“Small nations of the Caucasus do have a history of living together. It has been demonstrated that a lasting peace is possible, that tolerance and cooperation can create conditions for normal life and development. Nothing is more important than that.”
- Mikhail Gorbachev

What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against “small, defenseless Georgia” is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity.

Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a “blitzkrieg” in South Ossetia.

In other words, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was expecting unconditional support from the West, and the West had given him reason to think he would have it. Now that the Georgian military assault has been routed, both the Georgian government and its supporters should rethink their position.

- Mikhail Gorbachev @ Washingon Post, 12 August 2008: Link.

2008 South Ossetia War @ Wikipedia

BiblioOdyssey recently posted scans of a 16th-century fighting manual by fencing master Achille Marozzo, illustrating various techniques.

My brother is interested in such things so I sent him the link. He responded with this essay:

I have actually practiced Marozzo’s techniques for disarming an opponent of his dagger — they’re pretty effective.

Marozzo’s work is one of only a handful of medieval & renaissance martial arts texts that survive. They are enjoying a resurgence of interest and good translations are starting to appear.

It has been the tendency to think of Asian martial arts as being preeminent, although it is really the western martial arts that predominate globally (think of guns, missiles, etc.).

What has been forgotten are the pre-modern European hand-to-hand combat systems, many of which were very highly developed. Unfortunately, many of them were never recorded, as schools tended to be secretive about their techniques.

Even systems that were recorded are difficult to reconstruct; the meanings of terminology and references is often obscure, and knowledge taken for granted by the authors no longer exists. Still, much progress has been made, and it is clear that these systems were very sophisticated and effective, and integrated a variety of weapons and unarmed techniques.

- Geoff Jones

“Current oil price shocks are a direct consequence of the destabilizing wars and geopolitical insecurity in the Middle East, not oil shortages.”
- Ismael Hossein-zadeh

The Peak Oil thesis serves as a powerful trap and a clever manipulation in that it lets the real forces of war and militarism (the military-industrial complex and the pro-Israel lobby) off the hook; it is a fabulous redirection. All evils are blamed on a commodity upon which we are all utterly dependent.

The fact, however, is that there is no hard evidence that oil has peaked, or that global oil reserves are shrinking, or that the current skyrocketing price of oil is due to a supply shortage.

… Claims of “peaked and dwindling” oil are refuted by the available facts and figures on global oil supply. Statistical evidence shows that there is absolutely no supply-demand imbalance in global oil markets. Contrary to the claims of the proponents of Peak Oil and champions of war and militarism, the current oil price shocks are a direct consequence of the destabilizing wars and geopolitical insecurity in the Middle East, not oil shortages.

- Ismael Hossein-zadeh @ Counter Punch: Link.

Via The Day They Tried to Kill Me.

“Wars are won by destroying the enemy’s will to fight. A nation is never really beaten until it sells its women.”
- Spengler

The French sold their women to the German occupiers in 1940, and the Germans and Japanese sold their women to the Americans after World War II. The women of the former Soviet Union are still selling themselves in huge numbers. Hundreds of thousands of female Ukrainian “tourists” entered Germany after the then-foreign minister Joschka Fischer loosened visa standards in 1999. That helps explain why Ukraine has the world’s fastest rate of population decline. On a smaller scale, trafficking in Iranian women explains Iran’s predicament.

- Spengler @ Asia Times Online: “Jihadis and whores” (Nov 21, 2006): Link.

Via Rudy Carerra @ Tower of Babel: Link

The $2 Trillion Nightmare

Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself … By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion.

- Joseph Stiglitz @ New York Times: March 4, 2008: Link.

Via Cassandra @ Newsvine: Link.

Chinese build a high-tech army within an army

“Gen. Zhu Chenghu … raised the subject of weapons of mass destruction …. Should US forces aid Taiwan in a war, he told bewildered US visitors, ‘Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds … of cities will be destroyed by Chinese’ nuclear weapons.”

In a surprisingly short time, China has accomplished two feats. One, it has focused its energy and wealth on creating an army within an army. It has devoted huge amounts of capital to create a small high-tech army within its old 2.2 million-member rifle and shoe-leather force.

