| Olbermann kicks Bush in the balls - hard |
[Dec. 7th, 2007|11:52 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | politics, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sore | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Drone Zone: Atmospheric ambient space music. Serve Best Chilled. Safe with most medications. [SomaFM] | ] |
Take it away, Keith:
" We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War Three about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole — or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked — at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so — whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed, were still even remotely plausible.
A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency: an unapologetic war-monger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself."
Then he gets nasty...
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| Israel tightens borders against 'dirty bomb' attack - False flag flag? |
[Dec. 5th, 2007|12:14 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | israel, terrorism, us, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | concerned | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and mid-tempo electronica. [SomaFM] | ] |
From John Shirley's Signs of Witness:
' Israel has tightened security at its airports, seaports and border crossings—increasing both technological surveillance as well as information gathering efforts —in order to thwart attempts at smuggling radioactive materials into the country. These materials could potentially be used in the production of a “dirty bomb” that could be detonated within Israel.
A “dirty bomb”, which is essentially a low grade nuclear weapon, is far less lethal than an atomic bomb, but can still lead to massive casualties and injuries should it be employed. It basically consists of an ordinary explosive “laced” with radioactive materials. When detonated, these nuclear materials then emit dangerous levels of radiation, which can quickly spread across a rather large area. As previously noted, Israel is growing increasingly vigilant of a possible ‘dirty bomb’ attack. Supervision at seaports is at an all time high, and new detectors have been put in place to identify nuclear materials hidden in containers and freight cargo.
Moreover, heightened security has been instituted at sensitive sites, such at the nuclear waste site in southern Israel, (emphasis mine) in order to prevent theft and smuggling of radioactive materials.
The United States instituted similar heightened security measures at its borders crossings and sea ports several months ago, following repeated security alerts. Radiation detection devices were placed along major access points into Manhattan, including bridges and tunnels. '
Consider this - both Israel and US are nuclear powers (even if the former won't admit it). Border restrictions won't stop fissionables and other hot metals already within their borders.
This sounds a lot like a warm-up to something bad. Hope I'm wrong. |
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| In this week's round of 'Pot versus Kettle'... |
[Nov. 9th, 2007|12:21 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | politics, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | whiskey tango foxtrot | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and mid-tempo electronica. [SomaFM] | ] |
' Bush told Pakistan's president on Wednesday that he must hold parliamentary elections and step down as army leader.
"You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time," Bush said, describing a telephone call with Gen. Pervez Musharraf. "I had a very frank discussion with him." '
Yep. The President and Commander in Chief of the United States Military actually said that. Not exactly a shock that he's so clueless and arrogant, but still worth a macabre chuckle. |
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| Oh that'll help... Iran's new nuclear negotiator is end-times cultist! |
[Nov. 6th, 2007|12:59 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | middle east, nukes, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  worried | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Drone Zone: Atmospheric ambient space music. Serve Best Chilled. Safe with most medications. [SomaFM] | ] |
From Signs of Witness:
' While the world catches its breath after the sudden resignation of Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, questions are being asked about the background and beliefs of his successor, Saeed Jalili. The answers, it turns out, are troubling. [snip]
The most worrying revelation about Jalili’s past appeared today in the Iran Diplomacy website. This Tehran-based news agency, in an article titled “Dr Ali Leaves, Dr Saeed Enters” revealed that for most of his career at the Foreign Ministry, Jalili worked closely with Mojtaba Hashemi Samare, a leading messianic and a close ally of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, the most well-known and high-ranking messianic cleric in Iran. The article talks about how Jalili cooperated with Hashemi Samare in the Inspectorate department of Ministry. It also mentions that for a short time, Jalili also worked with Ahmadinejad.
Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi is a former member of the Hojattieh, a messianic splinter group which was disbanded by Ayatollah Khomeini in the early 1980s because of its extremist views. The sect’s goals are to sow chaos — the goal of which is to incite a massive war, presumably necessary to speed up the return of the Shiite messiah, known as the Mahdi. '
Well I guess it means the conversation will be balanced... |
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| Systempunkt - by squirrels |
[Nov. 6th, 2007|12:12 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | fortean, squirrels, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | I for one welcome our new squi | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Weird Fishes/Arpeggi-Radiohead-In Rainbows | ] |
(If you don't know what a systempunkt is, go read John Robb for a while, m'kay?)
' A major power outage in Auburn Friday morning brought many businesses to a standstill, including the Journal.
"We sat down and we ate until it came back on," said Jodie Luckett, owner of Cheryl's Clothes Closet on Palm Avenue. "We had a calculator and were still able to let people shop."
Power was cut to 6,752 Auburn-area customers at 8:45 a.m. Friday and restored by 11 a.m., said Jennifer Ramp, spokeswoman for PG&E.
"We had a squirrel that got into our Placer substation (on Blocker Drive) and caused the outage," Ramp said.
Luckett said she planned to take the dark moments as an opportunity to catch up on other business.
"I couldn't go on eBay and couldn't go to the post office, they were closed too," she said. "We are too reliant on electricity." ' |
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| Rise of the Machines |
[Oct. 18th, 2007|09:45 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | tech, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | concerned | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Drone Zone: Atmospheric ambient space music. Serve Best Chilled. Safe with most medications. [SomaFM] | ] |
' The South African National Defence Force "is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday."
...The weapon, a ED-209 Oerlikon GDF-005, is designed to use passive and active radar, as well as laser range finders, to lock on to "high-speed, low-flying aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and cruise missiles." In "automatic mode," the weapon feeds targeting data from the fire control unit straight to the pair of 35mm guns, and reloads on its own when its emptied its magazine. ' |
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| 22 Things we know six years after 9/11 |
[Sep. 4th, 2007|09:51 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | politics, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cynical | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Doomed: Dark music for tortured souls [SomaFM] | ] |
It's that time of year again... Bernard Weiner gives us his annual update on the deep background of the Forever War world:
"Each year around the anniversary of 9/11, I summarize what we ordinary citizens have learned since that awful day in 2001. This is the sixth annual look backwards, an update based on new information about those horrific events and what followed.
What we now more fully understand is how the CheneyBush Administration utilized the murderous terrorism of 9/11 as the one-size-fits-all justification for their unfolding domestic and foreign agenda.
By and large, one can sum up that overall agenda as: Amass and control power in the U.S. and much of the world, and, in cahoots with their corporate supporters, loot the treasury. All this was to be carried out secretly, with no accountability..."
Plus, as lagniappe... Slacktivist on PNAC's hubris (and theme song). |
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| The Forever War, part 57 |
[Sep. 3rd, 2007|11:27 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | politics, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | bitter | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Doomed: Dark music for tortured souls [SomaFM] | ] |
Also from John Robb's Global Guerrillas, three reasons why the War on Terror won't end with the Bush presidency.
Excerpt, specifically reason 2:
'The threat that justifies the state and the perpetual war that codifies it. The ongoing threat of terrorism has become the primary justification for the existence of a strong nation-state (and its greatest instrument of power, the military) at the very moment it finds itself in decline due to globalization (or more accurately: irrelevance). The militarization of "the war against terrorism" reverses this process of dissipation, since it can be used to make the case for the acquisition of new powers, money, and legitimacy (regardless of party affiliation) -- for example, everything from increases in conventional military spending to the application of technical reconnaissance on domestic targets. Of course, this desire for war at the political level is complimented by the huge number of contractors (and their phalanxes of lobbyists) attracted by the potential of Midas level profits from the privatization of warfare. The current degree of corporate participation in warfare makes the old "military industrial complex" look tame in comparison.'
Seriously folks - if you want to be aware of the state of the world, you need to read Robb regularly. Ta again to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) happyuncledave for turning me onto him in the first place. |
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| Child Soldiers and Brigandage |
[Sep. 3rd, 2007|11:21 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | iraq, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | bitter | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Doomed: Dark music for tortured souls [SomaFM] | ] |
Next time some idiot whines about "but think of the children...", point them to this piece by Bill Lind:
(For that matter, anyone who thinks the Iraq 'war' is either under control or winnable in any way by US interests should read this, and Lind in general.)
