From BBC news:
"AEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei passed on the letter from Iraqi authorities informing the agency of the theft to the Security Council. He told the council that the high explosives had been lost after 9 April 2003, during 'the theft and looting of governmental installations'."
It's also been reported that the stuff was already gone by the time that the troops got there, on the 10th. However, troops actually are reported to have been at the complex as early as the 4th. Nor is it even clear that the troops actually looked for the explosives on the 10th- it's a pretty huge complex and they were just passing through, apparently.
This is part of a much larger problem where the US simply did not do enough to secure the country. Some insurgents took weapons literally as US troops watched: the US reasoning was that these guys were a bunch of thieves and looters dismantling the Iraqi military, so they should just let them go ahead and take what they wanted. The administration simply did not prepare for the possibility of armed resistance.
Yeah, I know in retrospect securing 377 tons of high explosive looks a lot more obvious than it must have been at the time. But isn't that what we're supposed to have in an administration- some capacity for foresight, planning, judgment? Sure, it's "tough work" like Bush says. Well, why the heck does he think so many people were against a unilateral invasion in the first place? It's like sticking your hand in boiling water and then complaining afterwards that the water is really hot.
I doubt Bush is evil in the conventional, mwah-hah-hah supervillain with a white cat kind of a way. He really seems to believe in what he's doing. A term often used by insiders to describe Bush and his core group is "Utopian"- they really buy the fairy-tale stuff about democracy flowering across the Middle East.
However, good intentions... well, as they say, the road to hell is paved with them. Bush's intention for Iraq to become a Western democracy is admirable, but his incompetence in dealing with the occupation has led to a war that both America and Iraq are losing, and his good intentions are cold comfort to the thousands of Iraqis and Americans killed and maimed by that war.
Still, I wouldn't rule out selfish motives. People often do things for a combination of reasons. The thinking might have been "Hey, we free the Iraqi people from opression. PLUS, Halliburton and other companies can make billions rebuilding the place- which is gravy."
Why do people refuse to vote for a guy who, in their opinion, couldn't win.. but his views are the closest to the ones they agree with?
Probably because there's no points for second place in American democracy. Al Gore beat Bush in the popular vote, and almost beat him in electoral votes, but the Democratic party has had little influence on the course of the nation the past four years. Think about it: ten million more Nader votes wouldn't have made as much difference as a few hundred more votes for Gore in Florida.
HOWEVER, there is an interesting story on Slate.com about trying to promote the agenda of progressive third parties without tipping things to Bush (http://www.slate.com/id/2108641/). The concept is called "vote pairing". The idea is that you get supporters of independents in swing states (Florida, Wisconsin) to connect online with Kerry voters in decided states (California, Utah, Texas) and they agree to swap votes: the independent voter will vote for Kerry in the swing state, and the Kerry voter will vote for the progressive(Nader/Cobb/Badnarik) in the secure state. The idea is that by working together, voters can vote against Bush where it matters and for a progressive where it won't throw things to Bush. The web the VotePair site is http://www.votepair.org/. Given how close the race was in 2000, it is conceivable that this could actually make a difference. So far, they have gotten a lot of interest from Kerry voters who would like to see their vote count in a swing state, but they don't have enough third party voters participating.
Funny, because it wasn't the religious schools that wanted to use 3.0 for pi... (and no, the bible does NOT say "pi=3.0").
2Chr4 says: "Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about."
You could of course give the Bible the benefit of the doubt argue that this is just a really imprecise measurement of pi- which I think is the most reasonable interpretation. What the author(s) intended here might have been meant to read as history and poetry but probably wasn't meant as a math/ engineering text, so it's pointless to criticize it as such. The point isn't to poke fun at the Bible- just to poke fun at people who think you can take this all literally without being aware of the historical context in which it was written.
As for public schools wanting to teach pi=3, I went to a public school, so this wouldn't surprise me.
That'd be interesting to see- "Geek" as a target demographic on par with the "Undecided" the "Soccer Mom" and the "Security Mom". I wonder, what fantastic, impossible-to-realize thing are candidates going to promise the Slashdot crowd?
Why is it that every post on Slashdot these days that mentions Bush or Kerry winds up with partisan nonsense?
