Tag Archives: Insurgent

Insurgents, prairie dogs and Laser Tag

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I remember discovering the difference between target shooting and Laser Tag. At a firing range you could look calmly down your gun sight and concentrate without distraction. Same with hunting. But Laser Tag, Paintball, or the doubtlessly misnomered Airsoft, let you experience what it’s like to be shot at. Who would believe aiming a gun is so different under fire?

In Laser Tag, you had to wear an infrared sensor to make yourself a target to your opponent’s fire. We used to wrap the sensor belt around our heads because it seemed the most fair vulnerability. Otherwise it was too easy to obscure your sensor between you and the ground or against whatever you were hiding behind. On your forehead, the sensor would become visible whenever you yourself attempted to poke up your head to take a shot.

I learned to cheat by crawling under cars to obscure my forehead in the undercarriage while my line of sight remained unimpeded. Of course I was a sitting duck when spotted. But from no matter what covered position, I found it much harder to take aim when adversaries were directing their fire at me.

If you’d succeeded in concealing your vantage point, you were free to concentrate on your aim. But now you were challenged with a further trembling sensation in your fingers. Now there was a heightened hesitation to pull the trigger, because the moment you did, your position would be revealed and you’d attract fire.

This is the predicament we discount when we think of military snipers. Though it seems quite plainly cowardly to shoot unsuspecting opponents from a concealed position, often snipers have to operate from hiding places deep in enemy territory. When they finally take their shot, snipers become prey themselves.

I think about this immediate blowback consequence when I think of Iraqis or Afghans who contemplate taking aim at the US military machine. Insurgents face technology and firepower to obliterate the very hill from which they might be shooting. It would seem that anyone who would dare to stand armed against US forces would be a suicide bomber. It’s near certain death to fire a Kalashnikov knowing that US electronics can very quickly extrapolate your location and bring ordinance against you like a fly-swatter against a fly.

In WWII against Japan, we held a sad esteem for the suicide pilots of the last desperate Japanese efforts. The Kamikazes would pilot explosive laden aircraft which had no landing gears in case they changed their minds. It seemed like lunacy, and often they were young, and barely trained.

I wondered if our soldiers accord the Iraqi or Afghan insurgents a similar awed respect. To merely raise your head from the rubble, without Kevlar armor, requires a bravery to defy the gods. What a cost to try to defend your homeland against America’s overwhelming might. I couldn’t do it. You draw almost certain overkill coming from unforeseen points, high in the sky, laser-guided by a team of technicians in climate controlled comfort on the other side of the planet, who are not themselves under fire. We’ve rendered all our adversaries into suicide bombers. How dare our behind-the-lines officers call them cowardly?

Air National Guardsmen are aiming Preditor and Reaper Drones from home

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Bush has brought the Global War On Terrorism to American shores! Air National Guardsmen deployed at stateside bases are piloting and aiming the Predator and Reaper drones against peoples in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and victims yet unreported. Do you doubt they might be Filipinos, Colombians, Bolivians and South Georgians? If any of those aforementioned want to defend themselves, they could only attack those shooting at them from Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas.

Residents of those states should know they are living in war zones if they live adjacent these installations. Do you know any of these soldiers? The specialists who guide and track the munitions directly to their target’s alarmed faces are called “Sensor Operators” and have been experiencing PTSD right at home!

214th Reconnaissance Group
Tucson, Arizona

163rd Reconnaissance Wing & 196th Reconnaissance Squadron
March Air Reserve Base, California

432nd Reconnaissance Wing
Creech Air Force Base, Nevada

14th Reconnaissance Wing
Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, Houston, Texas

In case the CBS article is removed, we’ll mirror it here:

The Air National Guardsmen who operate Predator drones over Iraq via remote control, launching deadly missile attacks from the safety of Southern California 7,000 miles away, are suffering some of the same psychological stresses as their comrades on the battlefield.

Working in air-conditioned trailers, Predator pilots observe the field of battle through a bank of video screens and kill enemy fighters with a few computer keystrokes. Then, after their shifts are over, they get to drive home and sleep in their own beds.

But that whiplash transition is taking a toll on some of them mentally, and so is the way the unmanned aircraft’s cameras enable them to see people getting killed in high-resolution detail, some officers say.

“When you come in (with a fighter jet) at 500-600 mph, drop a 500-pound bomb and then fly away, you don’t see what happens,” said Col. Albert K. Aimar, who is commander of the 163rd Reconnaissance Wing here and has a bachelor’s degree in psychology. “Now you watch it all the way to impact, and I mean it’s very vivid, it’s right there and personal. So it does stay in people’s minds for a long time.”

He said the stresses are “causing some family issues, some relationship issues.” He and other Predator officers would not elaborate.

But the 163rd has called in a full-time chaplain and enlisted the services of psychologists and psychiatrists to help ease the mental strain on these remote-control warriors, Aimar said. Similarly, chaplains have been brought in at Predator bases in Texas, Arizona and Nevada.

In interviews with five of the dozens of pilots and sensor operators at the various bases, none said they had been particularly troubled by their mission, but they acknowledged it comes with unique challenges, and sometimes makes for a strange existence.

“It’s bizarre, I guess,” said Lt. Col. Michael Lenahan, a Predator pilot and operations director for the 196th Reconnaissance Squadron here. “It is quite different, going from potentially shooting a missile, then going to your kid’s soccer game.”

Among the stresses cited by the operators and their commanders: the exhaustion that comes with the shift work of this 24-7 assignment; the classified nature of the job that demands silence at the breakfast table; and the images transmitted via video.

A Predator’s cameras are powerful enough to allow an operator to distinguish between a man and a woman, and between different weapons on the ground. While the resolution is generally not high enough to make out faces, it is sharp, commanders say.

Often, the military also directs Predators to linger over a target after an attack so that the damage can be assessed.

“You do stick around and see the aftermath of what you did, and that does personalize the fight,” said Col. Chris Chambliss, commander of the active-duty 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base, Nev. “You have a pretty good optical picture of the individuals on the ground. The images can be pretty graphic, pretty vivid, and those are the things we try to offset. We know that some folks have, in some cases, problems.”

Chambliss said his experience flying F-16 fighter jets on bombing runs in Iraq during the 1990s prepared him for his current job as a Predator pilot. But Chambliss and several other wing leaders said they were concerned about the sensor operators, who sit next to pilots in the ground control station. Often, the sensor operators are on their first assignment and just 18 or 19 years old, officers said.

While the pilot actually fires the missile, the sensor operator uses laser instruments to guide it all the way to its target.

On four or five occasions, sensor operators have sought out a chaplain or supervisor after an attack, Chambliss said. He emphasized that the number of such cases is very small compared to the number of people involved in Predator operations.

Col. Rodney Horn, vice commander of the 14th Reconnaissance Wing at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base near Houston, said his unit went out of it way to impress upon sensor operators the sometimes lethal nature of the job. “No one’s walking into it blind,” he said.

