People should not fear their governments; governments should fear their people.
Recently Samizdata.net has demonstrated an amusing talent for unintentional irony. In one post an Englishman complains about Iran seizing British citizens off of their boats, and in another post an American Crusader complains about Iran not following the Geneva Convention.
Fortunately for the captured people, they were released today–without being enslaved in the service of the Iranian navy, and most likely without having been tortured.
Carbon 15 rifles now sold by Bushmaster. I’m sure this is old news now, but I just found out that the ultralightweight carbon-fiber Carbon 15 rifle is… [Survival Arts]
It’s not old news to me. The original AR-15 was made using a very lightweight material called “bakelite,” and its weight was supposed to be one of its advantages over the M-14. It turned out that bakelite was too flimsy for use in the field, and the M-16 ended up weighing about as much as an M-14. These new carbon-fiber rifles mark a return to the original concept of the AR-15, and given my preference for lightweight rifles I’d very much like to try one. Unfortunately they probably won’t ever be sold in California.
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Duncan Campbell and Suzanne Goldenberg at Guardian Unlmited –
‘They said this is America . . . if a soldier orders you to take off your clothes, you must obey’ –
You think things were bad at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay? They were
worse in Afghanistan. [whatreallyhappened]
bq.
In some ways, the abuses in Afghanistan are more troubling than those
reported in Iraq,” said John Sifton, the Human Rights Watch
representative in the area. “While it is true that abuses in
Afghanistan often lacked the sexually abusive content of the abuses in
Iraq, they were in many ways worse. Detainees were severely beaten,
exposed to cold and deprived of sleep and water.
“Moreover, it should be noted that the detention system in
Afghanistan, unlike the system in Iraq, is not operated even nominally
in compliance with the Geneva conventions. The detainees are never
given an opportunity to see any independent tribunal. There is no
legal process whatsoever and not even an attempt at one. The entire
system operates outside the rule of law. At least in Iraq, the US is
trying to run a system that meets Geneva standards. In Afghanistan,
they are not.”
[End the War on Freedom]
NYT. New book by the former CIA manager of the “bin Laden station” says the US is losing the war on terrorism.
“U.S. leaders refuse to accept the obvious,” the officer writes. “We are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency — not criminality or terrorism — and our policy and procedures have failed to make more than a modest dent in enemy forces.”
“There is nothing that bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq,” he writes. See global guerrillas for more on this.
“After the next attack,” he adds, “misled Americans and their elected representatives will rightly demand the heads of intelligence-community leaders; that heads did not roll after 11 September is perhaps our most grievous post-attack error.”
I concur with these statements. Over time, it won’t just be Islamicists we are fighting. [John Robb’s Weblog]
I agree as well. I would only add that it should not only have been the heads of intelligence-community leaders, but also the Presidents who have been poking hornet’s nests for decades, and everyone responsible for turning our airports and airplanes into defenseless victim zones.
Bush to screen population for mental illness. President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration. [WorldNetDaily]
Could someone remind me who won the Cold War? Because it sure looks an awful lot like the Soviet Union won, by relocating to North America…
Kim Sun-il Killed. Kim Sun-il, the South Korean being held hostage by an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group, has been killed, reports Yahoo news.
The Korean government, which negotiated for Kim’s release, is standing firm:
bq. In a dispatch from Baghdad, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted an “informed source” as saying that negotiations with the kidnappers collapsed over the South Korean government’s refusal to drop its plan to send troops.
“As a condition for starting negotiations for Kim’s release, the kidnappers demanded that South Korea announce that it would retract its troop dispatch plan,” the source was quoted as saying. “This was a condition the South Korean government could not accept. As the talks bogged down, the kidnappers apparently resorted to an extreme measure.”
Whole story here. As with the Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl murders, I think it’s more likely than not that such heinous acts will actually intensify military resolve in Iraq, rather than weaken it. [Hit & Run]
It certainly won’t do any good. I can’t imagine why anyone would think that a government would be influenced by the plight of one of its citizens. Surely the people making the demands can’t be that naive.
Juneteenth. June 19th is Juneteenth, the anniversary of the end of slavery in the United States. Head on over to Prometheus 6 to learn more:
A little more context [Al-Muhajabah’s Islamic Blogs]
An interesting example of a good story taking precedence over reality. In fact, chattel slavery was officially ended on December 6th, 1865, with the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Slavery continued for over a hundred years afterwards, in the service of the Federal government, as those enslaved (excuse me, “drafted”) men who were among the nearly two million killed or wounded in subsequent wars would probably like us to remember.
Pentagon Seeks U.S. Spy Powers. The Department of Defense is asking for an exemption from the Privacy Act, which outlaws secret databases on Americans. Civil-rights activists are asking why the military wants to get into the domestic spying business. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]
The reason seems pretty obvious to me: the Neocons have a much stronger grip on the Pentagon then they do on the FBI. This would allow them to set up a secret police organization under their direct control, without the sort of oversight that the FBI gets.
Best Browser For Mac OS 9 Today? [MacSlash]
I use Mozilla 1.2, which isn’t significantly different from the much newer Firefox 0.9 on Windows.
Raed has an Iraqi civilian war casualty site up based on a survey he directed. It covers a four-month period last year (the initial conquest), so the numbers are certainly higher now.