

Our troops had to shoot those people in the van because they could have easily been carrying an assload of explosives in the back. Believing that this government would not use such people to carry out these attacks is irresponsible. While I do wish the tragedy had not occurred, I see that our forces had very little choice. I’m sure they will live with this for the rest of their lives………..and for that Saddam should pay dearly .

Iraqi Bioweapons Facilities

Abu Ghurayb – Visited once by Hans Blix’s team, who inspected exactly one laboratory in the 500,000+ meter facility. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

Al-Dawrah/Al-Manal – Visited by UNMOVIC inspectors on 11/29/2002. Reported as out of operation. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

Al Safa/ Fudaliyah – No report of a visit by UNMOVIC inspectors to this facility could be found, even though it was considered facility of some importance by a former UNSCOM inspector, and was listed as a likely location for the study of fungal toxins by UNMOVIC. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

An Nasiriyah – No report of a visit by UNMOVIC inspectors to this facility could be found. Could the possible presence of banned weaponry be another reason why the resistance in that area has been so prolonged?

Aqaba Establishment – No report of a visit by UNMOVIC inspectors to this facility could be found. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

al-Masbar – Located in Baghdad. No report of a visit by UNMOVIC inspectors to this facility could be found. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

Al Hakam – Destroyed by UNSCOM in 1996. Not visited since. Some equipment used in the plant was later removed by Iraqi in violation of an agreement with UNSCOM.

Hans Blix on Al Hakam
“…….UNMOVIC estimates that about 21,000 liters of biological warfare agent was stored in bulk at locations remote from Al Hakam. About half of this, about 10,000 liters was anthrax,”
……………
“It therefore seems highly probable that the destruction of the bulk agent, including anthrax, stated by Iraq to be at Al Hakam in July-August 1991 did not occur…….”
Al Hakam has not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

Latifiyah / Latifiya – UNMOVIC missile inspectors inspected the Al-Qa’qa complex, which Latifiyah is a part of. No report of a visit by UNMOVIC biological inspectors to this facility could be found. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

Salman Pak – “engaged in laboratory scale research on Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, Clostridium, perfringens (gas gangrene), mycotoxins, aflatoxins, and Ricin. Researchers at this site carried out toxicity evaluations of these agents and examined their growth characteristics and survivability,” but is more famous as a terrorist training camp. Partially inspected by an IAEA nuclear team on February 4th. An aerial inspection was carried out by UNMOVIC biological inspectors in January. There were no ground inspections of the facility by a biological team before UNMOVIC left Iraq. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

Samarra/Muthanna State Establishment – Visited by UNMOVIC chemical and IAEA nuclear inspection teams. UNMOVIC chemical teams destroyed a number of chemical weapons in early February. There are no reports of a trip to the Muthanna State Establishment by UNMOVIC biological inspectors. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

Taji Single Cell Protein Plant – An active facility. Supposedly inspected on Dec. 25th, 2002. No inspection summary is listed. The Al-Taji compound, which is it is a part of , has been visited by IAEA nuclear and UNMOVIC missile inspectors, who destroyed several AL-Samoud missiles there. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

Tareq – An Al-Tareq insecticide company was visited by a UNMOVIC chemical team on January 6th, but it is unclear if these sites are the same or not. Regardless, no visit by a UNMOVIC biological team was found. Not yet reached by coalition ground forces.

Notes:
1.) mini-fisk: The BBC on Iraqi biological weapons “Iraq’s discontinued germ warfare programme…”. Saddam said it was discontinued, so it must be true.

2.) A complete list of Iraqi Special Weapons Facilities can be found here.

3.) A Landsat Satellite Image of Central Iraq showing some of the locations above may be seen here.

4.) Summaries of all UNMOVIC inspections may be found here

5.) The UNMOVIC biological inspectors aerial survey – UNMOVIC biological inspectors conducted for the first time aerial inspections of several sites, including Fallujah 2, Fallujah 3, the Agricultural and Biological Research Center, the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center and former biological research facilities at Salman Pak.

The Fallujah sites are known to be chemical warfare sites, and the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center is, well, nuclear. Why were biological inspectors doing aerial surveys of these areas while known biowarfare sites got no attention paid to them whatsoever? The Agricultural and Biological Research Center is located in Baghdad. None have been reached by coalition ground forces.

6.) Salman Pak/Salam Pax? Inquiring minds want to know.

7.) With the number of teams that he had to coordinate (nuclear, chemical, missile biological and who knows what else), and the staggering number of sites to visit, it’s amazing that Hans Blix found anything at all. Given the enormous complexities involved in the inspection process, even a throroughly incompetent regime could have successfully hidden most of its banned weapons for the limited time that inspections went on.

8.) Most of the banned weapons sites are close to Baghdad, so they probably won’t be adequately inspected until after the war.