The statistics don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. The stealing of the Iran’s June 12 election has been obvious from the start. But that’s the nature of statistics; it’s real value is telling you that you what don’t know, it’s eliminating false positives. Walter Mebane of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor has done the work to show that this disgraceful event really is a fact. I saw his article (pdf) when it first came out in mid-June, but seeing it again in Science News jogged me to talk about it. From SN:

“[Iranian election data] suggests that the actual outcome should have been pretty close,” says Mebane…. The official results showed Ahmadinejad getting almost twice as many votes as his closest rival.

Mebane cautions that the anomalous statistics could imaginably have an innocent explanation, that limited data is available, and that he is not himself an expert on Iranian politics. Nevertheless, he concludes that “because the evidence is so strikingly suspicious, the credibility of the election is in question until it can be demonstrated that there are benign explanations for these patterns.”

[A couple of paragraphs follow discussing the distribution of numbers in real data, known as Benford’s Law.]

When Mebane studied polling station-level data from Iran, he found that the numbers on the ballots for Ahmadinejad and two of the minor candidates didn’t conform to Benford’s Law well at all.

In any fair election, a certain percentage of votes are illegible or otherwise problematic and have to be discarded. When people commit fraud by adding extra votes, they often forget to add invalid ones. Suspiciously, Mebane found that in towns with few invalid votes, Ahmadinejad’s ballot numbers were further off from Benford’s Law — and furthermore, that Ahmadinejad got a greater percentage of the votes.

“The natural interpretation is that they had some ballot boxes and they added a whole bunch of votes for Ahmadinejad,” Mebane says.

Mebane also received data from the 2005 Iran election that aggregated the votes of entire towns…. If Ahmadinejad fared poorly in a particular town in 2005, you wouldn’t expect him to do especially well there in 2009 either. …

The best relationship the model found produced 81 outliers out of 320 towns in the analysis, a strikingly high percentage. Another 91 fit the model, but poorly. In the majority of these 172 towns, Ahmadinejad did better than the model would have predicted.

“This is not necessarily diagnostic of fraud,” Mebane says. “It could just be that the model is really terrible.” But since the first analysis gives evidence of fraud, the cities the model flags as problematic are the sensible ones to scrutinize.

For me, the new bit of data in all that is just how bad they were at faking it. That gives watchdog groups a big opportunity if they can somehow get at the raw data before it’s destroyed.

I only regret that we in the US, with our long string of elections-as-theater, don’t have the Iranian opposition’s fire, and that we do have much more polished cheaters.

Update, Jul 24, 2009. I see today that there was another excellent article on the BBC on this topic, providing yet more examples of voting anomalies.

Iran, election, fraud

BBC headline this morning: Bush condemns ‘bullying’ Russia

Iraqis could not be reached for comment. The spokesman was stuck in a traffic jam caused by yet another new checkpoint.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Russia, Georgia, Iraq, bullies

I’ve been expecting this. The Administration needs a Really Big distraction before the election from everything that’s boiling over on the back burner. Health care, education, house prices, gas prices, Iraq, and the list goes on. The early stages of a war, the stage when it’s all about bunting and heroic young folks trailing clouds of glory, would be just the thing. But, sadly for them, BushCo has used up its capital. I’m not sure that at this point they could get the military to go along with another shooting war. (Congress probably would, but that’s Congress. Don’t get me started on our People’s Chamber of Deputies.) I’m sure BushCo would be glad to waste other people’s lives and money if they thought they could still get away with it, but from a purely Machiavellian standpoint, it’s a very risky strategy that could backfire badly in Peoria.

Enter Israel. That’s the bit I’ve been expecting. If Israel does the shooting, it solves all the problems. There’s a war, with visuals, but /*cough, cough, cough*/ nobody dies /*cough, cough*/. There’ll be a flare of support, because the US needs to stand by a friend, and BushCo will be kept way in the background. And — icing on the cake! — the price of oil will shoot to $200 a barrel through /*cough*/ nobody’s fault /*cough*/ and Cheney’s investments will do even better.

Right on schedule (i. e. US elections schedule) comes this information from the NYTimes, the outfit that did such a good job feeding us sober news indicating we had to do something about Iraq. U.S. Says Exercise by Israel Seemed Directed at Iran

Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. …

A second, the official said, was to send a clear message to the United States and other countries that Israel was prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from producing bomb-grade uranium continued to falter.