The specialty of this modern force, about 15 percent of the PLA [People’s Liberation Army], is to conduct lightning attacks on smaller foes, using an all-out missile attack designed to paralyze, and a modern sea and air attack coordinated by high-tech communications. In other words, this new modern force is designed to attack Taiwan.

Second, China has taken painful but successful steps to create a “defense industrial base,” or weapons-building capability. The PLA has improved its factory quality control and its ability to adapt foreign technology. It is bringing an indigenous small-wing F-10 fighter off the production line, and it is moving rapidly toward a “blue water” Navy with ships built in China.

… This summer, Gen. Zhu Chenghu, dean of China’s National Defense University, raised the subject of weapons of mass destruction, which China rarely mentions, in connection with Taiwan. Should US forces aid Taiwan in a war, he told bewildered US visitors, “Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds … of cities will be destroyed by Chinese” nuclear weapons.

… A major moment came this July in a Defense Department review on the PLA. While criticized as soft by hawks, the report hit especially hard due to a comment that China’s buildup now appears to go past just an effort to invade Taiwan. Rather, it stated that China was modernizing its forces with the intent of longer range operations and “regional contingencies.”

… The Pentagon is concerned about how much China spends, and what it is buying. China’s exact military spending is shrouded. US experts say it spends $50 to $90 billion annually. Yet Defense Minister Gangchuan insisted to Rumsfeld that the figure is about $27 billion. Days later, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies noted that China’s purchase of Russian equipment alone nearly matched the Chinese official estimate; the IISS says China is at $62.5 billion.

[ Robert Marquand: Christian Science Monitor]

A mystery in Beijing: Who runs the military?

“In what is seen by some analysts as an attempt to consolidate his control, [President] Hu has ruled out suggestions from some younger officers that the Chinese military should become a fully professional force that owes its loyalty to the state rather than the ruling party.”

For foreign governments and analysts monitoring the Chinese military, one of the biggest mysteries is who is actually in charge.

Nominally, President Hu Jintao, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, the top military command body, is head of the armed forces, but there is considerable doubt among experts about the extent of the authority that he and his fellow civilian leaders exert over the 2.3 million-strong People’s Liberation Army.

“I think Hu Jintao is still facing some challenges from top generals,” said Philip Yang, an expert on the Chinese military and a professor of international relations at the National Taiwan University. “Especially those with their own agenda from the different services and others with their own agenda and perceptions about changes in the outside world, particularly in East Asia.”

The army’s primary mission remains preserving the Communist Party’s monopoly on power and protecting senior leaders.

In addition to defending Chinese territory, most Chinese and foreign analysts agree that Beijing aims to build a force capable of enforcing its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan.

But China’s current thinking about when force is justified or what perceived threats are driving its accumulation of firepower remains unclear for most foreign governments and analysts.

… There is … evidence that some military officers enjoy far more leeway for criticizing or contradicting official policy in a country where dissent remains tightly controlled.

Major General Zhu Chenghu escaped serious censure, according to Chinese officials, after he said in July 2005 that China would respond with nuclear weapons if the United States intervened in a conflict over Taiwan.

… Tolerance has also been extended to another senior officer and influential thinker, Lieutenant General Liu Yazhou, who has publicly called for political reform in China, a move that would be dangerous for most senior Chinese officials.

… In what is seen by some analysts as an attempt to consolidate his control, Hu has ruled out suggestions from some younger officers that the Chinese military should become a fully professional force that owes its loyalty to the state rather than the ruling party.

[David Lague: International Herald Tribune]

Reminds me of the fictional character General Wing, from Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Wing, a wartime Chinese slave of Japanese soldiers in the Philippines and later a general in the modern Chinese army. Wing is the only other survivor besides Goto himself of a Japanese wartime project to bury war gold in the Philippines, and he competes with Goto and Epiphyte(2) to recover it in the modern day.

