I only visit for the toons and this one has the lot.
Love it.

I detect a burr under the saddlecloth. This plan has one small problem.

When Adam was turfed out of the Garden, cherubim and a flaming sword were installed at the entrance, to keep him away from the Tree of Life.  I reckon modern Iraqis would nod to the Mesopotamian origins of this powerful myth.

Now, George has decided to capture a diminishing resource, the basis for his petrochemical dominance. He needs the oil, to guarantee his tanks and planes are the last ones moving. Drilling into an ocean of inflammable stuff, so he can wreak vengeance of fire on those who resist him. Surfing on the lake of fire, as a prelude to his assault on the gates to paradise.

Someone else got in first - "Vengeance is Mine". George has a real problem, apart from cultivating a gang of Liars. My money is on the cherubim.

Hi Gus,

I am hoping you can point me in the direction of an article I read somewhere on this site in the last few days that describes the kit of the future soldier. I can not find the article and am unable to remember the title.  As your Superwarriors is obviously  inspired by or a continuation of the article your assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Packin' Heat

From the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4745543.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4124558.stm

Worrying trends [extract]

A lot of Iraq veterans are hearing that diagnosis these days.

A study at the US Army's Walter Reed hospital in Washington, DC, found that up to 17% of Iraq veterans - about one in six - suffered depression, anxiety or PTSD.

I've heard the same miserable stories time and again and I don't know what to say - he doesn't want to be consoled " Kathy, Veteran's girlfriend

About 425,000 US troops have served in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, meaning some 70,000 could be experiencing psychological trauma.

Some early indicators are worrying.

The divorce rate among US army officers has tripled in the past three years.

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans says that in 2004 its affiliates helped 67 veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan - only a year or two into those conflicts.

That set off alarm bells at the charity, since experts say it took traumatised Vietnam veterans an average 12-15 years to end up in shelters.

"Homeless service providers are deeply concerned about the inevitable rising tide of combat veterans who will soon be requesting their support," the coalition warned.

The number of veterans coming home from Iraq, it added, "is unlike anything the nation has experienced since the end of the Vietnam war".

GusNews

The number of dead US soldiers in Iraq approaches 2000 and the number of physically wounded is now counted in tens of thousand. In the mean time as Richard Tonkins points out (US firm wins Australian ship contract) we are giving away the key of our weaponry to US command... Incredible stuff but true. The Chinese are astute in stopping Taiwan acquiring the same Ageis system...

But then there is little help from government once traumatised soldiers are discharged...

From the BBC

US cancels 'mini-nukes' programme

The US has abandoned controversial plans to develop a nuclear "bunker-buster" warhead, a key Republican senator has said.

Sen Pete Domenici said funding for the bombs - part of the Energy Department's 2006 budget - had been dropped.

He said research would now focus on conventional penetrating weapons.

The warhead had been the focus of intense debate in Congress, with opponents arguing against the US developing new nuclear arms.

An administration official, speaking on condition on anonymity, confirmed the move to the Associated Press news agency.

I can believe that, and that there were WMDs in Iraq, and Usamah and Saddam were buddies, etc etc.

Who's taken over from Judith Miller, as chief useful newsmaking tool? 

Some good news!... I hesitated to put quotes around that before posting it. I have not heard to the contrary nor so far found any article that tells us that "yes this particular program is extinguished but another one is started under a different name with more secretive licence to develop bunker buster nuke-ish and fully nuked devices... " Yes T.G. we need to keep a "close open eye" on this one too...

Boffins against the bomb: US nuke policy rethink prompts physicist protest
Almost 500 physicists in the US have signed a petition protesting a proposed change in government policy that would allow the US to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries. The proposed change in policy was reported in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. [...]

[extract from the petition]
This dangerous policy change ignores the fact that nuclear weapons are on a completely different scale than other WMD's and conventional weapons. Using a nuclear weapon pre-emptively and against a non-nuclear adversary crosses a line, blurring the sharp distinction that exists between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, and heightens the probability of future use of nuclear weapons by others. The underlying principle of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is that in exchange for other countries forgoing the development of nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapon states will pursue nuclear disarmament. Instead, this new U.S. policy conveys a clear message to the 182 non-nuclear weapon states that the United States is moving strongly away from disarmament, and is in fact prepared to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries. It provides a strong incentive for countries to abandon the NPT and pursue nuclear weapons themselves and dramatically increases the risk of nuclear proliferation, and ultimately the risk that regional conflicts will explode into all-out nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.

Writer to SMH (letters, Oct 31st) thought he heard "... George Bush ... refer to the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as "Ah'm a dinnerjacket"."

Problem solved. From No longer lost in translation:

An increasingly globalized world became even smaller on Thursday when Carnegie Mellon University and German scientists unveiled technology that makes it possible to speak one language, yet be understood in another.[...]

The technology should provide many more opportunities to jump for the gun, when Persian, or any non-English language, is spoken.

