Dan Lyons
~ Wednesday, April 30, 2003
 
THE MOST IMPRESSIVE HUMAN I'VE EVER MET (Sister Philomena) /
(Most sensible people--like myself--are not very dedicated; most heroically dedicated people--like bin Laden--are not sensible. Rarely do you meet a person both heroic & sensible.)/
In 1952-3 I was stationed at an army office in Inchon, Korea. On a hill was the 'French Church'. The 8-foot statue of the Virgin-with-child in front was shot up by bullets, with the Virgin's face missing and the Baby's head blown off; the roof on the church was blown in. /
Next to the church was an orphanage for little girls, run by a French order, the Sisters of St.Paul of Chartres. This institution was actually run by a stout Irish nun of that order from Belfast, Sister Philomena, in her 60s, with a half-dozen Korean nuns assisting./
Before the Korean war, French nuns were in charge of the orphanage, with Sister Philomena merely the music director at the church. These nuns had been in Inchon since before the 1930's (Sister Philomena since 1934); they were placed under house-arrest by the Japanese occupiers during WWII; they nearly starved; then, when liberated, their metabolism was so improved that they swelled up obesely when the Americans swamped them with food; they had to be hospitalized to adjust finally./
THE KOREAN WAR: When the Communists took Inchon in 1950, they killed all the French nuns. It just happened that Sister Philomena was on an errand in Seoul that day; she was flown out by the Americans, and later returned, assigned to run the orphanage--after Inchon was retaken by the Americans./
"I really should find the burial places for those nuns; they count as martyrs", Sister Philomena told me, " but I figure live orphans are more important than the bones of martyrs." I got to know her right away, fascinated by her brisk attitudes toward life. Here are my disjointed memories of this woman./
There were about 50 orphans there, from new infants to 6-year-olds. The infants were in cardboard boxes in the halls, sucking on beer-bottles- with-nipples. There was a 'lazy-Susan' front door. The whores would throw out the half-American babies into the streets; Good Women would retrieve them and carry them up to the orphanage, where they would place the baby in the 'lazy Susan', ring the doorbell and run. I was there when the doorbell would ring and half-dead babies showed up./
A hospital ship in Inchon harbor treated wounded allied soldiers helicoptered in from the Front Line, about 30 miles away. The hospital personnel were forbidden to come ashore, because the air in Inchon was infected with various diseases. (Korean farmers then used human excrement as fertilizer; it was picked up by 'honey-buckets', for instance from GI toilets, then hauled out to the country in 'honey-carts'. The smell was an awful 4th dimension of experience that I never got used to.)/
However, one doctor did get to know Sister Philomena, who arranged that her agents in boats would pick up the rich garbage from the hospital ship and sell it (to be fed to pigs or people) with the money going to the orphanage./ This doctor got the idea of feeding the new babies on milk mixed with outdated transfusion-blood from the hospital ship; this mixture had almost-magic properties for reviving the discarded babies; she said he was writing a research paper on the subject./
The Korean parish-priest at the 'French church' was jealous of the money that went to the orphanage from GIs. When he heard of this baby-saving strategem, he protested to Philomena that St.Paul had forbidden the drinking of blood. She looked down at him and replied, "Yes, St. Paul said a lot of dumb things about women, too!"That ended that. /
They also tangled when she managed to get a few American officers to adopt the more beautiful infants; he said that Canon Law forbade her to hand Catholic infants over to Protestant parents. She said, "Right--but Canon Law does not insist that I have these children baptized at all. If you interfere with these adoptions, I'll wait to baptize the children until they're older; then the young infants can be adopted by anyone." The priest was reduced to fuming silence./
One of her adoptions made a story that ended up as a movie. She temporarily housed a small boy rescued from the front line; he was 'adopted' by a whole Navy ship. In the end, a Navy doctor had to leave the service to adopt the boy--who grew up to be an American doctor./
SENTIMENTAL? The captain in my office sneered at my admiration for this nun. "Sheer sentiment!" he snapped, "Instead of caring for orphans, she should be handing out condoms to the whores!" I said that she was about as sentimental as a supply sergeant./
In fact, when I reported his remark to her, she said,"Sentimental! If I gave in to sentiment, I'd drown these half-breeds, as indeed some of the Korean nuns have suggested; only Catholic principles restrain me. No Korean man will ever marry them; we are nuns raising whores. The French take in their bastards; the Americans deny the whole problem."/
I finally got the captain to visit the orphanage; he had never seen his new baby at home; he got one look at the babies in cardboard boxes, burst into tears, and fled. "Emotional!", commented the nun later, "Those emotional types never come back."/
One day she told me, "When I see these Yanks marching to their ships to go home, my eyes tear up. But when I think of the babies they've left me, my eyes go dry."/
She had read of the 'Bellevue' case, where orphans who got no cuddling actually died of the deprivation. So she and her overworked assistants tried to find time to cuddle each child a little each day. The older girls (up to age six or so) seemed normal; when any man showed up, they ran to touch your hand or tug at your pants-leg. The nuns taught them how to dance gracefully, so they could perform for visiting Yanks who might contribute. (It occurred to me that such skills might help also in their later careers.)/
I never heard where the older girls went, or where boy-babies were sent (I heard these were sent quickly to another orphanage somewhere.)/
SHREWD PROVISION: Sister Philomena worked assiduously every possibility of outside help. She got some army official to secure for her an army 'APO' post-office address. That way, she was sure of mail reaching her--"When mail is addressed to you in the Korean system, that just gives you a 'first-bid' privilege"--and also people in America could send her supplies with cheap postage./
I gave her my mother's address, and soon Mom received a nice letter citing certain pages in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue that specified exactly what supplies she and her friends at home might send. (Some supplies were sent to me to forward; when a box of heavy linoleum tiles arrived on top of other soldiers' cookies, there was trouble.) Skimming through the Sears catalogue, Philomena said, "I don't understand how middle-aged American women can spend so much time standing around in their corsets."/
A BAD DECISION: I decided to help the fund-raising by doing some off-key PR work. Knowing the fascination U.S. Protestants then felt for sinful nuns, I spread the word that she was really known as 'Hot Phil', and ran guns which she cadged from American soldiers--she smoked cigarettes, and showed a little leg. /
This ploy worked: soon, many GIs and officers were trudging up the hill to the orphanage out of curiosity; there they didn't meet 'Hot Phil', but they met this interesting woman who served tea and cookies (to the officers who were likely to make real contributions)--she herself drank only the tea: "We don't eat between meals."/
This PR work (and her own personality) brought in a lot of money; soon she was able to build a big new orphanage which was finished just before I left; I heard later that the orphanage in later years handled at least 400 orphans, with 33 nuns. /
Indeed, the movie featured a tough 'Sister Philomena' who played poker with the sailors; I figured that this legend was my doing. However, I should have expected that such a bizarre story would eventually have some unpredictable results./
As the money came in, the awful Korean government got interested, and a functionary showed up to announce the orphanage would be taxed. Philomena looked down at him, and said, "You tax this place and I hop a plane to Belfast the next morning, leaving you with all these orphans." He backed away./
She didn't win every battle. Other 'orphanages' nearby complained that she was getting all the lucrative garbage from the hospital ship; whereupon, of course, the ship commander heard about this deal to his horror and ordered all the garbage to be thrown into the sea. "Ordinarily, I would never wish spiritual misfortune on anyone," she confided bitterly, "but I really resent those phony orphanages who interfered, and that officer who took the easy road."/
She and the Koreans didn't get along very well. "I've been here for 20 years, and they still won't admit I can speak the language!" she would say, and then shout "EEDEWAH!" (COME HERE!) to some hapless child, in a heavy Irish brogue./
TOUGH STANDARDS: She held the American army in genial contempt. "No discipline", she remarked drily..she admired the Japanese army which ran things efficiently until 1945. For instance, the Japanese just rounded up any wild children in the streets and sent them to a 'pound'; the parents could reclaim them; otherwise they were raised with iron discipline./
The GIs on the other hand, would hand out food and candy to the kids in the street--so the wild boys would not stay in any orphanage; they ran away and then perished in the streets from malnutrition and the cold. "These soldiers love the admiration they get from the children," she said, "just like they'd get from dogs."/
She thought the American Navy was foolish not to have a 'grog ration', since the sailors showed up in Inchon obsessed with alcohol. "Over the years, I saw the French sailors head right for the whorehouses; but the Americans get so drunk so fast they often never get to the whorehouse; they're piled like cordwood and loaded back on the ships."/
"I hear that every Christmas all your sentries are drunk," she said. "These GIs have apparently never heard about George Washington and the Hessians!
They're lucky I hate the Communists; I could tell them how to take Inchon back. When I think that this army is all that stands between me and the Communists-- I have my running shoes ready beneath my bed." (After all, she had narrowly escaped once before.)/
-----------------------------------
AFTER THE WAR: After 16 months I was able to leave Inchon and return home. My family and I continued to send her supplies for a while. We didn't hear from her, so we eventually lost interest. I heard from another ex-soldier that, after the war, she had come through Boston, on a sort of triumphal tour of all her fans there, and also to place five half-breed orphans. Then the story was that she returned to Inchon./

But around 1957 I was in Chartres to see the cathedral, and my eye fell on a building labeled, in French and English, "Sisters of St.Paul de Chartres: Motherhouse". I went right up and asked for a nun who spoke English; I asked her whatever happened to Sister Philomena who ran the Star of the Sea orphanage in Inchon, Korea./
"It was terrible," the nun replied with a grave face, "Some awful person spread the rumour that she was a criminal, a gun-runner--after all her good work there, she was expelled from the country!"/
Receiving this fist in the belly, I staggered off, wallowing in shame and guilt. I hadn't foreseen the intensity of American bigotry and Korean resentment, which used my preposterous myth to eliminate her./
Indeed it was years before I could tell anyone this story. I didn't even think to ask what happened to her later; I did find out much later that she worked for years in America before she died./
Later I consoled myself that this way, Sister Philomena didn't die on the job, but spent her last years in comfort. But she didn't return in triumph. Not that the nuns believed the slander, nor her family, but still.../
I plan now to send this shaming story to her Order, to clear her name altogether. (Only the nuns of that Order never replied to my inquiry.)
I can only hope that, facing this final humiliation from my bungling, Sister Philomena grew from a hero into a saint.
 