[Wikipedia: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson]

“An April 2007 report … suggests that the Pentagon might consume as much as 340,000 barrels (14 million gallons) every day. “

Sixteen gallons of oil. That’s how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis — either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes. Multiply this figure by 162,000 soldiers in Iraq, 24,000 in Afghanistan, and 30,000 in the surrounding region (including sailors aboard U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and you arrive at approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil: the daily petroleum tab for U.S. combat operations in the Middle East war zone.

Multiply that daily tab by 365 and you get 1.3 billion gallons: the estimated annual oil expenditure for U.S. combat operations in Southwest Asia. That’s greater than the total annual oil usage of Bangladesh, population 150 million — and yet it’s a gross underestimate of the Pentagon’s wartime consumption.

… For every soldier stationed “in theater,” there are two more in transit, in training, or otherwise in line for eventual deployment to the war zone … Moreover, to sustain an “expeditionary” army located halfway around the world, the Department of Defense must move millions of tons of arms, ammunition, food, fuel, and equipment every year by plane or ship, consuming additional tanker-loads of petroleum.

… It can be difficult to obtain precise details on the DoD’s daily oil hit, but an April 2007 report by a defense contractor, LMI Government Consulting, suggests that the Pentagon might consume as much as 340,000 barrels (14 million gallons) every day. This is greater than the total national consumption of Sweden or Switzerland.

[Michael Klare: June 14, 2007: Mother Jones]

“The lawyers representing the families of four American Blackwater contractors killed in Fallujah make the case that the company’s executives are suing the families to keep them quiet and to avoid any accountability.”

… The surviving family members looked to Blackwater for answers as to how and why their loved ones died. Blackwater not only refused to give the grieving families any information, but also callously stated that they would need to sue Blackwater to get it. Left with no alternative, in January 2005, the families filed suit against Blackwater, which is owned by the wealthy and politically-connected Erik Prince.

Blackwater … initially hired Fred F. Fielding, who is currently counsel to the President of the United States. It then hired Joseph E. Schmitz as its in-house counsel, who was formerly the Inspector General at the Pentagon. More recently, Blackwater employed Kenneth Starr, famed prosecutor in the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal, to oppose the families. To add additional muscle, Blackwater hired Cofer Black, who was the Director of the CIA Counter- Terrorist Center.

… The families claim that Blackwater is attempting to cover up its incompetence, its cutting of corners in favor of higher profits, and its over billing to the government.

… Blackwater also stonewalled the families concerning any information about how the men were killed.

… Blackwater [is] suing the families for $10 million …. Blackwater has also threatened to hold the administrator of the estates personally liable to scare him into abandoning his position, and has threatened the families’ attorneys as well.

… Blackwater’s lawsuit now seeks to gag the family members from even speaking about the incident or about Blackwater’s involvement in the deaths. This is a direct attack to their free speech rights under the First Amendment.

[Daniel J. Callahan and Marc P. Miles: AlterNet]

Via Giant Monster.

Haunting and beautiful images of The Great War:

“Boys at their game of skittle. The one in the middle looks an acolyte. Picture made on the Place d’Erlon in the city of Reims, 1917.” [Link]

The Heritage of the Great War: Home Page

Insect meets machine: “The HI-MEMS program is aimed at developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis. “

Hybrid Insect MEMS (HI-MEMS)

… The HI-MEMS program is aimed to develop technology that provides more control over insect locomotion, just as saddles and horseshoes are needed for horse locomotion control.

The goal of the MEMS, inside the insects, will be to control the locomotion by obtaining motion trajectories either from GPS coordinates, or using RF, optical, ultrasonic signals based remote control …. The intimate control of insects with embedded microsystems will enable insect cyborgs, which could carry one or more sensors, such as a microphone or a gas sensor, to relay back information gathered from the target destination.

[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]

Fox News reports on military moth cyborgs:

… This will be no ordinary moth.

Inside it will be a computer chip that was implanted when the creature was still a pupa, in the cocoon, meaning that the moth’s entire nervous system can be controlled remotely.

… The moth will be capable of landing … without arousing suspicion, all the while beaming video and other information back to its masters via what its developers refer to as a “reliable tissue-machine interface.”