The subject is being dealt with at Slashdot, in Can Your Mouth Become Multilingual?.

Will we ever know?

From Aljazeera

US 'used' chemical weapon in Falluja
Tuesday 08 November 2005, 21:57 Makka Time, 18:57 GMT
Italian state television has aired a documentary alleging that the US used white phosphorous shells in a massive and indiscriminate way against civilians during the November 2004 offensive in Falluja.
The report on Tuesday said the shells were not used to illuminate enemy fighters at night, as the US government has said, but against civilians, and that it burned their flesh "to the bone".
The documentary by RaiNews24, the all-news channel of RAI state television, quoted ex-marine Jeff Englehart as saying he saw the bodies of burnt children and women after the bombardments.
"Burned bodies. Burned children and burned women. White phosphorous kills indiscriminately. It is a cloud that, within ... 150m of impact, will disperse and will burn every human being or animal."
There have been several allegations that the US used outlawed weapons, such as napalm, in the Falluja offensive. On 9 November 2004, the Pentagon denied that any chemical weapons, including napalm, were used in the offensive.

"The city was sealed off and families left; so basically only the resisting fighters were inside the city. They were mostly denied admission into hospitals, so we could not verify the information from the medical fraternity, but yes everybody was saying that burnt bodies were scattered on Falluja's streets."
On its website, the US government has said it used phosphorous shells "very sparingly in Falluja, for illumination purposes". It noted that phosphorous shells were not outlawed.
"They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters," the government statement said. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman on Tuesday said white phosphorus was a conventional weapon. He said he did not know if the US army used it in Falluja in 2004

From the Washington Post

Don't Politicize Our Soldiers
By Geoffrey C. Lambert
Saturday, April 1, 2006; Page A17

The Associated Press reported recently that a trailside memorial to an American soldier killed in Afghanistan had been vandalized. The memorial to Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Petithory, adjacent to the Ashuwillticook Trail in Cheshire, Mass., was defaced with the words "Oil," "Bush," "Christian Crusade" and other phrases.

Dan Petithory was one of my soldiers. He was an Army Green Beret and was killed on Dec. 5, 2001, north of Kandahar as he and his A-Team were closing in on the home of al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership.

I attended Dan's funeral in Cheshire along with Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry, as well as the archbishop of Chicago and other generals and government dignitaries, who honored Daniel and his family with their presence. Kerry gave the eulogy and moved us to tears, acknowledging that this war was one that we had no choice but to fight. Toward the end of the Mass we shook hands, giving the sign of peace. We then turned to Dan's wonderful parents, brother and sister to try to somehow alleviate their pain and suffering.

Gus commiserate: When Geoffrey C. Lambert says "Don't Politicize Our Soldiers," I agree with him On the level that individuals lives are sacred, except that soldiers ARE the combatant arm of POLITICS. WAR IS politics. Unable to separate. It is a sad day when "Army" officers and soldiers forget this obvious FACT. Wherever they fight, under oath or flag, they are linked to the processes that take them to battlefields where they kill people on behalf of POLITICAL decisions by masters... That their monuments and tombs be vandalized is a pity yet still part of the COUNTER-POLITICS expression of anger against bad political decisions...

Unfortunately, more and more, in the media, the current representation of democracy is that of the cartoon at the top of this line of blog... Armed soldier(s), in full fighting gear, protecting a something or rather that has nothing to do with democracy but with power... I suppose it's no different from the past, except we are told ad nauseam about our democratic values, etc... values that are totally distorted and undermined by the behavior and the policies of the trustees of our ideals, the governments.

Governments lie, perform abominable acts like torture... they create wars — all of this concoction done on our behalf...

I suppose it's a bit like going to butchers... We rely on the abattoirs to do the slaughter and we buy our steaks neatly prepackaged on nicely lit shelves at the supermarket but would we go and kill an animal ourselves?An animal that looks at us with the desire to live? I think we would think a bit more about what we we do.

I don't remember who said "politics is like sausage making and you don't want to see how it's done."... So we let the sausage artists do the ugly politics for us... but may we say that the sausage making has been getting a lot uglier in recent times. Too much sawdust and saturated rancid fat, too much blood on the walls and no substance...

The Solomons' troubles is a case in point in which there is mismanagement of a difficult situation on all sides... I was surprised that the first installment of troops sent there a few years ago was received with open arms and I have been waiting for the next development that we're seeing now... The tensions created by many dynamics of basic desires, enflamed by poverty being exposed to the illusion of untamed richness on various media will inevitably led to discontent and a deep feeling of being short changed.

Imagine for a few seconds now, that Australia has government troubles, rioting and dissenting... Would the import of troops from the US, China or Russia to manage the chaos improve the situation? Simply no... We'd be horrified! We'd be fighting like insurgents...

The longer foreign troops stay in Iraq or wherever, including the Solomons, the more violent reaction these troops can create... and they become part of the next problem, not part of the solution.

