The Nuclear Roulette Table
April 13, 2012
America declaring war on Iran because it may be developing nuclear weapons is a war without precedent or meaning. MAD is total faith in an endgame scenario. Iran would be extremely stupid to get a bomb, but then look who is in the club of the stupid. Gambling is stupid and the stakes are so high it would be robbing a future in the same way that the USSR collapsed and the economies of the West appear to be in terminal tailspin. Nuclear proliferation is the game with no winner like that one with a revolver, five bullets and four players.
Nuclear proliferation is an expensive shield and humanity hides under a shadow of total annihilation for idealogical enforcement or redundant residual racism? The world does not want a nuclear Iran, nor the tens of thousands of these weapons pointed at each other. Nuclear proliferation is an extremely expensive path.
Homs
February 9, 2012
9 Feb AM – Homs
The shelling of civilians by the Syrian Government forces is a civil war crack down by a brutal Ba’athist regime of Bashir al-Assad against a popular uprising in the Arab Spring.
9 Feb LATE – UPDATE: The slaughter continues.
“The patterned plastic sheets the medics had placed on the floor were slick with blood and iodine as more and more war wounded were brought in by their colleagues.” – The Guardian
10 Feb AM – MORE: Obama.
Obama speaks out against outrageous bloodshed as 100 people are confirmed dead due to the military slaughter by the Syria Armed forces attacking its own citizens.
President Bashir al-Assad’s acts of genocide to suppress a viable opposition to his rule. This kind of act usually results in a more widespread and more determined underground effort. Al-Assad appears to suffer the same delusions that George Bush did – that hard assault will quell an enemy when the reverse is true.
Any appeal to the humanity of the situation is lost under the rain of rockets. Al-Assad has shown the world that he is a dangerous criminal and nobody welcomes a war criminal.
Korean Intervention
June 29, 2011
Korea appears to be simmering and bristling with weapons and threat in the most sustained unresolved civil war that could it seems erupt into further provocations by the North and responses of increasing violence from the South. American forces intervened in this war in the early fifties and US bases have been operational since. It seems to be a war of one of the most technologically advanced societies against a lunging starving beast with big guns. To the mind of a North Korean, the weight of evil may appear to be from the South and their weapons. The intervention does not appear to have removed the threat but sustains its presence but suspending violence until the weapons are too horrible to contemplate. Maybe that is why military spending keeps racing ahead of society – it is only possible to render your enemy unable to attack you if you can punish them even more than they can punish you.
“We are now in the most dangerous moment in Korean history over the last 25 years,” said Andrei Lankov, a Russian professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University. “South Korea has already committed itself to a strong reaction to a future North Korean provocation so many times and so loudly that if they don’t do it they will lose elections and be shamed.
Freedom
January 13, 2010
UK Police have had an EEC ruling against stop and search activities.
In the meantime, a Muslim group has been denied their right of protest and have been labelled a terrorist group. This seems a popularist measure by the Brown Government increasingly clutching at straws to find votes in the upcoming election Labour seems destined to lose. Having moved too far right, they will almost certainly lose as the Conservatives seem to put on a more moderate face. I have seen this sort of political reversal happen in New Zealand.
And enquiries into Britain’s role in starting the Iraq war with George Bush is being defended by Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s master of spin.
Politics is the art of finding the middle ground. The war with Al Qaeda has been detrimental to the life of Great Britain but hardly as devastating as it has been to Iraq civilian life. Similarly, the war in Afghanistan seems, from the outside, to be a war against the poppy and criminal ideals. Terrorism is a political act when it creates a threat to everyday life. But Britain lived through its own Blitz in WWII and the threat of terror attacks is not going to stop this once world ruling nation from defending itself.
Freedom is too important to ignore. But is the medicine proscribed by Bush, Blair and now Brown any good for freedom? Not if the laws they enact reduce individual freedom. I returned to the UK expecting stop and search and intrusions by the law to be hard to deal with, but so far, I see people being indoctrinated behind their brick walls into being frightened of each other. The police presence is extreme but accepted. Most of the coppers go about their guardianship of civilised behaviour with good will and life goes on.
Google is concerned that Chinese hacking of freedom activists’ gmail accounts has raised question by the US Government and a threat by Google of pulling out of google.cn completely. This will mean less freedom for the most populated country in the world.
Meantime, earthquakes destroy Haiti and millions die the world over from disease and starvation. Is this emphasis on terrorism all that wise? Are the acts of Osama bin Laden really going to make any difference in terms of Islam? Probably not. It is just a dirty war that will be over in another 2000 years or so.
Or both sides could signal an end to hostilities and the start of toleration and freedom.
Yeah, right.
