Category Archives: Balls cried the Queen


Oil for Blood

Today, Knight-Ridder Newspapers reported:

“The bodies of the dead Nigerian villagers hadn’t yet grown cold when a navy captain presented Chevron with a bill: 15,000 naira, or $165…”.

The Jan. 4, 1999 raid by Nigerian soldiers killed an estimated 74 civilians, giving Chevron the bargain price of $2.23 per dead body. However, Chevron supplied the helicopter and boats used in the attack so presumably the soldiers’ only expenses were the bullets.

Nigeria has been severely criticized for the past decade by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc. for human rights abuses in the oil-rich Niger River Delta. Although it has been obvious for some time that oil companies have aided the government and profited from the exploitation, Chevron apparently took it one step farther and gave direct logistical support to the soldiers.

Chevron’s involvement has been known since 1999. However, due to a federal lawsuit filed by the victims, the company has been forced to turn over documents.

I googled the mainstream media and none of them are carrying the story except, of course, the Knight Ridder news chain.

Declaring Victory?

According to this Newsweek article, Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and “the Pentagon [have] developed a detailed plan in recent months to scale down the U.S. troop presence in Iraq to about 80,000 by mid-2006 and down to 40,000 to 60,000 troops by the end of that year”.

Guess what’s wrong with this picture.

The Iraqi Army and police force have been widely criticized as unprepared to take over security duties. Given the grim picture of a well-entrenched and dedicated insurgency and the threat from extremist-controlled militias, how is it possible to withdraw troops and maintain some security? It isn’t. The problem is the U.S. has no other option.

A few months ago, the Pentagon announced they would draw down most of the reservist and guard units by the end of this year due to a mandated two year limit on deployment. These units comprise about 40,000 soldiers. The Army said they would reshuffle their regular active-duty units to make up the shortfall. That’s a good way to grind the troops into the ground by forcing one tour-of-duty after another after another. As it is, some Army soldiers are on their third tour of duty with some Marines on their fourth.

Attentive readers may have noticed that recruitment is in the toilet. At the current rate, the Army will be 7,000 recruits short of their goal by September. That isn’t even taking into account the likelihood that many of those recruits will not make it through basic training. The military has dramatically reduced their standards which means more recruits will have questionable arrest records, drug and alcohol problems, lack of education, mental health issues, etc.

What will happen when the U.S. soldiers start to leave?

If the U.S. tries to occupy the whole of Iraq with fewer soldiers, there will be a dramatic increase in military and civilian casualties. If the soldiers withdraw to the military bases and only protect the oil fields, the rest of Iraq will fragment and explode in genocide, disease, starvation and civil war.

I’m sure that the Bush Admin will try to spin the withdrawal in the most positive way but will the public believe it?

I’m a Tarantula Nerd

Hey, there’s a reason I chose Tarantula Lady as my ID.

A week ago, I posted that I would try to mate a pair of my Avicularia metallica tarantulas. The female was throwing up, however. I’m serious, tarantulas throw up sometimes. I was concerned she was ill (no, she did not have morning sickness), so I postponed their date. Well, they just did the deed and we saw the male got in some inserts. I took him out and he’s cleaning himself off at the moment. I’ll probably put them together in a week or so; this will give him a chance to recharge his bulbs with sperm.

Want a detailed explanation of the mating process? Go to Arachnopets.com.

Gulab: Hero or Village Idiot?

I had intended to offer a commentary on this subject but I was distracted by other matters.

A few weeks ago, there was heavy news coverage concerning a helicopter rescue mission for four Navy SEALs which went awry when the Taliban fighters successfully shot down one of the helicopters. One of the SEALs managed to survive with the help of an Afghan civilian.

My first reaction was surprise. The incident took place in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan where the populace is either sympathetic or scared shitless of the Taliban. Why would a native help an Navy SEAL?

Time magazine had a extensive article on Gulab, the friendly villager. Unfortunately, I took so much time to write this story that now Time is requiring actual money to read the article. Damn, don’t they know that everything on the web should be free? 😉 Oh, well, you’ll just have to take my word for what they wrote.

Gulab, a Pashtun shepherd, was rounding up his goats and accidentally rounded up a human. To be less flippant, he stumbled across the wounded commando who had the good sense not to immediately kill Gulab. The Navy SEAL managed to make it to Gulab’s village where he was given shelter by the community elders. The Taliban came by and demanded they turn over the American but the elders refused since that violated their beliefs for granting hospitality to strangers. The Taliban left. Gulab carried a message to nearby U.S. military base and the soldier was saved. Gulab and his family apparently left their village due to fear of reprisals.

