war

Sweden wants cluster bombs

Todayâ??s op-ed piece in the local newspaper Göteborgs Posten is written by Frida Blom the chairperson for Svenska Freds- och Skiljedomsföreningen which is Swedenâ??s largest organization for piece peace. The reason for her article is the Norwegian conference beginning today aimed at bringing about a reduction in the use of cluster bombs.

Apparently Sweden is going to back away from earlier promises to lead and call for reductions in the use of cluster bombs. In December 2006 the Swedish Minister of Defence replied to questions in parliament stating that the governments was going to play an active role in international work against cluster bombs including working for an international ban and actively participated in the coming Norwegian conference on banning cluster bombs. The minister also stated that he was going to do away with Swedenâ??s supply of a (all?) cluster bombs (bombkapsel 90), create a Swedish ban on cluster bombs, and stop the production of bombkapsel 90 for the Swedish JAS 39 Gripen fighter.

Now it seems that the Minister has discovered that Sweden needs cluster bombs to defend Sweden. So he unfortunately cannot keep his word.

The latter position is either ignorance or bullshit on a higher level. Cluster bombs are not useful defensive tools. They are small bombs which spread over a large area. Many do not detonate, which has the effect of making re-building society after a war a costly and painfully slow process.

Dr. Strangelove

So why would the minister change his mind? Cash is king. No point in trying to sell the fighter planes if you also cannot sell the messy stuff.

Aaa â?? Swedish neutrality. Hypocrisy on a higher level.

Posted on by mklang

Are torturers evil?

It is very difficult to break out of some of one’s gut instincts. Since I was raised in the west, spoon-fed Hollywoodisms from my youngest days and all in the shadow of the cold war east-west mentality it is difficult to really get past some of the “facts of life”.

One such fact is that only evil people torture. Evil torturers fall into different categories such as (1) medieval (e.g. Spanish inquisition), foreign despot (e.g. Idi Amin), (3) total raving nutter (e.g. Hitler). Now despite the fact that I know that these simplifications are not true. Works by people such as Hannah Arendt (Eichamnn in Jerusalem) and Stanley Milgram (Obedience to Authority Study) show that acts of evil are conducted without much passion and by ordinary people.

Reports of torture being carried out by ordinary people systematically appear – and I am shocked. In particular since the organisation carrying them out is bringing democracy and attempting to win the hearts and minds of the people.

Why am I shocked? If I know that people are capable of evil? The only explanation I can think of right now is the lame idea of them and us. Stated simply evil people are them, we are good even though sometimes in error. How depressing that in the face of all the evidence I still cannot get beyond this gut reaction that they are evil while we are good.

Oh and don’t try to explain the whole thing away by speaking of a few bad apples at the Abu Ghraib prison. That simplification does not work. See for example an editorial in the New York Times (Only the Jailers are Safe, 20 December 2006, via Battleangel)

Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago, was a whistle-blower who prompted the raid by tipping off the F.B.I. to suspicious activity at the company where he worked, including possible weapons trafficking. He was arrested and held for 97 days â?? shackled and blindfolded, prevented from sleeping by blaring music and round-the-clock lights. In other words, he was subjected to the same mistreatment that thousands of non-Americans have been subjected to since the 2003 invasion.

The culture of cruelty (i.e. the acceptance or tolerance for evil deeds among organisations and in society) is spreading and the more we hear the more we accept. We become (as a society) de-sensitized and tolerant to suffering.

What is the point of fighting for democracy, rights and freedom if the methods used are cruel, inhuman and against democracy, rights and freedom? If we win this fight (against whom?) is it a victory worth having? Or will we like King Pyrrhus declare, after beating the Romans at Asculum (279 BCE) declare that a victory at such a cost is not worth having?

Posted on by mklang

Iron Harvest

If we ignore the nationalistic/romantic ramblings of some deranged people there is a consensus that war is not a good thing. Certain wars (unfortunately not all) get a great deal of media attention – which may lead to popular cries for peace. â??Secretâ?? or unpublicized wars are harder to end.

The end of war is naturally worth working for. But it also brings with it a loss of interest in the region and the people involved. This is natural since most people (me included) tend to see the end of fighting as the solution. Naturally there is a need for reconciliation and rebuilding but thatâ??s about it.

But, this complacent attitude of mine was too be rudely disturbed when I came across the term â??iron harvestâ??.

