blog

Okie loons fight the lowly castor plant

2012-02-10T23:05:44Z

Oklahoma is a place of idiotic whims. This week a Republican legislator moved to outlaw castor seed production. In talking to the local newspaper a bunch of rationalizations bearing no relationship to truth were employed to explain legislation that would ban lowly castor plant agriculture. here. From an Oklahoma newspaper, on the move to pass legislation in the state's House making castor bean cultivation a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine:

"Growing castor beans for commercial purposes would be illegal under a measure that won unanimous approval Wednesday by a House committee. "Castor beans, which are composed of 50 percent or more oil, are the among the most promising biofuel crops, but they also contain ricin, one of nature's deadliest poisons, said House Floor Leader Dale DeWitt, author of the measure ... "House Bill 2189 would make it unlawful to plant, nurture or otherwise commercially produce castor beans. Anyone violating the law could be found guilty of a misdemeanor and could face a fine of up to $500. "Nurseries still could raise the crop as an ornamental, flowering plant, DeWitt said. " 'We have some folks that want to start production of the castor bean,' he said. 'The problem we have is they're also very toxic.'"

Those who cultivate castor plants would endanger the wheat crop through cross-contamination, the pol says. The rest of the world still cultivates castor. India is the major exporter of castor oil. India -- the world's second largest country, population-wise -- also produces a great deal of wheat. Is there an epidemic of ricin poisonings in India? (Sound of crickets.) The rest of the world doesn't care what politicians in Oklahoma believe. However, at DD blog I believe it's important to point out such things, along with explanations when such people are lying to newspaper reporters. And the Oklahoma politician is certainly being deceptive when he goes on about castor plant production as a source of biofuel. It's not a productive avenue, unless -- of course -- it could be heavily subsidized by the government. Castor oil into biofuel production in the world is negligible to non-existent. However, it does make sense to have a castor oil business. "[This plant] is a very useful raw material in many industries like soap, surface coatings, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, perfumes, greases and lubricants etc," informs a page in the castor industry in India. The page also shows the world's biggest importers of India's castor oil. Europe is first. The United States is second. I do not know why Oklahoma politicians compete with rocks for smarts. It's just the way things are. However, it's disappointing when the local newspaper lacks the editorial skill among its journalists to explain why they should be ignored and even disciplined when going on about castor plants. In the past the United States did cultivate castor. Loads of castor seeds and castor mash were shipped on the roads of our land. And there were no incidences of contamination and sudden tragic death by accidental ricin consumption. It is just not a problem. It only seems to be one when people get away with presenting nonsense passed off as fact. Texas also once had a castor industry. Today, efforts continue to try and revive castor plant production there despite the US's decade-long war against castor beans. If the Okies outlaw castor plant agriculture, sharing a common border with a state that hasn't -- Texas, might be considered a provocation. In the future, what would happen if castor pomace or seeds from Texas found themselves being shipped into Oklahoma, or straying onto its highways? Much amusement can be had thinking up scripts for a short comedic story, perhaps entitled "The Great Red River Castor Bean War." DD recently wrote a great deal more on this matter and it is here in "Uncle Sam versus castor oil."

The National Institute of Health furnishes a report on a single case of poisoning by castor bean in Oman, where a patient used one to mistakenly treat a cough. Apparently, some old methods of "traditional" medicine employ castor seeds. And the castor seed does not usually poison unless it is chewed, a factor pointed out by the journal article. It reads:

"In various countries castor beans are the base of many traditional remedies. Our patient believed that they could treat his cough. Ingested castor beans are generally toxic only if ricin is released through mastication or maceration ..."

And from the abstract, the outcome is summarized:

"Increasing the awareness of the population to the dangers of ricin would be a way to avoid the utilisation of castor seeds in traditional therapies. Here we are reporting a case of mild poisoning after ingestion of a single castor bean. The patient, who presented at Nizwa Hospital, Oman, fortunately recovered completely as the ingested dose was quite small."

The Heart and Mind-o-Matic Animated cartoon of the week, by Mark Fiore, on drones: "Rebublican-invented, Democrat-perfected, the Heart and Mind-O-Matic spreads hearts and minds all over the region!" Must see stuff.

Doomsday Preppers allegedly good for you From USA Today readers learn National Geographic commissioned a survey to bolster its Doomsday Preppers series:

"The channel commissioned an online survey of 1,007 adults in the USA, and found that 61% of Americans believe the country will experience a major catastrophic event within the next 20 years, but only 15% feel they are fully prepared for it. " 'I think between the survey and the show, people will get to examine their own beliefs, compare them to the survey, see how people in the show are spending their lives and learn to prepare themselves,' says Brad Dancer, senior vice president of research and digital media at the channel."

So it's a public service to show lamentable crazy people, collateral damage of the fear-based economy. R-i-i-i-ght. This material was originally published at Dick Destiny blog. A current events musical interlude. ]]>

Monetizing the kooks

2012-02-07T17:54:24Z

Reality television is the perfect place for monetizing kooks. In this case it's National Geographic's Doomsday Preppers series on what I've called End Timers. I caught a commercial and won't be tuning in. (It begins airing tonight.) Topics common to the blog have already shown me all I need to know.]]> ad nauseam over the last decade. Whether it's an electromagnetic pulse from a barge-launched a-bomb or a cyberattack, man-made plagues or totally unrealistic terror onslaughts, it's been pounded into gullible heads as probable, easy to do and often imminent for years. The prepper movement shows all the collateral damage it has wrought on the suggestible and unbalanced. Conspicuously, the increasingly nuts demographic that's the subject is is almost entirely white, far right, heartland, fundie Christian religious and breast-beatingly patriotic. It is not a surprise that cable television feels this niche large enough to monetize. Death cults/apocalypse believers have always been part of the American experience. However, until social media, micro-casting and the Internet there wasn't an easy way to cynically gather all of them up into a nice exploitative package for advertising. Up until the last decade small fringe book publishers catering solely to the militias and violent survivalist far right used to be the only place for it. Not any more. A quick look at YouTube shows the bottomless pit of it. Watch too many of these videos on doomsday prepping and you are deeply discouraged. While all the individuals in the videos appear painfully sincere with the aim being to give advice to help survive the travails said to be coming, all they're really successful at is showing how idiosyncratic insanity can be mainstreamed as entertainment. They leak intolerance like a fine sweat. Eternal damnation for the lazy, the unprepared, all the outsiders, is a constant current. Ready your Bugout place for when the SHTF. Readers may remember some of this material from a recent post post on Newt Gingrich, electromagnetic pulse doom and the attraction of it to End Timers. Doomsday prepping is patriotic, indicates Roscoe Bartlett, on first in a fringe documentary about national collapse. Sadly, he's a serving politician. Pity his constituents. Here's another emblematic piece, on societal death waves said to be inevitable along with the finish of America as we know it. "The first wave of death will be those with chronic disease," informs someone called the Patriot Nurse. Then a second wave of death will overtake the more healthy. It will be caused by diseases and lack of sanitation incubated and spread by the weak and sick cut down in the first wave. I didn't last long enough to get to any more waves. In another video fans are advised to keep a book of hymns and prayers on hand because music helps one through the hard times. A dulcimer, an instrument from the Appalachian hill country, is recommended. It served the poor in the olden days and will again. So will banjos. How do I know? I saw Deliverance. This post was originally published at Dick Destiny blog. Have something you need to impart? Email webmaster at dickdestiny dot com.

So many Doomsdays

2012-02-04T17:17:52Z

Inundated with weekly national security news on a variety of approaching Doomsdays I've occasionally asked, "Which is it to be?" All of them? One? Some? None? How can you tell from reading the usual public testimony of our experts? The answers: (1) You can't tell; and (2) the future refuses to obey diagnosis. Asbury Park Press reporter presents standard practice -- what doomsday will look like. An excerpt:

"Power generators at a plant in New Jersey spin wildly out of control, then grind to a halt. "Other utilities step in to carry the extra load, but they, too, suffer internal malfunctions. Soon, cascading outages take out the power grid in the eastern half of the country - all carefully timed to happen in the dead of winter. Gas utilities are next ... "No heat, no running water, no toilets, no phones. Small generators die when fuel quickly runs dry. Hospitals, transportation, the banking system, the telecommunications grid - all down ... "Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, who retired in September, said during his tenure that cyberattacks pose an "existential threat" to the United States."