LESS SAFE NOW?! The attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq were sold to the American people as necessary parts of the general War on Terror: supposedly, they would lessen the terrorist danger somewhat. But Gen.Myers just told AirForceAcademy that we are now in greater danger than ever from terrorists(DPOST2May). HUH? In this case, apparently, the Best Defense was NOT an Offense (or 2)./
Or maybe we'll have to launch 1st-strikes at 5 or 6 sovereign nations before the terrorist danger begins to peak and subside.
==================
CONNECTIONS: The Government is talking about signs of a connection between Saddam and Osama. But another set of connections has been discussed elsewhere. BECHTEL is a big construction corporation which has just received from the Bush-team (without any competitive bidding) a contract for rebuilding Iraq which could pay as much as $680 million during the next 18 months. Closely connected with Bechtel is the Fremont Group, most of whose stock is owned by the Bechtel family. 5 of Fremont's 8 directors are also Bechtel's directors..there are several other connections./
Now wait for it...$10 million has been invested in the Fremont Group by an internationally notable family--the bin Ladens. Don't you just love it ? /New Yorker,Talk of Town, 5 may/
One can't help remembering that on or right after 9/11, when all airlines were grounded, the Bush-team made an exception to fly bin Laden relatives out of the U.S. before they could be interrogated.
================
WORLD BALKANIZED: Several European countries are forming a military coalition alternative to NATO..this one may be aimed at U.S., not at Russia. World trade is fractured by post-Iraq hostilities (Miami Herald,29Apr, via TRUTHOUT). The UN is crippled by Bush's arrogance, just as League of Nations was killed by Hitler and Mussolini./
Much of this is bad for humanity. However, we luddites were deeply suspicious of commercial globalism, fearing that 1st-world technology would leave the 3d-world worse off. Now it looks as if Bush has helped anti-globalism more than any protesters could. Look at the bright side.
~ Tuesday, April 29, 2003
 
UNHAPPY PLIGHT OF OCCUPYING GIS: On 29APR, the news told of a clash between GIs and an Iraqi crowd. The GIs fired on the crowd, killing 15 and wounding 'dozens'. They said they had been fired on first from within the crowd; the Iraqis denied this. Sounds familiar? This is exactly the plight Israeli soldiers have faced./
Again and again, Israeli troops have fired murderously on Palestinian crowds; after each incident, the soldiers tell one story and the crowd-survivors tell another. Naturally Israelis believe the soldiers; the rest of the world is inclined to believe the crowd. Certainly ordinary Iraqis will believe the crowd rather than U.S. officers. (An outside reporter noted that there were no bullet-marks from the supposed shootings from the crowd, but there were marks from the shooting by the soldiers.)
We have put our GIS in this impossible situation. And they will be stuck in it for months or years.
A bitter-sweet victory indeed./
(More civilians were shot by GIs in the same city the next day--the Israel/Palestine parallel strengthened.)
On 1 April, USATODAY ONLINE reported that in the city where GIs twice shot civilians (in a justified way or not--it doesn't really matter), someone lobbed 2 hand-grenades into a U.S. compound, injuring 7 soldiers. An officer assured us that none of the injuries were life-threatening; but in the past, such assurances have been offered when one of more soldiers lost a leg.
As in Israel, this grenade attack will make the soldiers more trigger-happy, and the attacks by both sides will likely multiply.
--------------------
ANOTHER OCCUPATION PROBLEM: 2 GIS were handed signs to show to approaching Iraq cars.
They couldn't read the signs, nor could their officers. So the soldier assigned to funnel the cars into one line was wrongly brandishing the sign saying 'NO WEAPONS!" and the sign of a soldier further on said, "FORM SINGLE LINE!" Naturally the motorists near the first sign did NOT feel they had to form a single line, with unhappy results. This illustrates the absurdity of trying to occupy a country whose languages not even your officers understand. (German officers, at least, understood French.) This absurdity is magnified immensely when the task is to reconstruct a society, not just pacify it./
It might be thought that this problem could be solved by hiring Iraqis who understand English to translate.
But then every transaction is at the mercy of the translators. During the Viet war, a knowledgeable correspondent watched an American officer communicating with an allied ARVN officer; the American's translator distorted what he was saying; the Viet officer's translator further distorted the message back to the American. And so it went.
 
Letter to NYTIMES / BEYOND SUPERPOWER--SO WHAT?/
G. Easterbrook (27 Apr) describes lovingly our stupendous new military gadgets. But he overemphasizes their unique importance: first for Offence. For decades, we've been able to wipe any nation off the map with our H-bombs; what was missing until now was the gall to do it. The new gadgets have added little to our already diabolic destructive power./
Besides, as he hints gingerly, our megapower is balanced by possible deterrent powers of many other nations. Russia, with its thousands of H-bombs, could reduce us to the Stone Age if we attacked them. China, France, and Britain also have 2d-strike deterrence, limited but effective. France could say, "Yes, you could wipe out all of our country; but FROM OUR GRAVE, we could destroy several of your top
cities. Surely you don't want imperial power enough to pay that price!"/
In Sept.02 (in the 'National Security Strategy of the U.S' document) the Bush-team crazily announced that we would attack any nation that tried to match us in weapons, saying in effect, to the whole world "We
have you at our mercy, and we will keep you at our mercy!" That brazen proclamation just invited other countries to buy (from Russia) or develop a few nukes to match France's immunity to our imperial threats./
An important complication is that our homeland is very vulnerable to terrorists. Any nation developing (cheap) war-germs can warn us that we'd pay an uncacceptable price to enforce our imperial edicts. So all our gadgets are not going to give us the invincible offensive powers once brandished by Britain or Rome.
About Defense: we have been safe from attacks by other nations for nearly 50 years, thanks to our nukes as deterrents. But we are now threatened by hundreds or thousands of crazy INDIVIDUALS who can get at us, and may be eager to die inflicting terror on us. None of the nifty gadgets
described by Easterbrook are much use against such individuals. (That's why our rulers keep insisting, on little evidence,that terrorists depend on backing from nations. They won't admit that their anti-nation weapons are, in this new kind of crisis, pretty irrelevant.)/ We are less safe now than we were before these gadgets./
So these stupendous new military gadgets don't really change the world balance of power, in terms of Offense or of Defense. What will always remain impressive is their super-stupendous--wasted--cost.
~ Monday, April 28, 2003
 
LETTER TO NYTIMES / BLACK HUMOR/
About some skulls found in Iraq, Th.Friedman, 27 Sept. "We do not need to find any weapons
of mass destruction to justify this war. That skull and the thousands that will be unearthed, are
enough for me.../
"Whether you were for or against this war..you have to feel good that right has triumphed over
wrong...Who cares if we now find some buried barrels of poison? Do these carry more moral
weight than those buried skulls? No way."/
-------------------------
This moral outrage, backtracking fast from the WMD issue that was supposed to 'justify' the invasion, is almost as good black humor as that proceeding from the famous Saddamite Info Officer : /
---Mass graves are being found all over Central America and Argentina. These people, called 'the Disappeared', were assassinated by the right-wing dictators whom we backed right to the end. (Still other deaths were concealed because our client Argentine government threw victims from planes over the ocean, slitting their bellies first to make sure they didn't bob back up to the surface.)/
--In fact, Saddam was well into his murderous habits when we were backing him earlier/
--The cost of our 'righting this awful wrong' has been the destruction of Iraq cities, the killing of
several thousand humans and the injuries or maiming of up to 20,000 Iraqis (the injuries are said to be
happening faster now than during the bombing !--whoever is causing these new casualties, they would
not have happened without the war, so they must be included as part of the invasion's cost.)
It turns out that 'RIGHT' doesn't conquer wrong without thousands of children losing an arm, a leg, or a face. This havoc puts the old skulls in perspective.
 
WHERE'S THE BEEF? / Letter to USATODAY: MISSING WMDs/
Don Campbell (28Apr) predicts that Pres.Bush will be vindicated if we find lots of WMDs in Iraq, but should be in big trouble if we find none, since he justified the war by saying that Saddam threatened America with huge amounts of gas and/or germs, But Campbell ignores another
possibility: we might find small amounts of these materials./
In the first place, it could then be alleged that our government planted these small amounts, to cover its embarrassment. (Russia has already said it won't credit such a discovery by U.S. inspectors alone.) In the
second place, a threatened nation could stock a small amount of gas/germs to use against invaders, without being ready or able to use these weapons against other nations./
I'd be puzzled if Saddam DIDN'T have such small, anti-invader stocks of these weapons, the only weapons he could hide until just before use, so they couldn't be destroyed by our stupendous firepower. He could never hope to drive the invaders out, only to take a large number of our GIs down with him. Without even that hope, why didn't he surrender (and perhaps disappear as he has)? Then he wouldn't be remembered with contempt as he is now, for encouraging his followers to fight hopelessly
while he bugged out./
We may speculate that at the last minute his generals refused to use these weapons; but the gas at least would have to be stored so as to be available in large volumes..it should be easy to find./
It's a puzzlement.
--------------------------------
R.Whitaker in the London INDEPENDENT 27 Apr. quoted a 'high UK source' that intelligence agencies in U.S. & Britain are furious at the way both governments distorted the respectable intelligence reports they received (and paid for phony 'Iraq defector' reports) to mislead their peoples about the WMD danger. This source quoted approvingly a remark that the ROAD TO WAR WAS PAVED WITH LIES.
--------------------------
U.S. MEDIA: BAD AND WORSE/ USATODAY omits many important facts that might embarrass the Bush-team--for instance, the awful danger the Pentagon has inflicted on 40,000 Americans in Korea! /
Right now, the Bushies want us to believe we're 'winning' the WAR ON TERROR. Associated Press ran a story saying that the number of terrorist incidents throughout the world has dropped in 2002..however, the number of Americans killed by terrorists throughout the world has risen dramatically. [NINE MSN,2MAY] USATODAY ran both the good news and the bad news. ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, a shameless right-wing whore, ran only the good news. Then, on 2 May, RMN had the gall to say the drop in terrorist incidents showed that Pentagon wars CAN counter terrorism!/
You don't have to rely on biased U.S.. media: on internet, you can type in REUTERS.COM and get a pretty objective view of the world, or GUARDIAN.CO.UK or FT.COM (FINANCIAL TIMES). If you go to TRUTHOUT.ORG you'll get complete, respectable articles that the Bush-team doesn't want you to read.
The internet makes it possible for Chinese people to read stuff their tyrants don't welcome; this is also true here--BUT ONLY FOR THOSE AMERICANS WHO CARE ENOUGH TO GO TO THE TROUBLE.
Most young Americans don't even watch TV news, let alone read newspaper news, let alone go to foreign sources. THE WICKED CAN REPENT; BUT STUPID IS FOREVER.
~ Sunday, April 27, 2003
 
AWFUL CHOICES IN HOME DEFENSE: In DENVERPOST 27apr: Congress is faced with an awful choice: spend billions on inspecting the thousands of containers coming into our ports each day--OR spend billions on retrofitting our airplanes with 'decoys' to counter the otherwise-easy terrorist task of bringing down our airliners with shoulder-launched missiles./
Not even mentioned is siphoning off some of the $1 billion per DAY that now goes to the Pentagon for attacking other nations, to devote to protecting our homeland--so we could protect our ports AND our airliners./
Granted, such siphoning is politically impossible, since Pentagon millionaires own our politicians; but we shouldn't forget that third abstract possibility, to help make vivid the political lay of the land./
NYT 27Apr pointed out that, while the conference of state legislators demanded $40 billion for immediate needs in home defense, they got only $1.8 billion in a recent federal appropriation for war-related expenses. (As I pointed out earlier, the same appropriation gave $8 billion to bribe our 'allies' in the invasion.)
~ Saturday, April 26, 2003
 