Afghanistan worsens
June 14, 2008
As Dennis Kuchinich reads his charges for impeachment of GW Bush and Dick Cheney, the folly of their actions is starting to kill more Americans in Afghanistan than Iraq, for the last month at least. This is partly due to “the surge” in Iraq reducing insurgency by killing more “terrorists” and others, but also to increased Taleban activity and the Al Qaeda leadership who continue to find sheltered and a base of resistance in Pakistan. But there are so many more soldiers in Iraq that each American death in Afghanistan is proportionately more “damage value” to the opposing side.
Reading the article linked above (click on the heading, or right-click to open it in a new tab*) makes me feel that there is an effort to say it is too hard to find Osama and this will be – or will be attempted to justify a limited nuclear strike to cut the head from the dragon, so to speak. There does seem to be a gathering force to expose evident obsessiveness of the American leadership combined with moral blindess and apparent illiteracy. Heading his old Press guy go public with his New York Times best seller – you distictly get the impression that as long as these guys run the USA, the world is playing Russian Roulette.
That another irrationally struck war or action this President could take to ease his frustration with the non-progress on his “War on Terror” – terrorism is worse than before but draconian Homeland Security has increased the risk to Al Qaeda operatives. As unbelieveablely huge and inefficient the DHS may be, it does require terrorists to fill out lots of forms, a sort of medevil test of guilt, perhaps.
But the DHS is more effective than the US forces are fighting a nonsensical war against all takers who want to try their luck in this human landscape video game emulation. It is a failure of Islam to allow youths to be so stupidly killed by overwhelming force. It is a failure of Christianity to allow its leader to justify committing crimes against humanity with a pack of lies.
The fierce war in Afghanistan/Pakistan threatens the United States of America. The insurgency in Iraq is a self inflicted wound.
*or update your browser to the latest Firefox 3, or Opera, or IE8 when it arrives
The end of war
June 9, 2008
The End of War is a notion, certainly, but it is also a statement of intent. Many do not understand war as anything other than a force that some evil leads our side into, until our side bluffs its way into warfare and we then question if our leadership really does know what it is doing, what right it has to life and death and what the limits on use of armies as police are, and why.
Leadership has to be more than bravery and, let’s face it, being suckered up to by the manufacturers of weapons that require Governments to consume their armanents to stay in business is a source of election funding.
Americans may blame Jimmy Carter for things that were economic consequences of the massive cost of Vietnam. When shall we learn the Republican adventure is actually a larger and more expansionalist form of Government?
Tradition and history
April 27, 2008
We reflect on the heroes of past wars. And wear poppies to celebrate their pointless loss. Films of children on the news, five year olds saying lest we forget – “they gave their lives so we could be free” one blonde six year old deliberately spells out for us incase we did not see it. They were talking about the twenty thousand young ANZACs slaughted on the beach at Gallipoli during WW1.
She seemed too young to understand why exactly those young men gave their lives. She seemed too innocent to understand what privations and horror those young men suffered, or would have suffered if their military achivements were not cut short in perhaps their very first day of battle. A soldier dead on a beach landing does not make invasion more successful. It does not advance the cause.
The use of landing craft was so much more effective at Dunkirk. But many were killed. The tradition has now outlived its use, parachute them in or use air strikes if you have to eliminate hard targets. War is evolving, on both sides of the divide.
If North Korea have been more active in exporting nuclear expertise, according to Israel and reason for bombing an alleged reactor in Syria that the US has kept secret until now, and this latest revelatation that Kim Jong-il (the “genius”) has figured out a way to counter the US first strike advantage bestowed on it by superior gun power. Military evolution at the expense of the people? Is this shocking?
All military evolution is at the expense of people.
If the US had spent just half of what they expended on the Iraq war, they could have fixed their health and education and the next generation of children educated there would not culturally short circuit the moment you say “learn from history”.
The Traditions of Warfare have no meaning in today’s world. The West routinely tortures and does not respect the rights of citizens to exist free of political interference. Politics was invented to prevent the abuse of power. The definition of security is not the same as “real security”. It is easier for a Government to survive on doublespeak than the raw truth.
If tradition is no longer seen as a value or learned from, if it is seen as redundant because we now can kill people in more ingenious and threatening ways, then we lost our way.
Health and Eduction for all (including Iraqi children) is the slow and definite answer. War as an expedient is the traditional source of real evil.
Banned (from TV) cartoon
April 24, 2008
“very creepy, disturbing children’s cartoon, banned from TV”
Views: 3,135,364
Original Sin, Version 0.31 ?
With over 3 million views, it carries a title that deserves to be quoted. An internet magic formula at work that also prompts me to comment about it. Is it sacreligeous? Heretical? Well, not quite.
