Doug's Darkworld

A big part of the reason I haven’t been posting much daily is that I want to fit all my latest epiphanies into one post. I’ve come to a new understanding of a lot of fundamental things in the past few years, and I feel like I need to add vast codicils to anything I write to accommodate them. The good kind of accommodate. Since that isn’t going to ever happen, at least not blogwise, I’m going to take a different approach. I’ll start at some fixed point and ramble as I may. And I’m starting with Evolution = God. What do I mean by that? I could write a book. I mean that the Universe we find ourselves in is so complex on so many levels that it is mind boggling, we are the product of processes that have gone on for billions of years through gigatrillions of iterations. And every single step of the way leading to us was ordered on levels of precision that are again, mind boggling. We appear to be just one product of a reality that literally appears to have infinite possibilities to create different complexities. Yet here we are. When one truly grasps that, it’s amazing beyond belief.

It also makes the idea of a Biblical God who is concerned with promulgating his narcissistic cult throughout the human race on the threat of eternal torture seem like something a psychotic two year old would come up with. I mean, really? And every faith convinced that they are following the one true messiah, and the followers of the other faiths are inherently violent and somehow less than human. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism demonstrate that most clearly. Anything resembling an impartial look at even 20th century history has to conclude that each is capable of horrific barbarism under the right circumstances. If we go back further in history, it gets much much worse. Religions are ideologies, and with an ideology, it’s easy to manipulate people into committing atrocities. I use those three as examples, they are all the same. Political ideologies are no different, communists, socialists, capitalist, fascists, the whole lot have committed the most unthinkable atrocities throughout their histories.

Unthinkable being the word. Adherents of such ideologies either deny that their ideology committed the atrocity, holocaust deniers being a prime example, or they claim that the atrocities committed in their name were the only choice, forced on them by the enemy’s atrocities. America’s Obama supporters are a great example of this, but every president since World War Two has hands drenched in blood. As do their die hard apologists. The USA has been an empire since the Spanish American War, and there’s no such thing as a peaceful empire. Again, anything resembling an objective view of America’s actions in the twentieth century shows an empire drenched in blood like all the rest. And not blood for blood’s sake, that’s not my point, but if you are going to steal from people, they are going to fight back. It goes downhill from there.

That’s basically what the modern world is based on. People accumulating wealth at the expense of poor people. And nations accumulating wealth at the expense of poor nations. The upwards transfer of wealth combined with the colonial transfer of wealth. This isn’t really civilization, it’s looting with high tech gadgets. At least the Romans knew that the heart of their empire was productive provinces and an educated population. A lesson that seems to have been lost since then. There’s two big problems with this looting mentality being the heart and soul of the empire. For one thing, it creates horrific problems in the parts of the world we exploit. Some appreciate this, many don’t. More importantly, and the point that almost everyone seems to miss, is that the upwards transfer of wealth can only go so far. At some point the whole system collapses, usually because the wealth becomes so concentrated that the people at the top lose touch with reality. Mitt Romney’s feeble attempts to portray himself as a “common man” illustrate that nicely. He considered it a “hardship” when he was forced to live off of the income from his investments!

So as my regular readers may have noticed, I’m not particularly optimistic about the future of America. We seem to have the same hubris, shortsightedness, and corruption that have led to the downfall of so many empires in the past. In my next post I have a list of ten ghastly expensive mistakes the USA has made in the past decade or so, mistakes that will cost us all dearly … yet most Americans are oblivious too them. Worse, they are led around the nose by pundits and shysters and politicians and getting all worked about about such things as gay marriage, Obama’s birth certificate, and the like. Afghanistan is the longest war the USA has ever been in, and we are holding elections to deprive Americans of their rights. Jesus wept.

(The above image is Public Domain under US copyright law. It’s Photograph of Utah Battery on McCloud Hill, in the Philippines. It was taken in 1899, shortly after the Spanish American War. I was looking for a photo of the Spanish American War, but the ones I could find were all kinda lame. This was during fighting in the Philippines, our first real war of colonial repression. One of the men in this image was killed within by fire from Philippine Freedom Fighters.)

Well, what can I say, I have not been practising due diligence in blogging  the past week or two, so maybe lost weeks would be more accurate. Oh well, if the gentle reader had my life, they would understand. And at my age, upgrades are few and far between. In any event, notes in the margins so to speak.

I find it fascinating how the UN has morphed into an instrument for the west to simply install governments the west likes in the rest of the world. Granted it was always about preserving the world order (IE, white people running the world,) but at least they used to pretend that it was an organization about handling disputes between sovereign states. Not any more. Sovereign nation, what’s that?