“They wanted us to know, they wanted the Europeans to know, and they wanted the Iranians to know,” the Pentagon official said. “There’s a lot of signaling going on at different levels.”

Of course, there is the obligatory disclaimer that there’s nothing to see here, which has the added benefit of making it clear that Israel is an independent actor in all this.

Several American officials said they did not believe that the Israeli government had concluded that it must attack Iran and did not think that such a strike was imminent.

Then, just to make sure that the option of sensible shooting war stays open — nothing overhasty, you understand, more in sorrow than in anger, the Iranians made us do it —

Iran is also taking steps to better defend its nuclear facilities. Two sets of advance Russian-made radar systems were recently delivered to Iran. The radar will enhance Iran’s ability to detect planes flying at low altitude. … American military officials said that the deployment of such systems would hamper Israel’s attack planning, putting pressure on Israel to act before the missiles are fielded.

In completely unrelated news, Western oil majors returning to Iraq.

Technorati Tags: Iran, war, Israel, elections, 2008

I’m relieved to hear she and her family made their way out. I’m depressed that she and her family had to make their way out.

Just go read.

Here’s the situation. For whatever mixed motives, the US deposed one of the world’s outstanding dictators. That’s the good news.

There is no other good news. The US did not and does not fulfill its obligations as an occupier to keep order. The US never fulfilled its obligations as an occupier to count the dead among the occupied. And that’s just the beginning. Read more »

Mark Lilla, professor at Columbia University, has written a long article“The Politics of God” in the Aug. 19, 2007, NYTimes. Shorter Lilla: people who think belief and state should be separated exist, but lots of people want God, the whole God, and nothing but the God. The article explores the history of and people’s need for religion in politics.

[O]ur problems again resemble those of the 16th century, as we find ourselves entangled in conflicts over competing revelations, dogmatic purity and divine duty. We in the West are disturbed and confused. Though we have our own fundamentalists, we find it incomprehensible that theological ideas still stir up messianic passions, leaving societies in ruin. We had assumed this was no longer possible, that human beings had learned to separate religious questions from political ones, that fanaticism was dead. We were wrong.

Really?

Lilla’s analysis is fine if you accept his premise, which is that this is about religion, about people’s sense of their place in the world, about feeling comfortable in the world. But he seems to be forgetting some significant points from very recent history in the course of reaching back to the 1500s. Read more »

Glenn Greenwald annoyed me yesterday. What gives? He’s one of my go-to people for new and useful insights. He’s got no business disappointing me.

What set me off was his column The islamists are coming. In his masterful way, he laughs at the wingnuts who are hot and bothered about the about the imminent Islamist invasion.

Every now and then, it is worth noting that substantial portions of the right-wing political movement in the United States … actually believe that Islamists are going to take over the U.S. and impose sharia law on all of us. And then we will have to be Muslims and “our women” will be forced into burkas and there will be no more music or gay bars or churches or blogs.

Can’t happen here, he said. Not to worry.

Well, duh, but there is a much bigger issue than how wrong the wingnuts are. Just because we aren’t losing rights under sharia over here (we’re losing them for other reasons, of course), doesn’t mean other people aren’t being robbed of their human rights. It IS happening. It is happening over there. That matters. It is no more acceptable over there than it is over here.

In a more perfect world, I carped, he’s writing a column making that clear right now. Well, he has updated that column, pointing out that there are other choices besides believing that ultimate evil comes with cloth on its head or believing that Islamists pose no danger at all.

But he’s still looking at it through a US lens. Read more »

The fighters who do most of the dying in war don’t get special graves. Those most wounded don’t get special hospitals. They don’t get invited to the White House, or to any other Big House. They don’t get armor. They don’t get guns. They get to walk through the soldiers who have all that without anything except courage so huge, we can’t even see it.

Look at this graph from the BBC, and see if anything strikes you about it.

If Rushdie’s knighthood is a huge insult that demands an apology and a retraction of the offending knighthood, then there a few other insults that need to be addressed.

I am deeply offended by the treatment of women in many countries. A heartfelt apology is certainly in order, but even more, I want a retraction. Get rid of all those laws that deprive women of freedom of movement, of the right to vote, of something so damn basic as the right to choose their own clothing.

I am terribly offended that there are still governments who censor political speech. I want to see those practices stopped now, thank you.

I am appalled that there are governments that use torture. I expect to see that stopped — yesterday! — and all those heads of state and their henchmen tried for crimes against humanity.

