when the status quo frustrates.

Q: When is a democracy not a democracy?

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

A: Let’s let the official Team Obama Unnamed Source explain.

The US and its European allies are preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned.

The creation of a new chief executive or prime ministerial role is aimed at bypassing Karzai. In a further dilution of his power, it is proposed that money be diverted from the Kabul government to the provinces. Many US and European officials have become disillusioned with the extent of the corruption and incompetence in the Karzai government, but most now believe there are no credible alternatives, and predict the Afghan president will win re-election in August.

…A diplomat with knowledge of the review said: “Karzai is not delivering. If we are going to support his government, it has to be run properly to ensure the levels of corruption decrease, not increase. The levels of corruption are frightening.”

Another diplomat said alternatives to Karzai had been explored and discarded: “No one could be sure that someone else would not turn out to be 10 times worse. It is not a great position.”

Well, I’m glad that the Obama administration at least gave serious consideration to regime change.

…Other recommendations include: increasing the number of Afghan troops from 65,000 to 230,000 as well as expanding the 80,000-strong police force; sending more US and European civilians to build up Afghanistan’s infrastructure; and increased aid to Pakistan as part of a policy of trying to persuade it to tackle al-Qaida and Taliban elements.

…The risk for the US is that the imposition of a technocrat alongside Karzai would be viewed as colonialism, even though that figure would be an Afghan.

Naw. That’d just be silliness! After all, the figure would be an Afghan!

Hey, anyone mind if I just go ahead and install Noam Chomsky as prime minister of the US? I mean, Obama is not delivering.

(Via.)

I have been a very bad boy.

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

I always start to blog when my deadlines get the crunchiest. Why do I do that to myself?

If I am a good boy, you will not see me again until April 14th, at the earliest.

In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite videos to tide you over. Fine product of the looniest of the lands I love.

Attack of the Drones

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

I can remember a time when Obama was careful to say that the only condition under which he would conduct military ops in Pakistan without their consent would be if he had solid intelligence of Osama bin Laden’s location, and they were unwilling to do anything about it.

Then, literally two days into his presidency, he went and killed a bunch of Pakistanis, including three children. Presumably he knew where Osama’s cave was, and those damn towelheads wouldn’t do anything about it.

And presumably the five drone bombings since then were also gunning for Osama.

In fact, there’s quite a body count piling up of people who, if they were still able to make wishes, would wish that Obama would just frickin’ learn to aim, already.

Osama must be getting scared of living near the borders, because now Obama’s team is thinking about taking the fight into the interior.

Several administration and military officials stressed that they continued to prod the Pakistani military to take the lead in a more aggressive campaign to root out Taliban and Qaeda fighters who are attacking American forces in Afghanistan and increasingly destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Cuz, you know, this continued campaign of America bombing Pakistani territory is having absolutely no effect on Pakistan’s political stability. No sirree.

See, that was on Al Jazeera Qaeda network, so just take whatever they just said and believe the opposite. Because they hate us for our press freedoms.

Yes, thankfully, as a paladin among nations, our intentions are pure. The only possible reason we could have for mucking about in Balochistan would be to get Bin Laden.

…A solution to these problems can be found by creating an independent corridor to the Arabian Sea in Balochistan. This corridor, together with the occupation of Afghanistan, would also ensure US access to Central Asian crude oil, the raison d’etre of the so-called war on terror.

(These are not the drones you are looking for…)

To conclude, then, there are good reasons to believe that a US-Israel-India axis is in pursuit of a coordinated plan to balkanise militarily consequential Muslim states (next Pakistan, then Iran — the order reversed by Musharraf’s weak military policies); ‘secure’ Pakistan’s nuclear weapons; support Baloch irredentism not only to open a corridor both for logistic support of its troops in Afghanistan and for export of Central Asian crude oil, but also to weaken Iran and Pakistan in the long-term; coerce the Pakistan Army into a civil war (advocating suppression of the Taliban by force in Pakistan, while admitting the failure of exactly this policy in Afghanistan); and further consolidate its hold over civilian leadership by creating the kind of financial dependency that would allow it to control ‘democratic’ elections, and to annul their results if they were unfavourable (as Israel did with Hamas).

I have no idea what that was about. Or why WIIIAI would say: “By the way, when are people going to start describing our military activities in Pakistan as a war and maybe, I don’t know, discussing whether it’s a good idea?”

He just doesn’t get it. Obama is the peace president.

