Our Children's Endless War?

1984 by George Orwell

- The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.

Perpetual War by TARIQ ALI

US General Petraeus (currently commanding the CIA) tells us: “You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It’s a little bit like Iraq, actually . . .. Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.”

The key thing to realize is that they do not want peace. Peace is not their goal. Right now, a trillion dollars or more is being taken from all of us in the form of taxes. That money is then spent to fight this endless war. Their biggest fear is that someday we might stop giving them the money.

Anyone alive in the early 90's saw this. The great bogeyman, whom generations of Americans had been told that we had to constantly fight, suddenly collapsed. That Evil Empire, the Soviet Union, suddenly collapsed despite people like Robert Gates telling us that they were actually a huge threat that demanded that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars fighting.

This collapse left a great void. And the government types and the Pentagon types who want to keep taking a trillion dollars are more from us suddenly were searching for a new enemy. They needed something or someone whom the American people would fear as much as they had feared the great Soviet threat, in order to to keep the billions and trillions of dollars flowing to them. They floated all sorts of ideas, the remnants of which can be seen in old Chuck Norris and Tom Clancy movies from the 90's. Evil drug lords who threatened to control the world. Evil Chinese billions who are going to be the yellow tide that swarms over the world. Evil Russian generals who might retake control of the Russian military and then suddenly attack us because ... well... they never really had reason. Just the fact that they were Russians or Chinese was always assumed to be enough of a reason on its own.

Then came Osama Bin Laden and 9-11. I'm not a big believer in consipiracy theories about how this was an inside plot. But, I'm not at all above believing that there are people who would use those attacks in order to make sure a trillion or more dollars a year keeps flowing towards them. And I'm not above believing that the deaths of thousands of people wouldn't faze them from keeping that money flowing towards them.  There's an old bumper sticker about how wouldn't it be great if someday the schools had all the money they needed and the Air Force needed to hold a bake sale to build its bombers. There are generals who hate schools and hate bake sales, and who want to make sure the money comes to them instead.

For that, they need a war. And the bad thing about wars in history has always been that the wars end. The wars end and the soldiers are expected to go back home. And the people expect that one day we'll spend money on their children's schools and giving Americans decent health care. That is not an optimal outcome for the generals who have their hands on our money. They don't want to go home and be civilians. They don't want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on education and health care and bridges that don't collapse. They want to keep the money and power that first our long endless war against communism, and now our long endless war against terrorism, gives them.

Its up to us to say no. Its up to us to take our country back. Vote for a real peace candidate this next election. They probably won't have a (D) or an (R) after their names, unless they are some sort of maverick the rest of their party hates. Nope, odds are you'll have to look a little deeper down the ballot, or maybe even put your name on the ballot, to cast that vote.  But we need to cast those votes in this next election.

We need to end these wars now. We need to bring our troops home and we need to spend our hundreds of billions of dollars on American jobs to rebuild America's economy. Its time for the American people to say no. We don't want Orwell's endless war as the future of our children.

James Madison, 1787

In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

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Was There an Alternative?

Looking Back on 9/11, a Decade Later, Was There an Alternative? by NOAM CHOMSKY

Its always worth finding out what Prof. Chomsky is thinking. The link above leads to his piece on the 10th anniversary of 9-11, and its very much worth reading in full. Here's just a couple of tastes to get you to follow that link.

A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S. “He repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt them,” Eric Margolis writes. “‘Bleeding the U.S.,’ in his words.” The United States, first under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, rushed right into bin Laden’s trap… Grotesquely overblown military outlays and debt addiction… may be the most pernicious legacy of the man who thought he could defeat the United States” — particularly when the debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with the collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.

and ...

In 9-11, I quoted Robert Fisk’s conclusion that the “horrendous crime” of 9/11 was committed with “wickedness and awesome cruelty,” an accurate judgment. It is useful to bear in mind that the crimes could have been even worse. Suppose, for example, that the attack had gone as far as bombing the White House, killing the president, imposing a brutal military dictatorship that killed thousands and tortured tens of thousands while establishing an international terror center that helped impose similar torture-and-terror states elsewhere and carried out an international assassination campaign; and as an extra fillip, brought in a team of economists — call them “the Kandahar boys” — who quickly drove the economy into one of the worst depressions in its history. That, plainly, would have been a lot worse than 9/11.

Unfortunately, it is not a thought experiment. It happened.

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CIA: "One Hell of a Killing Machine"

How the Agency Became "One Hell of a Killing Machine" The CIA and the Drones by GARETH PORTER

In human history, its never been a good thing when a government turns into a killing machine.

During 2010, the CIA “drone war” in Pakistan killed as many as 1,000 people a year, compared with the roughly 2,000 a year officially estimated to have been killed by the SOF “night raids” in Afghanistan, according to a report in the Sep. 1 Washington Post.

A CIA official was quoted by the Post as saying that the CIA had become “one hell of a killing machine”, before quickly revising the phrase to “one hell of an operational tool”.

The shift in the CIA mission’s has been reflected in the spectacular growth of its Counter-terrorism Center (CTC) from 300 employees in September 2001 to about 2,000 people today – 10 percent of the agency’s entire workforce, according to the Post report.

Now lets see, our propaganda machine is celebrating the 10th Anniversary of their great victory around 9-11. If we think back, one of the big parts of the tragedy of 9-11 is that our intelligence agencies failed to put together the bits and pieces of information that they did have in order to predict and thwart the deadly attacks of that day.

In response, we had commissions and inquiries and reports that pointed out the failures. Now, what have we done to fix that problem?

The agency’s analytical branch, which had been previously devoted entirely to providing intelligence assessments for policymakers, has been profoundly affected.

More than one-third of the personnel in the agency’s analytical branch are now engaged wholly or primarily in providing support to CIA operations, according to senior agency officials cited by the Post. And nearly two-thirds of those are analysing data used by the CTC drone war staff to make decisions on targeting.

Some of that shift of internal staffing to support of the drone has followed the rise in the number of drone strikes in Pakistan since mid-2008, but the CIA began to lay the institutional basis for a bigger drone campaign well before that.

So, we know on 9-11 our billion dollar intelligence agencies let us down. Just like they failed to predict everything from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the collapse of our Egyptian dictatorship. So, what's the answer the brilliant folks running things come up with? Lets shift nearly a third of the intelligence analysts over to be a part of the killing machine and away from doing something that might be useful like piecing together the clues that might just prevent another disaster for the American people.

Yeah, that'll work.

So, lets review. In order to protect Americans, the CIA has become "one hell of a killing machine". Those killings of course piss off the friends and family circle of the people we kill, as well as the friends and family of all the innocent "collateral damage" that piles up like waste coming out the back of our 'killing machine'. This in turn means more future terrorists who will be willing to die in suicide attacks in order to revenge their loved ones. Meanwhile, the part of the CIA that might be able to detect such attacks coming and maybe, just maybe warn us and protect us is cut by 1/3rd in order to supply people to the killing machine that in the long run is probably just creating the groundwork for future 9-11's.

Feel safer now?

Now, however, Petraeus’s personal view of the drone war may no longer be relevant. The CIA’s institutional interests in continuing the drone war may have become so commanding that no director could afford to override those interests on the basis of his own analysis of how the drone strikes affect U.S. interests.

In all of human history, its never been a good thing when a state becomes a "killing machine". Its always been a very hard machine to turn off once it has been created.

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The 9/11 Conspiracists: Vindicated After All These Years? No.