And if these things aren’t done to my satisfaction, then . . . well, then we come to the difference between me and the Rushdie apoplectics. They talk of racing out and blowing things up. Me? I’ll probably write a strong letter to my blog.

That’s the other difference between me and them: I have a much better time of it.

Technorati tags: Rushdie, knighthood, politics, religion, current events

Bush praising the recent no-strings-attached funding for his occupation of Iraq:

[The bill reflects] “a consensus that the Iraqi government needs to show real progress in return for American’s continued support and sacrifice.”

Meanwhile (via True Blue Liberal) in Baghdad:

A friend who lives in the eastern Shiite slum of Sadr City was talking to a man who had lost a son in a recent bombing. “I am ashamed to talk about it,” said the grieving father. “Why?” asked my friend …. “Because my neighbor just lost all five of his children in one car bombing.”

Some Americans are paying a terrible price.

But, on the other hand, I know what the man in Baghdad means.

So says MSNBC in a breathless article on terrorists swarming in South America.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States …
From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, … Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of many Muslims

Oh, no. Not frustrated Muslims! Anything but that! Over here? Not over there, where they can be safely bombed in a completely unterrorist way? Say it ain’t so!

An investigation by Telemundo and NBC News has uncovered details of an extensive smuggling network run by Hezbollah

Really? Then how come I’ve heard about this hotspot for years? I don’t even remember where I first heard about it (Juan Cole’s blog, Informed Comment?), but it’s nice to know that NBC is capable, given enough time, of finding its backside with both hands.

U.S. officials fear that poorly patrolled borders and rampant corruption in the Tri-border region could make it easy for Hezbollah terrorists to infiltrate the southern U.S. border. …[I]t is easy for potential terrorists, without detection, to book passage to the United States through Brazil and then Mexico simply by posing as tourists.

Wow. Brazil has a border with Mexico? I never knew that. Scary. Wooooo. Oh, wait, if they’re going by land, they’d have to cross, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and then they’d reach Mexico. If they fly, they could — this is even worse, but we have to face facts — they could fly straight from Brazil to the You-nited States!

It is surprisingly easy to move across borders in the Triple Frontier …. A smuggler can bike from Paraguay into Brazil and return without ever being asked for a passport

And by the time he’s finished pedaling the whole Pan-American highway, he’s a solid mass of muscle and completely unstoppable.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Hezbollah militiamen would raise no suspicions because they have Latin American passports, speak Spanish and look like Hispanic tourists.

Someone, quick, get me a field guide to the Hispanic Tourist! I mean, what if I missed one because he looked like Javier Perez de Cuellar?

“People … have planned terrorist attacks from [the Tri-border],” said Luttwak, who has been a terrorism consultant to the CIA and the National Security Council. … “Our experience is that if you see one roach, there are a lot more,” said Frank Urbancic, principal deputy director of the State Department’s counterterrorism office

At this point, I’d had it. If you want to find out what the rest of the article says, you’ll have to read it for yourself. I quit there. In the unforgettable words of Barbara Bush, I don’t want to pollute my beautiful mind.

Technorati tags: terrorism, Tri-border, Triple Frontier, Hezbollah, current affairs

It’s becoming very clear that Iraq’s Oil Law is a give-away to Big Anglo Oil. No surprise there. What’s getting less attention is the so-called benchmarks being discussed in the US Congress. These are supposed to be the end of the free ride Congress has been giving Bush. They’re supposed to show that Iraq is actually accomplishing something with all that US aid that the Americans are firmly convinced they are giving Iraq.

Proof that the Iraqi government is finally getting a grip is that they actually get down to legislative business.

The first (and only?) legislative business they are to take care of is passage of the Oil Law. That’s the benchmark.

But the Oil Law gives away Iraq’s oil wealth and dooms it to being a poor debtor nation for as long as the Paris Club can keep it there. Judging by actions rather than words, grabbing the oil has been Cheney-Bush’s priority from the start. Now it also seems to be the priority of the (supposed) opposition Democrats in Congress.

At least on this issue, the whole pretense at opposition and vetoes is just so much theatre.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is in an impossible position. They’re widely viewed as US puppets. If selling their whole country down the river is a bit much, even for them, the US will pull out the troops propping them up. If they do sell their whole country, the US doesn’t need them for much any more and may stop propping them up.

Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. That’s how you can tell when you’re dancing with the devil.

Technorati tags: Iraq, oil, oil industry, politics, current affairs, Oil Law

Woody Guthrie had a line: “Some men’ll rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen.” The Cheney Administration has realized that it’s not an either-or proposition. “We can do both!” they said.