The madness with Iran continues. Israeli media is reporting that preparations for an attack on Iran are underway. Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the biggest impediments to peace in the modern world is a handful of nations, the US and Israel being foremost among them, having huge standing militaries. History shows that almost always (well, I can’t think of any exceptions) a huge standing military means that the military will eventually get involved in politics. And guess what policies a military might encourage? Endless war! And since the end of World War Two, that’s pretty much what the USA and Israel have done. And at this point their populations think it’s normal to be at war with everyone and surrounded by enemies. Sigh.

The Taliban spring offensive has begun. Or more accurately, spring has arrived in Afghanistan. They don’t call Afghanistan the graveyard of empires for nothing. Of course now a days the bodies are shipped home so that politicians can spew egregious self-serving nonsense while their families bury their dead. Sacrifice, duty, and the spiffy new propaganda for sending troops to the other side of the world to impose our will on people … we’re just defending our freedoms! How about freedom from senseless colonial wars, can we bring that one back? In a final bit of delicious irony irony what, the US has called the Taliban “cowards.” Right, people that are willing to fight the most powerful military machine the world has ever seen … are cowards. Snort.

I see Cheney has called President Obama’s presidency an “unmitigated disaster.” Of course he didn’t actually specify what he meant by that, since it would take an electron microscope to see the distance to the left of the Republicans that the Obama administration is. In fact the only thing “liberal” about the Obama administration is that Obama occasionally (and very occasionally these past few years ) says liberal things. More on point, it’s just disgusting that a smart man like Cheney is pandering to the tea party crowd and urging his fellow Americans to hate each other for their political beliefs. I’m beginning (beginning?) to think that modern American politics is just like the modern American media … there is no depth so low they won’t sink to to pander to the great unwashed masses.

In one little bit of good news (yes, it also takes an electron microscope to see the silver linings these days, I keep mine in standby mode,) some foreign leaders are calling on the USA to reconsider the War on Drugs. Since, you know, it’s been an unmitigated disaster. Will the USA respond to its allies concerns? Of course not, Obama was blowing up Pakistani women and children within weeks of taking office, so the idea that he gives a rats a** about our allies doesn’t pass the laugh test. Well, I mean our allies who are brown skinned nations, he at least pretends to be concerned about white nations.

So was this post a good cheery Monday morning post? Doug’s Darkworld, where it’s always the hour before dawn. Have a great week everyone!

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit etc. Credit and copyright: Universal Studios. It’s Ray Milland in the Academy Award winning 1945 movie “The Lost Weekend.” He has my sympathy.)

I’ve been writing less about world events lately because it has gotten so insane. And the insanity is driven by the USA. The specific insanity I refer to is the USA’s unwavering continuation of policies that are clearly fails. And fails in that they not only didn’t achieve what they were promised, they made things worse. It’s like Vietnam never happened, we just keep intervening in parts of the world for little or no reason, oblivious to the harm we are causing. And not only harm to other parts of the world, harm to the USA itself. In any event, a short case by case analysis:

Afghanistan: Ten years later and it’s still painfully apparent that the “government” we set up in Afghanistan is totally corrupt, extremely unpopular, just as misogynistic as the Taliban, and is only in power because western troops keep it in power. This isn’t nation building, it’s refusal to see that the Afghans aren’t ever going to accept rule by foreign imposed satraps. And of course this endless war has slowly and steadily destabilized Pakistan, a far more important country to the USA than Afghanistan.

Iraq: The poster child for failed interventions. We removed a tin pot dictator who was no threat to anyone outside of Iraq, and replaced him with an Iranian aligned government that is looking more like a dictatorship every day. Not to mention the Iraqi people paid a terrible price for this act of beneficence on our part. And it’s never mentioned that while there was no terrorism in Iraq before our invasion, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is now a powerful force launching attacks daily. And there’s numerous other insurgent groups killing people, and a horrible mess has been made of Kurdish Iraq to boot. Which is spilling over into Turkey. This invasion cost the USA trillions, made the situation far worse, and is basically considered one of the most disastrous foreign policy decisions in US history. And most Americans couldn’t find Iraq on a map.

Libya: Well, turns out that intervening in Libya has had the same effect it had in Afghanistan and Iraq, a country that was formerly relatively stable is now a bloody factionalized mess with violence spilling out into foreign lands. A coup and Civil War in Mali being the immediate aftermath, and no end in sight.