I think the thing is, people want to debate the merits of their candidates (or the problems with the other guys candidates) but the articles posted don't always create a clear forum for this. It was particularly frustrating when the second and third debates took place and there was nothing in the politics section about it- just the stuff on independents. That's fine if people want to talk about independents (actually, it's great to be exposed to some of it when the media has nothing on it). But why run a "Politics" section if you're not going to post articles about the two candidates who will recieve the most votes? Why run a Politics section if it isn't doesn't touch on central issues like Iraq and the economy? Sure, Slashdot is for geeks. But being a geek takes place in the broader context of global politics,the national economy, and other stuff not directly related to bug reports and rants against Microsoft.
It stuns me how religious people can get so riled up by the actions of a secular government permitting things.
And I guarantee you this point is not lost on Karl Rove. Haven't caught Osama? No WMD? Losing control of Iraq? Sluggish recovery? Massive debt? Their response: "Look over there, America! GAY PEOPLE are GETTING MARRIED!"
I'm also going to guess that voting against the PATRIOT act would have been political suicide at the time. Democrats are damned either way: if they vote for the act, then you can argue that they agree with the White House. If they vote against it, they are a bunch of flag-burning Osama-loving communist, athiest America-haters. Who but a cowardly traitor to our country could vote against something with such a patriotic name? Voting to authorize force against Iraq is more of the same. A lot of congressmen fought hard against the first Iraq war (I think they were wrong but for the right reasons) and then later their patriotism was questioned.
Punched! Punched! No, no, no... wait... shot. Definitely shot. Wait a minute, scratch that. I mean, I'm not feeling inclined towards shot. But maybe being shot has, like, some good stuff going for it that doesn't get reported? Punched or shot, punched or shot... hm. You know, maybe- oh, darn. What were my options again?
I can understand their perspective. Some times, such as announcing to Saddam that he had to allow unfettered nuclear inspector access by a certain date or face military action, you have to follow through, even if you change your mind (which I doubt Bush did), just so people know you mean business.
You mean unfettered access like Hans Blix and his crew had when they arrived at the conclusion that Iraq was not, in fact, pursuing WMD?
As for consistency, if someone constantly drank and used drugs to excess, that would be consistent behavior. That doesn't mean it would be a good thing.
Bush is decisive like a lemming. Give him a cliff and he'll jump off of it. Decisive, sure, but stupid.
As for values, I'd like to have someone whose core values reflect those of the country. Bush has core values, but they are not middle-America core values. As someone who feels that the President does not reflect my American values (honesty, responsibility, compassion, honesty, liberty, honesty, humility, honesty) Kerry's willingness to give people what they want doesn't strike me as such a bad thing.
Exactly how does believing that you are literally a monkey's uncle determine your competitiveness on a global scale?...An educated populace does not hinge on belief in evolution, and to insist otherwise is no different than any other superstitious belief.
To say that you can be educated and not accept evolution is like saying you can be educated and believe that the sun goes around the Earth, and Pi=3.0 because the Bible says so.
The main relevance of evolution is in biomedical sciences. It is difficult to arrive at a meaningful understanding of cells, genes, and humans without understanding the processes which shaped them: it's like trying to run a farm while refusing to believe that plants come from seeds. Evolution is important to understand how bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, the constant change in influenza viruses from year to year (why do you think we need a different flu shot every year) and the inability of the immune system to respond to HIV (HIV simply evolves swarms of new variants faster than the immune system can learn to recognize them). It may not be vital that street sweepers and sewage workers know this stuff, but our doctors and researchers need to.
(NEWS FLASH! President Bush is human! He's going to make mistakes!)
And president Bush is so very, very human. The problem isn't making mistakes- everyone does that. It's that he doesn't recognize mistakes. He can't even name a mistake he's made. That's dangerous and foolish and it's why we're losing the war in Iraq. And we are losing: our ability to move around the country has diminished, attacks are up, and the country is less secure every month. The war isn't lost yet, but someone needs to change course, and soon.
Bush wasn't there to guard it himself.
President Bush is quick to claim credit when things go right, but he and his supporters are quick to say that if anything went wrong, it's not his fault. Hurricanes in Florida? Must be the fault of the Clinton administration. Bush started the damn war, he should be ready to finish it. He wasn't. He made the decision, if he were really a man he'd be able to deal with the consequences and be ready to accept the responsibility. But he isn't, and he's never been a man. He's always been a spoiled rich brat, with his powerful father there to bail him out, and so until now, Bush has never really had to deal with the consequences of his actions. Daddy always cleaned up his messes. The problem with him being president is, as the most powerful person earth, his rich, powerful daddy is no longer able to solve all his problems.
Maybe this is what happens when The Red Terror collapses. Could it be that Soviet Russia was what kept the USA free?