Master Sgt. Keith LeQuire, a 48-year-old sensor operator here, said the 163rd asks prospective sensor operators whether they are prepared for the deadly serious mission. “No one’s been naive enough to come in to interview but not know about that aspect of the job,” he said.

Unlike soldiers living together in the war zone, the Predator operators do not have the close locker-room-style camaraderie that allows buddies to talk about the day’s events and blow off steam. But many Predator operators at Creech employ a decompression ritual during the long ride home, said Air Force Lt. Col. Robert P. Herz.

“They’re putting a missile down somebody’s chimney and taking out bad guys, and the next thing they’re taking their wife out to dinner, their kids to school,” said Herz, a Ph.D. who interviewed pilots and sensor operators for a doctoral dissertation on human error in Predator accidents.

“A lot of them have told me, `I’m glad I’ve got the hour drive.’ It gives them that whole amount of time to leave it behind,” Herz said. “They get in their bus or car and they go into a zone _ they say, `For the next hour I’m decompressing, I’m getting re-engaged into what it’s like to be a civilian.'”

Col. Gregg Davies, commander of the 214th Reconnaissance Group in Tucson, Ariz., said he knows of no member of his team who has experienced any trauma from launching a Predator attack.

Himself a Predator pilot, Davies said he has found the work rewarding. The Arizona Air National Guard unit flies Predators in both the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones. It has often provided protection for American convoys, and its personnel have seen insurgents planting roadside bombs.

“If we can have an effect there where we can take people out, that’s a real plus in terms of saving American lives,” Davies said. “Our folks look at it as they’re in the fight, they’re saving lives. They don’t feel too bad about that.”

Al-Qaeda in Iraq back in Afghanistan!

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Do you chose to believe this yarn? It’s not long, it’s circular. US casualties in Afghanistan have surpassed casualties in Iraq, and to explain it maybe, US military spokesman have revealed they believe the leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq is now back in Afghanistan!

Let’s see. We attacked Afghanistan because the Taliban refused to rein in its terrorist arm, purportedly named al-Qaeda. Which may or may not be a figment of US military intelligence imagination. We know about al-Qaeda only through our military interrogator, plus the 19-known hijackers who were dead before there was public mention of al-Qaeda, and no al-Qaeda charges have stuck to any Guantanamo inmate so far.

We can’t find it, do we know “it” exists?

So we attack Iraq which had no known al-Qaeda, until, our same dubious military intelligence people inform us there is an “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” actually, in Mesopotamia, actually, in the Land of the Two Rivers. Depending on the translation.

Was the original logo IN ENGLISH? Actually Osama’s gang was a CIA creation, so the origial al-Qaeda tattoo may have been designed in Langly, then put back and forth through Babblefish to obscure the non-Arabic speaking origins. Or not.

Fair enough, but we still only have our propaganda team to vouch for it, and have we ever known them to tell us anything truthful? Every time insurgents are engaged we hear our forces have killed an al-Qaeda leader. It’s usually the first we’ve heard of the person, and the last. Except the guy they’ve now killed twice.

So every act of violence in Iraq is blamed on AQII until we want to talk about the “surge” working. If we want to declare the “surge” a success, AQII has to goway. And where better than to where it came from (maybe?) Afghanistan!

If we surge into Afghanistan, which Barack Obama has declared we should do, and if THAT’S a hit, soon enough we’ll have it cornered to be al-Qaida in a Cave, and then al-Qaeda in Osama’s Teevee Room!

If we applied the same logic to the Weapons of Mass Destruction supposed to be in Iraq, we could look for them where they came from. The WMD in American chemical weapons companies!

USA acronyms want Pinon Canyon again

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May 8 PSA from the DECAM/NEPA coordinator at the FCPAO:
(Release 08-056)
 
FORT CARSON, COLO.– Part of GTA effort: USA issues NOI to prepare an EIS for bringing IBCT and CAB to USAFC and the PCMS, against the NAA. PUBLIC SCOPING MEETINGS (to hear NAA!) are May 20 in TAD, May 21 in COS (6:30PM Crowne Plaza Hotel) and May 22 in LHX.

Glossary:
PSA -Public Service Announcement
DECAM –Directorate of Environmental Compliance and Management
NEPA –National Environmental Policy Act
FCPAO -Fort Carson Public Affairs Office
GTA –“Grow the Army”
USA -United States Army
NOI -Notice of Intent
EIS -Environmental Impact Statement
IBCT -Infantry Brigade Combat Team (3,900 soldiers)
CAB -Combat Aviation Brigade (2,800 soldiers)
USAFC –United States Army Fort Carson
PCMS –Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site
NAA -No Action Alternative

TAD -Trinidad, Colorado
COS -Colorado Springs
LHX -La Junta (Airport codes)

Wikipedia explains this GWOT acronym:

AWR — (Alpha Whiskey Romeo) Allah’s Waiting Room. When engaged, insurgents have a tendency to flee to the same building (the AWR), at which point the troops radio in an air strike.

Mentally challenged unfit for insurgency

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Indignity at the barrel of a gunUS disinformation forces in Iraq pointed recently to an insurgency so in its last throes, that it was desperate enough, and dastardly, sure enough, to press mentally retarded girls into service as suicide bombers. Soon enough our military was forced to recant that report. The young Iraqi women may have been bipolar, or depressed, but they didn’t have Down Syndrome, as cranial deformities caused by the bomb blasts had led the US forensics to conjecture. But the false accusation had its desired effect and there was worldwide condemnation of the Iraqi resistance. This story has irked me in both incarnations.

Namely, why in the name of the Special Olympics is it alright to presume the mentally handicapped could not rise to the challenge faced by their fellow insurgents?

That there would need to be suicide bombers is sad for anyone to contemplate. But a people oppressed by overwhelming military dominance have little recourse. The US drove the Japanese to resort to recruiting Kamikazis. The French pushed the Algerians to the most desperate efforts. The Soviets, the US and Israel have since left Afghans, Iraqis and Palestinians no option but “terrorism.” We don’t label carpet-bombing, detainment or torture as “terrorism,” but freedom fighters and their asymmetrical warfare is enough to terrorize us.

And so, to many Iraqis, maybe especially those orphaned by our invasion and occupation, to be a suicide bomber is to be put to the only strategy which may yet prove effective. Rocks thrown against tanks do nothing. Shots fired against armor-clad troops yield naught but a hail storm of higher caliber bullets. IEDs are now up against heavier mine-resistant vehicles. Civilians without access to artillery or high-tech triggering remotes have no choice but to deliver their angry message in person, guided and detonated by their brave partisan selves prepared to pay the price with their lives.

Of course a mentally disabled person cannot reasonably be considered to have understood enough to make such a profound sacrifice. But I’m surprised the PC crowd wouldn’t allow them the dignity to aspire to contribute to the cause of their fellow Iraqis. I’d venture to ask if their lives could have served a more honorable service. It must suck to be mentally handicapped in Iraq, considering the US has destroyed every semblance of health care service, and refuses to rebuild it. The US is killing the health-needy of Iraq, even as they accuse the insurgency of the exploitation/murder.

