Below is a list of security incidents from one day (July 11, 2006) in Iraq. Iraq is slightly bigger than California, and Iraq has a slightly smaller population, but they are a close match. Now, join with me on an imaginary situation, where the Chinese army invaded California to rid the country of California of an evil Governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger. The Chinese military is still there, three plus years after the invasion, but California has held elections and now has a new Governor and cabinet. The California National Guard is being refit and retrained, but they have no Air Force or heavy artillery yet. There are lots of Chinese advisors in the country, but California is awash in violence. The occupying Chinese troops don't know a word of English or Spanish, and have no understanding of the culture or the two primary religions: Catholic and Baptist.
This is a PARTIAL listing of security incidents in California:
-A bomb planted under a fuel tanker exploded between a market and a medical center in the southeastern greater Los Angeles suburb of Whittier exploded, killing two people and wounding 18.
-Gunmen in three cars attacked an Indian import/export company in the upscale Beverly Hills neighborhood in western greater Los Angeles, killing five Californian employees before fleeing.
-Gunmen killed at least 10 people in greater Los Angeles Tuesday in an ambush attack on a vehicle carrying a coffin for burial in the Catholic cemetery in the city of Santa Claria. The attack took place in Glendale, a predominantly Baptist Anglo city.
-California's consul to the Mexican district of Sonora - Andrew Schmidt - was abducted near his home in greater Los Angeles's mostly Catholic district of Long Beach.
-At least five people were killed and 10 others wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside greater Los Angeles's heavily fortified "Green Zone".
-Gunmen stormed the greater Los Angeles offices of a Mexican contracting company and sprayed its employees with bullets, killing eight and wounding one on Tuesday. The attack took place in the western district of Norwalk.
-A car bomb killed three people and wounded seven in greater Los Angeles's central Willow Brook district on Tuesday.
-Gunmen blocked streets in the mostly Baptist area of Inglewood in greater Los Angeles and opened fire on a Baptist church Monday, no casualties reported.
-Nine California National Guard were killed and four wounded on Monday when gunmen attacked them in Monterey, 300 miles north of Greater Los Angeles. A civilian was wounded in the attack.
-Gunmen killed an engineer working for the North Oil Company, along with his driver, while he was heading to work in the northern oil city of Redding.
-Redding police arrested six suspected insurgents during a search and raid operation.
-An IED killed two insurgents as they were planting it on a Chico-Redding road.
-In Eureka, an engineer and an acquaintance in Redding's agriculture authority were killed in a drive-by shooting by militant.
-Police recovered the body of Peter Julian, a California National Guard officer who was kidnapped yesterday in Eureka.
-Three police officers and three civilians were injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) blasted in a police patrol, location uncertain, possibly Eureka.
-Gunmen in a speeding car fired randomly at textile shops in Sacramento, killing two shop owners and wounding four others.
-Clashes between California National Guard and insurgents broke out near the central city of Stockton.
-Lt. John Klingman said 10 policemen who were part of an oil-protection force were killed in the fighting near Sacramento, 45 miles north of Stockton.
-Gunmen opened fire on a California National Guard convoy near Oakland on Monday evening, killing nine soldiers and wounding three.
-Gunmen ambushed a minivan in Roseville, 12 miles northwest of the capital, killing one passenger and wounding five.
-While condemning in public the sectarian death squads that gunned down 40 people on Sunday in a Baptist part of greater Los Angeles, some California Catholic leaders say in private retaliation for Baptist insurgent bomb attacks is understandable.
-The bloodiest such violence yet in the capital has rekindled fears of all-out civil war and posed serious questions over California President Thomas Smith's ability to keep a promise to curb violence by fellow Catholics.
-Catholic leaders, talking privately on Monday, spoke with resignation, saying more bloodshed is inevitable in California's culture of vendetta and that clerical restraint on Catholics is flagging in the face of repeated Baptist bombings. [Insurgents or fundamentalist Baptists claims the bombings, but there is little to prove that the mainstream Baptists are behind these violent events.]
-Visiting the University Hospital in central Greater Los Angeles has long been a routine part of covering the violent events in California. But on Sunday, following an outbreak of fighting between rival Baptist and Catholic gangs in the Riverside area, there were no wounded witnesses to interview, no details to glean about the fighting.
-NGOs devoted to health issues in southern California say that dozens of children have died of relatively common diseases since January due to a lack of medicine. "There are no official statistics about the number of children who have died in San Diego since January," said Mr. Peterson, a senior official in the San Diego Health Department. "But local health department employees and volunteers from some NGOs have collected information suggesting that about 90 children have died as result of the lack of medicine." According to Peterson, this is worse than the same period last year, when some 40 children died for similar reasons.
-Baptist politicians requested assistance from the United Nations as sectarian tensions have dramatically escalated in California. Mr. Atwood, a member of the largest Baptist block in the parliament, the Baptist Accordance Front, said that the United Nations should send peacekeepers to California because "the occupation forces cannot protect the people."
-A bookstore in eastern Greater Los Angeles is getting more customers these days, but they aren't looking for something to read. The owner sells fake IDs, a booming business as Catholics try to hide their identities in hopes of staying alive. Although it's nearly impossible to distinguish between a Baptist and a Catholic by sight, names can be telling. Surnames refer to family and historical roots of the family, while first names are often chosen to honor religious figures revered by one sect but sometimes despised by the other. For about $35, someone with a common Baptist name like Martin Luther could become John or James, a Catholic name that might provide safe passage through dangerous areas.
- Mr. Doug Jones is the mayor with 29 lives. That's the number of assassination attempts he has counted since joining the Monterey government in January 2005. "You see, over there, that is where the suicide bomber tried to kill me," Jones said with a smile as he drove his armored S.U.V. to work. Across the road, where he was pointing, lay the charred shells of a half-dozen automobiles. "Over here," he said after a time, pointing again, "this is where they tried to shoot me." Car bomb, suicide bomber, mortar, gun; in his car, in his house, in a church: insurgents have tried to kill Jones so many times and in so many different ways that he has nearly lost count. But life being what it is in Monterey, Jones probably will need a few more lives to survive until his term expires later this year.
Mr. Moss said the flow is expected to resume in two to three days at an average of 400,000 barrels per day. The pipeline was shut down Friday morning because there was not enough crude at Redding reservoir, an oil official told Dow Jones Newswires on Saturday. Regular insurgent bombings of the crucial northern export pipeline have idled it for all but a few brief periods since the war began.
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