Jorge Luis Borges has a provocative quote: "One inevitably comes to resemble one's enemies."
I think that fear of the USSR actually led us to become more like the Soviet Union. Likewise, fear of the terrorists has led us to become more like them. I don't think the United States is the moral equivalent of al Qaeda, but I think that our religious zealotry, our killing of thousands of civilians, our brutal treatment of captives, and refusal to abide by international law- even our own laws- have headed us in that direction. Perhaps this will help us win a few battles here and there, but will it win the war if the world no longer respects us? Even if it does win the war, what does it win us, if America loses many of the values that made it worth fighting for? What does it profit America to gain the whole world, and lose its soul?
Actually, the market for launches has been fairly steady over the past few years- the anticipated boom in commercial satellite launches just never materialized. They built a commercial site up in Alaska not so long ago, but it has never launched a single commercial payload (part of this has to do with the military taking it over for National Missile Defense tests tho). The boom in communications seems to instead have come in the form of fiberoptics and wireless.
Was the intelligence that got us INTO Iraq. Think about it- sophisticated reconaissance satellites, the multibillion dollar NSF and its various electronic intelligence gathering programs- but the United States had no idea of Iraq's true WMD programs and capabilities until months after the invasion.
Astonishingly, the CIA had almost no human intelligence inside Iraq to tell them what was going on. Technology has its advantages, but they can't overcome human stupidity, bureacracy, and the remarkable human ability to see what we want and expect to see.
Did we win? We won that battle, and we've won every battle since, no question. But will we win the war?
There's that famous quote where the American says to his Vietnamese counterpart during the peace negotiations: "You know, you never beat us in a single battle". To which the Vietnamese says, "That may be true, but it is also irrelevant".
The insurgents may only kill one American for every ten insurgents (perhaps not even), but they may be able to sustain that rate of loss longer than the American people are willing to. Some victories come at such high prices- both in terms of lives and our wider objectives- that they are really losses. Many of our wins in Iraq seem to be of that sort.
Imagine this chess game: you've got a handful of queens. Your opponent has thousands and thousands of pawns. I'm not saying it's a perfect metaphor for Iraq or anything- but we are clearly facing an enemy whose strengths, weaknesses, and strategies are very different from those we are trained to fight.
In Gulf War I, the Tomahawk was basically a robot kamikaze. The obvious next step was a reusable plane with a separate warhead, and now they've installed Hellfire missiles on the Predator. Up next is probably robot bombers (carrying multiple guided bombs/missiles) and then most likely robot fighters.
Eliminating the pilot has a lot of disadvantages, but a lot of advantages. The weight of the pilot, ejector seat, chute, survival gear, canopy, oxygen, controls, displays, etc. etc. can all be replaced by fuel, weapons, or whatever. The turning acceleration of the aircraft is limited only by its structural strength, not by the pilot's physiology. The considerable cost of training a pilot is eliminated. No need to have search and rescue standing by if the guy gets shot down, and no PR disaster if he's on TV in the hands of the enemy. The plane can be made with less redundancy and survivability, since if it's shot down you'll only lose the the plane, instead of a highly trained pilot. For the same reason, you can take risks that would be insane to take in a piloted plane. You can scale your force up or down rapidly as needed, whereas pilots take years to train initially, and then need to keep training. And so on.
I don't see pilots being eliminated any time soon, but robots will increasingly be used, particularly for those tasks which are too dangerous, monotonous, or otherwise undesirable for humans. But the question I wonder about is- what does this all hold for warfare? More frequent and more bloody or less so?
I spend a fair amount of time ranting against the Bush administration in these forums, not sure what it will accomplish. Partly I'm a devil's advocate and just like to argue. But when I'm done arguing, what do I really want?
As much as I can't stand the radical right, I'm not in favor of someone radically left. I've dealt with knee-jerk liberals- hell, I lived in San Francisco for a while- and their smug, only-read-stuff-that-already-tells-me-what-I-belie ve worldview drove me up the wall. And they were just as out of touch with reality as anyone on the right.
I think what this nation desperately needs is a radical move to the center. Not speaking-in-tongues religious, not a legalizing hemp hippy. Somehow, things have gotten so polarized, however. And I believe it's because of this president, and his black-or-white, with-us-or-against-us worldview. There are times that's useful. It was comforting in the aftermath of 9/11. But the world has all these shades of grey, and we need someone who can see them and deal with them, and realize that as much as we may try to do the right thing, sometimes even the most moral people can err. Terrorism is awful, and it needs to be fought, and assassinating terrorists needs to be done. But we also need to understand that it's not as simple as George Bush makes it out. I think that partly terrorism is driven by something you could most easily describe as evil. But partly people come to support terrorism because of frustration at generations of poverty and oppression.
