WAR WORDS edited by benny229@yahoo.com

2003-07-24T06:15:00.000-07:00

2003-07-24T06:13:00.000-07:00

Summer massacres

"The firefight lasted from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Ali and other witnesses said the helicopters fired about 10 missiles at the house during the last hour. Most of the upper floor, which bore the brunt of the assault, was reduced to smoking rubble. Ten large shell holes pockmarked the north side of the house.
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, U.S. military commander, said three of the four men, including Uday and Qusay, probably were killed by TOW missiles. Sanchez refused to comment on reports that the last holdout was Qusay's son Mustafa, 14."
Husseins' host couldn't refuse, St. Petersburg Times, 07/24/03

"On the night of July 17, 1918 the Romanovs were told to dress and were lead from their rooms to a small room in the basement . They were told to wait for the motorcars, which would be taking them to a safer place because the White Army was approaching. As they entered the basement they were told to gather for a picture by Yurovsky, who, unbeknownst to them, was the head executioner. This was to dissolve the rumors of the family’s death. Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, gave the order for the execution of the Imperial family. This order was carried out by Yurovsky and eleven armed men. As recounted by Massie:

Yurovsky said to the Romanov family, “In view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you.” Nicholas turned quickly to look at his family, then turned back to face Yurovsky and said, “What? What?” Yurovsky quickly repeated what he had said, then jerked the Colt (a gun) out of his pocket and shot the Tsar, point-blank. (5)
Each of the eleven men were previously assigned who they were to kill, for the sake of efficiency. As firing began, some members of the family fell dead in an instant, while others attempted to avoid the gunfire. Alexis, clinging to his late father’s shirt, was approached by Yurovsky and shot twice in the ear. (Massie 6) The murderers loaded the family of corpses, wrapped in bed sheets, onto a waiting truck. The ordeal took all of twenty minutes"
A. Algmin and K. Demchuk, The Romanovs - Together in life and death

2003-07-23T04:14:00.000-07:00

Peace Tide?

"Nothing could hurt him more than the loss of his sons. Not the loss of Iraq. Not even his own death. For all those who longed for revenge upon Saddam, this is it. If he is still alive, the deaths of Uday and Qusay are the greatest torment that could be visited upon him.

His fall, his suffering - his punishment - are almost Biblical in their resonance. Pharaoh has lost his first-born and more. The prodigal sons will not return in this telling. He who sowed the wind has reaped the whirlwind. [...]

The tide of peace has turned as decisively as the tide of battle did some months ago."
Ralph Peters, END OF A DYNASTY, The New York Post, 07/23/03

"Then came the successor of Facus, Tiberius Alexander. He was the son of Alexander, the chief customs officer of Alexandria, one of the most influential men of his age, both for his family and wealth. He was also more eminent for his piety than his son Alexander, for the latter did not continue in the religion of his country. Under this prefect a great famine happened in Judaea, and queen Helena of Adiabene bought corn in Egypt at a great expense, and distributed it to those that needed it. Besides this, the sons of Judas the Galilean were executed; I mean that they were the sons of that Judas who caused the people to revolt when [the governor of Syria] Quirinius came to take an account of the estates of the Jews. The names of those sons were James and Simon, whom Alexander commanded to be crucified.
[Flavius Josephus, Jewish antiquities 20.100-103]
This is what the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote at the end of the first century. The two men he had executed were probably nationalist rebels of the type that was later known as Zealots. Some twenty years earlier, Josephus had written another book, The Jewish war, in which he had merely stated that Alexander respected the customs of the country and that the people lived in peace (2.220). The two statements support each other: because Alexander arrested the two men the peace remained in the land of Israel."
Livius.org, Tiberius Julius Alexander

2003-06-10T05:19:00.000-07:00

WMD: Piece of Yellowcake

" GENERAL "BUCK" SCHMUCK
Good morning, Mister President.

The PRESIDENT scowls.

PRESIDENT MUFFLEY
Now, what the hell's going on?

Four-Star Air Force General, "BUCK" SCHMUCK, stands and
assumes his maximum dignity.

GENERAL "BUCK" SCHMUCK
Well, Mister President.

PRESIDENT MUFFLEY
What kind of trouble?"
Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove Screenplay

"For nearly three weeks, hundreds of villagers who live in the shadow of the high earthen berm and barbed-wire fences that surrounded the labyrinth of the Iraqi nuclear program here bathed in and ingested water laced with radioactive contaminants from the barrels..
The barrels, Iraqi and foreign experts say, had held uranium ores, low-enriched uranium 'yellowcake,' nuclear sludge and other dirty by-products of Saddam's nuclear research..
Some villagers fell ill with nausea. Others developed rashes that made them itch..
Although no qualified medical experts have examined them, some contracted ailments that they now attribute to radioactive contamination. It may take years to determine the health effects from the radiation poisoning that occurred here before U.S. military forces arrived to seal off this nuclear complex..
Questions have been raised by international inspectors about why, despite U.S. assurances that coalition forces had secured this installation, an army of looters roamed freely for days, ransacking vaults and warehouses that contained enough radioactive poisons to manufacture an inestimable quantity of so-called dirty bombs..
Tuwaitha has been the most conspicuous element of Iraq's nuclear research program since its inception in the 1970s."
Patrick E. Tyler, Iraqis seeking water ingested nuclear waste , IHT, 06/09/03
.

2003-06-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

WMD Hunt: The Farce Goes On

Farce: a light dramatic composition marked by broadly satirical comedy and improbable plot (Merriam-Webster OnLine)

"A team of UN nuclear experts arrived in Baghdad today to begin a[nswering] a growing crisis at Iraq's largest nuclear facility, left unguarded by American troops during the early days of the war and then looted by villagers.
[...]
The United States tried to keep the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) out of post–war Iraq. But it reluctantly agreed to allow the agency's return under pressure from the arms–control community, which was concerned about Tuwaitha's safety and American capability to secure the area and account for its contents.
[...]
US troops involved in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction said recently that at least 20 per cent of the barrels containing low–grade or natural uranium appeared to be gone.
[...]
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said some 3,000 barrels were stored there under the agency's watch. Last week, American troops accompanied by Iraqi health workers ordered residents from the surrounding villages to sell back barrels for $3 each. Pentagon officials said that more than 100 barrels had been retrieved."
Bold Mine
AP, Health crisis looms over looted Iraqi nuclear plant, The Guardian, 06/06/03

2003-06-05T03:57:00.000-07:00

Guerrilla for Dummies

"Gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles have attacked an American military convoy in the neighborhood where Saddam Hussein made his last public appearance on April 9, the day the capital fell to allied forces..
At least one American soldier was wounded and one Iraqi civilian was killed in the firefight that erupted late Sunday on the busy square in front of the Abu Hanifa Mosque, according to an Iraqi hospital official who treated the wounded. Other medical workers said three Iraqi civilians were wounded..
'This is just the beginning!' shouted a woman who identified herself as Shahrezad, a bank manager."
Patrick E. Tyler, U.S. soldier wounded in Baghdad firefight, International Herald Tribune, 06/02/03

"In the words of a leader of the Huk guerrilla movement of the Philippine
Islands: 'The population is always impressed by weapons, not by the terror that
they cause, but rather by a sensation of strength/force. We must appear before
the people, giving them the message of the struggle.' This is, then, in a few
words, the essence of armed propaganda."
Central Intelligence Agency, Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare

2003-06-04T04:04:00.000-07:00

World-Class Accidents

"''World-class organizations do not tolerate preventable accidents. Our accident rates have increased recently, and we need to turn this situation around"
Donald Rumsfeld, quoted on Pentagon concerned about deadly accidents in Iraq, MSNBC News, 06/03/03

"Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics:
Things get worse under pressure."
Murphy Laws Site

2003-06-03T04:05:00.000-07:00

The Counterforce

"A force of more than 1,500 US troops, backed by tanks and armoured vehicles, is to take control of two towns near Baghdad that are thought to be sheltering Iraqi fighters still loyal to Saddam Hussein.
In the next 10 days, battle-hardened troops of the US army's 3rd Infantry Division will be sent into Falluja and Habaniya, west of Baghdad. The troops, who led the invasion of Iraq and the capture of Baghdad, will be backed up by 88 Abrams tanks and 44 Bradley fighting vehicles.
They will saturate the area with checkpoints and conduct search operations, targeting Ba'ath party supporters and other militias from the towns."
Rory McCarthy, US prepares battle force to wipe out hardline Iraqi resistance, The Guardian, 06/03/03

"Dialectically. . .some counterforce would have had to arise"
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1973, page 536.