A muppet chaser

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

You are only allowed to watch if you read at least three posts in this series.

How to end violence

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Hint: it doesn’t involve wearing t-shirts like this.

 

Human beings are actually predisposed to avoid violence with other humans. The trouble only starts when humans stop thinking of other human beings as humans. “Out-groups”, “othering”, “tribalism”– they’re all words for essentially the same thing.

Pseudospeciationists can suck my balls.

Previous research seemed to suggest white people are just naturally, uncontrollably racist on an unconscious level, since by showing them pictures of black people, the little amygdala in their brain immediately responds with: be vigilant! But, social psychologist Susan Fiske discovered an intriguing way to counteract this:

(more…)

A message to violent smegwads everywhere

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Hey douchebags, listen up, it’s strategy time.

If you’d all just be a little bit smurfier to the ladyfolk, maybe we’d all get Some O Dat a whole lot more often.

Seven or eight years ago I read The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris. It had a profound effect on my thinking about the human race. He made the ultimate point that humans may pride themselves as being something other than animals, but at the end of the day, we are animals too. The instinctual urges that we think of as just part of an animal’s unavoidable nature affect us just as strongly. Different animals may have slightly different sets of instincts, but the fact is we have them too (and how!), despite our penchant for dressing them up with highly intelligent, baroque justifications.

Now, one tidbit from the book actually seemed to argue against Morris’s thesis in a small way (if I recall correctly), which was when he asserted that humans are the only species that engages in intra-species killing, also known as “murder”. And indeed, this was the conventional scientific wisdom until years after The Naked Ape was published, when Jane Goodall reported that the peace-loving chimpanzees she was famous for observing also seem to enjoy a spot of the old intra-species ultra-violence every now and then, as well. Thus providing more support for Morris’s thesis after all.

I am not down with whoever staged this photo

But there is some hope for us yet, according to neurologist and professional baboon observer Robert Sapolsky. In the early 80s, a baboon group he was observing in Kenya lucked into a garbage dump from a tourist lodge that had expanded its operations. Every morning, the combative, anti-social alpha baboons would raid the meat in the dump, and eat it all up before the more mellow baboons could get to it. And then… an amazing plot twist.

Tainted meat killed the majority of the baboon group… but also, every single one of the aggressive asshole Alphas.

(more…)

Anti-war *IS* feminist

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Would people stop insinuating that I don’t care about women just because war is what I get the most worked up about right now? (I’m not just talking about on this blog. For some reason it seems to have become a common refrain lately.)

Being anti-war and being feminist are not mutually exclusive. After all, it’s impossible to support gender equality for women who you’re killing, or even for whom you’re just creating a constantly life-threatening environment. War zones, even once they’re ex-war zones, are where rights for women go to die.
The image “http://www.chris-floyd.com/war/images/girl_jpg.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

(All pictures from here.)

Though I have argued that Obama appears to share McCain’s bloodthirsty imperialist core, it’s absolutely true that war is not the only issue that our choice of president could affect in meaningful ways. So, despite the fact that Obama has always been pretty lukewarm toward feminism, it’s also true that McCain has been downright hostile to it. Obama as president would surely be better for American women in general.

Women in Iraq, on the other hand — or in any other countries we’re raping to serve the business interests of the Great and Powerful Patriarchy — I’m pretty sure they won’t give a shit. Living in a war zone means the very fight for survival comes first. The things that feminists (quite rightly) fight for in America must seem like impossible dreams to Iraqi women who are forced to sell their bodies in order to keep their children from starving to death. Why is this our problem? Because we’re the ones who put them in this situation.

The image “http://www.chris-floyd.com/war/images/iraqiwoman_jpg.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Since America invaded Iraq, an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed as a direct result. Surely everyone realizes that this means we’ve killed over half a million women in the bargain? I know it’s hard, but please take a moment and try to imagine what it would be like if some new threat (misogynistic terrorists, militant MRAs, whatever) had arrived on the scene five years ago and begun violently killing over half a million American women, with more killing still to come. Or if that seems like I’m rigging the argument too much, just make it over a million people of both sexes. Or, to make it even more analogous to Iraq, we can just say 3% of our population (9 million people, give or take).

Any which way you cut it, there would be absolutely no other topics of discussion in America. It would be priority number one to deal with. There would be no compromises that allowed the killing to continue at a slower place, no half-solutions which involved convincing the killers to target Canadians instead of Americans or somesuch.