Violence caught us by surprise: Keelty

By David Humphries
April 21, 2006
THE Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, has admitted that the Honiara violence caught his police by surprise.

"We thought things were under much more control. Clearly… it did catch us by surprise. That's always an element of risk in any police operation," he said.

But the claim by the Solomon Islands parliamentary Speaker, Peter Kenilorea, that Australian police aggravated the violence by firing tear gas at protesters in Honiara during rioting on Tuesday and Wednesday was incorrect, he said.

Read more at the SMH

-----------------------

As mentioned in my earlier blog, Gus is not surprised about the violence in the Solomons, but Gus is quite annoyed with our Police Whatever who, obviously by his remark leading the article in the SMH, has no understanding of social constructs and only seems to know a society from the point of view of "law and order" using policing with sticks of various sizes.

Mick, In all societies we are creating differences of potential, most of which are managed by education, continuum of traditions and other factors such as family connections. Policing is of course part of the equation, but it only applies to a rather small section of the community as most of us are already following general peace line via ethics learned though either religion, social codes, having made silly mistakes or personal acceptance of others.

Mick, for the youth, things can be slightly different. There is more potential in youths to attempt the stupid and the dangerous and this is why we send kids (18 and over) to war (kids as young as 12 were used too). The excitement, the discipline drills, the mateships — all tactics to make sure they are programmed to perform at best on the field, except in one department: think for themselves about the awful reality of what they are doing —killing people. Once they reach a certain age (25, that's when we're scientifically-accepted as a fully fledged thinking adult) they start to ask questions... They either go up the ladder, accepting the structure of the discipline in the chain of command or leave the force...

But Mick this blog is not about that questionable aspect of murdering other people in the names of blatant political porkies. it is about the difference of potential, illusory or real, that people perceive. Jo Blow is much richer than you and there are no pathway for you to get out of poverty. Not even an illusion of it... Just a constant display of media outlets on how some other people live it so rich, through various schemes to get there, and all you have is three bananas and a machete, with no more prospects than to acquire two more bananas... Well, the rest is predictable...

Mick, One of the most insidious basic instinct in our societies is envy. My dad used to tell me to work and earn enough money to survive but never earn so much as to induce envy in other people. He was right. For a society to function well as a cohesive group, despite a few skirmishes from time to time, a range of position has to be accepted with a reasonable value for that position.

In our social constructs, in Australia and other Western countries, some people can get away with values way beyond what seemed to be reasonable because most other people already have enough to survive "comfortably". We also work the carrot of competition to the max, creating an illusion that all of us can succeed to this outrageous level... So we carry on dreaming, but as said before we are "comfortable". We are well programmed to react in the range of this rich attractor without demolishing anything, that we reach our Peter Principle level and then ease off happy to be where we are...

But when the relative numbers of "poor" versus the numbers of "comfortable" become larger than a critical point, trouble is looming on the horizon. If you were unable to see that coming, Mick, then your eyes were closed, be it for a brief moment... The youths are being given dreams that are unachievable in present circumstances while the achievable dreams have been destroyed... Even older people become part of revolt.

Mick, what we need is finding better dreams (aspirations) that are achievable in the context of a particular social construct... With "enforced", media-induced or secretly applied globalisation (images of wealth and structures of wealth which are alien to a particular environment of social constructs), we are destroying all this without replacement of proper aspirations for most people, plus we are offering a heavier stick as things get slightly out of hand. The stick as a solution is soon becoming part of the next problem...

The Solomon Islands parliamentary Speaker, Peter Kenilorea, saying that Australian police aggravated the violence by firing tear gas at protesters, is correct... He knows his people's tormented aspirations better than you do. May be you could learn...

And this also apply to the sending of young aussies to life imprisoment and death by firing squad in Indonesia... Kids (until the proven age of 25) can do stupid things and serious stupid things at that, deserving serious punishment but they do not deserve a life sentence or a bullet for it. They are redeemable but can never be.

Not nearly as surprised as I was, Gus, by Gerard Henderson's latest - Popular line is not Liberal with the truth

POLITICAL spin is constantly in the news. But the messages generated by spin do not usually last very long. ...

And Gerard should know, as chief apologist for the Tories. Maybe he wants to replace Scott McLellan?

Or, maybe Gerard is just miffed that Paul Kelly reigns as chief useful nuz tool for Fox.

From the ABC

Downer raises corruption claims with Solomons PM
By Pacific correspondent Sean Dorney and wires

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says corruption is a major problem in the Solomon Islands and he has told the new Prime Minister his government must make it a thing of the past.

New Prime Minister Snyder Rini has denied corruption is a major problem.

After a 40-minute meeting with Mr Rini, Mr Downer told a news conference they had had a long discussion about corruption.

"There is no doubt that corruption has been a major problem in this country over a long period of time," he said.