2003-06-02T05:34:00.000-07:00

A Creative Approach to Disarmament

"Two weeks ago, Iraq’s American occupiers issued an order demanding citizens hand in everything but light weapons, which are permitted for protection in homes and businesses. Anyone who doesn’t comply by sunset on June 14 could be sentenced to a year in prison plus a $1,000 fine.
Under the order, only coalition forces, police officers and other uniformed officials under coalition authority are allowed to possess most automatic or heavy weaponry. A few other groups are exempt from certain parts of the order, such as the peshmerga, a Kurdish fighting force that helped the United States during the war.
The guns handed in will either be destroyed or used by the new Iraqi army and police.
But on Sunday, the first day of the gun handover period, few Iraqis seemed to be taking the U.S. order very seriously. Barely anyone showed up at Baghdad police stations, the city’s main weapons collection points."
SAMEER N. YACOUB, Lack of security foils U.S. efforts to disarm Iraqis, Cantonrep.com, 06/02/03

"NATO-led peacekeepers say they have launched a lottery -- with a car as the top prize -- for Bosnians who turn in illegally held wartime weapons.
More than seven years since the end of Bosnia's 1992-5 war between its rival ethnic groups, the peacekeepers say that almost every house possesses some kind of weapon.
The 'Harvest Reward' lottery has already started and will last until June 22. It is part of the five-year-old Operation Harvest, which aims to collect all wartime weapons.
'There will be approximately 210 prizes given in seven Bosnian municipalities in exchange for weapons and ammunition,' Captain Deborah McCoy of the U.S. contingent in northern Bosnia told Reuters by telephone.
'The main prize, a VW Polo car, will be given during a weapons destruction ceremony,' she said.
Each Bosnian turning in a rifle will receive five lottery tickets. A grenade or grenade launcher is worth three tickets, and 20 rounds of ammunition one ticket."
NATO lures illegal Bosnia weapons with lottery, Yahoo News via Reuters, 05/30/03

2003-05-30T03:19:00.000-07:00

Cognitive Dissonances

"Steven Kull, director of PIPA comments, 'Enthusiasm about the success of the war may be offset by the failure to find evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or links to al’ Qaeda.'
Kull continues, 'For some Americans, their desire to support the war may be leading them to screen out information that weapons of mass destruction have not been found.' While 59% of those polled correctly said the US has not found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, 41% said they believed that the US has found such weapons (34%) or were unsure (7%). While 69% correctly said that Iraq had not used chemical or biological weapons in the war, 31% said they believed Iraq had (22%) or were unsure (9%). Kull adds, 'Given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public attention to the topic, this level of misinformation suggests that some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance.' "
Press Release by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, 05/28/03

"The soldiers were given information that coerced them into an 'us vs. them' state of mind, the realistic conflict theory. Due to the propaganda that they were bombarded with, they felt that they were competing with the Jews for resources.(1) This may not have been an organized plan, but it was a step by step journey that led ordinary men from acceptance of the 'final solution' to perpetrators of it. At first, the soldiers accepted the prejudice due to all of the previous theories noted and followed orders to kill. They may not have enjoyed it and not all of them may have complied, but enough did.(4) As soon as they had killed once, cognitive dissonance set in. That is, they had conflicting emotions about murder and following orders.(1) Since they could not change the act that they had committed, they had to change their attitude about the act they committed, thus decreasing the amount of dissonance, or discomfort that they felt due to conflicting feelings. Once they had reached that point, they were on their way to being completely desensitized, and then the committance of murder in the name of their government, culture, and way of life was justifiable."
Suzette B. Rambo-Lamb, Analysis of the underlying social psychology of the Holocaust, ChuckIII's College Resources

2003-05-29T04:55:00.000-07:00

The Life of Gnaeus Julius Rumsfeld: Paths of (Least) Resistance

"All of you protect the homeland and all of you take up the resistance. Do not ...let them seize your oil and wealth. [...]
I say that the American and British invaders have plundered the antiquities and your oil from your wealth and even plundered from the banks amounts of money that exceed by far what they are declaring. [...]
While we fight and hunt the cowardly American and British enemy, we call on you to activate your political role by boycotting everyone that the criminal invading forces install to manage any of the Iraqi governmental and popular departments"
'Purportedly', Saddam Hussein, unknown whereabouts

"We gain nothing by submission except heavier burdens for willing shoulders. Once each tribe had one king, now two are clamped on us-the legate to wreak his fury on our lives,the procurator on our property. We subjects are damned in either case, whether our masters quarrel or agree. Their gangs of centurions or slaves, as the case may be, mingle violence and insult. Nothing is any longer safe from their greed and lust. In war it is the braver who takes the spoil; as things stand with us, it is mostly cowards and shirkers that rob our homes, kidnap our children and conscript our men. Any cause is good enough for us to die for-any but our country's. But what a mere handful our invaders are, if we reckon up our own numbers. The Germans, reckoning so, threw off the yoke, and they had only a river, not the Ocean, to shield them. We have country, wives and parents to fight for; the Romans have nothing but greed and self-indulgence. Back they will go, as the deified Julius went back, if only we can rival the valor of our fathers. We must not be scared by the loss of one battle or even two; success may foster the spirit of offence, but it is suffering that gives the power to endure."
Tacitus, The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, chapter 15, AD 98.

2003-05-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

The Life of Gnaeus Julius Rumsfeld: The Dangers of Plotting

"Interference in Iraq by its neighbors or their proxies will not be permitted. Indeed, Iran should be on notice that efforts to try to remake Iraq in their image will be aggressively put down."
Donald Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld Warns Iran Not to Interfere in Iraq, The Washington File, 05/27/03

"The gods themselves are at last showing mercy to us Britons in keeping the Roman general away, with his army exiled in another island. For ourselves we have already taken the most difficult step-we have begun to plot. And in an enterprise like this there is more danger in being caught plotting than in taking the plunge."
Tacitus, The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, chapter 15, AD 98.

2003-05-27T02:05:00.000-07:00

Free Iraqi Forces

"Ahmad Chalabi, whose Iraqi National Congress, a coalition of political exiles, was acting like a government in waiting until Mr. Bremer's bombshell, is shutting down the political campus he was running at the once fashionable Hunting Club in Baghdad. He has sent his political operatives to Washington to find out what happened to the 'promises' made by Bush administration officials that have now been rescinded.
His 'Free Iraqi Forces,' about 700 paramilitary fighters who briefly cooperated with the allies in the late stages of the military campaign, were abruptly dissolved this weekend by order of Mr. Bremer, who signed a directive intended to disarm another militia, the Badr Brigade of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq."
Patrick E. Tyler, Iraqis Frustrated by Shift Favoring U.S.-British Rule, The New York Times, 05/25/03

"It is known that Herod had not the freedom to do whatever he wanted unless he was sure that his masters would give their approval for his decision. Thus, his foreign policy was directed by Roman foreign policy. His army was under the control of Augustus Caesar at all times. On top of this, he had frankly agreed with the emperor that his authority was purely personal."
A Roman Province

2003-05-22T05:23:00.000-07:00

Dubious Threats

"The Central Intelligence Agency has begun a review to try to determine whether the American intelligence community erred in its prewar assessments of Saddam Hussein's government and Iraq's weapons programs, several officials say.
The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, has named a team of retired C.I.A. officers to scour the classified intelligence reports that were circulated inside the government before the war on a range of issues related to Iraq, including those concerning Bagdhad's links to terrorism and unconventional weapons, officials said. The team plans to compare those reports with what has actually been discovered in Iraq since the war ended."
James Risen, C.I.A. Studying Prewar Reports on Iraqi Threat, The New York Times

"Vi. Terrorist Threats and Plans: Worldwide.

Target: GONP Courier Flight
Place: Unspecified
Date: 24-25 December 1974

A new organization of uncertain makeup, using the name 'Group of the Martyr Ebenezer Scrooge, ' plans to sabotage the annual courier flight of the Government of the North Pole. Prime Minister and Chief Courier S. Claus has been notified and security precautions are being coordinated worldwide by the CCT Working Group. (CONFIDENTIAL)"
Declassified.
From the Gerald R. Ford Library, 17 December 1974. Approved for release 06/18/97, The National Security Archive

2003-05-21T05:15:00.000-07:00

Yaba-daba-doo

"In short, Saddam had broken his people long before we ever arrived. It is no wonder that so many Iraqi soldiers just ripped off their uniforms and fled, and that much of the damage done to U.S. forces was done largely by Baath guerrillas. With all due respect to the U.S. military, and the brave men and women who fought here, this contest was surely one of the most unequal wars in the history of warfare. In socioeconomic terms, we were at war with the Flintstones."
Thomas L. Friedman, Postcard From Iraq, The New York Times, 05/21/03

"Flushed with success as he gazed at the scene around, Khalid thus addressed his followers:—'O see ye not the food, plentiful as flintstones? Ay, by God, were it not ours to fight for God against the unbelievers, and were it only as a means of living, the right opinion would be to lay our stakes for these fair fields, until we show ourselves worthy of them, and give over hunger and penury to those who prefer them and who find burdensome that which you are enduring.' "
The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall - From Original Sources [Chapter 8]

2003-05-19T03:04:00.000-07:00

The Gloating

"Let's own up. It is great fun to see Donald Rumsfeld discomfited. The US defence secretary is not exactly a modest man. And everyone knows what he thinks about Europe. Mr Rumsfeld, we can now recall, insisted he would have sole control over postwar Iraq. The United Nations would be left out in the cold. The same applied to Colin Powell's state department. This was Mr Rumsfeld's war and so it would be his peace. Even the ever-so-loyal Brits now lay the dismal record of the past month at the Pentagon's door. The soon-to-depart Jay Garner was Mr Rumsfeld's man.
Intelligent Europeans, though, will worry rather than gloat."
Philip Stephens, A battle in Washington breaks the peace in Iraq, Financial Times, 05/16/03

"The danger is that we can win the military victory and lose the peace. I think the measure of resistance that we’ve seen, and the kind of fighting, bodes ill for the occupation...and I know we want to call it a liberation, but I think this looks more like a war of conquest than a war of liberation.”
Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift on the Fox News Channel at about 11:30am ET on April 3, as quoted on Special Gloat and Quote:
Media's Erroneous Predictions, CyberAlert Extra

2003-05-18T04:23:00.000-07:00

Charmless Baghdad

"Iraqis are an exhausted people. Most seem ready to give us a chance, and we do have a shot at making this a decent place — but not with nation building lite. That approach is coming unstuck in Afghanistan and it will never work in Iraq. We've wasted an important month. We must get our act together and our energy up. Why doesn't Mr. Rumsfeld brief reporters every day about rebuilding Iraq, the way he did about destroying Saddam?