Somalia: 20 years on the Somalis are still refusing to accept as legitimate a foreign imposed government, no matter whose army tries to impose it! Why not let the Somalis form their own government? I guess it might give other countries ideas. Or more likely the people running Washington are so full of themselves that they can’t even contemplate the idea that people in other lands might not want the “benefits” of a foreign imposed colonial government.

And despite it all, the calls for foreign intervention and the foreign interventions themselves are never-ending. We are now involved in Kenya and Nigeria, and looks like we will get involved in Mali. Pundits and members of congress have even talked about the “threat” posed to the USA by events in Mali! Dear God, Mali is a tiny, impoverished country in the middle of the Sahara desert, if they are a “threat” to the USA then any country is a “threat” to the USA. This is crazy. And coming soon it seems, intervention in Syria. That will almost certainly cause problems elsewhere, Lebanon being the first example.

The second pillar of the USA’s failed policies is sanctions. Refusing to have diplomatic relationships with nations and hitting them with sanctions and international isolation almost never works. The last ten times it was tried, it worked once, in South Africa. And it only worked there because everyone in Africa knew that eventually a tiny white minority was going to have to share power with the rest of the citizens of the country. Other places it has been tried it has been a complete failure, in some cases for decades. Normalizing relations with China and Vietnam didn’t end the world, far from it. Yet somehow the idea that recognizing Iran, Cuba, or North Korea and actually having diplomatic relations with them is off the table? I’m getting really sick of hearing Obama (yeah, he’s a progressive, snort) claim that “all options are on the table.” What he means is “violence and threats are the only course of action we will pursue, diplomacy and peace are not on the table.”

And our corporate controlled media just regurgitates Washington’s propaganda and sound bites as if they were facts, while Americans watch American Idol and the beauty contest our election campaigns have turned into. At least there was debate about the invasion of Iraq, now it seems like almost every week the government launches some absurd new intervention overseas, and Americans couldn’t care less. Or worse, blame the victims of these policies, be they domestic or foreign. I think the final thing  recently that illustrated to me the psychotic inability of Washington to understand that it reaps what it sows, was Obama telling Mexico that the drug gang violence in their country was endangering relations with the USA. As if somehow the fact that the money, market, and weapons for all of the violent drug cartels on Mexico are primarily American. Basically, we are unable to stop Americans from funding and arming Mexican gangs … but it’s their problem? Jesus wept.

Or maybe it’s just me.

(The above image is claimed as Fair use under US copyright law. It’s from World of Tanks, a free online game that I waste a lot of time playing. So I recommend it. If one looks closely it does nicely illustrate the point of this post.)

A few years back I wrote a series on “Men Behaving Badly.” So it occurs to me I should write a companion series about men behaving nobly. It does happen, not as often as I would like, but it’s a good start. Honestly I think most people’s behaviour is pretty much dependent on their peers and social pressure, so under bad circumstances … normal people do bad things. Some don’t though, and this series is dedicated to people who did the right thing at the wrong time.

And my first example is Friedrich Lengfeld, pictured above. He was a lieutenant in the German army during 1944. This was World War Two, so yes, he was fighting for Hitler and Germany. November 12 of 1944 to be exact. In the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. The Battle of Hurtgen Forest was one of America’s bloodiest and least remembered battles in World War Two. This is because for months the Americans tried to capture this dense forest on the borders of Germany and Belgium. Unit after unit was set in, bloodied, and pulled out, more than 30,000 Americans were killed and wounded. Why is it little remembered? Because it was one of the stupidest battles in history, there was absolutely no reason to take this heavily defended forest from the Germans. I’m not making this up, it was the longest ground battle fought in Germany in World War Two, and the longest battle the US Army has ever fought.

Moving right along, it’s morning in the forest. Lt Lengfeld was a rifle company commander, that’s a hundred guys or more under his command. An American had been injured in a minefield near their position and was calling for help.  Lt Lengfeld ordered his men not to shoot when Americans came to help him, but none did, his unit had pulled back and didn’t hear him. The cries for help went on for hours. Finally Lt Lengfeld could listen no longer. He led a party of volunteers out to save the American soldier. He was that kind of leader, he wouldn’t ask his men to do anything he wouldn’t do. He didn’t make it. Before he even got to the American he stepped on a land mine, and eight hours later had died of his wounds. History does not record the fate of the wounded American.