This story bothers me. I know that there is a tradition among the Pashtuns called Pashtunwali. Essentially, it’s a tradition of helping your fellow man which is similar to the Middle Eastern practice of generosity to your guests. Still, risking your life, the lives of your family and maybe the entire village sounds extreme. Also, why did the Taliban just accept the refusal of the village elders? Were they outnumbered by the villagers? Was it against the beliefs of the Taliban to violate the traditions of the villagers? The Taliban are also Pashtun and they may very well have the same beliefs. Alternatively, they may not have wanted to alienate the local people.

Another possibility? The military is lying through their teeth. I may sound paranoid but the U.S. has been caught in so many lies that they don’t have very much credibility with me.

I’m not too sure how much credibility the U.S. military currently have with the Pashtun, either. Afterwards, as part of their attack on Taliban fighters, they bombed another village and killed 17 civilians . Allegedly, the U.S. attacked a home where several Taliban fighters were located. After the first bomb attack, the local villagers came to help the injured and the U.S. dropped more bombs.

I thought it was rather ironic that a humanitarian tradition saved an American soldier while also leading the U.S. to kill 17 civilians.

Haunted By the Ghost of Eric Shinseki

Most news junkies are familiar with Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki; his name still comes up in analyses of the U.S. failures in Iraq. Prior to the invasion, his testimony before congress triggered the wrath of the neocons when he stated several hundred thousand soldiers would be required to invade and occupy the country. Two years before, Shinseki had come into conflict with the Bush administration and Donald Rumsfeld. The congressional hearing was the last big salvo.

Since the U.S. didn’t have several hundred thousand soldiers to invade and occupy Iraq, Shinseki was actually stating that the war was a very bad idea. He really did know what he was talking about; back in 2000, he gave this interview to Frontline. He spoke about how the military’s role had changed to encompass dealing with terrorism, peacekeeping missions, WMDs, humanitarian assistance, etc. and how to restructure the army to meet those needs. He also said that soldiers deserved better than to lose their lives needlessly because of poor planning by their superiors.

I guess it’s not surprising that he didn’t get along with Rumsfeld.

Good Ways to Catch the Attention of Homeland Security

Just how paranoid are you? Have you ever stopped a moment before signing a petition because you thought that would get you on a government watchlist? Do you suspect that the FBI is monitoring your internet usage?

I have to admit that I wonder if the government knows that I’m a member of Amnesty International or the ACLU. According to this press release, the FBI is keeping files on the ACLU and other organizations. I think that it is safe to be a member of Amnesty International, though; they won the Nobel Peace Prize several years ago.

Last night, I googled how to make homemade bombs. Besides tempting fate and possible FBI interest, I wanted to find out whether or not it was an overhyped media story. Well, no, it’s not. In about 15 minutes, I found a website with recipes for different types of explosives, detonators, timing devices, advice for concealing bombs, etc. As I have a B.Sc. in chemistry, I wouldn’t recommend trying out any of these recipes without seriously researching the subject since God
only knows what kind of loonies wrote this. Still, some of the directions looked plausible.

Is there spyware on my computer that is secretly recording every keystroke? Is Microsoft gathering this data and turning me in to the NSA?

All countries face the problem of balancing freedom vs. security. The Patriot Act contains a good many provisions to intimidate citizens without providing any gain in safety. However, I am not sure if any government agency is actually using these laws in a substantial way to curtail civil rights. The FBI is pretty lame compared to the Gestapo or Romania’s Securitate. They’re undergoing massive restructuring, loss of authority and a $100 million botched computer system upgrade.

I don’t worry that a government agency is out to get me. I’m not important enough. Damned few people are important enough to justify the resources required for surveillance. No security service has ever existed that could spy on everyone all the time. In the grim example of Romania’s Securitate, citizens were so indoctrinated and fearful that they reported their own neighbors for suspicious activity, but that still required the government to investigate, arrest, interrogate, etc. It is far more efficient to intimidate the majority of citizens into slavishly obeying the law by making a few well-publicized examples.

Go ahead and sign petitions, write critical letters to the media, attend protests, and generally bitch and complain about the government. They can’t put everyone in jail. If you don’t exercise
your rights now, that encourages the government to curtail our freedoms.