I went to Africa: I saw some of the poorest people in the world. It was this brutally, oppressively poor place that makes you sad, and angry, and desperate to do something. I remember sitting with a young beggar girl on the streets in Madagascar showing her pictures from a book because I didn't know what else to give her besides some time and company. I could give her money, but it would be gone tomorrow and the only thing I'd have given her in the end was the idea that begging was the way to go through life, and I didn't want to give her that. That country broke my heart, and it broke my spirit, like nothing ever before or since ever has. There was so much potential, so much beauty, in the people... and so much of it just being wasted. All this joy, and so much pain and anger. I've never been hated like that before in my life. I've never hated being part of the human condition like that ever before. I saw things I wish I had never seen there, and learned things I couldn't unlearn, but I couldn't unsee them, and I couldn't unlearn them, and I wonder if that's how war veterans feel. Three months in Africa- I'll never get my innocence and faith in humanity back. Ever.
And if I could change Africa for the better, how far would I go? Would 3000 American lives be worth it for millions of poor people? I think it would be. Not just that- I think I'd be morally obligated. I would see 9/11 happen all over again if it meant that it would really change all the injustice there. Of course I know it won't, and that's why I'm not a terrorist.
I don't know if that's what bin Laden thinks- I suspect he's as much motivated by vanity and power as anything; and I do not respect his choice. I don't think that is the solution. But I think that maybe I can understand where people come from, who are willing to kill. The world is an awful place, the injustices so great, that sometimes desperate measures seem like the answer, the only answer. And before you say I don't know what I'm talking about: I was there. I was in New York. I remember how my throat itched from inhaling the dust, I remember and knowing what was in that dust, and I remember the huge cloud that spread out like dark wings over Manhattan... for miles. And don't misunderstand me: I love that city. So maybe I don't totally know, no. But I have some inkling of what kind of price I'm talking about. And it'd be worth it, if it brought a little justice to the world. Before you get angry, ask yourself: isn't that the rationale we use when we
no evidence of a link between Iraq and Saddam Hussein
Yeah! Damn liberals keep saying that there is no evidence to link Saddam Hussein and the nation he ruled over!
Fucking hilarious, man. So apparently it's not just Bush who keeps saying "Saddam Hussein" instead of "Osama bin Laden", like during the debates... it's a linguistic malfunction of Republicans in general? Madness really is contagious, I guess.
As for one gas shell, is that the best you've got after over a year of looking? Offhand, it sounds like Hussein just lost the goddamn thing- like it was sitting around in a warehouse with a bunch of other shells and nobody knew that it had sarin in it. Really. One shell? That's your reason for invading? You might as well say that the invasion and 1000 US casualties were justified because we really didn't like Saddam Hussein's moustache.
Anyway, it's just a liberal hit piece against conservatives, trying to pass it off as research.
Yeah. Keep telling yourself that. And keep telling yourself that reality is liberal propaganda against the Bush administration. Listen, I can be fairly left of center at times, but I honestly wouldn't have a problem if the Republicans would just elect someone who is (i) honest, (ii) sane, and (iii) willing to recognize that not everyone in the nation is a radical born-again nutjob, but that despite that they still deserve representation. John McCain, for instance. What the heck was so wrong with him that you guys had to go and elect a reject like George W. Bush? Shit, in the wild, if an animal like a rabbit, or a rat or a goat or something, if it gives birth to something as messed up as George W., the mother EATS THE DAMN THING for the greater good of the species.
I find it amusing that the survey was conducted at all, as if the opinions of the "vast majority" of the people in the world are either relevant or legitimately discernable.
Pull your head out of your ass long enough to take a look around. It matters. Like Mao said, the guerilla is the fish and the people are the sea. Terrorist organizations cannot exist without a supportive population. They thrive when people support them. If nobody sypathized with or supported Al Zarqawi, the guy would be out on his ass on the streets of Fallujah and we'd have him. Likewise, if people didn't support Al Qaeda, we'd be able to march into Pakistan or Afghanistan and pick up Osama bin Laden and his minions. Thing is, people DO support these guys. And the more people support bin Laden, and al Qaeda, the further these fuckers can spread their tentacles. The more people will help them, the more they will get financial assistance, and the more people will join them.
