There's a great piece on the comparison between the US involvement in Iraq and in Vietnam in Foreign Affairs.
I won't cover it all - go read it yourself - but this is the key quote for me:
President Bush does not have the luxury of waiting for the international community to validate his policies in Iraq. But we do have the lessons of Vietnam. In Vietnam, the voices of the "cut-and-run" crowd ultimately prevailed, and our allies were betrayed after all of our work to set them on their feet. Those same voices would now have us cut and run from Iraq, assuring the failure of the fledgling democracy there and damning the rest of the Islamic world to chaos fomented by extremists. Those who look only at the rosy side of what defeat did to help South Vietnam get to where it is today see a growing economy there and a warming of relations with the West. They forget the immediate costs of the United States' betrayal. Two million refugees were driven out of the country, 65,000 more were executed, and 250,000 were sent to "reeducation camps." Given the nature of the insurgents in Iraq and the catastrophic goals of militant Islam, we can expect no better there.
This is the question that those who would have the US withdraw must first answer: why do you want to betray the Iraqi people? Why do you want to sentence millions to death and deprivation?
For the feminists: why do you want to condemn thousands of your sisters to not virtual but very real enslavement and denial of their innate qualities and abilities?
For the socialists: why do you want to condemn your fellow socialists and union organizers in Iraq to death?
For the pacificists: why do you want to abandon millions to the rule of despots who will kill, maim and crush spirits in the name of power?
Read the damn article. War isn't a nice, clean and antiseptic event. It's sometimes necessary to spill blood, yes even innocent blood, in order to defeat evil. It's not about niceties and avoiding hurting the sensibilities of someone on Park Avenue: it's about stopping evil.
Sure, it's a contradiction, killing innocents in order to stop evil. But it's not what was planned: it's a shitty thing that happens to people who deserve a lot better. But not doing it means that you condemn even more people to even worse things.
And for those who scream and protest: what the heck are you going to do different? Where are YOUR solutions?
All I see is blind abandonment of those in need.
All I see is blind ignorance on the anti-war side, coupled with willful denial of responsibility for consequences. The anti-war movement in the US lost its innocence in the aftermath of Vietnam by willfully ignoring, indeed denying that its actions had any consequences. Morally, that's reprehensible: it is an active denial that they have done wrong. And hey, that brings us back to the sophists as has been posted here more than once.
But that's why this blog is named 21st Century Schizoid Man: the world is not a nice and tidy place with all the i's dotted and the t's crossed: it's a pack of contradictions and impossible situations. Trying to make things work and trying to do the right thing means at times doing things that aren't what we'd all druther not do. It means that you do things that you don't intend to do. It means that you're a bundle of contradictions and differing goals, not a tidy, clean antiseptic abstraction that never can exist in the crucible of the real world.
And if you don't understand that, then there's no hope. Go live in your ivory towers and gated communities. There's a real world out there with problems that need to be solved.
To paraphrase: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And the anti-war movement, as far as I am concerned, is a big part of the problem. Being anti isn't being: denial does not resolve contradictions and problems.
Donnerstag, Oktober 13, 2005
Mittwoch, Oktober 12, 2005
A good start...
Why haven't we seen more on this?
But it's strange (duh: it has to do with the UN): apparently he was given the options on 4 mn barrels of oil, but these options weren't exercised, aka the allocations weren't performed, as the jargon goes. Which is weird: if you're being bribed, then why do you not take the bribe instead of letting it set where everyone can see it?
But this is not just anyone: he was/is - it's difficult to say given the opacity of the UN - the special advisor for Europe for Kofi Annan.
But no one knows where he is or what he's doing.
Par for the course?
I don't think so.
There may well be a deeper layer of the onion here. What if Hussein in his attempts to break the embargo used blackmail instead? Of showing that an allocation had been made and that if the information came out that there was a bribery setup within the Oil-For-Food program that would implicate such people?
I fear that we'll never get to the bottom of this. But this can, at least, serve as a precautionary item. Never, ever underestimate the duplicity and cleverness of Third-World despots when it comes to keeping their power. They never need to worry about disclosure of blackmail or attempted blackmail, since it's the kind of behavior we expect from them and besides, they have nothing to lose by trying the trick of setting someone up so that it looks like they were in cahoots when in fact there was no blackmail or attempt at blackmail.
Again, it's the appearance that counts politically and not the reality of whatever happened.
It's a strange world...
PS: I ran across this as well. Even stranger. Scapegoat time?
But it's strange (duh: it has to do with the UN): apparently he was given the options on 4 mn barrels of oil, but these options weren't exercised, aka the allocations weren't performed, as the jargon goes. Which is weird: if you're being bribed, then why do you not take the bribe instead of letting it set where everyone can see it?
But this is not just anyone: he was/is - it's difficult to say given the opacity of the UN - the special advisor for Europe for Kofi Annan.
But no one knows where he is or what he's doing.
Par for the course?
I don't think so.
There may well be a deeper layer of the onion here. What if Hussein in his attempts to break the embargo used blackmail instead? Of showing that an allocation had been made and that if the information came out that there was a bribery setup within the Oil-For-Food program that would implicate such people?
I fear that we'll never get to the bottom of this. But this can, at least, serve as a precautionary item. Never, ever underestimate the duplicity and cleverness of Third-World despots when it comes to keeping their power. They never need to worry about disclosure of blackmail or attempted blackmail, since it's the kind of behavior we expect from them and besides, they have nothing to lose by trying the trick of setting someone up so that it looks like they were in cahoots when in fact there was no blackmail or attempt at blackmail.
Again, it's the appearance that counts politically and not the reality of whatever happened.
It's a strange world...
PS: I ran across this as well. Even stranger. Scapegoat time?
What comes around...
Sometimes the irony is too much.
This is a good take on intelligent design. I don't know enough on the subject to make any sort of pretense as to what's right and what's wrong, but this quote summed it up brilliantly:
For several decades the philosophical ground has been softened up by the relativism and political correctness of the secular left, which succeeded in undermining the very idea of objective reality and of calling a spade a spade—so now, in the resulting marsh, fantasies like intelligent design (or Scientology or feng shui or 9/11 as a CIA plot) take root and spread like weeds. Liberals pioneered squishy-minded indulgence of their key constituencies' unfortunate new ideas, like reparations and criminalized hate speech; now it's the right's turn.
This is why I italicized the word above. The sophists of today share the same attributes of the sophists of Athen's time: of making everything subjective and nothing objective.
But the author - Kurt Andersen - misses what I see as the real point.
It's not that the secular left - used advisedly, since the religious left does the same thing - merely undermined objective reality. It's much more that the secular left replaced objective reality with their own sophistic arguments, just as the sophist in The Sophist himself denies the nature of his opinion, hiding his rejection of objective reality in the insistence that his opinion is objective reality.
And that is the problem that we all continue to face: those that represent their opinions as facts will at the same time deny that their facts are nothing more than opinions, forcing not a debate on the facts but rather an excursion into epistomology.
Of course, one that usually ends up being a complete and total waste of time: sophists cannot imagine that there is falsehood. "Fake but accurate" ring a bell? It's the same thing: representing falsehood as truth in order to force on others an opinion not based in fact.
To quote Spinoza - damn, a classical education does come in handy - omnis negatio est determinatio: All negation is distinction. Without falsehood - of being completely and totally wrong about something - there is no ability to determine what is true.
I'm being simplistic, I know: but there is a certain necessity in simplicity and I know too many people who become paralyzed when making a decision because they try to entertain all nuances of a decision and its effects.
This is a good take on intelligent design. I don't know enough on the subject to make any sort of pretense as to what's right and what's wrong, but this quote summed it up brilliantly:
For several decades the philosophical ground has been softened up by the relativism and political correctness of the secular left, which succeeded in undermining the very idea of objective reality and of calling a spade a spade—so now, in the resulting marsh, fantasies like intelligent design (or Scientology or feng shui or 9/11 as a CIA plot) take root and spread like weeds. Liberals pioneered squishy-minded indulgence of their key constituencies' unfortunate new ideas, like reparations and criminalized hate speech; now it's the right's turn.
This is why I italicized the word above. The sophists of today share the same attributes of the sophists of Athen's time: of making everything subjective and nothing objective.
But the author - Kurt Andersen - misses what I see as the real point.
It's not that the secular left - used advisedly, since the religious left does the same thing - merely undermined objective reality. It's much more that the secular left replaced objective reality with their own sophistic arguments, just as the sophist in The Sophist himself denies the nature of his opinion, hiding his rejection of objective reality in the insistence that his opinion is objective reality.
And that is the problem that we all continue to face: those that represent their opinions as facts will at the same time deny that their facts are nothing more than opinions, forcing not a debate on the facts but rather an excursion into epistomology.
Of course, one that usually ends up being a complete and total waste of time: sophists cannot imagine that there is falsehood. "Fake but accurate" ring a bell? It's the same thing: representing falsehood as truth in order to force on others an opinion not based in fact.
To quote Spinoza - damn, a classical education does come in handy - omnis negatio est determinatio: All negation is distinction. Without falsehood - of being completely and totally wrong about something - there is no ability to determine what is true.
I'm being simplistic, I know: but there is a certain necessity in simplicity and I know too many people who become paralyzed when making a decision because they try to entertain all nuances of a decision and its effects.
Dienstag, Oktober 11, 2005
Some understands the internet...I wish I did.
Ran across this. Whatever else the man might think, he understands the internet. :-)
Too much work and not enough play lately. Massive frustrations with Excel: I've come to the point where Excel isn't enough for what we want to do, yet after repeated attempts to try using other tools it remains the best that we can find.
And *that* is frustrating. Where'e the Windows version of Javelin? That's partially what I need: but what I really need is a production system worth the name...
... and the frustration comes from 3400+ charts and 500+ tables and getting the damn product out of the door. Was at that point this evening and whammm, PDFJoiner just didn't want to work...
Sigh.
Too much work and not enough play lately. Massive frustrations with Excel: I've come to the point where Excel isn't enough for what we want to do, yet after repeated attempts to try using other tools it remains the best that we can find.
And *that* is frustrating. Where'e the Windows version of Javelin? That's partially what I need: but what I really need is a production system worth the name...
... and the frustration comes from 3400+ charts and 500+ tables and getting the damn product out of the door. Was at that point this evening and whammm, PDFJoiner just didn't want to work...
Sigh.
Samstag, Oktober 08, 2005
A Fine Line
There is the usual storm and fury about the Meiers nomination, this time from both sides.
I'm not goin to comment on either: a pox on both.
This is the side that I am on: VariFrank hits the nail on the head cleanly and drives it all the way in.
When you join the Supremes, it's a gig for life. Nice job if you can get it.
Our "elites", those that go to Harvard and Yale and MIT, who become lawyers and academics and consultants and politicians, have become a significant part of the problem. One of the aspects of being an elite is that you actually do think you are "better" than the comman man, that you, on the basis of your education and background - after all, summers in France are much more interesting than working as a lifeguard in the local Y - know better than Joe Sixpack.
That way lies madness.
Why? Because that is at the core of the afflications of the modern age: those that think on the basis of their social status that they are inherently and necessarily better at life than those who never had the benefits and opportunities that they had.
If you apply this on the basis of race - us Red-Headed Left Handers are inherently the super race - then you end up, logically, with fascism.
If you apply this on the basis of sociology - us academic achievers are inherently better at making decisions - then you end up, logically, with communism.
I've been priviledged in my life: I've had the summers in Europe, I have an advanced degree from a European university, even though I am an American, I've had the luxury of time to find out what I am good at before having to take any job to pay the bills.
But the last thing I think is that I'm better than my fellows. I'm not.
I am priviledged to count the following people as my friends: cops, patent lawyers, electricians, people who take care of the elderly, teachers, econometricians, financial professionals, Marines and Rangers, physiotherapists, social workers, construction workers, cooks, insurance investigators, programmers, music industry managers, musicians, shoe designers, engineers, civilian employees in the military, State Department people, academics and artists.
They are my elite: they aren't an elite at all. There some people in there who aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer; there are some in there who are one heck of a lot smarter than I am and will ever be; there are some in there who are very, very wise; there are others in there who are heavily neurotic in that they keep on making really dumb decisions.
In my experience there is no meaningful correlation between education and wisdom; between priviledged upbringing and success; between financial savvy and riches; betwen having the trappings of elitism and being a better person.
None. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
It would be nice if there was: but there isn't.
Doesn't mean that an education is worthless: there are some that are, but generally speaking there is a massive positive correlation between education/training and financial success. It's not that having a priviledged upbringing doesn't help you in life: it does. It doesn't mean that investing in your own education and skill sets is a waste of time: it usually means that you will end up making more money, i.e. your investment usually pays off.
But it's not a guarantee.
I listen here near Frankfurt to AFN, both AM and FM. Every so often there's a bit which always has the refrain: charachter counts.
It's not enough to be highly educated and trained if you are ultimately lazy and aren't willing to work; it's not enough to be groomed for success if you think with an organ of your body that is located between your legs and you end up repeatedly making a fool of yourself with the opposite sex; it's not enough to be technically proficient, indeed brilliant, and at the same time being such an unbearable person to be with that you are desperately, horribly lonely.
In other words, having the best education and training in the world isn't enough.
You've got to be the best person you can be.
And if you think that this doesn't mean walking a fine, fine line in your life, between your duties and having a good time, between caring for others and neglecting yourself, between understanding complexity and identifying what's important, between skepticism and trust, then you haven't understood that at the end of the day, it's not about where you studied, what you work at, who you know and who you sleep with.
It's about being the best person that you can be.
Which brings us back to VariFrank.
If the president thinks Meiers is his best choice for the job: so be it. Not happy with it? Get elected president and make your own recommendations. Not happy with her? Tough.
Amen, VariFrank: I didn't go to Harvard either. And you know what? I'd rather talk to you than to talk to the people I know who did go to Harvard, because I think you'd be more interesting to talk to.
I'm not goin to comment on either: a pox on both.
This is the side that I am on: VariFrank hits the nail on the head cleanly and drives it all the way in.
When you join the Supremes, it's a gig for life. Nice job if you can get it.
Our "elites", those that go to Harvard and Yale and MIT, who become lawyers and academics and consultants and politicians, have become a significant part of the problem. One of the aspects of being an elite is that you actually do think you are "better" than the comman man, that you, on the basis of your education and background - after all, summers in France are much more interesting than working as a lifeguard in the local Y - know better than Joe Sixpack.
That way lies madness.
Why? Because that is at the core of the afflications of the modern age: those that think on the basis of their social status that they are inherently and necessarily better at life than those who never had the benefits and opportunities that they had.