And which side cannot deny preying upon the retarded from which to recruit its troops? With casualties on the rise, American motives unmasked, the timetable interminable, and the prospect of surviving intact virtually null, who but the mentally challenged are signing up to “defend freedom” for Uncle Sam?

Ann Frank of Mesopotamia

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Ann Frank, like Abu Tariq, would not have belonged to al-Qaida-in-the-Land-of-Two-Rivers eitherThe DoD CENTCOM PR Department reports having recovered the diary of an al-Qaeda leader (now killed). In it, he despairs the surge is working. Gosh, they think they can embed the insurgent dead?

In addition to cursing the usual “scoundrels, sectarians and nonbelievers,” the journal keeper complains about CLCs, or Concerned Local Citizens, who are taking up arms against them. We are to believe, I suppose, the terrorists share our own DoD’s predilection for acronyms, last year’s Awakening Forces having fallen from favor.

Is there a Western equivalent to al-Qaeda? Several? Beside state sponsored terror. For terrorism outreach, would CIA black-ops qualify? What about Blackwater? You know, an unaffiliated privately funded force, tasked with wreaking havoc, maintaining security, but the offensive variety. Successful American commando operations are generally kept under wraps. Probably the most notorious western covert agency would be the Mossad, the long retaliatory arm of the Israeli secret service.

The closest al-Qaeda comes to being identified with a nationality would be Afghanistan. The US retaliated against Afghanistan for the assumed al-Qaeda connection to 9/11. Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda sprung from mujahideen, Afghan resistance groups which fought against the Soviet invaders for the Taliban Islamist extremists.

The American occupiers in Iraq claim they are up against al-Qaeda in Iraq (our translation for al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia). That must be an insulting prospect to Iraqis who have reason and drive enough to mount their own insurgency. When US military spokesmen assure us that al-Qaeda is unpopular with Iraqis, it cannot fail but to be proved true. Otherwise the elusive terror network is conveniently like Harvey the [invisible] pink elephant. If the veracity of those doing the telling is beyond question, Harvey is everything they say, and being invisible, you wouldn’t be expected to see him.

If America was invaded, and our valiant citizens mounted a desperate insurgency, wouldn’t we find it odd to have our occupiers keep claiming they were fighting the Mossad? Or the-Mossad in America, or the-Mossad in the Land Between Two Oceans.

Not your mother’s Peace Corps

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Teaching abstinence to the AIDS afflicted.Did you hear in Ghana today President Bush is having lunch with US Peace Corps workers? Wherever did his handlers find even one Peace Corps volunteer who would feign tolerance to our callous mini-tyrant? In indifference-ravaged Africa no less! Is the Peace Corps not what it used to be, or not what we thought it was?

President Kennedy started the Peace Corps as a means for America to put a better face forward than the one the world saw in our exploitive capitalists. Though our politicians spoke of democracy and human rights, our soldiers usually demonstrated our industrial sense of entitlement to third world resources and labor. The Peace Corps was a deliberate counter to the suspicion that our usual diplomats, consultants and NGOs were riddled with CIA. In fact the Peace Corps was recruiting ground for the CIA.

Colorado College president Richard Celeste, himself a former Peace Corps director, likes to tell the story about volunteers working in Asia who knew the whereabouts of an insurgent, if only they’d known the CIA was after him. This is offered as proof of the firewall between US intelligence and the Corps. Of late, as we come to understand Black Ops and CIA ulterior motives, the anecdote comes to suggest the opposite. Revelations like Confessions of a Economic Hit Man indict the Peace Corps fully.

Since Celeste’s tenure, Colorado College boasts of being a leading contributor of students into the Peace Corps. With their advocacy of abstinence, are these civil NGOs distinguishable from missionaries?

Paul Theroux, 2007:

Poor Africa, the happy hunting ground of the mythomaniac, the rock star buffing up his or her image, the missionary with a faith to sell, the child buyer, the retailer of dirty drugs or toxic cigarettes, the editor in search of a scoop, the empire builder, the aid worker, the tycoon wishing to rid himself of his millions, the school builder with a bucket of patronage, the experimenting economist, the diamond merchant, the oil executive, the explorer, the slave trader, the eco-tourist, the adventure traveler, the bird watcher, the travel writer, the escapee, the colonial and his crapulosities, the banker, the busybody, the Mandela-sniffer, the political fantasist, the buccaneer and your cousin the Peace Corps Volunteer.

If they are not losing we are not winning

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A Department of Defense spokesman was asked the other day if the insurgents in Iraq are winning. He has Donald Rumsfeld’s speech writer.
 
“If the insurgents are not losing, they are winning.
If we are not winning, we are losing.”

Is that statement deep or is it obtuse? Perhaps that’s our military complaining that the insurgents win if there’s a draw. Unless our victory is decisive, we don’t get credit for it. But that’s obfuscating the real answer because there can be no stalemate with counterinsurgency. Ask the British in Ireland. You’re splitting hairs on a toupee. In Iraq the insurgents are winning.

The news charade doesn’t involve asking real questions. In this case, for example, the reporter could have followed up by repeating the unanswered question. You’d do it if you wanted to know something and instead of an answer you’d received a riddle.

I cannot remember if this man was military or think tank. Does it matter really any more who he was? The military is taken at its word, even as previous proclamations are disproved. We don’t torture. Oh, well, we don’t use that word, but yes we do. We don’t use Napalm. Oh, did you say Napalm? Yes we do. Think tank specialists are consulted without questioning who is funding the particular opinion they are spinning.

Anymore, the interview format includes two media people, the one with questions and the one with answers, both of whom have the same agenda. This has replaced investigative reporting. Want to know how France feels? Rather, how someone wants us to think the nation of France is feeling? Consult a specialist, a PR spokesman to make the pitch. France is fine, thank you, and how are you?

Perhaps the next step will be just one news-person, a trusted father figure, who will convey intellect and wisdom enough to sooth us. He’ll be able to report the current events, ask whatever questions come to mind, and answer them himself because who needs a middleman? The way we are heading, he’ll also answer in riddles.

Electing the lesser of real evil

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While it might appear to make no difference if a candidate is Republican or Democrat, I’d say a freshly galvanized non-voter would be hard pressed to suggest that any of the Y2K presidential hopefuls could have performed with more mischievous malevolence than George W. Bush. Disengaged citizens used to be ambivalent about their lack of options. Now we have precedent for thinking very hard about the lesser of evils. Billy Mumy in ITS A GOOD LIFE We don’t want just the better of the worst, we have to be sure to pick the lesser EVIL.
 
Will 2008 be a veritable toss-up between shills? We need to know for Decision 2008 if there lurks another Alfred E. Neuman Nero in the bunch.

Remember this little boy? His occult powers and prepubescent morality made him the demonic despot of a little American farming town in an early Twilight Zone episode. He could read people’s minds and had the power to punish them at will. Though he might easily have been deposed by a collective effort, no one dared lay a finger. Frustrated individual insurgents were summarily disappeared to the corn fields.