"I made the point that it's very important that what you may call the political class in Solomon Islands builds the confidence of the people of Solomon Islands that they themselves are free of corruption."
read more at the ABC

--------------

Gus believes the AWB capers was not raised by the Solomonese?

Yes Gus .....

Foreign Minister, Alexander
Downer says that corruption “has been a major problem in the Solomon Islands
over a long period of time” & he has told the new Prime Minister, Snyder
Rini, that his government must make it a thing of the past. 

"I made the point that it's
very important that what you may call the political class in Solomon Islands
builds the confidence of the people of Solomon Islands & that they
themselves are free of corruption."

In response, Prime Minister Rini said that he had “heard nuffink, seen nuffink
& knew nuffink” about corruption in the Solomons. Prime Minister Rini made
his comments after issuing a brief announcement confirming several new senior
government appointments. 

As part of a sweeping reform
package initiated by the Solomon’s new Prime Minister, that will allow the
nation to benefit from the fullest possible exposure to aussie values, Mr Rini
confirmed that Robert Gerard had been appointed as Commissioner of Taxation
& Tax Havens for the island nation, whilst Steve Vizard has been appointed
Chairman of the Solomon’s single desk stock exchange.

Prime Minister Rini also
confirmed that former AWB Chairman, Trevor Flugge, had been appointed as a
special advisor, to assist his government in its negotiations to establish a
new free trade agreement between the Solomons & Australia. The Prime
Minister refused to comment on rumours that Mr Flugge is to receive a small
government stipend of A$2 million a day for his efforts.  

And, in another action filled
day in our nation’s capital …..  

Prime Minister, John Howard,
refused to confirm rumours that Terence Cole had declined his request to chair
a judicial inquiry into the government’s “hyperbole-for-facts program”, given
that everyone already knew what the outcome would be. 

AFP Commissioner, Mick Keelty,
said that the Solomons was a well known haven for international terrorists
& that the AFP would be directly involved in assisting the new Solomons
government to eradicate this threat for “a loooong time”. 

Mr Keelty rejected comparisons of
the Honiara riots with those held at Cronulla, but confirmed that photographs
of the 3,000 suspects would be published in a bumper issue of the Solomon Star
tomorrow, in the hope that someone would be able to identify them.  

And finally, Attorney-General,
Philip Ruddock, has denied that there have been repeated calls for Prime
Minister Howard, Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, & Trade
Minister, Mark Vaile, to be charged with sedition, after bringing the
government into disrepute at the Cole Inquiry. 

Mr Ruddock said that the sedition
provisions of his government’s anti-terror laws were never intended to apply to
ordinary politicians, just special Australians.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has spoken of the tragic loss of the first digger to die in Iraq, but says it will still be "quite some time" before the Australian troops are brought home.

Mr Downer has expressed his sympathies to the family of an as yet unnamed Australian soldier serving in Baghdad who died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while cleaning his weapon.

Describing it as a tragic accident, he said Australian troops would remain in Iraq until local security forces were able to take control of terrorist groups and protect the Iraqi population.

"It's still pretty tough in Iraq, the terrorists are very determined to try to destroy this new emerging democracy," Mr Downer told the Seven Network.

--------------------

Gus thinks our Minister for Foreign Objects and Soup Kitchens is a bit naive or has ulterior secret motives...

Yes, it's very commendable to try and spread democracy throughout the world like a bit of Vegemite on a toast, but when our (US-UK-Aust governments) technique to do so is like a "blat*-war" with a sledge hammer and a blow torch, things are not going to look pretty on the walls, are they? Violence only attracts violence, Mr Clowner...

Bring the troops home and start some real diplomacy, but then there are "things that batter" somewhere in the kitchen at home...and AWB yellow stickers pinned to your back...

If I believed in God, I would ask him/her to help us get rid of you (and Johnnee in the bargain, hard to know which one first), but then it's up to you to understand the reality of war being a very serious matter, not a Sunday picnic...

but really, the way you do diplomacy, your Sunday picnic is most likely to be invaded by flies, ants and a charging bull.

(*From wikipedia encyclopedia:

Blat is a term which appeared in the Soviet Union to denote the use of informal agreements, Party contacts, or black market deals to achieve results or get ahead. The adverbial usage of the word is po blatu, meaning "by blat".

Because, in the Soviet Union, the Gosplan wasn't able to calculate efficient or even feasible plans, enterprises often had to rely on people with connections, who could then use blat to help fulfill the quotas. Eventually most enterprises came to have a supply expediter - a tolkach - to perform this task.

Accordingly, blatnoy means a man that took some job or enrolled in university using connections, or, sometimes, bribes. In Soviet republics abundancy of blatnoys was taken to such extremes as impossibilty of gaining some post or enrolling at some prestigious majors in universities without proper connections.

The original meaning of the word (adjective or noun) blatnoy is "criminal" or "belonging to criminal subculture" (e.g., "blatnoy language", "blatnoy behavior", "blatnoy outlook").)