If you apply this on the basis of race - us Red-Headed Left Handers are inherently the super race - then you end up, logically, with fascism.
If you apply this on the basis of sociology - us academic achievers are inherently better at making decisions - then you end up, logically, with communism.
I've been priviledged in my life: I've had the summers in Europe, I have an advanced degree from a European university, even though I am an American, I've had the luxury of time to find out what I am good at before having to take any job to pay the bills.
But the last thing I think is that I'm better than my fellows. I'm not.
I am priviledged to count the following people as my friends: cops, patent lawyers, electricians, people who take care of the elderly, teachers, econometricians, financial professionals, Marines and Rangers, physiotherapists, social workers, construction workers, cooks, insurance investigators, programmers, music industry managers, musicians, shoe designers, engineers, civilian employees in the military, State Department people, academics and artists.
They are my elite: they aren't an elite at all. There some people in there who aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer; there are some in there who are one heck of a lot smarter than I am and will ever be; there are some in there who are very, very wise; there are others in there who are heavily neurotic in that they keep on making really dumb decisions.
In my experience there is no meaningful correlation between education and wisdom; between priviledged upbringing and success; between financial savvy and riches; betwen having the trappings of elitism and being a better person.
None. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
It would be nice if there was: but there isn't.
Doesn't mean that an education is worthless: there are some that are, but generally speaking there is a massive positive correlation between education/training and financial success. It's not that having a priviledged upbringing doesn't help you in life: it does. It doesn't mean that investing in your own education and skill sets is a waste of time: it usually means that you will end up making more money, i.e. your investment usually pays off.
But it's not a guarantee.
I listen here near Frankfurt to AFN, both AM and FM. Every so often there's a bit which always has the refrain: charachter counts.
It's not enough to be highly educated and trained if you are ultimately lazy and aren't willing to work; it's not enough to be groomed for success if you think with an organ of your body that is located between your legs and you end up repeatedly making a fool of yourself with the opposite sex; it's not enough to be technically proficient, indeed brilliant, and at the same time being such an unbearable person to be with that you are desperately, horribly lonely.
In other words, having the best education and training in the world isn't enough.
You've got to be the best person you can be.
And if you think that this doesn't mean walking a fine, fine line in your life, between your duties and having a good time, between caring for others and neglecting yourself, between understanding complexity and identifying what's important, between skepticism and trust, then you haven't understood that at the end of the day, it's not about where you studied, what you work at, who you know and who you sleep with.
It's about being the best person that you can be.
Which brings us back to VariFrank.
If the president thinks Meiers is his best choice for the job: so be it. Not happy with it? Get elected president and make your own recommendations. Not happy with her? Tough.
Amen, VariFrank: I didn't go to Harvard either. And you know what? I'd rather talk to you than to talk to the people I know who did go to Harvard, because I think you'd be more interesting to talk to.
Donnerstag, Oktober 06, 2005
Schwanitz replies
Well, Schwanitz sent me a mail on Tuesday.
Boilerplate.
He says he's sorry if he hurt my feelings, but doesn't apologize for the poster.
I'm not disappointed, since I expected nothing more than that. But it was worth the try.
My disapointment is in the lack of outrage from the rest of the SPD. Sure, Karsten Voight isn't happy about it: but he is, in the realm of the SPD hierarchy, fairly meaningless. Guess that they're a tad distracted right now from reality.
And the question remains: is the SPD so far removed from its history, from its policies until Schroeder, that it will continue to instrumentalize anti-Americanism as a political tool?
If so, the moral distance between the SPD and, shall we say, parties that are more than slightly tinged with brown, is rapidly closing and will in all likelihood disappear.
What will come next for the SPD? At the very least Schwanitz should resign and retire from public life. Or will the SPD come out next with a poster showing Schroeder eating a pork roast with the title "She would have had a Döner"?
Boilerplate.
He says he's sorry if he hurt my feelings, but doesn't apologize for the poster.
I'm not disappointed, since I expected nothing more than that. But it was worth the try.
My disapointment is in the lack of outrage from the rest of the SPD. Sure, Karsten Voight isn't happy about it: but he is, in the realm of the SPD hierarchy, fairly meaningless. Guess that they're a tad distracted right now from reality.
And the question remains: is the SPD so far removed from its history, from its policies until Schroeder, that it will continue to instrumentalize anti-Americanism as a political tool?
If so, the moral distance between the SPD and, shall we say, parties that are more than slightly tinged with brown, is rapidly closing and will in all likelihood disappear.
What will come next for the SPD? At the very least Schwanitz should resign and retire from public life. Or will the SPD come out next with a poster showing Schroeder eating a pork roast with the title "She would have had a Döner"?
Montag, Oktober 03, 2005
Putting another nail in the coffin...
One of the leftist memes is that the US military exploits poverty to recruit.
As the Germans say, ätsch-bätsch.
Let's see: 22% of enlistees come from the richest quintile of the US; 15% come from the poorest.
I guess in the left-wing world 15% is bigger than 22% because ...
Hmmm? Any takers?
And the geographical distribution is also interesting: it seems that only the Northeast and California are avoiding service.
In other words, blue states.
At least they're consistent.
As the Germans say, ätsch-bätsch.
Let's see: 22% of enlistees come from the richest quintile of the US; 15% come from the poorest.
I guess in the left-wing world 15% is bigger than 22% because ...
Hmmm? Any takers?
And the geographical distribution is also interesting: it seems that only the Northeast and California are avoiding service.
In other words, blue states.
At least they're consistent.
Sonntag, Oktober 02, 2005
Sein und Schein/Being and Appearance
A comment over at David's Medienkritik raises a fundamental question about the difference between journalism and blogging that I think needs to be reviewed.
/start quote
If we are talking about reliable reporting, accountability, reproducable sources, editorial oversight, research and journalisitc integrity here, DMK is just a web address. The evangelising that pervades some of the comments does not exactly strengthen the case.
/end quote
Hi -
This is the reason for DMK: we don't trust the MSM for reliable reporting, accountability, reproducible sources, editorial oversight, research and journalistic integrity, because we see how the media in Germany violate all of these precepts time and time again. DMK might be "just a web address", but their track record to date has been one heck of a lot better than many others.
I repeat: almost every day when I read the newspapers and magazines in Germany, I can see sloppy journalism, inaccurate reporting, opinion masquerading as fact, an appalling lack of research, failure to properly disclose political and commercial affiliations and a failure of editors to stop this sort of sloppy behavior. Think I'm kidding?
I'll give you one example I saw today in Der Spiegel, 39/2005, page 22: in an article about EADS and a project to outfit civilian airplanes with anti-missile technology against hand-held anti-aircraft missiles, the writer brought up an example of the US Stinger missile that was given out by the hundreds in Afghanistan to the Taliban and implied that these were the threat against which this system was designed, that the US had armed terrorists.
First problem: the Soviets/Russians/Chinese have been selling literally thousands of these to pretty much anyone with cash. Not mentioned in the article: misleading reporting by failing to indicate that while the US developed the weapon type, others sell them world-wide to the highest bidder. Hence the threat isn't from American weapons, but rather from Russian & Chinese weapons.
Second problem: Stingers of Afghanistan vintage can no longer be used, as their shelf life has been long exceeded and are no longer operational. They rely on a very specific voltage supplied by a special battery that uses a thermal process to generate enough energy to cool the IR seeker of the missile and to launch it. A typical failure profile of this battery is to explode, since the chemical mixture has become unstable. Stingers are kept as trophies, a reminder of US help in the Afghanistan time of need. This is not mentioned in the article: inaccurate reporting.
Third problem: lack of disclosure. EADS is an advertiser in Spiegel, taking full-page ads and getting some pretty nice articles and interviews placed as well (see Spiegel 40/2005).
Fourth problem: the US delivered Stinger not to the Taliban, as reported in the article, but rather to a number of Afghan rebel groups. The Taliban came later. This is sloppy reporting that should have been picked up by a decent editor.
This sums up to be sloppy journalism and is typical of Spiegel when it comes to discussing military affairs. There's also the problem that EADS is doing work that Israeli firms did more than 5 years ago, and EADS is advising the government on a project that it'll probably benefit from. Spiegel acknowledges that this is a problem.
In one paragraph four major errors. Three of these only serve to make the US look bad. This is, for me, indicative of the kind of journalistic errors and errors of omission that make a site like David's Medienkritik critically important: it is, if you so prefer, speaking truth to power. Journalists like to think that they are the ones doing so: it is a conceit that defies belief.
And that is where we all come in. Welcome to our world: we don't acccept arguments from authority, but insist on the facts. The internet makes access to the facts simple: the journalists that I have come across don't even understand how the world has changed in this way. We can check up on these kinds of stories and point out the factual errors, the opinions hiding as supposed facts and the like.
/start quote
If we are talking about reliable reporting, accountability, reproducable sources, editorial oversight, research and journalisitc integrity here, DMK is just a web address. The evangelising that pervades some of the comments does not exactly strengthen the case.
/end quote
Hi -
This is the reason for DMK: we don't trust the MSM for reliable reporting, accountability, reproducible sources, editorial oversight, research and journalistic integrity, because we see how the media in Germany violate all of these precepts time and time again. DMK might be "just a web address", but their track record to date has been one heck of a lot better than many others.
I repeat: almost every day when I read the newspapers and magazines in Germany, I can see sloppy journalism, inaccurate reporting, opinion masquerading as fact, an appalling lack of research, failure to properly disclose political and commercial affiliations and a failure of editors to stop this sort of sloppy behavior. Think I'm kidding?
I'll give you one example I saw today in Der Spiegel, 39/2005, page 22: in an article about EADS and a project to outfit civilian airplanes with anti-missile technology against hand-held anti-aircraft missiles, the writer brought up an example of the US Stinger missile that was given out by the hundreds in Afghanistan to the Taliban and implied that these were the threat against which this system was designed, that the US had armed terrorists.
First problem: the Soviets/Russians/Chinese have been selling literally thousands of these to pretty much anyone with cash. Not mentioned in the article: misleading reporting by failing to indicate that while the US developed the weapon type, others sell them world-wide to the highest bidder. Hence the threat isn't from American weapons, but rather from Russian & Chinese weapons.
Second problem: Stingers of Afghanistan vintage can no longer be used, as their shelf life has been long exceeded and are no longer operational. They rely on a very specific voltage supplied by a special battery that uses a thermal process to generate enough energy to cool the IR seeker of the missile and to launch it. A typical failure profile of this battery is to explode, since the chemical mixture has become unstable. Stingers are kept as trophies, a reminder of US help in the Afghanistan time of need. This is not mentioned in the article: inaccurate reporting.
Third problem: lack of disclosure. EADS is an advertiser in Spiegel, taking full-page ads and getting some pretty nice articles and interviews placed as well (see Spiegel 40/2005).
Fourth problem: the US delivered Stinger not to the Taliban, as reported in the article, but rather to a number of Afghan rebel groups. The Taliban came later. This is sloppy reporting that should have been picked up by a decent editor.
This sums up to be sloppy journalism and is typical of Spiegel when it comes to discussing military affairs. There's also the problem that EADS is doing work that Israeli firms did more than 5 years ago, and EADS is advising the government on a project that it'll probably benefit from. Spiegel acknowledges that this is a problem.
In one paragraph four major errors. Three of these only serve to make the US look bad. This is, for me, indicative of the kind of journalistic errors and errors of omission that make a site like David's Medienkritik critically important: it is, if you so prefer, speaking truth to power. Journalists like to think that they are the ones doing so: it is a conceit that defies belief.
And that is where we all come in. Welcome to our world: we don't acccept arguments from authority, but insist on the facts. The internet makes access to the facts simple: the journalists that I have come across don't even understand how the world has changed in this way. We can check up on these kinds of stories and point out the factual errors, the opinions hiding as supposed facts and the like.
A letter to Schwanitz
During the recent political contest in Germany one of the SPD candidates came out with a particularly repugnant election poster, one that showed the coffins of American soldiers with the title "She would have sent soldiers", referring of course to Angela Merkel, the candidate for the CDU/CSU and the implication that she would've sent German soldiers to Iraq.
I've been trying to let this go, to put it down to the election campaign, but I can't: my wife and children won't let me. The amount of time I've spent in Germany - almost 22 years - won't let me. I've seen a lot of anti-american sentiment, but nothing like this, and I simply cannot let it go unanswered.
I've written the following e-mail and just posted it to Schwanitz via the Bundestag web page: I didn't correct my German (I've given up trying to perfect my German: it gets my points across and, to paraphrase Bones from Star Trek TOS: I'm an economist, not a translator. Don't send me corrections: I don't think that they're necessary.
But first the English and then the German.
Dear Mr. Schwanitz
As an American who has been living almost 22 years in the Federal Republic of Germany, who is raising his children here and who pays taxes, I am appalled by your political poster that you used in your recent re-election campaign. You know which one: the one with the coffins of American soldiers with the title "She Would Have Sent Soldiers". I first tried to ignore this, but I haven't been able to get it out of my mind.
What was your motive to misuse the the sacrifice of these soldiers for your own political purposes? You can disagree with the reasons for which they died, but your use is nothing less than an insult to their sacrifice and shows that you don't understand the least of what this is all about.
There were, are and will be alternatives to this topic. If you are against the war, that's your right and you see it even as your duty: I am familiar with these arguments and can even respect them. However, I cannot respect your use of this picture.
How can I explain to my children, who are not German - my wife is Austrian - who feel like they are Germans, that apparently in Germany today, there are no barriers to making political capital based on the sacrifices of others. Both of my children - they're in Gymnasium - feel a subcurrent of anti-american sentiment and feel put upon, trying to understand this, since they feel it very personally and have a hard time understanding how, given the past in Germany, that one can use the methods of the past to libel an entire people in order to gain political advantages.
You damage Germany's reputation, especially with the Americans working here. I know that we can't vote for you and we're probably irrelevant for this reason. However, we do our part in the German economy and it really shows an almost unconcievable conceit and ignorance that you chose to show your total lack of compassion in this manner.
Dear Mr. Schwanitz, as State Minister in the Office of the Chancellor you add significantly to the fact that my wife and I are seriously considering emigrating. My children do not want to live in a country where sacrifice and pain are so clearly and with political motivation instrumentalized and thus insulted.
If I've misunderstood your motives: sorry, I can't have. They were clear. You can regret that I feel this way, but I cannot see anyway for you to believe that I can accept either your apology or an apology of the SPD for a second.
I'd like to end this with "friendly greetings", as one normally does in Germany. This time I find it very hard to do so.