The 9/11 Conspiracists: Vindicated After All These Years?by ALEXANDER COCKBURN

What has been the goal of the 9/11 conspiracists? They ask questions, yes, but they never answer them. They never put forward an overall scenario of the alleged conspiracy. They say that’s not up to them. So who is it up to? Whom do they expect to answer their questions? When answers are put forward, they are dismissed as fabrications or they simply rebound with another question. Like most cultic persuasions they excitedly invoke important converts to their faith and the “1500 architects and engineers in the USA” who say the NIST official report is not thorough and needs another investigation. It’s a tiny proportion of the overall members of their profession. At least 80 per cent of faculty economists in the US believe stoutly in long-discredited theories that have blighted the lives of millions around the world for decades. Their numbers don’t equate with intelligence, let along conclusive analysis.

The 9/11 conspiracists seize on coincidences and force them into sequences they deem to be logical and significant. Their treatment of eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence is whimsical. Apparent anomalies that seem to nourish their theories are brandished excitedly; testimony that undermines their theories–like witnesses of a large plane hitting the Pentagon — is dismissed.

If you want an excellent demolition of most of the stupid 9-11 conspiracy theories, then you should follow the link to read this excellent article.

Do I believe there was a cover-up after 9-11? Yes. And I think its that cover-up that gives some sense of a willingness to believe the more insane 9-11 theories.

The cover-up involved the Bush administration. The first reaction of every politically aware person in the Bush White House on the morning of 9-11 had to have been that they had just screwed up on a massive scale and were in big trouble. They had spent the first nine months acting like they had gotten there on such a thin margin, the famous 5 to 4, that they thus needed to steal all that could be stolen today because there might not be a tomorrow. On the morning of 9-11, they were not a secure Presidency. Many Americans thought they had stolen the election, and they didn't have a great deal of public support. On top of this wobbly foundation, they had just massively screwed up and allowed a major terrorist attack on the United States during their watch.

The Bushies had come into the White House with an intense hatred of everything Clinton. Their standard operating proceedure was to do the opposite of whatever the Clintons had been doing. This included terrorism. Richard Clarke, the holdover anti-terror chief from the Clinton years was desperately trying to warn them about the threat from Al-Qaida. But Al-Qaida and terrorism was the Clinton thing, and the Bushies had little or no interest.

Over at the Pentagon, the big emphasis had been on stealing tens of billions of tax payer dollars and wasting it on the boondoggle of Star Wars. This was Rumsfeld's priority during the first nine months as shown in his public speeches. He'd been an advocate of missile defense while out of government, and now it was time to repay all those defense contractors that had paid to put him on the boards of their organizations and paid him speaking fees over the years with the billions of boondoggle dollars in the Star Wars plans.

In other words,the Bushies had screwed up and let America's guard down at the exact time that an enemy was growing and planning on attacking us. Plus, as they started to look into it, they had to find early on that FBI agents and intelligence analysts were finding signs of the attack and issuing warnings that would put the Bush administration in a very bad light. Someone as politically astute as Karl Rove would know that America would react strongly and emotionally to 9-11.

Later on, after Katrina and FEMA and other Bushy disasters, America became used to this sort of Bushy incompetence. I'm sure that Karl Rove and the other political types in the White House were scared to death of the consequences of this sort of incompetence being pinned on the Bush White House concerning 9-11. They certainly knew that the Bush Administration was already shaky, and if they had been blamed for letting 9-11 happen because of their own incompetence and inability to focus on anything other than stealing money for their defense contractor friends, then their political futures would all be very short indeed. With a big part of the nation already believing that they had stolen the last election, they had little room for error.

This then was the 9-11 cover-up. The Bush White House absolutely didn't want people to know that Bush had been getting briefings warning of an attack a month before and had done nothing about it. They absolutely didn't want people to know that FBI agents in the field had been sending in warning reports about suspicious people learning to fly airplanes and that those had been ignored. The Bush White House didn't want people to know that intelligence agencies weren't talking to each other, so the people who were tagged as dangerous terrorists were being allowed into the country.

And, in the best tradition of all political BS artists dating back to at least Goebbels, they thought the best defense was a good offense. So, they went on the attack. Somehow, by noon on 9-11 the intelligence agencies that couldn't see the attack coming knew for certain that Bin Laden was responsible. Bush was going to lead a campaign of vengeance to establish himself as a national hero instead being the incompetent petty politician who'd let America's guard down. Insiders report that Bush and Rumsfeld wanted to try to spin 9-11 into the Iraq war they both wanted, but didn't think that could be done. So, they instead spun it into the Afghan war that is still killing Americans and burning up tens of billions of your tax dollars today.

Was there a 9-11 cover up? You bet there was. It just didn't involve the US government blowing up any American buildings, and it didn't involve any secret demolition charges. The cover up was the standard sort of Cover-Your-Ass that you'd expect from politicians who just realized that they had screwed up and allowed America to suffer the worst terror attack in its history. The cover up still continues today as those responsible for this failure to defend America instead portray themselves as the heroes of the day.

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Obama is as 'Dumb' as Dubya

During the Bush years, the left regularly hooted at the ridiculous things he said. The constant refrain from the left was the Bush was an idiot. Nowadays, since I'm more on the 'left' than the 'right', I tend to hear more of the left-wing echo chamber than the right-wing echo chamber. And that of course has gone amazingly silent when it comes to criticizing their great leader in Washington.

Here's an example. Obama said something absolutely stupid and ridiculous in talking about the decade of the Bush/Obama wars. The Herald Sun's coverage of this speech quotes Mr. Obama as saying ...

"A few months ago, our troops achieved our greatest victory yet in the fight against those who attacked us on 9/11, delivering justice to Osama bin Laden in one of the greatest intelligence and military operations in American history."

Now, if Bush had said something like that, the left would be howling in ridicule. They would be laughing at this fool of a president who obviously had slept through his history classes in a drunken stupor.

Lets see, as a possible contender for 'the greatest intelligence and military operation in American history', I've recently been re-reading Stephen Ambrose's book on D-Day. Here's some numbers on D-Day as its report card for its bid of being the 'greatest intelligence and military operation in American history'. From the D-Day museaum in the UK.

On D-Day, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy. The American forces landed numbered 73,000: 23,250 on Utah Beach, 34,250 on Omaha Beach, and 15,500 airborne troops. In the British and Canadian sector, 83,115 troops were landed (61,715 of them British): 24,970 on Gold Beach, 21,400 on Juno Beach, 28,845 on Sword Beach, and 7900 airborne troops.

11,590 aircraft were available to support the landings. On D-Day, Allied aircraft flew 14,674 sorties, and 127 were lost.

In the airborne landings on both flanks of the beaches, 2395 aircraft and 867 gliders of the RAF and USAAF were used on D-Day.

Operation Neptune involved huge naval forces, including 6939 vessels: 1213 naval combat ships, 4126 landing ships and landing craft, 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels. Some 195,700 personnel were assigned to Operation Neptune: 52,889 US, 112,824 British, and 4988 from other Allied countries.

By the end of 11 June (D + 5), 326,547 troops, 54,186 vehicles and 104,428 tons of supplies had been landed on the beaches.

To this, you can add the 'intelligence' side of the operation, which included finding out the numbers and placement of all German troops in France, as well as coordinating operations by the French resistance in support of D-Day, and an elaborate fake of helping the Germans to believe that the Allies were really going to invade at Calais instead of Normandy which included the creation of an entire fake army under the command of General Patton.

And, all of this was done in the age when computers were a rare and expensive new thing. There wasn't a spreadsheet or database in sight as this invasion was planned. All the work was done by hand by another unseen army of planners and clerks.

By comparison, Obama's murder of Osama consisted of an intelligence operation that took four years to find a guy who wasn't trying very hard to hide. After all, Osama hadn't changed his safe house location in years. Not even when messengers and operatives who knew where he was were known to be captured by American intelligence. Heck, he was sitting just across town from the Pakistan version of West Point, probably surprised that it had taken the Americans what probably seemed like forever to find him and give him the martyrdom he so obviously craved.