Gus note: my rusky is a bit rusty

Of course, before the bloodstains have dried, and before the prints have been lifted from the cartridge case, and well before the results of the inquiry, it's deemed to have been an accident. And, of course, because these highly trained professionals are handling weapons loaded with live ammo every day, according to strict protocols, it will be necessary to have a review of the whole set-up. Like, how many "accidental" discharges happen in any week? That's what we need  to know!

We can't have the supporters-of-the-troops thinking that the appalling situation created by the occupation of Iraq would in any way contribute to the cause of an "accident", can we? And, contrary to Howard's dismissive treatment of other widows, the spin-doctors have got this one well and truly in check. After the C130 flight back home, the flag-draped coffin, the memorials, the little c*&t taking the salute, etc etc, it will be most impolite to question the "accident". 

From Al Jazeera
'Taste' of wars to come

Monday 24 April 2006, 12:23 Makka Time, 9:23 GMT

Military researchers in the United States are trying to create super-warriors by focusing on the tongue.

By routing signals from helmet-mounted cameras, sonar and other equipment through the tongue to the brain, they hope to give elite soldiers superhuman senses similar to owls, snakes and fish.

Researchers at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition hope to turn fiction into reality by giving army rangers 360-degree unobstructed vision at night and allowing Navy Seals to sense sonar in their heads while maintaining normal vision underwater.

The device, known as "Brain Port", was pioneered more than 30 years ago by Dr Paul Bach-y-Rita, a University of Wisconsin neuroscientist.

Superior transmitter

Bach-y-Rita began routing images from a camera through electrodes taped to people's backs, discovering that the tongue was a superior transmitter.

A narrow strip of red plastic connects the Brain Port to the tongue, where 144 microelectrodes transmit information through nerve fibres to the brain.

Navy Seals may soon be able to see through their tongues

Dr Anil Raj, the project's lead scientist, said instead of holding and looking at compasses and bulky hand-held sonar devices, the divers can process the information through their tongues.

----------------------------

Gus thinks this article at Al Jazeera "confirms" what we've known all along (see cartoon "superwarrior" at head of this line of blog). Yes but does the equipment comes in different flavors?

From Al Jazeera

Iraq adviser predicts US withdrawal
Saturday 29 April 2006, 0:58 Makka Time, 21:58 GMT

Muwaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, said on Friday he expected the roughly 133,000 US servicemen to be cut to less than 100,000 by the end of 2006 and an "overwhelming majority" to have left by the end of 2007 under a US-Iraqi plan for the handover of security.

"We have a road map, a condition-based agreement where, by the end of this year, the number of coalition forces will probably be less than 100,000," he said.

"By the end of next year, the overwhelming majority of coalition forces would have left the country and probably by the middle of 2008 there will be no foreign soldiers in the country."

Al-Rubaie spoke as Iraqi and US forces announced they had killed a senior member of al-Qaeda in Iraq and as fighting in Baquba continued.

read more at Al jazeera

________________

Gus does not want to burst Muwaffak al-Rubaie's bubble but, even if his troops are okay to maintain the peace in his country, there will be at least 40,000 US troops permanently stationed in Iraq under the benevolence of the US administration and plenty more on the fringe, for another 25 years... That's the secret plan...

From the Seattle Times

Pentagon pays United to show in-flight video
By Jason George
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — United Airlines has begun showing an in-flight video about military glamour jobs that was produced and funded by the Defense Department — a fact passengers do not learn from watching it.

Sandwiched between NBC sitcoms and Discovery Channel previews, "Today's Military," as the 13-minute program is called, highlights five jobs that few members of the armed forces could point to as their own.

While hundreds of thousands of men and women serve overseas, many in dangerous places, the video shows only one soldier beyond U.S. borders: a Hawaii-based Army animal-care specialist doing humanitarian work in Thailand.

Others featured, including an Air Force language instructor and a Navy petty officer who teaches others how to survive ejecting from aircraft, are based in California and Washington.

Also setting the program apart from the usual in-flight fare of ESPN clips and cable news is who foots the bill. The airlines usually pay for the entertainment programs. But the Defense Department is paying United about $36,000 to run its video from April 17 to May 17, said Lt. Bradley Terrill, project officer for "Today's Military."

Read more att the Seatle Times

From Our ABC

Gulpilil to contest weapons charge
The lawyer for the award winning actor David Gulpilil has told the Darwin Magistrate's Court that his client will contest a charge of being armed with an offensive weapon.

The prominent Northern Territorian was arrested in July after allegedly walking down a central Darwin street with a machete.

Police say they were called following a domestic dispute.

During yesterday's brief court appearance, Magistrate David Loadman traded quips with Gulpilil, asking him if he was going to say the machete was a "tooth pick, or perhaps something to be used in a film he was going to make".

Outside the court Mr Gulpilil said his machete was for carving.

A hearing has been set down for January.

