Peace Committee of Georgia

Seems like something Code Pink might have issued about the US...

Declaration of the Georgian Peace Committee

Once more Georgia was launched into a situation of chaos and bloodshed. A new fratricide war exploded with renewed strength on Georgian soil. To our great disillusion, the alerts of the Georgian Peace Committee and of progressive personalities of Georgia on the pernicious character of the militarization of the country and on the danger of a pro-fascist and nationalist policy had no effect.

The authorities of Georgia, organized, again, a blood war, feeling the support of some western countries and of regional and international organizations. The shame poured by the current holders of the power over the Georgian people will take decades to be cleansed.

The Georgian army armed and trained by American instructors and using also American armaments, subjected the city of Tskhinvali to a barbaric destruction. The bombings killed Ossetians civilians, our brothers and sisters, children, women and elderly people. Over two thousand inhabitants of Tskhinvali and of its surroundings died.

There also died hundreds of civilians of Georgian nationality, both in the conflict zone as well as on the entire territory of Georgia. The Georgian Peace Committee expresses its deep condolences to the relatives and friends of those who have perished.

The entire responsibility for this fratricidal war, for thousands of children, women and elderly dead people, for the inhabitants of South Ossetia and of Georgia falls exclusively to the current President, to the Parliament and to the Government of Georgia. The irresponsibility and the adventure ship of the Saakachvili regime have no limits. The President of Georgia and his team, undoubtedly, are criminals and must be held responsible. The Georgian Peace Committee, together with all the progressive parties and social movements of Georgia, is going to struggle so that the organizers of this monstrous genocide have a severe and legitimate punishment.

The Georgian Peace Committee declares and asks the broad public opinion not to identify the current Georgian leadership with the people of Georgia, with the Georgian nation, and appeals to all to support the Georgian people in the struggle against the criminal regime of Saakachvili.

We appeal to all the political forces of Georgia, the social movements and the people of Georgia to unite in order to free the country of the anti popular regime, russianfobic and pro-fascist of Saakachvili!

The Georgian Peace Committee

Tbilissi, 11th of August de 2008

(Unofficial translation)

Armed Anthropologists

The idea that the Pentagon can win this bogus 'war on terror' by bringing anthropologists into the battlefield seems yet another indicator of the dementia that has permeated Washington since the Bush junta came to power (at least). Writing in this week's issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, my former comrade from Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab protests, Hugh Gusterson, discusses two new programs initiated by Robert Gates, Minister of War: the Human Terrain Team system and Project Minerva. According the Gusterson, the American Anthropological Association has already condemned the first of these and expressed reservations about the second being managed through the war department (as opposed to the National Federation of Scientists, which normally funds social scientists' work on behalf of the federal govt). Anthropologists are widely known to have collaborated with the military during the US-Vietnam war and certainly played a shameful role in the conquest of African and North American territories (et al.) - attempting to quantify savagery in support of colonialism or even genocide - so conceptually and in fact, this is hardly a new idea.... but putting them in military camo and arming them? i know what all my anthropology professors would have said about that: insane, immoral and intellectually infantile.

As Gusterson rightly points out, "Embedded anthropologists are on shaky ethical terrain because they cannot realistically get free consent from their interlocutors while dressed in camouflage and traveling with U.S. soldiers in Humvees. Similarly, they cannot control the use of the information they collect for the military, and thus, cannot ensure it isn't used to harm communities they study." In an illegal war, such activity should put the anthros in the same war criminal category as their counterparts in psychology who "monitor" the torturing of prisoners. It's not anywhere near as sexy as spying on people, which was what happened in Vietnam; imagining how any individual scientist could even consider this to be serious anthropological work on any level boggles the mind.

The Pentagon would be better served by sending anthropologists into AIPAC to gain an understanding of how decision-makers in Washington are so willingly and readily compliant with the zionist agenda. Certainly this falls within the purview of understanding the cultural roots of terror? Discussing terrorism with Arabs, i have always found Israel to be their starting point, and the US' support for israeli terror a close second in justifying the actions of Muslims opting to spread the violence into equal shares for all. That there's never been much equity/balance in this equation is also part of the cultural framework behind it. If i were an Iraqi anthropologist, i'd be very interested in studying how the american military has come to see culture as more operative than history in the current phase of this conflict - or why they believe that culture and history can be separated to promote further conquest and occupation in the Middle East today.

Yet another "height of hypocrisy" from Washington

Al-Jazeera is reporting that the US is pushing to remove the ban on nuclear materials trade with India. The hypocrisy here should be obvious: India is no longer a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), already possesses nuclear weapons, and is not open to IAEA inspections because it is not part of the NPT regime. Compare this to Iran's nuclear status and therein lies the rub.