Nazis: Always Good For a Knee-Jerk Response

According to Godwin’s law , “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches [100%]”.

Yesterday, I was searching around for a topic to blog and having little luck. I thought, “Aha, Nazis, always good to incite strong feelings”. 🙂 Well, seriously, I was going to write a timeline on how civil rights were eliminated in Germany. It’s an interesting subject and I may still write about it in the future.

As I was researching the subject, I discovered that the Nazi party never managed to get more than 37.2% of the popular vote. In 1932-33, no political party had a majority in the Reichstag (parliament) so on January 4, 1933, a coalition was formed between the Nazis and a right-wing conservative party led by Alfred Hugenberg, a wealthy media mogul. I must admit that I flashed on Rupert Murdoch at that point.

The rest was horrifying history; Hitler immediately grabbed absolute power and became dictator. I was curious about what became of Alfred Hugenberg since you don’t dance with the devil and expect to keep your soul. Unlike many of Hitler’s political enemies, he managed to avoid the concentration camps but ended up losing his media companies to the Nazis.

Interesting history but BFD, right? Too commonly, there is a tendency to invoke the vast corporate conspiracy which corrupts government and highjacks true democracy. I’ve done it many times but I admit that’s an oversimplification. While Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of a military-industrial complex which threatened American institutions of government, he did not blame all corporations.

Corporate America is not a monolith. They have competing interests and their lobbyists fight each other in the halls of Congress. Although they enjoy the tax breaks and subsidies bestowed by our honorable legislators, they don’t determine who we invade and when we go to war. If they did, the Iraq War wouldn’t be such a monumental screw-up.

Oil company executives did not want to invade Iraq since the risks did not outweigh the rewards. They make huge amounts of money anyway; why risk the entire Middle East going up in flames?

Fascist governments have close ties to corporations and ignore the interests of the public. Still, while I.G. Farben may have profited by their Zyklon B contract, how did those executives feel as they watched their cities bombed into rubble? I’m pretty sure that wasn’t good for business.

Do You Feel Like a Loyal Patriot? A Political Rant

There’s been a torrent of Op-Ed pieces over the red state/blue state split in America. After the 2004 election, the San Jose Mercury News printed a slightly tongue-in-cheek picture of a U.S. map with all blue states attempting to escape to Canada. How divided are we?

I’m uncomfortable even writing that last sentence. There is no we; there’s only two bitterly divided groups: the blues who consider themselves cosmopolitan and educated and the reds who hold themselves up as the last bastion of morality. One could argue that there’s a large group of apathetic centrists who have little interest in even voting, but they’re not the ones who drive the poltical debate.

Except for our blowhard politicians, when was the last time that you heard anyone say “we Americans”? When was the last time that you wrote “our government”? Most Americans would say that the government is controlled by right-wing Republicans but they would be wrong. The U.S. is controlled by corporations and demagogues who, while enriching themselves and their friends at government expense, seek to distract the general public into fighting one another in a verbal civil war over issues like gay marriage and abortion.

This wouldn’t matter as much if it was just a question of government corruption. As any historian will tell you, corruption is the price of democracy; only absolute dictatorships can ensure total accountability. No, it’s the death and destruction in Iraq that matters.

Except for a few yellow stickers haphazardly placed on bumpers, there are few visible signs that the country is at war. The public feels little or no direct effect which would distract from the usual media babble; the pain is primarily borne by a thin demographic section that supplies the military recruits. U.S. deaths are closing in on 2,000 but there is little outcry. Casualty reports have been banished to the back pages of newspapers or relegated to the thin ribbon crawling along the bottom of the television screen. At best, they’re worthy of a three-second sound bite, accompanied by appropriately sad music.

The Bush administration orchestrated the unseen war by rigorously preventing the press from reporting honestly on the blood soaking the ground in Iraq. The “news” consists of press releases handed out by a military spokesman and some sanitized video taken by Iraqi cameramen, the only news employees who dare to leave the Green Zone. There is no blood, no screaming soldiers and civilians whose limbs lie twisted and mangled; sensitive viewers might complain and real life might become too real.