In fact history almost didn’t record the fate of Lt Lengfeld, but one of his men told the story for posterity some years later. So Lt Lengfeld is mildly famous in Germany, at least they have a wikipedia entry about him. And there’s a minor postscript to this story. In 1994 some American veterans of the battle heard Lt Lengfeld’s story, and arranged to set up a memorial to him in the German military cemetery where he is buried. It is the only war memorial for a German soldier set up by Americans in Germany.

And that’s that. Ha. That’s never that. I can certainly admire Lt Lengfeld for his sacrifice, it was a noble thing to do. It’s too bad it was a part of something so ignoble that it defies imagination. (Trust me, aliens find human wars incomprehensible.) One could be unfair and wonder if he would have done the same for a French … or Russian … soldier. That was a much more bitter war, there actually wasn’t much hatred between Americans and Germans during World War Two. Except for the aforementioned caveat about wars in general. Maybe I’ll see if I can find a similar act of compassion on the Russian front. I’m not optimistic, but people can be surprising. Oh, wait, reviewing my memory … I thought of one. Tomorrow, a German soldier tries to stop the slaughter of Russian Jews! Good enough! Peace out!

(I don’t know the copyright status of images taken by Hitler’s regime, but I am going to assume since I’m not using it for profit, and I’m saying good things about Lt Lengfeld and Germans, I’m good. It’s the only picture of him I can find. He kind of looks like my uncle Leonard, but likely just the German look, it runs in the family.)

THREE VERSIONS

Version One, when I was 21:

A US soldier snapped under the pressure and went on a killing spree, gunning down at least 16 civilians in their homes as they slept. While this is a terrible thing, when it comes right down to it, the Afghans have only themselves to blame. It’s a primitive culture steeped in a  primitive religion, and despite being liberated from the Taliban and given a chance to be a modern democratic nation, many Afghans choose to blame their saviours and support the murderous Taliban. So it’s no surprise that the occasional American soldier, surrounded by a people who hate him and would kill him at the first opportunity, loses his cool. When the Afghans finally grow up and accept the gift of freedom and democracy, incidents like this won’t happen. .

Version Two, when I was 31:

A rogue American soldier, reportedly one who had had a mental breakdown, left his base in the middle of the night and killed at least 16 Afghan civilians in their homes. He was taken into custody when he returned to his base, and military officials have promised a full investigation. President Obama and US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta phoned Afghan President Karzai to offer their condolences, Mr Obama said he would hold accountable anyone responsible for the “tragic and shocking” incident. Administration spokesmen took pains to point out that this was an isolated incident, and doesn’t reflect on the overall high quality of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, or the continuing success of their mission.

Version Three, today:

Look at the old fellow’s face. His grandfather fought the British. He and his father fought the Russians. He lost family both times. Now the Americans have taken more friends and family. I can’t imagine what he must be feeling. More innocent women and children murdered, slain by a soldier in an army that has no business being in Afghanistan in the first place. However much American war apologists want to wash their hands of this, we are all guilty of this crime. Our war with and occupation of Afghanistan are war crimes, because the USA and NATO control the UN and made this occupation “legal” doesn’t magically change right from wrong. In fact, it makes it even more wrong.

Conclusion:

War is sick and unnatural, and terrible things happen even in the most just of wars, which Afghanistan most definitely is not. There was a time during and after the Vietnam War when many Americans understood this, but war was way too profitable for the powers to be to let that continue. And here we are decades later, our “leaders” promising us war and more war … and delivering it. Will Americans wake up and stop this insanity before it descends into something that makes Vietnam look mild in comparison? Damned if I know, all I can do is be a voice for peace and hope for the best.

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit, is central to illustrating the post, and is arguably a historically important image. It’s use here in no conceivable way interferes with the copyright holder’s commercial use of the image. Credit and Copyright: AP or Reuters, I’ve seen it credited to both on different mainstream news web sites, even the big boys make mistakes sometimes.)

For those who don’t get the reference, Donnie Darko is a kid in a  movie who has a series of increasingly bizarre and creepy adventures only to discover at the end that he was killed at the very beginning of the movie. Sort of. As the news, especially the Republican’s War on Women, gets weirder and creepier, I wonder sometimes if I didn’t survive my stroke, and this is just some bizarre afterlife. That, or some evil force has taken control of the body politic in the USA. It all ties together, the war on women, the war on terror, and our overseas adventures … all driven by a cult that has infiltrated our government and apparently the minds of many Americans.