"As we have seen in Africa, when children become fighters at an early age, they provide a pool of men who for at least a generation cannot do anything but fight. It is difficult to "de-program" them into peaceful citizens. In turn, this leads to what we might call "supply-side war," war driven largely by the presence of men who want to fight. This kind of half-war, half-brigandage swarmed over Europe during the interval between the end of the Middle Ages and the rise of the state. After Westphalia, the state put an end to it by rounding up the brigands and hanging them. In Iraq, where the fictional state cannot even round up kilowatts, supply-side war suggests that disorder will be rampant, and a state non-existent, for quite some time."
(From Global Guerrillas) |
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| On outsourcing military and intelligence work in the US |
[Aug. 29th, 2007|11:50 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | politics, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | weary, bitter | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Doomed: Dark music for tortured souls [SomaFM] | ] |
Bernard Weiner at Smirking Chimp covering one of the scarier aspects of the US version of Public-Private Partnerships:
"In short, CheneyBush have created what amounts to their own private legions -- soldiers, intelligence analysts, security guards, construction experts, supply specialists, et al. -- in effect, a "mercenary" force bought and paid for by the American taxpayer.
That's why there will probably be no draft: There is no guarantee of loyalty from those dragooned into service. Besides, many draftees have politically-connected constituencies. But when one's mercenary "volunteer" forces are totally beholden to the paymaster for their livelihood and under-the-table payoffs, they will dance with them that brung 'em.
These are no small numbers. It's estimated that in addition to the 160,000 regular troops in the field in Iraq, CheneyBush control anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 private assets ("independent contractors"). Nobody's even sure under what "rules of engagement" these guys -- many in security and reconstruction fields -- operate, or whether they are accountable to anyone other than their corporate bosses' and the financial "bottom line."
History shows us the dangers involved when leaders have large extra-institutional forces at their command, such as the Praetorian Guards and Legions of ancient Roman Caesars, Hitler's Brownshirts, Saddam's Republican Guards, the private militias of political and religious leaders today in Iraq, Blackwater forces in control of New Orleans after Katrina, etc. By and large, these mercenaries swear allegiance to their employer, not to the rule of law, not to any constitution. The catastrophic damage done to democracy by the existence, and power, of these private forces can't be over-stated.
News flash: Blackwater, the huge corporation that CheneyBush rely on for most of the non-military functions in Iraq and elsewhere, is buying combat aircraft..." |
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| Jewishfuckwitwatch - prayer makes Israeli soldiers bullet-proof... |
[Aug. 27th, 2007|09:55 pm] |
Just to show I'm an equal opportunity commenter on the idiocy of certain People of the Book...
' An influential former chief rabbi of Israel has caused controversy by saying its soldiers fall in action because they do not observe Jewish law.
Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the orthodox Jewish party Shas, said God helped soldiers when they "believe and pray" and they did not get killed.
The remarks, in a sermon broadcast in Israel, have been sharply criticised in secular circles and by veterans groups.
Many of the 112 soldiers killed in last year's Lebanon were observant Jews.
Rabbi Yosef has often been at the centre of controversy for comments in his weekly sermons, which are known for their ultra-conservative content.
"Is it any wonder if, heaven forbid, soldiers are killed in a war?" Rabbi Yosef said in the recording of his weekly Saturday night sermon broadcast on Monday.
"They don't observe the Sabbath, they don't observe the Torah, they don't pray, they don't put on phylacteries every day. Is it any wonder that they're killed? It's no wonder. May the Almighty have mercy on them and bring them back to religion." '
I now have this image of a Kabbalistic version of the Ghost Dance ritual... and note just how effective that was. |
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| Robots with guns |
[Aug. 2nd, 2007|10:43 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | c21, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | concerned | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Space Station Soma: [SomaFM] | ] |
I feel like this is some fundamental threshold being crossed... cyberpunk readers, players of games like Deus Ex or Shadowrun - I think you all know what I mean.