Whether you agree with its ideas or imagery or find it objectionable you have to admit it is any bit as mystical as religious dogma of any faith – in that sense it seeks to be art. But to also be perceived as giving children a vision of that which competing religions seek to define, is troublesome to those who seek to steer clear of such defining influence.
The YouTube presentation is effective marketing. For clay-mation to subvert reality so effectively it simply has to be good because it is such a committed form of film making. When the mask of theatre becomes the mask of death it reveals that the powers that dictate seek to use our very lives as collateral that could be swallowed up in their wars for power. We are not very meaningful to the results of that equation.
Consider what the underground media in China spreading as their version of grass roots “conspiracy theory”, stories of how the CIA exploits Tibet in a grand plot; where do you think “conspiracy theory” is written? Tibet is clearly a place to absorb a displaced population or burgeoning community. It is land theft on a massive scale. Overpopulation is a problem that will not just “go away”; addressing it by brute force to create a more successful low-cost economy out of a feudal cooperative always claims economic victims. Does China have the twin benefits of huge centralised wealth in an ocean of feudal poverty? How effectively capital can now successfully exploit the huge working class. Or does it elevate the masses to the very heart of power?
The rise of financial power powers this virtual continent within a continent but how socialised did it become after its one-child policy? It seems to have made an historical leap away from the cultural revolution. There are over a third of a million millionaires in China. “The number of U.S. millionaire households has risen to a record high of 9.3 million as of mid-2006″. – TNS Newswire. Granted, China’s wealth is more centralised and the potential for growth is enormous. But does this explain the adoption of concern by the Right Wing about “The Environment”? Perhaps it does. Addressing this without war is crucial to the continued existence of life on Earth. It probably really is.
Impeachment
September 4, 2007
This comment shows why America needs to impeach its President and Vice-President. Aside from the issue of poor war planning, and huge waste of strategic advantage that the Iraq war has been – the wire tapping issue – the hiding behind legislation brought specifically to hide the actions of the Bush Presidency from International law courts – war crimes committed with weapons of inhumane dimensions and extraordinary tactics – are enough to try, without getting into conspiracy theories however plausible.
To Withdraw or not?
August 24, 2007
Reading the full Bush commentary rather than just sound bites – makes one appreciate how good his speech writers are to be able to frame American war involvement only against the “end game” risk factors.
It is revealing that the Bush logic is based on a novel. America walked into Iraq and created havoc. Why? The Democrats can not answer for that, but they do expect to be able to take over the end game. How?
The Republicans will blame them for folding early. But the Bush policy to wipe out the insurgency requires killing every insurgent or removing their motivation.
Withdrawal is not the best solution. The current strategy is even worse. Polling public opinion does not inform, but restricts.
Corpse Bridges
August 4, 2007
The war on terror and the 77,000 unrepaired bridges across the USA are coming from the same basic problem. Infrastructure maintenance in the case of the bridges, and attention to detail with diplomacy both require strategic forward planning that was immature but advancing in the Clinton years and stopped without reason during the early Bush years.
In this article, Bush vetoes Democrat efforts to spend an additional $US631 million on road maintenance due to several hundred billion being spent on an expensive wasteful war in Iraq. It seems evident that maintenance has been inadequate and not budgetting for the maintenance of infrastructure could only be explained by considering this man genuinely belives the end is neigh – at least it appears to underlie and drive the blind directionless war logic. I think I compared Bush to Nero some years back. Bush is burning Iraq while fiddling the budget? I see a book called American Nero – the name is copyrighted right here.
It is not a good situation (unless you are a bridge builder or consultant engineer).
Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said that domestic programmes, such as replacing ageing infrastructure, had been short-changed because of the billions being spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Since 9/11 we have taken our eye off the ball,” he said.
The Democrats had proposed spending $631m (£309m) more on federal highway safety than Mr Bush budgeted for but he had threatened to veto the proposal.
William Wilkins, of Trip, a transport thinktank, estimated that $65bn would be needed to replace the ageing bridges.
Al Qaeda tactics expand in Gaza
May 12, 2007
Al Qaeda tactics expand in Gaza | csmonitor.com
WW III ALERT Disturbing Trends has defined Al Qaeda as a “cult”. It leaches adherents from the fringes of a very large pool of disaffected young people who see the West as the puppet masters that keeps them poor. The West is still reeling from its colonial guilt, those reigns and the passing of control of oil wealth to these countries have resulted in a capitalism so strong and confined that over 95% of Saudi Arabia do not share in the oil wealth but live in poverty. The only way to unlight this fuse is to develop alternative means of propulsion and now. That would reduce the incomes of the ruling class and force them to invest the currently unvalued communities and only by investing their wealth in others should they maintain relevance. Of course democracy is the answer, but war destroys democracy, if you are fighting civilians drawn from the encroaching fringes of madness fueled by the very conflict America and Mr Bush are seeking to douse. The “madness fueled from the encroaching fringes” is a cult – it is a way of thinking and drawing your rash young zealots into a war they do not belong in. They deserve gainful employment in their own country due to the investment by their leaders. Look at Dubai and compare its prosperity with the Saudi street. Cult is one of those words that makes people distance themselves, unless they are rebelling against the mold in which it becomes a focus of identity. That Al Qaeda becomes the locus of Arab identity is the real danger. That is grows as a movement is a reason to alert your leaders that WW III is a risk now faced if war continues to manufacture terrorists.