Over the holidays I was a source for the piece. For the phone chat, which lasted long enough, the readers gets:

"Yet not every expert buys the grim scenario of a downed electrical grid."

This is almost progress. Most of the time such stories don't contain anything but the presentation of a future doomsday and then three or four business interests or government men saying it's all true. But first, a detour. Which Doomsday will strike the country first? In the past months there has been news of doomsday from an electromagnetic pulse attack, doomsday from really bad solar weather, financial doomsday from cyberattacks on Wall Street, and doomsday because you can make biological weapons in a high school biology lab. And yet again this week, this gratuitously idiotic quote on cyberwar, from some random computer publication, delivered by the businessman selling data protection services and consulting:

" 'The consequences of a successful attack against critical infrastructure makes these cost increases look like chump change. It would put people into the Dark Ages', commented Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute."

The Dark Ages. Sounds pretty bad. To a person, all the journalists I've spoken with (and there have been lots over the last decade) never step outside their beats to see how regular the warnings about doomsday are in every domain having to do with national security. If they do, these things either don't register or are considered unimportant. I've come to believe there's a defect in American thinking, one brought about by the conjunction of national paranoia after 9/11 and the fear-based economy. And that defect paralyzes the ability to think critically, to take time to consider the passage of recent history, context and perspective. It can also be said that it's virtually impossible to get someone to look at things a little differently when their job and usefulness to higher ups depends on them always predicting disaster. It's far easier to just shut up and unquestioningly accept all the arguments presented from authority. The only silver lining, and it's a really thin one, is that reality just often doesn't give a s--- about what's printed in newspapers, shown on tv and emitted in policy documents. And this is, at the root, fundamentally what the Asbury Park Press news report, a long one for the topic, does. It presents two views but the one that gets the most attention is the implication that electrical grid collapse is probably coming because we're not doing enough about it. And this is the central feature of all future doomsdays. There's never enough attention being paid. We cannot imagine what trouble awaits if the warnings are not heeded now. For this the reporter commits one sin. But it's one I repeatedly touched upon in interview. And it has to do with the claim that "cyberintruders" caused power blackouts in foreign cities. This is the infamous story of the Brazil blackouts and it's important because it's often central to all US national security-stoked stories about the alleged potential for catastrophic attack on the power grid. Reporter Ken Serrano uses it as one of three examples of infrastructure cyberattack, given to him by James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It reads:

"A blackout in Brazil - it is hotly contested whether a cyberattack was responsible."

Fair enough. Then the newspaper puts its fingers ever so lightly on the scale. Two or three paragraphs on Serrano writes:

"In May 2009, President Barack Obama spoke about the risk of cyberattacks. " 'We count on computer networks to deliver our oil and gas, our power and our water. We rely on them for public transportation and air traffic control,' the president said. 'Yet we know that cyberintruders have probed our electrical grid and that in other countries cyberattacks have plunged entire cities into darkness.' "

Early in his presidency, Obama issued a preliminary cybersecurity strategy and this official statement was part of the news surrounding it. In making the claim the "other countries cyberattacks have plunged entire cities into darkness" the President was invoking the same Brazil/blackout rumor (it had been started a year earlier) -- made vague with no who, where, when, what and why. And it was a claim originally presented by a vendor of computer security training at a computer security conference. Perhaps not the best place to gather reliable intelligence. In any case, one data point to demonstrate an argument cannot be made into two simply by passing it through different sources from authority, even if one of them is the president. General interest readers are certainly unlikely to know such a thing. And they certainly do not understand nor should they be expected to know the genesis of all the myths and contested claims. However, it is the journalist's job to tell them. And the newspaper, for this feature, was apprised of the details. Eventually the "opposing view" is presented. It's mine, a challenge none of the other sources polled for the story have any good answer for:

" 'If you make extraordinary claims, you need to produce extraordinary proof,' said [George Smith, GlobalSecurity.Org Senior Fellow] who has been writing about national security and technology issues for more than a decade. "As for a blackout in Brazil in 2007 being caused by a cyberattack, he said, 'It's been debunked. They've never produced any extraordinary proof.' "

Many in our government have become very accustomed to never providing extraordinary proof to back up anything. It is a very bad habit, one that has had horrible results for the country. And James Lewis, resourced for the story and formerly an employee of the US government, simply goes back to the stock play book to answer the criticism:

"Lewis stands by his sources on the Brazilian blackout, adding that it involved an insider and software manipulation."

Translated: I know it because I have sources. James Lewis often appears in the news to discuss matters of national cybersecurity and cyberwar. Often what he is reported to say is informative and reasonable. But for the newspaper this was feeble. Everyone knows the standard abuse -- the government man, or the ex-government man, always has the inside information. Their say trumps everyone else's. QED. Forever reliant on argument from authority in a country where government, ex-government and business interests aligned with security spending have spent the past decade destroying the legitimacy of such argument. "Lewis fears that it will take a catastrophe for changes to occur," reads the newspaper. Then, the inevitable mentions of Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Cybersecurity remains a topic for serious discussion at the national and the grass roots level. And the Asbury Park Press is part of that. However, it's also a topic that is not served by now far too overused appraisals of what's going to happen.

This week has featured no less than three pieces citing Doomsdays and the electrical grid. Two of them are above. Another goes to print on Sunday in the Boston Globe and is on the web now. Excerpted, it again contains all the bog standard assertions and scenarios delivered by authority, again demonstrating what I've come to believe is a profound defect in the American national security mind brought on by the melding of US paranoia and a fear-based economy. From the newspaper (italics and bold, mine):

"A few months back, I made the mistake of falling asleep with the television on, tuned to C-Span. While a torpid House hearing on finance lulled me to sleep, sometime during my REM rebound I found myself in the middle of a Day After-style nightmare. Turns out, I was emerging from my slumber during a forum dominated by EMPact America, a well-funded advocacy group spreading the word about the looming threats of an EMP attack. "These guys know how to scare the daylights out of you. The most prominent EMP hawk is Newt Gingrich, who peppered some of last year's presidential debates with mini-lectures about the threat. "Without adequate preparation," Gingrich said at one EMP conference, "we would basically lose our civilization in a matter of seconds." There is real science behind the EMP fears, though some energy and national security analysts contend the EMP lobby greatly exaggerates the threat. (It took years to force this concession.) "Analyst Sue Tierney is far more concerned about cyber threats. No bomb needed - just serious hacking qualifications, and these days it seems everybody knows a gloomy 17-year-old who's got those ... "Several years ago, Tierney was part of a National Academies task force charged with identifying the grid's vulnerability to terrorists. With the World Trade Center in mind, the task force largely concentrated on trying to anticipate another Al Qaeda-style conventional attack. If Tierney were serving on the task force right now, she says, she would push for even more focus on guarding against cyber threats. "But the chairman of the task force, Granger Morgan, says that what continues to worry him the most is the havoc that bad guys could cause with relatively little technological savvy. 'If I'm a terrorist, I can shut down the power system in a lot simpler ways than using a valuable nuclear device,' says Morgan, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a noted authority on the grid. 'All I need to do is destroy a bunch of major substations.' Despite all the talk about strengthening security after 9/11, he says, 'big transformers continue to sit there on pads out in the open, with only chain-link fences around them.' " "Any way you look at it, these are real threats that need to be treated seriously."