About 20% of Iraq’s huge oil reserves are currently producing. The other four fifths are in known and potential reserves. (The boffins seem to be rather confident about the potential reserves, because I haven’t seen much dispute about these proportions.)

The oil law says that the revenues from currently producing fields are to be split equally among various Iraqi groups. This is the part that gets the publicity. It’s very nice. It also refers to a mere fifth of the country’s oil wealth.

The other four fifths of Iraq’s oil will be “opened” to investment by foreign oil companies. This is supposedly necessary because of all the cash needed to bring the fields into production.

Funny. I’d noticed that about the oil industry too. It’s so hard to make any money in it that investors with bottomless pockets are essential. They can wait years to turn a profit. There’d be no way for the Iraqis to sell their own oil and make enough money to build infrastructure.

Apparently these investments are structured so that the company keeps all the profits until its costs have been recovered. Judging by the spirit of the thing, the company probably decides when that point has been reached. After that, the company keeps some portion of the profits, such as more than half, for the life of the contract (which typically runs for decades). I’d bet the terms Iraq gives its (fallen) angel investors will be favorable even by industry standards.

I keep thinking the Cheney Administration has sunk so low they’ve hit bottom. And then they keep proving to me that I lack imagination.

(The details of the new oil law above are from Richard Behan in Counterpunch. I haven’t tried to find original sources, since they’re still hidden in specialist publications where the foot of the average schmoe like me hath not trod. This law is currently somewhere in the process of passage. The cabinet has approved a draft, and it is now waiting for parliament. That may be a long wait, since much of Iraq’s parliament spends its time in relative safety outside of Iraq.

Previous posts suspecting this very outcome here and here.)

Technorati tags: Iraq, oil, oil industry, politics, current affairs

It’s good he was convicted. It’s about time somebody in our kleptocracy faced some kind of responsibility for SOMEthing. But, let’s face it, Libby is the smallest of potatoes.

Walk it back: There was a cover up. The cover up was about who made known the name of a CIA agent. The name was made known for revenge on her husband. The husband’s crime was pointing out that Niger was not selling the raw materials for nuclear bombs to Saddam Hussein. There were documents, but the documents were childishly fake. Whoever had forged them had apparently not even bothered to get the right seal on the stationery.

And that’s where the story has sat. It seems to me that the burning question is who forged the damn documents? That should lead straight to the answer we really need, which is why?

Boring version: some two-bit secret agent wanted to make some money by selling the things to gullible journalist(s). It was a convenient story for the Cheney Administration, so they took it and ran with it. If this is the right version, why was Berlusconi’s government (on whose watch the forgeries happened) so obstructionist about finding the culprit?

Staggering version: a real investigation would trace the forgeries back to an interested government, who wanted something suitable for scaring people into war. The amateurish nature of the forgeries argues against this. But the energy with which governments are not looking for the answer argues for it.

Fabricating evidence in a rush to war goes far beyond lying about it.

You see why Scooter and the pathetic cover up is barely a fingernail scratch on the surface.

Passing this new oil law is one of the few things the Iraqi government has accomplished that I’ve heard about. There’s much talk about how this will divide up oil revenues fairly among the different provinces, including the unoiled ones.

Buried in the small print is: “The draft law also lays out method for international companies to invest in Iraq’s oil industry, reports say.” (BBC)

Could we have some details on that, please?

The small print in the Iraq Study Group report mentioned what a good idea it would be to privatize the Iraqi oil industry, and allow foreign companies to take home twice the already large industry-standard share of their profits. (Earlier post on that.) To put it less politely, having reduced Iraq to a condition of helplessness, the US demands money the way people generally do when they’re at the right end of the gun.

So what “methods” of foreign “investment” are laid out in this draft law? Is it the ISG method? If so, sharing oil revenues across provinces is not the real story. The real story is whether Exxon has run off with the pot roast while the Iraqis get to divvy up the crumbs.

Hopefully, it’s not that bad. Hopefully, the draft law allows foreigners to invest, without quotation marks, in Iraq. But it’s very odd that even the BBC and Reuters aren’t saying. It gives me a queasy feeling of being told: “Look over here! Don’t look at the man behind the curtain!”

The BBC has a series of short reports from Iraqi refugees about their lives in exile and, sometimes, the events that precipitated their flight. Heartbreaking, every single one. This one about a woman named Fatima is just one example of the insanity.

It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.