Iraq, for instance. Who cares what they think? How is that relevant? How is it relevant if the average Iraqi, who would love to have a free Iraq, now hates the United States and the occupation so much that he's willing to pick up an AK-47, a rocket propelled grenade, and an improvised explosive device? It's just not relevant that he now wants to avenge his nation or his family by killing US soldiers? It fucking matters, alright.
Fighting terrorism is a global problem. We need to be able to fight these guys whether they are in Indonesia, Spain, France, Syria, Saudia Arabia- wherever. But when we keep pissing off the rest of the world to where they won't talk to us, won't cooperate with us, won't fight alongside us, we're weakening America, not making it stronger. And when we make people believe that it is America- not the terrorists- who are the real enemy- then we are losing the war on terror. And we are losing the war. After 9/11, people sympathized with us, wanted to help us. These days? Hell, a huge percentage of Americans are ashamed to be American after Abu Ghraib. How the hell can we lead if no one respects us?
Well, according to W., there are "internets" and we need to be worried about drugs imported from "a third world"...
What's your agenda, anyway? What kind of terrorist, communist, puppy-kicking agenda are you promoting? Why do you hate freedom so much? Maybe because you're part of that subversive "Reality Based Community" the New York Times article was talking about http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH. html
Slashdot Mirror
Date of invasion: March 20
From BBC news: "AEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei passed on the letter from Iraqi authorities informing the agency of the theft to the Security Council. He told the council that the high explosives had been lost after 9 April 2003, during 'the theft and looting of governmental installations'."
It's also been reported that the stuff was already gone by the time that the troops got there, on the 10th. However, troops actually are reported to have been at the complex as early as the 4th. Nor is it even clear that the troops actually looked for the explosives on the 10th- it's a pretty huge complex and they were just passing through, apparently. This is part of a much larger problem where the US simply did not do enough to secure the country. Some insurgents took weapons literally as US troops watched: the US reasoning was that these guys were a bunch of thieves and looters dismantling the Iraqi military, so they should just let them go ahead and take what they wanted. The administration simply did not prepare for the possibility of armed resistance.
Yeah, I know in retrospect securing 377 tons of high explosive looks a lot more obvious than it must have been at the time. But isn't that what we're supposed to have in an administration- some capacity for foresight, planning, judgment? Sure, it's "tough work" like Bush says. Well, why the heck does he think so many people were against a unilateral invasion in the first place? It's like sticking your hand in boiling water and then complaining afterwards that the water is really hot.
However, good intentions... well, as they say, the road to hell is paved with them. Bush's intention for Iraq to become a Western democracy is admirable, but his incompetence in dealing with the occupation has led to a war that both America and Iraq are losing, and his good intentions are cold comfort to the thousands of Iraqis and Americans killed and maimed by that war.
Still, I wouldn't rule out selfish motives. People often do things for a combination of reasons. The thinking might have been "Hey, we free the Iraqi people from opression. PLUS, Halliburton and other companies can make billions rebuilding the place- which is gravy."
Probably because there's no points for second place in American democracy. Al Gore beat Bush in the popular vote, and almost beat him in electoral votes, but the Democratic party has had little influence on the course of the nation the past four years. Think about it: ten million more Nader votes wouldn't have made as much difference as a few hundred more votes for Gore in Florida.
HOWEVER, there is an interesting story on Slate.com about trying to promote the agenda of progressive third parties without tipping things to Bush (http://www.slate.com/id/2108641/). The concept is called "vote pairing". The idea is that you get supporters of independents in swing states (Florida, Wisconsin) to connect online with Kerry voters in decided states (California, Utah, Texas) and they agree to swap votes: the independent voter will vote for Kerry in the swing state, and the Kerry voter will vote for the progressive(Nader/Cobb/Badnarik) in the secure state. The idea is that by working together, voters can vote against Bush where it matters and for a progressive where it won't throw things to Bush. The web the VotePair site is http://www.votepair.org/. Given how close the race was in 2000, it is conceivable that this could actually make a difference. So far, they have gotten a lot of interest from Kerry voters who would like to see their vote count in a swing state, but they don't have enough third party voters participating.
2Chr4 says: "Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about."
You could of course give the Bible the benefit of the doubt argue that this is just a really imprecise measurement of pi- which I think is the most reasonable interpretation. What the author(s) intended here might have been meant to read as history and poetry but probably wasn't meant as a math/ engineering text, so it's pointless to criticize it as such. The point isn't to poke fun at the Bible- just to poke fun at people who think you can take this all literally without being aware of the historical context in which it was written.