They always are. Do you think a few stories each week in the national press isn't quite enough? Who has not been exposed to enough seriousness? Here again: National security experts like grains of sand, each with their version of doomsday. Always working from what they believe to be easy to do, a capability always in the hands, or near to it, of someone. This post was originally published at Dick Destiny blog. Have something to impart? Send an e-mail to webmaster at dickdestiny dot com. ]]>

Uncle Sam versus castor oil

2012-02-02T16:56:17Z

Ever since 9/11 the United States has been in a war with castor plants. It has done this by making people believe castor seeds are a deadly horror and putting in jail everyone stupid enough to pound them. The rest of the world has shrugged. It knows we're nuts. Western Farm Press on the attempted revival of the castor industry in the US. Castor oil has value in industry but in the Seventies it died here for reasons having to do with price. It was produced much more cheaply overseas and today India owns most of the business. Castor mills existed in the US and the plant was cultivated in Texas and other places. No significant hazard was associated with its growth and use. Since castor was grown and milled here, trucks carrying castor seed and the mash of them traveled the roads of the land. From this blog in 2008:

[Castor seed oilcake] and seeds containing ricin would have had to travel the roads of the country. If one searches further, reference to it can be found in municipal codes for the transporting of "hazardous materials" via trucking. Castor seed oilcake [was] a material that [did] not require a 24-hour emergency phone hotline listed on the shipping manifest. In the Texas city of Laredo's municipal code, the materials, referred to as "castor bean," "castor meal," "castor flake," and "castor pomace" are things deemed of the same hazard, or lack of it, as "dry ice," "fish meal," "fish scrap," "battery powered equipment," "battery powered vehicle," "electric wheelchair" and "refrigerating machine."

The war on terror changed everything. Good science, common sense and a regard for the value in history were tossed out for the equivalent of old wive's tales, a belief in rubbish minted by the US extremist right in the Eighties, and very bad counter-terror forecasting. Castor seeds, because they contain about five percent protein -- most of which is assumed to be ricin -- were deemed easy to make into a weapon of mass destruction. Nothing could have been further from the truth. However, it became the received wisdom. It hasn't mattered that no terrorists have ever successfully used ricin. And it has not mattered that there has only been one instance, ever, (one I'm not going to mention because it's cited ad nauseam, anyway) of the use of ricin in a state-instigated assassination. So any attempt to revive castor cultivation in the US immediately runs up against belief from the war on terror and the homeland security apparatus. An article published today, at BusinessWeek by Bloomberg, entitled "Biological Attack Threat Cited as Pentagon Bolsters Defenses," illustrates the problem. First, the article is based on no actual evidence other than the now bog standard claims about what is easy for terrorists and supposition. And it furnishes another piece of received wisdom, repeated thousands of times since 9/11, even though it's not actually true:

"I would put ricin at the top of the list" of threats, Kelsey Gregg of the [Federation of American Scientists] said. "You can get a deadly amount of it pretty easily."

What you can get is an amount of castor powder, or the grind of castor seeds. And it contains some ricin but not quite enough to make a weapon of mass destruction although it has occasionally been used in domestic poisoning attempts -- one, I believe -- in the last decade. It's put into food in such instances and, even then, often the victim stubbornly refuses to die. (There's also anecdotal evidence that one man in Los Vegas who pounded castor seeds was made severely ill by the "work." He also proved reluctant to perish and it's still a matter of conjecture on whether or not it was ricin from castor seeds that put him in the hospital.) And large purchases or attempts to get bagloads of castor seeds in the US are now monitored to a certain extent. In any case, no terrorists have ever produced purified ricin. None. It hasn't been done. And that's because it isn't the elementary procedure lay people, and this includes most counter-terror experts in the employ of the US government, believe it to be. The idea that ricin was easy to make comes solely from the extremist survivalist right in the United States. This group had authors with names like Kurt Saxon and Maxwell Hutchkinson, individuals who put their notional ricin recipes, sloppy inexact procedures for simply grinding and degreasing castor seeds, into pamphlets and books published by the fringe press in this country. But after 9/11, the US national security apparatus, along with the mainstream media, worked the angle that al Qaeda could whip up anything dangerous with very little effort. And one component of the hysteria always contained assertions that chemical and biological weapons were easy to make from recipes available from the Internet in seconds. These recipes were all descendants of the trash printed by the US neo-Nazi/survivalist right. However, that material had gone around the world and been translated in documents subsequently found in hideouts in Kabul and Kandahar after the US overthrow of the Taliban. But I've wandered far from my promise to point to the article on tentative steps toward a renewal of castor agriculture in the US, published in the Western Farm Press. A few excerpts from it should serve to illustrate the problems facing the revival of the castor industry in this country:

"In a time when bio-security and foreign oil dependency share the spotlight as major issues facing the nation, it comes as no surprise that the idea of growing castor on U.S. soil and extracting castor oil for biofuels and industrial use is a growing controversy with supporters on both sides of the question: Would the benefits outweigh the risks? "On one hand there is little or no commercial castor production in the U.S. Nearly all castor oil used in the U.S. is imported from India, China and Brazil. But because of its high seed oil content, castor has tremendous potential as an oilseed crop in North America, especially in parts of the Southwest ... "On the other hand, castor production comes with a reputation, largely related to the fear of growing a potentially toxic crop ... It could pose a threat if not carefully isolated and controlled as there is a concern the meal could be refined and used as a bioterrorism agent.
" 'With castor seed producing as much as 50 percent oil and its ability to grow productively on marginal land, it represents a crop that could address a growing demand for castor oil. India virtually controls the global market now, and there is potential for domestic production,' " reports Dr. Calvin Trostle, associate professor and research scientist at Texas A&M AgriLife in Lubbock. " 'Castor production will play a major role for many years to come," agrees Dr. Dick Auld, oilseed crop specialist and research scientist at Texas Tech University. 'At one time some 70,000 acres in Texas were dedicated to castor farming. But when prices fell in the 1970s interest faded, and concerns over ricin and the potential for contamination of food crops overshadowed interest for its return. ' "

Castor/ricin contamination of food crops is not something that seems to concern that part of the world that still uses it for bulk oil and fertilizer production. India, China and Brazil simply do not care what beliefs the United States has twisted itself into accepting because of the war on terror. Yet, the agricultural scientists working on the worthy idea to bring this industry back must act like ricin toxicity is a substantial obstacle. For practical purposes it is but this is due to the nature of the time we live in more than any real need to come up with new methods and plans for growing and milling castor plants. It wasn't this way in the past. It isn't anywhere else, either. And in the city of Laredo they once did not worry much about a spilled truck load of castor mash or castor seeds. Clean it up, sweep it to the side of the road, let the sun and weather take care of it, whatever. But it in no way merits fear like a potential weapon of mass destruction. "[Calvin Trostle] adds that researchers are recommending stringent management and control measures, such as dedicating combines to castor-only applications, taking safeguard in transportation and storage of castor seed to eliminate contamination and restrictions on growing food crops on fields used for castor," reads the Western Farm Press near the end. "Extraction And Characterization Of Castor Seed Oil" is the title of a paper published by researchers at Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, a college in Nigeria. In the United States this procedure, which here is presented for the isolation and analysis of the chemical properties of castor oil, would be considered a ricin recipe because it also yields de-greased castor mash. Indeed, the crime one is convicted of when caught pounding castor seeds in the US is that of taking a significant step toward the making of a chemical or biological weapon. And everyone who has been brought up on such a charge, or a related one in the last decade, has been sent over. "The castor meal or cake is mainly used as fertilizer, this is because it is unsuitable as an animal feed because of the presence of toxic protein called ricin and toxic allergen often referred to as CBA (castor bean allergen)," write the Rufus Giwa authors. "However, it is noteworthy that none of the toxic components is carried into the oil." This post was originally published at Dick Destiny blog. Have something to impart? Send an e-mail to webmaster at dickdestiny dot com. ]]>

The Militarization of South Pasadena

2012-01-31T16:47:47Z

Deserving of a big "Whaaaa?" -- today's proof that even the smallest local shires of the land, places with no significant history of violent crime or threat try to get into the act. The Los Angeles Times informed yesterday that South Pasadena, generally known for its population of swells, tree-lined streets and swank/genteel bungalow homes had acquired an urban combat vehicle for one dollar, sold off by Burbank, which is trading up through use of about a quarter million in homeland security bucks. The deluxe version comes with a year's supply of injectable anabolic steroids in an on-board mini-fridge. Six gunports provide extra-clear fields of on-demand retaliatory fire. You have to see the original piece to believe it. It's here. Reads the newspaper:

These days a dollar can buy a can of soda, a song on iTunes -- or, in South Pasadena's case, an armored vehicle. Last week the city took delivery of a vehicle known as a Peacekeeper, paying Burbank $1 for the privilege. Burbank originally received the Peacekeeper as surplus from the U.S. Air Force ... The Peacekeeper saw no action during its Burbank years ... "Active shooter training is also a high priority for police officers that are facing a new type of terror threat as was seen in the Mumbai, India, terror attack," [a South Pasadena city report on the Peacekeeper acquisition] said ... Burbank decided to sell the armored vehicle after it obtained a new BearCat SWAT vehicle in February 2009 through a $275,000 Homeland Security Department grant.