With FISA surveillance and the Patriot Act, could this be George W.?

But even if we could discern the truly evil, the amorality which comes with profound lack of profundity, do we really have the power to make our choice heard?

We’re told the primaries determine the presidential winner. I heard an NPR reporter covering the circus interject with “here’s a fact:” and proceed to declare that no one below the second place in such and such caucus has ever gone on to win the nomination etc, etc. As if a statistical likelihood could yield an absolute. Then there’s the Iowa Caucus Curse or some such, to throw witchcraft into the pot for those blasphemers who think statistics can lie. I hear what they media pundits are really saying, when they “predict” with the caucus results, and it is true. The media have always determined who is going to win. Whether it’s in the primaries or in the final election. Whoever they choose wins. The distance between is a horse race.

US is not sniping indiscriminantly 1-2-3

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The good news is that US sniper teams may not be shooting at everyone they come across anymore, as has been alleged though seldom reported. After all, the rules of war apply to snipers just as they would ordinary soldiers or paintballers: don’t shoot at someone who’s not a combatant, who’s unarmed, or who’s otherwise surrendering. But under pressure to up their kills, US snipers are defying the Hague Conventions with such innovations as 1) bait/entrapment, 2) getting go-ahead to assassinate, and 3) using fingerprint identification to confirm eligibility for execution.

1. Bait and switch
The Asymmetric Warfare Group issues to US snipers “drop items,” insurgent-type items which may be planted on Iraqis they’ve shot, but much more productively, to use as bait to lure passing Iraqis, tempting empty-handed civilians to become item-wielding insurgents whom you don’t have to get permission to shoot. The Washington Post reports:

“Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy,” Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. “Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces.”

2. Under suspicion is as good as being condemned
US snipers are executing targets if they can be confirmed as being suspects. With the cross hairs of your sniper scope aimed at your chosen Iraqi or Afghan, you can await authorization to pull the trigger based on learning the person’s identity, whether by informer or a shouted inquiry. Then according to the US rules of engagement you can terminate him. Here’s an example from the International Herald Tribune.

“From his position about 100 yards away, Master Sergeant Troy Anderson had a clear shot of the Afghan man standing outside a residential compound in a small village near the Pakistan border last October. And when Captain Dave Staffel, the Special Forces officer in charge, gave the order to shoot, Anderson fired a single bullet into the man’s head, killing him instantly.

…the shooting, near the village of Hasan Kheyl last October, was a textbook example of a classified mission completed in accordance with the American rules of engagement. The men said such rules allowed them to kill Buntangyar, whom the American military had designated a terrorist cell leader, once they positively identified him.”

3. Coming soon: fingerprint and biometric matching
In early 2008 US snipers will be given a more efficient system for making split decisions about whether their target may be summarily liquidated. Now with the subject in your sights, you can await instructions from an intelligence database about whether your target has a fingerprint, retina scan, or biometric profile in the records as a suspected insurgent. In which case, be he standing idle, detained or captive, you can shoot him. Read this account from the Washington Post about the JEFF:

“…the Joint Expeditionary Forensics Facilities (JEFF) project or “lab in a box,” analyzes biometrics. It will be delivered to Iraq at the beginning of 2008, the Navy said, to help distinguish insurgents from civilians.

…the military has been scanning the irises and taking the fingerprints of Iraqis, feeding a biometrics data base in West Virginia. To date, a few ad hoc labs have processed about 85,000 pieces of evidence taken from weapons caches or roadside devices.

Each collapsible, sand-colored, 20-by-20-foot unit has its own generator and satellite link. If things go as planned, data will beamed to the Biometric Fusion Center to check against more than a million Iraqi fingerprints.

The next stage is to miniaturize, create “a backpack lab,” so that soldiers who encounter a suspect “could find out within minutes” if he’s on a terrorist watch list, [says the JEFF weapon designer] “A war fighter needs to know one of three things: Do I let him go? Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot?”

“How awesome and powerful God is.”

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      Allah Akbar – God is Great.
After the recent attempted rampage at New Life Church, officials no longer have to explain their church’s unusual need to assign a dozen guards, half of them armed, and several policemen every Sunday to look over their members.
Assam gunned down Matthiew Murray on December 9They are quick to add “these are not mercenaries that we hire.” Onward Christian soldier.

Matthew Murray, disgruntled aspiring missionary and product of devout Christian home-schooling, returned to the Youth With a Mission training center with which he’d been affiliated in Denver and went postal. After killing two and wounding another two, he headed to their satellite office in Colorado Springs.

Meanwhile, alerted that a killer was not yet apprehended, and apprised that they might be potential targets, the New Life Church management raised the alert and took extra security measures. One of which was to reassign Jeanne Assam, usually the personal bodyguard to their church leader, to a position with a higher vantage point over the congregation. An ex-policewoman, Ms. Assam is currently employed working security for Messenger International, a husband and wife writing team traveling the Fundamentalist Christian self-help circuit.

Sure enough the black-clad avenger showed up and started shooting. Ms. Assam rose from her concealed position and fired repeatedly at the shooter as she closed in, leading reports to describe Murray as having been “gunned down.”

(In a bizarre turn, some news accounts are quoting police investigators as suggesting that the gunman may have died of self-inflicted wounds.)

At a press conference Ms. Assam said she was thankful she’d saved the congregation and “honored” that God had selected her to do it. Asked what went through her mind as the young man fell to the ground, Ms. Assam’s words reminded me of a soldier rationalizing his omnipotence: “how awesome and powerful God is.”

When Muslim insurgents successfully detonate an I.E.D. in Iraq they cheer “Allah Akbar.”

Ethiopia and the US Out of Somalia!

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The war continues to rage and the bloodshed continues. What the hell do the US and Ethiopia think they are doing by occupying Somalia? I guess the US thinks its occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are going so well that they wanted to duplicate this sort of model onto an African country as experiment, or what? Save Somalia. Or does nobody care?

Heavy battles in Somali capital
Ethiopian reinforcements have been sent in
Very heavy fighting between Ethiopian troops and insurgents has broken out in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.

Eisenstein at the Colo Springs symphony

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Battleship Potemkin -Sergei EisensteinI’m really impressed that
the Colorado Springs Philharmonic was able to attract a nearly full house for a screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, the 1925 Soviet revolutionary call to arms that became even too subversive for Stalin’s taste.
 
The newly restored version adds more graphic pieces to the Odessa steps sequence, but my favorite scene remains aboard the battleship deck, when the rebellious sailors cower under a tarpaulin, awaiting the bullets of the firing squad.

It reminds me of my favorite story about the few proud Marines. The Marine Corps, now its own branch of the Defense Department, evolved from a very particular function in every nation’s navy. (Like MARINE biologists, their function has obviously to do with the sea.) On warships since the Napoleonic Wars, marines were the only enlisted men entrusted with guns. Their role, beside serving as landing parties, was to protect the officers from mutiny by the sailors; a function they were prepared to serve on the Potemkin until thankfully the revolutionary rhetoric held sway.