America is in an imperial role here, now. Our security and standing in the world ride on our getting Iraq right. If the Bush team has something more important to do, I'd like to know about it. Iraq can still go wrong for a hundred Iraqi reasons, but let's make sure it's not because America got bored, tired or distracted."
Thomas L. Friedman, Bored with Baghdad - Already, The New York Times, 05/18/03

"An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit"
Pliny the Younger (61-105 AD), Letters. Book ii. Letter xv. 1.

2003-05-16T05:41:00.000-07:00

Bob and Jerry

"'This is not a country in anarchy,' Bremer said at his first news conference since arriving in Iraq on Monday. 'People are going about their business. They are going about their lives.'
[...]
As Bremer spoke, looters a few blocks away were scrambling through the skeleton of the Ministry of Information, which caught fire as they scavenged the ravaged building. Outside, weary U.S. soldiers watched the smoke rise above the building and shrugged. They used to arrest looters and take them to a makeshift detention center nearby, where they would be set free within hours. Now they simply watch the looters from afar and wait for fire engines that never arrive. None of the soldiers had heard that their top commander announced plans Wednesday to hold looters for 20 days."
Dion Nissenbaum, Bremer: Iraq is not in 'anarchy,' promises more security, KRT Wire, 05/15/03

"We are finding a lot of company in our appreciation of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf - also known as the Sultan of Spin, Baghdad Bob, the Blowhard of Baghdad, the Lovable Liar, Uncle Mo, Little Al, MSS, Comical Ali and the Iraqi information minister.
Al-Sahhaf, you will recall, was the fellow whose daily press briefings provided comic relief while bombs were dropping and bullets flying. Wearing a jaunty beret and a Mona Lisa smile, he doggedly delivered zesty insults and extravagant claims of stupendous victory.
'I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad.' "
Iraqi's press briefings made him a cult hero, Cleveland.com, 04/22/03

2003-05-15T03:47:00.000-07:00

Disorder in the Provinces

"Veteran senators from both parties, expressing some of the strongest congressional concern to date about the civil disorder in Iraq, appealed to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday to quickly bring the situation under control.
'I remain genuinely concerned that we are in a situation where we have won the war and we lose the battle,' Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) said. Unless order is restored, he warned later, '[t]here is a real chance that the victory we claim is not a victory at all.' "
Dan Morgan, Iraq Disorder Worries Senators, The Washington Post, 05/15/03

"The provinces (hitherto senatorial) were in considerable disorder, which Pliny was sent to cure. It is clear from the emperor's letters that in regard to nine out of ten of the matters which his anxious and deferential legate referred to him for his decision he would have been better pleased if the legate had decided them for himself. Trajan’s notions of civil government were, like those of the duke of Wellington, strongly tinged with military prepossessions. He regarded the provincial ruler as a kind of officer in command, who ought to be able to discipline his province for himself and only to appeal to the commander-in-chief ih a difficult case. In advising Pliny about the differunt free communities in the provinces, Trajan showed the same regard for traditional rights and privileges which he had exhibited in [front] of the senate at Rome. At the same time, these letters bring home to us his conviction that, particularly in financial affairs, it was necessary that local self-government should be carried on under the vigilant supervision of imperial officers."
Encyclopedia.org

2003-05-14T04:07:00.000-07:00

A New Sheriff in Town

"United States military forces in Iraq will have the authority to shoot looters on sight under a tough new security setup that will include hiring more police officers and banning ranking members of the Baath Party from public service, American officials said today.
The far more muscular approach to bringing order to postwar Iraq was described by the new American administrator, L. Paul Bremer, at a meeting of senior staff members today, the officials said.
[...]
'I think you are going to see a change in the rules of engagement within a few days to get the situation under control.'
Asked what this meant, the official replied, 'They are going to start shooting a few looters so that the word gets around' that assaults on property, the hijacking of automobiles and violent crimes will be dealt with using deadly force.
How Iraqis will be informed of the new rules is not clear."
Patrick E. Tyler, New Policy in Iraq to Authorize G.I.'s to Shoot Looters, The New York Times, 05/13/03

"There is surely one general prohibition
which we can make. I mean a prohibition
against what is called 'frightfulness.'
What I mean by frightfulness is the in-
flicting of great slaughter or massacre
upon a particular crowd of people, with
the intention of terrorising not merely
the rest of the crowd, but the whole dis-
trict or the whole country."
Winston Churchill, Amritsar Massacre Speech, 07/08/1920

2003-05-13T02:19:00.000-07:00

Fading Away

" 'I also want to say how proud I am of the work my good friend Jay Garner and the people who are working for him, how proud I am of everything they have done here in the last couple of weeks under extraordinary circumstances,' Bremer said after arriving in Basra.
He said he wanted to 'pay public tribute to Jay and all of his people for the great job they have done.'
Reacting to reports that Garner would be leaving the country earlier than originally planned, Bremer said, 'I certainly intend to work with him in the next weeks here to get a bunch of serious milestones accomplished.'
Standing beside Bremer, Garner said the reports that he would be leaving early are 'not true.'
'What I say we have here is one team, one fight,' said Garner. "We'll drive on.' "
Robert Burns, U.S. Administrators Arrive For Iraqi Reconstruction, The St. Peterburg Times, 05/13/03

"The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good-by."
Douglas MacArthur, General Douglas MacArthur Defends
His Conduct of the War in Korea, 04/19/51

2003-05-11T03:01:00.000-07:00

Imperial Correspondence

"Dear Mr. President,
You worry less about sending mixed messages than do most politicians and other members of the chattering class.
[...]
Iraq is not a turnkey project that can be handed off even to the most talented and resolute of subordinates.
[...]
That means, among other things, making sure that there is not a scintilla of wrongdoing or impropriety in the letting of reconstruction contracts to U.S. firms. That means putting new emphasis in your energy policies on cutting American dependence on imported oil through fuel conservation. That means not even flirting with human rights abusers from the old regime, as U.S. officials have done in meeting with Ali Jabouri, the former warden of Abu Ghraib prison, and other Hussein ex-henchmen.
[...]
Mr. President, I apologize for the intrusion and for practicing on you the art of journalism, which is to state the obvious in a loud voice."
Jim Hoagland, No Time For Mixed Messages, The Washington Post, 05/11/03

"LXI

Trajan to Pliny

Your letter, my dearest Secundus, was extremely acceptable, as it informed me of the zeal and affection with which you, together with the army and the provincials, solemnized the day of my accession to the empire.

LXIV

[Plinius] To the Emperor Trajan

I return you my warmest acknowledgments, Sir, that, among the many important occupations in which you are engaged, you have condescended to be my guide on those points on which I have consulted you: a favour which I must now again beseech you to grant me. A certain person presented himself with a complaint that his adversaries, who had been banished for three years by the illustrious Servilius Calvus, still remained in the province: they, on the contrary, affirmed that Calvus had revoked their sentence, and produced his edict to that effect. I thought it necessary, therefore, to refer the whole affair to you. For as I have your express orders not to restore any person who has been sentenced to banishment either by myself or others, so I have no directions with respect to those who, having been banished by some of my predecessors in this government, have by them also been restored. It is necessary for me, therefore, to beg you would inform me, Sir, how I am to act with regard to the above-mentioned persons, as well as others, who, after having been condemned to perpetual banishment, have been found in the province without permission to return"
Plinius, Secundus. "Letters Of Pliny." Correspondence With The Emperor Trajan, Great Literature Online. 1997-2003. 111-113 AD

2003-05-09T05:34:00.000-07:00

The God of Open Doors

"

2000: director of a company which wins $200m contract to sell nuclear reactors to North Korea
2002: declares North Korea a terrorist state, part of the axis of evil and a target for regime change

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea - a country he now regards as part of the "axis of evil" and which has been targeted for regime change by Washington because of its efforts to build nuclear weapons."
Randeep Ramesh, The two faces of Rumsfeld, The Guardian, 05/09/03

"Janus is the Roman god of gates and doors (ianua), beginnings and endings, and hence represented with a double-faced head, each looking in opposite directions. He was worshipped at the beginning of the harvest time, planting, marriage, birth, and other types of beginnings, especially the beginnings of important events in a person's life. Janus also represents the transition between primitive life and civilization, between the countryside and the city, peace and war, and the growing-up of young people."
Pantheon.org

2003-05-08T00:45:00.000-07:00

Salam Pax and Singapore Zoo

A quick one just to relay the news of the reappearance of none less than the mother of all bloggers, Salam Pax.
Enjoy.
And this one is a blog whose snazzy looks are more than balanced by its compelling content: the diary of a doctor in Singapore in the SARS days.
Check it out.

