¡Ya Basta!

Narco News has a fascinating analysis of FARC’s current situation and their options for the future. While they were once a legitimate revolutionary Marxist organisation, over the years FARC degenerated into a straight narco terrorism, kidnapping operation unbound by any principles. Their options now are limited, but they can choose the path of 4G Warfare and become viable again in the 21st Century. The article has too many links for my to just re-post here. Better to visit Narcosphere directly and read the whole article. This last section (and specifically the last sentence) is the key, though. And worth thinking hard about.

Farc’s Options

The Bazaar

The decentralized, and seemingly chaotic guerrilla war in Iraq demonstrates a pattern that will likely serve as a model for 

next generation terrorists. This pattern shows a level of learning, activity, and success similar to what we see in the open source software community. I call this pattern the bazaar. The bazaar solves the problem: how do small, potentially antagonistic networks combine to conduct war? (…) Here are the factors that apply (from the perspective of the guerrillas):

* Release early and often. Try new forms of attacks against different types of targets early and often. Don't wait for a perfect plan.


* Given a large enough pool of co-developers, any difficult problem will be seen as obvious by someone, and solved. Eventually some 

participant of the bazaar will find a way to disrupt a particularly difficult target. All you need to do is copy the process they used.

* Your co-developers (beta-testers) are your most valuable resource. The other guerrilla networks in the bazaar are your 

most valuable allies. They will innovate on your plans, swarm on weaknesses you identify, and protect you by creating system noise.

* Recognize good ideas from your co-developers. Simple attacks that have immediate and far-reaching impact should be adopted.


* Perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away (simplicity). The easier the attack is, the more easily 

it will be adopted. Complexity prevents swarming that both amplifies and protects.

* Tools are often used in unexpected ways. An attack method can often find reuse in unexpected ways.

(The attentive observer will also note that much of this can be applied to non-violent grassroots initiatives, political campaigns and protest movements as well).

I like cities and think that if they were designed right (green roofs everywhere, priority to bikes and pedestrians over cars, community gardens) they could serve as excellent habitats. I also like country life, with wide open spaces, and less hassle from authority. I don’t think there’s any one solution or any one way that people should live; with the right mindset and clean technology cities, small towns, and (maybe) even suburbs could work. Less government intrusion and oligarchical domination would make every living arrangement better. In his essay, “Big Cities; Living Proof that ‘Growth is Not Good’” Mike Folkerth makes some good points, but I think he fails to see that small town solutions could also work in cities. Continue Reading »

Almost three years ago, factions using the illegal government of the Amerkian Corporation colluded to help a hurricane flood New Orleans. With the twin headed goals of mass destruction and plausible deniability, Power Elite orchestrated the blowing of New Orleans’ levees, and then the both inadequate, and highly militarized rescue operations. The victims and the heroes of this tragedy were demonized, poor, mostly Black humans, dehumanized in the media and in the Convention Center. Here’s an excerpt of a Popular Science that glorifies a citizen rescuer (who deserves credit) and focuses on the cool technology at work while objectifying the true subjects of the Hurricane. This attitude is the fertile soil for transhumanism, microchipping, and real politik eugenicists that would exterminate the bulk of humnanity if it would save the Amerikan weigh of life. The fact that the article describes an everyday heroes of Katrina is good, but the narrative is a simple Hero tale, with the victims reduced to arm waving, targets, or defeated, humiliated refugee. The State, brutish machine, purchases the Soul of New Orleans in blood and earth.

via: Popular Science

After returning to the bridge, Rich transfers the family into the Huey and we take our place in the long line of helicopters at the airport, each disgorging a load of sick, wounded and shocked people–a mass of nameless and fragile humanity stripped of its dignity, soon to be transferred to hospitals and shelters around the country.

via: AP

By ALICIA CHANG AP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Here’s a mind-bending idea: The U.S. military is paying scientists to study ways to read people’s thoughts. The hope is that the research could someday lead to a gadget capable of translating the thoughts of soldiers who suffered brain injuries in combat or even stroke patients in hospitals. [ha! ha ha! Yeah, nothing but the best care for our vets. I'm sure this research is only for the troops' benefit. Thanks benevolent rulers!]

But the research also raises concerns that such mind-reading technology could be used to interrogate the enemy.