Sehr geehrter Herr Schwanitz
Als Amerikaner, der seit fast 22 Jahre in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland studiert, arbeitet, hier Kinder groß zieht und hier Steuer zahlt, bin
ich über diesen politische Poster zur ihren Wahlkampagne einfach empört. Sie wissen wovon ich rede: die mit dem Sargen amerikanischen Soldaten mit dem Überschrift "Sie hätten Soldaten geschickt". Ich habe zuerst dieser Verwendung abgetan, jedoch lasst sie mir nicht los.
Aus welchen Grunde waren Sie bereit, die Opfer, die dieser Soldaten gebracht haben, für ihrer politischen Ziele zu missbrauchen? Sie mögen
die Grunde, für die dieser Soldaten gestorben sind, mißbilligen, jedoch ist ihre Verwendung nichts anders als Hohn und Verachtunge deren Opfer und weist einen kaum zu überbeitenden Mißachtung elementaren Verständnis zu dieser Thema auf.
Es gab, gibt und gäbe mehr als genügend alternative zu diesen Thema. Wenn Sie gegen den Krieg sind, ist das Ihr Recht und Sie betrachten das sogar als Ihren Pflicht: solche Argumente kenne ich und kann Sie respektieren. Was ich aber nicht respektieren kann ist Ihre Verwendung dieses Bilds.
Wie soll ich meine Kinder, die keine Deutschen sind - meine Frau ist Österreicherin - jedoch sich als "Deutsch" fühlen, erklären, das man
hier in Deutschland es nicht mehr scheut, politisches Kapital aus den Opfer anderen zu ziehen. Meine Kinder - beide in Gymnasium - fühlen sich seit längere Zeit von unterschwelligen Antiamerikanismus direkt angesprochen und versuchen dies zu verstehen, da sie sich sehr
persönlich angesprochen fühlen und es einfach nicht verstehen kann, wie man nach die Geschichte Deutschlands doch mit der Methoden der
Vergangenheit ein Volk verunglimpft, um politische Vorteile darauszuziehen.
Sie schaden damit das Ansehen Deutschlands, vor allem bei den Amerikanern, die hier arbeiten. Ich weiss, wir können Sie nicht wählen
und sie wahrscheinlich deswegen für Sie auch bedeutungslos. Jedoch tragen wir auch zu Wohl dieses Landes bei und es zeigt ein kaum zu
überbietende Unverschämtheit und Verlogenheit, auf diesen Art und Weise ihre kaum sonst zu verstehenden Miß-, bzw Verachtung darzustellen.
Sehr geehrter Herr Schwanitz, Sie, als Staatsminister beim Bundeskanzler, tragen mit der Verwendung dieses Bilds erheblich dazu
bei, das ich und meine Frau ernsthaft überlegen, von Deutschland auszuwandern. Meine Kinder wollen nicht mehr in ein solches Land leben,
wo das Leiden und Opfer anderen so mit klaren politischen Kalkül zur eigenen Vorteil instrumentalisiert wurde und so verunglimpft.
Wenn ich Ihre Absichten mißverstanden habe: nein, ich kann mir keinen anderen Schlußfolgerungen zeihen. Sie waren mE eindeutig. Sie können es bedauern, das ich das so sehe, aber ich frage mich ernsthaft, ob Sie ernsthaft glauben können, das ich sowohl Sie als auch der SPD einen solchen bedauern für nur eine Sekunde abnehmen kann.
Ich möchte eigentlich mich mit freundlichen Grüssen verabscheiden, so wie man es in Deutschland üblicherweise tut. Es fehlt mir jedoch diesmal schwer.
I've been trying to let this go, to put it down to the election campaign, but I can't: my wife and children won't let me. The amount of time I've spent in Germany - almost 22 years - won't let me. I've seen a lot of anti-american sentiment, but nothing like this, and I simply cannot let it go unanswered.
I've written the following e-mail and just posted it to Schwanitz via the Bundestag web page: I didn't correct my German (I've given up trying to perfect my German: it gets my points across and, to paraphrase Bones from Star Trek TOS: I'm an economist, not a translator. Don't send me corrections: I don't think that they're necessary.
But first the English and then the German.
Dear Mr. Schwanitz
As an American who has been living almost 22 years in the Federal Republic of Germany, who is raising his children here and who pays taxes, I am appalled by your political poster that you used in your recent re-election campaign. You know which one: the one with the coffins of American soldiers with the title "She Would Have Sent Soldiers". I first tried to ignore this, but I haven't been able to get it out of my mind.
What was your motive to misuse the the sacrifice of these soldiers for your own political purposes? You can disagree with the reasons for which they died, but your use is nothing less than an insult to their sacrifice and shows that you don't understand the least of what this is all about.
There were, are and will be alternatives to this topic. If you are against the war, that's your right and you see it even as your duty: I am familiar with these arguments and can even respect them. However, I cannot respect your use of this picture.
How can I explain to my children, who are not German - my wife is Austrian - who feel like they are Germans, that apparently in Germany today, there are no barriers to making political capital based on the sacrifices of others. Both of my children - they're in Gymnasium - feel a subcurrent of anti-american sentiment and feel put upon, trying to understand this, since they feel it very personally and have a hard time understanding how, given the past in Germany, that one can use the methods of the past to libel an entire people in order to gain political advantages.
You damage Germany's reputation, especially with the Americans working here. I know that we can't vote for you and we're probably irrelevant for this reason. However, we do our part in the German economy and it really shows an almost unconcievable conceit and ignorance that you chose to show your total lack of compassion in this manner.
Dear Mr. Schwanitz, as State Minister in the Office of the Chancellor you add significantly to the fact that my wife and I are seriously considering emigrating. My children do not want to live in a country where sacrifice and pain are so clearly and with political motivation instrumentalized and thus insulted.
If I've misunderstood your motives: sorry, I can't have. They were clear. You can regret that I feel this way, but I cannot see anyway for you to believe that I can accept either your apology or an apology of the SPD for a second.
I'd like to end this with "friendly greetings", as one normally does in Germany. This time I find it very hard to do so.
Sehr geehrter Herr Schwanitz
Als Amerikaner, der seit fast 22 Jahre in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland studiert, arbeitet, hier Kinder groß zieht und hier Steuer zahlt, bin
ich über diesen politische Poster zur ihren Wahlkampagne einfach empört. Sie wissen wovon ich rede: die mit dem Sargen amerikanischen Soldaten mit dem Überschrift "Sie hätten Soldaten geschickt". Ich habe zuerst dieser Verwendung abgetan, jedoch lasst sie mir nicht los.
Aus welchen Grunde waren Sie bereit, die Opfer, die dieser Soldaten gebracht haben, für ihrer politischen Ziele zu missbrauchen? Sie mögen
die Grunde, für die dieser Soldaten gestorben sind, mißbilligen, jedoch ist ihre Verwendung nichts anders als Hohn und Verachtunge deren Opfer und weist einen kaum zu überbeitenden Mißachtung elementaren Verständnis zu dieser Thema auf.
Es gab, gibt und gäbe mehr als genügend alternative zu diesen Thema. Wenn Sie gegen den Krieg sind, ist das Ihr Recht und Sie betrachten das sogar als Ihren Pflicht: solche Argumente kenne ich und kann Sie respektieren. Was ich aber nicht respektieren kann ist Ihre Verwendung dieses Bilds.
Wie soll ich meine Kinder, die keine Deutschen sind - meine Frau ist Österreicherin - jedoch sich als "Deutsch" fühlen, erklären, das man
hier in Deutschland es nicht mehr scheut, politisches Kapital aus den Opfer anderen zu ziehen. Meine Kinder - beide in Gymnasium - fühlen sich seit längere Zeit von unterschwelligen Antiamerikanismus direkt angesprochen und versuchen dies zu verstehen, da sie sich sehr
persönlich angesprochen fühlen und es einfach nicht verstehen kann, wie man nach die Geschichte Deutschlands doch mit der Methoden der
Vergangenheit ein Volk verunglimpft, um politische Vorteile darauszuziehen.
Sie schaden damit das Ansehen Deutschlands, vor allem bei den Amerikanern, die hier arbeiten. Ich weiss, wir können Sie nicht wählen
und sie wahrscheinlich deswegen für Sie auch bedeutungslos. Jedoch tragen wir auch zu Wohl dieses Landes bei und es zeigt ein kaum zu
überbietende Unverschämtheit und Verlogenheit, auf diesen Art und Weise ihre kaum sonst zu verstehenden Miß-, bzw Verachtung darzustellen.
Sehr geehrter Herr Schwanitz, Sie, als Staatsminister beim Bundeskanzler, tragen mit der Verwendung dieses Bilds erheblich dazu
bei, das ich und meine Frau ernsthaft überlegen, von Deutschland auszuwandern. Meine Kinder wollen nicht mehr in ein solches Land leben,
wo das Leiden und Opfer anderen so mit klaren politischen Kalkül zur eigenen Vorteil instrumentalisiert wurde und so verunglimpft.
Wenn ich Ihre Absichten mißverstanden habe: nein, ich kann mir keinen anderen Schlußfolgerungen zeihen. Sie waren mE eindeutig. Sie können es bedauern, das ich das so sehe, aber ich frage mich ernsthaft, ob Sie ernsthaft glauben können, das ich sowohl Sie als auch der SPD einen solchen bedauern für nur eine Sekunde abnehmen kann.
Ich möchte eigentlich mich mit freundlichen Grüssen verabscheiden, so wie man es in Deutschland üblicherweise tut. Es fehlt mir jedoch diesmal schwer.
Samstag, Oktober 01, 2005
A rather good idea if I do say so...
... and I wish I had thought of it first.
I've mentioned the Skeptical Optimist here already and he's gone and done it again.
A new amendment to the US Constitution to take care of a serious and continuing problem that we all are facing.
Go read it here. It's a grand idea.
You need to scroll down a tad to find the proposal. He's also entertaining suggestions for the penalty.
I think we can start with fingers. Or toes. And if someone doesn't learn after the first ten offences, you go to the next level...
:-)
I've mentioned the Skeptical Optimist here already and he's gone and done it again.
A new amendment to the US Constitution to take care of a serious and continuing problem that we all are facing.
Go read it here. It's a grand idea.
You need to scroll down a tad to find the proposal. He's also entertaining suggestions for the penalty.
I think we can start with fingers. Or toes. And if someone doesn't learn after the first ten offences, you go to the next level...
:-)
Donnerstag, September 29, 2005
And you think I'm being harsh on France?
Sorry that this post isn't properly formatted, but for some typically unexplainable reason I can't access blogspot, google or gmail properly. Probably have to reset my router once again... :-(
I don't want to get too much into France-bashing, but ran across this at No Pasaran, a blog always worth reading, that is too important to pass up.
Here's the money quote:
He now accuses his former company of having installed a vast corruption system in France and abroad. He talks about a Thalès lawyer who validated a vast bribery system in a lot of countries. "There are 2 kind of countries: those where bribery is unavoidable (Africa, Korea, Greece, Italy) and those where you can do business without tampering (several European countries, North America, Australia, NZ). And France? It depends on local and national political interests."
In foreign countries, he relates Operation Miksa, a bribery system in order to deliver security devices to Saudi Arabia. But this system was diverted in order to deliver chemical weapons to Saddam as Iraq suffered the UN the embargo of Oil-for-food program.
This doesn't surprise me at all, not should it you: the French sold a chemical weapons company to Iraq in clear contravention of the embargo and hid it as a plant to make milk powder for Iraqi kids.
Sound familiar? Does this sound familiar? Or this?
Maybe US intelligence is better than you think...
John
I don't want to get too much into France-bashing, but ran across this at No Pasaran, a blog always worth reading, that is too important to pass up.
Here's the money quote:
He now accuses his former company of having installed a vast corruption system in France and abroad. He talks about a Thalès lawyer who validated a vast bribery system in a lot of countries. "There are 2 kind of countries: those where bribery is unavoidable (Africa, Korea, Greece, Italy) and those where you can do business without tampering (several European countries, North America, Australia, NZ). And France? It depends on local and national political interests."
In foreign countries, he relates Operation Miksa, a bribery system in order to deliver security devices to Saudi Arabia. But this system was diverted in order to deliver chemical weapons to Saddam as Iraq suffered the UN the embargo of Oil-for-food program.
This doesn't surprise me at all, not should it you: the French sold a chemical weapons company to Iraq in clear contravention of the embargo and hid it as a plant to make milk powder for Iraqi kids.
Sound familiar? Does this sound familiar? Or this?
Maybe US intelligence is better than you think...
John
Logistics and Idiots...
I've been a long-term reader of Countercolumn, one of the better MilBlogs, because the writer is straightforward, a straight arrow and tells it like it is.
He's posted this as a critique of a comment on another blog, a dearly deserved fisking that everyone who thinks that everything took wayyyyyyy to long in New Orleans is because the President screwed up. It's too long to comment on here, and it would be superfilious, since Countercolumn has done the perfect job.
To paraphrase Countercolumn: if you don't know tiddly about logistics, then shut up, because you're worse than making noise. You're opening up your mouth and proving that you're an idiot. Not any sort of normal idiot, but a special kind of idiot: you're an ass, blockhead, boob, booby, cretin, dimwit, donkey, dork, dumb ox, dumbbell, dunce, dunderhead, fool, halfwit, ignoramus, imbecile, jackass, jerk, kook, meathead, mental defective, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, pinhead, pointy head, simpleton, stupid, tomfool, twit and a yo-yo.
This is not ad hominem here: we're just reporting the facts. The fool claiming to know anything about the military there is the very opposite of what he apparently considers himself to be.
Logistics are the core of American military power. Companies like Dell and WalMart - don't care of you don't like them - have become enormously successful through the application of logistics, and you ignore logistics nowadays at your peril. The defeat of Germany and Japan were not merely the result of superior logistics, but also due to a significant extent to the fact - the fact - that their logistics were completely inadequate to wage the kind of war that they did. The Soviets during the Cold War desperately tried to improve their logistics, but found that they couldn't manage the way the US did, and redid their entire military planning, strategy and tactics as a result: logistics shape the way the military fights, and you ignore logistics at your peril.
But logistics is hard. It is, for many, borrrrrrrrrrinnnnnng. Who cares if there are enough trucks in the military, as long as you can pontificate about MIRVs and MARVs and counter-strike forces and whether carriers are doomed. But that sort of discussion fundamentally points out that the speaker doesn't really have a clue as to what is really, really important.
Logistics. Ignore them at your peril. This has been a public service announcement.
John
He's posted this as a critique of a comment on another blog, a dearly deserved fisking that everyone who thinks that everything took wayyyyyyy to long in New Orleans is because the President screwed up. It's too long to comment on here, and it would be superfilious, since Countercolumn has done the perfect job.