2003-05-07T02:46:00.000-07:00

Bye Bye Lt. General Jay Garner, (ret.)

"We ought to look in a mirror and get proud, and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say, 'Damn, we're Americans!' "
General Jay Garner, The New York Times, 05/07/03

"Mandrake:

Jack... Jack, listen, tell me, ah... when did you first become, well, develop this theory.

General Jack D. Ripper:

Well, I ah, I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.

Mandrake:

sighs fearfully

Ripper:

Yes a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly: loss of essence.

Mandrake:

Yes...

Ripper:

I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women... women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.

Mandrake:

Heh heh... yes. "
Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove: A Continuity Transcript, 1964

2003-05-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

Mobile Biological Weapons

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to point to what the United States says is a mobile biological weapons laboratory as evidence that Iraq until recently had an active bio-weapons program, Pentagon officials told CNN on Monday.
Pentagon officials said Rumsfeld may cite the truck, discovered recently in northern Iraq, at a scheduled Pentagon briefing Tuesday.
The suspected mobile laboratory is on a truck frame and resembles the drawings shown by Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations in February, sources said. At the time, Powell said the U.S. suspected Iraq had at least seven mobile labs."
Rumsfeld expected to cite mobile bio-lab in Iraq, CNN, 05/06/03

Maybe I found it...

2003-05-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

They Must Be Kidding

"The United States has evidence that Saddam Hussein is working on a nuclear weapons program, according to Vice President Dick Cheney, who warned of a 'possible marriage' between the Iraqi leader and terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda.
[...]
'We have to be concerned now about the possibility that we're vulnerable to an attack the likes of which we did not experience prior to last September 11 -- with a far more deadly weapon,' Cheney said. 'We have to worry about the possible marriage, if you will, of a rogue state like Saddam Hussein's Iraq with a terrorist organization like al Qaeda.'"
Cheney: Saddam working on nuclear weapons, CNN, 09/10/02

"Two reports over the weekend gave rise to concern:

On Saturday, a Washington Post reporter travelling with a special US defence department team visited the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility. US soldiers at the site told him Iraqis had been "coming in by the score" for two weeks. The team found radioactive material scattered around the site.

Also on Saturday, a New York Times reporter with the same team visited the nearby Tuwaitha site, again finding radioactive material stored haphazardly around the site and indications that, even by Saturday, little or nothing had been done to prevent looting."
'Looting' at Iraq nuclear sites, BBC, 05/05/03

2003-05-04T03:59:00.000-07:00

The Life of Gnaeus Julius Rumsfeld: Turf Wars

"One day after US President George W Bush proclaimed victory in the war against Iraq from the flight deck of a homeward-bound aircraft carrier off San Diego, the war between the Pentagon and the State Department seemed to be raging as furiously as ever.
It appears that the Department may have mounted something of a coup d'etat against the neo-conservative hawks around Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld when word leaked out that a former diplomat, L. Paul Bremer III, will become Washington's new viceroy in Baghdad.
[...]
So it goes these days in the capital of the global hegemon, as the president himself, pre-occupied with the electoral fate of his father after the first Gulf War, appears eager to turn the nation's attention back to domestic matters.
With Bush determined to show the electorate that he is now focused on the troubled economy rather than on planning for yet another war, US intentions in Iraq remain unclear.
[...]
But it now appears that Garner will report to Bremer, who may report directly to the White House without even going through Franks.
Leak of his appointment clearly embarrassed Rumsfeld."
Jim Lobe, Iraq: Who's in charge in Washington?, Malaysiakini, 05/04/03

"The news of these events, although reported by Agricola in his dispatches in the most exact and modest terms, was received by Domitian with the smile on his face that so often masked a secret disquiet. He was bitterly aware of the ridicule that had greeted his sham triumph over Germany, when he had bought up slaves to have their dress and hair made up to look like prisoners of war. But now came a genuine victory on the grand scale. The enemy dead were reckoned by thousands. The popular enthusiasm was immense. There was nothing Domitian need fear so much as to have the name of a subject exalted above that of his prince. He had only wasted time in silencing forensic eloquence and all that was distinguished in the civil career, if another man were to snatch his military glory. Talents in other directions could at a pinch be ignored; but the quality of a good general should be the monopoly of the emperor."
Tacitus, The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, chapter 39, AD 98

2003-05-03T02:33:00.000-07:00

Shell Shocked

"The oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell yesterday joined its industry rivals in posting a record set of profits for the first quarter of the year after the war in Iraq sent crude prices soaring.
The Anglo-Dutch group unveiled an adjusted profit of $3.9bn (£2.4bn) for the first three months – a 96 per cent increase from the $1.9bn recorded in the same period a year before."
Liz Vaughan-Adams, Iraq factor lifts Shell to record first-quarter profits of $3.9bn, The Independent, 05/03/03

"A former American oil executive, Philip J. Carroll, and two senior Iraqi oil officials are expected to be appointed on Saturday as the top leaders of the struggling Iraqi sector by American and Iraqi officials here, said people who have spoken to the Bush administration.
Mr. Carroll, who was once chief executive of the Shell Oil Company, the American unit of Royal Dutch/Shell, is expected to be appointed chairman of an advisory committee that will have oversight of the Iraqi Oil Ministry, those people said."
Neela Banerjee, An American and 2 Iraqis to Assume Key Oil Posts, The New York Times, 05/02/03

"'It's only a 'wild coincidence', Slothrop'
He will learn to hear quote marks in the speech of others"
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 241, 1973

2003-05-02T04:45:00.000-07:00

The Life of Gnaeus Julius Rumsfeld: Reconstruction

"The coalition is committed to helping you as you take control of your country and make the transition from tyranny to freedom and self-government. Building a free society isn't easy. It requires hard work, sacrifice, and, indeed, time. We know this is a difficult time for many of you. Even as you celebrate your new-found freedom, you also want to see some normalcy restored to your lives, and that's understandable. You want to return to work so you can earn a living and feed your family. You want to see schools reopened, electricity restored, and water. You want to see order returned so that you and your families can venture out of your homes safely, without fear of violence. And you want to see police on the streets.
Coalition forces are working in close partnership with Iraqi citizens to restore order and basic services. Each day that goes by, conditions in Iraq are improving. In fact, in a number of parts of the country, people already have more food, more medicine, more water, more electricity than they had under the old regime. But some still do not have these basic necessities, and the coalition is working day and night to help provide for the needy."
Secretary Rumsfeld Message to the People of Iraq, Department Of Defence, 04/30/03

"The following winter was spent on schemes of the most salutary kind. To induce a people, hitherto scattered, uncivilized and therefore prone to fight, to grow pleasurably inured to peace and ease, Agricola gave private encouragement-and official assistance to the building of temples, public squares and private mansions. He praised the keen and scolded the slack, and competition to gain honor from him was as effective as compulsion. Furthermore, he trained the sons of the chiefs in the liberal arts and expressed a preference for British natural ability over the trained skill of the Gauls. The result was that in place of distaste for the Latin language came a passion to command it. In the same way, our national dress came into favor and the toga was everywhere to be seen. And so the Britons were gradually led on to the amenities that make vice agreeable-arcades, baths and sumptuous banquets. They spoke of such novelties as 'civilization', when really they were only a feature of enslavement."
Tacitus, The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, chapter 21, AD 98

2003-05-01T06:29:00.000-07:00

The Life of Gnaeus Julius Rumsfeld: Victory Tour

"Yesterday, the new Donald Rumsfeld was back, visiting airports and a power plant, shaking hands with his conquering troops and pitching himself to the Iraqi people.
'Hello, I'm Don Rumsfeld,' the U.S. Defence Secretary said in a special television and radio broadcast that was aired last night in Iraq after his lightning visit to the capital.
As chief architect of the war in Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld was on a victory tour yesterday, with brief stops in Basra and Baghdad and new assurances for Iraq. U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to announce tonight an end to the military campaign, when he visits an aircraft carrier returning from the war. But it was left to his Defence Secretary to do the job on the ground."
Alan Freeman, Rumsfeld's victory tour, The Globe and Mail, 05/01/03