Battleship Potemkin Soviet propaganda poster

I wonder if our few proud US Marines will have brains enough to side with their families and comrades when Bush orders them to fire on his insurgents.

Panzercruizer Potemkin -German film posterIn promoting the Toons film collection, I’ve made a preoccupation with data mining for every poster incarnation of our diverse films. Since the Toons website has been down for a bit, I thought I’d represent here our gathering of Potemkin posters.

Kudos to the Pikes Peak Center team for delivering Eisenstein to the Rocky Mountain art Bourgeois. We showed up three generations deep, each age this evening running into others they knew. And everyone loved it.

La Corazata Potemkin -Italian film poster
A highlight of the event for me occurred when the battleship fired its salvo into the city. After the sailors had rebelled, the city populace had risen in support. To subdue the masses, Tsarist Cossacks marched down the Odessa steps, shooting into the crowd. In angry response, the crew of the Potemkin aimed its big guns at the headquarters of their Tsarist oppressors, or so explained the inter-title cards, further specified in the text as the Opera House! We were Colorado Springs symphony-goers, at the town’s premiere performing arts center, rooting for the Russian workers as they united against their ruling class.

Battleship Potemkin call to arms

Battleship Potemkin -contemporary Soviet poster

Battleship Potemkin uprising leader

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin -Modern Russian print

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin -stamp

?????????? ???????? - Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein

We are the Little Folk, we

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I like to think of the “Little Folk” of Rudyard Kipling’s A Pict Song
as non-violent insurgents, more Fifth-Column than pacifist. Bluster and indignation will not push back the imperial armies. But quiet, steady non-conformity will subvert their dominion.
Rudyard Kipling A PICT SONG
Rome never looks where she treads.
    Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
    And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on — that is all,
    And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
    With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk — we!
    Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you’ll see
    How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
    We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
    We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe killing an oak —
    Rats gnawing cables in two —
Moths making holes in a cloak —
    How they must love what they do!
Yes — and we Little Folk too,
    We are busy as they —
Working our works out of view —
    Watch, and you’ll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,
    But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we’ll guide them along
    To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
    Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you — you will die of the shame,
    And then we shall dance on your graves!

    We are the Little Folk, we…

Signed, R. Kipling

Fecal material contacts rotary air circulation device…

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This is like 20 minutes old, I would do a link but feel a certain urgency so here is the article verbatim,

Yahoo! News
Back to Story – Help
Turkey bombards northern Iraq, Iraq says

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago

The Iraqi government said Turkish artillery and warplanes bombarded areas of northern Iraq on Wednesday and called on Turkey to stop military operations and resolve the conflict diplomatically.

The claim occurred amid rising tension and Turkish threats to strike bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, which has been launching attacks against targets in Turkey from sanctuaries in Iraq.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press that the morning bombardment struck areas of the northern province of Dahuk, some 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Col. Hussein Kamal said about 250 shells were fired into Iraq from Turkey. He added that there were no casualties on the Iraqi side of the border.

“We have received reports that the Turkish government and the Turkish army have bombed border villages. The Iraqi government regrets the Turkish military operations of artillery and warplanes bombing against border cities and towns,” al-Dabbagh said.

“The Iraqi government calls for ceasing these operations and resorting to dialogue,” he said, insisting that Iraq wants “good relations with Turkey.”

Earlier Wednesday, Kurdish guerrillas staged a bomb attack against a military vehicle, killing two soldiers and wounding six others near the Iraqi border, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.

The attack occurred close to the Iraqi border, near the town of Cukurca in Hakkari province, Anatolia said. Military helicopters flew the injured to hospitals as military units in the region launched an operation to hunt down the attackers, it said.

Last week, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Turkey had massed 140,000 soldiers along the border — a figure the U.S. disputed. Zebari said troop levels in the region were often increased during the spring and summer in response to increased activity by PKK.

U.S. officials cast doubt on the figure.

Turkish officials have repeatedly said they are considering military operations against the PKK in Iraq, a move that the United States fears would cause further instability.

Al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi government is ready either for bilateral talks or three-way talks that will include the United States. He added that the PKK matter is not new but years-old.

“We have said before that we will not allow Iraq to become a launching pad for operations against Turkey or any other country,” al-Dabbagh said.

Washington says it is working with Turkey to combat the PKK but that it is focused on combatting insurgents opposing U.S. forces.

The PKK has escalated attacks this year, killing about 70 soldiers so far. More than 110 rebels were killed in the same period.

Turkey has been battling the PKK since 1984 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Clarifying a few terms…

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Because some have expressed disdain at the mere thought of being considered right wing apologists… aka people who wish to accommodate and justify right wing philosophy, here are a few things to remember: Catchwords and phrases, talking points, something you might see on a bumper sticker; using these will probably get you tagged as a right wing loon. And in at least some cases the tag would fit perfectly.

examples: Love it or leave it (one recently) The Police are always right, If you have done nothing wrong why would you fear the police?, Support Our Troops, These Colors Never Run.

Recycling myths like: left wing liberals were the reason we lost in Nam… FALSE. Right Wing planners like Westmoreland, Johnson, Nixon, Al Hague, and the “Super Patriots” who supported them, were much more of a coherent and consistent reason for the loss of the VietNam War by the United States. The new crop of such losers is causing America to be drawn into yet another defeat.

Also contributing much to the American loss in VietNam was the courage and resourcefulness of the VietMinh, that’s Charley to some…

For those who don’t remember anything about it, these guys used a mix of primitive and modern technologies, small arms, improvised explosives and equipment taken from American, Australian, French and South Vietnamese soldiers, tactics which were also a mix of ancient and modern, to defeat the above named governments, even against a Shock and Awe campaign of greater magnitude than the one currently being played in Iraq.

Also like Iraq, there was never a war declared between the United States and The Democratic Republic (Hanoi).

Much as it pisses off those who see the POWs as uncompromising heroes, (some were) and the Hanoi Hilton as a hellhole, (it was) it should also be remembered that the Hanoi Hilton is about a standard in third world jails. And since the North Vietnamese didn’t do a “show trial” followed by an execution every time they captured an American airman, the treatment they accorded the Americans was one hell of a lot better than that accorded to the VietCong prisoners by the Saigon government.

a lot of Americans will scream loudly that American soldiers didn’t torture captured Charleys. Given the readiness these same people have shown to rationalize torture at Gitmo and worse places, i tend to doubt that. Probably not widespread but not nonexistent either.

But on the other hand, the Saigon government DID torture and summarily execute captured “terrorists” “rebels” “insurgents”.

Leave us remind everybody that the Americans captured in North VietNam and Cambodia and Laos had exactly the same legal status as the captured Charleys had in the South. No more, no less.

It was a combination of supporting an openly repressive government and the determination and resourcefulness of the “enemy” that dashed the American intervention in SE Asia.

The same things that are now dragging down America in South WEST Asia.

Empires are destined to fall, usually very soon after they are declared to be Empires. Such as the one declared by George Bush Senior when he proclaimed a New World Order, which is being dishonorably carried on by his son, King George the Incredibly Stupid.