First, the War on Women or whatever one wants to call the increasingly harsh laws being proposed to, well, put women in their place. And to turn back the clock to an era where there was no birth control. In the seventies we had Bobby Riggs spewing misogynistic nonsense, and the media and most people considered him a joke and a throwback. Now we have leading pundits calling women sluts and laws designed to force women to have children if they get pregnant. All  the name of saving babies, but since the only method they are proposing is making their religious code public law, this is about religion, not saving babies.

And this segues neatly into the Kony 2012 thing. This is a slick You Tube movie telling about the atrocities committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and surrounding countries. And it’s very much pro US intervention in the region, yes, the US army is going to go in and catch or kill this terrible man. Aside from the fact that the film wildly simplifies a horrible mess that the Ugandan army and government played a big role in creating, it’s predicated on the colonial assumption that the poor Africans need our help. And since an Evangelical organization created this movie, this is about crusading and conversion, all in the name of saving babies of course. Here’s what Africans say about it. I particularly liked: ” … once again Africans are being made to look like they need saving by yet another White person with a saviour-narcissist complex.”

Like all the children we saved in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some lovely stuff going on now, kids who dare wear western dress are apparently being stoned to death in Iraq now. Yeah, we turned Iraq into a fundamentalist Iran aligned mess, and seemed to have learned absolutely nothing from the situation and are going ahead and doing the same in Libya and Syria. And with our heads completely in the sand with what is going on In Afghanistan. Yes, the forgotten war, project number one in our post 9/11 cowardly violent ongoing spasm of re-shaping the world to prevent anything bad from ever happening to the USA again. It was our Christian duty, how could it have gone wrong?

The truth though is that many or most Americans completely swallow the “We’re there to help those poor brown people” line. And the beauty of the crusading colonial mind set is that when ti fails, as it almost invariably does, why it was because they were too stupid and primitive to learn our clearly superior ways, hamstrung by a 7th century religion. Said the people hamstrung by a 1st century religion. It’s a war on the truth. And that goes hand in hand with a war on science. The people making huge sums of money off the current situation, and the religious right, both hate science and are doing their best to suppress it. Using the power of modern technology and advertising, they are doing a good job of it. And going at it from both ends, science education is under attack across the USA, as evangelicals get their corrosively anti-science teachings into the classroom, one way or the other.

And of course while all this is going on, the rich are making out like bandits. Yes, the economy has been recovering the past two years … except virtually all of the recovery has gone to the top 1%. That still blows my mind, Obama bailed out the rich, and there’s still people who think he’s a man of the people? I could go into his enthusiastic endorsement of assassinating Americans or outlawing protest, but I guess believing in Obama is no more insane than believing the Earth is 6,000 years old or that “intelligent design” is a scientific theory. Hell, I guess compared to Rush Limbaugh calling the women of America sluts, Obama must look damn good to many people.

Basically evangelists and the rich have hijacked America and aren’t even hiding where they are going anymore. Two thousand years after Christ’s ministry, global misery is still being perpetrated in his name. A war on women, a war on science, a war on truth, a war on the non-Christian people of the world. And of course a lot of oil and money to be made on the side while we are saving all those souls, I mean babies. Is it all my stroke damaged brain’s imagination? I wish. Have a great weekend everyone.

(The above image is the rabbit from the movie Donnie Darko. It’s a low resolution grey scale copy of the original, and I’m basically plugging the movie, so I think I am safe claiming it as Fair Use. It’s not being used for profit, yadda, yadda, yadda. I chose it because that’s the sort of mood I’m in. My Muslim neighbours are having a party downstairs, I think I’ll go join them.)

I just found out about JIEDDO the other day. What is JIEDDO? It’s a government bureaucracy of course. Granted, that’s not very helpful. JIEDDO stands for Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization. It was created in 2006 and has a budget of about 3 billion dollars a year. What is JIEDDO’s mission? In their own words:

“The JIEDDO shall focus (lead, advocate, coordinate) all Department of Defense actions in support of the Combatant Commanders’ and their respective Joint task forces’ efforts to defeat IEDs as weapons of strategic influence.”

OK, they are tasked with doing something about IED deaths, which kill and maim American and coalition troops in Afghanistan in increasing numbers, they are insurgent’s weapon of choice against US forces.

So, why is this a problem? Why does this make me despair? I’ll try to explain. First off, this is what is called a downstream solution. And in this case, it’s about as downstream as it gets. A downstream solution is where one tries to fix a problem far away from the source by attacking the symptoms of the problem. It’s like fighting malaria by shooting mosquitoes instead of draining the swamp. No matter how effective a mosquito gun one develops, it’s unlikely to ever fully cope with the problem, and even if it does, the cost may outweigh the gain.