For comparative purposes, a Lenco BearCat ad is furnished here. Made in USA! Not like all the underwear, dry goods, wires, computers and pipe you buy around town! Paid for by homeland security porK! Grrrrr! Get out of the way or we'll train the heavy machine-gun on you! Anyway, South Pasadena is not Mumbai although the pseudo-rationalization for adding the Peacekeeper to its armory is imaginative and daring. Lacking in sea access, how might such terrorists arrive undercover with heavy weapons in SoPas? Solid indication the country needs to be prescribed some chemically-castrating estrogen for the sake of getting testosterone hot flashes like this one under control. The Peacekeeper is made by arms manufacturer, Textron. Population of South Pasadena: 25,000 Median home value: $600 -- $700,000 Gus's Barbecue in SouthPas, where I have eaten. Toggle the street view. A fine cigar shop is adjacent to Gus's on the left.

A Jerry Boykin prayer breakfast Jerry Boykin, for want of a better description -- our answer to the character played by Sterling Hayden in Dr. Strangelove, Jack Ripper -- is in the news again for being chosen to speak at a West Point prayer breakfast. Over the course of the war on terror Boykin has routinely been associated with a special version of crackpot extremism. Here's a video from a couple years ago, made with the comparison, by Crooks and Liars. It speaks for itself. And here's a longish bit defending the right to preach against gayness and Muslims while praying for the future of America. Here is Jerry Boykin attempting to warn the country against the Islamic conspiracy. "We should not view Islam as a religion that is to be protected under the First Amendment ... The Muslims would replace our Constitution with shariah ... I am very concerned about this ... We should not give first amendment protection to people who want to destroy our Constitution and replace it with shariah ..." is the gist of it. Naturally, Jerry Boykin's slated appearance at a prayer breakfast at West Point has created a stink. But I can think of no one better to uphold American attitudes about comity and tolerance at a spiritual West Point prayer breakfast, can you? This post was originally published at Dick Destiny blog. ]]>

Our Nuclear Forces Must Be Modernized to Remain Credible

2012-01-31T15:04:27Z

Although the Republican Presidential candidates might be focused on digging up dirt from each others' past, the U.S. ought to be worried about another relic from the past- its nuclear arsenal. "The U.S. is the only nuclear power without a substantial nuclear modernization program," write Heritage experts Baker Spring and Michaela Bendikova in "Time to Modernize and Revitalize the Nuclear Triad." Together with reductions under the new START treaty, our aging nuclear force is in desperate need of modernization to remain a credible deterrent. As I have pointed out in previous articles, the Obama administration tries to sound big talking about the need for modernization but has opposed actual legislation at nearly every turn. The United States must ensure that its nuclear weapons are safe, secure, and effective. The United States guarantees nuclear security to more than 30 countries all over the world. To that end, it needs to guarantee the credibility of its nuclear weapons to deter would be aggressors. The last U.S. nuclear warheads were tested about 20 years ago. It is impossible to certify their reliability forever. The three delivery systems of the U.S. nuclear triad must be modernized as well. The next U.S. heavy bomber should be immediately certified for nuclear missions, and we must replace our ICBs and SLBMs before they are over 60 and 40 years old respectively. Unfortunately, this Administration's naïve stance of nuclear zero at all costs seems to trump these much needed modernizations. Spring and Bendikova rightly argue that such a stance "is misguided because a nuclear-free world requires the cooperation of other countries. None of the current nuclear-weapon states share this goal or are willing to cooperate substantially in achieving it. In fact, several actors (e.g., Russia and China) are working against this vision by supplying Iran, North Korea, and other rogue nations with sensitive nuclear technologies." Since our enemies get a vote, we must act accordingly and revitalize our nuclear triad.

Democratic Sclerosis and National Strategy

2012-01-31T00:10:11Z

Democratic sclerosis refers to the tendency of democratic systems to become increasingly encrusted with legacy provisions which inhibit responsiveness to the general welfare and make it increasingly difficult for the government to perform routine tasks.

National security is managed at the highest level by the President using the National Security Council to develop a National Security Strategy which serves as the base guidance for protecting national security. The Defense Department inputs to this document, particularly with the regular Quadrennial Defense Review, and based on the National Security Strategy develops the force structure, doctrine, and capabilities necessary to support the strategy. Congress reviews and may critique the National Security Strategy as well as Defense Department priorities embodied in budget requests, and decides what specific force elements to fund. This is a cyclical process, continually reassessing, revising, and adjusting.

As detailed by the Project on National Security Reform, the system has one very basic shortcoming: no where is there any methodical assessment of overall national strategy, a review of the totality of national interests and how to best attain them. The National Security Strategy necessarily focuses on security issues, traditionally military ones, although there has been a recent effort to broaden this perspective, such as including input from the newly developed Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review now provided by the State Department. A recent Strategic Guidance likewise addresses only missions for the armed services.

Yet the new millennium is bringing an epochal shift fundamentally altering the challenges facing the nation. But a broader appreciation of national strategy is only slowly developing with the recognition that the national well being is being steadily undermined by such factors as economic globalization, a developing economic crisis in Europe, an outsized US external debt, the rise of an autocratic but economically vibrant China, and the uncertain impact of global warming. At the same time, continuing economic distress domestically is raising awareness that military security requirements have to compete with other national priorities. Overall, the system is poorly structured to address such fundamental issues.

Democratic sclerosis severely undermines the US response. Power politics encourage Congressmen and Senators to think of themselves first, and then of their constituents (critical to their re-election) and only after that of the nation. Gerrymandering helps to maintain officials in their positions, but constituent pressures can be very heavy, especially in reelection years, while the role of money in elections has been intensified. So Congress finds it very difficult to balance national security requirements against a background of vocal, well organized opposition to reductions. There is no better example than the Base Realignment and Closing system. The question of base closures became so divisive and inflammatory that it was necessary to set up a special system for addressing the issue - an independent group develops a comprehensive list which then can only be accepted or rejected, but not modified piecemeal. This has been reasonably effective, though the longer term result is just that constituent pressure has to be applied earlier and in a more indirect fashion. More importantly, this independent evaluation system only applies to one very specific element of defense posture; it has little direct impact on the defense production complex.

National security reductions are particularly troublesome because any Defense Department procurement was initially set up to address some specific security risk. Risks rarely disappear and it is often impossible to even prove that any diminution has taken place. So any reduction faces an immediate objection that is a failure to adequately address some specific security risk. The problem is all the more daunting if the proposed reduction is not due to some assessed risk reduction, but rather to reduced prioritization against other national objectives. Groups constantly seek to protect their own interests at the expense of the general public. So, for example, it took a veto threat from the White House to end production of the F-22 fighter plane. Both the President and the Secretary of Defense said it was not needed, but it affected jobs in some 40 states and so there was a strong lobbying effort for further production.