As for public schools wanting to teach pi=3, I went to a public school, so this wouldn't surprise me.
That'd be interesting to see- "Geek" as a target demographic on par with the "Undecided" the "Soccer Mom" and the "Security Mom". I wonder, what fantastic, impossible-to-realize thing are candidates going to promise the Slashdot crowd?
Girlfriends?
However, redundant posts on redundancy are recursive.
I think the thing is, people want to debate the merits of their candidates (or the problems with the other guys candidates) but the articles posted don't always create a clear forum for this. It was particularly frustrating when the second and third debates took place and there was nothing in the politics section about it- just the stuff on independents. That's fine if people want to talk about independents (actually, it's great to be exposed to some of it when the media has nothing on it). But why run a "Politics" section if you're not going to post articles about the two candidates who will recieve the most votes? Why run a Politics section if it isn't doesn't touch on central issues like Iraq and the economy? Sure, Slashdot is for geeks. But being a geek takes place in the broader context of global politics,the national economy, and other stuff not directly related to bug reports and rants against Microsoft.
And I guarantee you this point is not lost on Karl Rove. Haven't caught Osama? No WMD? Losing control of Iraq? Sluggish recovery? Massive debt? Their response: "Look over there, America! GAY PEOPLE are GETTING MARRIED!"
I'm also going to guess that voting against the PATRIOT act would have been political suicide at the time. Democrats are damned either way: if they vote for the act, then you can argue that they agree with the White House. If they vote against it, they are a bunch of flag-burning Osama-loving communist, athiest America-haters. Who but a cowardly traitor to our country could vote against something with such a patriotic name? Voting to authorize force against Iraq is more of the same. A lot of congressmen fought hard against the first Iraq war (I think they were wrong but for the right reasons) and then later their patriotism was questioned.
-Undecided Voter
You mean unfettered access like Hans Blix and his crew had when they arrived at the conclusion that Iraq was not, in fact, pursuing WMD?
As for consistency, if someone constantly drank and used drugs to excess, that would be consistent behavior. That doesn't mean it would be a good thing.
As for values, I'd like to have someone whose core values reflect those of the country. Bush has core values, but they are not middle-America core values. As someone who feels that the President does not reflect my American values (honesty, responsibility, compassion, honesty, liberty, honesty, humility, honesty) Kerry's willingness to give people what they want doesn't strike me as such a bad thing.
To say that you can be educated and not accept evolution is like saying you can be educated and believe that the sun goes around the Earth, and Pi=3.0 because the Bible says so.
The main relevance of evolution is in biomedical sciences. It is difficult to arrive at a meaningful understanding of cells, genes, and humans without understanding the processes which shaped them: it's like trying to run a farm while refusing to believe that plants come from seeds. Evolution is important to understand how bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, the constant change in influenza viruses from year to year (why do you think we need a different flu shot every year) and the inability of the immune system to respond to HIV (HIV simply evolves swarms of new variants faster than the immune system can learn to recognize them). It may not be vital that street sweepers and sewage workers know this stuff, but our doctors and researchers need to.
And president Bush is so very, very human. The problem isn't making mistakes- everyone does that. It's that he doesn't recognize mistakes. He can't even name a mistake he's made. That's dangerous and foolish and it's why we're losing the war in Iraq. And we are losing: our ability to move around the country has diminished, attacks are up, and the country is less secure every month. The war isn't lost yet, but someone needs to change course, and soon.
Bush wasn't there to guard it himself.
President Bush is quick to claim credit when things go right, but he and his supporters are quick to say that if anything went wrong, it's not his fault. Hurricanes in Florida? Must be the fault of the Clinton administration. Bush started the damn war, he should be ready to finish it. He wasn't. He made the decision, if he were really a man he'd be able to deal with the consequences and be ready to accept the responsibility. But he isn't, and he's never been a man. He's always been a spoiled rich brat, with his powerful father there to bail him out, and so until now, Bush has never really had to deal with the consequences of his actions. Daddy always cleaned up his messes. The problem with him being president is, as the most powerful person earth, his rich, powerful daddy is no longer able to solve all his problems.
Hell, in some circumstances Bush did away with due process... and the Geneva conventions...
Jorge Luis Borges has a provocative quote: "One inevitably comes to resemble one's enemies."