Armed with a $4 million grant from the Army, scientists are studying brain signals to try to decipher what a person is thinking and to whom the person wants to direct the message. Continue Reading »

We all know the MSM lies, but this has to be the most blatant example since Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction. I’m amazed how many intelligent people think Russia invaded Georgia because they’re only scanning headlines and reading the first few paragraphs of new stories. Also, the BBC has written many of these manipulative stories. It’s just astounding how bold the power elite are these days and how contemptuous they are towards us.

via: BBC

The Bush administration appears to be trying to turn a failed military operation by Georgia into a successful diplomatic operation against Russia.

It is doing so by presenting the Russian actions as aggression and playing down the Georgian attack into South Ossetia on 7 August, which triggered the Russian operation.

Yet the evidence from South Ossetia about that attack indicates that it was extensive and damaging.

Blame game

The BBC’s Sarah Rainsford has reported: “Many Ossetians I met both in Tskhinvali and in the main refugee camp in Russia are furious about what has happened to their city.

“They are very clear who they blame: Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili, who sent troops to re-take control of this breakaway region.”

Human Rights Watch concluded after an on-the-ground inspection: “Witness accounts and the timing of the damage would point to Georgian fire accounting for much of the damage described [in Tskhinvali].” Continue Reading »

via: Washington Post

Federal investigators probing the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks recovered samples of human hair from a mailbox in Princeton, N.J., but the strands did not match the lead suspect in the case, according to sources briefed on the probe.

FBI agents and U.S. Postal Service inspectors analyzed the data in an effort to place Fort Detrick, Md., scientist Bruce E. Ivins at the mailbox from which bacteria-laden letters were sent to Senate offices and media organizations, the sources said.

The hair sample is one of many pieces of evidence over which researchers continue to puzzle in the case, which ended after Ivins committed suicide July 29 as prosecutors prepared to seek his indictment.

Authorities released sworn statements and search warrants last week at a news conference in which they asserted that Ivins was their sole suspect. But the materials have not dampened speculation about the merits of the investigative findings and the government’s aggressive pursuit of Ivins, a 62-year-old anthrax vaccine researcher. Conspiracy theories have flourished since the 2001 attacks, which killed five people and sickened 17 others.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced it will call FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to appear at an oversight hearing Sept. 17, when he is likely to be asked about the strength of the government’s case against Ivins. A spokeswoman for Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a vocal FBI critic, said he would demand more information about how authorities narrowed their search.

The House Judiciary panel, meanwhile, is negotiating to hold a separate oversight hearing in September with bureau officials, in a session that could mark the first public occasion in which Mueller faces questions about the FBI’s handling of the anthrax case.

Friends and former colleagues of Ivins, who died before he could see the full array of evidence prosecutors had gathered, continue to demand information about the DNA advances that authorities say led them to a flask in Ivins’s lab.

Defense lawyer Paul F. Kemp yesterday said he wonders “where Ivins could have possibly stored this anthrax without any employees seeing it, or if he took it home, why there was no trace” of the deadly spores, despite repeated FBI searches over the past two years of Ivins’s car, his work locker, a safe-deposit box and his house

via: Asia Times

From the details coming out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Moscow over the weekend, it is apparent that the great game over Caspian energy has taken a dramatic turn. In the geopolitics of energy security, nothing like this has happened before. The United States has suffered a huge defeat in the race for Caspian gas. The question now is how much longer Washington could afford to keep Iran out of the energy market.

Gazprom, Russia’s energy leviathan, signed two major agreements in Ashgabat on Friday outlining a new scheme for purchase of Turkmen gas. The first one elaborates the price formation principles that will be guiding the Russian gas purchase from Turkmenistan during the next 20-year period. The second agreement is a unique one, making Gazprom the donor for local Turkmen energy projects. In essence, the two agreements ensure that Russia will keep control over Turkmen gas exports.

The new pricing principle lays out that starting from next year, Russia has agreed to pay to Turkmenistan a base gas purchasing price that is a mix of the average wholesale price in Europe and Ukraine. In effect, as compared to the current price of US$140 per thousand cubic meters of Turkmen gas, from 2009 onward Russia will be paying $225-295 under the new formula. This works out to an additional annual payment of something like $9.4 billion to $12.4 billion. But the transition to market principles of pricing will take place within the framework of a long-term contract running up to the year 2028.