Although it is easy to say that national security is not a jobs program, in reality it is. Any new defense facility is greeted with great enthusiasm, not because of its contribution to some distant national security objective, but because of its impact on local jobs. And any proposed reduction in defense facilities is immediately opposed for the same reason - its impact on local jobs. The military industrial complex and its integral contractors strongly defend their own prerogatives with only lip service to the general welfare. More importantly, this highly organized opposition to change makes any major realignment very difficult, at the very time that such basic realignments are necessary. Abe Lincoln famously said you, ”can't fool all the people all the time.” But history shows you can often fool 50% of the people at critical times – seen not long ago with the justifications and projections for the war in Iraq.

So national security programs must navigate a political minefield. A major reason for funding programs may simply be to keep jobs alive or companies open, regardless of actual national security needs. Any long term program, or program with uncertain or controversial results, will inevitably be challenged on a partisan basis even if there are no viable alternatives. And for any program, there are inevitably winners and losers, and the loser can challenge results on any number of grounds, initiating both litigation and Congressional reviews which can drag out implementation for considerable periods of time.

Of course there is nothing new in groups insisting that the strategic urgency of their particular program necessitates its continuance. What is new is the dramatic shift in the position of the United States vis-a-vis the rest of the world comes at a time when sclerosis is severely clogging the arteries of government. Finding a new Strategic Narrative to set the course of government is important. But even more important is finding a way to unclog the arteries of government.

Defense cuts to cause boom in bombing paupers

2012-01-27T21:57:57Z

No one will say it in formal circles: Use of drones outside the US is all about bombing paupers or -- ahem -- the impoverished places of the world, if something less blunt sounding is needed. That's the US strategic plant coupled to the story on budget cuts. It's a strategic triad with two of legs -- drones and special forces -- aimed at going after people who largely cannot defend themselves in any serious way. They're always poorer, weaker, and generally of different color and religion, in desperate regions. And the third leg of the triad -- the Navy -- is aimed at people who definitely can shoot back, the Chinese. But whom we won't get into a war with for the obvious reason that they make all our pipe and wires and telephones and computers and underwear and everything else except drones and most of the kit that the special forces use.]]> The Dangerous Room of Examining US Tech for Killing Other People, All Smaller and Poorer (no link):

"When Adm. Eric Olson, the former leader of U.S. Special Operations Command, wanted to explain where his forces were going, he would show audiences a photo that NASA took, titled "The World at Night." The lit areas showed the governed, stable, orderly parts of the planet. The areas without lights were the danger zones -- the impoverished, the power vacuums, the places overrun with militants that prompted the attention of elite U.S. troops. And few places were darker, in Olson's eyes, than East Africa."

Instead of "The World at Night," the new strategy calls out for an acronym, something national security staffers, wonks and military men could grab onto. First I thought of Defending Against Those Who Hate Us For Our Freedom (to Bomb Them). But it has too many consonants to acronym-ize. It also doesn't quite cover all the people who don't yet know we're coming for them because they're not having money and electricity are markers for America-threatening terrorism. Instead, here's an alternative: the GWOP, or Global War on Paupers. It had a neatness to it, superseding -- as it does, the Global War on Terror.

Domestic Use of Drones is Well Underway -- at Secrecy blog. If you have gold and your a-- don't smell/We won't bomb you straight to hell... This post was originally published at Dick Destiny blog.

Blinding lasers, pepper spray and electric rays

2012-01-17T18:19:08Z

The recently released Department of Defense Non-Lethal Weapons Reference Book shows the current listing of mostly useless gadgets, some of which can kill or maim people, currently fielded for the US military. Some have bled into US police forces as a result of the weapons manufacturing boom and national militarization brought on by the forever war on terror. And we know how bombing fear and anxiety worldwide has worked out. Good for share value at the Raytheons!]]> The military pamphlet on it is here. In the past the military's non-lethal wish list was crapped up with really bad notions from the national labs and small natsec business America. These encompassed the idea you could use or develop exotic chemicals to spray on people and hardware. This meant sticky foams, suds and various agents to allegedly corrode metal and materials or disable people. Over more than a decade none of this panned out. Or a very few sensible people figured out spraying toxic chemicals around, in effect -- trying to imitate industrial accidents on a small scale as a way of destroying equipment and controlling crowds, was a genuinely nuts thing. So that's gone. In the place of it, a doubling down on trivial engineering applications in dousing people with pepper spray or blinding them with green lasers. Does the US military (and, by extension, the police forces of this nation and those who buy from us) really need a Claymore mine redesigned to blast protesters with little hard rubber balls? One could easily make a decent case against it. There is also a fetish for using loud noise broadcasting devices to control crowds. Earplugs and bad weather render the dollar investment a total waste. In the totally notional area, the US military still wants to use non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse rays. It wants to put them in drones, on small naval vessels, everywhere you can imagine for turning off all the alleged cars, boats, planes and whirring things of those on the other side of the barriers of Fortress America. Bad photoshopping, bad wishful thinking. However, these projects are all dubbed "conceptual." In the real world that translates as: Can't make them work. And this is for various reasons, all having to do with over-reliance on magical thinking and limitations imposed by the laws of physics and nature. They're kept alive mostly as high button corporate welfare for electrical and aerospace engineers. The old-fashioned mostly non-lethal weapons. Optionally/alternatively, the Mitt Romney Blues. This post was originally published at Dick Destiny blog.

Secrets from a country that doesn't exist about stuff that no longer matters

2011-12-28T17:15:20Z

Back when I still had hope, twenty years ago, I once wrote about a very secretive government agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, for a daily newspaper in the heartland. The NRO operated our spy satellites and I'd discovered (I was not the first) that its head had graduated from the same school I had, Lehigh University in Bethlehem. I'll get to this in a minute. Reported the AP:

"For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets. "They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized 'cleanroom' where the equipment was stored. "They spoke in code. "Few knew the true identity of 'the customer' they met in a smoke-filled, wood-paneled conference room where the phone lines were scrambled. When they traveled, they sometimes used false names. "At one point in the 1970s there were more than 1,000 people in the Danbury area working on The Secret ..."

"The Secret" was the "Big Bird" spy satellite, its optics made by Perkin-Elmer in Danbury, also called the Hexagon KH-9. The AP story informs HEXAGON was declassified in September. And for its piece it digs up a bunch of the old pensioners who worked at Perkin-Elmer, delivering its custom-ordered mirrors, lenses and machinery for the government's spy birds. The news agency and the old folks labor to inject some gee-whiz character into the narrative. However, now it's just odd and quaint. Twenty years has been a very long time. In passing e-mail today, Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy blog, remarked it "seems excessive." In the intervening period the country has seen radical change. The old threats are gone. And all of the people involved in the matter are either retired and nearing the end or passed on. Even Lehigh University, the engineering and science school in Bethlehem that trained the National Reconnaissance Office chief who was the subject of my old news piece is no longer the home of "the Engineers." Now, it's the school of the "Mountain Hawks," a lame change, made because it currently enrolls more liberal arts majors than those working toward technical degrees. The Associated Press interviews the spouses and offspring of some of the satellite workers long since departed. And it seems a bit cruel that they all had to wait until just a couple months ago to find it was OK to be told what their loved ones worked on. "He was a Cold War warrior doing something incredibly important for our nation," one son says of his father to the news agency. "To know that this was more than just a company selling widgets ... that he was negotiating contracts for our country's freedom and security," a departed engineer's wife adds at the piece's conclusion. However, even back then it wasn't really a secret, anymore. If you wanted to know you just had to do a little digging. In 1991, for the Morning Call newspaper, I tried to interview Martin Faga, then the head of the National Reconnaissance Office, although not identified as such anywhere in the government record. His press officer/secretary successfully fended off the effort. The Call was also interested in getting some background on the man from his alma mater. None of the engineering people I called at Lehigh were interested in admitting much. Even though I was nice in the newspaper they were clearly annoyed anyone would inquire about such important and allegedly still "secret" things. At the time, I wrote (here are some excerpts):