Letter to NYTMagazine THE EMPTY HALLS OF OUR EMPIRE
Niall Fergusson (27 Apr) says he favors an American Empire--if it's workable. But he fears it will fail for one simple reason: not enough elite Americans will volunteer to live for years in the colonial countries (e.g., in the Middle East) to staff the Imperial bureaucracy./
He notes, but doesn't dwell on, a deeper problem: most young Americans, elite or not, don't even want to study these strange foreign cultures and languages, let alone go 'live there'./
The hostile, 'ungrateful' reception our troops are getting now in Iraq will not increase the willingness of young elite Americans to interact with our 'colonies'. And a very low percentage of American collegians are academically elite..among the lower strata, there is even less interest./
Let's face it: Americans are not really interested in the outside world--less than ever, now that so many foreigners have turned against us. As Graham Greene noted in THE QUIET AMERICAN, our foreign policy consists largely of wild, bloody interventionist lunges based on ignorant isolationist thinking./
And Fergisson notes correctly that a blundering attempt at empire will produce results that are 'unspeakable'./
====================
FOREIGN REACTIONS TO OUR BRAZEN ANNOUNCEMENT OF INTENDED EMPIRE:
France & Germany (plus Belgium and Luxemborg) have started to form a parallel (rival?) military alliance to NATO, which would NOT include U.S. OR BRITAIN(!), but which might include Russia.(NYT30APr)
 
WEAPONS CLAIMS EXAGGERATED: The TIMES of London, a right-wing paper, on 25 April, has concluded that the very definite and alarming estimates (By Bush, Powell, and Blair) of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were grossly exaggerated, to the point of undermining their justification for the invasion. [I first saw this in TRUTHOUT.ORG]
~ Friday, April 25, 2003
 
SHIITE SURPRISE: Reuters(24Apr) describes the Bush-team's surprise at the speedy Shiite moves to take over Iraq. After all, we say we want democracy in Iraq; democracy means majority-rule--and Shiites are a 60% majority there. BUT we will never tolerate a Shiite-dominated, cleric-ruled, Iran-friendly, anti-American Iraq. /
Meanwhile, in the North, Kurds are driving Arabs out of their homes./
For prediction of troubles like this: see 4/21 (Destroying & Rebuilding); and, under ARCHIVES, click on week 4/6-4/12, and on 4/6 see 'Bush's problem in rebuilding Iraq."/
HOW DO WE MANAGE? U.S. has alienated the Iraq Shiites. (One Shiite cleric has already said that we're worse than Saddam!)
Now we've been denounced as 'just another tyrant' by the senior SUNNI cleric (Reuters25 April)
How do we manage to impress both bitter rivals in the same way? It's a gift.
 
U.S.MEDIA NEAR-SILENCE ON 40,000 U.S. HOSTAGES THREATENED BY 400,000 N.KOREAN SHELLS PER HOUR./
(These hostages are GIs stationed near DMZ for 50 years(!) for a really stupid and ruthless reason--who, now that we want to attack N.K., are suddenly hostages to N.K.! ("If you move to attack us, we will wipe out these GIs in a few hours.")/
Rocky Mountain News on one day this week mentioned the 40,000 ; on another day they mentioned the war-threat; but they never put the two items together!/
NYTIMES ran a full-page on the endangered GI hostages on 18 March./
Nicholas Kristov told about awesome N.Korean attack-powers in NYTIMES, 28 Feb. On the other hand, Kristov's NYT column on 29Apr never mentioned the hostages as the high stakes involved in our game of 'Chicken' with N.K./
An alarming vision of the emergency can be found at www.tomdispatch.com . (Under 'older posts', click on April 2003/ then move way down to article by Chalmers Johnson.) /
Reuters(25Apr) noted the dangers of a U.S. military response, with one analyst describing N.Korea as 'able to take immense casualties and absorb immense damage to its civil sector with almost no concern for the consequences."/
Another analyst said the U.S. could invade N.K. without telegraphing its intentions ahead of time.
The problem with that possibility is that it might provoke N.K. even more strongly to strike first.
It's interesting that even Reuters, while mentioning the danger to Seoul, never mentioned the danger to the 40,000 Americans within artillery range of N.K. ! /
---------------
For details of Korean emergency, see my previous blogs at 2/18 , 2/25 , 3/2 , 3/7 , 3/16 , 3/28 ,4/7 , 4/12 , 4/17, 4/23 . [This has long been a major worry for me!] /
To read previous blogs: under ARCHIVE, click on week containing date (e.g., for 3/7, click on week 3/6 - 3/12) ] /
Also, see news.google.com for (minimal) U.S. media coverage of the threat to the 40,000.
TELL ALL YOUR E-MAIL FRIENDS ABOUT THIS HIDDEN EMERGENCY.
GO ONLINE TO 'WAYNE ALLARD' AND 'SENATOR BEN CAMPBELL' AND OTHER SENATORS ; TELL THEM YOU KNOW AND CARE ABOUT THIS DANGER./
Our rulers, aided by the tame-dog Media, seem to be counting on our passive reaction to the possible slaughter of these hostages, figuring they'll be, to uninformed Americans, just a NUMBER !
~ Thursday, April 24, 2003
 
THE HIDDEN COST OF WAR-WATCHING: While we were all distracted, gaping at missiles hitting buildings, the Bush-Team was busy at home, moving all benefits and favors possible from the poor and the ordinary people to the wealthy./
For instance, the working poor get a tiny 'earned-income-credit' to supplement their wretched pay. There's some cheating, of course,as with all classes of taxpayer. It's estimated that this bottom class evades $6 to $10 billion, altogether./
The wealthy, on the other hand, evade about $140 billion./
Now the IRS is setting up strict new rules--for only one class--to catch them in cheating. Which class? Not the wealthy ! the new rules are aimed only at the working poor (NYT25Apr).
Indeed, in areas of wealthy tax fraud, IRS investigations are down 37% and prosecutions are down by 50%.(NYT27Apr)/
Shameless.
 
GLOOMY LYONS: It might seem from my blogs that I am obsessively gloomy ; but I am just noting the INCREDIBLE RECKLESSNESS (approaching madness) of the Bush-team ON MANY FRONTS: e.g., Korea, Syria, Iraq, world opinion (.e.g. brazenly announcing intended world empire!), and the neglect of Home Defense.
==========INDEX VI: (FROM 4/1 TO 4/19:) to read previous blogs: under ARCHIVES click on week containing date of the blog you want to read...e.g., 4/6 to 4/12 for 4/7.)
4/2 BOYCOTT FRENCH WINES...& VODKA ! /
LAUGH BY DAY, WEEP BY NIGHT /
MOST HUMANS ARE CRAZY. /
4/4 WOOLSEY ANNOUNCES WW IV ! / MORE ON WW IV /
4/6 IGNOBLE CHICKEN-HAWKS /
HUMPTY-DUMPTY: MAKING SHIT HAPPEN IS EASY, BUT... /
4/7 "WE RESHAPED GERMANY & JAPAN..SO WE CAN RESHAPE IRAQ."
4/8 MORE ON NORTH KOREAN DANGER /
RECONSTRUCTION AS A PRIZE, NOT A BURDEN? /
4/9 PIDDLING AMT. FOR CITY SECURITY /
MORAL HORROR: BEING OVERCOME BY EVIL /
SADDAM'S FALL MAY INCREASE DANGER FROM TERRORISTS. /
4/10 DEPLORING SADDAM'S FALL AND REJOICING AT IT. /
SUPPOSE WE FIND S'S STACHE OF GAS & GERMS? /
4/11 ALLARD'S ARMS /
4/12 WAR LOOTING BY BUSHIES
DEALING WITH HORNETS
BRIBES FAR OUTWEIGH HOME DEFENSE[
GOOD NEWS FROM N.KOREA?
4/13 CHECK-OFF FOR TAXES?
"YOU KNOW BEST HOW TO SPEND YOUR MONEY."
TWO QUITE DIFFERENT IMMORTALS
SYRIA NEXT! WHY?
4/15 WHY WAS INVASION SO EASY?
4/17 FREEDOM TO LOOT
DEFLATION HAS ARRIVED/
NON-CREDIBLE PUPPETS
KOREAN EMERGENCY
4/19 WHAT ARE DIFFERENT LIVES WORTH?
GREAT PRACTICAL JOKE BY RUSS
THE PASSION OF IRAQI CHILDREN
NON-CREDIBLE PUPPETS
for index to earlier blogs, see 4 / 7 ]
 
Letter to NYTIMES / SARS AND BIOTERROR
The strangeness of the new SARS disease should be a warning about bioterror dangers.
"This virus follows no rules or regulations of epidemiology. There is no precedent for this kind of disease", said a leading Toronto microbiologist (RockyMountainNews24Apr, citing NYT)./
There's no reason to think SARS is being spread by terrorists, though it may have escaped from a Chinese lab. But it is a mysterious new disease, not contained by ordinary precautions, able to survive for many hours on a dry surface, and not susceptible yet to any vaccine or antibiotic.Tests for it are unreliable; even the identification of the microbe is in question./
SARS has a high death-rate (compared, say, to the terrifying 1918 influenza epidemic) which is increasing, not decreasing. Who could have foreseen that the WHO would advise people not to visit Toronto?! There almost 1 in 10 of infected people have died./
Martyr-murderers could infect themselves with SARS, then ride public transport or otherwise infect many people in different places./ /
Panic is irrational (e.g., people mobbing the trains to get out of Beijing); but so far, the big problem here has been passive denial ! (A headline said: U.S. SHOULD STOP OVERREACTING TO TERROR! This has got it just wrong.) /
It is a national disgrace that we have not moved earlier to remedy the urgent shortage of nurses here, a shortage showing up even before any bioterror attack. If a new disease struck poor people, in areas with vestigial public-health systems, it might not even be diagnosed before it spread widely. /
We can devote almost $1 million every minute to the Pentagon, to attack other nations--but we can't afford obvious precautions to protect our own homeland./
[ For the earth-shaking long-run implications of war-germs, click on week 3/16 to 3/22, go to 3/18 and read SUPERMAN HASN'T NOTICED THE KRYPTONITE. ]
~ Wednesday, April 23, 2003
 
PENTAGON ROBOTS: For years (and in several previous blogs) I have been worrying about the Pentagon developing a completely automated attack-force. Two main motivations for this move are (a) the reluctance of U.S. Youth to enlist and re-enlist, and (b) the way American mothers can raise hell on TV if their boys get killed./
Now the NYTMAGAZINE (20apr) has supported these worries horrifically: [AUTOPILOT: Can the Next War Be Fought With No Soldiers at ALL?] "We will be able,"crowed AirForce colonel Branham "to run a conflict without ever leaving the United States."/
This prospect should make other nations move even faster to develop 2d-strike deterrents, like France's, so they can take advantage of our vulnerable homeland, saying, "You can wipe out our governments easily; but we can severely damage your homeland from our graves."/
These deterrents might be nukes (e.g., bought from Russia) or, more cheaply, germ-war weapons,/
But what's really upsetting is that this automated robot force would make it easy for the Pentagon to drop the illusory veil of democracy and set up a complete dictatorship here.They have flying-insect spy-cameras, robots replacing foot-soldiers, and a huge database uniting in one place all the personal data on all Americans. They could rule America, suppressing any rebellion easily, without leaving the Pentagon! There's a very simple point involved: we have never really feared a dictatorship here, because we felt pretty sure that American soldiers would not fire on Americans. BUT U.S. ROBOTS WOULDN'T HESITATE! /
We can have no 2d-strike deterrent against our own tyrants. The Homeland we could threaten is our own./
These weapons are already developed. If Congress doesn't block their mass-production, Congress could soon be reduced to the same merely decorative status as Saddam's Parliament.
 