The term is used by farmers in Belgium and France to describe the yearly amount of WWI ordinance found while plowing their fields. It’s more than 80 years since the war ended and still enough war garbage appears to motivate a term of its own.  â??The French Département du Déminage recover about 900 tons of unexploded munitions every year. Since 1945, approximately 630 French démineurs have died handling unexploded munitions.â?? (Wikipedia)

But naturally the problems do not stop with an old war. As recently as 2006 the conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah in Lebanon resulted in up to one million unexploded cluster bombs (BBC News). Estimates made by U.N. officials indicate that 90 of all cluster bombs used were launched during the last 72 hours of the conflict (Washington Post)

These small lethal bombs are left lying about in fields and in ruins. This slows the pace of economic and social recovery since the fields are too dangerous to use and rebuilding takes much longer. Not to mention all the accidental casualties and fatalities which occur when people come into contact with these lethal bombs.

Theoretically such ordinance should be easily prohibited by the present rules of war but unfortunately they are not. Therefore special legislation is required. Belgium has gone the furthest among countries and banned cluster bombs completely. Other countries are also working towards this goal.

Replying to questions in Parliament, the Swedish Minister of Defence (December 2006) has stated the governments is going to play an active role in international work against cluster bombs including working for an international ban and actively participated in the coming Norwegian conference on banning cluster bombs. The minister also stated that he was going to do away with Swedenâ??s supply of a (all?) cluster bombs (bombkapsel 90), create a Swedish ban on cluster bombs, and stop the production of bombkapsel 90 for the Swedish JAS 39 Gripen fighter.
Lets hope he keeps his promise.

Unsurprisingly, the UK and US are for cluster bombs â?? or rather against the banning of the bombs (great article by Monbiot)

Somewhere behind all the politics there is a designer. Once again we need to ask â?? what kind of mind designs technology like this? After a hard day at the drawing board does he or she go home to his family and smile? What will he/she till his/her children when they ask what he does? â??Daddy designs bombs which kill childrenâ??

I donâ??t think soâ?¦

Posted on by mklang

Activist Academia

Faslane 365 is a one year continuous peaceful blockade of the Trident base at Faslane from 1st October 2006 to 30th September 2007.
The blockade is being “manned” by several different groups (look at the list here). Usually the groups organise and promise to take a certain period of the blockade.

Faslane 365 is asking a wide range of local, national and even international groups from all sections of civil society to come to Faslane with at least 100 people committed to stay and make their visions for a just and peaceful future visible for at least two days.

And guess what? There will be a group of academics blockading Faslane in the 7th January 2007. The method for blockading is a method which academics should find natural – the seminar!

Academic Trident Seminar Blockade on the 7th of Jan 2007 within the Faslane 365 Campaign in Scotland, Faslane (www.faslane365.org). In this positive and pro-active action we do not simply protest the existence of nuclear weapons but do direct action to stop them from being used by doing the professional work we do as academics; a scientific seminar. The seminar is then simultaneous a blockade of the Trident Submarine base at Faslane since the seminar will happen directly at the North Gate on the road, i.e. a blockade of base work by scientific discussion! (Academics & Scholars)

There is still time to submit a paper for the blockade (deadline 10 December): Seminar papers are supposed to be short and written by those who participate in the seminar at the gates of the base, i.e. risk arrest. The papers are our statements on why we are blockading with as usual appropriate academic references (1-5 pages, complete texts done by deadline 1st of January).

I really want to submit a paper and go. Not sure if I will be able to…
Posted on by mklang

Poisoning Hearts and Minds

You must have seen the books or heard the complaints about the US trying to figure out why they are so disliked (not only in Iraq). The US believed that they were liberators and were surprised how quickly they lost their liberation status. The operation to win the heats and minds of the people of Iraq has not worked and many wonder why.

But reading about the abuses caused by the military makes it easy to understand why the situation is going so badly. OK, so itâ??s a few bad apples you might argue. But unfortunately the few bad apples theory is wrong.

In a recent video posted to YouTube (watch it here) you can watch a scene where soldiers on a truck make children run for a bottle of water.  The scene is being filmed by one of the soldiers on the truck. Both the cameraman and the soldier holding the water are laughing and commenting on how far the children will run for water. Itâ??s a great joke for them.

The soldiers conduct, while not illegal was most definitely immoral and seemingly oblivious to the reality that these children actually live in, a reality that was largely caused by them.

It also yet another severe contradiction to our so called image as “liberators” of the middle east.

The mainstream media has yet to pick up on the story though the Pentagon is investigating the videos and the evidence is in the videos the soldiers posted themselves online that anyone can see, for the time being.

Not only did the soldiers involved behave in an unacceptable manner they thought their conduct was so acceptable and so humorous that they posted it online for the entire world to see.

(Dreams of Liberty)

OK so you still want to claim that it’s a few bad apples. No it is not. The soldiers thought the scene was so funny and that their prank would be appreciated by so many that they posted it on YouTube themselves. This is not a case of people doing something wrong and attempting to hide it.

The poison that is being spread in the minds of these children will not wash away easily. It makes you wonder what their feelings towards the west will be in thirty years from now.