To paraphrase Countercolumn: if you don't know tiddly about logistics, then shut up, because you're worse than making noise. You're opening up your mouth and proving that you're an idiot. Not any sort of normal idiot, but a special kind of idiot: you're an ass, blockhead, boob, booby, cretin, dimwit, donkey, dork, dumb ox, dumbbell, dunce, dunderhead, fool, halfwit, ignoramus, imbecile, jackass, jerk, kook, meathead, mental defective, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, pinhead, pointy head, simpleton, stupid, tomfool, twit and a yo-yo.
This is not ad hominem here: we're just reporting the facts. The fool claiming to know anything about the military there is the very opposite of what he apparently considers himself to be.
Logistics are the core of American military power. Companies like Dell and WalMart - don't care of you don't like them - have become enormously successful through the application of logistics, and you ignore logistics nowadays at your peril. The defeat of Germany and Japan were not merely the result of superior logistics, but also due to a significant extent to the fact - the fact - that their logistics were completely inadequate to wage the kind of war that they did. The Soviets during the Cold War desperately tried to improve their logistics, but found that they couldn't manage the way the US did, and redid their entire military planning, strategy and tactics as a result: logistics shape the way the military fights, and you ignore logistics at your peril.
But logistics is hard. It is, for many, borrrrrrrrrrinnnnnng. Who cares if there are enough trucks in the military, as long as you can pontificate about MIRVs and MARVs and counter-strike forces and whether carriers are doomed. But that sort of discussion fundamentally points out that the speaker doesn't really have a clue as to what is really, really important.
Logistics. Ignore them at your peril. This has been a public service announcement.
John
Dienstag, September 27, 2005
Thanks, France and Germany!
Great. The Chinese Navy is starting to field its first modern domestic frigate. It's undertaking a massive expansion of its navy. It's not the only new design.
And where did they get the anti-air missiles? France: an advanced version of the Crotale. The command and control systems? Gee, could it be France? And the anti-shipping missile? Based on a French design...
And where did they get the engines? France, the same engines that France uses in its frigates.
But wait, there's a second source for the engines: it's MTU, the German engine specialist for marine engines and relatively small turbines for the aerospace industry.
And it's a stealth design, based on... what could it be... a French design? Of their Lafayette class?
Just brilliant. Thanks, France and Germany!
I guess for France it's an answer for all those weapon the US sold to Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Just desserts, eh?
What?
Waddya mean the US didn't sell Germany weapons in the 1920s and 1930s? Well why then are the French selling the Chinese these weapons?
Because France and Germany are countries that give capitalism a bad name.
Thanks fellas. We'll remember this when the next time comes around to ask you to give us a hand solving some sticky problem that your incompetence brought around in the first place. And remember, if China starts a war, maybe over Taiwan or maybe over some gas fields in the China Sea, you've got our buddies in Paris and Berlin to thank for increasing Chinese abilities to wage war well above and beyond their domestic abilities.
Idiots. I'm really starting to think that Marx was right about European capitalists. The Europeans probably have plans to sell to any thuggish regime with lots of cash.
Oh, they already have? Gee, what a surprise.
And where did they get the anti-air missiles? France: an advanced version of the Crotale. The command and control systems? Gee, could it be France? And the anti-shipping missile? Based on a French design...
And where did they get the engines? France, the same engines that France uses in its frigates.
But wait, there's a second source for the engines: it's MTU, the German engine specialist for marine engines and relatively small turbines for the aerospace industry.
And it's a stealth design, based on... what could it be... a French design? Of their Lafayette class?
Just brilliant. Thanks, France and Germany!
I guess for France it's an answer for all those weapon the US sold to Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Just desserts, eh?
What?
Waddya mean the US didn't sell Germany weapons in the 1920s and 1930s? Well why then are the French selling the Chinese these weapons?
Because France and Germany are countries that give capitalism a bad name.
Thanks fellas. We'll remember this when the next time comes around to ask you to give us a hand solving some sticky problem that your incompetence brought around in the first place. And remember, if China starts a war, maybe over Taiwan or maybe over some gas fields in the China Sea, you've got our buddies in Paris and Berlin to thank for increasing Chinese abilities to wage war well above and beyond their domestic abilities.
Idiots. I'm really starting to think that Marx was right about European capitalists. The Europeans probably have plans to sell to any thuggish regime with lots of cash.
Oh, they already have? Gee, what a surprise.
Like you couldn't guess...
Let's see if this works:
| You are a Social Liberal (60% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (85% permissive) You are best described as a:
Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating |
Well, I guess no real surprises there... :-)
Montag, September 26, 2005
Something Positive in "Der Spiegel"?
Amazingly enough, there is something NOT anti-American in this week's Der Spiegel, the major German newsweekly. It's on page 216ff in Spiegel 39/2005
If you know David's Medienkritik, you know that Spiegel is invariably anti-American: it's part of who they always have been (I've been a regular Spiegel reader since sometime in 1976, when I started learning German, and some things rarely change: they write very, very good German and it is the big seller, so I continue to read it...) and probably always will be.
But in today's issue there was a surprise. I haven't been able to find an on-line link, as the interview is too new for Spiegel to provide it for free on-line (they like lagging their articles).
It's an interview with Andre Glucksmann, probably the only French intellectual that actually deserves the title. Here's a link that gives you an inkling of what he's about, as is this.
I've been reading Glucksmann since the mid-1980s as he was the premier French thinker on dissuance in French strategic thinking on nuclear weapon in the 1980s (had to do with my master's thesis...)
I'm not going to translate the article, since I've got a forecast and rating to get finished (and I don't want to run afoul of copyright nonsense: hence only this "fair use") and it's not my job.
But these are the key points that Glucksmann brings that I really wish I could have said as well.
It's about evil: through the major restructuring of the world after WW2, a moral vacuum arose affecting 3/4 of the world's population. Old ways were broken and discarded and new ways haven't made much sense. Rules, norms, institutions and the like have been thrown into turmoil, resulting in armies of "new warriors" (Heerscharen neue Krieger) which explicitly includes the anarchistic child-soldiers of Africa and Asia. These "new warriors" know no limits and no borders for their behavior: their motto is "anything goes". This is the logical result of modern nihilistic philosophies, the negation of any moral strictures within massive societal changes.
The difference between this sort of militarized chaos and anarchy and the chaos and anarchy of the Thirty Year's War is that there is no longer any sense of evil. Everyone argues about what is "good", this is standard political dialogue (we should do x because it results in y, which is a good thing, with others having competing ideas of what needs to be done in order to achieve something that they consider "good") in the modern body politic. This is the core of modern political pluralism, which doesn't really do in and of itself any damage.
What is new is that the existence of evil is not something that anyone is willing to admit to. If there is no evil, than anything goes: it's all relative, right? This is the basic principle of current nihilistic politics in the West, especially Europe and is the core of "political correctness" in the US (this last is my take on this). Civilization is not necessarily based only on common conceptions of a common good, but also on limitations, on setting of taboos and of codifying, via laws, what is considered to be evil. Thus we define evil.
The Spiegel reporer then asks (and I can just hear his tone of incredibility here...): Then President Bush was right, like Reagan before him, and in stark contrast to "old Europe" in speaking of the Axis of Evil or The Evil Empire?
Glucksmann answers him thus: we are defrauding ourselves (Wir betrugen nur uns selbst...) if we think that in the run of history all that is needed is scientific and technological advances, prosperity, tolerance, respect and diplomacy in order to work everything out. This kind of naive "waiting for things to work out", that time is on your side, is deadly. The peaceful end of history, ala Fukuyama, isn't going to happen peacefully because we want it to: western democracies need to realize that there are forces out there that are evil, that will try to acquire absolute power if not challenged.
The Spiegel reporter (Roman Leick, by the way), is appalling here: he says "the Pope couldn't have said it better."
Glucksmann isn't talking about the devil and supports the idea of a secular morality defended by a union of democracies. We need to be closer to Bush than to Putin: Putin is anything but a pure democrat, which is the way the German chancellor, Schroeder, refers to him in a fit either of naivete or cynicism (if you know German politics, it's the latter - JFO).
Now Leick trots out the "objective causes for hate": he insists that hate, manifested by terrorism, has usually a factual, external reason: poverty, repression, slavery, etc.
And Glucksmann says: This may shock you, but yes: I deny that there is such a basis for terrorist hate. He doesn't deny people a right to revolt against tyranny and occupation, but he does deny that there is any objective basis for terrorism, which is the deliberate indiscriminate killing of civilians, human bombs and the use of children as hostages, as was the case in Breslan.
Spiegel: Sure, but how do you prevent such breaking of taboos? (Grenzüberschreitung)
Glucksmann: Throughout history people have been repressed, tyrannized, occupied, have experienced deliberate famines and exploitation without resorting to the kind of hateful terrorism that you see today. For Glucksmann, true heros are those who under such circumstances do not resort to mass murder and terror. Terror has poisoned all modern liberation movements, from Algeria to Vietnam; when the means become horrible, they destroy the ends, regardless of how noble they might be.
And modern terrorism based on hate isn't a function of poverty, but is also at home in the palaces of the rich.
This hate is centered on three objects: Jews, Americans and Women.
The reporter: How did Antisemitism survive Auschwitz (either the reporter is leadng the question or he's incredibly naive. I hope the former...JFO)
Glucksmann: The Jew is the eternal disrupter, a witness of the chaos of the world, the "other" as such. Jewish presence in the middle ages placed into question the christian identity of Europe, since he knew, in contrast to heathens, the bible. In more modern times he was never German enough, never Rusian enough, never French enough, but rather had his own cultural identity, and today the presence of the Jew in Israel means that the dream of a harmonic, peaceful, comprehensive and encompassing vision of the world (Sideline: it was a French diplomat, after all, who complained about that "shitty little country" that was making such a ruin of what could be a wonderful business relationship with the Arab world - JFO)
Further, the survival of Jews after Auschwitz is, for the antisemite, an unexcusable blot on the record of a world that for the most part was more than willing to stand aside and simply watch it happen.
Now, this is fundamentally the same as anti-americanism: America is accused of disrupting the world order by simply existing, one of the long-term basic arguments of anti-Americanism going back to the founding of the country. The mythology of American superiority is used to make the US responsible for everything and to make it guilty for everything.
(Seldom have more accurate words been spoken on the subject of anti-Americanism. - JFO)
The world has been multipolar for quite a while, the US cannot dictate everything. Putin is more imperial than the US, and modern China resembles ancient Egypt of the Pharoahs, with the modern technology married with the modern equivalent of mass slave labor.
And women are targeted because they challenge the traditional role of men in society and family.
And that's basicaly the end of the article.
I'm slightly amazed: rarely has such an article appeared in Spiegel which puts lie to so much nonsense that Spiegel normally propagates.
Could this be a turn for the better?
John
If you know David's Medienkritik, you know that Spiegel is invariably anti-American: it's part of who they always have been (I've been a regular Spiegel reader since sometime in 1976, when I started learning German, and some things rarely change: they write very, very good German and it is the big seller, so I continue to read it...) and probably always will be.
But in today's issue there was a surprise. I haven't been able to find an on-line link, as the interview is too new for Spiegel to provide it for free on-line (they like lagging their articles).
It's an interview with Andre Glucksmann, probably the only French intellectual that actually deserves the title. Here's a link that gives you an inkling of what he's about, as is this.
I've been reading Glucksmann since the mid-1980s as he was the premier French thinker on dissuance in French strategic thinking on nuclear weapon in the 1980s (had to do with my master's thesis...)
I'm not going to translate the article, since I've got a forecast and rating to get finished (and I don't want to run afoul of copyright nonsense: hence only this "fair use") and it's not my job.
But these are the key points that Glucksmann brings that I really wish I could have said as well.
It's about evil: through the major restructuring of the world after WW2, a moral vacuum arose affecting 3/4 of the world's population. Old ways were broken and discarded and new ways haven't made much sense. Rules, norms, institutions and the like have been thrown into turmoil, resulting in armies of "new warriors" (Heerscharen neue Krieger) which explicitly includes the anarchistic child-soldiers of Africa and Asia. These "new warriors" know no limits and no borders for their behavior: their motto is "anything goes". This is the logical result of modern nihilistic philosophies, the negation of any moral strictures within massive societal changes.
The difference between this sort of militarized chaos and anarchy and the chaos and anarchy of the Thirty Year's War is that there is no longer any sense of evil. Everyone argues about what is "good", this is standard political dialogue (we should do x because it results in y, which is a good thing, with others having competing ideas of what needs to be done in order to achieve something that they consider "good") in the modern body politic. This is the core of modern political pluralism, which doesn't really do in and of itself any damage.
What is new is that the existence of evil is not something that anyone is willing to admit to. If there is no evil, than anything goes: it's all relative, right? This is the basic principle of current nihilistic politics in the West, especially Europe and is the core of "political correctness" in the US (this last is my take on this). Civilization is not necessarily based only on common conceptions of a common good, but also on limitations, on setting of taboos and of codifying, via laws, what is considered to be evil. Thus we define evil.
The Spiegel reporer then asks (and I can just hear his tone of incredibility here...): Then President Bush was right, like Reagan before him, and in stark contrast to "old Europe" in speaking of the Axis of Evil or The Evil Empire?
Glucksmann answers him thus: we are defrauding ourselves (Wir betrugen nur uns selbst...) if we think that in the run of history all that is needed is scientific and technological advances, prosperity, tolerance, respect and diplomacy in order to work everything out. This kind of naive "waiting for things to work out", that time is on your side, is deadly. The peaceful end of history, ala Fukuyama, isn't going to happen peacefully because we want it to: western democracies need to realize that there are forces out there that are evil, that will try to acquire absolute power if not challenged.
The Spiegel reporter (Roman Leick, by the way), is appalling here: he says "the Pope couldn't have said it better."
Glucksmann isn't talking about the devil and supports the idea of a secular morality defended by a union of democracies. We need to be closer to Bush than to Putin: Putin is anything but a pure democrat, which is the way the German chancellor, Schroeder, refers to him in a fit either of naivete or cynicism (if you know German politics, it's the latter - JFO).
Now Leick trots out the "objective causes for hate": he insists that hate, manifested by terrorism, has usually a factual, external reason: poverty, repression, slavery, etc.
And Glucksmann says: This may shock you, but yes: I deny that there is such a basis for terrorist hate. He doesn't deny people a right to revolt against tyranny and occupation, but he does deny that there is any objective basis for terrorism, which is the deliberate indiscriminate killing of civilians, human bombs and the use of children as hostages, as was the case in Breslan.