RUMSFELD CALLS FOR 'REGIME CHANGE' IN KOREA! /
In an apparent attempt to undermine recent U.S.-China-N.Korea negotiations, a memo from Rumsfeld was leaked calling for China and America to engineer a collapse of the North Korean Government (says the right-wing London Daily Telegraph, 23 April). /
The paper calls the proposal ludicrous; China would never cooperate, since it fears a flood of refugees if the regime should collapse. /
Whether because of this memo or not, the Beijing talks ended a day sooner than planned; North Korea announced publicly that it already had some nukes; and Powell reminded them that "all options"(i.e., military attack) "remained open."/
This leaked memo may be tragic as well as ludicrous (that often happens); it may convince the N.K. Government that we do intend to launch a first-strike attack on them with our B-52s on Guam./
(50 years ago, we leveled almost every building in N.K., pouring thousands of litres of burning napalm on the city of Pyongyang, forcing the people to live in caves; we also bombed their dikes to flood their rice-fields, starving 2 million people. And we're certainly no less ruthless now than back then. Well they might worry ! )/
..So N.K. might as well launch first a 400,000-shells-per-hour attack on our 40,000 Americans in the range of their guns. And that may be just what the Pentagon hawks want, as an excuse to nuke North Korea. /
----------------------------
By the way, neither NYT nor USATODAY on 23 April mentioned this memo. Why should they let themselves be scooped on this startling, momentous story? (NEWS.GOOGLE.COM says that Christian Sci.Monitor did mention this memo.)/ On 24Apr, NBC said that NYT mentioned this memo; South Korea warned that this makes negotiations more difficult; North Korean press thundered again about imminent war.
---------------------------
I read about this memo first in TRUTHOUT.ORG This is a nonprofit clipping service, very valuable to get complete reprints of articles you won't read or see in mainstream media. People who value such service should enroll, and also contribute. Again, TRUTHOUT.ORG
~ Tuesday, April 22, 2003
 
FOOLISH FRIEDMAN: Thomas Friedman is a NYT journalist super-respected on Middle-East affairs; but he has shown himself pretty goofy recently. (NYT20Apr) He thinks the terrorist crisis is over for now; he says we used our blitzkrieg on Iraq to show other Muslim nations that we will come right to them to 'burst their bubble' (their backing of terrorists). So now he says we can relax, and dismantle the Ashcroft assaults on our civil liberties 'justified' by the threat on terrorism./
On the surface, what he said is close to nonsense. He seems to assume that terrrorists need, in order to function, the backing of the MidEast governments of Muslim peoples. So when we strike at those governments--or terrify them by our pounding Iraq into the ground--we eliminate terrorism. That message is reassuring to the Pentagon--that their missiles and bombers can indirectly remove the terrorist threat./
But there's no reason to think this is true; it's seems plausible to say that terrorism is staffed by hundreds or thousands of angry Muslim individuals who often hate their own governments; and it's organized by non-government groups like Al Quaeda. If this is so, then cowing these governments will not mitigate terrorist threats. Our bombers and missiles are fairly irrelevant to mitigating the terrorist threat./
Also, groups like Al Quaeda would be sensible to set up their training-camps--not in the open deserts of the Middle-East--but in the jungles of Indonesia, where 220 million angry Muslims would help to hide them, wherever their government stands on this issue. The Pentagon is now practicing in the Phillipines for attacking Indonesia. However, after our disastrous Viet jungle war, involving only 80 million Vietnamese, there's no reason to think our present war-machine could stop this process./
HOME SECURITY: Friedman says we can now dismantle repressive measures at home. No doubt we should dismantle foolish semi-fascist measures like going through the lists of library books that Americans have read, and then threatening with punishment any librarian who tells clients their lists have been spied on./
But we dare not relax on necessary Home Security measures: e.g., protecting our 104 vulnerable n-plant waste-ponds, or an emergency policy of quickly recruiting and training thousands of new nurses to serve in a possible bioterror attack. (The Bush-team is pushing the irrelevant repressive measures, but they show little interest in funding effective and needed anti-terrorist measures. And most Americans are too dumb to catch on.) The threat of terrorism doesn't lessen one iota because Thomas Friedman has announced we can relax!/
ANOTHER INTERPRETATION: There might be a less foolish, coded message being sent here: Friedman might be saying that the threat of terrorism is relieved for ISRAEL, not for America..and that might be his main concern. He mentions U.S. and Israel together several times as countries threatened by terrorists. He may be right that, by our destruction of the Iraq government, we have cowed Syria for now not to support anti-Israel terrorists openly. But even Israel would be foolish to relax their anti-terrorist precautions now; the Palestinian martyr-murderers do not depend totally on Syrian help; they will likely continue their attacks./
On this interpretation, one main reason for our 'preemptive' strike on Iraq was to take some pressure off Israel; as I have said in another piece below, one suspects that Bush and Sharon are in bed together, with Sharon on top.
~ Monday, April 21, 2003
 
COUNT ONLY THE DEAD? Americans have a strange habit of counting only the dead--e.g., many can tell you that 40,000 to 60,000 are killed each year by vehicles, but few know that 2-3 million are injured. Also, far more know that 60,000 GIS were killed in Vietnam--more than those who know that a quarter of a million U.S. casualties happened there when you count the wounded--(few Americans care to know how many millions of Vietnamese were killed, maimed,or injured--pointlessly.) Many Americans know that few U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq War I, but they haven't heard that 1 in 4 veterans returning from that war, 10 years later, have been certified as 'disabled for life'. /
We have such fantastic trauma medicine at home that we think injuries are not serious. /
A friend here, hearing about Iraqi civilians injured, sniffed, "Yeah, they count everyone with sand in his eyes." /
An objective source, www.iraqbodycount.net guesses that 1800 to 2300 civilians have been killed;
but it gives no estimate at all about the number wounded./
The stories from Iraq hospitals about wounded children are stomach-turning. I think we should have 3 categories: dead, merely injured, or maimed (e.g., losing an arm or a leg or a face).
In the London OBSERVER [Observer.co.uk] on 20 April, horrific hospital details are given.
This story guesses that as many as 20,000 civilians have been maimed or wounded./
The Pentagon refuses to estimate the number of civilians wounded or killed. This is not just arrogant, but also pretty stupid; because then other estimates will become semi-official.
 
WAS THE INVASION JUSTIFIED?/ This question may now seem moot, but it's not. We need to assess the war morally and prudentially, so we can learn what wars to accept in the future (we few rationals--the 70% of Americans who succumb each time to war fever cannot be reached by argument.)/
We need to ask these questions again : /
WAS THE WAR NECESSARY? two subquestions:
--Did Saddam have the Weapons of Mass Destruction (or was he developing them) that could threaten other countries or America? (If not, the war was not necessary.)
--If he did have them, might he still not have been deterred from attacking others by the everpresent threat of our almost superhuman war machine, especially our diabolic nukes? (If he would have been deterred, then the war was not necessary.)
DID THE WAR TAKE UNJUSTIFIED RISKS WITH HUMAN WELFARE?
--Did Saddam have a DEFENSIVE capability of gases and germs which could have slaughtered thousands of our invading soldiers? This is a separate question from the similar one above.
--If he did have these defensive weapons, was he likely to succeed in using them during our invasion?/
-- i.e.,Would the invasion 'work', without causing more harm than it prevented? Also relevant here is the question of how many Iraqi civilian casualties would make the war count as net harmful?--as it turned out, perhaps over 20,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, maimed, or injured so far.[guess by London OBSERVER, 20 Apr.]
---What chance is there that the Saddamites, in their 'death-throes', have donated supergerms to terrorist 'mules' who, anxious to die killing Americans, will inflict them on our Homeland?/
----------------/
All these questions must be born in mind at once, because the answers to one may affect the correct answering of another./
Of course what counts in such an assessment is what there was reason to predict at the time the Bush-team made the decision to invade--not how things happen to turn out.
I'll explore these questions one by one in later blogs.
 
DESTROYING VS. REBUILDING: Someone asks (at Truthout.org) "The Americans did the destroying! Why can't they rebuild?" This is a common dumb question, like "If we can go to the moon, why can't we reform our school system?"/
Destroying is a completely different and far easier activity than rebuilding. As St. Augustine said, "Any fool can burn a field of grain; it takes brains and work to plant and cultivate one." /
To see a little more on this topic, go to 4/6 [in week 4/6 to 4/12, under ARCHIVES] and look at "Bush's Problem in Rebuilding Iraq". For a deeper, fuller explanation of this vital, neglected point, (understood by Plato & Aristotle) see ch.1 & 2 of my DEMOCRACY,RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS book, available by interlibrary loan.
~ Sunday, April 20, 2003
 
WAS BAGHDAD BOUGHT, NOT CONQUERED? The Russ ambassador to Iraq claims that U.S. Paid Saddam's generals not to resist. This story is also asserted by an Arab writer quoted, like the Russ ambassador, in www.informationclearinghouse.info
The DenverPost today ran a story of an Iraqi officer, weeping from humiliated frustration, telling that his general ordered their troops to abandon Baghdad, leaving it undefended./
SO WHAT? If Rumsfeld managed to buy off Saddam's generals, that meant less damage to civilians (only 20,000 dead and wounded)..so that's all to the good. (This is not a new trick: Thomas More recommended it in 'UTOPIA', 500 years ago.)
But it would also mean that the ease of taking Baghdad did NOT show the supremacy of U.S. Military forces and tactics. For instance, our generals are saying that what worked was cutting the communications between Saddam's top people and the field forces. But the Saddamite officer quoted in DP said communications were not cut--his group was ordered from the field by their general./
Also it means that the same U.S. strategy might not work so well against a country where the generals felt more loyalty to their leaders.
~ Saturday, April 19, 2003
 
A GREAT PRACTICAL JOKE by Russia: we are demanding that the UN sanctions against marketing Iraq oil be lifted at once, so we can start selling oil to finance our occupation./
But Russia says the sanctions can't be lifted till, as the resolutions specify, the absence of WMDs is certified by UN inspectors. And the Russ can veto any changes in the resolutions./
The resolutions allow for enough oil to be sold to pay for humanitarian needs. If we want more money quickly, then we'll have less time to plant WMDs in Iraq to cover their absence, to cover the fact that the invasion was totally unjustified by UN standards./
The more stubbornly we resist admitting UN inspectors, even at the price of not being able to sell Iraq oil, the more the world will assume that there aren't any significant amounts of WMDs there now--not until we plant them.
 