Quick: Name the U.S. intelligence organization so ultra-secret the majority of Americans have never heard of it more than three decades after its creation -- an organization so critical to national security that it commands a bigger budget than the CIA. Of course you're stumped. Top secrets are supposed to be that way. And, odds are, you've never heard of Martin C. Faga, a Bethlehem native and Lehigh University graduate, who supervises the Pentagon's clandestine National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which runs America's most covert satellite and aerial spying programs.
Lacking any formally identified office, its letterhead classified, it is one of the last intelligence organizations that the government declines to acknowledge in any way -- a status similar to that of the National Security Agency (puckishly referred to as the No Such Agency) in the mid-1970s. Created as a joint Air Force-CIA effort to run spy satellites for the intelligence community and the military, the NRO was originally envisioned as an unclassified operation. But operating from offices on the fourth floor of the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., it quickly be came the holiest of secrets during the Kennedy administration, when Cold War tensions with its target, the Soviet Union, escalated precipitously.
[When] the Challenger blew up in the mid-1980s, derailing the civilian space program, it took with it the secret agency's ability to lift 15-ton photo-intelligence birds at a time when close surveillance of the Soviet Union was of highest priority in the Reagan administration. During his tenure as head of the NRO, Faga has had to grapple with the task of restoring the NRO's capability to orbit heavy spy payloads independent of the Space Shuttle. Because of political decisions made when the NRO was led by Hans Michael Mark, under secretary of the Air Force under Jimmy Carter, the clandestine organization had hitched its wagon firmly to NASA. Left without a means to reliably orbit key equipment, the NRO moved to restore its autonomy under Edward Aldridge (NRO chief during the Reagan years) and, later, Faga, by redesigning the retired giant Titan ICBM as its primary workhorse and expanding launch facilities at Vandenberg, Calif., and Cape Canaveral, Fla., so spy satellites could be efficiently launched from either coast. That effort has been continually plagued with problems. Titans failed catastrophically in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster, destroying themselves and two Keyhole satellites, a HEXAGON in 1985 and a more-advanced model, known as a KENNAN, the following year.
[In 1991], the number of journalists and authors aware of NRO operations in anything more than a general sense can be counted on the fingers of one hand: William Burrows, a New York University journalism professor and author of "Deep Black"; Vince Kiernan, a military space reporter for Space News; Weiner, and Jeffrey Richelson, an investigator who has published a number of carefully researched books on the U.S. intelligence community. Richelson, Weiner, Kiernan and FAS scientist [John Pike, now director of GlobalSecurity.Org, a national security affairs public information site for which I am a Senior Fellow] all named Faga as head of the NRO during interviews in preparation for this story. During attempts to interview Faga for this article, his public information officer, Air Force Capt. Marty Hauser, requested a list of questions that might be asked of the assistant secretary. After the questions were reviewed by Faga's office, Hauser said that Faga would not be able to address two general queries concerning surveillance of Iraq's clandestine nuclear efforts and the classification of current and future "technical collection" programs. However, Hauser said that Faga would be willing to speak about the path that led to his career in intelligence. Later calls to his office elicited no response. At Lehigh University, the assistant secretary studied electrical engineering and physics. Enrolled in the Air Force's ROTC program and active in Bethlehem's Trinity Episcopal Church, he is remembered by professors at the university as reserved, an extremely organized student who "knew his stuff," according to LU Dean John Karakash. After graduating from Lehigh in 1964 with a master's degree in electrical engineering, following a bachelor of science degree in 1963, Faga entered the Air Force as a second lieutenant. He was assigned to the Air Force's Systems Command, a huge organization which oversees the research and development of military space technologies. While there, Faga worked on laser and infrared applications in reconnaissance. (The NRO also operates from within Systems Command as the Office of Space Systems at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.) From 1968-'69, Faga was employed as a technical representative for Perkin-Elmer Corp., a manufacturer of scientific instrumentation. Perkin-Elmer's optical division, a highly classified installation in Danbury, Conn., developed the HEXAGON spy satellite's 6-foot reflector-equipped Cassegrain-focus telescope in the early '70s. Hughes, a defense contractor, now owns and runs the division.

Today, at Lehigh University, Faga is listed as part of its engineering advisory council. Along with a rather avuncular and jolly-looking portrait. "Mr. Faga has served on the Commission for the Protection and Reduction of Government Secrecy," it reads. Perhaps so. But Faga's contribution to any reduction in secrecy or increase in transparency regarding now historical matters would appear indiscernible to all but a few. Reading about HEXAGON again only underlines the passage of years and hardening of the national arteries. The secrets -- if and when they are eventually told -- are just curious old tales of now-antiquated technical triumphs and past glories in a country that no longer exists. This post was originally published at Dick Destiny blog. ]]>

Drones over paupers: An Empire Merry Christmas

2011-12-23T16:46:34Z

Competing for top ranking in this year's long list of fatuous end-of-year news pieces notable only for their talent at bleak unintentional hilarity: Overstretched U.S. drone pilots face stress risk. In this holiday season of mass unemployment and homeless protesters being shoveled out of the cities by police, drone pilots are having a hard time emotionally. ]]> From Reuters:

"Flying drone aircraft over Afghanistan from the comfort of a military base in the United States is much more stressful than it might seem, even for pilots spared the sacrifice of overseas deployment and separation from family and friends. "America's insatiable demand for drone technology is taking a heavy toll on Air Force crews, according to a six-month Air Force study, with just under a third of active duty pilots of drones like the Predator reporting symptoms of burnout and 17 percent showing signs of 'clinical distress' ... "[The] biggest factor wearing down drone crews were things like long hours and inadequate staffing."

Inadequate staffing. One associates stress due to inadequate staffing to jobs where corporations have mercilessly downsized the labor force to increase short term profit. Not worth mentioning, one supposes, is the solution: spending less resources and time overwatching and shooting at the destitute in the faraway places on the mission plans. In other words, drone crews suffer stress of the same nature as that endured by cubicle workers in corporate America. Letting Hellfire missiles off the chain on small groups of people, always poorer and smaller on the other side of the world, is a lesser component of the job. This is described as "bothersome." Really. Not joking, here. It's what the man said. "We try to select people who are well-adjusted ... We select family people ... People of good moral standing, background, integrity," [Air Force] Lieutenant Colonel Kent McDonald, a man who worked on the study, told Reuters. "And when they have to kill someone, and when they're involved with missions when they're observing people over long periods of time, and then they either kill them or see them killed, it does cause them to re-think aspects of their life and it can be bothersome." A statement deserving banner notice, one Dick Destiny blog reader dubbed it "incredibly cynical."

Stressful in Somalia "The U.S. has used drones to hunt down al-Qaida-linked militants in Somalia and Yemen, among other countries," reported the AP last week. "Their humming is a constant feature in the sky in many of the major towns in southern Somalia, especially the capital city and the militant-controlled southern port of Kismayo."

Earlier this week DD blog spied a recent news story in which Iowa locals were all atwitter about Northrop Grumman shipping a shrink-wrapped naval aviation drone on a flatbed. (They thought it might be a UFO. Seriously.) "It's difficult to fly an unmanned drone through commercial airspace," a Northrop man told a local news agency. Yep, I concede it's easier to fly drones in airspace over countries where we don't give a s-- about the natives, except as targets. And whatever they do or don't have flying around is nil or of no consequence.

A moment for the establishment of perspective "Stephen King donates money for heating oil assistance to poor," read one headline this week. "Horror author Stephen King's efforts to raise money to help low-income Maine residents pay their heating oil bills this winter have exceeded goals," reported a Boston newspaper. This was after it was widely reported the US government would reduce home heating oil assistance by over 50 percent this year, from $55.6 million down to $23 million. Cost of RQ-170 stealth drone, the Beast of Kandahar, lost over Iran, based on estimation from price of prototype called the Polecat: over $24 million. Cost of Predator drone, lost over the Seychelles: $4.5 million. (Plus or minus a couple million.) Cost of misallocation of national resources and immorality in decision making: Priceless.