Spiegel: Sure, but how do you prevent such breaking of taboos? (Grenzüberschreitung)
Glucksmann: Throughout history people have been repressed, tyrannized, occupied, have experienced deliberate famines and exploitation without resorting to the kind of hateful terrorism that you see today. For Glucksmann, true heros are those who under such circumstances do not resort to mass murder and terror. Terror has poisoned all modern liberation movements, from Algeria to Vietnam; when the means become horrible, they destroy the ends, regardless of how noble they might be.
And modern terrorism based on hate isn't a function of poverty, but is also at home in the palaces of the rich.
This hate is centered on three objects: Jews, Americans and Women.
The reporter: How did Antisemitism survive Auschwitz (either the reporter is leadng the question or he's incredibly naive. I hope the former...JFO)
Glucksmann: The Jew is the eternal disrupter, a witness of the chaos of the world, the "other" as such. Jewish presence in the middle ages placed into question the christian identity of Europe, since he knew, in contrast to heathens, the bible. In more modern times he was never German enough, never Rusian enough, never French enough, but rather had his own cultural identity, and today the presence of the Jew in Israel means that the dream of a harmonic, peaceful, comprehensive and encompassing vision of the world (Sideline: it was a French diplomat, after all, who complained about that "shitty little country" that was making such a ruin of what could be a wonderful business relationship with the Arab world - JFO)
Further, the survival of Jews after Auschwitz is, for the antisemite, an unexcusable blot on the record of a world that for the most part was more than willing to stand aside and simply watch it happen.
Now, this is fundamentally the same as anti-americanism: America is accused of disrupting the world order by simply existing, one of the long-term basic arguments of anti-Americanism going back to the founding of the country. The mythology of American superiority is used to make the US responsible for everything and to make it guilty for everything.
(Seldom have more accurate words been spoken on the subject of anti-Americanism. - JFO)
The world has been multipolar for quite a while, the US cannot dictate everything. Putin is more imperial than the US, and modern China resembles ancient Egypt of the Pharoahs, with the modern technology married with the modern equivalent of mass slave labor.
And women are targeted because they challenge the traditional role of men in society and family.
And that's basicaly the end of the article.
I'm slightly amazed: rarely has such an article appeared in Spiegel which puts lie to so much nonsense that Spiegel normally propagates.
Could this be a turn for the better?
John
Finally Guilty...
The Spanish court handling the mammoth terrorist case there has rendered a verdict : Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alias Abu Dahdah, has been convicted of supporting terrorism and put into jail for 27 years instead of the 74,000 years that the prosecutor was asking for.
What is more critical is that Tayssir Alluni has also been convicted. He's an Aljazeera journalist.
This is important. This isn't just any journalist, but rather one that's been in the enemy camp from day one: even Aljazeera describes what he's done and where's he been. He's even been awarded a peace prize by a Spanish peace group: now imagine that, a Spanish peace group awarding a prize to a convicted terrorist. He's been sentenced to 7 years for aiding and abetting a terrorist organization (guess which one), but he was acquitted of actually being a member.
He's basically a fellow-traveller: the "peace group" that he ostentiously works for tried to engineer cease-fires on their own in Afghanistan between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban when the Taliban were losing.
It's indicative that this man is even called a journalist. Instead of being neutral and just being a reporter, covering the facts and writing the story, he got involved. Some may call that courageous and admirable: I call it being being fundamentally dishonest about who you are and what you do.
You can't have it both ways: either you work as a journalist and maintain objectivity, or you become partisan. I guess that when he got this interview he made that decision for himself and now must live with the consequences.
This man decided to go the partisan route: he's been convicted of materially helping a terrorist group. Of course, he just says that he was doing his job as a journalist .
And did I mention that he's actually a Syrian?
Seven years is just fine by me. Damn good start.
Kudos to the Spanish justice system.
What is more critical is that Tayssir Alluni has also been convicted. He's an Aljazeera journalist.
This is important. This isn't just any journalist, but rather one that's been in the enemy camp from day one: even Aljazeera describes what he's done and where's he been. He's even been awarded a peace prize by a Spanish peace group: now imagine that, a Spanish peace group awarding a prize to a convicted terrorist. He's been sentenced to 7 years for aiding and abetting a terrorist organization (guess which one), but he was acquitted of actually being a member.
He's basically a fellow-traveller: the "peace group" that he ostentiously works for tried to engineer cease-fires on their own in Afghanistan between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban when the Taliban were losing.
It's indicative that this man is even called a journalist. Instead of being neutral and just being a reporter, covering the facts and writing the story, he got involved. Some may call that courageous and admirable: I call it being being fundamentally dishonest about who you are and what you do.
You can't have it both ways: either you work as a journalist and maintain objectivity, or you become partisan. I guess that when he got this interview he made that decision for himself and now must live with the consequences.
This man decided to go the partisan route: he's been convicted of materially helping a terrorist group. Of course, he just says that he was doing his job as a journalist .
And did I mention that he's actually a Syrian?
Seven years is just fine by me. Damn good start.
Kudos to the Spanish justice system.
Sonntag, September 25, 2005
Back into the future...
Geez, this is starting to become a meme here.
Another great blog - Done With Mirrors - caught the Boston Globe being, shall we say, a tad loose with reality, prefering instead is own construct that there were large anti-war protests.
But the real story here is that this isn't unusual: according to the story, it's standard operating procedure to write not about what happens, but rather to write about what the press thinks is going to happen.
Another case of how fundamentally clueless the press is: prefering to get something wrong instead of taking the trouble to get it right. And there are people who wonder why the MSM are heading for financial problems???
John
Another great blog - Done With Mirrors - caught the Boston Globe being, shall we say, a tad loose with reality, prefering instead is own construct that there were large anti-war protests.
But the real story here is that this isn't unusual: according to the story, it's standard operating procedure to write not about what happens, but rather to write about what the press thinks is going to happen.
Another case of how fundamentally clueless the press is: prefering to get something wrong instead of taking the trouble to get it right. And there are people who wonder why the MSM are heading for financial problems???
John
Stuck on Stupid..
Well, I can currently think of no better expose on the culpability and incompetence of the media than this.
The media is presenting the fizzled anti-war protest as grass-roots, as organic and spontaneous, when it is anything but that.
Their goal was at least 100,000: only a portion showed up, according to Reuters. And taking a further look you can see that even "thousands" is misleading in the Reuters piece: go to ABC and the number is down to 2,000. Two thousand, most of whom probably showed up for the free concert.
Where are the press reports covering the abject and total failure of the US peace movement and its reduction to a hard core of ANSWER dominated fools?
I googled and yahooed, but ignored the left's own sites, sticking to the mainstream media: I found this, which isn't exactly mainstream (sorry, OC Weekly); there is this from Boston, but that just underscores how useful idiots are exploited by dedicated wackos; and finally this from 2003, on how the peace movement blew it.
Come on, media: this is pathetic. You've got a grrrreat story out there: how millions of people were misled and lied to by a pack of authoritarian opportunists whose only goal is political control. Media, can't you understand that this is what you're supposed to be able to do: dig out the truth.
Stuck on Stupid: give that General a dollar for everytime that phrase is used and Katrina is paid for.
The media is presenting the fizzled anti-war protest as grass-roots, as organic and spontaneous, when it is anything but that.
Their goal was at least 100,000: only a portion showed up, according to Reuters. And taking a further look you can see that even "thousands" is misleading in the Reuters piece: go to ABC and the number is down to 2,000. Two thousand, most of whom probably showed up for the free concert.
Where are the press reports covering the abject and total failure of the US peace movement and its reduction to a hard core of ANSWER dominated fools?
I googled and yahooed, but ignored the left's own sites, sticking to the mainstream media: I found this, which isn't exactly mainstream (sorry, OC Weekly); there is this from Boston, but that just underscores how useful idiots are exploited by dedicated wackos; and finally this from 2003, on how the peace movement blew it.
Come on, media: this is pathetic. You've got a grrrreat story out there: how millions of people were misled and lied to by a pack of authoritarian opportunists whose only goal is political control. Media, can't you understand that this is what you're supposed to be able to do: dig out the truth.
Stuck on Stupid: give that General a dollar for everytime that phrase is used and Katrina is paid for.
Samstag, September 24, 2005
Predictions for 2008...
Hi -
The US elections in 2008 are going to be interesting.
On the Democratic side, the picture is unclear: will Kerry re-try? There are plenty of wannabes that will throw their collective hats into the ring in the middle of 2006 to see what sort of funding they can get together.
But there is no grass-roots campaign that isn't fundamentally centered around getting rid of Bush. Haven't they understood that what they need to do is not sit around in their mastubatory fantasies of defeating Bush, but rather offer an alternative that actually means something? More big government spending plans, more of failed policies dating back to the 60s and 70s that have been nothing more than massive sinkholes of corruption and waste? Or is there a real Democratic party lurking out there, hiding in caves and waiting for the time to strike?
On the other side of the aisle, you've got an open field. Bush can't run.
But what you do have is an emerging revolt of small-government conservatives against the spending policies of the current Republican congress. Will this be the beginning of a neo-neo-con revolution?
Can't call it for sure at this point, this is too far in advance. But I think the election of 2008 will come down to one party desperately trying to turn back the clock to its glory days and the other trying to move the country forward.
The hard part is trying to figure out who is which and why...
John
The US elections in 2008 are going to be interesting.
On the Democratic side, the picture is unclear: will Kerry re-try? There are plenty of wannabes that will throw their collective hats into the ring in the middle of 2006 to see what sort of funding they can get together.
But there is no grass-roots campaign that isn't fundamentally centered around getting rid of Bush. Haven't they understood that what they need to do is not sit around in their mastubatory fantasies of defeating Bush, but rather offer an alternative that actually means something? More big government spending plans, more of failed policies dating back to the 60s and 70s that have been nothing more than massive sinkholes of corruption and waste? Or is there a real Democratic party lurking out there, hiding in caves and waiting for the time to strike?
On the other side of the aisle, you've got an open field. Bush can't run.
But what you do have is an emerging revolt of small-government conservatives against the spending policies of the current Republican congress. Will this be the beginning of a neo-neo-con revolution?
Can't call it for sure at this point, this is too far in advance. But I think the election of 2008 will come down to one party desperately trying to turn back the clock to its glory days and the other trying to move the country forward.
The hard part is trying to figure out who is which and why...
John
Yet another take on the German election...
I've been busy with work: quarterly deadlines coming up and my data, as usual, sucks.
I've been reading the Daily Demarche for a while, and he's got a good take on the German elections that y'all should read.
There are a lot of Germans who think that because the US interest in Germany isn't as great as the German interest in the US, Americans are therefore ignorant of what is going on in the world.
Helllllloooo: it's incredibly annoying for the Germans to be ignored. But you know what?
Germany has made itself irrelevant. It's complete and total inability to help preventing the spread of radical Islamists is apparent in the fact that Germany is a safe haven for terrorists, something hotly denied and yet transparently obvious. Since the WTC cell left Hamburg to complete its mission, the German courts haven't even been able to convict their helpers, sending a devastating message to fellow travellers; no Islamicists have been expelled (Kaplan doesn't count, his absurd situation existed well before then...) for conspiracy or collusion with terrorist groups. The German polity isn't willing to admit that they are keeping vipers in the same room as their children, and that means when such vipers are discovered, they are "placed under observation" and left alone. Political correctness runs amok.
If Germany were to make itself relevant, than a waitress in Cleveland might make sure that when German tourists come in, they'd get an extra portion of apple pie for desert as a thanks for putting their sons and daughters at risk. But as long as Germany sits on the wayside, perched on top of a stalled car that is the German economy, yelling epithets at the troops driving by, why, until that changes, Germany will continue to be irrelevant.
Because they have made themselves so.
I've been reading the Daily Demarche for a while, and he's got a good take on the German elections that y'all should read.
There are a lot of Germans who think that because the US interest in Germany isn't as great as the German interest in the US, Americans are therefore ignorant of what is going on in the world.
Helllllloooo: it's incredibly annoying for the Germans to be ignored. But you know what?
Germany has made itself irrelevant. It's complete and total inability to help preventing the spread of radical Islamists is apparent in the fact that Germany is a safe haven for terrorists, something hotly denied and yet transparently obvious. Since the WTC cell left Hamburg to complete its mission, the German courts haven't even been able to convict their helpers, sending a devastating message to fellow travellers; no Islamicists have been expelled (Kaplan doesn't count, his absurd situation existed well before then...) for conspiracy or collusion with terrorist groups. The German polity isn't willing to admit that they are keeping vipers in the same room as their children, and that means when such vipers are discovered, they are "placed under observation" and left alone. Political correctness runs amok.
If Germany were to make itself relevant, than a waitress in Cleveland might make sure that when German tourists come in, they'd get an extra portion of apple pie for desert as a thanks for putting their sons and daughters at risk. But as long as Germany sits on the wayside, perched on top of a stalled car that is the German economy, yelling epithets at the troops driving by, why, until that changes, Germany will continue to be irrelevant.
Because they have made themselves so.
Freitag, September 23, 2005
So who's the Loon now...
Sigh.
The loons are at it again.
This article is once again typical of how journalism fails it readers: presenting beliefs as facts.
It's even in the first sentence: it's all about the beliefs of someone, not the facts.
Who cares if he's the chair of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (which, of course, means that he's got an agenda the size of a storm front (duh)). This is argumentum ad verecundium, a logical fallacy that appeals to authority. That doesn't make him an authority on frequency of hurricanes: he's a zoologist. His speciality is population dynamics and biodiversity of birds and insects.
But that's not what the problem is: the article delivers not a single bit of fact, but rather it's ALL belief and speculation, coupled with opinion.
And there's a fundamental confusion with causality and correlation: because one thing happens at the same time as another, it doesn't mean that the one causes the other.
Then again, it's from the Independent.
John
The loons are at it again.
This article is once again typical of how journalism fails it readers: presenting beliefs as facts.
It's even in the first sentence: it's all about the beliefs of someone, not the facts.
Who cares if he's the chair of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (which, of course, means that he's got an agenda the size of a storm front (duh)). This is argumentum ad verecundium, a logical fallacy that appeals to authority. That doesn't make him an authority on frequency of hurricanes: he's a zoologist. His speciality is population dynamics and biodiversity of birds and insects.
But that's not what the problem is: the article delivers not a single bit of fact, but rather it's ALL belief and speculation, coupled with opinion.
And there's a fundamental confusion with causality and correlation: because one thing happens at the same time as another, it doesn't mean that the one causes the other.
Then again, it's from the Independent.
John
Donnerstag, September 22, 2005
Now here's a fisking...