The image “http://www.chris-floyd.com/war/images/iraqiwoman2_jpg.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

But it’s hard for Americans to imagine that this is really happening to people just as human and important to themselves as we are to ourselves. Our compliant propagandistic press doesn’t show us life on the ground in Iraq. True critics of this war– those who say it’s wrong on every level, not just the way it’s been “poorly managed”– are marginalized and derided in our national discourse.

The image “http://www.chris-floyd.com/war/images/iraq6_1apr2003_jpg.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
Let’s face it, the reality of war is just not pleasant to think about. Let’s watch HBO instead.

UPDATE: Ampersand points out that my assumption of 50% female casualties is off by quite a bit. Now I’m certainly no statistician, but if I’m analyzing the Lancet study (pdf) correctly, provided that the male/female death ratio has stayed more or less the same since 2006, we’re looking at 20% female mortality. Which means “only” about 240,000 female deaths directly caused by US involvement so far. (As opposed to 960,000 males. A particularly sick case of “The Patriarchy hurts men, too”.)

Master of Jiu Jitsu

Monday, July 21st, 2008

We’ve started a little conversation in the back room that I figured I’d take back to the main table.

Where we left things: I asserted that McCain and Obama are both warmongers, it’s just that McCain is honest about it.

QUIN: [Obama] can say he doesn’t want South Korea-style military bases, [that he's for] autonomous Iraqi govt, all the rest, but it’s all empty rhetoric unless his actual plan calls for pulling all US presence out of Iraq. Currently, it’s nothing even resembling that.

THENE: No, but it’s markedly different from the McCain approach. You’re the first person I’ve ever seen even make the argument that there’s no difference between the two in that regard – even if we can’t know what either would really do until one of them takes office.

It’s true, we can’t know. But, when was the last time a politician on the national level turned out to be MORE liberal once s/he attained office than what they promised in their campaign?

I’m not actually arguing that there’s no differences between McCain’s and Obama’s plans for Iraq. The biggest thing that sets them apart is that McCain is a fairly transparent opponent, whereas Obama and the other savage mules are more like jiujitsu masters. McCain just goes for the direct attack and says “We’ll stay in Iraq, you’re just smelly hippies”. But Obama deftly steps to one side, saying “I’m on your side, don’t worry, I’m change you can believe in” and then just stays in anyway. (more…)

THE PRESS! Hunh! Good God! What is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN’! Say it again…

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

At least not so much lately in America. Of course, cynics would say that, by merely parroting the propaganda of the powerful, they are doing PRECISELY their job, because that’s what they’re kept around for in the first place. And, well, I guess the cynics would probably be right. But appearances of speaking truth to power must be kept up, and so occasionally some journalists are let off their leash for a little bit to retrieve a juicy story.

And so, although it appears this is Punkassblog Beat-on-the-Press Day, I thought I’d just be a contrarian and point out that there is one big American press chain bucking the trend: McClatchy Newspapers. Now, granted, they’re nowhere as big as AP, but they’re no small potatoes either.

What’s got to be the biggest thing working in their favor was that they were the only major newspaper group who consistently criticized the Bush Administration’s rationales for war prior to the invasion of Iraq. (Well, actually, Knight-Ridder was, but McClatchy bought Knight-Ridder two years ago, and the same staff continues to work for them.)

Now maybe McClatchy doesn’t always manage to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”, as the trope about the press goes, but they certainly have their moments.

Just the other day, they featured this story about the response in Iraq to the complete lack of punishment to seven of the eight US marines charged in the three-year-old Haditha massacre. In which nobody denies that they killed 24 innocent civilians, male and female, of all ages from toddler to elderly.

Iman Waleed recounts the killing of seven members of her family that occurred on Nov. 19, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq.

Iman Waleed lost everyone in her family save her little brother. The 12-year-old tells the story quickly and matter-of-factly now. She’s told it at least 20 times to journalists, investigators and human rights groups.

“The Americans came in and they entered through the kitchen door. My father was in the room reading the Quran and they shot him,” she says in a monotone voice, her green eyes looking at the floor.

(more…)

“Fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here” was a slogan, not a plan.

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

Six years, umpteen godzillion dollars and a Patriot Act later and this is all we got?

While the Defense Department conducts exhaustive planning for operations overseas, its planning for possible action inside the United States in response to attacks is inadequate, said the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves.