Another talking point is that VietNam and Iraq were fought for American freedom.

They were not, nor has any war in which America has been engaged since 1814. To say otherwise is to propagate a myth, if you believe that myth, if you know it is false but say it anyway it is ramped up all the way to a Deliberate Lie.

The military did not fight for our freedom, they did not give us our freedom, or our rights, we do NOT OWE them our obedience, or the willing surrender of our rights.

Especially annoying (not to mention stupid) is the repeated attempt to make us believe that Freedom means we are free to do as we are told, to say only what we are allowed to say, and that we have some moral obligation to support the wars started by people who have anointed themselves our “Leaders”.

Some of my fellow Christians are of the strong delusion that God has commanded us to obey George Bush because he is supposedly “OUR” King.
This particular myth was also used by the Tories to denounce the Continental Congress and the rebels in the army during the Revolution.

It was shouted from pulpits across the Colonies by pastors, who, like Ted Haggard and Benny Hinn and Franklin Graham and Dobson… had sold their priesthood and their souls to a tyrant.

Here’s a quick formula to remember Shock and Awe = the use of fear as a weapon = Terrorism.

The proponents of Shock and Awe, like George and his supporters, are therefore Terrorists.

You don’t like that, try beating it out of me, and all the while try to forget that that too, is Terrorism.

The Gazette and slander (libel)

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Regrettable miniature body languageWhat a completely slanderous editorial the Gazette has published, suggesting that we peace marchers planned the police beating we received!
 
A couple of innocent circumstances find themselves at odds with such a conclusion. Number one, a good number of us can guarantee we would not have brought our children if we had known what the police had in store for us; number two, we parked our cars at the end of the parade route, which turned out to be quite inconvenient when we were turned back; and number three and without doubt a trump card, none of us brought video cameras! Have you ever seen a protest where every third participant did not have a video camera to document and/or deter police brutality? We had none! We’re now having to solicit video footage from eyewitnesses in the crowd to counter the official assurances that their conduct was above board.

That’s because our St Patrick’s Day message was not one of protest, but celebration. Look even at my preparatory efforts to organize the marchers! We wanted to be seen in a different light than protestors. Even in this atmosphere of war and fear, we are optimistic that mankind’s compassion for each other will prevail over war. As some seek comfort in the image of a blow-up marine on steroids, as a symbol of ass-kicking diplomacy, so we honor and want to project the principles of non-violence and peace.

Remarks are being made that the St Patrick’s Day parade was the wrong forum for a peace message. Ignoring the obvious Irish insurgent spirit, pray tell, what are any venues available to expressions of non-conformist views? In this pro-military, conservative town, there’s not a one. Otherwise we’re at the corner of Nevada and Dale on Mondays at noon, at Academy and Austin Bluffs on Wednesdays at three, and at the Fort Carson B-Street entrance every first Tuesday at seven. Have you got another opportunity to suggest? We’ll be there.

Admittedly young cops manhandling elders in front of impressionable children opened eyes less about the war in Iraq, than to the rapidly diminishing civil rights of ordinary Americans. Now everyone’s privilege to voice their opinion appears in jeopardy. We’re fighting for what, overseas? Freedom?

We didn’t march to change your mind about the war. We marched to encourage the majority of the American public who are against the war in iraq, to come out from behind thugs like you who’ve monopolized the street and airwaves with your pro-war, pro-violence message. We’ve seen the shift already as we hold our banners every week curbside, we get far more honks of support than signs of disapproval. The parade would have been a wonderful way to elicit that sentiment in front of everyone on main street. That is perhaps why your type wouldn’t allow it.

The cause for which we marched received a lot of attention as a result of the police over-reaction. But it wasn’t due to our planning, or our preparations in full view an hour before the event began. It wasn’t due to our obstinance in response to being told our permit was revoked, or being ordered to turn away while certain among us were being brutalized. The attention the marchers have received has been entirely due to the city parade organizers’ actions to silence us and the police department’s decision to be violent.

This is how you take fascism down, by showing the politicians, businessmen, chest-beaters and their backers, that they do not have the support of the people. That the common people do not share their zealousness to beat dissenters over the head with the flag. Step aside you goons and conformists, the American People want their country back.

March for peace and the Irish Insurgents

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Saturday, March 17 marks St Patrick’s Day, and also marks the 4th anniversary of the war in Iraq. Join thousands++ worldwide who are protesting this weekend to call for an end to this endless war.

March with the Bookman Bookmobile on Saturday at NOON as we infuse the downtown parade with marchers calling for PEACE. We’ll be waving flags with peace symbols and holding banners calling for PEACE NOW and END THIS ENDLESS WAR. An estimated 40,000 people will see our message. We’ll also be inviting everyone to the PEACE FORUM later that evening at Sacred Heart and the Year-4 PEACE RALLY on Sunday at Acacia Park!

Last year’s Bookmobile peace contingent “EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO PEACE” was very warmly received and applauded. Details and pics
here.

Bring your own signs if you desire, but we’d like to keep the peace theme non-confrontational. Wear green.

If you participated last year, please wear your green peace-symbol t-shirt. We’ll have new t-shirts available for those who need them, at a cost of $10 if possible. We’ll also have peace-symbol caps and flags. Easily something for everyone!

Please join us! Help make our appeal for PEACE NOW as loud as possible!

WHERE: Assemble on east side of Tejon Street between Monument and Willamette, you won’t miss the NEON GREEN Bookmobile, gather there!

WHEN: Between 11am and Noon on Saturday, March 17. The parade begins at noon and we’re 21st in line.

THEN: Parade proceeds south along Tejon, beginning officially at Boulder and ends at Vermijo . We’ll disperse into Pioneer’s Plaza (across from the J&P!) probably around 1pm.

PARKING TIP: You might want to have parked in the J&P vicinity before the parade so that you can then drive home from there.

If you have any questions, please call ERIC at 719.460.2836 asap. Please come, we need your help! Invite as many friends as you can, and pass this announcement along to whoever you think might want to join us.

Success and the street action

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Rise upI find there’s some confusion as to what it means to take to the streets. It’s not just protest, it’s not just calling attention to oneself. The efficacy of street protest is not to be judged by how it influences lawmakers, or how well it mobilizes support. Taking to the streets is about establishing a beach head.
 
On the flip side of the military analogy, have you wondered in this age of high tech weapons, aircraft carriers and unmanned drones, why a military force would still need foot soldiers at all? At the same time, how is it that the Vietcong, and now the Iraqis insurgents, could resist our mighty aerial bombardments with nothing but relatively unarmed men?

These are leading questions of course because neither bombs, nor laws, nor ideology, can hold ground. Until you can run the infantry in to plant a flag, the land is not yours. And if you don’t send enough manpower, you can’t keep it.

This government isn’t going to cede its despotism if even 100% of us are making knowing remarks from the sidelines. We can laugh Bush out of the blogosphere but he and his cronies will hold the reins in Washington and Wallstreet until you and I are outside with pitchforks.