Then, the military operation consisted of crashing a top-secret high-tech helicopter into the yard, then not being able to overcome an unarmed old man and his wife without being forced to kill them. In geo-political terms, the real lasting outcome of this operation is the damage it did to the US-Pakistan alliance.

Really? That's the 'greatest intelligence and military operation in American history'? As opposed to something like D-Day? If Dubya had said such a thing, the left would be howling in derision. Notice who isn't howling at Obama if you want to judge the credibility of the voices you hear on the left. That tells you who you might just maybe be able to trust as being honest in the future, and who you can not. The ones who ignore this and who still proclaim Obama as the 'peace' candidate are the ones who are lying to your face and who should not be listened to in the future.

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Fear Inc.

The Center for American Progress has published a report on the manipulation of anti-Islamic hatred in the US.

I've posted elsewhere that I ban all American 'news' stations from my house using my tv system's obscenity blocking features. No CNN, no Faux, no MSNBC, no CNBC. I keep all of that off my channel list, and maybe once a year when something is happening in the world and I actually want to watch CNN, I enter a code to do so.

I'm thinking about that today because one of the things I've blocked from my home by doing this is this incessant drum-beat of hate-speach against muslims. The good thing is that this does not sound normal to me anymore. When I used to watch these 'news' channels, it did seem more normal. But when you turn it all off and get away, then when you hear it then it sounds more like the ridiculous hate-speech that it really is. If I do dare to turn on such channels, I also tend to very quickly say "Oh my gawd!" and turn them quickly back off. If you aren't desensitized into accepting hate-speech, then it sounds truly awful when you do hear it.

Of course, this hate speech is no accident. The following is from Selling Islamophobia by by WAJAHAT ALI

Healthy debate, disagreement and differences of opinion are a critical part of any civil society, and it is, in fact, necessary when discussing religion, race and politics. This report, however, targets those individuals who have clearly ventured towards poisonous extremist ideology and rhetoric by exploiting fears concerning terrorism and national security, as well general ignorance of Muslims, as a profitable vehicle to advance a hateful agenda.

The Islamphobia network in America is comprised of five categories:

• The money trail: a list of seven funders who have given nearly $43m to anti-Muslim organizations and think tanks.

• The Islamophobia scholars and policy experts: five individuals and their respective organizations that act as the central nervous system responsible for manufacturing the fictitious memes and fear-mongering talking points about Muslims and Islam...

• Grassroots organizations and the religious right: new and existing activist networks and mainstream popular religious personalities disseminate these messages to their constituents and elected officials...

• The media enablers: the mainstreaming of this fringe, extremist rhetoric is aided by media allies in network TV (Fox News), radio (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck), online magazines (World Net Daily, Front Page Magazine) and the Islamophobia blogosphere (Jihad Watch)...

• The political players: finally, these talking points end up as soundbites and wedge issues for politicians and, specifically, several 2012 Republican presidential candidates...

$43,000,000.00 is no accident. And, its money well spent apparently. This drives a constant sense of fear, which in turn supports calls for an increasing police state at home and larger war budgets and more wars abroad. If we as a people doubt for an instead the sanity of spending a trillion dollars a year projecting military force around the world when we have no real enemy, and doing so in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the great depression, well, then we are instantly reminded of what the 'terrorists' did to us a decade ago and how all of these trillions spent are needed so it doesn't happen again. Spend $43 million to help insure billions of dollars of unnecessary 'defense' spending is making someone a lot of money.

Fortunately, there's an easy answer. Just turn them off. Don't listen to them. When they do rarely intrude upon your lives, then they'll sound as the hate-filled propagandists and manipulators that they are. Vote for the candidate who wants to build a school instead.

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World Turned Upside Down

Texas Gov Perry says thoughtful discussion needed on withdrawing troops in Iraq, Afghanistan

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Saturday thoughtful discussion is needed to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq as he wrapped up his first week of campaigning for the GOP’s presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, what's our antiwar President up to?

US troops may stay in Afghanistan until 2024

America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024

Yep, the world has turned upside down. The Republicans are talking about at least talking about bringing our troops home, while our great anti-war President launches one surge after another in Afghanistan and now is trying to find ways to make sure this war lasts at least 23 years. That is, when he's not starting new wars in Pakistan, Libya, Syria or whatever other place on the globe where Obama's random war darts land next week.

Not sure I believe this any more than I believed that Obama and Hillary were against the war when they were running around criticizing Bush. But still, its fascinating that most of the opposition to the wars and the ever increasing 'defense' budgets are coming from the Republican side these days.

People used to joke about how 'moderate Republican' was an endangered species. Now apparently its 'liberal Democrats' who have gone extinct. The position of the Democratic Party today is to use Herbert Hoover's economic recovery plans and to spend so much on wars and defense that even Ronald Reagan would blush, and his disciples start to talk about being prudent on defense spending and maybe even bringing some troops home.

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At Least They Believe in Recycling

Well, the good news is that US government officials believe in recycling. I was looking over the news headlines at antiwar.com and I saw a headline about Ghadafi's "last stand" that led to this article on CNN.

Libya rejects rebel claims Gadhafi seeking refuge for his family

The reports come as U.S. officials say the embattled leader may be making preparations for a last stand in Tripoli as a months-long NATO air campaign continues amid reports of rebel advances.
"We believe he could be planning for a last stand," one U.S. official said.

A second U.S. official confirmed a similar concern and said the Gadhafi plan could involve a final military offensive against civilians, launched from his last major strongholds around the Libyan capital.

That seemed awfully familiar, so I typed "Saddam" and "last stand" into Google and found ....

War-gaming Saddam's Last Stand - New York Daily News

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Saddam's last stand?

CNN.com - Stronghold of Tikrit may be Saddam's last stand - Apr. 11 ...

IRAQ'S LAST STAND; Saddam's Baghdad barricade. - Free Online Library

Saddam's last stand? Vows for defense of Baghdad should soon be ...

Well, you get the idea. Writing propgaganda for the US government is like writing scripts for pro wrestling. Why write something new when the same few old scripts have been working for ever? Just recycle, then go home in time to see the wifey and kiddies.

The officials, who have knowledge of the situation on the ground, did not want to be named because of the sensitive intelligence matters.

The sure sign its propaganda these days is the unsourced source. Surely one of the lessons to be learned from the lies that led up to the Iraq debacle is not to trust un-named sources on CNN. When Judy Miller was being given what Dick Cheney's office wanted printed in the NY Times, it always appeared as similar unsourced sources. If no one's willing to put their name on it, be very suspicious.

In fact, you should be asking why such esteemed news outlets are still using such unsourced sources after being burned by them so badly in all the lies that led up to the Iraq war. You'd think watching more than a million people die, including more than 4,000 from your own country, as well as watching your own nation waste hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars on a needless war, would at least cause some sort of internal review. I guess not.

The lies that led to the Iraq war have killed more Americans than Osama Bin Laden did on 9-11, but nothing changes.

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Obama and Clinton Call for Yet Another War.

Not satisfied with their wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen (plus a few that don't make the front pages I'm sure), SOS Clinton and President Obama today called for a war against Syria.

Obama Calls for Regime Change in Syria

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton today called for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to step down after months of bloody crackdowns on peaceful protesters that have killed as many as 2,000 people. Clinton also announced even harsher sanctions on Syria.

Wait a minute. Are you thinking you don't see the word 'war' in all of that, so it must still be ok, right?

"regime change = war"

That's the equation people need to remember. Countries used to fight little conflicts that could be resolved. They'd fight a border skirmish, then have a peace conference and agree on changing the border or some other sort of reparation for which ever side lost the little war, then they'd declare peace and move on.

The thing is, you can't declare peace when you've said that your aim is to topple the government of the other country. No negotiation is possible then, except surrender. If the other government wants to hold on to its power, and what government doesn't, then the only possible outcome is a fight to the finish until that government is toppled.