The second agreement stipulates that Gazprom will finance and build gas transportation facilities and develop gas fields in Turkmenistan. Experts have estimated that Gazprom will finance Turkmen projects costing $4-6 billion. Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said, “We have reached agreement regarding Gazprom financing and building the new main gas pipelines from the east of the country, developing gas fields and boosting the capacity of the Turkmen sector of the Caspian gas pipeline to 30 billion cubic meters.” Interestingly, Gazprom will provide financing in the form of 0% credits for these local projects. The net gain for Turkmenistan is estimated to be in the region of $240-480 million.

From all appearance, Gazprom, which was headed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for eight years from 2000 to May 2008, has taken an audacious initiative. It could only have happened thanks to a strategic decision taken at the highest level in the Kremlin. In fact, Medvedev had traveled to Ashgabat on July 4-5 en route to the Group of Eight summit meeting in Hokkaido, Japan.

Curiously, the agreements reached in Ashgabat on Friday are unlikely to enable Gazprom to make revenue from reselling Turkmen gas. Quite possibly, Gazprom may now have to concede similar terms to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the two other major gas producing countries in Central Asia. In other words, plain money-making was not the motivation for Gazprom. The Kremlin has a grand strategy. Continue Reading »

via: Al Jazeera English

The US has had stern words for Russia over its military intervention in Georgia to back South Ossietian separatists, but many analysts say that the Bush administration must share the blame for the crisis.

Washington has formed a close bond with the government of Mikheil Saakashvili since he came to power in the 2003 ‘Rose Revolution,’ offering military and economic aid and encouraging Georgia to join Nato.

Jon Sawyer, the director for the Pulitzer Centre for Crisis Reporting, said US politicians had encouraged their Georgian counterparts to think they had the backing of the US when Tbilisi decided to launch its attack on South Ossetia last week.

“The US has for several years now mishandled the situation in Georgia,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The way that Mikheil Saakashvili has approached this [has been by] thinking that he could be an extension of the west, a partner of the United States.” Continue Reading »

Ugh. Supersoldiers. This is bad for so many reasons. And, like the invisibility suit, the question has to be: are these things already in the field?

MILITARY ROBOTIC EXOSKELETON GEARS<br/>

via: The Hindu

M.K. Bhadrakumar

The master plotters in Washington and London will keenly watch how Dmitry Medvedev’s leadership handles the crisis.

Anyone who thought Beijing Olympics had to be Friday’s lead news story on CNN and BBC was in for surprise. It gave way to the Caucasus developments.

There is no reason to doubt CNN and BBC’s judgment that the killing of tens of hundreds of people in the Caucasian region of South Ossetia on Friday may turn out to be a landmark event in post-Soviet Russia& #8217;s relations with the West. The Caucasus lies deeply embedded in Russian collective consciousness. Their history and culture and indeed the security of Mother Russia are inextricably linked with the Caucasus. Anyone who lived among Russians would know there is not a living room in the whole of Russia with a book shelf that wouldn’t have Leo Tolstoy’s Kavkazsky Plennik [A Prisoner in the Caucasus]. Zhilin is a household name in Russia, the officer in the Czarist army posted in the Caucasus who took leave of absence and ran into high adventure as he left for home upon receiving a letter from his mother who wrote, “I am getting old, and should like to see my beloved son before I die. Come and say good-bye to me, bury me, and then return to service, God willing. I have found a girl for you, who is sensible and good and landed too. If you like her, you might marry her and stay for good.”

Moscow finds itself in an unenviable situation. Russia cannot avoid an intervention and is obliged to intervene, as the majority of South Ossetians are Russian citizens. The Georgian attack was intended as a provocation. The attack killed 13 Russian soldiers and injured 150 and took over 2,000 civilian lives, mostly Russian citizens. The South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali has been razed to the ground. Over 30,000 refugees have crossed the Russian border.

We feel as if on a time machine back in cold war. The master plotters in Washington and London will now keenly watch how Medvedev’s leadership in the Kremlin handles the crisis. They will look for clues whether Mr. Medvedev has Mr. Putin’s iron fist and steely nerves. When Mr. Putin took over in 2000, a similar test awaited him in Chechnya. He set about doing what Russia had to do. But times have changed. Chilly winds have begun blowing in East-West relations.

Continue Reading »