News Brief, Techno Dracula Edition
Joshua Foust on Sep 27 2007 at 3:52 am | Filed under: Developmental economics, Domestic Politics, Foreign affairs, Military Matters, Notes on the war
Probably pirating em-pee-threes over at The Conjecturer.
Defense & The War
- Well, the military realizes how fundamentally broken our relationship with the PMCs in Iraq has become, and are now pressuring the State Department to exercise some control or oversight over Blackwater. Some military officials are now comparing the Blackwater shootout, which resulted in 11 dead Iraqis, to the Abu Ghraib scandal, such is their worry for how Blackwater has undermined their mission.
- One more quote from that story: “An Army brigadier general said finding a way to prosecute security companies for violations was more crucial than regulating them. In Iraq, they were given immunity under a regulation, Order 17, crafted by Iraq’s U.S. overseers after the 2003 invasion.” But really, pay attention to “skeptics“, who insist there are laws to prosecute them, and because not a single PMC employee has been prosecuted for violence in four years of dozens of accusations or murder, rape, and theft, then we can reasonably conclude no crimes have actually been committed. It’s only logical.
- Mountain Runner is right, however, that reforming PMC laws is a delicate dance, and one that should not be undertaken emotionally. It’s reasonable to assume PMCs won’t go away… but I do think it is reasonable that, seeing how badly Blackwater has undermined the mission, it is not unreasonable to forbid them from the theater.
- The Independent claims those horrible sniper bait-and-switch tactics I mentioned previously were used to puff out insurgent casualties to bolster the case for the surge. So we’re tricking Iraqis into getting shot in the head (for picking up pieces of wire and sometimes rifles that were dropped in the street), then counting the surge a success? I really hope not, because this is beyond low. Notice, too the language of the Capt. Didier, testifying in court martial: “we would engage the individual” who picked up the planted weapons. In a PC war, I suppose it is more difficult to talk about killing people than it is to simply pick them off in the street. And all this is coming to light not because it might be morally reprehensible to drop high-value bait in an impoverished country (think about what it means if people are scavenging for bits of wire in the street), but because a sniper team was caught planting wire after the fact. Unreal.
- The Air Force might be looking at smaller, COIN-friendly gunships. But they’d rather buy fast, worthless faux-fifth gen fighter jets instead. Score!
Around the World
- Well known anarcho-libertarian paradise Somalia is now facing widespread starvation thanks to… wait for it… population pressures in refugee camps from people fleeing all the inter-tribal warfare. “But,” you may be wondering, “I thought infant mortality had improved under anarchy?” No, dear ignorant sheltered economist who has never been there—that was a guesstimate based on faulty data collected from the only two stable cities in the country, one which might not even be there as it’s really in Somaliland. But what’s a few more dozen thousand dead children, when the 300,000 dead from starvation (a situation that never existed even under the broken faux-socialist policies of Mohammed Siad Barre) already mean anarchy works “better than you might think?” For the record, aid agencies are now saying the humanitarian situation in Somalia has eclipsed that of Darfur or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- The story of the Burmese monks bravely standing up to the junta continues to inspire. Just today, riot police crashed their march, and at least one monk is reportedly dead from the shootings. Hundreds have been arrested. I don’t think stricter sanctions are the key here, however—it was sanctions in the first place that led the monks to march; moreover, sanctions tend to hurt innocent people at the lower rungs of society far more than they hit the elites and leadership. Rather, we need to lean on China to end its support for the junta—not by trying to tax one of our largest trading partners into adjusting its currency, which is currently wending its way through the Senate, but by using shame and public ethics. A “Peacefully Rising China,” the preferred name of the framework for China’s economic development since Deng Xiaoping, is at odds with China supporting and funding extremist, brutal, oppressive corrupt dictatorships. The West’s hypocrisy on this subject is palpable, but I also think it is surmountable: soft power, which George W. Bush clearly dislikes and obviously misunderstands, can be the most effective tool here, rather than starving the peasants to death.
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants the addresses (and fabulous dresses) of homosexuals in Iran. You know, for the persecution.
- I guess I’ll be an Iranian apologist (again) and point out that this Heritage guy doesn’t actually have any evidence that Iran is sending weapons to Afghanistan, merely seizures of Chinese and Russian weapons that “could have come in via Pakistan, but China is a major arms supplier to Iran.” Umm. China is also a major arms supplier to Pakistan—how do you think China was able to precipitate the Lal Masjid standoff after three Chinese workers were kidnapped and murdered? Alas, evidence and reason (and, apparently, regional knowledge) don’t seem to matter much to those who blindly lust for war with Tehran. And only apologists, I suppose, find that a disquieting concept.
- The cult of the Benazir carries on in some quarters.
- “Bill Clinton Is Not Afraid of Commitment.” Brilliant.
- I speculated about whether or not grain markets would be used as leverage by Russia against Central Asian states. Nathan threw some water on that, though I don’t think he fully discounted it. Anyway, the global wheat price spike is having some serious consequences in Tajikistan, and guess who might be stepping in to fill the gap.
Back at Home
- A security expert has determined DRM not only wastes endless amounts of money but is also disastrously ineffective.
- I love how the NSA cares so much about our freedom, it disregards our freedom to save the freedom it loves.
- Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Men hate women drivers.
- Imagine: our economy cannot function without illegal immigrants. Who could have possibly thought such a thing?
- Christians confuse art, scripture, and think a parody of the Last Supper is somehow tantamount to defaming Jesus. Intrigued? CNS helpfully includes a large jpeg of the ad—which features leather daddies sitting at a table laden with sex toys, including an ominous-looking rubber fist—for research, you know. Sound like CNS is treating a Da Vinci (code) painting like an idol? It does to me too. I think the thing is kind of tasteless, but the Holy Outrage™ is a bit much. So why don’t Christians care when other Christians defame Christ, only when those terrifying “homosexuals” (I LOVE how they refuse to say “gay” or “leather daddies”) place advertisements where mature adults might find them? I would wager it’s because most Christians (since when is a man in charge of Concerned Women for America?) don’t actually read the bible, they just like throwing it at people.
- c.f. the Ahmadinejad item above: have Christians nothing else to worry about? Oh yeah, they’re with the Ayatollahs on this one.
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