-----------------------
Gus: When I was in Africa in the 60s, every second bloke walked down the dried mud-path with a machete... I had one myself — made locally from recycled steel (probably from the springs of a dead Peugeot-203) — tempered, that I always kept sharpened on stones. This instrument was like a ute and a toolbox combined. It allowed us to slash our way through virgin forest, to open coconuts with one blow, to quickly sharpen the points of "fences" stakes — stakes we had to replace often (hungry goats ate them down to the ground during the nights)... and many other uses including chopping down small timber. Easier to carry and use than an axe, machetes were also used by women to trim bamboo shreds and tall dried grasses for weaving...
No-one ever got hurt or was attacked by anybody.
A machete is not a weapon, it's a tool for all seasons for those who live in the bush...

Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2000 – "Full-spectrum dominance" is the key term in "Joint Vision 2020," the blueprint DoD will follow in the future.

Joint Vision 2020, released May 30 and signed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Henry Shelton, extends the concept laid out in Joint Vision 2010. Some things will not change. The mission of the U.S. military today and tomorrow is to fight and win the nation's wars. How DoD goes about doing this is 2020's focus.

Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations.

While full-spectrum dominance is the goal, the way to get there is to "invest in and develop new military capabilities." The four capabilities at the heart of full-spectrum dominance are dominant maneuver, precision engagement, focused logistics and full-dimensional protection.

These four capabilities need the full capabilities of the total force. "To build the most effective force for 2020, we must be fully joint: intellectually, operationally, organizationally, doctrinally and technically," the report states.

The report says that new equipment and technological innovation are important, but more important is having trained people who understand and can exploit these new technologies.

The joint force must win over the full range of conflict, be prepared to work with allies and cooperate with other U.S. and international agencies. Adversaries will not stand still. They, too, have access to many cutting-edge developments in information technology.

"We should not expect opponents in 2020 to fight with strictly 'industrial age' tools," the report states. "Our advantage must ... come from leaders, people, doctrine, organizations and training that enable us to take advantage of technology to achieve superior warfighting effectiveness."

see future joint warfare.... and realise ir's not a PlayStation game.

Luckily, the US and Russia...

The US and Russia say they will try to clinch a new strategic arms reduction treaty (Start) by the end of 2009.

"This is of the highest priority to our governments," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, after talks with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

In turn, Mr Lavrov described the current Start treaty - due to expire at the end of this year - as "obsolete".

--------------------

see toon at top and don't forget that some of the most relevant comment below it "vanished"... or got truncated by forces unknown...

Written by Chris Floyd   
Surely there is no one who still needs to be apprised of the fact that the New York Times is one of the chief organs of the American Empire, operating in a semi-official fashion to disseminate the intentions and wishes of our rulers. The fact that the paper also publishes some excellent reporting -- and can even, on occasion, assume an adversarial stance against one faction of the elite or another -- in no way undermines its essential function in the imperial power structure. After all, Pravda and Izvestia did the same under the Soviets.

[Of course, the dead hand of state censorship was heavier under the Soviets than in our ultra-modern, low-carb authoritarian system. We prefer witless diversion over outright repression, tasers over bullets, and the eager self-censorship of cozy, coddled media dullards over direct intervention by government functionaries -- although, to be sure, if repression, bullets and direct intervention (along with KGB-style torture, rendition, detention without trial, etc.) are deemed necessary, our elites are more than willing to oblige.]

But despite the glaring transparency of the NYT's stovepiping duties, it is still instructive to watch these operations in action now and then, if only to keep one's bullshit detector in fighting trim. And a story by Thom Shanker highlighted in the Times on Saturday provides an excellent example of this venerable and pernicious process.

The nugget of "news" in the story was unsurprising -- but its implications were no less disturbing for that. Shanker, in the usual cringing courtier mode of our higher media, funnels the usual unexamined, unquestioned spin of  the usual anonymous "senior official" to let the rabble know that the poobahs on the Potomac are gearing up to fight even more wars simultaneously all over the globe. Specifically, what we have is -- as Shanker puts it in the inelegant prose that characterizes most NYT pieces - a "rethink [of] what for more than two decades has been a central premise of American strategy: that the nation need only prepare to fight two major wars at a time."

No, what we need now, says Shanker's Anonymous Militarist, is the ability to fight every damn body every damn where in every damn kind of way. Not just a two-front war, but three-front wars, four-front wars, counterinsurgencies, police actions, nation-building (with the preceding nation-destroying, of course), on and on, all at the same time.

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Read more of Chris Floyd and see the comment just above this one — and of course read all from the top cartoon down...

Engineers in the United States are looking at the possibility of programing ethics into military weapons.

Concerns about the deaths of non-combatants in so-called collateral damage have led robotic engineers to research new technology that could see military devices act ethically during combat and even follow the international rules of war.

Emotions like guilt or a sense of responsibility might also be included in the military software to mitigate the risk to civilians.