"Domitian therefore gave instructions that the external distinctions of triumph, the honor of a splendid statue and all the other substitutes for the triumph itself should be voted to Agricola in the Senate, coupled with a most flattering address; further, the impression was to be conveyed that the province of Syria, then vacant through the death of Atilius Rufus, the ex-consul, and always reserved for men of mark, was intended for Agricola."
Tacitus, The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, chapter 40, AD 98

2003-04-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

Falluja Rules

"Precise, appropriate rules of engagement (ROE) are the linchpin in peacekeeping operations. If a government loses or abandons power, US ROE can help provide a framework for civil control. Without them, a peacekeeping force has only impromptu and arbitrary rules."
CWO-5 Sid Heal, Crowds, Mobs and Nonlethal Weapons, Military Review - Command & General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2000

"On the basis of the known facts at this point, the Americans appear to have acted with staggering recklessness, turning a residential area full of kids into a murderous free-fire zone. Whatever rules of engagement they supposedly observe clearly did not work. Whatever force was required to ensure their own safety, the degree of force actually used appears to have been massively disproportionate."
Shadow of the gunman, The Guardian, 04/30/03

2003-04-29T03:18:00.000-07:00

The Pros and Cons of Quoting Churchill

"U.S. troops shot dead at least 13 Iraqis demonstrating against their presence at a school in a town west of Baghdad, residents told Reuters on Tuesday.
Angry witnesses who were burying their dead after the shooting on Monday night in Falluja, 30 miles from the capital, told Reuters correspondent Edmund Blair that dozens more people had been wounded and the protesters were not armed.
'Our soul and our blood we will sacrifice to you martyrs,' the mourners chanted as they buried six of the dead at a cemetery while U.S. helicopters flew overhead.
A local Sunni Muslim cleric, Kamal Shaker Mahmoud, said the demonstrators were unarmed and had gone to a local school occupied by U.S. troops to ask them to leave. The soldiers then opened fire, he said.
'It was a peaceful demonstration. They did not have any weapons,' the cleric said. 'They were asking the Americans to leave the school so they could use it.'"
U.S. Troops Kill at Least 13 Iraqis - Witnesses, Reuters, 04/29/03

"So the fact that demonstrations are taking place is a sign that Iraqis are embracing that right of free speech, a right restored by coalition forces."
Donald Rumsfeld, 04/25/03

"[...] the distasteful, painful, embarrassing,
torturing situation, mental and moral,
in which the British officer in command of
troops is placed when he is called upon
to decide whether or not he opens fire,
not upon the enemies of his countrymen, or
who are citizens of our common Empire. No
words can be employed which would
exaggerate those difficulties. But there
are certain broad lines by which, I think,
an officer in such cases should be guided.
First of all, I think he may ask himself,
Is the crowd attacking anything or any-
body? Surely that is the first question.
Are they trying to force their way for-
ward to the attack of some building, or
some cordon of troops or police, or are
they attempting to attack some band of
persons or some individual who has
excited their hostility? Is the crowd
attacking? That is the first question
which would naturally arise. The second
question is this: Is the crowd armed?
That is surely another great simple funda-
mental question. By armed I mean
armed with lethal weapons."
Winston Churchill, as British Minister of War, Amritsar Massacre Speech, U.K. House of Commons, 07/08/20

2003-04-28T01:54:00.000-07:00

The Life of Gnaeus Julius Rumsfeld:

Shaping the Force

"Back at the Pentagon, Mr Rumsfeld appears to be preparing to overhaul the leadership of the US army.
The defence secretary has dismissed Thomas White, the army secretary and civilian chief of the largest service in the military. It emerged over the weekend that Mr White's resignation, announced late on Friday evening, was made at the instigation of Mr Rumsfeld."
James Harding, Rumsfeld to reshape US forces in Gulf , Financial Times, 04/28/03

"These changes, plus many others in the offing elsewhere in the military, come at a time of peak power in the Pentagon for Rumsfeld. Battlefield successes in Afghanistan and Iraq appear to have validated his ideas on transforming the armed forces for 21st century warfare."
Robert Burns, Rumsfeld Set to Change Army Leadership, KansasCity.com, 04/26/03

"Yet Agricola would not let success tickle his vanity. He had kept under control a conquered people; he would not represent that as a campaign of conquest. He did not even use laurel-wreathed dispatches to announce his achievement; but his very refusal to recognize his fame increased it. Men gauged his splendid hopes for the future by his reticence over so grand a triumph.
[...]
Agricola, however, understood the feelings of a province and had learned from the experience of others that arms can effect little if injustice follows in their train. He resolved to root out the causes of war. Beginning with himself and his staff, he enforced discipline in his own household first - a task often found as difficult as the government of a province. He made no use of freedmen or slaves for official business. He would not be influenced by personal feelings, recommendations or petitions in choosing his centurions and men. The best, he was sure, would best justify his trust. He knew everything, but did not always act as if he knew."
Tacitus, The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, chapters 18-19, AD 98

2003-04-27T05:28:00.000-07:00

The Life of Gnaeus Julius Rumsfeld

"Four things just to open it up here. One is and certainty the most important is to have a chance to thank the troops in what ever number of countries we are going to, and who have all been, in one way or another, been deeply involved in the success being achieved in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Second, is to talk with the folks both with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan about the evolution that is taking place from major combat operations. And third, is to discuss with our allies in the countries around Iraq the arrangements we have with them and our partnership and cooperation as we look forward to the end at some point of major combat activity in Iraq. And last, is to underline both in Afghanistan and in Iraq the point that we have made repeatedly. We feel a commitment to those countries."
Donald Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld Enroute to Shannon, Ireland, Department Of Defence, 04/26/03

"But when summer came and he had concentrated his army, he was present everywhere on the march, praising discipline and checking stragglers. He himself chose the sites for camps, himself reconnoitred estuaries and woods; and all the time he gave the enemy no rest, but constantly launched plundering raids. Then, when he had done enough to inspire fear, he turned to mercy and proffered the allurements of peace. As a result, many states which had till then maintained their independence abandoned their resentful mood and accepted the curb of garrisons and forts."
Tacitus, The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, chapter 20, AD 98

2003-04-26T05:22:00.000-07:00

Growing Up Jay

"ARCADIA -- Call this tale "Growing Up Jay." It began April 15, 1938, when Jay Montgomery Garner was born in a two-bedroom frame house about two miles from downtown Arcadia. As time would have it, Jay would be the only child for Harley and Consuelo Pooser Garner. A son. A son to be proud of. He would be fawned over, but this child needed little discipline to grow up with a strong sense of fairness and rightness. Today -- 6,983 miles from his birthplace -- former Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, 65, will bring all of his leadership qualities, all of his values, all of his mother's dreams to bear on a country badly in need of a leader, a hero, a miracle worker. Today, Jay Garner rules Iraq."
Robert Bowden, The Making of Jay Garner, Sun Herald, 04/24/03

"Fielding Mellish: I had a good relationship with my parents. They rarely every h-... I think they hit me only once, actually, in my whole childhood. They, they, uh, started beating me on the 23rd of December in 1942, and stopped beating me in the late Spring of '44."
Woody Allen , Bananas, 1971

"MRS. KANE
Mr. Thatcher is going to take you on
a trip with him tonight, Charles.
You'll be leaving on Number Ten.

KANE SR.
That's the train with all the lights.

KANE
You goin', Mom?

THATCHER
Your mother won't be going right away,
Charles -

KANE
Where'm I going?

KANE SR.
You're going to see Chicago and New
York - and Washington, maybe...
Isn't he, Mr. Thatcher?

THATCHER
(heartily)
He certainly is. I wish I were a
little boy and going to make a trip
like that for the first time.

KANE
Why aren't you comin' with us, Mom?

MRS. KANE
We have to stay here, Charles."
Herman J. Mankiewicz & Orson Welles, Citizen Kane Screenplay, 1941

2003-04-25T02:03:00.000-07:00

The Dead Man's Hand

"The seizure of Mr Aziz, who features as the eight of spades on the Pentagon's deck of playing cards, means that 12 figures on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis issued by Central Command this month have now been caught."
Rupert Cornwell, Tariq Aziz gives himself up to US, The Independent, 04/25/03

"Qusai Hussein is the ace of clubs. The ace of spades, naturally, is [...] Saddam Hussein."
Nicole Winfield, Saddam's the ace in this notorious deck of cards, STLtoday, 04/11/03

"Legend holds that Wild Bill Hickok was shot to death during a poker game in Deadwood, South Dakota, and that the hand he held was two pair, black aces and black eights. On that most people agree. The fifth card is not known for certain."
Stephen Landrum, What's the Dead Man's Hand

2003-04-24T05:01:00.000-07:00

The Peace Conference

"American and North Korean negotiators took cautious steps Wednesday toward resolving a standoff over the North's suspected nuclear weapons program, ending six months of verbal sparring that pushed tensions on the Korean Peninsula to their highest level in years. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly would not answer reporters' questions after a first day of talks with North Korean and Chinese diplomats, saying only..."
CBS News, 04/23/03

"He said things couldn't go on the way they were going. We were all sensible men, reasonable men, grown men who had seen enough of the world to know that a man couldn't have everything his own way, no matter who he was. Compromises were things everybody had to make sometimes. To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted. He said he was sure that what we all most wanted now was to stop this insane killing. He said he was sure that everything could be frankly discussed and settled in an hour without turning Personville into a slaughter-house.
It wasn't a bad oration."
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest, 1929, page 128

2003-04-22T05:19:00.000-07:00

Thumbsucker Blues

"Q: There was also a New York Times story saying that the administration was supposedly looking at, long term, four air bases in Iraq.
Is that, in fact, a reflection of your thinking for the future of that country?