Hi -
Now this is a fisking. The Skeptical Optimist, always worth reading, takes on Roger Simon and delivers his head on a plate.
Way back when I worked at a library, we called US News & World Report "Useless News and Won't Report."
Some things apparently never change.
This fits in, of course, with sophistry in the media: they aren't reporting reality, but rather their perception of reality in an alternativ universe.
And their assumption of ignorance on the part of the reader is backfiring when readers can publish on their own (like this one here).
Kudos!
John
Now this is a fisking. The Skeptical Optimist, always worth reading, takes on Roger Simon and delivers his head on a plate.
Way back when I worked at a library, we called US News & World Report "Useless News and Won't Report."
Some things apparently never change.
This fits in, of course, with sophistry in the media: they aren't reporting reality, but rather their perception of reality in an alternativ universe.
And their assumption of ignorance on the part of the reader is backfiring when readers can publish on their own (like this one here).
Kudos!
John
Schizoid World...
A recurring theme of this blog when I have the time is sophistry and its current incarnations.
One of the few blogs that actually refer to this one is Squander Two. He's now got a post up wondering why the BBC is so incredibly incompetent that they mix up fact and opinion.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Journalists, I think, have abjectly failed in what should have been a collective effort to find out facts. Instead you have them "speaking truth to power" - a phrase absurd in its hubris as it is laughable in its content ("power" isn't interested in the truth and tends to liquidate anyone in disagreement) - meaning that they posit speculation as "fact" and disagreement as "lies".
Put simply, there is no market for truth out there in journalism as we know it. Newspapers don't get sold reporting the facts when their competition prefers to show spilled blood and ruined lives; TV news is the worship of the sound bite, massive egos and severe simplicity; radio news is the filler between inanity and stupidity.
Sex sells; violence sells; good news doesn't sell.
Last weekend in Ahlen the SchizoidWife and I were with SchizoidDaughter #2 at the birthday party of a friend, an artist struggling to make ends meet.
That's the Saturday night before the Sunday of the German election fiasco..
Although the weather was rather cool, we has the last grill party of the season. Among the guests were three journalists from the local bird cage liner, an editor and 2 reporters. My wife asked them what they had to study to become journalists.
Nothing, they said; you need an abitur (German equivalent of an Associated Bachelor's degree, or high school in the US plus 2 years of college: that's what Germans get accredited for at most universities when they've gone through the system) and having studied something can be useful. You gotta be able to write a few words that actually make sense.
Nothing more?
Nope, that's it.
My wife wanted to know if they had to write what their bosses wanted them to write or could they write what they wanted to write.
What the bosses wanted, but within reason they could place their own "touch" on the subject.
And why did they write so much anti-american stuff?
The first journalist immediately launched into a tirade about violation of international laws and stuff and how Bush was a war criminal. The second journalist sort of shrugged and said that that wasn't the case, but that Iraq etc was a special case and that we shouldn't get into that because it was too incendiary.
The SchizoidWife then pointed me out at the party - I was sitting not far away, listening to this - and said "Be careful, there's an American at the table: why do you guys write such anti-American nonsense?"
"We don't." "We just report the facts."
I could see my wife revving up for the attack: "But you don't report the facts: you only report on murders and death and the bad side of everything in this universe" (In the German it's better: Mord- und Totschlag und das Schlechte und Böse im Universum).
"And why don't you write about the good things happening in Iraq, the schools opening and people getting on with their lives?"
"Because that's not happening: it's a civil war there"
"How absurd: you don't write about it because you're anti-american and you can't let it go: you can't stand it that the Americans are responsible for the fact that you can sit here and criticize them no end and you don't get fed into a wood chopper as a result"
"That didn't happen" "The people there aren't that happy about the Americans being there"
"Yes it did and you know it. People there have been liberated and you don't give the Americans any credit whatsoever for having done that. The German soldiers in the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan aren't there because they want to help people there: they are there because they're getting basically triple pay (TRUE: no German soldier in Afghanistan is a draftee, but are all volunteers with significant pay increases) and not because they want to free these people."
"You're oversimplifying things"
"No I'm not: you journalists just want to write stories trashing the US and Americans: look at what you write about Kyoto. Kyoto is a farce and a massive waste of money, it's costing jobs in Germany, and all you write is how bad the Americans are because they refuse to waste their money."
"That's not true: everyone knows that global warming is caused by CO2 and the Americans are the cause. Besides, there jobs lost aren't that many and it's good for the environment".
"Tell that to the people who have lost their jobs."
"They lost their jobs because of neoliberalism"
"What the hell is that?"
"It's what the Americans do: they fire everyone"
It was at that point that the host intervened and asked if anyone wanted some more sausages, he was gonna put some more on the grill.
I complimented the SchizoidWife on her tenacity and asked what she learned from the experience: she said that she learned that journalists don't know diddly.
Moral of the story?
It's not a BBC thing; it's not a Dan Rather faking memos; it's what journalists are and do in order for them to survive.
But it's not about truth, facts, reality.
It's about fundamentally not being able to understand the difference between facts, opinions and speculation. It's about journalists who think that they are God's gift to the world and are there for one purpose: "Speaking Truth To Power"
They wouldn't know Truth if it came up to them, introduced itself and invited them to dinner nicely. They wouldn't know the facts if they were delivered by God himself on a silver tablet and included URLs and references.
But they know what they think they know: speaking opinion to pander. Speaking speculation to cover up the facts to feed power, the power of ignorance and "The Big Lie" of Goebbels. It's indicative of fundamental arrogance, that the "people" are too stupid to understand the complexities of the situation and need to be force-fed pablum disguised as a three-course meal.
Welcome to the 21st Century Schizoid World.
One of the few blogs that actually refer to this one is Squander Two. He's now got a post up wondering why the BBC is so incredibly incompetent that they mix up fact and opinion.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Journalists, I think, have abjectly failed in what should have been a collective effort to find out facts. Instead you have them "speaking truth to power" - a phrase absurd in its hubris as it is laughable in its content ("power" isn't interested in the truth and tends to liquidate anyone in disagreement) - meaning that they posit speculation as "fact" and disagreement as "lies".
Put simply, there is no market for truth out there in journalism as we know it. Newspapers don't get sold reporting the facts when their competition prefers to show spilled blood and ruined lives; TV news is the worship of the sound bite, massive egos and severe simplicity; radio news is the filler between inanity and stupidity.
Sex sells; violence sells; good news doesn't sell.
Last weekend in Ahlen the SchizoidWife and I were with SchizoidDaughter #2 at the birthday party of a friend, an artist struggling to make ends meet.
That's the Saturday night before the Sunday of the German election fiasco..
Although the weather was rather cool, we has the last grill party of the season. Among the guests were three journalists from the local bird cage liner, an editor and 2 reporters. My wife asked them what they had to study to become journalists.
Nothing, they said; you need an abitur (German equivalent of an Associated Bachelor's degree, or high school in the US plus 2 years of college: that's what Germans get accredited for at most universities when they've gone through the system) and having studied something can be useful. You gotta be able to write a few words that actually make sense.
Nothing more?
Nope, that's it.
My wife wanted to know if they had to write what their bosses wanted them to write or could they write what they wanted to write.
What the bosses wanted, but within reason they could place their own "touch" on the subject.
And why did they write so much anti-american stuff?
The first journalist immediately launched into a tirade about violation of international laws and stuff and how Bush was a war criminal. The second journalist sort of shrugged and said that that wasn't the case, but that Iraq etc was a special case and that we shouldn't get into that because it was too incendiary.
The SchizoidWife then pointed me out at the party - I was sitting not far away, listening to this - and said "Be careful, there's an American at the table: why do you guys write such anti-American nonsense?"
"We don't." "We just report the facts."
I could see my wife revving up for the attack: "But you don't report the facts: you only report on murders and death and the bad side of everything in this universe" (In the German it's better: Mord- und Totschlag und das Schlechte und Böse im Universum).
"And why don't you write about the good things happening in Iraq, the schools opening and people getting on with their lives?"
"Because that's not happening: it's a civil war there"
"How absurd: you don't write about it because you're anti-american and you can't let it go: you can't stand it that the Americans are responsible for the fact that you can sit here and criticize them no end and you don't get fed into a wood chopper as a result"
"That didn't happen" "The people there aren't that happy about the Americans being there"
"Yes it did and you know it. People there have been liberated and you don't give the Americans any credit whatsoever for having done that. The German soldiers in the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan aren't there because they want to help people there: they are there because they're getting basically triple pay (TRUE: no German soldier in Afghanistan is a draftee, but are all volunteers with significant pay increases) and not because they want to free these people."
"You're oversimplifying things"
"No I'm not: you journalists just want to write stories trashing the US and Americans: look at what you write about Kyoto. Kyoto is a farce and a massive waste of money, it's costing jobs in Germany, and all you write is how bad the Americans are because they refuse to waste their money."
"That's not true: everyone knows that global warming is caused by CO2 and the Americans are the cause. Besides, there jobs lost aren't that many and it's good for the environment".
"Tell that to the people who have lost their jobs."
"They lost their jobs because of neoliberalism"
"What the hell is that?"
"It's what the Americans do: they fire everyone"
It was at that point that the host intervened and asked if anyone wanted some more sausages, he was gonna put some more on the grill.
I complimented the SchizoidWife on her tenacity and asked what she learned from the experience: she said that she learned that journalists don't know diddly.
Moral of the story?
It's not a BBC thing; it's not a Dan Rather faking memos; it's what journalists are and do in order for them to survive.
But it's not about truth, facts, reality.
It's about fundamentally not being able to understand the difference between facts, opinions and speculation. It's about journalists who think that they are God's gift to the world and are there for one purpose: "Speaking Truth To Power"
They wouldn't know Truth if it came up to them, introduced itself and invited them to dinner nicely. They wouldn't know the facts if they were delivered by God himself on a silver tablet and included URLs and references.
But they know what they think they know: speaking opinion to pander. Speaking speculation to cover up the facts to feed power, the power of ignorance and "The Big Lie" of Goebbels. It's indicative of fundamental arrogance, that the "people" are too stupid to understand the complexities of the situation and need to be force-fed pablum disguised as a three-course meal.
Welcome to the 21st Century Schizoid World.
Sonntag, September 18, 2005
German Election Results
Hi -
Just got back from visiting friends in Ahlen and on the way back heard the election results for Germany.
There's the old saying of countries getting the governments that they deserve. Certainly the case here.
Germany is in terrible straits right now: there are severe structural economic problems that aren't even being admitted to, let alone adressed; the polity is terribly, terribly passive in the face of outright corruption and incompetence; the nation itself is, in many ways, adrift without any sense of direction.
So the election results reflect this: nobody won. The classic left, the SPD, lost voter share; the classic conservatives, the CDU, lost voter share. Neither can simply go with favored smaller parties to form a coalition, since they've both lost too much share.
The shares lost went to splinter parties who are represented in parliament (ie made the 5% hurdle), meaning that the old bogeyman of German democratic experience, endless bickering over coalitions, will return. German parliamentary democracy has been pretty stable because it's largely bipolar, with junior splinter parties acting as deal-makers.
The problem now is that neither of the two big parties can enter a winning coaliton without taking on not a second, but also a third partner, making that very junior party a real deal maker.
Right now, the only coalition that makes sense to me is Red-Green-Red, of the SPD with 34.2%, the Greens with 8.2% and the Linke.PDS with 8.7%, giving such a government 318 seats in the Bundestag, i.e. a 18-seat majority.
Why does this coalition make sense? Because both the CDU/CSU and the FDP have clearly and categorically rejected any cooperation with Schroeder, meaning that a CDU/CSU coalition with the SPD (430 seats) is about as likely as a coalition in the US between Republicans and Democrats; a SPD/Greens/FDP government (327 seats) is equally unlikely, since, unlike his predecessors, the current head of the FDP isn't an opportunist.
Sceptics will quite correctly point out that Oscar Lafontaine, the head of the Linke.PDS, and Schroeder hate each other: but will that keep them so far apart that they won't agree to disagree in order to keep and get power?
Germans know about Oscar: he's a "luxury leftist" who broke with the SPD because they wouldn't listen to him when Schroeder took over (Schroeder being nothing more than an populistic opportunist). The personal animosities between the two won't prevent them from getting back into bed in order to keep things the way they are.
And "Keeping Things The Way They Are" is nothing less than a recipe for political and economics catastrophe for Germany.
But that's what the electorate fundamentally wants: politicians who lie to them about how great things are while plundering their pockets.
Sad day for Germany. An ideal result would've been a clear CDU/CSU victory and a government with the minority FDP with the resulting unpopular structural reforms and revisions to tax codes and the like finally adressing Germany's severe structural problems. The worst case is more of the same with a movement in the opposite direction.
And I just caught Munterfering on TV (he's the titular party head of the SPD). As far as the SPD is concerned, the election was nothing more than a plebescite on the continuation of Schroeder as chancellor: since Merkel et al failed to dislodge him, he remains chancellor.
Good lord. This line of thinking fits in with the dissolution of the government: that's all that Schroeder was looking at.
Of course, the German political system doesn't allow the results to be interpreted the way that Schroeder and the SPD are doing: they are turning the German political process into a farce.
A sad, sad day for Germany. The last thing that is needed is "more of the same": yet that is exactly what they are getting.
John
Just got back from visiting friends in Ahlen and on the way back heard the election results for Germany.
There's the old saying of countries getting the governments that they deserve. Certainly the case here.
Germany is in terrible straits right now: there are severe structural economic problems that aren't even being admitted to, let alone adressed; the polity is terribly, terribly passive in the face of outright corruption and incompetence; the nation itself is, in many ways, adrift without any sense of direction.
So the election results reflect this: nobody won. The classic left, the SPD, lost voter share; the classic conservatives, the CDU, lost voter share. Neither can simply go with favored smaller parties to form a coalition, since they've both lost too much share.
The shares lost went to splinter parties who are represented in parliament (ie made the 5% hurdle), meaning that the old bogeyman of German democratic experience, endless bickering over coalitions, will return. German parliamentary democracy has been pretty stable because it's largely bipolar, with junior splinter parties acting as deal-makers.
The problem now is that neither of the two big parties can enter a winning coaliton without taking on not a second, but also a third partner, making that very junior party a real deal maker.
Right now, the only coalition that makes sense to me is Red-Green-Red, of the SPD with 34.2%, the Greens with 8.2% and the Linke.PDS with 8.7%, giving such a government 318 seats in the Bundestag, i.e. a 18-seat majority.