And IEDs are mosquitoes. IED means Improvised Explosive Device. Or as soldiers of old called them, booby traps. A booby trap runs the gamut from excrement smeared stakes in a pit to sophisticated pop-up aerial mines for downing helicopters … with a nearly infinite range of variation in between. And one gets booby traps wherever a significant local population doesn’t want foreign troops in their land. And we are getting huge numbers of them in Afghanistan, more every year in fact. Compared to the, well, zero, that were set for our troops in occupied Germany and Japan.

In other words, it’s like setting up an expensive government bureaucracy to find a solution for bullets. It’s really that silly. First of all, the military actually has people experienced with IEDs and dealing with them is part of their job. So why, exactly, is a huge bureaucracy in the United States going to enhance their efforts? It’s not of course, it’s just adding another layer of spending on top of the problem. Well, unless one believes in magic, which is basically what they are claiming. The idea is that they will be able to build some sort of high tech device that will eliminate or severely mitigate the threat. And if the people building IEDs were brain-dead sheep who never ever changed their designs no matter what, it might just work. Back in the real world, there are hundreds of different types of explosives, ways to detonate them, and ways to hide them. And when one mixes and matches to suit, one has an infinite variety of IEDs, with entirely new variations invented all the time.

And what has this over 20 billion dollar investment brought us so far? Well, nothing, really, unless one counts the fact that if anything they delayed US troops getting certain types of body armour. Yes, adding another layer of bureaucracy to an organization slows the organization’s response time. What they have accomplished is to carefully lay the groundwork for making sure they get budgeted forever. Not that it required much groundwork, since as I explained, as long as we are sending troops where the locals don’t want them, there will be booby traps.

This sadly is the kind of thinking that has permeated our entire government. “War profiteer” used to be a dirty word, when was the last time one heard it bandied about in the media? The war profiteers are now running our country, and things like the JIEDDO are a wonderful example of how they can spend huge amounts of money on nothing other than providing cover for endless war. Peace used to be a good thing, but war is apparently vastly more profitable. During World War Two when we had an actual enemy and an actual war, things like JIEDDO either got rooted out as wasteful during the war, or at died on the vine after the war. Well, at least some of them.

Or to put it in perspective, the USA has spent more on JIEDDO than it has spent on aid to Afghanistan, the country we ostensibly are trying to win the hearts and minds of. I do think it really does illustrate what the War on Terror’s priorities really are … making money off of war forever. I don’t think it’s going to end well, especially if Iraq is any indication. That blog is coming up.

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law, and I think it’s public domain. I got it on a sharing site. It’s pretty self evident why I choose this picture, it made me laugh. Or at least chuckle slightly. JIEDDO also illustrates nicely how byzantine and self fulfilling our government has become, Kafka would have been proud.)

Just for fun. No time limit, no cheating. And yes in advance, some of them are trick questions. :P True or false?:

1. The Allies planned to build giant aircraft carriers made of ice during World War Two.
2. The Confederates fired a primitive multi-stage rocket towards Washington near the end of the Civil War.
3. North Vietnam had more aces, and the highest scoring aces, in their air war with the United States.
4. In 1942 a Japanese submarine aircraft carrier launched a fire bombing air raid on Oregon.
5. The Romans built a primitive tank, the turtle, for use during sieges.
6. German U-boats installed a robotic weather station in Canada during World War Two.
7. A German armed merchant ship sank the flagship of the Australian Navy in World War Two.
8. People are still being killed to this day by Civil War munitions.
9. The Americans used submarines to attack British warships during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
10. The Nazis experimented with flying saucers during World War Two.

Scroll down for the answers.

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OK, this was for fun. If I made any egregious errors, let me know, and I’ll fix them.

1.  The Allies planned to build giant aircraft carriers made of ice during World War Two.

TRUE. Project Habakkuk was started to build an ice island in the mid Atlantic for aircraft to be based on to protect convoys from German U-Boats. It went slowly though, and while tests showed it was feasible, soon aircraft with longer ranges and numerous American escort carriers were being built, and it wasn’t needed.

2.  The Confederates fired a primitive multi-stage rocket towards Washington near the end of the American Civil War.

FALSE. This “rumour” has only one source, a modern pop writer of dubious historical scholarship. It’s a modern urban legend at best.