"regime change = war"

Obama and Clinton just declared war. Oh, I know, not in any fashion that Thomas Jefferson or James Madison would recognize. Not in that old fashioned sort of way when in our efforts at democracy our representatives would gather and decide that it was the will of the people that we go to war. Nah, nothing like that. This is modern war, declared by executive fiat. Obama in his greatness has declared that Assad must go. Thus we are at war.

Oh, it won't seem like it at first. Since we are still bogged down in this year's earlier executive war in Libya, it appears that 'sanctions' are the first weapon of choice. But, we didn't declare these sanctions because we stated we wanted the Syrians to be less barbaric a government toward its own people. If we had done that, then perhaps there would still be some room for a negotiated peace somewhere down the road. Nope, instead we've stated that the only solution the USA will accept is one of 'regime change' in Damascus.

So, what happens then when the sanctions don't work? We can't back down then, can we? Of course, not, then we'll be told that the 'credibility' of the United States is on the line and we can't let Assad win, so the bombers were begin to target Syria. We'll fire off some more million dollar missiles to make the defense contractors happy.

But, even then, we seem to keep refusing the lesson that goes back to Hitler and the Blitz and which seems to still be true in Libya. That is that you can't win a war just by terror bombing from the air. So, somewhere down the line, we'll be seeing the calls for 'boots on the ground' in Syria.

The point is, Obama and Clinton have declared war in such a way that there can be no peace. There can be no negotiation. Regime change is our war goal, as stated by executive decree.

"regime change = war"

Of course, it won't ever be called a war. Not this one. Not after Libya and not this close to the elections. Nope. But make no mistake, Obama and Clinton just launched the USA into yet another war.

Aren't we all so happy we elected the 'anti-war' candidates in the last election?

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How to know when you are losing a war?

How can you know when you are losing a war? You can't count on the tele to tell you about it. Civilian morale on the home front is always regarded as important, and the information you are given is first weighed against massive secrecy and claims that no one can know. Then when something is finally reported, you can count on the editors and the publishers having long conversations about how to report what must be reported in such a way that people are not 'alarmed'. Face it, if they won't tell you the nuclear reactor upwind of you is melting down, you can't count on them telling you that your nation is losing their grand patriotic war.

So, you learn to read beneath the lines. Like with this news story from the AP.

US ambassador urged restraint on Afghan visas

Taki is one of about 2,300 Afghans who have applied to a special program that awards U.S. visas to Afghans who have worked for the U.S. government for at least a year and are in danger because of this work.

But since the Afghan Allies program began in 2009, not a single visa has been handed out.

A document obtained by The Associated Press suggests the delays may not be a matter of bureaucracy, but reflect a worry among U.S. officials over holding on to hard-to-replace employees.

Thousands of Afghanis who have been valuable 'staff' to the American occupation want to get the heck out of Dodge because they feel their lives are in danger. But the US embassy is blocking their departure, even though they meet the criteria for a program that was set up precisely for them, because the US doesn't want to lose the very Afghanis that have been helping them.

So, what does this tell us?

The people who've been working for us feel unprotected and at risk. Does this sound like we are winning a war? Does this sound like we are mopping up the last pockets of resistence towards the end of our victorious, decade-long campaign? Hardly. If we can't protect the people on our side, then we are not doing well.

There's another, even less positive, way of reading this, which is that the smart Afghanis who have been working for us see that the end of this war is near and that they've picked the wrong side, and that its high time to move to America like the Americans promised them they would allow.

It also tells you that there are so few Afghanis who are both useful to the American administration and loyal, that they can't afford to let even a single one of them come to America even though we've promised them exactly that. Not a good sign either. Kinda seems to say that most of the smart Afghanis who value a future in their own country don't really want to be seen collaborating with the foreign invaders. And that they believe that the foreign invaders are not the future.

Its just one bit of inference from between the lines, but the feeling one gets from this official news story on the AP is that we are not winning this war. That in the end, we are not going to win this war. And if that's the case, why are we throwing more money and more lives down the sinkhole of a war we are going to lose anyways. We will leave Afghanistan someday. The Afghanis know it, and appear to believe that it will happen soon enough that they need to be making other plans.

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Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War

Recently, I've taken over managing the website for the Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War. That doesn't mean that I won't write here, as I certainly will express my views on other issues here, and even probably still some of my nuclear views when they seem more personal than that of the coalition.

But, that's why the usual set of posts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki from this once-upon-a-time nuclear engineer haven't been appearing on this website. I've been busy with those sorts of posts on the Colorado Coalition website.

In Japan, a group of university and secondary school students and teachers have created a pair of Google Earth sites. These sites overlay the archive images and maps, as well as videos from survivors, over the Google Earth 3d maps of the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

And Dr. Gar Alperovitz has an excellent piece up on Counterpunch.org about the decision to nuke Hiroshima that does an excellent job of puncturing the myths with which this event is usually presented to Americans in denial of the fact that our nation committed two of the greatest atrocities in human history by killing something like 200,000 people, almost all of them civilians.

Links to all of this can be found on the Colorado Coalition's website.

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List of largest peaceful gatherings in history

List of largest peaceful gatherings in history from wikipedia

One of the myths that we are told is that police and military are all necessary because as human beings we can not gather together without violence breaking out. According to the police and the military, if we gather together in numbers, then we must have them providing 'security' and 'keeping the peace'.

As an old hippie, one sees the fallacy of this. As at times you are around tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of peaceful people having a good time and getting along just fine with each other without a cop 'keeping the peace' anywhere in sight. Which is why this wikipedia article caught my eye.

This is a list of the largest historic peaceful gatherings of people in one place for a single event. For brevity, only gatherings in excess of 1 million are recorded.

Over fifty million

An estimated 73 million people had gathered in Shanghai, China for the World Expo 2010, which started in May, 2010 and ran until the end of October.[1]
An estimated 60 to 70 million people gathered over 45 days in Allahabad, India for the Kumbh Mela, the world's largest gathering in January 2007.[2][3][3]
An estimated 50 million people gathered over 104 days in Haridwar, India for the Maha Kumbh Mela between January and April 2010. More than 16 million people together took the ritualistic bath on the bathing ghats on April 14, 2010.[4][5]
[edit]Over ten million

Pilgrimage to Sabarimala Hindu temple in Kerala, India is the largest annual pilgrimage in the world with an estimated 45–50 million devotees visiting every year.[6][7][8]
An estimated 40 million people gathered over 41 days in Sabarimala, India between 15 November and 26 December 2008.[9]
An estimated 34 million people gathered over 11 days in Rajahmundry, India for Godavari pushkaram between 31 july and 10 august 2003.[citation needed]
An estimated 15 million people attended the funeral of C. N. Annadurai in Tamil Nadu, India in 1969.[10]
An estimated 10 to 14 million people visited the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq during Arba'een in 2009.[11][12]
An estimated 10 to 14 million people visited the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq during Arba'een in 2010.[13][14][15][16][17]
[18][19]
An estimated 9 million people visited the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq during Arba'een in 2008.[20]
An estimated 8 million people attended the annual feast of the Black Nazarene in Manila, Philippines on January 2011
An estimated 7 million people attended the 25th anniversary of El Shaddai Manila, Philippines.[citation needed]
An estimated 5 million people gathered in Sabarimala, India on 14 January 2007.[21]
Over 5 million people attended a World Youth Day Rally in Manila, The Philippines in 1995 to see Pope John Paul II.[22

I don't see Olympic Games on the list. That was probably the largest peaceful crowd I'd ever been around. Was there a million people in Atlanta for the '96 games? Or, I guess someone could claim it wasn't peaceful, since a white, right-wing, anti-abortion terrorist blew up a bomb at a concert that week. But, I'd argue that this was violence that came from the outside. It didn't come from the people who were there for the games, but instead came from a crazy, right-wing nutter who treated the peaceful, fun-loving crowds as a target for their own expressions of hate and violence.