Rumsfeld: Well, I would say that that article probably takes the award for world-class thumbsucker of this year. (Laughter.) It is --

Q: (Inaudible.)

Rumsfeld: Pardon me?

(Cross talk.)

Rumsfeld: Well, it depends -- it says 'senior Bush administration officials say.' To my knowledge, I don't know what senior is, but I can tell you he wasn't asked (indicating General Myers), I wasn't asked, Torie wasn't asked, Wolfowitz wasn't asked, Pace wasn't asked, and there has been zero discussion among senior Bush administration officials, the way I define senior, on that subject. We literally have not even considered that.
Now, what is going on? There are four bases that the U.S. is using in that country to help bring in humanitarian assistance, to help provide for stability operations. And are they doing that? Sure. But does that have anything to do with the long-term footprint? Not a whit."
DoD News Briefing - Secretary Rumsfeld, 04/21/03

Get Doonesbury's take on Rummy on the New York Times site.

"Proverbs for Paranoids 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers."
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 251

2003-04-21T02:33:00.000-07:00

Raging Rummy

"'You have to remember,' said Mr. [Newt] Gingrich, 'he was a wrestling champion. He's very competitive.'
The move on the mat that Mr. [Donald] Rumsfeld perfected at Princeton University was the fireman's carry. 'You get them by an arm and a leg and pull them down to the mat,' said Brad Glass, a fellow Princeton wrestler. 'That was his strongest move, and he took a lot of people down with it.'
Matthew Purdy, After the War, New Stature for Rumsfeld, The New York Times, 04/20/03

"JAKE:
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
It's a thrill to be standing here
talking to you wonderful people. In
fact, it's a thrill to be standing!
I haven't seen so many people since
my last fight at Madison Square
Garden. After that fight, a
reporter asked me, 'Jake, where do
you go from here?' I said, 'To a
hospital!' I fought one hundred and
six professional fights and still
none of them bums figured out how
to fight me -- they kept hitting me
in the head! And that's why I'm
here tonight...
(starts to sing)
'When the fighter's not engaged in
his employment, his employment,
although he was Champ and quite the
rage, he must go somewhere else to
seek employment, seek employment.
But a fighter's life is not a bowl
of cherries, still I'd rather have
an egg than a fist upon my face...
That's Entertainment!' "
Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin, Raging Bull Screenplay, 1980

2003-04-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

The Usual Suspects II: Revenge

"On 20 December 1983, Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad to meet Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his deputy, Tariq Aziz. Then Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, Mr Rumsfeld was on a friendly mission to get the peace process going in the Lebanon.
But another subject was raised during the two-and-a-half-hour meeting with what are now two of the world's most wanted men. Previously classified documents, compiled by US think-tank the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), reveal that Mr Rumsfeld also outlined plans for a huge pipeline, running from Iraq to the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan, which would have safeguarded oil supplies to the West.
Less than a month earlier, the US State Department, then headed by George Shultz, had selected a company to carry out this $1bn (£640m) project: Bechtel Corporation. But it didn't seem to matter that Mr Shultz was a former Bechtel executive. "Out of public view, he pushed the pipeline project on behalf of his former company," says an IPS report into the affair. The project was eventually rejected by Saddam. [...]
Bechtel's tentacles extend deep into the corridors of power. 'For a top job at Bechtel, former military personnel, ex-diplomats and retired politicians need apply,' says one former employee, who asked not to be identified. Bechtel's ties with the American intelligence service, through its network of associates, has earned it the nickname 'the working arm of the CIA' and spawned a thousand conspiracy theories. 'Some say the firm is a 'shadow government',' says one website, which goes on to claim that former Bechtel officers are part of a US cult.'
Clayton Hirst, The world's at Bechtel's beck and call, The Independent, 04/20/03

"Proverbs for Paranoids, 1: You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures."
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 237

2003-04-18T04:02:00.000-07:00

The Usual Suspects

"Bechtel Corp., the San Francisco construction giant known for its global reach and high-powered political connections, won a contract Thursday worth up to $680 million to rebuild Iraqi roads, schools, sewers and hospitals damaged in the war.
The contract, sought by the nation's largest construction firms, places Bechtel squarely in the middle of U.S. efforts to reshape Iraq. [...] The U.S. Agency for International Development, in charge of picking companies for Iraq's reconstruction, offered few details Thursday of why it chose Bechtel. [...] Foreign firms resented being shut out. Government watchdogs noted that all six of the companies bidding on the contract Bechtel won Thursday donated heavily to American politicians -- $3.6 million between 1999 and 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Most of the money went to Republicans. Bechtel and its employees contributed $1.3 million to federal campaigns and candidates over the past three years, with 59 percent going to Republicans and the rest to Democrats."
David R. Baker, Bechtel wins first contract to rebuild Iraq, San Francisco Chronicle, 04/18/03

"[Bechtel] beat off a fellow American rival, Fluor, to the contract. Fluor said it was disappointed it was outbid on the infrastructure contract but expected to get work in other areas where it had expertise, such as restoring Iraq's oil and gas industry.
'It's safe to say that what you're seeing in dollar amounts to date is just the beginning,' said Fluor spokesman Jerry Holloway."
Al-Jazeera, Cashing in on reconstruction, 04/18/03

"[H]is corporate octopus wrapping every last negotiable item in the Zone", Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 611

2003-04-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

Business is Business

"The Economist asked The Corporate Library, a watchdog group, to search its database of 23,000 directors of large, publicly held companies for retired politicians, bureaucrats, ambassadors, public prosecutors and military officers. The search returned 405 directorships, concentrated in a handful of industries: finance and insurance (64 directorships); energy and utilities (53); telecoms and software (39); healthcare and pharmaceuticals (26); and defence (22). The directors included 82 former members of the senate and house of representatives, 54 former overseas ambassadors, 52 retired senior government bureaucrats, 38 one-time generals and admirals, 32 cabinet secretaries, 25 state governors, four vice presidents and one president (Gerald Ford, who sits on Citibank's board)."
The Suits inside the Battledress, The Economist, 04/17/03

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Ike Eisenhower, Farewell Address to the Nation, 01/17/61

2003-04-16T03:55:00.000-07:00

Aromatic Rings

"In the Iraq war, most of the estimated 125,000 American and British ground troops in the region — as well as most journalists — must wear Kevlar helmets and a 16.4-pound vest lined with Kevlar and ceramic plates that can stop even armor-piercing bullets shot from high-powered rifles.[...] The Kevlar inside their vests was invented in 1965 by former DuPont chemist Stephanie Kwolek of Wilmington, Del."
Jon Swartz, Invented to save gas, Kevlar now saves lives, USA Today, 04/15/03

"Kevlar is a polyamide, in which all the amide groups are separated by para-phenylene groups, that is, the amide groups attach to the phenyl rings opposite to each other, at carbons 1 and 4. In Kevlar the aromatic groups are all linked into the backbone chain through the 1 and 4 positions.This is called para-linkage."
Chapter 15 Heterochain thermoplastics

"Imipolex G has proved to be nothing more--or less--sinister than a new plastic, an aromatic heterocyclic polymer, developed in 1939, years before its time by one L. Jamf for IG Farben [...] It is stable at high temperatures, like up to 900° C, it combines good strength with a low powerloss factor. Structurally, it's a stiffened chain of aromatic rings [...]
The origin of Imipolex G are traceable back to early research done at du Pont. [...] At du Pont, the next step after nylon was to introduce aromatic rings into the polyamide chain. Pretty soon a whole family of 'aromatic polymers' had arisen. [...] The target property most often seemed to be strength--first among Plasticity's virtuos triad of Strength, Stability and Whiteness. [...] Giant 'heterocyclic' rings, to alternate with the aromatic rings. [...] Such chains would be known as 'aromatic heterocyclic polymers.'" Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, pages 249-250.