THE PASSION OF IRAQI CHILDREN: Reuters(19APr) has a horrifying account of the effect of cluster-bombs (dropped near civilians): these bright-colored little gadgets, attractive to children--they look like the food-packets we also drop--these cluster-bombs often don't explode right away. When they are picked up, they fire off many little bomblets, each of which emits shrapnel. If the children run from the first explosion, they run right into another explosion. Hospitals see many. many children maimed by these gadgets./
We did the same thing in Afghanistan./
Reuters also ran this headline: BUSH MARKS HOLY WEEK BY REFLECTING ON IRAQ./
--------
For more on this story, go to NEWS.GOOGLE.COM and search for "cluster bombs"+iraq; you'll find stories in media worldwide. American stories are mainly about this incident: a Baghdad little girl handed an 'M42' to a GI; she was injured, plus 4 GIs; none of their injuries were life-threatening, we're told--though one had his leg amputated.
-----------------------
A U.S. general said that we didn't drop cluster-bombs from the air near civilian populations. But he didn't mention the cluster-bombs fired from the ground, very near to civilians. (Human Rights Watch,25 Apr.)
 
'LIVES' RATIO: When Sen.Allard was questioned about 'cluster-bombs' used in Afghanistan & Iraq, he gave the same catechism answer every time; "Well, if these things are necessary to protect American lives, then they're OK."/
I was reminded of Vietnam, where we used napalm and white phosporous (sometime burning inside a live child for several days), always with the same rationale. At that time, I suggested that we set a 'worth-ratio', e.g, one American life is worth the lives of 10 'enemy' civilians. Then if a measure killed 9 civilians to save one American, OK, but 20 civilians..no!/
The point would be to set some upper limit on this silly excuse for terror-weapons. Needless to say, my proposal was ignored.
~ Friday, April 18, 2003
 
NON-CREDIBLE PUPPETS: In Iran, after ousting Mossadegh, we installed the nincompoop Shah--so the Islamic fundamentalists could then easily oust him and take over. (By holding onto their U.S. hostages, they helped Reagan beat Carter.)/
This Shah enraged Iranian Muslims by being pictured half-naked, water-skiing, as much as by his torturing dissidents. One in four Iranians went on the march, (on the average one from each family!)--it was one of the greatest eruptions of spontaneous democracy in modern times--installing rabid America-haters for at least a couple of decades: "America is the great Satan!"/
This should be a warning that U.S. doesn't dare set up a real democracy in Iraq!/
In Afghanistan, we installed a lesser functionary of an oil company as President; he is now scornfully called "mayor of Kabul"./
In Iraq, we're getting ready to install as our puppet leader,a man with no backing within Iraq, a man convicted of fraud years ago in Jordan, Chalabi--a man thrust in by the Pentagon against the advice of State Dept. and CIA. (He's in Iraq, ready to take over--but he now says he won't hold any office: he'll be the Power behind the puppet Throne.) / Chalabi has already organized his own militia--several of his troops have already been caught looting and robbing banks. (USATODAY,2MAY)
The Arrogance of Power is often pretty stupid./
On the other hand, as long as U.S. casualties don't rise in Afghanistan, Americans will forget all about it.
We're paying off the warlords to guarantee that much law'norder, so GIs don't get killed. One wonders whom we could pay off to minimize deaths of GIs in Iraq from now on./
You'd think the British would resent a little the flourishing revival of opium-growing in Afghanistan, under our tutelage, since a good part of the crop is sold in Britain. But they seem confirmed in their role as our suckers.
 
DEFLATION HAS ARRIVED./ [NOTE: I am no economist, but I have checked some of these points with professional economists who have found them at least not absurdly implausible.]/
As an anti-megatech 'luddite', I have worried for 30 years that, with the quasi-infinite powers of computers and robots, world overproduction of goods (and many services) was bound to occur eventually. That is, more goods would be produced than people are willing and able to buy--at a price covering even the [shrinking] costs of production. There are plenty of starving people in the world, yet world agriculture is 'overproducing' (more than what those with 'effective demand'--demand backed by money--can and will pay for)./
Japan, a pioneer in automation, has faced deflation for years; the government was so desperate to increase consumption that they actually thought of issuing 'certificates' which could be used only for consumption, not for savings--the Japanese 'vice'. The government tried crazy 'Keynesian' spending on public works to increase consumption; this didn't work, but it left the government crippled by debt. (America already faces a tremendous, growing deficit--how much 'Keynesian' spending could we afford? Iraq reconstruction will enrich Bechtel and Haliburton corporations, but won't make U.S. jobs.) The Japanese stock-market has just hit a NEW 20-year low./
The trouble with deflation is that it is self-accelerating: consumers who see prices dropping regularly figure that if they wait to buy, prices will be even lower--and they will, until world production drops--and jobs with it--to meet the dropping effective demand--but then with job-loss comes lower consuming power, so.../
The smart person wants to enter a deflation-period with maximum cash; for instance, even if CDs pay lower interest-rates, their government-guaranteed security may pay off when stocks plummet; and lower prices later have the same effect as higher interest now. (In the 30s, you might buy a whole hog for $1--but who had the dollar?)/
Especially people will hesitate to buy a house 'at the top of the market', so the housing bubble might burst, which is the main 'wealth' of the middle-class. (Both Denver and national newspapers on 23 Mar. tell of houses not selling quickly here. The prices still are up, but with a buyers' market, that will change.)/
Now in America, prices are plummeting for goods involving international competition--for instance, computers have dropped 22%! Our cost of living, paradoxically, has risen a little--because of rising energy and health costs [so far, medicine has not been completely automated--and the 'pharmaceuticals' by government-aided collusion are able to raise drug prices constantly.] /
Paradoxically, these specific increased costs ACCELERATE the general deflation. People must spend more of their incomes on gasoline, heating oil, and health-care--and, as expected social-security and medicare seem less secure, rational people will save more themselves for old age--so they have less to spend elsewhere--they are even more motivated to hold off on buying until prices drop further.
Till now, the GTO has had the power to stop nations from competing 'unfairly' in selling their exports. But now that the Bush-team has enraged the rest of the world, we can expect that cornered nations , desperate to export, will drop out of the GTO--including America! Each country can then take measures like deflating its currency (to sell stuff cheaper and make imports more expensive)..but when every country takes such measures, they'll help no country./
The Bush-team may have injured the 'globalism' movement more than any set of protesters could have!] /
We can perhaps expect 'trade-blocs' (e.g., Western Hemisphere vs. Russia and Europe) to lower internal tariffs and hike external tariffs, lowering the total level of world trade. (On the other hand, the Iraq invasion has sparked a startling burst of anti-Americanism in South America. [NYT20Apr] These countries may prefer a trade-alliance with Europe.)
We spend about $1 million every minute on the Pentagon; in the old days, weapons-making made more American jobs (on the assembly-line)--but that doesn't happen any more. Our Iraq triumph showed that we don't need a huge land-army. So the average person is superfluous both as a worker and as a fighter (both situations caused by automation). The pretence of democracy is now more of an impediment than an advantage to our corporate rulers.
------------------
Megatech looks every year less attractive. Not only does it offer B-52s and precision-missiles to be used by boobs like Bush, and designer-germs for the use of crazy terrrorists (like putting a knife in the hands of a monkey)--but it also generates productive overcapacity that could lead to another Great Depression world-wide./
Luddism every year seems less cranky...we can't stop megatech 'progress', but we don't have to like it. [For fuller explanation of luddite theory, see ch.1 & 2 of my DEMOCRACY,RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS:WHAT ARE THEY? WHAT GOOD ARE THEY? (available by interlibrary loan.) ]
~ Thursday, April 17, 2003
 
KOREAN EMERGENCY: Nothing terrifies a professional worrier like myself like having concerns which I keep telling myself I'm exaggerating--having such concerns confirmed by agreement with someone sounding pretty expert. I've been worrying for months about possible war with North Korea, endangering 40,000 Americans stuck in artillery range of N.K. I've written several pieces on this worry: e.g., on 3/17, 3/28, 4/7, 4/12./
Well now a quite authoritative-sounding writer confirms my worst worries: that we're going to pull out speedily the 37,000 troops, (+3000 supporting civilians) to clear the way for us to strike first at N.K. But the minute we start to do this, N.K. may figure out that this indicates an immediate attack on them, from our Guam-based B-52s; N.K. may launch a suicidal first strike even sooner, (their artillery able to fire 400,000 shells per hour)--not counting their missiles and a couple of nukes they're supposed to have, plus gas and germs they're supposed to have. THey might attack not just our troops in So.Korea, but the huge, splendid city of Seoul, some Japanese cities [they still haven't forgiven Japan] and even perhaps our troops on Okinawa.
If you want to ruin what sleep you have left, go to www.tomdispatch.com and read the article on Korea by Chalmers Thompson. I've always feared that the nutty Bush team might here be meeting rulers as crazy as they are.
 