Anyways, as humans, we can gather in great numbers, and do so in a spirit of peace and respect for those around us. Don't ever let the police or military types tell you differently.

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Sometimes you have to get away from it all

Ya know, sometimes you have to just get away from this stuff. Sometimes you have the energy to feel and express outrage and concern about what's going on in the world. Sometimes, you don't. Sometimes, you just need to get away from it for awhile.

If there's anyone really reading this blog, then sorry for not posting as regularly as I normally do during this summer. But for me, its been one of those times I just need to get away from it.

Part of it is frustration with the current political situation. There is nothing at all that seems to be coming from the left in the way of any sort of challenge to the status quo. The Democrats have fully embraced wars and wall street and in their typical fashion don't want to even tolerate a discussion of this in the form of a primary challenge to president Obama. One would think Dennis Kucinich would continue his quixotic journey, but as usual he seems to have fallen in line with what the powers in the party want and isn't mounting a primary challenge this time.

This is pretty typical for Kucinich, as this is the year where he could really have an impact. He was easy to marginalize as one of seven or nine or how every many candidates there have been in the past. But this year, it would be a one on one challenge with Obama. As such, the every dissatisfied Democrat would seem to flock to his campaign if he launched it. Kucinich would probably start with 20% or more support the day after he announced such a challenge. But, in typical Kucinich fashion, he refuses to do the things that could indeed really make an impact. DK is good at the meaningless gesture, but seems to always back away when he could really make a difference.

There doesn't seem to be much happening on the left outside the Democrats either. The Greens are doing their excellent imitation of a dead parrot nailed to its perch. They seem to have successfully driven away the more prominent politicians who were willing to hoist their banner with their continual bickering and in-fighting, and this year seem to be choosing between a bunch of nobodies to pick one to run an entirely symbolic and meaningless campaign.

The only real action appears to be on the right. Since the Republicans are out of power, this is where the groundswell of opposition to the wars and corporate rule appear to be coalescing. The party out of power always talks thus about the party in power. Of course, most of it is as fake as Obama's campaign pretensions to be against the wars and against giving all our money and power to wall street. But, this fake rhetoric seems to open up at least some space for voices for real change to join in. When the Republicans were in power, this happened in the Democrats. Now that the Democrats are in power and all the previous faux-rebels are clicking their heels and saluting their great leader, we are seeing the same sort of disturbance on the right. Candidates like Ron Paul seem to be the only real challenge to power on the ballot this year. Or at least that's what it looks like now.

And, its more too late for such a challenge than too early. Any strong challenge to the power of money in this country has to be based on grassroots power of organized citizens. This takes longer to organize than a money-based campaign. And, remember, by this time in 2007, the money-based campaigns of both Hillary and Obama were already in full swing.

Someday, the people in this country might wake up and realize that the idea that power lies with the people was not just rhetoric by our founding fathers, but the real fact that they as revolutionaries knew well and which they had just used to throw off the shackles of the world dominating empire of their day. We the people hold the power in this country. Its just that apparently we refuse to use it. Majorities oppose the war. Majorities oppose this Hoover/Reagan economic recovery plan. But, no one seems to want to do anything about it.

So, I think I'll go back to fishing and playing in the mountains where its cooler. I doubt I'll be gone too long. At some point, some events will start to happen again, or some movement will start to develop again that will get my blood boiling and my fingers typing away at new posts. And I'm sure I'll drop in the occasional post along the way between now and then. :)

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The End is Nigh

Apocalypse Nigh? by Alexander Cockburn.

As usual with Mr. Cockburn, I like some of what he says, and dislike other things. All usually in the same piece. The part where I thought he was quite persepctive begins with this....

On August 3 the lights might start to go out: the US government is scheduled to send out $23 billion in social security checks to 56 million people. If the checks don’t arrive, within a couple of days America’s old folk are going without food and can’t make the rent. US Treasuries will lose their top rating and the entire credit structure of the planet starts] to come unglued. Goldbugs will be crazed with triumph as the precious metal soars to $3,000 an ounce and hyperinflation roars into life. Next thing you know, greenbacks are being tossed in the trash and we’re heading back to a barter economy.

America is in love with Apocalypse. It always has been. Every couple of years someone says the End is Nigh. When I came to America’s shores in 1972 Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth had just been published and sold 30 million copies over the next 20 years. Lindsey wrote, rather presciently, that Antichrist would rule over a ten-nation European Community through the 1970s until the Rapture – scheduled for the 1980s – and the Second Coming.

Except, these days, the book to reference about this stuff is Naomi Klien's "The Shock Doctrine". In that book, Ms. Klien lays out how some very greedy people learned how to manipulate a crisis to rip us off. At first it was exploitation of an existing crisis. But then they learned how to create a crisis to provide the excuse to rip us off.

All of these claims that the end is nigh are used to push a political agenda that otherwise would not be popular in a democracy. Every 'pundit' screams about how horrible the situation is, and that measures must be taken to address this immediately. There is lots of screaming and yelling about how we are in dire straights. Then we, the people, get screwed.

We saw this play out at the very beginning of the Obama administration. There was a huge amount of yelling about how we needed a wall street bailout. To the point where when at one point it was delayed by just a day or two, this was regarded as a catastrophe. In the end, wall street got our money, the wall street bonus checks went out as planned, and suddenly the world wasn't ending any more now that wall street had our money.

This time, all the yelling and screaming is apparently to get the people to accept that their benefits have to be cut, the retirements of their children put at risk, and health care denied to the elderly all so we can keep paying for our foreign wars and of course shell out money to wall street whenever they need it.

We've had huge expenditures in these areas. You don't have to be a nuclear engineer to know that having two surges in Afghanistan while starting a new war in Libya while buying the military and the spy agencies every toy they want while also paying for every homeland security pork project while the economy was otherwise crashing into the worst downturn since the Great Depression would raise the debt. Now, we are told that none of this can be cut, be we all have to 'sacrifice' to pay for all of this.

As far as I'm concerned, I know exactly where they can stick that. We need a whole new Congress in 2012. It can happen. We can change this country as quickly as the people of Egypt changed theirs. And we have the benefit of a scheduled election by which we can do it. If enough people have had enough, and have figured out that both Democrats and Republicans are out to screw them, then we can have a whole new Congress meeting in the winter of 2013.

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They are lying.

New study proves falsity of John Brennan's drone claims

Apparently an Obama administration official has been running around saying we haven't killed a single innocent person in all of our drone missile strikes in Pakistan this year.

"in the last year, 'there hasn't been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we've been able to develop." He added: "if there are terrorists who are within an area where there are women and children or others, you know, we do not take such action that might put those innocent men, women and children in danger."

A London-based group called the Bureau of Investigative Journalism investigated this and other similar claims from Obama administration officials.

Contrary to Brennan's public assertions, "a detailed examination by the Bureau of 116 CIA 'secret' drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2010 has uncovered at least 10 individual attacks in which 45 or more civilians appear to have died."

and ...

A British photojournalist providing on-the-scene reporting of the aftermath of drone strikes in Waziristan documented this week that "far more civilians are being injured or dying than the Americans and Pakistanis admit" and "for every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant." To describe Brennan's claims as merely "inaccurate" or "untrue" is to be unduly generous.

To say we aren't killing anyone when a very conservative investigation methodology finds "45 or more" deaths in drone attacks is not just mis-speaking. That's more a deliberate lie to the American people. This is a direct attack on democracy, as citizens can only act on information they know. When their government deliberately lies to them, then the government is subverting democracy and preventing the people from acting in a democracy. When a journalist on the ground says we are killing 10 to 15 people for every 'bad guy' we get, to have government officials stand up and say there are no such deaths is just a blatant lie. Your government does not want you to know what they are doing, and they are willing to lie to your face to keep you from knowing.