Why does this coalition make sense? Because both the CDU/CSU and the FDP have clearly and categorically rejected any cooperation with Schroeder, meaning that a CDU/CSU coalition with the SPD (430 seats) is about as likely as a coalition in the US between Republicans and Democrats; a SPD/Greens/FDP government (327 seats) is equally unlikely, since, unlike his predecessors, the current head of the FDP isn't an opportunist.
Sceptics will quite correctly point out that Oscar Lafontaine, the head of the Linke.PDS, and Schroeder hate each other: but will that keep them so far apart that they won't agree to disagree in order to keep and get power?
Germans know about Oscar: he's a "luxury leftist" who broke with the SPD because they wouldn't listen to him when Schroeder took over (Schroeder being nothing more than an populistic opportunist). The personal animosities between the two won't prevent them from getting back into bed in order to keep things the way they are.
And "Keeping Things The Way They Are" is nothing less than a recipe for political and economics catastrophe for Germany.
But that's what the electorate fundamentally wants: politicians who lie to them about how great things are while plundering their pockets.
Sad day for Germany. An ideal result would've been a clear CDU/CSU victory and a government with the minority FDP with the resulting unpopular structural reforms and revisions to tax codes and the like finally adressing Germany's severe structural problems. The worst case is more of the same with a movement in the opposite direction.
And I just caught Munterfering on TV (he's the titular party head of the SPD). As far as the SPD is concerned, the election was nothing more than a plebescite on the continuation of Schroeder as chancellor: since Merkel et al failed to dislodge him, he remains chancellor.
Good lord. This line of thinking fits in with the dissolution of the government: that's all that Schroeder was looking at.
Of course, the German political system doesn't allow the results to be interpreted the way that Schroeder and the SPD are doing: they are turning the German political process into a farce.
A sad, sad day for Germany. The last thing that is needed is "more of the same": yet that is exactly what they are getting.
John
Donnerstag, September 15, 2005
Why the UN is heading for a meltdown...
According to this the Iranians are willing to "share" their nuclear technology with other "Islamic" nations. Great. Syria with the bomb?
And even when the US and Europe realized that there really isn't any point in talking with the Iranians, since the Iranians aren't serious about not developing nuclear weapons, there is apparently serious opposition (from whom, pray tell? Chinese and Russians? The perfidious French? The soon-to-be-voted-out Germans?) to bringing the problem to the Security Council.
In other words, the UN will fail once again, fail due to corruption, incompetence, appeasement and abject fear. The UN is simply not able to actually do anything and the parallels to the League of Nations are starting to not look good.
Not good, not good at all.
The future? The world will repeat the 1930s, with appeasers on giving ground to military-political threats from fundamentally violent and crypto-fascistic regimes whose only claim to fame is the bomb and a perverted ideology.
Folks, been there, done that. Next time it's really gonna hurt. It's an abject failure of reason and intelligence versus naked power, greed and fanatacism. When this is all over, there's gonna be great clamor for a world government, because you don't want to know what a modern war can do to a population even without the use of nuclear weapons. The actual campaign in Iraq to topple that bunch of thieves and murderers was nothing in comparison. There were more than 60 mn dead in WW2, a WW3 even without nuclear weapons will be vastly larger.
And the failure of the UN to even get its house into order gives you an idea of how bad things really are. The shortsightedness, corruption and sheer stupidity that you can see there today will cost millions and millions of lives.
And if someone uses a nuclear weapon against the US, all bets are off. Want to shut down the Iranian nuclear program? I can guess that no more than 40 small-yield weapons would suffice. North Korea? 20. Pakistan if it goes Islamofascist? 10.
Sheer stupidity. The world has become a vastly more dangerous place since the end of the Cold War, and yet many think we're at peace. Idiots all.
John
And even when the US and Europe realized that there really isn't any point in talking with the Iranians, since the Iranians aren't serious about not developing nuclear weapons, there is apparently serious opposition (from whom, pray tell? Chinese and Russians? The perfidious French? The soon-to-be-voted-out Germans?) to bringing the problem to the Security Council.
In other words, the UN will fail once again, fail due to corruption, incompetence, appeasement and abject fear. The UN is simply not able to actually do anything and the parallels to the League of Nations are starting to not look good.
Not good, not good at all.
The future? The world will repeat the 1930s, with appeasers on giving ground to military-political threats from fundamentally violent and crypto-fascistic regimes whose only claim to fame is the bomb and a perverted ideology.
Folks, been there, done that. Next time it's really gonna hurt. It's an abject failure of reason and intelligence versus naked power, greed and fanatacism. When this is all over, there's gonna be great clamor for a world government, because you don't want to know what a modern war can do to a population even without the use of nuclear weapons. The actual campaign in Iraq to topple that bunch of thieves and murderers was nothing in comparison. There were more than 60 mn dead in WW2, a WW3 even without nuclear weapons will be vastly larger.
And the failure of the UN to even get its house into order gives you an idea of how bad things really are. The shortsightedness, corruption and sheer stupidity that you can see there today will cost millions and millions of lives.
And if someone uses a nuclear weapon against the US, all bets are off. Want to shut down the Iranian nuclear program? I can guess that no more than 40 small-yield weapons would suffice. North Korea? 20. Pakistan if it goes Islamofascist? 10.
Sheer stupidity. The world has become a vastly more dangerous place since the end of the Cold War, and yet many think we're at peace. Idiots all.
John
Why I don't want to live in San Francisco...
I don't want to live in San Francisco. LA I could imagine, but not SF.
Why? I've been there 5 or 6 times in my life, and each and every time I come away with the feeling that the city just isn't right.
Now there's an article in
http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2005-09-14/news/smith.html
that explains what I've been feeling: it's the smell of entrenched, intellectual hypocricy in the air that has always left me feeling that San Francisco is a place I just don't want to spend a lot of time in.
This is also a test to see if I can update my blog via email...
John
Why? I've been there 5 or 6 times in my life, and each and every time I come away with the feeling that the city just isn't right.
Now there's an article in
http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2005-09-14/news/smith.html
that explains what I've been feeling: it's the smell of entrenched, intellectual hypocricy in the air that has always left me feeling that San Francisco is a place I just don't want to spend a lot of time in.
This is also a test to see if I can update my blog via email...
John
Sonntag, September 11, 2005
Just about the only sensible thing to do...
Hi -
In the wake of Katrina and over last several days I've had to do some modeling work on US energy dependence and how to replace oil dependency.
I can't go into details (duh: I get paid for giving the details), but it's possible. It'll just take three decades to complete (from the time point of signing a national energy bill to the conversion of the last gasoline station to hydrogen). The Skeptical Optimist, who I read regularly, has by far the most sensible post regarding what it will take to make such a conversion: the willingness of consumers to foot the bill, coupled with the political will to reduce US dependence on foreign sources of energy.
Suffice to say: it can and should be done. Not only would it reduce US energy dependence and improve the terms of trade, it would also be an enormous technological advantage that can be translated into significant exports to further reduce the US trade deficit.
But: three decades, 30 years, 120 quarters, 360 months, 1560 weeks. That convers probably two or even three political generations (of actual politicians in office), and I can't think of any US program that has kept its erstwhile eye on the ball for that long a period of time.
The thirty years is the economically optimum model with the least disruption of energy supply and economic dislocation: it can be done in five years, but only with significant disruption and would cost like significantly more than what the US spends on defense right now each year for those five years (damn, I'm going into detail...).
So what do we do: fiddle around for 10 years and then toss money at the problem, or plan it out sensibly and get the job done? Knowing how Washington DC operates, the former is probably the most likely scenario.
John
In the wake of Katrina and over last several days I've had to do some modeling work on US energy dependence and how to replace oil dependency.
I can't go into details (duh: I get paid for giving the details), but it's possible. It'll just take three decades to complete (from the time point of signing a national energy bill to the conversion of the last gasoline station to hydrogen). The Skeptical Optimist, who I read regularly, has by far the most sensible post regarding what it will take to make such a conversion: the willingness of consumers to foot the bill, coupled with the political will to reduce US dependence on foreign sources of energy.
Suffice to say: it can and should be done. Not only would it reduce US energy dependence and improve the terms of trade, it would also be an enormous technological advantage that can be translated into significant exports to further reduce the US trade deficit.
But: three decades, 30 years, 120 quarters, 360 months, 1560 weeks. That convers probably two or even three political generations (of actual politicians in office), and I can't think of any US program that has kept its erstwhile eye on the ball for that long a period of time.
The thirty years is the economically optimum model with the least disruption of energy supply and economic dislocation: it can be done in five years, but only with significant disruption and would cost like significantly more than what the US spends on defense right now each year for those five years (damn, I'm going into detail...).
So what do we do: fiddle around for 10 years and then toss money at the problem, or plan it out sensibly and get the job done? Knowing how Washington DC operates, the former is probably the most likely scenario.
John
Dienstag, September 06, 2005
Katrina and donations...
Hi -
Busy with work etc, but that didn't stop me from donating to the Red Cross in the US. Will continue to do so at regular intervals now, it's been added to the budget.
I can't do much more than that, given where I am and the responsibilities I carry both at work and at home.
Why the Red Cross?
Because from what I've seen and heard, they are genuinely one of the least corrupt and mismanaged NGOs out there. Not the International Red Cross, but the US Red Cross.
Donate and do it again and again. Do it till it hurts: I'm sending the money I would otherwise spend on a hobby. I've given it up until I see that the recovery is under way and that people are back up on their feet: I think it'll probably take at least one year.
John
Busy with work etc, but that didn't stop me from donating to the Red Cross in the US. Will continue to do so at regular intervals now, it's been added to the budget.
I can't do much more than that, given where I am and the responsibilities I carry both at work and at home.
Why the Red Cross?
Because from what I've seen and heard, they are genuinely one of the least corrupt and mismanaged NGOs out there. Not the International Red Cross, but the US Red Cross.
Donate and do it again and again. Do it till it hurts: I'm sending the money I would otherwise spend on a hobby. I've given it up until I see that the recovery is under way and that people are back up on their feet: I think it'll probably take at least one year.
John
Freitag, August 12, 2005
Still on London Time...
Still in London, which is why the posting is even more spotty than normal. And I'm really glad we booked with RyanAir instead of BA. Otherwise we'd probably be hear another two weeks.
On the other hand, maybe it would have been better to fly with RyanAir... I could use another couple of weeks here.
Will be back home, though, in a couple of days...
John
On the other hand, maybe it would have been better to fly with RyanAir... I could use another couple of weeks here.
Will be back home, though, in a couple of days...
John
Sonntag, August 07, 2005
Hi from London
Well, the missus and I are in London for nine days while my poor old suffering father looks after the SchizoidDaughters for a few weeks. So far neither have killed each other off, so things are looking good.
We're in London, using the Tube and busses, and enjoying life immensely. There are extra police, but not any more than I would have expected, and no one seems to let it bother them. We were at Portobello Road yesterday and were at Camden Docks Market today, and the masses of people there were there just as they always have been there.
There'll always be an England!
John
We're in London, using the Tube and busses, and enjoying life immensely. There are extra police, but not any more than I would have expected, and no one seems to let it bother them. We were at Portobello Road yesterday and were at Camden Docks Market today, and the masses of people there were there just as they always have been there.
There'll always be an England!
John
Sonntag, Juli 24, 2005
Thinking the uncomfortable...
This post got me annoyed, and I'm gonna take time off getting something productive done in order to try and pound some sense into this discussion.
So sit back and get a cuppa.
The writer, Jeffrey Lewis, should know better:
First, the primary assumption is incorrect. Target sets have nothing to do with deciding to use a nuclear weapon: rather, a decision to use a nuclear weapon is first and fundamentally a political decision that has nothing to do with target sets. Target sets and SIOP are all about the military implementing a political decision, to use nuclear weapons at all. Target sets and SIOP can allow a politician making such a decision to achieve the goals of such a political decision with a minimum of force and destruction, if the decision is to, for instance, destroy part of the military infrastructure of an adversary.
Hence if the US were to "put" a nuclear weapon on a tank factory, that decision is not made after a careful, anguished decision of whether there is a school next door or not: that decision is made after a careful, anguished decision of the necessity for using nuclear weapons at all.
Hence Jeffrey Lewis is wrong: the decision to use nuclear weapons isn't fundamentally a rational decision: it's a political decision. Now the nitty-gritty of choosing target x under criteria y is one of deciding to, for instance, use a low-yield surface burst in order to destroy utterly a large tank-making complex, rather than using a medium-yield air burst that would do the same job but also destroy a significantly larger area. But the decision here is: eliminate target x under a set of operating criteria.
Not: hand-wringing "gotta get the tank factory, but oh, no, there's a school next door. What should we do????"
It's part of the calculus of deterrence. The Soviets were really hot on scientific planning of war-making capabilities, and using a complex system of correlation of forces to determine when their war-making capabilities were such that they could be guaranteed crushing success. It's important to understand that "guaranteed" thing: if the Soviets thought they could obtain success via the battlefield, that gave them a psychological edge in their confrontational politics.
And that's why so much of SIOP and various missile-defense systems and planning is strictly targeted at ensuring that the enemy can't do what they want to do: get inside of their loop and you've won the game. Not the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am knock-down exchange of nukes, but rather of making sure the Soviets never thought they could obtain success via the battlefield. That way you don't have to fight, since the confrontational politics are never implemented.
But here is where I really got annoyed:
But more fundamentally, organizations aren't those that abstract reality in order to manage it: people do this. It's how we all work. Reality, that amorphous cacaphony of perceptions and demands, is managed by each and every one of us when we interface with the world. If you can't abstract the real world, how are you supposed to understand it at all?
Abstract reality to manage it. The mere phrase sets me on edge, because it sounds like this is a bad thing: after all, he goes directly to comparing it with the Soviets and Maoists.
But it's not a madness of an inhuman organization.
And STRATCOM doesn't calculate other damages not "because fire damage is hard to calculate and, therefore, not real."
It doesn't because calculating fire damage is fundamentally unknowable, given the fact that it makes a huge difference if the attack is in summer in the middle of a drought or in the middle of winter in a blizzard with 3 meters of snow on the ground after two weeks of sub-zero weather. But that doesn't mean it's not real: it just means that you can't take those factors into account in planning for a strike that might happen at any given time of day.
Further, secondary blast effects are very much real, but not to the target in question: a hardened, deep bunkered target ignores surface fires. Only blast and radiation affect such a target.
Again, secondary effects are ignored because they don't change the cold, cold equations of ensuring that the target is destroyed. The link takes you to an analysis of how fire damage can be calculate, but he's begging the question here: the analysis is for a soft target, not a hard one.