FREEDOM TO LOOT: /Anyone who has any doubts about Mr. Rumsfeld's psyche should know about his comment after looters wrecked the Baghdad museum of antiquities, one of the great cultural treasures of the world: "Stuff Happens. Freedom is not tidy. Free people make mistakes and commit crimes."
So looting is part of that famous price of freedom! Freedom is not free of crime./
Conquering armies are considered responsible for neglecting lawn'order in areas under their control.
The Pentagon was warned well in advance that profession looters would try to empty this museum. A couple of Marines watched the beginning of the pillage, then wandered away./
Two cultural aides to Bush (who knew he had any?!) have resigned in protest over the museum scandal./
The FBI is helping prevent the sale of the stolen artefacts. THE FBI?! DO ANY OF THEM UNDERSTAND ARABIC?! It turns out that the help is mainly their reporting the thefts to Interpol--although they're also going to nose around in Iraq. Presumably Interpol could find out about the thefts on their own.
~ Tuesday, April 15, 2003
 
WHY WAS THE INVASION SO EASY? Was it because Saddam showed himself once again to be a lousy military strategist? (In Gulf War I, he actually had troops lined up in trenches, in the style of WW I, to be buried alive by U.S. Bulldozers!)/
Or was it because of the brilliant new strategy from Rumsfeld and Franks? John Chalmers at Reuters suggests the latter.(15Apr) /
We want to remember how brilliant was the Nazi 'blitzkrieg' strategy. Their smashing through France made many countries (including France) surrender at once--but it made other countries (Britain and Russia) prepare themselves grimly./
Presumably the Bush-team doesn't plan to follow up shamelessly right away by attacking other countries (as Hitler did)--in the wake of 'shock & awe' from this victory. Instead, they will expect other countries to yield to their wishes just by their bristling at them. And indeed many countries will often pretend to yield, as Somalia and Yemen and Pakistan all seemed to line up on our side after 9/11, to avoid being bombed like Afghanistan. (But do we really think that terrorists are finding no secret harbors in these countries? With Pakistan and Afghanistan both now 'on our side', we still can't nab Osama!) /
But some countries will use the added time to prepare grimly to resist, developing defensive alliances, economic boycotts, and '2d-strike deterrents' (nuclear or biological) against our lightning attack-force, saying--as France can say now, with its n-armed submarines--"You can destroy our governments very quickly; but we can severely damage your vulnerable homeland from our graves. Think if you want to pay that price for the illusory advantages of World Empire."
~ Sunday, April 13, 2003
 
TWO DIFFERENT IMMORTALS: The heroic **Osama bin Laden (with all our bombing and 'intelligence tips' and our $25 million reward on his head--and even with 'U.S.-friendly' governments in both Pakistan and Afghanistan)--Osama is still alive and sending defiant messages. By now, even if we produced a corpse with DNA evidence, we would never convince world Muslims we had killed him; he is as immortal as Elvis is here./
Now there is another--immoral--immortal: Saddam Hussein. Nobody would claim he's a hero; all would agree he's a swine for triggering such horror on his country and then ducking out. But Moslems throughout the world, depressed by our 'easy' victory in Iraq, can console themselves that Saddam has once again made fools of the Americans./
At least 4 times, acting on 'solid intelligence tips' that he was there, we hurled missiles at some one particular location in Baghdad. And our official position is that Saddam is somewhere buried in the rubble of one of these locations. But, while other corpses have been dug out of the rubble (e.g., a headless woman and parts of her child) and while we have his DNA ready for the task, neither Saddam nor his sons have been identified as corpses./
At the same time we claim that he's probably buried, we're also accusing Syria of letting him escape into their country (Reuters, 13APR)/
What a collection of clowns. By our frantic attempts to kill him--which failed--we have made Saddam as immortal as bin Laden, whatever their actual life-spans.
----------------------------------
**When I say Osama is 'heroic', I am not forgetting that he is also a crazy distorter of Islamic doctrine and a mass murderer. But many 'heroes' in history have been like that./
I mean to say he is very brave and unselfish (a millionaire living somewhere in a cave, surviving without losing his cool an incredible bombing that's supposed to drive men mad ) and also very clever--significantly wounding the world's sole MEGA-POWER on 9/11 with 19 men armed with box-cutters./
My real point is that he will inspire world Muslims as an immortal saint with magic powers, making terrorism respectable. (Historians will probably judge that he did more damage to Muslim peoples in the long run than any enemy could have.)/
Osama has shown fantastic dedication; he is a good illustration of this principle: "Courageous, unselfish dedication, without wisdom and good sense, is a vice." Usually intelligent people are not very dedicated, and most heroes are not very wise. For a description of a rare person who combined heroic courage and dedication with sturdy and clever good sense, see my piece below on Sister Philomena. ['The Most Impressive Human...'(4/1) ] (Under ARCHIVES, click on week 3/30 to 4/5)
 
SYRIA NEXT! WHY? You'd think that the Bush-team would go after Iran next--after all, they are moving quickly toward developing nukes. Instead, they seem to be planning to attack Syria next--(Reuters,13Apr)--a nothing little country like Yemen that poses no threat to the world! You'd think Syria would be beneath the notice of the Mega-bullies./
How did Syria get promoted from an outsider to NUMBER-ONE-MEMBER of the Axis of Evil? Their regime is rather fascistic--but why would the Bushies object to THAT?/
And Syria voted our way for the first Security Council resolution threatening Iraq with 'serious consequences'. Is there no gratitude? /
The Bush-team's grievances against Syria are comical: for instance, Syria allegedly gave night-goggles to the Iraqis. (It was OK for the invaders to have night-goggles, but for the defenders to get them was not playing fair.) Anyway, they never showed that Iraqi forces HAD any night-goggles!/
Syria did express sympathy for Iraq verbally. Perhaps speaking your mind is dangerous in the neighborhood of Attila. (87% of Russians are said to have wanted Iraq to win..but Atilla will not fight Genghis Khan over mere preferences.) And Syrian individuals did cross into Iraq to fight with them./
Also, B & R say that Syria might be harboring Saddam..[and remember: 'might be' is for the Bushies reason to strike!]--but Saddam (after 4 U.S. missile attacks aimed at him personally) is supposed to be buried in rubble ! They also worry that Syria might be harboring fugitive aides of Saddam..but what would Syria gain from this risky move?/
On Sunday(13APr) Reuters quoted both Bush and Rumsfeld as saying they suspected Syria had chemical weapons (presumably from Iraq--only why would they want these)? [On 14 Apr they talked as if Syria was developing chemicals of its own..(which it may be doing for self-defense against a possible Israeli invasion.) If this is claimed, then it can't be said that 'that's what happened to Saddam's chemicals" (to explain if these stores of chemicals are not found in Iraq) ..if Syria had his gas, they wouldn't need to develop and test their own.) ] /
We should remember the clumsy lies our leaders and British leaders told when they were trying to get the UN to believe in the WMDs by which Saddam was going to threaten the world. Most war-mongers will tell any lie to make their attacks plausible, and show little embarrassment when these lies are shown up.
A big fuss was made over an oil-pipeline in Iraq to Syria--but then it turned out that we knew about this all along, and U.S. oil companies had bought oil from Syria knowing it came illicitly from Iraq.(NYT17apr)
Perhaps the Bushies are going to conquer Syria while they've got all their forces in the area. It's more efficient that way.Bush and Rumsfeld (Reuters15Apr) now say there is 'no war plan' to attack Syria; but who would be reassured by such statements? We all remember how they kept saying that war vs. Iraq had not been decided on, while they were getting ready as fast as they could to start that war./
In what way does Syria stand out? Only as a major pain in the butt for years for Israel. (Powell just said about Syria's offenses "..especially support of terrorist groups" [Reuters14Apr] The only terrorist groups Syria has supported are anti-Israel terrorists.) One could understand Israel attacking Syria--but giant America ??!
More and more, one suspects that Bush and Sharon are in bed together, with Sharon on top.
 
CHECKOFF FOR STATE EXPENSES? R.O'Donnell (RMNEWS13 Apr) suggests that people who
advocate higher taxes should instead advocate a checkoff feature of tax returns, so that THEIR
taxes can be raised, not those of people who want low taxes./
Lets think out this system. Take the tourism-promotion expense, which Gov. Owens favors.
Suppose I agree that this is a good way to spend State money, that it does more good than it
costs. It's now financed by coerced taxes; what would happen if paying for this measure
were made voluntary?/
Would I check to raise my taxes for this purpose? Well, I approve of it in theory--but I have
personal expenses I think are far more urgent..remember the Governor's slogan: "You know best
how to spend your money."/
Besides: if enough others check to pay more taxes, they won't need my bit. And if not enough others volunteer for higher taxes, then my bit won't help./
The trouble with arguments like those of Mr.O'Donnell and his boss the Governor is that they
justify abolishing compulsory taxes altogether. We should have a checkoff that says, "Do you
want to volunteer to pay taxes?"
 
"YOU KNOW BEST HOW TO SPEND YOUR MONEY!"/
This was Gov. Bill Owens' interesting slogan justifying his disastrous tax-cuts.These cuts, plus hours of expensive TV-ads, got him re-elected by a comfortable margin./
Let's look at the real meaning of this slogan: "You well-to-do Coloradoan suburbanites KNOW that financing your SUV and your ego-satisfying foreign War are more important than anyone else's basic welfare. You KNOW that leaving poor children here cold and sick and malnourished and ignorant and lead-poisoned and perhaps homeless (and asthmatic from breathing your SUV fumes)--this situation is a lesser evil than your having to skimp at all on your whims." And the Colorado Republican majority agree enthusiastically with this Owens statement of what they KNOW./ Bill Owens and these self-confident suburbanites deserve each other.
~ Saturday, April 12, 2003
 
GOOD NEWS FROM N.KOREA? N.K. has had a strange impasse with Bush-team over negotiations about their nuclear program. U.S. says negotiations must be 'multilateral'; N.K. has said they must be bilateral, between U.S. & N.K. (Observers have wondered why the hell this should matter to U.S.!)/
NYTIMES INTERNATL(13Apr) now reports that N.K. will not insist on its format for negotiations. South K.'s premier Roh said that N.K.is 'petrified' at the quick U.S. Victory over Saddamites. (This might have been a dumb thing to say publicly, given possible pride-issues in N.K.!)/
On the other hand, the N.K. Press said that the Iraq conquest shows that a nation can ward off (U.S.) attack only by developing (2d-strike) deterrence..i.e., "If you attack us, know that we can severely damage U.S. from our graves." N.K. claims to have biological weapons, also, which they could donate to terrorists; also, they have mountains of radioactive stuff that could be used in 'dirty bombs' (not requiring chain-reaction) against U.S./
Their biggest deterrent is that we have goofily stationed 37,000 GIs within artillery-range of N.K., who can hurl 400,000 shells per hour at our troops. If our Guam-based B-52s strike first, we could wipe out their (buried) artillery in a day or two--but they could kill many, many GIs first./
What weakens this power as a deterrent is that the Bush-team doesn't really seem to care much what happens to these troops! ..nor, perhaps to the splendid city of Seoul. As I pointed out in an earlier blog, they may ruthlessly WANT our troops to be wiped out, as an excuse to nuke N.K.! One observer asked, "Can Bush take 'YES' for an answer?"
 
BRIBES FAR OUTWEIGH HOME DEFENSE: Reuters(12Apr) reports that Congress gave Bush $79 million dollars for various war-related purposes: over $60 billion for the war, $2.5 billion for Iraq reconstruction, $3.5 billion for airlines, and $8 billion to reward our allies--this story doesn't even mention how much went for home defense, but GANNET NEWS(13APR) says home security got $3 billion--which is MORE THAN BUSH WANTED! It sounds like this measure allocates far more money to bribe our 'allies' than to defend our Homeland from terrorists!
The Bush-team just announced that our 'terror-alert' level was dropped from orange (at the start of the invasion) to mere yellow now that Saddam has been conquered. Why in the world would the danger go up at the beginning of the invasion, and down promptly when Saddam fell? The terrorists would, by hypothesis, have been outside Iraq, motivated to revenge the invasion, not to stop it. Why would their motivation change just because he has fallen?/
The real reason we're scaling back on the alert is because the precautions called for under 'orange' were too expensive. Especially the extra drain on local police-strength was unsustainable in the long run.
Of course the feds could have pumped extra resources into city police-forces, but they're unwilling to invest in that precaution./
The pattern of neglecting home defense continues./
 
LOOTING: The White House and Congress have used the distraction from our fascination with TV-war to move speedily billions and billions of dollars from benefitting ordinary people to futher enriching the very wealthy.
We knew that looting accompanied most wars; but we didn't expect to be looted by our own government !
 