In an honest democracy, John Brennan would resign or be removed from his post for such a deception of the citizens of this country. Don't hold your breath.

There is one piece of good news in all of this. The government that is killing 10 to 15 people for every bad guy in Pakistan believes that they have to lie about this. This means they believe that people will not accept this if they know about it, and the only way for them to be able to keep killing is to lie to the citizens about this. That's good news, because I hope they are right. That means the American people won't stand for this when they know about it. And eventually, the truth always does come out. If they are telling such lies to keep this going, then it can not go on forever.

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Collateral Damage

'Collateral Damage'. One of the ugly euphemisms of this post-Orwellian age. Usually used to wave away any protests at the killing of innocent civilians. Under today's post-Orwell logic, its a humanitarian act to bomb and kill innocent civilians as long as there was a target who was a bad guy. As long as there is a bad guy as a target, then it doesn't matter how many other innocent people get killed along with them. They are dismissed as collateral damage.

This article (Killer Drones Taking the Place of War by Doug Noble)about the drone wars in Pakistan and elsewhere contained this striking mention.

The targeted killing of al-Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud, for example, took 16 missile strikes over 14 months, with well over 200 mistaken deaths.

That's sourced to an article in the New Yorker.

We killed 200 people to get the one bad guy we were trying to kill. And, it didn't happen in one madly mistaken attack. Nope, it happened over a campaign of one attack after another spread out over 14 months.

The "collateral damage" of the deaths and maimings of innocent civilians is explained away as this un-foreseeable result of a legitimate attack to try to take out a bad guy. But, we've been hearing this for at least a decade now. At what point are these deaths really un-forseeable? If attack after attack kills innocent civilians and more innocent civilians, isn't there some point at which these deaths and maimings become a forseeable consequence of the attacks? If there had been attempted drone strikes against this Al-Qaeda leader, and strike after strike was killing innocent civilians, then isn't there a point where the killing of innocent civilians is a known and foreseeable outcome of more such strikes?

Doesn't the equation change if the killing of innocent civilians is known outcome of the actions? At that point, doesn't this 'collateral damage' just become the blatant cold blooded killing of innocent civilians? Surely by now, the people who launch these strikes know that innocent people are going to die. And thus, by taking the decision to launch yet another drone strike to kill some Al-Qaeda leader, they are deliberately taking the decision to murder and maime innocent civilians? Doesn't the morality of the act change at that point?

We hate terrorists precisely because they are willing to kill innocent people to reach their desired political ends. That's what makes a terrorist 'evil'. Yet, at what point do we become the same as the terrorists? If we deliberately kill 200 people, and maime who knows how many others, in order to take out one person that we've declared a 'bad guy', then how are we any different from the 'bad guy' who's bad precisely because he is willing to kill innocent civlians himself/herself?

Sometimes it helps our clarity of vision to turn something around and look at it from the other direction. If Osama Bin Laden had declared one person in the World Trade Center to be a 'bad guy' in his mind, say perhaps one of John Perkins' "economic hitmen", would we have accepted as okay OBL's then further claim that the killing of the rest of the 3000 people who died on 9-11 to be just 'collateral damage' to this attack?

Hardly. We'd have dismissed that as the psychotic ravings of a dangerous madman. What makes a terrorist evil in our minds is the very notion that they might at any time be willing to kill tens or hundreds or thousands of us in order to reach their goal. But, who are we if we are also willing to kill tens or hundreds or thousands of innocent people as 'collateral damage' to achieve our goal?

The question all of this leads to is "how do we expect this to end?" Do we expect that somehow we can kill every 'bad guy' in the world, and thus magically achieve some sort of peace? That seems a dangerous fantasy. Especially when every killing of a bad guy takes out tens or hundreds or more of innocent people around him. Innocent people who have mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who love them and who feel loss and anger at their deaths and who are then willing to become 'bad guys' themselves in order to seek revenge on the people who killed their loved ones.

We've used the deaths of the 3000 people on 9-11 as an excuse to kill thousands if not millions of people in country's spread around the world. That's our anger and our fear over being attacked. We vow retribution for our dead, and we want to end the fear of another attack. And yet, if every action we take leaves tens or hundreds of innocent people dead and maimed, isn't it likely that the relatives and countrypeople of our innocent dead will vow retribution upon us? That they will then act in such a way to try to end the fear that they now legitimately have that their world will again explode tomorrow as a missile from an unseen drone explodes on their street or in their house.

It seems quite possible that in taking out this one Al-Qaeda terrorist, that we have instead created more than one new terrorist from the relatives and countrypeople of the two hundred people we killed along the way. If that is true, then we are further away from peace, we are further away from living without fear of another terrorist attack, than we were when we launched this drone campaign.

How does this end? At some point, there must be peace. Or, do we truly believe that we can bomb and missile strike around the rest of the world for ever and ever? I'm sure the people who sell the drones and missiles want that to be the result. But, do we the people want this war to continue and continue and continue? Do we want to bequeath to our children and grand-children this world of murder and fear where they have to always live in fear of another terrorist attack? Do we want our children and grandchildren to some day stand in fear and shock and dismay at the news of some new terror attack against us?

If the goal is to someday live without fear, then the current war appears to be the wrong solution. If we kill so many people to get one terrorist, then it seems likely that we are creating more terrorists than we kill.

How does this end? It seems that if we want peace, then we have to put an end to this. Perhaps there are bad people out there who we need to capture or kill for our own safety. But, if that's the case, then it also seems that we need a way to do this that doesn't create more new terrorists because of the death and destruction and maimings and fear that must result from such drone strikes.

If we want this to end, then we can not act like the terrorists. We have to stop this sort of killing. Its not leading towards peace. Instead this just creates more hatred and more killing and more and more people who'd like to see Americans experience the same horror that they experienced when their neighborhood suddenly exploded from a missile from an unseen drone.

How do we want this to end? To me, any 'good' ending requires that we do as little damage as possible along the way.

Its fascinating to hear that we have to avoid putting our soldiers and pilots at risk in order to do the killing that we say is neccessary for our safety. But, isn't that their job? Isn't that what they signed up to do? Anyone who joins the military is making a deliberate decision to put themselves at risk to protect the rest of us. That's what is so honorable about military service. Yet, we are following strategies that while keeping our soldiers and pilots safe, we create greater danger for the rest of us. That's the opposite of what the military is supposed to be doing. Instead of taking risks themselves to keep the rest of us safe, they are keeping themselves safe while increasing the risks that the rest of us might some day face another dangerous terrorist attack.

Then of course we are told that we have to give our national treasure as well as our hard-earned constitutional rights and liberties away because of the threat of future terror attacks.

How do we expect this to end? Shouldn't our actions today be based on that outcome that we want? Do we want peace? Or do we really want perpetual and never ending war, and the future of never ending terror attacks on our civilians that this implies? I don't think so. Poll after poll suggests the American people want peace. They want the wars to end. If so, then we need to start acting in such a way that we can someday reach the peace we want. If that's the case, then the killing of 200 people to get one Al-Qaeda leader is a defeat for us and our hopes and dreams. That just means that there will be more war that goes on and on and on and on like the little pink bunny that advertises batteries.

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We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident

(from the Declaration of Independence)
"-- that all persons are created equal,
-- that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
-- that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among persons, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
-- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that humankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Now, what made this different from other political writings?

"we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Its the last line that really created America. A willingness to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of Liberty.

Enjoy the fireworks!

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Independence Day

That's the name of the holiday.

INDEPENDENCE DAY.

Its not called 'the Fourth of July', although that's what you see in many corporate sources.