2003-04-15T01:39:00.000-07:00

Citizen Hussein

His personal zoo has lions, cheetahs and a bear. His storehouse has $1.65 million of fine wines, liquors and heroin. His house has Cuban cigars, cases of champagne and downloaded pictures of prostitutes. While most Iraqis bent under the brunt of UN sanctions that drove their country into poverty, Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday lived a life of fast cars, expensive liquor and easy women, a tour through his bombed Baghdad house showed.
The walls of a gym were plastered with photographs of women downloaded from the internet - 'the biggest collection of naked women I'd ever seen," said US Army Capt Ed Ballanco. "It looked like something at the Playboy Mansion.'
Among the photos were those of Jenna and Barbara Bush, the US president's twin 21-year-old daughters, 'dressed up very nice in evening clothes,' Ballanco said, adding that soldiers took them down 'to protect the president.' "
AP, Sex, drugs, and cruelty - and photos of Bush's daughters Sydney Morning Herald, 04/17/03

"DISSOLVE IN:

WHAT WAS ONCE A GOOD-SIZED ZOO (MINIATURE)

Of the Hagenbeck type. All that now remains, with one exception, are the individual plots, surrounded by moats, on which the animals are kept, free and yet safe from each other and the landscape at large. (Signs on several of the plots indicate that here there were once tigers, lions, girrafes.)

DISSOLVE:

THE MONKEY TERRACE (MINIATURE)

In the foreground, a great obscene ape is outlined against the dawn murk. He is scratching himself slowly, thoughtfully, looking out across the estates of Charles Foster Kane, to the distant light glowing in the castle on the hill."
Herman J. Mankiewicz & Orson Welles, Citizen Kane Screenplay, 1941

2003-04-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

Kute Korrespondences

Editor's Note: Is life imitating fiction? Possibly not: life's imitating life which is at the base of the best fiction but, still, the feeling persists. It's not only a mere déjà vu of things past surfacing all over again, colonization back in the saddle, enough with tolerance and condescending, we have to defend ourselves. Some may not need to ask questions, even the rethorical one being tabled here, but

"The rest of us, not chosen for enlightenment, left on the outside of Earth, at the mercy of a Gravity we have only begun to learn how to detect and measure, must go on blundering inside our front-brain faith in Kute Korrespondences, hoping that for each psi-synthetic taken from Earth's soul there is a molecule, secular, more or less ordinary and named, over here -- kicking endlessly among the plastic trivia, finding in each Deeper Significance and trying to string them all together like terms of a power series hoping to zero in on the tremendous and secret Function whose name, like the permuted names of God, cannot be spoken [...] but to bring them together, in their slick persistence and our preterition ... to make sense out of, to find the meanest sharp sliver of truth in so much replication, so much waste...."
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 590, 1973

My point, reader, is that a defeated country, stripped to a Zone controlled by allied forces with conflicting interests and unspoken aims, where a motley crew of CIA stooges, special forces and whatnots are all set out on a quest for a mythical Weapon, where the chief weapon adviser to the defeated führer is surrendering to the invader and where an all-powerful cartel stays behind any happenstance and weaves its deadly web, well, it rings a bell, doesn't it? If one then mentions looters carefully unscrewing light bulbs the thing gets eerie. If any of the readers is familiar with Thomas Pynchon's masterpiece Gravity's Rainbow, I needn't spend any more words, but, for those who haven't read it, the aforementioned plot is at the base of Pynchon's monstre-novel.

So here follow a few "Kute Korrespondences" for your enjoyment:

"Saddam Hussein's senior weapons adviser has reportedly surrendered to US military authorities, insisting that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that the US-led invasion was unjustified.
Lieutenant General Amir al-Saadi was Saddam's science adviser and the top Iraqi wanted for questioning about Iraq's chemical weapons programme. He oversaw Iraq's chemical programme and is believed to have in-depth knowledge of other weapons programmes."
The Guardian, 04/12/03

"They've already rounded up von Braun and 500 others, and interned them at Garmish".
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 273

"In hotel rooms and suites, intruders carefully unscrewed light bulbs ringing bathroom cosmetic tables before they smashed mirrors with clubs. Others tossed doors and bed frames from three-story windows to their cohorts below".
Mark Magnier, Looters Take to the Streets, Arab News, 04/08/03

"Some people hauled away pieces of Saddam's furniture, while others carried off huge mahogany doors, aluminum window frames, pieces of oak banisters, marble tiles, even light bulbs and potted plants".
Mark McDonald, Mosul settles grudge by stripping palace, Mercury News, 04/12/03

"Entire families have been seen looting. Entire families have been pillaging -- hauling off furniture, appliances and armloads of light bulbs".
Entire Families Pillaging, WTOV9, 04/11/03

" When the Dora prisoners went on their rampage, the light bulbs in the rocket works were the first to go: before food, before the delights to be looted out of medical lockers and the hospital pharmacy in Stollen Number 1, these breakable, socketless [...] images were what the 'liberated' had to take..."
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 299
Bold mine

2003-04-12T02:24:00.000-07:00

The Untidy East

"[I]f you go from a repressive regime that has - it's a police state, where people are murdered and imprisoned by the tens of thousands, and then you go to something other than that, a liberated Iraq, that you go through a transition period. And in every country, in my adult lifetime, that's had the wonderful opportunity to do that, to move from a repressed dictatorial regime to something that's freer. We've seen in that transition period there is untidiness".
Donald Rumsfeld, The New York Times, 04/12/03

"The Roman East was a rather untidy area. [...] The interior plateau and the mountainous east were under the control of various client kings. These were monarchs loyal to Rome and removable at Roman pleasure who could deal more easily with intractable populations than could a Roman governor. [...] This was part of the general trend whereby direct Roman rule was extended eastwards towards the Parthian border.
To the south of the Tarsus Mts. in the area of modern Syria was the Roman province of Syria, which extended further down the coast toward Lebanon and east to the deserts west of Mesopotamia. Created in 61 B.C. to deal with the Parthian threat, this was one of the most strategically important provinces. The governor of Syria, who chosen from ex-consuls, had four legions at this disposal. The territory of the province was non-contiguous with several client kings governing areas within it.
To the south of Syria was the client kingdom of the Jewish king Herod, whose territory extended as far as the Sinai peninsula. While there were many Jews in his kingdom, it contained many pagans as well, and it was felt that a local monarch could handle the difficulties of keeping the peace there".
Christopher S. Mackay, Foreign Wars of Augustus, 2002
Bold Mine

2003-04-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

The Killing

"A prominent Shiite leader and supporter of the U.S. presence in Iraq was assassinated Thursday, CNN reported.
Seyyed Abdelmajid al-Khoei was assassinated in the Shiite holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq, the report said.
He was the son of late Grand Ayatollah Abul-Qasim al-Khoei, who was the highest Shiite religious authority in the world at the time of the first Gulf War. The elder al-Khoei had more followers than Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini".
United Press International, 04/11/03

"Others--politicians and machines--carried on wars" Thomas Pynchon, V., 1964, page 101

2003-04-10T03:31:00.000-07:00

Scaremongering

"Interviewer:
When peace finally comes to Iraq, at least stability, what's next in the Middle East? You have thrown down the gauntlet to Syria. Are they in the sights for military action? What about Iran . . .?"
"No one's thrown down the gauntlet. I've accurately observed that they would be well-advised to not provide military capabilities to Iraq. They seem to have made a conscious decision to ignore that.
Senior regime people are moving out of Iraq into Syria, and Syria is continuing to send things into Iraq. We find it notably unhelpful.
The question you ask, however, is not a question I can answer. It depends on people's behaviors, and certainly I have nothing to announce. We're still dealing with Iraq. . . ."
Donald Rumsfeld, The New York Times, 04/10/03

"There's something still on, don't call it a 'war' if it makes you nervous,
maybe the death rate's gone down a point or two [...] but Their enterprise
goes on"
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, p.628

2003-04-09T04:22:00.000-07:00

Iconoclasts

"In Iraq, images of Saddam Hussein are crumbling to the ground. Statues, murals and posters of the leader dominated many Iraqi towns for years. Now, coalition forces and some Iraqis are pulling down the Saddam tributes -- using tanks, hammers and even their own hands. The ripping, pummeling and shattering is taking place in coalition-controlled areas from the southern port of Umm Qasr to Kurdish territories in the north. In Baghdad itself, troops toppled another Saddam statue, leaving it face down in a gutter. Coalition officers call the images a legitimate target in psychologically liberating the Iraqi people. And it seems to be having the desired effect.One U-S commander says every time the troops take down another image of Saddam, 'the people cheer'. " AP, www.khnl.com, 04/08/03

"We have destroyed 80 percent of the statues. There is only a small amount left and we will destroy that soon." Abdul Hai Muttmain, a spokeman for the Mullah Omar, on the Buddha statues, 03/11/01

2003-04-08T02:19:00.000-07:00

Of Smoking Guns And Airborne Vermin

"American troops yesterday mistook barrels of pesticide for a cache of chemical weapons.
The alarm was sounded after several soldiers collapsed, raising fears that they had stumbled on a stockpile of sarin, tabun and mustard gas.
But the men were merely suffering from heat exhaustion and the 14 barrels turned out to be farm pesticide. [...] Troops who found the barrels in Hindiyah were at first convinced they had located a 'smoking gun.'
The men who collapsed were hastily quarantined as urgent tests were carried out.
Initial results suggested traces of sarin, but a spokesman said later: 'This was an agricultural compound and the literature inside talked about dealing with mosquitoes and other airborne vermin.' " Richard Wallace, The Mirror, 04/08/03

"The absence of evidence is no evidence of absence" Donald Rumsfeld.

"Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his ass to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down you dig farting out the words. It was unlike anything I had ever heard.
'This ass talk had sort of a gut frequency. It hit you right down there like you gotta go. You know when the old colon gives you the elbow and it feels sorta cold inside, and you know all you have to do is turn loose? Well this talking hit you right down there, a bubbly, thick stagnant sound, a sound you could smell.' " William Burroughs, The Naked Lunch.

2003-04-07T01:26:00.000-07:00

Peace Words?
"And so, that's how I think about it. I believe that-- that Iraq will-- that Iraq will bring herself around. And become a functioning member of the international community. And you know, when we look at -- when we look at just the beginning of this, what I guess this is -- maybe going on a week -- give or take a day - and -- in a place like -- Umm Qasr-- the little port city that-- gives Iraq her you know, opportunity to - to - to -- to use -- to use a naval port, we find that -- that local people in that -- in that town are just absolutely -- joyous." General Tommy Franks, interviewed on CBS, 03/28/03

"The professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such calling." H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 1920

2003-04-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

Desert Vistas

"[L]ove, among these men, once past the simple feel and orgasming of it, had to do with masculine technologies, with contracts, with winning and losing."
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1973, page 324.

"It worked like this: George Schultz was Reagan's secretary of state. Reagan had recruited him from the uppermost ranks of the Bechtel Corp, the huge international engineering and construction company. The documents suggest that behind the scenes Schultz was pushing an oil pipeline from Iraq across Jordan to the port of Aqaba. Bechtel would construct it. According to IPS, documents show that Schultz prepped Rumsfeld for his meetings with Saddam. At the time, Saddam was gassing the Kurds, and if the U.S. were to come down against him on that score, then the pipeline most certainly would go down the drain. Beginning with Rumsfeld, Reagan top officials hoping to make the deal kissed Saddam's ass, sidestepping the poison-gas issue, and snuggling up with the man they now say is a vile dictator. In the end, Saddam turned down the pipeline.
From then on, the U.S. government primly rewrote the history of our earlier dealings with Saddam so much that Rumsfeld and the other Bush cronies can say this second Persian Gulf war has nothing to do with oil. They say it is meant solely to remove the dictator and save the Iraqi people from the horrors of weapons of mass destruction, gas being the main one, even though the U.S. never cared about poison gas when it stoop to make money off an oil pipeline."
James Ridgeway's War Log, Rumsfeld's Dealings With Saddam, The Village Voice, 03/28/03

"Employee-owned Parsons Corp. of Pasadena and Bechtel Group Inc. of San Francisco -- the nation's biggest construction firm -- are the two finalists for the first U.S. government contract to rebuild postwar Iraq, it was reported on Thursday."
abc7.com, 04/03/03

Bold mine.

2003-04-05T01:47:00.000-08:00

War Sounds: Screams, Buzzes and Gull-Shrieks

"A scream comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now."
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1973, page 3.

"Then, just before midday yesterday, a low buzzing sound insinuated its way into the consciousness of all those on the streets of central Baghdad, a long, monotonous, slightly wavering sound, a cross between a distant lawnmower and a purring cat. And when I followed the pointed arms of a dozen shoppers and policemen in Jumhurriyah Street, I at last caught sight of the fly-like machine slowly moving up the grey, hot skies over the city.

The Americans had sent their first drone over Baghdad, the very first pilotless reconnaissance aircraft anyone here had seen in this war, flying so slowly that, unlike the supersonic jets that eagle their way down on the city to drop bombs, it was easy to follow.

It buzzed westwards towards the largest and most bombed of the presidential palaces and then wobbled southwards. It seemed so fragile a creature, so tiny a presence in the black, angry sky, that it was possible to forget the all-seeing eye in its belly, the pictures it was showing to the Americans outside the city perimeter, the choices it was helping to make about which suburbs were to be bombed."
Robert Fisk, The Independent, 04/05/03

"A strange high sound whistled through the air, bringing people out of houses outside the base, men taking bowlegged stances to follow the line of descent - a sound like a gull-shriek endlessly prolonged, caroming through the deep caves set around the base, the kamikaze nests of the second war."
Don DeLillo, Libra, 1988, page 80.

2003-04-05T01:28:00.000-08:00

More on Jay Garner today: read the next viceroy of Iraq's profile on The Independent web site and check out stopjaygarner.com. To understand why anyone should be worried about this guy, dig the following quote by the man waiting in a hotel in Kuwait City to govern 22 million Iraqis ad interim:
"A strong Israel is an asset that American military planners and political leaders can rely on"
General Jay Garner, quoted on The Independent, 04/05/03.

2003-04-04T05:44:00.000-08:00

Get a glimpse of the hidden machinery, what lies behind bombs and basket cases. Read it on the CNN web site.

2003-04-04T05:02:00.000-08:00

"Wars have a way of overriding the days just before them. In the looking back, there is such noise and gravity. But we are conditioned to forget. So that the war may have more importance, yes, but still... isn't the hidden machinery easier to see in the days leading up to the event? There are arrangements, things to be expedited... and often the edges are apt to lift, briefly, and we see things we were not meant to...."
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 474.

2003-04-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

Apropos...

2003-04-03T04:38:00.000-08:00

"President, viceroy, governor, sheriff. It is difficult to know what to call Jay Garner, the retired US general who will run Iraq if and
when Saddam Hussein is deposed. The 'call me Jay' 64-year-old would prefer 'co-ordinator of civilian administration'. That's the bland description of his job heading the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the Pentagon agency preparing to govern Iraq's 23 million people in the aftermath of war, provide humanitarian support and administer the lucrative business of reconstruction."
Oliver Morgan
Sunday March 30, 2003
The Observer

2003-04-01T05:52:00.000-08:00

"If an opportunity exists under the right circumstances we would take a close look at it. To this end, we urge the US Congress and administration to prepare to promptly remove existing sanctions that would impede US businesses from participating in the reconstruction [of Iraq] and recovery effort."
Jennifer Weyrauch, Motorola, quoted on The New York Times, 02/17/03

2003-04-01T02:41:00.000-08:00

"Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets."
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 105.

2003-03-31T00:25:00.000-08:00

"During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we've ever been in - and which we lost - every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high." Kurt Vonnegut, 01/02/03, interview on nuvo.net

2003-03-30T09:42:00.000-08:00

"6. Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's
troops without any fighting; he captures their cities
without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom
without lengthy operations in the field.

7. With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery
of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph
will be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem."
Sun-Tzu, The Art of War, ca. 500 B.C.
To see a few correlation between Su-Tzu and US war planners check out this article from the Pakistani newspaper Daily Times.

2003-03-30T05:43:00.000-08:00

There's a kind of theology at work here. The bombs are a kind of god. As his power grows, our fear naturally increases. I get as apprehensive as anyone else, maybe more so. We have too many bombs. They have too many bombs. There's a kind of theology of fear that comes out of this. We begin to capitulate to the overwhelming presence. It's so powerful. It dwarfs us so much. We say let the god have his way. He's so much more powerful than we are. Let it happen, whatever he ordains. It used to be that gods punished men by using the forces of nature against them or by arousing them to take up their weapons and destroy each other. Now god is the force of nature itself, the fusion of tritium and deuterium. Now he's the weapon. So maybe this time we went too far in creating a being of omnipotent power. All this hardware. Fantastic stockpiles of hardware. The big danger is that we'll surrender to a sense of inevitability and start flinging mud all over the planet.
Don DeLillo, End Zone, page 80, 1972.

2003-03-30T05:32:00.000-08:00

"There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns - that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know but there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know."

"So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns.

"And each year we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns."

Donald Rumsfeld, Brussels, 06/07/02

2003-03-30T05:21:00.000-08:00

"Weapons technology is so specialized that nobody has to feel any guilt. Responsibility is distributed too thinly for that."
Don Delillo, End Zone, page 86, 1972.

2003-03-30T05:14:00.000-08:00

"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...secretly, it was being dictated instead by the needs of technology...by a conspiracy between human beings and techniques, by something that needed the energy-burst of war, crying, "Money be damned, the very life of [insert name of Nation] is at stake," but meaning, most likely, dawn is nearly here, I need my night's blood, my funding, funding, ahh more, more.... The real crises were crises of allocation and priority, not among firms - it was only staged to look that way - but among the different Technologies, Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft, and their needs which are understood only by the ruling elite...
Yes but Technology only responds [...], "All very well to talk about having a monster by the tail, but dou you think we'd've had the Rocket if someone, some specific somebody with a name and a penis hadn't wanted to chuck a ton of Amatol 300 miles and blow up a block full of civilians? Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it'll make you feel less responsible--but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they are -"
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 521, 1973.