DEALING WITH HORNETS Using the precedent of U.S. 'preemptive' attack on Iraq, India threatens to strike first at Pakistan, convinced that Pak.govt. is behind terrorists in Kashmir.(WashingtonPost10Apr). (Fearing that India could wipe out quickly Pakistan's small nuke-force, Pak. may feel it has to strike first: "use 'em or lose 'em" )./
The story quotes Western observers who suspect that the Pak. militants hate the present dictator of Pak. as much as they hate India. In fact, if India wipes out present govt., the militants will rejoice at no longer being controlled at all in Pak./
People just cannot digest the fact that the new threat to all is the world-epidemic of crazy individual terrorists, not connected to any national state. They can't see this because this unique new fact renders all our 'national defense' forces (all our bombers, missiles,etc.) helpless and irrelevant. These are useful only to destroy or intimidate national 'regimes'./
We are like the leopard who has somehow stirred up a very large nest of hornets.
He has always prided himself on his awesome teeth and claws, so in this emergency he uses these to attack some large animal nearby...pointless!
~ Friday, April 11, 2003
 
ALLARD'S ARMS: I got a form-letter today from Sen.Allard ( a big gun on the Armed Svces. Comm.) that contained this vague,puzzling sentence: "Our success in Iraq demonstrates the superiority of our arms." What could this mean?
-- "Our weapons have been shown superior to Iraq's" ? We are by far the richest country in the world, with a truly staggering war budget. They were a pygmy country, impoverished by sanctions, forced to disarm by the UN. Would he be so shameless as to brag about our weapons-superiority over them?!/
--a deeper possible meaning: "For our new Empire, the biggest military problems are (1) the reluctance of our elite youth to enlist, and (2) the intolerance Americans show for high U.S. casualties. Our Iraq success showed that--using mainly high explosives hurled from a safe distance (our specialty)--we can pound other nations into the ground without needing a huge land-army, without incurring many U.S. Casualties. Knowing this, other nations will submit to our imperial commands. OUR NEW 'DIGITAL' EMPIRE IS ON THE MARCH! " I suspect this second interpretation is what Allard meant./
Will the other nations unite defensively against our new empire, with Russia as their leader? (Russia has thousands of nukes that could return us to the Stone Age if we attacked them first--Russia is safe from our imperial threats, as is China). As noted in the blog below ("More on World War IV") other nations will try to develop '2d-strike deterrents' to ward off our imperial threats./
Unlike Russia, these weaker nations can't destroy us if we attack them. But our homeland is terrifically vulnerable to dozens of kinds of terrorist attacks. Each country will want us to know that they could damage us severely 'from their graves'. If we think we can dominate them by threatening to pound them into the ground with our 'superior arms', we should know that our Homeland is at risk from such imperial bullying. (In fact, we may yet find out that Iraq has donated super-germs to the terrorists, so the Saddamites might be able to damage us severely, from their graves.)/
The Russians might not commit suicide (mutual suicide) by defending their allies if we attack them. But they won't want countries like Germany and Japan to be vulnerable to our threats, and thus forced to join U.S. against the Russ alliance--so Russia would be sensible to sell a few of their huge surplus of H-bombs and ICBMs to these countries, and to any other country that can afford them. Then these new n-powers will be in the position of many countries that already have a minimal nuclear deterrent against us.. Would we be willing to have New York and Los Angeles destroyed?/
Now, since most Americans don't give a damn for our new Empire, our government might find out fast that they have no mandate for such an imperial project./
On the other hand, as I have noted, when our rulers mass-produce the robot-substitutes they have developed for ground-soldiers, then they can forget about elections and set up a dictatorship here. (Hitler got installed into power oddly, as Bush did..then he saw to it that there wouldn't be another election.) /
We've never really feared that happening, because we were pretty sure that American troops would never fire on Americans..however, American robots would not hesitate./
And the new imperialists who have taken control of our government may not care much about 'severe, nonfatal' damage to our Homeland./
The next few years should be excessively interesting.
~ Thursday, April 10, 2003
 
FINDING GAS/GERMS SUPPLIES: Suppose U.S. finds in Iraq stores of gas & germs., as Colin Powell is confident they will (Reuters12Apr)/
Who worldwide will believe us that we didn't plant the stuff, to remove the embarrassment of invading a country which in no way threatened U.S. or the world? (Other nations would assume that we have stocks of the stuff to use for planting!) Russia has already said that it would not credit such U.S. discoveries./
(70% of Americans will believe Rumsfeld--but in their present triumphant war-fever, they'd believe anything ! )/
If we had let the inspection process go on so the international team could find at least some large stocks of gas/germs, then the threat would have been more plausibly established, to justify the invasion.
 
DEPLORING AND REJOICING: At the fall of the Saddamites' Baghdad, we can deplore the expected triumph of Bush and Rumsfeld, which will encourage them to attack Syria, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and North Korea (see blog on Woolsey's speech below). NYTIMES: "This marks a high-water mark of the new U.S. determination to use its military power to project its power around the world."/
But we rejoice indeed in the hope that missiles will no longer blow as many civilians to bits (at least in Baghdad), and that GIs will be relatively safe, for now.
~ Wednesday, April 09, 2003
 
SADDAM'S FALL & TERRORISM: The Saddamites did collapse today, so I'd expect that world Muslims would feel humiliation, magnifying their rage at U.S., increasing terrorist threat./
CHRISTIAN SCI.MONITOR OFFERS SEVERAL MUSLIM QUOTES:
"They will invade any Muslim countries they don't like, & UN can't stop them."(an Indonesian student)/
from the PRESIDENT of Indonesia(!): "this is the law of the jungle: the powerful country feels it has a right to exercise its will upon the weak."/
"[U.S. is a cowboy who looks not for the truth, but only for how many guns he has."/
In Egypt, Mubarek's spokesman: "We will see more terrorism and violence here." (If there, why not in America?)/
On the other hand, if Saddam had managed to kill a few thousand GIs in the process (the most he could have hoped for as 'Victory'), that might also have increased terrorism, from new Muslim confidence. Also, we'll have to see if, in his death-throes, he donated supergerms to terrorists./
The moral? We could only lose from this goofy invasion.
 
JESUS: "DON'T RETURN EVIL FOR EVIL, LEST YOU BE OVERCOME BY EVIL."
A story from Detroit News(9Apr) needs no comment:/
J. Gray and D. Voss [know] that the cries of babies and the screams of women will pierce Baghdad streets..they will create the terror. "That's the fun stuff," said Gray. With giant concert speakers,..they harrass Iraq fighters with those late-night sounds of human suffering. "It's really exciting to see your job work."/
 
PRIORITIES: The city-governments are our first line of defense against terrorist attacks.The feds are giving $100 million to the cities to help in their preparation. [USATODAY9apr] /
That total yearly allocation to all the cities for home defense roughly equals the money going to the Pentagon every hour and a half.
~ Tuesday, April 08, 2003
 
DEAD GIVEAWAY: Some observers have suggested that the UN should run Iraq after the war--but Colin Powell said, "We made the sacrifices alone during the war; we'll run the rebuilding process." This is puzzling./
After the Afghan war, Americans complained because other nations didn't help enough in the burdensome project of rebuilding.(In fact, the Americans have dropped that burden themselves. No one is rebuilding Afghanistan.)/
Now we talk as if reconstructing Iraq is a prize, not a burden--a prize we earned by our fighting.
The prize is the oil. Surprise.
~ Monday, April 07, 2003
 
MORE ON KOREAN DANGER: An earlier blog (3/28) worried about the danger of N.Korea launching a first-strike at our 37,000 'hostage' troops near Seoul (firing perhaps 400,000 artillery shells per hour). /This would happen only because N.K. decides that WE are going to strike first--and because they are in a "use 'em or lose'em" situation: our B-52s now on Guam could wipe out their formidable artillery-sites in a couple of days./
Our invasion of Iraq has deepened their worries, and increased the danger. They just withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, presumably because they're hurrying to get more nukes to deter our attack. NYT (6Apr) quotes a respected U.S. analyst: "This is an earthquake that registers 15 on the Richter scale..Not a single policy in N.K. over the last 15 years is left standing."/
N.K.'s rush to get more nukes makes it more likely that we will strike first; that likelihood, in turn, makes it more likely that they will strike at our GIs even sooner. Let's just hope that the Bush-team have not met here rulers even nuttier than they are./
-----------------------/
A new indication of our rulers' ruthlessness about these soldiers: Stansfield Turner, a prominent figure, (ex-CIA-director) recommended (NYT11Apr) that the UN should force N.K. to disarm. The N.K. rulers say that UN involvement is a 'prelude to war'. But, says Turner, 'even if this rhetoric were serious',the forced disarmament should proceed. He never even mentions the fate of 37,000 GIs as relevant to the discussion!
 
INDEX PART V: (FROM 15 MARCH): [to read earlier blogs,move under ARCHIVES, click on the week containing the blog you seek--e.g., for a blog dated 7Apr, click on week of 4/6 to 4/12.]
3/15 AN IRISH TOAST
INVASION HEIGHTENS HOMELAND DANGER
3/17 GI'S AT RISK IN KOREA
LUCKY RECKLESSNESS
3/18 SUPERMAN & KRYPTONITE (GERM-WAR)
POSTWAR BURDENS
THE POPE ON INVASION
3/19 NOT JUST FRANCE! RUSSIA ALSO NOW OPPOSES US.
3/20 BUSHIES: DEADLY BUT STILL RIDICULOUS
DEMOCRACIES NEED A DEVIL TO PUSH THEM INTO WAR
3/21 TV WAR-AUDIENCE
3/22 SEMI-COMPETENT MILITARY TECHNICIANS
HUMPTY-DUMPTY: SHIT JUST HAPPENS; EASY TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
3/23 DON'T TRUST U.S. MEDIA
UGLY NEW FACE ON SPLENDID WAR
WELCOME LIBERATORS? HARDLY!
3/24 STAGING FAKE ATTACKS ON AMERICANS
SADDAM'S MAD OPTIMISM
3/25 COSTS IN BLOOD & $
RUSS AREN'T PLAYING FAIR!
WE CAN DESTROY,BUT NOT BUILD
3/26 PREVAILING IN SHORT RUN
3/27 ATTACK, YES--DEFEND OURSELVES, NO!
U.S. ORDERS AUSTRALIAN TO BOMB CIVILIANS
3/28 CHEAP GAS? NO!
MORE ON KOREAN DANGER
3/29 WAR RUN BY CHICKEN-HAWKS
PRECISION WEAPONS, SEMI-COMPETENT OPERATORS
A REFLECTIVE OFFICER
3/30 DEATH OF GOOD-SENSE
3/31 EMPIRE 'ON THE TAB'
4/1 SR.PHILOMENA: HEROIC AND SENSIBLE!
IRAQ WAR UNDERMINES DEFENSE VS. TERRORISM
An index to even earlier blogs is dated 3/15.
----------------------------------
TOO NEGATIVE? I would not claim that my short essays here are completely objective. They emphasize the folly and danger of the Bush-team's plans. I figure the mainstream Media gives enough of the 'positive' side, cheerily predicting success for our new Empire. Some balance is called for.
 