I think that fear of the USSR actually led us to become more like the Soviet Union. Likewise, fear of the terrorists has led us to become more like them. I don't think the United States is the moral equivalent of al Qaeda, but I think that our religious zealotry, our killing of thousands of civilians, our brutal treatment of captives, and refusal to abide by international law- even our own laws- have headed us in that direction. Perhaps this will help us win a few battles here and there, but will it win the war if the world no longer respects us? Even if it does win the war, what does it win us, if America loses many of the values that made it worth fighting for? What does it profit America to gain the whole world, and lose its soul?
Actually, the market for launches has been fairly steady over the past few years- the anticipated boom in commercial satellite launches just never materialized. They built a commercial site up in Alaska not so long ago, but it has never launched a single commercial payload (part of this has to do with the military taking it over for National Missile Defense tests tho). The boom in communications seems to instead have come in the form of fiberoptics and wireless.
Astonishingly, the CIA had almost no human intelligence inside Iraq to tell them what was going on. Technology has its advantages, but they can't overcome human stupidity, bureacracy, and the remarkable human ability to see what we want and expect to see.
What's the poor thing going to say? "Um excuse me, I would really like some cheese", or perhaps, "For the love of god- kill me now, KILL ME NOW!"
There's that famous quote where the American says to his Vietnamese counterpart during the peace negotiations: "You know, you never beat us in a single battle". To which the Vietnamese says, "That may be true, but it is also irrelevant".
The insurgents may only kill one American for every ten insurgents (perhaps not even), but they may be able to sustain that rate of loss longer than the American people are willing to. Some victories come at such high prices- both in terms of lives and our wider objectives- that they are really losses. Many of our wins in Iraq seem to be of that sort.
Imagine this chess game: you've got a handful of queens. Your opponent has thousands and thousands of pawns. I'm not saying it's a perfect metaphor for Iraq or anything- but we are clearly facing an enemy whose strengths, weaknesses, and strategies are very different from those we are trained to fight.
Eliminating the pilot has a lot of disadvantages, but a lot of advantages. The weight of the pilot, ejector seat, chute, survival gear, canopy, oxygen, controls, displays, etc. etc. can all be replaced by fuel, weapons, or whatever. The turning acceleration of the aircraft is limited only by its structural strength, not by the pilot's physiology. The considerable cost of training a pilot is eliminated. No need to have search and rescue standing by if the guy gets shot down, and no PR disaster if he's on TV in the hands of the enemy. The plane can be made with less redundancy and survivability, since if it's shot down you'll only lose the the plane, instead of a highly trained pilot. For the same reason, you can take risks that would be insane to take in a piloted plane. You can scale your force up or down rapidly as needed, whereas pilots take years to train initially, and then need to keep training. And so on.
I don't see pilots being eliminated any time soon, but robots will increasingly be used, particularly for those tasks which are too dangerous, monotonous, or otherwise undesirable for humans. But the question I wonder about is- what does this all hold for warfare? More frequent and more bloody or less so?
As much as I can't stand the radical right, I'm not in favor of someone radically left. I've dealt with knee-jerk liberals- hell, I lived in San Francisco for a while- and their smug, only-read-stuff-that-already-tells-me-what-I-belie ve worldview drove me up the wall. And they were just as out of touch with reality as anyone on the right.
I think what this nation desperately needs is a radical move to the center. Not speaking-in-tongues religious, not a legalizing hemp hippy. Somehow, things have gotten so polarized, however. And I believe it's because of this president, and his black-or-white, with-us-or-against-us worldview. There are times that's useful. It was comforting in the aftermath of 9/11. But the world has all these shades of grey, and we need someone who can see them and deal with them, and realize that as much as we may try to do the right thing, sometimes even the most moral people can err. Terrorism is awful, and it needs to be fought, and assassinating terrorists needs to be done. But we also need to understand that it's not as simple as George Bush makes it out. I think that partly terrorism is driven by something you could most easily describe as evil. But partly people come to support terrorism because of frustration at generations of poverty and oppression.
I went to Africa: I saw some of the poorest people in the world. It was this brutally, oppressively poor place that makes you sad, and angry, and desperate to do something. I remember sitting with a young beggar girl on the streets in Madagascar showing her pictures from a book because I didn't know what else to give her besides some time and company. I could give her money, but it would be gone tomorrow and the only thing I'd have given her in the end was the idea that begging was the way to go through life, and I didn't want to give her that. That country broke my heart, and it broke my spirit, like nothing ever before or since ever has. There was so much potential, so much beauty, in the people... and so much of it just being wasted. All this joy, and so much pain and anger. I've never been hated like that before in my life. I've never hated being part of the human condition like that ever before. I saw things I wish I had never seen there, and learned things I couldn't unlearn, but I couldn't unsee them, and I couldn't unlearn them, and I wonder if that's how war veterans feel. Three months in Africa- I'll never get my innocence and faith in humanity back. Ever.