Every winter, we get to hear one corporate news channel talk about the war on Christmas. But,no one dares to change the name of Christmas to the "Twenty Fifth of December". Can you imagine how Bill O'Reilly would howl about that? Yet, its frequent to hear the name of our national birthday changed to the square of an otherwise meaningless box on a calendar.

Independence Day is the name of the holiday. Independence Day is the day we celebrate our Independence. Or, at least the fact that somewhere around these parts about 235 years ago, some people pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to throwing off the rules and armies and taxes and police of a tyrant, and decided to live free or die.

Happy Independence Day!!!!!!!!

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Back again

Sorry, been off doing other stuff for awhile. :)

Meanwhile, the nuclear plants in NE haven't melted down, although I still suspect the situation was more dangerous than the US media was telling anyone. The US Army still has its occupation troops in Germany, Japan, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. And probably lots of other places that I don't think of off the top of my head. For that matter, I grew up in the South, and there are a lot of permanent military bases there a 150 years after that war ended.

Meanwhile, the tour de chemists is beginning in France. There's a strange situation where last year's winner, who as per TDF tradition of late failed a drug test during the race, being allowed to race in this year's race while he appeals the decision stripping him of last year's title and suspending him from the sport. The question is, who are the chemists backing this year. If you do a quick google search, you'll find the 2007 winner, Floyd Landis was stripped of his title as well. As did 2006 winner Jan Ulrich. Every year, more cyclists are banned from the sport for failing drug tests. And of course, the most famous American cyclist, Lance Armstrong has been accused of taking banned drugs as well. Most notably by another top level American cyclist, Tyler Hamilton, who failed is own drug tests in his day. Alberto Contador in just the latest in the long, long line of people who decide that riding bycycles up the alps isn't a normal thing to do and that they need some help to accomplish these super-human feets.

So, anyone want to start a pool? Who will be banned for failed drug tests this year? Or, maybe just pick a date on the calendar when this year's super human is caught doing the things that make him super-human?

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Slow withdrawals

Think the withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan are going slow? 69 years after invading Okinawa, the Obama administration still can't meet a deadline for shifting out of one of our permanent bases there.

Okinawa row: Japan and US drop Futenma airbase deadline

Japan and the US have agreed to drop a 2014 deadline to move a controversial US airbase on the island of Okinawa.

Officials from both nations said the Futenma airbase, near the provincial capital of Naha, would be moved "at the earliest possible date after 2014".

But they did not specify a date for the relocation.

Based on this set of data, we'll still be seeing whoever's president in 2072 telling us that they still can't get the troops out of Iraq, and can't give a date for when it will occur.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters that the relocation of Futenma airbase was still critical to US policy in the region.

"Doing so will reduce the impact of our presence on local residents in Okinawa while allowing us to maintain capabilities critical to the alliance in Japan," he said.

What on earth is so dang critical to Americans that we have to be paying for all these troops and planes to be in Japan 70 years after the end of the war? Bring the troops home!

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Close Americas' Fukushimas

In the United States, there are 23 operating reactors of the same GE boiling water reactor design that was built at Fukushima.  Beyond Nuclear has a petition to the NRC to suspend operations at these reactors pending reviews.

I don't know how much good it will do, but I certainly agree with the petition and thus I was happy to sign it.  I'd encourage others to do so as well.

Cooper - Mon. 6-20-11

One of these American Fukushima's is the Cooper nuclear power plant in Nebraska.  Cooper is one of two reactors threatened by high flood waters on the Missouri River.  And its probably the more dangerous of the two. Not only because its the same design as Fukushima, but because its up and operating while the other reactor, Ft. Calhoun, has been shut down for refueling since early April.

If the flood waters take out the connection to the electric grid that normally provides power to the cooling pumps, and at the same time takes out the emergency backup generators, then we could very well have an American Fukushima in the heart of our country.  Nuclear reactors are of course incredibly hot.  And, they don't shut down that heat at the flip of a switch like you can with a steam boiler. The radioactive decay products from the nuclear reaction continue to generate heat in the core long after the control rods are lowered into the reactor to slow down and stop the fission chain reaction.

Ft. Calhoun - Mon 6-20-11

Fukushima's fission chain reactions were successfully shut down within seconds of the detection of the very first waves of the offshore earthquake.  But, that didn't prevent disaster from occurring.  The problem is this very hot reactor core that requires cooling for a long time after the reaction is stopped.  Fukushima lost its connection to the electric grid in the earthquake. Then Fukushima lost its backup generators to the tsunami.  They had battery power for a few hours, but when that failed, the pumps could no longer pump cooling water and disaster followed very quickly.  We are now finally being informed officially that the cores at Fukushima 1, 2 and 3 were all melting within hours of losing the last battery power to the cooling pumps.

So, if those flood waters breach sandbag walls, and take out the main power line to the plant as well as the backup diesel generators, we'd be only hours from having nuclear reactor cores doing meltdowns in America's heartland.

Pray to whatever gods you got that those sandbag walls hold. If those sandbags don't hold, a lot of America will be wishing the NRC had done what Beyond Nuclear is petitioning for. That is closing Cooper nuclear power plant, and the other's that share the GE design built at Fukushima, pending a rigorous safety review.

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Japan's new anti-nuclear resistance

Japan's new anti-nuclear resistance by Chirs Kim of Socialist Worker.

http://www.nnistar.com/gmap/fukushima.html

These protests also marked the arrival of a new generation of organizers largely new to political activism. According to Labornet Japan, "Nearly 90 percent of participants were young people in their 20s and 30s, and most of them were taking part in this kind of action for the first time and found out the mobilization through the Internet...The participation of such a large number of young people is a groundbreaking moment in the history of Japan's social movements."

Thus, in the midst of tragedy, something positive was emerging. Organizer Hajime Matsumoto expressed the enthusiasm that many shared at the sight of this new wave of protest. "Something has begun," said Matsumoto. "Otherwise, Japan will collapse."

What's more, the disarray within the Japanese ruling class was becoming increasingly stark. On April 8, Masayoshi Yoshino, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (similar to the Republican Party in the U.S.) and a member of parliament from the Fukushima prefecture, held a news conference to declare:

"As a person who has had a pro-nuclear stance, I'm totally at a loss at the moment as to whether we should continue to promote Japan's nuclear energy sector...I know in my head that I should make a decision only when we have a thorough investigation into what happened. But my instinct tells me, "No more nuclear plants.""

No more nuclear plants. We can't afford many more maps like these.

BTW, you might have missed it since Fukushima seems unmenationable now in the US media, but Japan disclosed that Fukushima had been releasing twice as much radiation as had been previously admitted to.  After all, important stuff like Weiner's weiner pictures were dominating the news then.  One thing that's not being discussed is how Fukushima is releasing far more radiation than Chernobyl did (follow link for good maps).  And, at this point, remember that nothing has been done to close off those damaged Japanese reactors. They are still open to the air and spewing radiation.

There's one thing that's been true from Three Mile Island to Chernobyl to Fukushima.  Whatever you hear from the power company and the government, its always much worse.  The scary thought is what that means for the reactor in NE that's going under the Missouri River flood waters, and about which what little media coverage there's been in the US as been very reassuring.

The best way to avoid having to worry about getting your own updated radiation maps for your neighborhood after yet another nuclear disaster is organize and not let them build or continue to operate a nuclear facility near you.

My instinct is yelling at me .... "No More Nuclear Plants".

Waging Another Unconstitutional War

Waging Another Unconstitutional War by Ralph Nader.

The expanding immunities of the Executive branch, now increasingly embracing the military contractors of the corporate state, is destroying the remaining pretensions that we are a nation under law. When he was inaugurated as President in January 2009, President Obama said he wanted his Administration to be known as one of "transparency and the rule of law." You'll recall during his 2008 campaign he trumpeted that he would obey the Constitution, inferring the the Republican regime was trampling the Rule of Law.