The creation of insects whose flesh grows around computer parts — known from science fiction as cyborgs — has been described as one of the most ambitious robotics projects ever conceived by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Rod Brooks, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is involved with the research, said in a speech last week at the University of Southampton in England that robotics was increasingly at the forefront of U.S. military research.

… “This is going to happen,” said Brooks. “It’s not science like developing the nuclear bomb, which costs billions of dollars. It can be done relatively cheaply.”

“Moths are creatures that need little food and can fly all kinds of places,” he continued. “A bunch of experiments have been done over the past couple of years where simple animals, such as rats and cockroaches, have been operated on and driven by joysticks, but this is the first time where the chip has been injected in the pupa stage and ‘grown’ inside it.”

“Once the moth hatches,” Brooks said, “machine learning is used to control it.”

[Fox News]

More details:

The latest research aims to integrate micro-systems within insects during their early stages of metamorphoses. Thus the insect would grow around its machine implant with the aim of delivering more reliable results than through the adhesive bonding of electromechanical systems to adult insects (ie. using a kind of “back-pack” that can be connected to the adult insect as the control interface).

Chemical “training” of insects and attempts to use neural interfaces to control insects has also been investigated but these approaches have faced difficulty in overcoming behavioral traits such as mating and feeding.

The perceived benefit of integrating the MEMS during the early stages of tissue growth is that the insect will heal wounds and re-align internal organs around these tiny foreign objects to form a reliable tissue-machine interface. The locomotion of the insect could then be controlled using one of several approaches including direct electrical muscle stimulation, electrical stimulation of neurons, projection of pheromones, stimulation of insect sensory cells and optical cues.

The specific goals of the DARPA proposal include the delivery of an insect to within five meters of a specific target located a hundred meters away using electronic remote control or GPS navigation, the ability to control the insect so that it remains stationary until otherwise instructed and the successful transmission of data pertaining to the local environment through video, microphones or other sensors. The project also aims to develop ways of “scavenging” the biological properties of the insect to power these capabilities. And its not just flying insects like moths that are being targeted in the new research. DARPA envisions that insects that hop and swim could also prove valuable in attaining these objectives.

[Gizmag]

See Also:

Times Online

“Massacres and paramilitary land seizures behind the biofuel revolution”

Armed groups in Colombia are driving peasants off their land to make way for plantations of palm oil, a biofuel that is being promoted as an environmentally friendly source of energy.

Surging demand for “green” fuel has prompted rightwing paramilitaries to seize swaths of territory, according to activists and farmers. Thousands of families are believed to have fled a campaign of killing and intimidation, swelling Colombia’s population of 3 million displaced people and adding to one of the world’s worst refugee crises after Darfur and Congo.

… A government investigation reportedly found irregularities in 80% of palm oil land titles in some areas.

… The paramilitary groups, first formed in the 80s by businessmen, landowners and drug lords to fend off guerrillas, became a powerful illegal army which stole land, sold drugs and massacred civilians. Under a peace deal with the government they have officially disbanded but many observers say remnants remain active.

… Coca production in Colombia has surged despite US-funded eradication efforts, according to an estimate that casts fresh doubt on Washington’s “war on drugs”. Satellite imagery collated by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy survey suggests that cultivation of coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine, jumped 8% last year to 156,000 hectares.

[Guardian]

Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow notes:

In a chilling analysis of the PATRIOT Act, the ACLU points out that the new definition of “domestic terrorist” redefines any US criminal as a terrorist, exempt from due process and an open trial. “Domestic terrorists” can have their assets seized without a hearing, have their educational records pulled, and a host of other nasties. “Terrorism” is now officially meaningless: as far as the PATRIOT Act is concerned, if you do anything the government doesn’t like, you’re a terrorist. When you put it that way, it seems even less likely that we’ll win the “war on terrorism.”