“We looked at their plans. They’re totally unacceptable,” said commission chairman Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine Corps major general.

“You couldn’t move a Girl Scout unit with the kind of planning they’re doing,” Punaro said

There’s a very good reason for this however: first, we’ve kind of ground the forces we have into tired shell-shocked overdeployed troop nubbins, and second, the brass left prefers petty inter-force fingerpointing and question-dodging to planning for domestic security.

Officials at Northern Command would not discuss the commission’s report, saying the Pentagon would first review the panel’s nearly 100 recommendations…

But the military has not dedicated sufficient time or resources to prepare for such a role, despite the creation of Northern Command after the September 11, 2001, attacks, according to the commission, created by Congress to study the best use of reserve forces.

That is partly because of historical tension between the federal government and states, the commission said. Defense officials also say the military sees its role in domestic emergencies in large part as supporting civilian agencies…

But since the 1990s, the Guard and Reserve have been used more regularly in combat. The availability of those forces, for example, has allowed Washington to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without a draft, the commission said.

Repeated deployments to those wars strained reserve troops, their equipment and their families

Well, then at least we can assume Iraq & Afghanistan are going swimmingly, right, since the Pentagon is neglecting this hemisphere to work over there, right? Right?

Oh, OK then.

“The risk is that it may resemble defeat.”

Saturday, June 30th, 2007

lowered expectations

From the AP, a truly baffling attempt at analyzing the Mess O’ Potamia: Only Iraqis can win the war. With an intriguing headline like that, I had to read it. I was brimming with questions: Is the AP’s military writer promoting a U.S. defeat? Which Iraqis, exactly, are capable of winning (and who are we supposed to be rooting for, again)? And how will we tell when the war’s over?

Predictably, the article neither raises nor answers any of those questions, but it’s a fine piece of creatively muddled thinking.

The harder President Bush has pushed to win in Iraq, the closer he has come to losing.

The question no longer is whether the U.S. military can fully stabilize Iraq. It cannot.

A promising enough start, if Burns didn’t go on to suggest, in the very next paragraph, that there was some sort of brief shining moment sandwiched between the toppling of Saddam and the beginning of sectarian fighting where the U.S. could have “won.” Rubbish, of course, as a passing knowledge of Iraqi politics tells us that Ba’athist dictatorship was the main factor in keeping the various factions from warring in the first place.

Now only the Iraqis can save Iraq.

They need the U.S. military’s help, no doubt. But the Bush administration has made no secret of the fact that the U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad is simply buying time for the Iraqis to sort out their differences, create a government of national unity and show they can defend themselves.

So it is not whether the U.S. can win the war. It is whether the Iraqis can, which is in great doubt.

Again, we don’t really know who “the Iraqis” are.

(more…)

Rainbow Girl needs you to show her cause some love

Saturday, June 16th, 2007

Rainbow Girl makes her debut in comic activism with

RAINBOW
GIRL

stars in SEXY WAR!

34 pages of feminism drawn in the same style (and lets face it, we all did it) of all your greatest college in-group comics. Team Rainbow, consisting of Rainbow Girl, her Rainbow Guy and a cast of zany friends, have to figure out why team member Solar E. Clips is too ill to debate the sexist cobags in her class. Meanwhile, a rogue vagina dentata is meting out fantasy feminist judgment left and right on rapists, pundits and politicians alike.

The comic is especially concerned with the relationship between sexism and war, with a special emphasis on who really benefits from endless, resource-sucking fighting.

At $6 (and all proceeds going to the African women’s village of Umoja Uaso) this comic is a must-have. It’s Rainbow Girl’s first attempt, so don’t expect Bechdel-level writing or pacing from her yet, but it does have some really cute characters (including a Spectrum Queen reminiscent of Synergy from Jem. Remember Jem? She was truly outrageous), some great, clear-cut examples of patriarchy all over the world, and quite the shout-out to the importance of feminist-minded men speaking out as well as a page of information on sexual assault and resources for men interested in taking an active role in fighting it, as well as a page on Umoja Uaso. As you might imagine, there is a lot going on in this book.

Quite frankly it’s worth $6 for the vagina dentata alone. That thing is adorable. It is a really cute comic raising money for a most excellent cause and in the future you’ll be glad you have one to show everyone else that you supported Rainbow Girl long before her hardcover graphic novels started getting so much shelf space at Borders.

Visit Rainbow Girl to get one.

Find out more about Umoja Uaso.