Just last month a US air strike on a village in southern Afghanistan killed more than 100 civilians.

It was said to be the single worst aerial attack by US forces since the 2001 invasion began.

It sparked condemnation by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and expressions of regret by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

But could such incidents be avoided using new technology?

Research published in the latest edition of New Scientist shows it might be possible to limit civilian deaths and other collateral damage by installing special software into military systems, giving the devices a 'moral compass'.

Ron Arkin, a robotics engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has spent the last three years developing software that would see ethics and emotions like guilt installed into lethal military systems.

"These systems can ultimately do better than human soldiers in a battlefield," he said.

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war is love gone wrong...

An international debate is needed on the use of autonomous military robots, a leading academic has said.

Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield said that a push toward more robotic technology used in warfare would put civilian life at grave risk.

Technology capable of distinguishing friend from foe reliably was at least 50 years away, he added.

However, he said that for the first time, US forces mentioned resolving such ethical concerns in their plans.

"Robots that can decide where to kill, who to kill and when to kill is high on all the military agendas," Professor Sharkey said at a meeting in London.

"The problem is that this is all based on artificial intelligence, and the military have a strange view of artificial intelligence based on science fiction."

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This line of comments explore the superwarrior and the robots that can replace the humans in wars. At present even the robots are still driven by humans, some humans being half the globe away, operating from their lounge rooms. Cameras and communications have made leaps and bound. Army personnel responsible for these robots can bomb a Jihadist camp in Pakistan, while having lunch. But mistakes can be made and identification may not be as clear as a bell as "terrorists" do not carry a label on their foreheads. There is a bit of hit and miss and also some disinformation coming from people on the ground — those locals who feed information to the US Army, for money.

Thus we are back to square one, despite the most sophisticated bizos. Solid information about the targets is the key to success. But there are petty disputes between locals and other parameters such as translation that can hamper real understanding. Thus as the munching soldier in his comfy chair at home might have to decide: they're running away, they have guns (could be sticks for the goats), blast 'em!...

American troops have shot and wounded an Iraqi man who hurled a slipper at a military convoy in the former insurgent stronghold of Falluja. A joint patrol of US and Iraqi troops is believed to have mistaken the flying shoe for a grenade.

A statement from the US military said that during a patrol on Wednesday an "object" was thrown at the troops, who then fired "in self-defence, wounding the attacker".

US troops gave the man, Ahmed al-Jumaili, first aid before he was taken to hospital by Iraqi police. He was in a stable condition after being treated for a chest wound and two bullet grazes.

The incident came just a day after the release from prison of Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush.

Jumaili, a 30-year-old mechanic, said he threw his leather slipper in a knee-jerk reaction. "When I saw Americans patrolling the streets of Falluja I lost my temper, I don't want to see them in Falluja," he told the Associated Press news agency. "Troops have withdrawn from cities, so why they still patrolling here in Falluja?"

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Even from my far far away position I can make a distinction between a slipper and a grenade... But tempers are on edge and fingers are on triggers... And as the man points out: What are the Yankees doing in Falluja? See toon at top...

From the Independent

Soldiers, sailors and airmen returning from the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq have been hitting the bottle in a dangerous fashion but have not suffered the tidal wave of mental problems that was predicted, researchers report today.

The British military appears to have avoided the heavy toll that the conflicts have exacted on their American counterparts, where rates of post-traumatic stress disorder in returning troops have soared.

One in seven UK military personnel deployed to the two countries were drinking heavily – at harmful levels – after returning, at rates 22 per cent higher than among those who remained at home. Alcohol is banned in war zones but is plentiful in overseas bases.

However, rates of post-traumatic stress disorder were low among British troops, affecting only 4 per cent overall. Despite fears that the length of the war in Iraq – from 2003-09, it was longer than the Second World War – and the intensity of the fighting in Afghanistan would have devastating effects on the minds of troops, it has not turned out as some predicted.

Alcohol misuse, which is mostly ignored by the military, is now a bigger problem than post-traumatic stress disorder itself, the researchers from King's College London said.

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see toon at top and read comments below it...

Guilt-racked Victoria Cross winner Johnson Beharry told today how he tried to kill himself by driving into a lamppost at 100mph.

He said he hoped the car smash would "be my end" after being tormented by depression and nightmares from his time in Iraq.

L/Cpl Beharry, 30 - who was awarded Britain's highest military honour for twice saving colleagues while under fire - told The Sun: "Sometimes you just can't get away from the things you have seen."

Describing his crash, he said he stormed out of his house after an early-morning bust-up with his partner.

The soldier, of 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, drove off in his Lexus sports car and said he reached 100mph as he raced down a street in south-east London.

"I picked a lamppost which seemed to be next to a slightly raised section of pavement and drove straight for it," he told The Sun. "I looked at the road and there was nobody."

As world military powers look to develop the biggest, baddest weapons, Russia's armed forces are toying with an alternative: inflatable missiles, tanks and planes.