' Robots have been roaming the streets of Iraq, since shortly after the war began. Now, for the first time -- the first time in any warzone -- the machines are carrying guns.
After years of development, three "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system" (SWORDS) robots have deployed to Iraq, armed with M249 machine guns. ' |
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| War - Brave New and the old cowardly version |
[Jun. 15th, 2007|12:10 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | 4gw, iran, politics, war | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Doomed: Dark music for tortured souls [SomaFM] | ] |
I'm studying with great attention John Robb's book 'Brave New War' - his detailed but readable discussion of the nature of the kind of decentralised guerrilla forces that with modern tech and comms are capable of taking on a military state and winning. Depressing and scary and I think essential in understanding the modern world and our immediate future.
He's a smart guy, experienced in strategic thought (ex planner of counterterror ops for SEAL) and he's done his research. Even if I can't tempt you to read the book, I do urge you to check out his blog and do the necessary back-reading to grok the concepts he uses. He understands the nature of modern warfare in a way very few in the US military do, and the political wing of the Dominion don't at all.
For example, he points out the very sensible reason an attack on Iran is a really bad idea - it'd be a major blow to international trade with massive knock-on effects to the global economy.
Unfortunately...
David Brin reports on an article , ”Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran” from Paul Craig Roberts. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. In short, a man deep in old-school Republican Conservatism. Here's what Roberts says:
“The prospect of nuking Iran doesn't seem to disturb the three frontrunners for the Republican nomination, who agreed in their June 5 debate that the US might use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities.”
' “The war in Iraq is lost. This fact is widely recognized by American military officers and has been recently expressed forcefully by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq during the first year of the attempted occupation. Winning is no longer an option. Our best hope, Gen. Sanchez says, is "to stave off defeat," and that requires more intelligence and leadership than Gen. Sanchez sees in the entirety of our national political leadership: "I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time."
“More evidence that the war is lost arrived June 4 with headlines reporting: "U.S.-led soldiers control only about a third of Baghdad, the military said on Monday." After five years of war the US controls one-third of one city and nothing else.”
Moreover: “A year ago Colin Powell said that the US Army is "about broken." Col. Andy Bacevich, America's foremost writer on military affairs, documents in the current issue of The American Conservative that Bush's insane war has depleted and exhausted the US Army and Marine Corps:"Only a third of the regular Army's brigades qualify as combat-ready. In the reserve components, none meet that standard. When the last of the units reaches Baghdad as part of the president's strategy of escalation, the US will be left without a ready-to-deploy land force reserve." '
And then the bombshell, as it were:
' “Neocons have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government. Insurgency and terrorism cannot prevail against nuclear weapons.Many US military officers are horrified at what they think would be the worst ever orchestrated war crime.
' “There are reports of threatened resignations. But Dick Cheney is resolute. He tells Bush that the plan will save him from the ignominy of losing the war and restore his popularity as the president who saved Americans from Iranian nuclear weapons. With the captive American media providing propaganda cover, the neoconservatives believe that their plan can pull their chestnuts out of the fire and rescue them from the failure that their delusion has wrought.” '
That - plus reading Robb - is plenty scary. Then Brin finishes off the piece with his own (he admits rather madcap, but not actually impossible) idea that the situation in the White House and Pentagon could be best described by a 'Manchurian Candidate' model...
So - Iran nuked for basically the same face-saving gain that led Thatcher to the Falklands. But with oil. Maybe not by stupididy, but plan.
And, if Robb is right (and he's been spot-on so far, more than anyone else in the field) the Global Guerrillas who survive will just spread their memes and continue winning.
They're an enemy the UD Dominion fear greatly - one they can't fight directly, where every indirect action against them and their support structure (or as we like to call them,' non-combatants') risks massive blowback from media exposure. These open-source terrorists (another term Robb coined) are also the perfect enemy for propaganda, excusing even more draconian loss of liberties... and so the wheel turns.
(X-posted to Dark Christian) |
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