3.  North Vietnam had more aces, and the highest scoring aces, in their air war with the United States.

TRUE. However, it’s no reflection on the American’s abilities or technology. It’s basically because the Americans only flew 100 missions each, and there were a lot more American planes to boot. The American pilots no matter how good didn’t have the opportunities to rack up kills. The Vietnamese flew until  they were killed, and more importantly, when they did go up it was because Americans had just flown over and there would almost certainly be air combat. Usually to the surprise of the Americans, who might go weeks or months without encountering a Mig.

4.  In 1942 a Japanese submarine aircraft carrier launched a fire bombing air raid on Oregon.

TRUE. It was one plane trying to start a forest fire,and it failed. It was however the first time a foreign power launched an air strike on the continental USA.

5.  The Romans built a primitive tank, the turtle, for use during sieges.

FALSE. Sort of. Roman soldiers did use their shields to form a “turtle” in order to advance while under missile fire, and this has been called a Roman tank. Score yourself accordingly if this is what you were thinking of.

6.  German U-boats installed a robotic weather station in Canada during World War Two.

TRUE. The Allies weather stations in the North Atlantic gave them a big advantage predicting weather in Europe, the Germans tried to compensate by setting up an automated station in Newfoundland. An armed party went ashore to install in, the only time in World War Two where a German military formation operated on North American soil.  It was recovered in the seventies and now sits in a  Museum in Canada.

7.  A German armed merchant ship sank the flagship of the Australian Navy in World War Two.

TRUE. Shocking at the time, shocking still. I’ve written about this disaster.

8.  People are still being killed to this day by Civil War munitions.

TRUE. Black powder, the explosive in Civil War munitions, if it doesn’t get wet, it’s dangerous forever. And even if it does get wet, if it dries out, still dangerous. Here is a 2009 death.

9.  The Americans used submarines to attack British warships during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

TRUE. Exactly one tiny, one man, home made, submarine in each war, but at least they tried. One man died, no ships were sunk.

10. The Nazis experimented with flying saucers during World War Two.

FALSE. How do ideas like this even get started? People make them up. Maybe I’ll write a blog post on it someday.

And that’s that. Nothing too enlightening or exciting, just sharing my fascination with military trivia.

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s more tan likely public domain as the government that produced it is long gone. It’s an experiment Nazi plane with a circular wing, a Sack AS-6 to be precise. It didn’t work out very well, but it’s the closest thing to a Nazi flying saucer I could find.)

Is that a lovely? That’s California Fish and Game Commission President Daniel Richards posing with a cougar he recently killed in Idaho. He claims it was in self defence. OK, that was a joke. He killed (and reportedly ate) the cougar in a  perfectly legal hunt in Idaho. This has caused a storm of protest and calls for his resignation in California, where such hunts are illegal. Mr Richards says the hunt was legal, it was on his own time, and is no different than, say, any other California state official travelling to Nevada to go gambling, which is also illegal in California. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that Mr Richards is an insensitive  idiot. Now don’t get me wrong, I support hunting and fishing when well regulated, the alternative is much uglier. And while I’m not a big fan of trophy hunting, within reason I don’t have a problem with it. I would prefer that trophy hunters be limited to hand weapons like spears and knives. I mean come on guys, if you have to kill a big animal to prove you have stones, do it like a man. Any  a**hat can shoot a cat in a tree. Bring down a cougar or  a bear with a spear, and I’ll buy you a drink dude. Or have one in your memory at least.

I digress. Suffice it to say that any state official careless enough to allow a public picture of himself grinning like a loon while he pursues an activity that the majority of his employers disagree with, an activity he is sworn to prevent in his state, is an idiot. Yes, as a state official he is working for the voters of California. That he doesn’t understand, or is pretending not to understand, that letting a picture like this hit the airwaves would cause some major backlash, is mind blowing to me.

The point here, is that Mr Richard’s attitude is an excellent example of Vulcan logic. Because what he did was legal, he’s basically claiming that anyone who gets upset isn’t being logical, therefore he can ignore them. People do react emotionally to stuff, and anyone who has lived on Earth for more than a few weeks should understand that. Anyone who completely disregarded the emotions of people in their personal life pretty quickly wouldn’t have any friends, or at least they would have just strange stunted friendships. Now for the record I am not saying that every time someone gets upset at a public official’s actions it means they were wrong. I am saying that to claim that your actions are defensible because “people shouldn’t rationally get upset by this” is in and of itself a profoundly irrational argument. People are creatures of emotion, and to pretend otherwise isn’t rational.