That’s what we are doing in the streets. It may be early, there may not be much of a following, but someone’s got to set the example. And one person out on the street today unafraid of the police state, is success enough. Onward Christian soldiers!

iraqi body count

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 http://www.iraqbodycount.org/names.php

this is an listing of the IDENTIFIED bodies. Of Civilians killed in Iraq since the invasion. Up to February 2006 meaning the list is a year old.

3,670 individuals, including a minority for whom only a PARTIAL name or Familial relationship could be established.

quote 

“In any use of these names please give due honour to the unidentified
dead not in this list whose numbers far exceed these named victims. For
every identified individual on the list there are another 9 confirmed
Iraqi civilians killed for whom we do not have identifying information.
In contrast, virtually every coalition soldier killed can be identified
by name and other biographical information.

There is no
organised effort to name all victims of the war. Only when all have
been identified and duly recorded can there be any talk of respecting
their memory.

To those who knew and loved them, and are in no need of reminding, we offer our condolences.” end quote.

By mentioning that those who are unidentified number at least 9 times as many as are identified, that once again leaves open the Question:

 How can the United States Government and The British Crown both insist that every Iraqi killed has been an Insurgent, When they can’t even identify more than 10% of them?

How would you know for sure that somebody is a radical or enemy if you don’t know who the hell he was?

If your smart bombs are so smart that they can’t possibly kill anybody but the Bad Guys, then you would know exactly who the targets were before bombing them, wouldn’t you?

If your agencies had the intelligence as to who they were bombing while they were still alive why are only 10% of them identified, post mortem?

It would make a sick kind of perverted sense to withhold the Identities of people who you have captive, and are torturing for information, but what harm can it do to disclose the names of the Dead?

Who do you think you’re fooling? Ok so I got that last one from a song by Rhymin’ Paul Simon.

The lists are organized into 2 formats, A4 size and US letter size, .pdf files and about 3 megabytes each.

3 and a half thousand out of one estimate of half a million. That’s more like a half a percentage point. Even at the admittedly low estimate of 150 thousand that only ramps it up to just over 2%.

I am reminded of the fellow from Yahoo answers who said that the American Left were more concerned about the Iraqi civilians than “Our Troops”, and too many cameras recording the killings and somehow portraying the Evil Notion that the Iraqi people are… well… People.

and there were a couple of others who posted in the same Answers question that made the Administration talking point that we are over there to help the Iraqis.

If they are there to help the Iraqi people, shouldn’t they actually BE CONCERNED about the people they are “helping”?

That post was deleted by Yahoo!Answers. They never sent me any answer about why it was deleted.

so, as the headlines say, bush is going to have another chance to defend his iraq policy

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ANOTHER chance? Good God where have these reporting agencies had their noses (and the rest of their heads) shoved for the past 4 years?

Every day, in every way he has consistently said “I am the Leader, you MUST follow me, and Billy Graham says you are an Heretic if you don’t”

Which has been and is the same “defense” he has made since the Big Announcement of last monday. or was it the monday before last?

I’m so confused….

There was a report on DumFox, somebody post a link for it if you can find it, that  “militant insurgents” dressed as American soldiers passed through three check points, onto an American base, killed several Americans and escaped….

uuummmm… How do they know (since the killers escaped) that they were in fact insurgents, and not American insurgents?

Or American insurgents cleverly disguised as jihadi insurgents cleverly disguised as American soldiers to throw off the logic trail?

How, in fact, do we know that DumFox news was not, in fact, LYING THROUGH THEIR COLLECTIVE  ear about this?Sanity claws.

that last is a link from my canadian perspective.

But we get the Chimp’s Big Announcement, redux.

I hope this time he does dance nekkid at the podium while singing “I’m a little crackpot, hear me shout” the entertainment value would make it worth tuning in.

Scorched journalist policy

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Shall we speculate as to who is killing journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan? (141 to date in Iraq.) Well, the who is documented, much of it labeled “friendly fire.” Shall we speculate about the why? Forgive me if it feels like I am connecting the dots with a crayon.
 
A recent documentary interviewed some Iraqi journalists about their inconsistent use of flack jackets. The journalists said they choose not to wear protection around fellow Iraqis because they don’t want to be mistaken for working for the occupiers. But walking beside American soldiers the journalists do wear flack jackets because they are fearful of being shot …by the Americans.

Witness to a crime
We’ve all seen it in the movies: the protagonist is accidental witness to a crime and becomes targeted by the perpetrator lest he live to testify. Or the victim begging for life, vowing in exchange not to go to the police. Both victim and criminal know it’s an offer the villain cannot risk.

Massacres usually intend to leave no survivors because the dead tell no tales. Countless war movies have depicted the war correspondent happening upon a war crime in progress, recognizing immediately that a “stray bullet” will be eminent.

Kill Boxes
We’ve learned over the course of two Gulf Wars that our military employs such tactics as “Kill Boxes” and “Free Fire Zones.” Both describe a similar US M.O.. The first is Air Force lingo for an area bounded by given coordinates inside of which everything is considered a target. The airmen are tasked with killing everybody in that box. They have the discretion not to shoot something, but they will be held responsible for whatever they leave, authorized as they were to annihilate all.

Photo shown across the world except in the USA renowned Kill Box in 1990 was the Highway of Death, where thousands of Iraqi soldiers fleeing from Kuwait were incinerated in their vehicles. (American viewers were spared the graphic images.)

The Hague Conventions forbid firing upon soldiers who are no longer attacking you. Even cowboys know you don’t shoot somebody in the back. Both the Hague and Geneva Conventions outlaw the indiscriminate killing of civilians and other non-combatants.

Free Fire Zones
Kill Boxes violate all international conventions. They are as illegal as the US Army’s Free Fire Zone in which soldiers are ordered to fire freely at “anything that moves.” Civilians are expected to know beforehand to get out of the way. They figure it out when our snipers begin popping their family members’ heads off in their gardens. IED detonations now trigger automatic Free Fire Zones around the radius of the blast. An American reputation for ruthless overkill now precedes us. As a result, when IEDs explode, Iraqis have learned to run for their lives. Our soldiers lie to themselves that the escaping figures must be responsible for the IED, and are thus combatants. American Humvees carry extra shovels to plant on the bodies of the slain civilians to paint them as bomb laying insurgents.

The US has deliberately shot civilians since the Korean War, though this has only recently been revealed. In No Gun Ri, entire masses of refuges were machine-gunned to prevent fighters from passing amongst them. This policy continued in Vietnam, the My Lai massacre being unique only for having been uncovered. In war, Collateral Damage has always been a tragic unintended consequence, but by no stretch of a JAG’s imagination can it be a sanctioned consequence.

Secret and Confidential
Let’s speculate here… If military manuals exist with instructions for Kill Boxes and Free Fire Zones which explicitly require the killing of civilians and non-combatants, how do you suppose the instructions read for dealing with uninvited members of the press? The US military seems quite preoccupied with how its actions appear in news broadcasts. How might US soldiers be instructed to deal with journalists who stumble upon the bodies and capture the unbecoming bloodshed with their cameras? We’ll find out someday when a witness survives.