According to al-Jazeera, "Diplomats close to the suppliers group talks say that France, Russia, Canada, Brazil and South Africa are in favour of an agreement." Let's take a guess as to which countries are engaged in marketing their nuclear technologies in new Delhi, should the exemption for purchase be granted. As far as the US nuclear industry goes, this is one way to build up the necessary wad of investment cash for the much-touted maniacal rejuvenation of the US nuclear power industry - it's been well over 20 years since any new plants were built - on top of the normal military tech profiteering that helps firms like Lockheed Martin maintain their company yachts. The US Congressional Research Service published an interesting report about US-India relations last year; start reading on p. 31 if you'd like to see how many billions in weapons are being sold and to get some idea of Israel's role in assuring the flow of arms into Asia continues to increase.

Pepe Escobar Simplifies the Insanity

Escobar's report speaks for itself, so i'm not going to write much. He calls it Full Spectrum Dominance, a term which actually originated with the US SAC (Strategic Air Command) in their Vision 2020 report (late 1990s, early 2000) and detailed the need for the US to control space militarily. Eventually our piping periodista Pepe gets around to this, bringing in the missile defense shield the US is pushing on the new NATO countries (Poland and Czech Republic are to actually get the anti-missile missiles systems, other countries like Hungary and Romania provide related infrastructural needs). Now, before you start having nightmares that Ronald the Raygun has risen from the dead, think back to that period and like John McCain, you'll probably agree: the Cold War geopolitical framework was a lot easier for voters to warp their brains around than the War on Terror for Oil framework. Enough of this elusive taliban shit, snakey Gulf sheikhs and should or shouldn't psychologists be involved in torture. i'm tired of Guantanamo, i want another Cuban missile crisis. White people threatening other white people makes so much more sense, even to the non-white people who are wrecked in the process.

A Day in the Life

Vladimir Voinovitch, who penned the brilliant satire, Moskva 2042, as well as the Svejk knock off yet classic in its own right, The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, has long been a great favorite of mine. (Feeling bad you forgot my birthday? Send me another book by VV and all will be forgiven.) In my limited universe of Russian writers, Chonkin could probably not have been written had Alexander Solzhenitzyn not first offered up the story of Ivan Denisovich more than a decade prior - how could anyone dare to satirize the insanity of the soviet system before first having a thorough slog through its dark, gulag-muzzled side? In my late teens and early 20s, poured through all the Solzhenitzyn i could find - no minor task (referring here to the reading, not the finding) - an education in the mentalities of the coerced and the coercers, the nature of totalitarianism, blahblahblah in sum they had a strong effect on me simultaneous to being enmeshed in a world of collectivist ideals. So we're sorry to see the writer pass on, but we remember him for his passion and the skill to use it in ways that unquestionably benefitted both the world of literature and the thinkers of freedom. My vodka glass goes belly up in a toast to the greatest of Russia's literary bulldogs.

How creepy to also read today that Berlusconi is putting soldiers on the streets of Rome. The creepiness is not only in the shades of tyranny this implies, but because part of the PM's stated rationale is to protect the Italians from those nasty, no-good immigrants, apparently creeping onto Italy's shores with godzilla-like intentions. Actually, right now the stated problem is not so much those coming by sea, but the overland-travelling Roma, (seen far and wide as the scourge of Europe - yes, still) in spite of thousands of these Roma holding Italian citizenship. The Minister of Defense "dismissed claims that the soldiers would scare tourists or residents, saying the troops could help address citizens' concerns about security." Personally, i don't think tourists are all that likely to ask soldiers with machine guns whether a particular gelaterria presents a clear and present danger, but maybe i'm too jilted when it comes to interacting with so-called security forces. The rounding up of "undesirables" and creation of fear among minority populations - including political minorities - under any circumstance, is one of the things Solzhenitzyn explored in excruciating detail. The message always seemed clear enough to me: it is the shades of grey that put the T into state tyranny.

When Berlucsoni indicated that other cities were also going to have soldiers decorating their sidewalks, a Sicilian mayor asked, "Have we all gone mad?" Evidently his town hasn't had a murder since the 1960's, which is noteworthy given that island's history. Wanna bet that with soldiers on the streets and the carbinieri free to do other interesting things, this bit of statistical reverie might soon be broken? i've yet to attend a demonstration where the rioting wasn't started by the cops, and i can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would believe that expanding the reach of the il-Duce death eaters now with military backup, would bring Italians more peace, or peace of mind. Ok, at least he isn't hiring Blackwater to do the job.... Alas, another day in the life of 21st century Europe. In yet other uplifting news, we're told that nearly half the world's primates are facing extinction. Do we think the fascists are in the soon-to-be-extinct or the not-yet-pegged-for-extinction half? What role does free will play in extinction, anyway?