NOT THE SAME AMERICA!/ Columnists are saying that, just as America occupied Germany and Japan, turning them from authoritarian regimes into democracies (one could question this about Japan)--our managing that feat shows that we can reform and rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq by occupying them./
Five differences: 1) we needed Germany and Japan as allies against the Soviet, so we spent billions on rebuilding them. Aside from the oil-fields--no doubt we'll reconstruct them!--Iraq has little to make rebuilding worth our while; Afghanistan has only the potential for a pipeline.
We're not likely to invest a lot in nation-building; the Bush-team forgot to put ANY money for Afghanistan into our latest budget! (We've already signalled that we're going to manage Iraq alone,without UN input.)
2)Germany and Japan were naturally unified nations; Afghanistan and Iraq are collections of warring tribes.
3) After WWII we had a great economic boom, which made the rebuilding finance possible; now we are in a severe and longlasting slump./
4) We didn't then have the distracting terrorist threats against our Homeland that we face now (from hundreds or thousands of crazy 'martyr-murderers' among 1 billion enraged Muslims)./
5) Germany and Japan were guided into reconstruction by Harry Truman and George C. Marshall (Truman was smart enough to give far-seeing Marshall his head.) Now we have only George Bush (!) and Rumsfeld (!) to manage things--and they think they don't need any advice from outside.
There were plenty of people to staff the earlier occupation who understood German and Japanese languages and cultures. Not so with this new project. This country is not the America it once was./
The British are our only allies; but only 2 in 100 Britons want us to lead in rebuilding Iraq.[GUARDIAN7APR]
~ Sunday, April 06, 2003
 
BUSH'S PROBLEM IN REBUILDING IRAQ:/
SHIT JUST HAPPENS (it's a 'downhill' world); but improvement (uphill) takes brains and effort./ MAKING SHIT HAPPEN (kicking things downhill) is easy: 6000 air-sorties in 3 days; B52 bombing, MOAB ('the Mother of All Bombs'), Iraq gassing our troops, terrorists attacking America..all this is relatively easy./ But RECONSTRUCTING & IMPROVING Afghanistan and Iraq--this would require knowledge of other cultures and languages, intelligent diplomacy and INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, plus attention, funding, and effort sustained for years and years--talents we simply don't have./
There's wisdom in nursery rhymes: pygmy King 'W',on his Pentagon elephant, can easily wreck a 'Humpty' society--but all of his horsepower and all of his men couldn't put Humpty together again.
 
IGNOBLE CHICKEN-HAWKS:
War-fans have recently multiplied, but enlistments have not increased (RMNEWS,5APR)./
All through history, typical human males have enjoyed watching violence, without being inclined to risk their own persons in extreme combat. They have avidly watched cock-fights, dog-fights, bear-fights, gladitorial combat, football games, 'rassling matches, 'action-movies'..real wars./
A Utah study may explain this fascination: when a fan sees 'his' team win, he gets an extra surge of testosterone, as if he had won the contest himself. (Of course he could now get a similar surge by rubbing a certain cream on his back.) /
Their abs may be pointlessly 'buffed', their muscles overdeveloped for the hard work or fighting they will never do--those couch-potatoes who enjoy watching the war as if it were a football game may feel splendid themselves; but actually they're pretty pathetic.
~ Friday, April 04, 2003
 
UNEMBARRASSED LOONIES:/ THE FOLLOWING AMAZING STORY (FROM CNN INTERNATIONAL 3APR) IS PRESENTED HERE. (MY comments are in bold.)
--------------------------
Former CIA Director James Woolsey said Wednesday the United States is engaged in World War IV, and that it could continue for years.
In the address to a group of college students, Woolsey described the Cold War as the third world war and said "This FOURTH WORLD WAR, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us. Hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War." /
To keep us in a 'garrison-state' condition, the militarists need a constant cold war, a threat of war [a funny movie a few years ago, 'CANADIAN BACON' showed them trying to start a war with Canada!]
This is supposed to justify the MILLION-DOLLARS-A-MINUTE for the Pentagon--also, this 'permanent emergency' will justify a police state, with the repression of dissidents and the destruction of our Bill of Rights.

He said the new war is actually against three enemies: the religious rulers of Iran, the "fascists" of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al Qaeda.
We mustn't think 'Iraq' is all there is; we will then attack Iran & Syria. (Meanwhile of course, North Korea may launch a first strike at us. He doesn't discuss this.)
Woolsey said that all three enemies have waged war against the United States for several years but the United States has just "finally noticed."
A familiar line: "We're not going to start new wars, just continue an ongoing war imposed on us by others."A great Hitlerian line!
"As we move toward a new Middle East," Woolsey said, "over the years and, I think, over the DECADES to come... we will make a lot of people very nervous."
They'll make every sensible person on earth nervous!
It will be America's backing of democratic movements throughout the Middle East
If 'democratic' here means rule by majority, then he's really crazy! Muslims throughout the world hate America! In Turkey, for instance, the Muslim Parliament defied America, and really made our invasion more difficult. The military dictators didn't dare go over their heads, this time. Power for Muslim majorities in these countries would mean big trouble for us!
On the other hand, that's probably NOT what he means by 'democratic'; he means regimes that we can control.
[Our backing of 'democratic' movements] will bring about this sense of unease, he said. "Our response should be, 'Good!'". Singling out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, he said, "We want you nervous. We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in a hundred years, this country and its allies are ON THE MARCH! "
We have driven away all our traditional allies. WW IV will be fought by us alone. Even Blair just said that Britain will NOT help attack Syria or Iran (The fact that he had to say this shows how serious the prospect is.) But nobody doubts that our new imperialists are ON THE MARCH..as long as no sensible U.S. leaders can stop them.
and that we are on the side of those whom you -- the Mubaraks, the Saudi Royal family --most fear: We're on the side of your own people."
Since the Muslim peoples all hate us, we'll need dictators subservient to us to ruthlessly stamp out any real democracy in Muslim countries. Apparently Mubarek and the Saudi Royals have not been cooperative enough--so they must be replaced by dictators who will rule for us 'in the name of the People.'
The Mubarek-types may be grateful that we're giving them formal notice of our intent to attack them.
This may finally unite (Muslim governments & peoples)--just what bin Laden has been working for.


-----------------------------
Could it be that Woolsey is speaking on his own, not for the President? He is mentioned as the possible 'minister of info' in our Iraq! /
Rumsfeld just warned Iran and Syria of possible war; when told of this, Bush said "Good!" (NYT quoted in DenverPost6Apr)/And sure enough, Bush's 'pragmatist' advisers worry that such talk might inspire threatened countries to quickly develop 2d-strike deterrents, so they can damage our vulnerable homeland severely 'from their graves'.

But the Bushies don't care. / They're ON THE MARCH!
----------------------------------
ANOTHER AMAZING FACT: 9 days LATER, THIS HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT SPEECH HAS BEEN MENTIONED BY MEDIA IN BRITAIN, CANADA, AND PAKISTAN--but not much in America, aside from the OREGONIAN, CNN, and USATODAY (which mentioned Woolsey's calling for attacks on Syria and Iran, but not his threats against Egypt and Saudi Arabia.)
---------------------------
The pretence that their threats to these nations is related to our 'war on terror' in the Homeland--this completely ignores the fact that we're threatened by INDIVIDUAL terrorists not closely connected to ANY NATION.
 
MORE ON IMPENDING WORLD WAR IV: An authority close to the Bush-team [see the blog above] has outlined their plan for world empire: a decades-long 'WW IV' during which we 'and our allies' (i.e. Israel alone) attack (at least) Iran and Syria, undermine (at least) the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia--besides, of course our continuing war with Al Quaeda. All this was said explicitly! (No mention was made of the threat to us from North Korea.)/
Such a proclamation is a great way to unite the world against us! The first step will be the jumping into the same bed of the secular Muslim rulers (of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Nigeria, Libya, Indonesia ) with the theocratic Muslim rulers in Iran. United, they could give us some surprises./
The next stage: we are now the aggressive Stalinists, and the rest of the world will be arrayed against us in a new NATO, including Russia (where 80% of the population already hope that Iraq wins this war!) and China--these eclipsed superpowers now show no desire for world conquest themselves, and will therefore be trusted (as we once were) to lead their 'little brother' nations--perhaps they will say they lead the 'Free World' ! /
The GUARDIAN(7APR) says that the nightmare of the British govt. is the possibility that France and Germany will line up permanently with Russia against America./
Of these nations, France and Russia and China and North Korea and Pakistan have actual nukes, with Iran near to joining the nuclear powers. Once the Blairites are deposed, nuclear Britain may join that alliance. (If the terrrorists foolishly strike at Europe, there could be 2 independent alliances arrayed against us, the Muslim and the non-Muslim.) /
Russia and China could sell other threatened countries (e.g., Germany and Japan) a few nukes for themselves (Russia has thousands of functioning H-bombs, and ICBMs, far more than it needs to level all our cities)--or at least tons of radioactive materials to use in 'dirty bombs', easy for anyone to make, enough to render uninhabitable the rich cores of our cities. Thus a dozen powers in that alliance will have obvious '2d-strike deterrents' to block our imperial threats..we'll know that each of them could severely damage us 'from their grave'. Other nations can easily and secretly develop biological weapons as 2d-strike detterents. /
And of course sooner or later we'll have to invade Indonesia, because the terrorist training-camps will be hiding in their jungles. Indonesia has 228 million angry Muslims, compared to a piddling 80 million Vietnamese who drove us away in our last attempt at jungle warfare. /
(Of course the Christian minorities in Muslim countries will all be murdered or driven out--but that's a small price for Empire. After all we're now bombing tens of thousands of Chaldean Catholics in Iraq.) /
As I've said before, the Bushies announcing their imperial plans remind one of Wile E.Coyote calling on Bugs Bunny, and presenting his card: "I am bigger and stronger than you. Please simplify things and surrender immediately." Bugs didn't surrender, and neither will the nations of the world. / World War IV should be exciting./
I am no prophet (for instance,I worried wrongly that Iraq would gas our troops before they left Kuwait)--but I just want to lay out the risks these loonies are taking with the American people--and for an empire Americans don't want!

Powered By Blogger TM Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com