None of this is lost upon the U.S. soldiers in Iraq. I can’t bring myself to call them “our” soldiers; my soldiers wouldn’t fight a war based on a lie, torture innocents because they might have information about terrorists, or continue to support a president who has cost them lives and credibility. Those soldiers in Iraq are correct when they worry whether the public still supports them. If Iraq is Vietnam-in-a-desert, what will U.S. veterans face after Iraq dissolves into a morass of civil war, terrorism, and butchery? Will returning soldiers be welcomed home with parades? Or will they be scapegoated as failures? That’s what happened after Vietnam. It took decades for public opinion to acknowledge that the leadership was the failure; it was far easier to blame the foot soldiers for “not being good enough, not like the dedicated soldiers in World War II”.

The soldiers will be an easy target for the Bush administration to use to deflect responsibility because the public doesn’t really care about them. They may wave a flag on July 4th but how many people care about the lack of body armor? They care more about the price of gasoline and that’s because they aren’t our soldiers. As far as the public is concerned, they’re just a group of people who volunteered to join the military and tough luck that they got sent to war.

The United States is not a country. It is a collection of special interest groups with so little patriotism that they don’t even blink an eye when they see their politicians commit treason.

I won’t be posting on Sunday

Seriously, tomorrow is tarantula feeding day and maybe I’ll get around to trying to mate my pair of Avicularia metallica tarantulas. Hopefully, the female will play nice.

Nuclear Japan

Or, how Japan may learn to love the bomb.

Obviously, Japan has the technology and resources to build pretty much any military weapon in existence. It does not have the political or cultural inclination to produce nuclear weapons, at least, not currently.

As Japan lacks natural resources, it has increasingly turned to nuclear energy for the production of electricity, despite public trepidation over the accidental release of radioactive material. By 2010, 40% of their electricity will come from nuclear power plants.

This points out Japan’s quite serious energy problems. Although they are the only country to have experienced nuclear warfare, they are still willing to build nuclear power plants in the most earthquake-prone nation on earth.

In addition to the “usual” uranium power plants, Japan also built two fast-breeder reactors. These reactors use plutonium and, moreover, produce more plutonium in the waste product. This waste product can be re-processed to obtain more plutonium. Thus, as stated in this link:

“By 2003 Japan owned more plutonium than in the United States nuclear arsenal…In 2003 Japan owned 38 tons of plutonium, 5 tons located in the country and 33 tons at its European processors. That is enough for 7,000 nuclear weapons. Japan is also accelerating its production of plutonium. By 2010, the amount of plutonium being stockpiled in Europe will have mounted to 45 tons.”

While reactor-grade plutonium is not as pure as weapons-grade, it can still be used for nuclear warheads. Of course, there is nothing to prevent the Japanese from purifying their plutonium.

The second question is method of delivery. Within a very short time, they could build a Nagasaki-type bomb and use aircraft to deliver it. They also have alternative technology. Japan has had a commercial space program since 1963; starting in 1970, they have launched satellites using solid-fuel rockets. Currently, they have two types of missiles that are suitable for conversion to intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, they would still have to design and build the re-entry vehicle to detonate the warhead.

So, why should anyone care? The Japanese aren’t going to bomb anyone with conventional weapons, much less start a nuclear holocaust. Although many Asian nations are still quite suspicious of Japanese motives due to lingering memories of World War II, there is no evidence of any type of militarism in Japan. Besides, there’s no need for Japan to become a nuclear power; since the end of World War II, the U.S. has guaranteed Japan’s security. That is, there is no need as long as the U.S. has the capability and desire to protect Japan.

How long will that last? Damned if I know. However, China and Japan are wrangling over the natural gas fields in the East China Sea. This is just a prelude to the increasingly desperate struggle over access to oil and other natural resources that are vital to industrialized nations and the emerging superpower, China. As Iraq spirals into civil war, its oil exports will drop even below its current paltry level and further strain supplies. Bush, aka Bushusuru the Younger (scroll to end to 8 Jan 1992), put the U.S. in hock to the central bank of China, which limits American options; essentially, China can crush the U.S. economy by selling the $200 billion in T-bills/bonds that are held by China’s central bank. Plus, in 1994 and 1998, North Korea shot medium-range missiles over Japan which landed in the Pacific; that, coupled with their suspected nuclear arsenal, would make anyone nervous.

Japan and the U.S. need each other; for example, Japan’s central bank holds $800 billion in T-bills and the U.S. hold Japan’s security. They are tied by economic and military necessity, but only an idiot believes that conditions will never change.

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