Also big news, worrying about the fate of ~~the Treasure~~ the Beast of Kandahar. Which brings up the philosophical question: How difficult is it to find someone to assert the Beast was taken over by alleged Iranian cybergenius and tricked into landing in Iran, for a website, desperate for eyeballs, that used to be a newspaper that went out of business in the real world for lack of readers? Answer: Stop, you're killing me. "Predator loans, iPhones and drones ..." The National Anthem -- topping end-of-2011 critics' lists as "the best startlingly real and truthful electric folk rock song this year!" -- Joe Morgansternly, The Weekly National Standard Journal & Politico Review

This post was originally published at Dick Destiny blog. Happy Holidays from the Empire!

The Year of the Arab Spring

2011-12-20T20:36:58Z

It has been a year since Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest his treatment by a corrupt and abusive policewoman in Cite Bousaid in Tunisia. In that year, the Middle East and North Africa has seen revolution, rebellion, repression, and reform. What has changed? How did it happen? What's next? And what does it mean, for America and for the world? It's easiest to say what has changed: Populations in the region have gone from being "objects" to "actors" in their own history. From the Tunisians who discovered that their passion and mass peaceful protests could topple a supposedly impregnable regime, to the courageous Syrians who defy bloody repression even now, the "Arab Spring" at its core is seen in a change in popular attitudes. Arabs emphasize the importance of "dignity," or a rejection of the "humiliations" of their treatment by authoritarian regimes. Just the thought of self-determination is revolutionary, as such ideas have been at other times in history. Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings were called the Facebook or Twitter revolutions, and these tools undoubtedly made it easier to mobilize social networks quickly for protest. But older technologies likely played an even bigger part in the transmission process: Al Jazeera and other Arab language satellite TV channels conveyed emotions of the crowds in real time. Text messages through ubiquitous (and anonymous) pay-as-you-go cellphones reached thousands in minutes. In Syria and Yemen, cellphone cameras -- coupled to You Tube -- ensured the sights and sounds of repression were seen despite efforts of governments to prevent it. The Arab Spring demonstrated that leaderless revolutions are difficult to repress or co-opt. Unfortunately, it is also true that leaderless revolts find it difficult to make transition to authority, as we now are seeing in Libya and Egypt. For all the commonalities in spirit, the Arab Spring unfolded in distinct national ways. And now, the region's future will depend on how countries such as Egypt build new governments, and the policies these governments pursue. Where revolts have succeeded (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya) what comes next is the hard work of building more democratic and more responsive states. Coming struggles will be over constitutions and elections. Diversity of interests and complicated decisions will undercut Arab Spring zeal. Countries like Egypt also will struggle to find new sources of economic growth to meet the needs of youthful populations which are poorly trained for success in the global economy. It may require public policy experimentation to find good solutions, and the first attempts of novice, unstable governments may well fail. In Syria, bloodshed and repression will continue as the Assad regime hangs on, apparently determined to give no quarter and hopeful its neighbors will eventually relent on sanctions. That is hardly viable over the long-term, but it appears Syrians and the Syrian economy will suffer badly before the regime cracks. What does it mean for the U.S. and the world? The Arab Spring was never primarily about America, even though its relationships with autocrats like Mubarak have been rightly scorned. Nonetheless, the U.S. certainly will be affected. Properly managed, democratic change provides an opportunity to "reboot" U.S. relationships and help these new regimes succeed in meeting their (empowered) populations' aspirations, which would benefit the wider world. Alternatively, weak governments failing to meet expectations could resort to time-tested strategies of assigning blame to external villains, including Israel, the U.S., or the West in general. There are specters of trouble ahead. There are signs of rising sectarianism. Violence against Copts in Egypt, Sunni-Alawite-Kurdish tensions in Syria, Sunni-Shia rivalries in Bahrain, and the caldron of sectarian and tribal struggles in Yemen are evidence of the re-emergence of ancient suspicions at a time of rapid change. In Libya, regional and tribal rivalries must be reconciled in order to construct a viable state. In Egypt, the military, which seemed to be a hero of Tahrir Square for pushing Mubarak aside, of late has been reluctant to concede power. While the West wants to help transitions succeed, its financial crises mean there can't be a big wave of new assistance, such as that which helped the Central Europeans or Balkan countries make it through their transitions. This may not be a bad thing, as it will require assistance to be focused on areas where it can do the most good. We will need to learn how to structure security assistance and rule of law training in ways that help, rather than hinder, democratic transitions. Israel will need to re-think its relationships with its neighbors. And we need to hold our nerve if Islamists win the right to form a government in Egypt. Power may engender responsibility, and the Egyptians deserve to have the leaders they select. It has been an extraordinary year for the region. In the last 30 years similar waves of democratic change largely succeeded in establishing stable democratic governments in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. There are reasons for optimism on this score for the Middle East, but it will not be easy, or without reversals and bloodshed. Charles Ries is Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit institution that improves policy and decision-making through research and analysis, and former U.S. Coordinator for Economic Transition in Iraq.

Newt, chieftain of the Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy

2011-12-13T17:14:24Z

Yesterday William Broad of the New York Times put Newt Gingrich's role as one of the chieftains of the Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy onto the front page of that high button newspaper. The piece was mildly critical but such things always give the story of electromagnetic pulse doom more legs by creating the impression there's a debate worth considering between those with sense and the regular bringers of loads of rubbish. here. Indeed, I've covered the Cult of EMP Crazy and Gingrich's regular shilling for it for years. Gingrich's robotic script on the likelihood, nature and results of an electromagnetic pulse attack is in lockstep with everyone else in the fringe lobby representing it. And that script is: Electromagnetic pulse doom is easily achievable and it will end US civilization. It is not, not trivially manageable at all. But to argue this, which is what 99 percent of all journalists do when consulting one or two experts from column A and one or two from column B, gives the people who own the script way too much he said/she said stage time. It's what these people live for. The destruction of America through sneak electromagnetic pulse attack myth is frequently extended to mean the collapse of the entire western world. The passing of the United States from the global scene takes down all Anglo civilization. The script is always coupled to pleas for more spending in ballistic missile defense and recommendation for preemptive attack on Iran. And it has been delivered in a stream of movies, seminars, op-ed pieces and straight news stories, a brook which has flowed steadily and fruitfully for a decade. At least. So why special attention for Iran? Because in all the common electromagnetic pulse doom scenarios peddled by the lobby, it is either a potential Iranian nuclear bomb, or an Iranian-made one given to terrorists, launched from a barge off the coast of the eastern US, which brings on the second coming of the Dark Ages. The lobby, along with Newt -- who has always been a part of it -- has no constituency anywhere but in the far right. But it is gifted with the tenacity shown by all true nuisances.. And just as a large bit of dog dung festering in the sun draws green bottle flies, over the years the story of electromagnetic pulse doom has also attracted lots of other noisome things, entangling it with bug-eyed paranoia, paranormal/UFO radio shows and end-of-times religiosity in the heartland. It's a potpourri of madnesses. Newt's electromagnetic pulse attack mythology has been seized upon by fundamental Christian super-church preachers who believe and sermonize that the attack will herald the second coming, a final battle between good and evil, the predicted ascent of the flock into heaven, and the damnation of everyone else. It has also inspired a very small congressional caucus of relative nobodies with no record of substantial legislation except relentless and unsuccessful attempts to get bills and attachments for defense against electromagnetic pulse doom passed. Most notable -- if notable is the proper word to use -- is the very old Republican Rep., Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland who made it one of his life's causes. More recently, Bartlett's Cult of EMP Crazy baton of legislative leadership was passed to a GOP politician from Arizona, birther and believer that sharia law is permeating the precious bodily fluids of American justice, Trent Franks. This continuing story line of electromagnetic pulse doom has been hard sold so extensively for years it has also percolated into and further pickled the already perturbed minds of the nutty survivalist fringe. The favored script, and one relentlessly pressed by Gingrich, is that the country will be thrown back to something like the time shown in the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Surviving electromagnetic pulse doom will come by rule of the gun and those who have prepared themselves (the new Tom Doniphons) for it in the countryside, preferably with lots of pemmican, jerky, gold and silver, canned foods, stockpiled gasoline, underground dugouts full of ammunition and a corral of horseflesh or lovingly maintained old cars not reliant upon chip technology. A far right Christian religiosity runs through electromagnetic pulse attack mythologizing . It's the good and Godly in a struggle for what's left of America principles and pieties against the ravening, formerly fat and lazy Democratic liberal hordes, spilling out of the cities like the zombies in AMC's The Walking Dead. For the Times, William Broad touched upon this briefly, as taken from the central book of electromagnetic pulse doom mythology, William Forstchen's One Second After (Forstchen is also a Gingrich co-author):

"The book describes an electromagnetic pulse attack on America, conjuring a world in which cars, airplanes, cellphones and refrigerators all die, and gangs of barbarians spring to life."