Indeed in 2007, then Senator Barack Obama stated that "the president does not have any power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." Vice President Biden was even more vehement on this issue. And Secretary of Defense Robert Gates originally opposed the attack on Libya before falling in line.

One thing you'll hear on the internet is that politics doesn't matter because you get this same result no matter who you elect. It now appears obvious that whether the electorate had selected Obama, McCain or Hillary, we'd still be in all our wars including our new one in Libya.

But, this ignores the fact that there were other names on the ballot in 2008 besides McCain and Obama. Read this piece by Ralph Nader, and ask whether or not US policy might be very different today if the electorate had chosen Ralph Nader to be President. Or, in the last election, I voted for Cynthia McKinney. She's another strong voice against these wars, and US policy would certainly be different if the electorate had elected her.

Nothing kept people from doing this. There's this loud message of course, that these candidates can't win. But, that's only true when the American people walk into a voting booth and select Obama or McCain over these other choices. Nothing stopped the American people from ending these wars in 2008 by electing someone like Ralph Nader as President.

At some point, when people have had enough, they need to stop voting for the same people who keep inflicting these policies they don't want upon them.

A very simple rule to follow to do this would be to stop voting for the candidates with all the money. When you see a candidate with enough money to flood television stations with their ads, people need to realize that this means that the candidate is already bought by the money that paid for those ads. Whether the party of the candidate is (D) or (R) is irrelevant. To get real change, try voting for the broke candidates who can't afford TV ads. At least you've got a chance that they might not already be bought.

Nebraska nuclear reactor dry though surrounded by flood

Nebraska nuclear reactor dry though surrounded by flood

The Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Nebraska remains shut down due to Missouri River flooding, but the plant itself has not flooded and is expected to remain safe, the federal government said Friday.

The rising river "has certainly affected the site, but the plant itself, the actual reactor is still dry," said Scott Burnell, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman.

The 478-megawatt plant north of Omaha shut April 9 to refuel, and has remained shut because of the flooding, said Omaha Public Power District spokesman Jeff Hanson.

When you read something like this, is it meant to inform the public. Or is it meant to reassure the pubic? Not that a news story can't do both sometimes. But, you have to wonder which way the balance tilts when push really comes to shove. This article is based entirely on sources at the power company and the NRC. The reporter certainly got lots of reassurance from these sources. But, the question remains in the back of my mind as to whether the reporter would have gotten important information the public needs to know if it wasn't reassuring? Which comes first, reassurance or informing?

There's so much reassurance in here that its actually hard to spot the important pieces of information. Here's what I see buried in this story.

1) The reactor was shut down for refueling on April 9th. That's the best news you could get about a nuclear reactor upwind of you. That it has been shut down. In this case, it means the large reservoir of heat that sits at the core of a nuclear reactor, and which needs constant cooling, has had two months to dissipate. That's probably the biggest difference between this site and Fukushima. Fukushima was running up until the moment the earthquake alarms went off, and thus was at full heat.

BTW, do you notice in this Reuters piece that the word "Fukushima" isn't even mentioned? Really? A major incident at a nuclear plant just months after Fukushima, and yet the word doesn't even make it in to this news report. You'd think at least they'd be reassuring people that it isn't another Fukushima. But, apparently that's the word that can no longer be spoken.

2) One scary fact is that they are having to do additional earth moving to provide flood protection. That's rather hidden in this story. There's a very odd paragraph that begins with a fact about the ownership of the power plant. The first time I read it, my eyes glazed over and I guess I assumed the rest of the paragraph was boring stuff like that. But, no, after that first sentence, the paragraph jumps sideways into telling you that there are people on the site building emergency dikes to keep the water away from important areas. The fact that crews are out there racing against time and rising flood waters to build dikes around the sensetive areas of a nuclear power plant is presented in such a boring fashion as to provoke yawns. Until you realize that you should be cheering the fact that this was completed before the flood waters got that high.

What I would rather have heard was that the site was originally designed to stay above these flood waters. I'm glad they got their emergency dike up in time. But, I'd rather that a site next to a river have been designed with enough prudence and forethought that such an emergency dike wasn't even needed.

3) After Fukushima, you'd think reporters would know to at least ask the right questions? Does the plant still have off-site power to power the control rooms and cooling pumps? Apparently yes. But its very understated in this article. I'm guessing the 'switch yard' protected by the dike is a key part of this, but its hard to tell. The second question would concern the emergency diesel generators that would need to power the pumps should the off-site power be lost. Deep in a quote from an NRC spokesperson you see that extra earthworks have been completed to protect these important generators.

What they don't tell you is that this is still scary as to how close this plant can come to having a Fukushima in Missouri. If the plant had been operating, instead of being shut down for scheduled refueling, that connection to off-site power and those diesel generators are all that stands between safety and another Fukushima in America's heartland. The heat in a nuclear reactor must be dissipated away. Cooling water propelled by electric pumps provide this capacity. Diesel generators are the backup to this system. If both systems fail, then the reactor core is no longer cooled. When the reactor is no longer being cooled, the temperature rises quickly and very quickly the reactor component start to melt.

We've now been told what was already obvious. That the reactor cores at Fukushima melted within hours of the earthquake/tsunami. This is what happened. The cooling pumps failed when they lost power. The reactor quickly overheated without the cooling water, and the cores were melting within hours.

Its good news that this isn't happening right now in Missouri. The best news was that the reactor was already shut down. That's the safest state for a nuclear reactor. For the safety of all downwind, it should stay that way. If that wasn't true, then you'd better be praying hard that some hastily constructed temporary dikes and sandbags keep the flood water away from the key components which keep the reactor core from melting.

Oh, by the way, the refueling cycle of a nuclear reactor is about 18 months I believe. That means, this reactor will probably be up and running during next year's late spring flood season along the Missouri. And for a fair number of the rainy seasons to come. Hope they keep the sandbags handy. The bad news is that something only has to go wrong once.

Republicans defeat Pelosi and the pro-war Democrats

The Republican controlled US House of Representatives did something that the Democrat controlled House never did. They voted to cut off funding to a war. They passed and amendment to the Defense Dept authorization bill that banned money being "prohibit the use of funds in contravention of the War Powers Resolution."

Nancy Pelosi voted against the amendment, and thus in favor of more war in Libya. My local faux-progressive representative, Diane DeGette, also voted in favor of more war. She talks quite nicely about her opposition to war, until the chips are down back in DC and her vote is needed to help keep a war going. She never fails to deliver up her vote for longer wars and more deaths when its really needed. Jared Polis, the other supposedly 'progressive' representative from Colorado also voted for more war.

The vote did largely split party lines. 138 Republicans voted yes, and 110 Democrats. If you want to see a list of the Democrats who will support Obama straight into the hell of a continuing war, click on the link to go see the roll call for this vote. If you want the wars to end, this is a list of the 70 Democrats that would be good to vote out of the US House. A lot of these pro-war Democrats represent anti-war districts. Pelosi representing San Francisco is just one prime example.

Of course, the Democrats still control the Senate, so its a pretty fair bet that the Defense Dept authorization bill that passes the Senate won't include this provision. That means it probably goes to conference committee to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions. Eventually the pro-war Republican leadership, that is apparently a minority in its own caucus on Libya, will negotiate a deal with the Senate leadership on the final shape of this bill. My guess is this provision gets dropped then, and the majority in the House that voted against the war in Libya will be told to accept the bill without it.

This world keeps getting more surrealistic. Electing a Democrat house in 2006 just kept the wars going uninterrupted. But the Tea Party rise leads to a Republican House that finally takes the step that most Democratic voters have wanted for a decade .... a vote to cut off funds to a war. And it happens over the No votes of the Democratic leadership.

To me, the question really is, how long will anti-war voters and activists continue to support the pro-war Democrats?