Everyone has a profile

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TV iconThe 80s cult TV show Max Headroom depicted a post-apocalyptic world dominated by television networks as corporate overlords. There was direct democracy, you could vote right on your television, but only for who should win a contest or whether a condemned man should die. Think electronic lynch mob.
 
In this big-brother-televises-all world, there was a curious identity concept for describing people who lived off the grid. They were called Zeros and they lived literally outside the confines of the physical city infrastructure. (So difficult it was to conceive of how a person could escape oversight.) Little was known about their personal details, hence, they were zeros.

This was quite different from being unknown. Zero denotes something, specifically the absence of it. (The Latin numeral system stalled for lack of a zero.) In Max Headroom a Zero was a person about which suspicion was cast, due to the absence of the expected accumulation of data. An empty file was a flag, basically. You could choose to keep you cards close to your chest, but you would be watched more closely as a result.

I think the Zero anonymity dilemna is a fine example of the difficulty we face today in wrestling our privacy from the information merchants. It used to be patriots feared that our social security numbers would be used to track our personal records. This would have been true when the thought of synthesizing phone books by surnames was too daunting. But number-crunching has now well exceeded that kind of challenge. Computers can sort and group any number of variables, there is no need for a single unique SS number. A person’s name, birth date and birthplace provide specificity enough. Add to that the cloud of extra information: whereabouts, financial activity, utilities, phone and computer records, etc.

By the time you accumulate clouds of data for millions of people, patterns appear and the statistical laws of actuarial science, which have always served the insurance industry so well, begin to make the anomalies stand out. An analyst would be able to deduce quite a few things about you to which you are probably oblivious yourself. But most of all they can spot when someone is trying to manipulate their data footprint. And seeing that action in itself adds to your profile.

While to call an information-insurgent a Zero would be insufficiently descriptive, it makes the point. If you don’t have any phone on record, information analysts do not conclude that you lack a phone. If there’s a bill you’re not paying, or something you’re overpaying, there’s a probable hypothesis analysts will draw. The information industry is not in the business of knowing nothing.

Wrestling with Steve Irwin

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Nine lives of the curiousA young friend reminded me today. “You know, I’m still really sad about the Alligator Guy.”
 
Me too. Steve Irwin’s death is sad, and a great loss, but I also feel we may be dishonoring Irwin to feel sad for him.

I wouldn’t pretend to speak for Irwin, nor certainly would I imagine that he wouldn’t have rather avoided the stingray’s barb. I will postulate however that the Alligator Guy died doing what he loved. I will speculate that while Irwin’s dangerous antics appeared effortless to us, no doubt he had a precise understanding of the odds and the risk.

An article written after his death quoted Irwin as having once joked with his producer: if ever one of his stunts proved fatal, “at least it will be on film.” I really have to believe that Steve Irwin braved the odds, and just as bravely met his fate.

I make this point because I think our culture is too ready to drown spiritual identity under the weight of a social mean. We can marvel at Steve Irwin’s individuality but we’ll discount his strength of character as soon as he is not around to surprise us again.

I asked my young friend about another of his heroes, Anakin Skywalker. Why ever would Anakin -with the power of The Force- have turned to the Dark Side?” He informed me: “Because he wanted Padme to live.” Really. Would his princess have accepted being saved if she knew that Anakin would sacrifice his soul?

To read any of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey in George Lucas’ Star Wars tale is to be full of shit. I do so resent this typical reduction of the heroic character. Humanizing the protagonist these days seems to require diminishing the human potential. We’re not talking about a tragic flaw in the Greek sense, we’re talking about the consumer’s creed: I me mine.

In these capitalist times we love the dictum “everybody has his price.” It seems carved in stone like “absolute power corrupts.” I believe it’s not very far removed from the crippling Catholic indoctrination of guilt, that we are all born sinners. I reject that handicap. We each may have our weaknesses, our predilections, our tragic flaws, but we are also what we want to be, and we can be good.

2.
Muslims extremists, I believe, are similarly belittled. A suicide bomber willing to give his or her life for a cause is not by necessity brain-washed or waylaid. Selfless motives do not register with our Culture of Self. Insurgents rising in waves against American firepower, rise against our comprehension. The determination of the Vietcong porters along the Ho Chi Min trail was likewise not something we could easily fathom.

A pacifist friend of mine has a pact with his wife. Both like minded pacifists, they agreed never to resort to lethal force to protect one another. Neither wanted to be saved at the expense of the death of another human being. To act otherwise, while promising a less tragic outcome, would dishonor the path toward which both were committed.

Our culture does not want to honor people’s moral selves. It teaches that everyone, even Anakin, is turnable, as if there is no such thing as a moral compass. We preach morality but fear letting it inhabit individual peoples.

Steve Irwin was not perhaps a moral leader, but he was a hero. His heroism was his irrepressibly adventurous bravery. Now, it may be best for young minds to believe that Alligator Guy died instantaneously without suffering, but I read something more happened. Irwin’s companions say that after he was struck, they watched him pull the barb from his chest and look at it as he slowly lost consciousness. I don’t need to see the footage, but I’d like to face the reality of Steve Irwin’s death as he did. With curiosity and bravery.

Israel promises to retaliate 10 to 1

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Civilian victims of Israeli retaliationIn the days when Hitler occupied Europe, the Nazis had a problem with insurgency. At that time it was called the resistance. Resistance fighters, usually ordinary civilians, conducted espionage, acts of sabotage and executions of collaborators or Germans when they could.

Out of frustration, and to deter further acts, the Nazis promised retaliatory measures against the occupied population. Ten citizens from that town, for example, would be shot for every act of sabotage. Sometimes it was fifty. On the Russian front the ratio was even higher. There the insurgents were called partisans.

We witnessed a vivid example in the film Schindler’s List. In concentration camps, the Nazis would punish infractions by lining up prisoners and shooting every tenth man. A friend of mine in Colorado Springs, a camp survivor recently deceased, escaped several of those line-ups before he was traded to Britain for a German officer in a prisoner exchange.

Collective punishment is illegal under the conventions of war. It’s illegal because it is inhumane and unfair. Perhaps you remember back in your schooldays, feeling it was unfair when your coach ordered you to do fifty pushups because of the failings of the weakest team member. But the coach was trying to build your body, not kill you.

The collective punishment strategy didn’t work for the Nazis, not even in the name of protecting the homeland.

Perhaps because of the universal condemnation of collective punishment, our domestic media is not reporting a recent declaration by Israel, regarding its actions against Hizb’Allah in Lebanon. The world is aflame with indignation and the world is calling for an immediate cease-fire.

What is the world hearing that we are not? Two days ago, they heard the Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff General Dan Halutz promise to destroy ten buildings for each rocket. Specifically, Israel will destroy ten residential multi-level buildings in southern Beirut, for every Katyusha rocket that lands on Haifa. Google the headline and see the story that isn’t playing here.