[Cory Doctorow: Boing Boing]

Fake Congressional Opposition to War
by Stephen Lendman

… Article One, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution gives Congress alone power to declare war so presidents never have sole authority to do it. It’s how the Founders wanted it as James Madison wrote in 1793 that the “fundamental doctrine of the Constitution….to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.” And George Mason stated during the constitutional convention the president “is not safely to be trusted with” the power to declare war. Sadly it hasn’t worked out that way. The president and Congress only observed the supreme law of the land five times in the nation’s history, the last being in December, 1941 following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Following WW II, Harry Truman criminally broke the law setting a post-war precedent his successors followed, and no Congress intervened to stop them.

… under Johnson and Nixon, Congress reasserted its power of the purse incrementally. It was mostly political posturing in the 1960s, but by June 30, 1970 the Church-Cooper amendment (attached to a supplemental aid bill) passed stipulating no further spending for soldiers, combat assistance, advisors, or bombing operations in Cambodia. It was the first congressional budgetary act limiting funding for the war. Nixon ignored it but others followed leading to the key Church-Clifford Case 1972 Senate amendment attached to foreign aid legislation to end all funding for US military operations in Southeast Asia except for withdrawal subject to the release of prisoners of war. It was the first time either House passed legislation to end all war funding. It was defeated in the House but showed anti-war forces strengthening that in time would prevail.

They finally did in June, 1973 when Congress passed the Church-Case amendment ending all funding after August 15. Congress then overrode a presidential veto passing the War Powers Act (still the law) that year limiting presidential power by requiring the chief executive henceforth to consult Congress before authorizing troop deployments for extended periods. Unlike today, Congress began taking its check and balancing role seriously enough to act, if slowly, to curtail presidential authority and assert its own with the most important power it has - of the purse that forced Richard Nixon to end the Vietnam war. It can do it again today as then but so far shows little inclination or courage with few and rare exceptions, one being a modest effort by Senator Russ Feingold who detailed his position on the Senate floor even though now he’s gone wishy on it.

… Following 9/11, the president rightfully called the attacks acts of terrorism (whoever was responsible) as they are under US law even though international law provides no generally accepted definition of this crime. They weren’t acts of war, and calling them that crossed the line breaking the law as only nations can attack one another, not individuals. No evidence existed then or now Afghanistan was behind them nor did Saddam pose an imminent threat justifying our aggression.

George Bush tried and failed getting legal Security Council cover for both wars. He then tried getting it from Congress, couldn’t get his preferred formal declarations and had to settle for joint-War Powers resolution authorizations to protect the country against international terrorism he chose to do by waging illegal wars against two countries.

[Steve Lendeman]

Iraqis use Google Earth as military intelligence asset

Google Earth … is being used to help people survive sectarian violence in Baghdad ….

… Some Iraqis have set up advice websites to help others avoid the death squads … people to draw up maps of their local area using Google Earth’s detailed imagery of Baghdad so they can work out escape routes and routes to block.

… For some time now, vigilante-style guard forces have been operating in many neighbourhoods, especially in Sunni areas targeted by Shia militias.

… Many Sunnis see the Shia-dominated police forces as just as much of a threat, because of evidence of their involvement in kidnappings.

… It’s thought that insurgents have also used the map site, examining the detailed images to pick out potential targets.

[BBC]

Via Boing Boing.

“Europe has become the first line of defense for the United States.”

The former chief of the CIA’s Europe division, Tyler Drumheller, discusses the United States foreign intelligence service’s cooperation with Germany, the covert kidnapping of suspected terrorists and a Bush adminstration that ignored CIA advice and used whatever information it could find to justify an invasion of Iraq.

SPIEGEL: How important is Europe to the CIA?

Drumheller: The only way we will ever be able to protect ourselves properly is if we can get a handle on the threat in Europe, since that is the continent where fanatics can best learn their most crucial lesson: How to disappear in a Western crowd. Europe has become the first line of defense for the United States. It has become a training ground for terrorists, especially since the war in Iraq has heralded an underground railroad for militants to go and fight there. It is being used for young fanatics in Europe to be smuggled into Iraq to fight Americans and, assuming they survive, to return home, where they present a more potent threat than they did before they left. Since the odds against penetrating the top of al-Qaida are phenomenally high, we must pursue the foot soldiers.

[Spiegel]