Rusbal, a private Moscow-based company, makes inflatable S-300 missiles, T-80 and T-72 tanks, and Su-27 and MiG-31 fighter jets — all life-sized and, it says, extremely difficult to distinguish from the real thing when viewed by radar or satellite.

In an armed conflict, enemy pilots cannot discern immediately that the military equipment they are about to attack is fake, "and time is money," said Rusbal's marketing director, Viktor Talanov, whose father founded the company in 1993.

Further confusing the foe, the tanks, planes and missiles are built to appear authentic on thermal imagers, Talanov said in an interview.

The realism of the inflatables has attracted considerable interest not only from the military, which reportedly deployed test versions of the blow-up tanks during the 2008 conflict with Georgia, but also from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, Talanov said.

The only differences between a real and inflatable tank are price and weight.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/inflatable-weapons-enjoys-high-demand/416711.html

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Gus: apparently these planes come with a blow-up adult-only naked female pilot bonus. The army you have when you don't have an army... see toon at top and comments below it..

A small crew of technicians, braving radiation and fire, became the only people remaining at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Tuesday — and perhaps Japan’s last chance of preventing a broader nuclear catastrophe.

They crawl through labyrinths of equipment in utter darkness pierced only by their flashlights, listening for periodic explosions as hydrogen gas escaping from crippled reactors ignites on contact with air.

They breathe through uncomfortable respirators or carry heavy oxygen tanks on their backs. They wear white, full-body jumpsuits with snug-fitting hoods that provide scant protection from the invisible radiation sleeting through their bodies.

They are the faceless 50, the unnamed operators who stayed behind. They have volunteered, or been assigned, to pump seawater on dangerously exposed nuclear fuel, already thought to be partly melting and spewing radioactive material, to prevent full meltdowns that could throw thousands of tons of radioactive dust high into the air and imperil millions of their compatriots.

They struggled on Tuesday and Wednesday to keep hundreds of gallons of seawater a minute flowing through temporary fire pumps into the three stricken reactors, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Among the many problems they faced was what appeared to be yet another fire at the plant.

The workers are being asked to make escalating — and perhaps existential — sacrifices that so far are being only implicitly acknowledged: Japan’s Health Ministry said Tuesday it was raising the legal limit on the amount of radiation to which each worker could be exposed, to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts, five times the maximum exposure permitted for American nuclear plant workers.

The change means that workers can now remain on site longer, the ministry said. “It would be unthinkable to raise it further than that, considering the health of the workers,” the health minister, Yoko Komiyama, said at a news conference.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16workers.html?hp=&pagewant...      

Guilt, tiredness, stress, shock – can specialised drugs help to mute the qualities that make soldiers human, asks Michael Hanlon?

The ancient Spartans believed that battlefield training began at birth. Those who failed the first round of selection, which took place at the ripe old age of 48 hours, were left at the foot of a mountain to die. The survivors would, in years to come, often wonder if these rejects were the lucky ones. Because to harden them up, putative Spartan warriors were subjected to a vigorous regime involving unending physical violence, severe cold, a lack of sleep and constant sexual abuse.

As with the English public schools, which used similar tactics to produce the warriors who carved out the British Empire, the Spartan regime worked; the alumni were the most feared soldiers in the eastern Mediterranean. And ever since then, military chiefs have wondered whether it may be possible to short-cut the long and demanding Spartan regime to produce a soldier who kills without care or remorse, shows no fear, can fight battle after battle without fatigue and generally behave more like a machine than a man.

In the post-war era, the future of fighting was thought to be about tanks and missiles, large impersonal machines that would fight huge battles over the open terrain of Northern Europe. The soldiers would be pressing buttons in a command centre. But despite the advent of drone aircraft, much of 21st-century warfare is turning out to be a drawn-out, messy business, fought on a human scale in the mud and dust of Afghanistan. And fought against a mercurial army of irregulars who melt away into the fields and farms once the skirmish is over. Modern soldiers are not the cannon fodder of before. Highly trained and super fit, each one represents a huge investment by the nation that sends them into battle. A soldier who is too tired to fight effectively, who has gone mad or who is suffering from severe stress is like a broken-down tank, no use to anybody. What if soldiers could be made that did not break down?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/super-soldiers-the-quest-for-the-ultimate-human-killing-machine-6263279.html

We have been on the case since the inception of this site... See toon at top and this story near top...

Advances in neuroscience could be used by the military to help make soldiers more deadly on the battlefield. Ian Sample reports.

Soldiers could have their minds plugged directly into weapons systems, undergo brain scans during recruitment and take courses of neural stimulation to boost their learning, if the armed forces embrace the latest developments in neuroscience to hone the performance of their troops.

These scenarios are described in a report into the military and law enforcement uses of neuroscience, published today, which also highlights a raft of legal and ethical concerns that innovations in the field may bring.