First: the SIOP offers the President a widely nuanced range in the practice of what Tom Lehrer so beautifully called "escalatio" in his song "Who's Next?" It's not a "kitchen sink" of target sets, but if the President decides in a conflict to destroy, for instance, the ability of an adversary to make rocket fuel, that opportunity needs to be available *now* and not after 6 weeks of planning.
Artificial damage expectancies? What SIOP and military planning does is plan on not having a theoretical, ideal performance of weapons and systems, but rather of accepting reality, that they won't always work. That's why you see two conventional bombs hit a target instead of one when the military really, really, really wants to have the target destroyed. The idea that it's not "real" if damage assessment doesn't take into account secondary effects is specious when the planning calls for ensuring a minimum of assured destruction: it's only real if you can be really, really sure that you can do what you claim.
Rigid delivery schedules? Humans are always in the loop: you can stop at any time. The military isn't full of yahoos who simply obey orders. This isn't the Franco-Prussian War or WW1, where the Kaiser was told he couldn't stop the war any more.
And for the very last: SIOP, if not constantly updated and rethought, does fail if it doesn't offer politicians a nuanced, controlled usage. But that's not got anything to do with alienating any President from deciding to use nuclear weapons.
Again: using nukes is first and most fundamentally a political decision. The use of military force is always an expression of political will. The President shouldn't be involved in the technical details of whether to use 45 or 12 weapons, but rather makes the decision to eliminate the enemy's war-making capabilities.
And if the SIOP fails to give him this option, then it's failed in its mission.
I've gone on here for longer than I planned to. I don't want to rag on the man, but this was sloppy and shallow.
And I'll reiterate: using nuclear weapons is a political decision. SIOP serves the President, not the other way around.
And it is one of the fundamentals of our age: if you don't want nuclear weapons to be used, then make sure that everyone involved understands what their use means. If North Korea threatens to use them, make sure that the North Korean leadership knows that one nuke from them means three hundred on them and the complete dismembering of the entire North Korean military apparatus in a hail of complete and utter devestation.
And this is the problem with countries like Iran developing nuclear weapons: that you introduce non-rationality into the nuclear calculus, that an obsession with the destruction of Israel means that deterrence will no longer work. That's when the world becomes very, very dangerous: if you have people who are deeply, completely convinced that Israel must be eliminated, that Israel and the US are indeed direct manifestations of Satan, and you allow them to obtain nukes, then it's gonna be hard to keep them deterred, since they prove day after day that they love death and its transformation to martyrdom more than the lives of their children.
So sit back and get a cuppa.
The writer, Jeffrey Lewis, should know better:
Jeffrey Lewis is a Research Fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy (CISSM). His research focuses on the space policy component of CISSM’s Advanced Methods of Cooperative Security Program, which is generously funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Dr. Lewis is also member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Dr. Lewis received his PhD in Policy Studies (International Security and Economic Policy) from the University of Maryland and his BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Augustana College in Rock Island, IL
Now, I don't have his academic background - I stopped with a MA in political science, economics and philosophy - but I spent a lot of time on Hermann Kahn and his works.
The above linked article includes this:
Most discussions about target sets leave the impression that the decision to use a nuclear weapon here or there is a deeply rational business, with great care taken not just in the selection of each target, but also to ensure each nuclear weapon is really necessary. After all, if we are going to put a nuclear weapon on a tank factory sitting next to a grade school, you'd think that someone made a careful, anguished decision about the lesser of two evils in a morally ambiguous world.
You might think that, but you'd be wrong.
First, the primary assumption is incorrect. Target sets have nothing to do with deciding to use a nuclear weapon: rather, a decision to use a nuclear weapon is first and fundamentally a political decision that has nothing to do with target sets. Target sets and SIOP are all about the military implementing a political decision, to use nuclear weapons at all. Target sets and SIOP can allow a politician making such a decision to achieve the goals of such a political decision with a minimum of force and destruction, if the decision is to, for instance, destroy part of the military infrastructure of an adversary.
Hence if the US were to "put" a nuclear weapon on a tank factory, that decision is not made after a careful, anguished decision of whether there is a school next door or not: that decision is made after a careful, anguished decision of the necessity for using nuclear weapons at all.
Hence Jeffrey Lewis is wrong: the decision to use nuclear weapons isn't fundamentally a rational decision: it's a political decision. Now the nitty-gritty of choosing target x under criteria y is one of deciding to, for instance, use a low-yield surface burst in order to destroy utterly a large tank-making complex, rather than using a medium-yield air burst that would do the same job but also destroy a significantly larger area. But the decision here is: eliminate target x under a set of operating criteria.
Not: hand-wringing "gotta get the tank factory, but oh, no, there's a school next door. What should we do????"
For example, of the 12,500 targets in the SIOP at that time, one of them was slated to be hit by 69 consecutive nuclear weapons. It seems superfluous to say that this is crazy, but it is important to understand how the planning process could result in such a figure. At the level of a presidential directive, a document of a thousand words or so, you will have the reasonable-sounding requirement--if you're thinking about war-fighting at all--to, say, target the political and military leadership. That guidance goes to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which in a 15- or 20-page document called a NUWEP (for "nuclear weapons employment policy") adds some detail: for example, what sorts of leadership facilities should be targeted. The NUWEP then goes to the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which in hundreds of pages of a document called Annex C to the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan lists specific facilities to be struck and damage requirements to be met. Annex C then goes to STRATCOM, where the targetting staff figures out which weapons, and how many, to apply to each target to meet the required level of damage.
[snip]
When I mentioned Butler's 69 weapons to Dr. Bruce Blair, a former Minuteman missileer and acknowledged expert on the operational aspects of nuclear warfighting now at the Brookings Institution, he found in his notes a statement by a high official at SAC in the late 1980s that the highest kill probability for the United States' best weapon against deeply buried, sprawling, hardened command posts was less than 5% (how they calculate this is a whole other matter, but the short answer is, they guess). Blair got out a calculator, assumed a kill probability of 4% for one weapon, and started multiplying. To attain a 50% confidence in destroying the target required 17 weapons. When Blair got up to 69 weapons, the "kill probability" had reached 94%.
It's part of the calculus of deterrence. The Soviets were really hot on scientific planning of war-making capabilities, and using a complex system of correlation of forces to determine when their war-making capabilities were such that they could be guaranteed crushing success. It's important to understand that "guaranteed" thing: if the Soviets thought they could obtain success via the battlefield, that gave them a psychological edge in their confrontational politics.
And that's why so much of SIOP and various missile-defense systems and planning is strictly targeted at ensuring that the enemy can't do what they want to do: get inside of their loop and you've won the game. Not the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am knock-down exchange of nukes, but rather of making sure the Soviets never thought they could obtain success via the battlefield. That way you don't have to fight, since the confrontational politics are never implemented.
But here is where I really got annoyed:
The real issue here is that organizations abstract reality to manage it. That abstraction, James Scott pointed out in his book, Seeing Like A State, can produce disasterous consequences such as Soviet collectivization and the Maoist Great Leap Forward.
But more fundamentally, organizations aren't those that abstract reality in order to manage it: people do this. It's how we all work. Reality, that amorphous cacaphony of perceptions and demands, is managed by each and every one of us when we interface with the world. If you can't abstract the real world, how are you supposed to understand it at all?
Abstract reality to manage it. The mere phrase sets me on edge, because it sounds like this is a bad thing: after all, he goes directly to comparing it with the Soviets and Maoists.
Most of us intuitively understand the inhumanity of bureaucracies - a perhaps necessary evil in the modern world. This understanding is why General Butler's narrative is so compelling -- a human being acheives a vantage point from which to survey the madness of an inhuman organization. It's Kafka and Joseph Heller in equal measures.
But it's not a madness of an inhuman organization.
Only an organization would target 69 nuclear weapons on a single facility (later revealed to be the Sofrino missile defense radar) outside of
And STRATCOM doesn't calculate other damages not "because fire damage is hard to calculate and, therefore, not real."
It doesn't because calculating fire damage is fundamentally unknowable, given the fact that it makes a huge difference if the attack is in summer in the middle of a drought or in the middle of winter in a blizzard with 3 meters of snow on the ground after two weeks of sub-zero weather. But that doesn't mean it's not real: it just means that you can't take those factors into account in planning for a strike that might happen at any given time of day.
Further, secondary blast effects are very much real, but not to the target in question: a hardened, deep bunkered target ignores surface fires. Only blast and radiation affect such a target.
Again, secondary effects are ignored because they don't change the cold, cold equations of ensuring that the target is destroyed. The link takes you to an analysis of how fire damage can be calculate, but he's begging the question here: the analysis is for a soft target, not a hard one.
Although the details are classified, the contact website makes clear that the ISPAN doesn't change how STRATCOM does business. ISPAN does not address the fundamental myopia of "kitchen sink" target sets, artificial damage expectencies and rigid delivery schedules that encourage the President to use nuclear weapons before an adversary has time to take protective measures.
That's one reason to be worried about efforts by the OVP to plan to strike
First: the SIOP offers the President a widely nuanced range in the practice of what Tom Lehrer so beautifully called "escalatio" in his song "Who's Next?" It's not a "kitchen sink" of target sets, but if the President decides in a conflict to destroy, for instance, the ability of an adversary to make rocket fuel, that opportunity needs to be available *now* and not after 6 weeks of planning.
Artificial damage expectancies? What SIOP and military planning does is plan on not having a theoretical, ideal performance of weapons and systems, but rather of accepting reality, that they won't always work. That's why you see two conventional bombs hit a target instead of one when the military really, really, really wants to have the target destroyed. The idea that it's not "real" if damage assessment doesn't take into account secondary effects is specious when the planning calls for ensuring a minimum of assured destruction: it's only real if you can be really, really sure that you can do what you claim.
Rigid delivery schedules? Humans are always in the loop: you can stop at any time. The military isn't full of yahoos who simply obey orders. This isn't the Franco-Prussian War or WW1, where the Kaiser was told he couldn't stop the war any more.
And for the very last: SIOP, if not constantly updated and rethought, does fail if it doesn't offer politicians a nuanced, controlled usage. But that's not got anything to do with alienating any President from deciding to use nuclear weapons.
Again: using nukes is first and most fundamentally a political decision. The use of military force is always an expression of political will. The President shouldn't be involved in the technical details of whether to use 45 or 12 weapons, but rather makes the decision to eliminate the enemy's war-making capabilities.
And if the SIOP fails to give him this option, then it's failed in its mission.
I've gone on here for longer than I planned to. I don't want to rag on the man, but this was sloppy and shallow.
And I'll reiterate: using nuclear weapons is a political decision. SIOP serves the President, not the other way around.
And it is one of the fundamentals of our age: if you don't want nuclear weapons to be used, then make sure that everyone involved understands what their use means. If North Korea threatens to use them, make sure that the North Korean leadership knows that one nuke from them means three hundred on them and the complete dismembering of the entire North Korean military apparatus in a hail of complete and utter devestation.
And this is the problem with countries like Iran developing nuclear weapons: that you introduce non-rationality into the nuclear calculus, that an obsession with the destruction of Israel means that deterrence will no longer work. That's when the world becomes very, very dangerous: if you have people who are deeply, completely convinced that Israel must be eliminated, that Israel and the US are indeed direct manifestations of Satan, and you allow them to obtain nukes, then it's gonna be hard to keep them deterred, since they prove day after day that they love death and its transformation to martyrdom more than the lives of their children.
Donnerstag, Juli 21, 2005
There will always, always be an England.
Hi -
So the terrorists have tried again. Apparently.
In reading the first report, I realized that there is no way that they can win, nor will they ever be able to.
Here is the quote from Sky News:
Victoria Line train passenger Ivan McCracken told Sky News he spoke to an Italian man who witnessed an explosion just after the train arrived at the platform.
"He told me he had seen a man carrying a rucksack which suddenly exploded. It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open his rucksack. Everyone rushed from the carriage. People evacuated very quickly. There was no panic.
"I didn't see anyone injured but there was shock and fright.
"There was a smell of smoke."
"The man who was holding the rucksack looked extremely dismayed."
"The man who was holding the rucksack looked extremely dismayed."
There is a God, and he is not on their side.
Sooner or later we're going to get them all, just like we did with the IRA and the Basques. Civilized peoples don't take to having innocents blown up for the sheer pleasure of sadistic fools who've learned a veneer of civilizations without understanding anything of what they are doing and the damage that they do to their own causes and peoples.
We're off to London from the 5th to the 13th, and there is nothing that will change our minds on that.
Dienstag, Juli 19, 2005
For all you "journalists" out there...
I see from the usually brilliant LGF that the CBC is splitting the split ends of split hairs.
For all you "reality" based "journalists" out there - like you'd read me - here is a great start for finding a way to avoid calling terrorists "terrorists".
Idiots.
John
PS: Time for blogging is about as scarce as honest men working for the UN's General Secretary, it seems. Prove to me the obverse and I'll make more time to blog on it. :-)
For all you "reality" based "journalists" out there - like you'd read me - here is a great start for finding a way to avoid calling terrorists "terrorists".
3 entries found for terrorist.
| Main Entry: | anarchist |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | insurgent |
| Synonyms: | agitator, insurgent, insurrectionist, malcontent, mutineer, nihilist, rebel, revolter, revolutionary, terrorist |
| Antonyms: | loyalist |
| Source: | Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright © 2005 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. |
| Main Entry: | dictator |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | ruler |
| Synonyms: | absolutist, adviser, autocrat, baron, boss, caesar, caliph, chief, commander, czar, despot, disciplinarian, duce, emir, fascist, kaiser, lama, leader, lord, magnate, martinet, master, mogul, oligarch, oppressor, overlord, rajah, ringleader, sachem, shah, sheik, slave driver, strongman, sultan, taskmaster, terrorist, tycoon, tyrant, usurper |
| Source: | Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright © 2005 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. |
| Main Entry: | enemy |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | foe |
| Synonyms: | adversary, agent, antagonist, archenemy, asperser, assailant, assassin, attacker, backbiter, bad guy, bandit, betrayer, calumniator, competitor, contender, criminal, crip, defamer, defiler, detractor, disputant, emulator, falsifier, fifth column, foe, guerrilla, informer, inquisitor, invader, meat, murderer, opponent, opposition, other side, prosecutor, rebel, revolutionary, rival, saboteur, seditionist, slanderer, spy, terrorist, traducer, traitor, vilifier, villain |
| Antonyms: | ally, benefactor, friend, supporter |
| Source: | Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright © 2005 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. |
Idiots.
John
PS: Time for blogging is about as scarce as honest men working for the UN's General Secretary, it seems. Prove to me the obverse and I'll make more time to blog on it. :-)
Abonnieren
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