Posted on by mklang

Military Tourism

The first day at the Swedish Armed Forces Academy (at Karlberg Castle) is over and today is the second, and final, day. Yesterday we had a tour of the facilities and also a long open discussion between the project members and the rapporteurs.
Apparently the Swedish military academy is the oldest in the world. The building is filled to the brim with old military nick-nacks which seem to be (almost) spread out at random. The more representative rooms are better arranged but the room we had our discussions in contained two oil portraits of 16th century characters an Admiral and an adviser to the King and two ugly worn down wood and leather sofa’s from the 1970s, the kind that you find in the clubhouse of the local chess of football club  – very postmodern.

The discussions are going well. Interesting topics and interesting people. One side-topic which came up was the notion of military tourism. Military officers traveling to other military units and living their reality for a while. This was particularly interesting when after discussing this modern version we say the names of those fallen in battle in the Karlberg chapel – it was filled with exotic locations and plenty of foreign names.

Posted on by mklang

Carpet was bombing

We are controlled by out technology. Not necessarily in a large noticeable way but definitely in small ways in which we hardly notice. Technology and technological metaphors shape our lives and our ideas. For those of us annoyed but dependent upon spelling aids in software we quickly realise how the software suggests words, spellings and grammatical rules which we are unsure of whether we want to use. If we continue to accept without question then eventually language will be shaped by software we use.

Occasionally something happens which draws attention to the silliness of allowing software to rule our language. Today I attempted to write carpet bombing. The software complained and I checked to see what it wanted. It did not like the words carpet bombing (is this an ethical choice?) but suggested carpet bombs, carpet is bombing, and carpet was bombingâ?¦

Who wrote this stuff?

Posted on by mklang

Robot Machine Gun Sentry

Samsung together with Korea university has developed the machine-gun equipped robotic sentry.

It is equipped with two cameras with zooming capabilities one for day time and one for infrared night vision. It has a sophisticated pattern recognition which can detect the difference between humans and trees, and a 5.5mm machine-gun. The robot also has a speaker to warn the intruder to surrender or get a perfect headshot. The robots will go on sale by 2007 for $ 200,000 and will be deployed on the border between North and South Korea. (Gizmondo).

The promotional video reflects a great deal of the lack of reflection among designers and developers – loud music and effects.

A machine is created to kill. No moral dimension – the machine executes commands (sorry bad pun). But what will happen when the software fails? Or even worse when the software works but a situation requiring tact and judgment occurs?

Obviously such a machine will do as it is told. It will be unable to interpret new situations and it will open fire.

Posted on by mklang

Art of War (free audiobook)

Sun Tzu’s classic the Art of War is this month’s free audiobook download from Learn Out Loud.

The Art of War is one of the oldest and most famous studies of strategy and has had a huge influence on military planning, business tactics, and beyond. First translated into a European language in 1782 by French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, it had been credited with influencing Napoleon, the German General Staff, and even the planning of Operation Desert Storm. Leaders as diverse as Mao Zedong, Vo Nguyen Giap, and General Douglas MacArthur have claimed to have drawn inspiration from the work. (Wikipedia)

The narrator is Christy Lynn.

This is only free to download during the month of November so do it now or miss the opportunity…

(via The Stingy Scholar)

Posted on by mklang

Bush Signs Torture Law

Yesterday President Bush signed the infamous Military Commissions Act of 2006 (fulltext pdf).

In case you have missed this one it is the law that grants the CIA legal right to continue operating torture facilities in undisclosed, foreign countries. It also allows individuals designated as â??enemy combatantsâ?? to be held without habeas corpus.

Habeas Corpus is basically the right that guarantees that the courts should decide whether a person is lawfully imprisoned. By removing this right the CIA now can legally detain people indefinitely without having to seek court permission.

The law also â??establishes military tribunals that would allow some use of evidence obtained by coercionâ?? â??  In the legal systems of most sane countries evidence obtained by torture is not considered good evidence. This is because the point of law is justice. Torture a person long enough and they will admit to anything just to make the torture stop. Only weak-minded incompetent fools can think that the use of torture is a good idea to obtain the truth.

So now the US has reached an all time low. It joins the company terror dictatorships like Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Cambodia where anyone deemed an enemy of the state can be picked up, hidden in a foreign jail, tortured until they admit to anything and then sentenced.

The point is, of course, that this move also removes any legitimate moral standpoint the US might have had. While the bill was being signed, protesters outside the White House shouted, â??Bush is the terroristâ?? and â??Torture is a crimeâ??. Those who refused to move were arrested by police. (Times).

To add a bit of the surreal to the event: the table where the president signed the bill had a notice with the words â??Protecting Americaâ?? written on it. If that were true then you wouldnâ??t need the sign would you?

Land of the free, home of the brave? Not likely. Nice one Georgeâ?¦

Posted on by mklang