Iraq March
April 5, 2007
The march at Majaf instigated by the Sadrist Shiite majority demonstrated against the foreign forces occupying Iraq. The political capital enjoyed by Bush and Blair is evaporating rapidly. The naked ambition to control the world’s oil supply appears the apparent goal in seeking to control outcomes in the Middle East. It is a rational strategy of the US Government as controlled by the remanants of the all bases covered Republican Senate, House and Presidential dominance of recent times – with only the office of President left to argue for the war. It is the voice that counts, the one voice in the wilderness of “who are you kidding” disbelief. Dragging the West into this unsavourary and premature war has recreated divisions on our own soil. The Bush Black/White doctrine does not allow hesitation but it is exactly that, hesistation, that has saved the world from Nuclear madness, on more than one occasion.
Budget, American Style
April 1, 2007
Bush created a budget balancing act based on increased spending, mainly military, of three trillion dollars. A trillion is 1000 billions, using the American system of dealing with numbers that are simply too big. 1,000,000 is our familiar million. 1,000,000,000 (one billion) is becoming a more commonplace concept of the 21st Century – and already we are talking in “trillions” (one of which looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000).
The 3,000,000,000,000 or so America spent on its friutless effort in Iraq has probably been borrowed from Saudi princes who probably are forced to indirectly fund the food chain that disposses far too many and creates al Qaeda. Perhaps that is the underlying rationale behind the Bush invasion. It was not Daddy’s record, but a deal we are not allowed to know about.
The Saudi royal family and its grip on power is funded by the centering of profit from oil extraction from the largest oil fields in the world through just a few hands who then appear to me to pitch America against their own enemies – the Shiite revolution that would render their power obsolete.
America stepped into a breach that appears to be more chaotic for the intervention. It has stepped into the breach of a war brewing on both sides of it. It needs to shore up Sunni support against its new spotlight of threat: Iran.
Whom is fooling whom?
American intervention is an effort to prolong the status quo, history tells us unfathomable power in too few hands is not a stable form of Government. It has resulted in revolution elsewhere, America and France are fine examples of a Republican success that followed revolutions.
How to win against terrorism
February 15, 2007
Where US is helping to make gains against terrorism | csmonitor.com
It is possible to win the war on terrorism. In this example local Phillippine troops are now having some succss against Abu Sayyaf.
“Perhaps most acute is the need to channel funds into poor communities like Panamao, where schoolteachers say they haven’t been paid for over a year.” this kind of community development is necessary to create a future society of thinking individuals who do not resort to evil to make their political point. Individuals who do not believe in the death cult of Al Qaeda or any other perversion of their faith or culture.
Iraq on YouTube
February 11, 2007
Click the heading, but be warned, graphic films of war.
The advent of YouTube as a medium shines many lights on what we previously relied upon propaganda to bear witness to – in this case, it illustrates pretty much what we have written about over the last four years about the real effects of war.
The day of judgement is neigh because 5,000,000 Americans can not bear witness to their own military war machine at work. It is the tactics of soldiers that ride roughshod over the rights of civility. You got to kill the terrorists! It is advantageous to eradicate threats, but it is wise not to give them reasons to rise up and make America into the enemy. A peace treaty between Sunni and Shiite is not only necessary, but nobody is talking about it. They are too busy preparing for the day of judgement, it seems.
There is something awful and death cultish about sending people off to fight to their deaths, positively medievel. As films start to align with computer games, marketing fodder with comic book characters intimitely detailed, calligraphically dynamic – we have everyman with a handicam presenting the real world, shocking reality alongside “reality shows” like the famous Lonleygirl15 of YouTube fame. Won’t catch her in Iraq, but her story arc seems to have its own fantasy Blair Witchy appeal.
But as an eyeglass to war? Youtube is indeed a revelation.
The movie below is a disturbing tour of modern Baghdad streets in a Humvee.
Invading Iran
February 5, 2007
Al Jazeera English – Americas reports an ex-US general warning against the US launching an attack on Iran. The consequences for security in the region were severe, the retired army lieutenant general Robert Gard said. He is a former military assistant to US defense secretary, Robert McNamara, and he urged the US government to “engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions.”