And we come to a similar situation in Afghanistan. Despite the fact that there is ample evidence that defacing the Koran violates a core value of many or most of the Afghan people, many Americans in and out of politics and the media act surprised every time something like this happens and cluck cluck about how “irrational” their response is. With simply zero empathy for how they would respond in a  similar situation. If a Muslim Army had occupied the USA for a decade, waging war against the Tea Party the whole time, and the charred remains of the Star Spangled Banner flag was found in a  trash pit outside a Saudi military base, many Americans would go ballistic. The point is that the burning of the Korans, and allowing Afghans to find out, was a sign of either mind numbing incompetence on the part of some Americans … or mind numbing indifference.

The meta point I am dancing around here is that the attitude of many Americans about this Koran issue is simply a reflection of the fact that they think we are the good guys with the superior values, and our values trump theirs. This is the colonial mind set or cultural imperialism or American exceptionalism … or just plain old fashioned being arrogant and condescending. Claiming one is “helping” people by invading their country and installing a government of our liking is bizarre enough, claiming that trampling on their values at the same time is “no big deal” is beyond bizarre, it’s insane.

And frankly, my current theory is that imperialism is a disease. And the USA has a raging case of it.

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit and at this point is definitely an historically important image. My opinion on the topic? I say to Mr Richards: “Good shot! However, this picture shows you are too stupid, arrogant, and insensitive to hold public office, do us all a favour and resign.”)

PS: Have a great weekend everyone!

I was planning  posting a post about the Iraq War today, but alas it’s not finished. And it’s a post I want to be fairly polished before publishing, a war only ends once so I have to get it right. So … quick random burblings about whatever comes to mind in the hour before I have to head out into the rain to fix people’s plumbing. It’s going to be easy, becasue the world is going to hell in a hand basket, lots of bad news to choose from.

Things are going from bad to worse in Afghanistan. Hard to decide what is more disturbing, the media and government completely misrepresenting the situation, or the republicans almost gleefully using it to score political points against Obama. If chortling over American deaths can really be called scoring points, the republican party didn’t lose their moral compass, they are using it backwards. We may be forced to leave soon, it’s becoming clear that they all hate us, we didn’t have South Vietnamese troops turning their guns on Americans in Vietnam (not that I recall at least,) but it’s almost a daily occurrence in Afghanistan now.

Moving right along, the Republicans as part of their “abandon all morals ye who enter here campaign,” have more or less declared war on women, introducing new and increasingly misogynistic laws on almost a daily basis now. It’s about putting women back where they belong, in the homes breeding and raising children. Newt even just came out and said that women who use birth control are sluts. Same ol same ol, a guy who sleeps around is a stud, a gal who sleeps around is a slut. There’s even a holocaust denier and former American Nazi Party member trying to get on the Republican ticket in one state, though at least so far the Republicans aren’t going that far. Small comfort.

North Korea has agreed to stop enriching Uranium, allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities, and stop missile testing in exchange for food aid. It’s a good sign. I suspect the USA will put so many other preconditions on the deal that nothing will come of it, but who knows. I keep thinking that maybe somewhere in the primitive lizard brain that is now Washington is the dim perception that we can’t afford to police the whole world and that we need to actually dial back some of our overseas confrontations. What can I say, I’m the eternal optimist.

Syria is basically close to civil war at this point, peaceful demonstrations having given way to armed insurrection. Again as in Afghanistan, what a mess. Like all dictatorships in nations that don’t have a real national identity yet (it takes more than just drawing a line on a map to make a nation,) the rulers are very much all from the same religious and ethnic faction. So it’s as much a fight for the majority trying to get their share of the pie as it is a fight for freedom and democracy. I’m not even going to guess as to how it’s going to end, but I think it’s safe to say it isn’t going to be pretty.

And I’m pleased to end on a good note. All those bailouts and the stimulus plan have worked. Yes, the stock market is back to where it was before the crash! Isn’t that great, the people who destroyed the economy by accumulating ever higher piles of funny money at the top of the pyramid have all gotten their money back. And of course with the rich being super rich again, surely the trickle down theory will finally kick in and they will re-invest this wealth in America and we will all have good paying  jobs again soon! Yes, the American dream still lives.

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s all over Facebook so I think I’m good. I don’t know who holds the copyright but the speaker is Anne Hathaway at the 2008 Human Rights Campaign Dinner. YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZuIdQVEVY0. I posted it because it illustrates a point about the gay marriage “debate” that numerous judges have now based their rulings on, the only objections people have to gay marriage are predicated on Biblical teachings. Prejudice is not a valid reason to deny people their rights. If gay weddings bother you, don’t go to them when invited.)