Despite being blown off by almost everyone (except the lunatic right and and Gingrich presidential competitor, Rick Santorum), -- "Mr. Gingrich's warnings remain persistently urgent," writes William Broad for the Times. Which, honestly now, just doesn't quite describe the really crazy quality the matter has acquired over the past few years. "Some people praise Mr. Gingrich as an atomic visionary," reads the Times piece. Atomic visionary. Yeah, right in there with Niels Bohr, no doubt at all. This post was published in an earlier unexpurgated form at Dick Destiny blog. ]]>

Helping Afghans Build Afghanistan

2011-12-12T14:55:16Z

The military drawddown now in progress is both inevitable and necessary. The costs in blood and resources are simply unsustainable, while it is widely recognized that no military solution is plausible.

]]>
The military effort itself has had serious unintended consequences, including alienating a significant portion of the population, forcing cooperation with regional repressive governments, and fueling corruption with large cash flows. Most pertinently, it has significantly warped the Afghan economy, with contract arrangements overwhelming market forces. Unrealistically high salaries have drawn a high percentage of qualified individuals into the contract efforts supporting military and logistics operations, with few balancing programs. Afghan First is one of these and it has succeeded in stimulating local production, but to meet a high-end market that is now significantly shrinking. Modest development efforts have been concentrated in the areas where it is most difficult to operate, severely limiting their effectiveness. This has been compounded by an emphasis on short-term results (particularly problematical for agricultural efforts) and programs often designed with minimal local input. The most serious shortcoming of economic assistance has been its systematic neglect of broad sections of the country. So, for example, wide areas remain food dependent.

Addressing this challenge rests on two basic themes: continuity and change.

Continuity means an enduring commitment from the international community. The Afghan population must have confidence that they will not be once again abandoned to turmoil, civil war, and economic disintegration. But this commitment has to shift from military to economic. That is the first major change.

The second major change is the need for a basic realignment of development efforts. Simply scaling up ongoing programs cannot meet the real needs of economic development. Obviously there needs to be a shift from contracts as the major source of national income to production as the major source. Promptly addressing the 40% or so current unemployment rate is critical. This requires broad support at the grass roots level, particularly in agriculture which is the only possible source of jobs on the needed scale.

Afghanistan has great economic potential. This has to be shown to the Afghan poeple, to get them enthused about the potential for their own country and to empower them to speak up in their own behalf. On this score, efforts to greatly increase connectivity efforts throughout the country can provide the backbone for education, vocational training, agriculture extension and health care activities.

The first requirement is for Afghanistan to be able to meet its own needs, not only with food, but so far as possible with energy, light industrial products, and skilled labor. Demand will come not from governments or outside contracts, but from the private sector. This requires looking at development from an overall national point of view, not simply concentrating support in areas of poor security, but building in areas that can turn support into significant improvements for local inhabitants, directing more effort into the quieter areas of the country, especially those with good local governance.

In parallel with an effort to meet internal needs, there needs to be a concerted export effort in two areas: agriculture and minerals. An effort in agriculture means re-energizing traditional markets for fruits, nuts, and other agricultural commodities. Where ever possible there should be a parallel development of processing industries so Afghanistan can export not wheat, but flour; not cotton, but textiles; not oilseeds, but oil. The other export market is for raw materials, particularly minerals. This is a sector that could provide the wealth to transform Afghanistan, but it is fraught with difficulties. The first major tender in this sector, for the copper deposits at Aynak, illustrates major pitfalls, starting the the large bribe that was central in the award of the contract. The large amounts of money associated with mineral deposits require maximum transparency if corruption is not to cheat the Afghan people of their own heritage. Another major challenge is insuring that exploitation provides maximum short-term local benefit. Except for some critical management or technical positions, labor should be supplied by Afghans, so up front training and local infrastructure development is essential. As with agricultural products, local processing should also be maximized. So, for example, instead of simply shipping crude ore from the country, local milling should first provide high-grade concentrates, with such activities gradually upgraded to provide processing into raw metals or other industrial products.

The international community can provide significant assistance in creating the enabling conditions for real development. One critical area is with the re-development of traditional trade routes tying together regional economies. The Silk Road program currently being widely supported focuses on the physical network essential for such a vision. Two associated efforts are particularly important. The first is to identify short-term economic potentials. Where will network sections be first active? Where will there be opportunities for logistics points, service areas, hospitality and trading centers? Initial establishment of pilot facilities can proceed in parallel with network construction. The second challenge requires even more of an international effort: streamlining and standardizing border crossing procedures. Estimates already show that every one of the regional economies would benefit considerably from more open trade, but convincing governments to modify their current procedures and requirements is another question.

There is also an internal challenge for Afghanistan, where growth of light industry is currently hindered by export subsidies regional governments provide to their own producers selling goods into Afghanistan. Afghanistan needs to counter such efforts with focused protective tariffs or with its own subsidies. This is just one aspect of a range of internal actions Afghanistan can take, many of them addressed in detail in the National Business Agenda published earlier this year.

Killer robots and bombs trump the meat

2011-11-25T15:44:05Z

Wasn't yesterday's feast great? Have General Atomics, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics Land Systems been good to you this year? They didn't let you go hungry. Nope, no lining up at the welfare center to present the monthly budget in applying for the supplemental nutrition program for arms manufacturers! This item, published this week in the Village Voice and originally taken from Star and Stripes delivers the news:

"[Stars and Stripes reporterd] "nearly $88 million worth of food stamps were used at commissaries nationwide in 2011, up from $31 million in 2008." "The Defense Department doesn't track commissary sales, so it's unclear which military personnel seek benefits. "Analysts believe, however, that recent vets are the demographic most likely to need help: 860,000 sought unemployment benefits in October. "Statisticians consider some 25 percent of these men and women to be 'young veterans.'"

Food stamp usage in the military is generally not banner news. You have to look around for it. In October I posted a summary of food stamp use. It included an item from a southern newspaper citing the use within the military. Again, it points out that while the US spends lavishly on its defense budget, the soldiers do not do so well. By gross tonnage in dollar bills, the defense establishment believes in civilian contractors and armaments, not its indigenous people. You can also view food stamp subsidies as a way in which you can pay soldiers less in an institutional rip off, one in which they're actually entitled to more but forced to apply for this taxpayer money through the means test SNAP program applicants go through. Anyway, here is another lump of indigestible data from October, a citation from the Newman Times Herald in Georgia:

"From 2008 to 2009 military families were using food stamps at twice the rate as civilians, 25 percent to 13 percent. About $31 million of food stamps were used in nationwide commissaries. "From July 2009 to March 2011 in Oklahoma, where there are four military bases -- Fort Sill, Tinker AFB, Vance AFB, Altus AFB -- $1.8 million in food stamps was spent."

It's a good demonstration of a systemic immorality and just another hidden national disgrace. It's the stealing of the riskiest patriotic labor so we can suck out a few dollar more for the gadgets of killing. This post was originally published at Dick Destiny blog. DD blog is guaranteed 100 percent free of robots and bloodsucking defense contractors. ]]>