And if I could change Africa for the better, how far would I go? Would 3000 American lives be worth it for millions of poor people? I think it would be. Not just that- I think I'd be morally obligated. I would see 9/11 happen all over again if it meant that it would really change all the injustice there. Of course I know it won't, and that's why I'm not a terrorist.
I don't know if that's what bin Laden thinks- I suspect he's as much motivated by vanity and power as anything; and I do not respect his choice. I don't think that is the solution. But I think that maybe I can understand where people come from, who are willing to kill. The world is an awful place, the injustices so great, that sometimes desperate measures seem like the answer, the only answer. And before you say I don't know what I'm talking about: I was there. I was in New York. I remember how my throat itched from inhaling the dust, I remember and knowing what was in that dust, and I remember the huge cloud that spread out like dark wings over Manhattan... for miles. And don't misunderstand me: I love that city. So maybe I don't totally know, no. But I have some inkling of what kind of price I'm talking about. And it'd be worth it, if it brought a little justice to the world. Before you get angry, ask yourself: isn't that the rationale we use when we
Yeah! Damn liberals keep saying that there is no evidence to link Saddam Hussein and the nation he ruled over!
Fucking hilarious, man. So apparently it's not just Bush who keeps saying "Saddam Hussein" instead of "Osama bin Laden", like during the debates... it's a linguistic malfunction of Republicans in general? Madness really is contagious, I guess.
As for one gas shell, is that the best you've got after over a year of looking? Offhand, it sounds like Hussein just lost the goddamn thing- like it was sitting around in a warehouse with a bunch of other shells and nobody knew that it had sarin in it. Really. One shell? That's your reason for invading? You might as well say that the invasion and 1000 US casualties were justified because we really didn't like Saddam Hussein's moustache.
Anyway, it's just a liberal hit piece against conservatives, trying to pass it off as research.
Yeah. Keep telling yourself that. And keep telling yourself that reality is liberal propaganda against the Bush administration. Listen, I can be fairly left of center at times, but I honestly wouldn't have a problem if the Republicans would just elect someone who is (i) honest, (ii) sane, and (iii) willing to recognize that not everyone in the nation is a radical born-again nutjob, but that despite that they still deserve representation. John McCain, for instance. What the heck was so wrong with him that you guys had to go and elect a reject like George W. Bush? Shit, in the wild, if an animal like a rabbit, or a rat or a goat or something, if it gives birth to something as messed up as George W., the mother EATS THE DAMN THING for the greater good of the species.
Pull your head out of your ass long enough to take a look around. It matters. Like Mao said, the guerilla is the fish and the people are the sea. Terrorist organizations cannot exist without a supportive population. They thrive when people support them. If nobody sypathized with or supported Al Zarqawi, the guy would be out on his ass on the streets of Fallujah and we'd have him. Likewise, if people didn't support Al Qaeda, we'd be able to march into Pakistan or Afghanistan and pick up Osama bin Laden and his minions. Thing is, people DO support these guys. And the more people support bin Laden, and al Qaeda, the further these fuckers can spread their tentacles. The more people will help them, the more they will get financial assistance, and the more people will join them.
Iraq, for instance. Who cares what they think? How is that relevant? How is it relevant if the average Iraqi, who would love to have a free Iraq, now hates the United States and the occupation so much that he's willing to pick up an AK-47, a rocket propelled grenade, and an improvised explosive device? It's just not relevant that he now wants to avenge his nation or his family by killing US soldiers? It fucking matters, alright.
Fighting terrorism is a global problem. We need to be able to fight these guys whether they are in Indonesia, Spain, France, Syria, Saudia Arabia- wherever. But when we keep pissing off the rest of the world to where they won't talk to us, won't cooperate with us, won't fight alongside us, we're weakening America, not making it stronger. And when we make people believe that it is America- not the terrorists- who are the real enemy- then we are losing the war on terror. And we are losing the war. After 9/11, people sympathized with us, wanted to help us. These days? Hell, a huge percentage of Americans are ashamed to be American after Abu Ghraib. How the hell can we lead if no one respects us?
What's your agenda, anyway? What kind of terrorist, communist, puppy-kicking agenda are you promoting? Why do you hate freedom so much? Maybe because you're part of that subversive "Reality Based Community" the New York Times article was talking about http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH. html