shock and awe rats!

An interesting article on aggression in last week's Chronicle of Higher Education Review. The article cited results of behavioral studies done on rats. If a rat is placed alone in a cage and receives electric shocks from the floor, it will at first jump, throw itself against the walls of the cage, do everything in its power to escape the painful stimulus. Eventually, however, it will no longer attempt to evade the shock, will just sit there and take it. When an autopsy is done on these subjects, it is found that during the experiment they experience an abnormal growth of the adrenal glands and develop gastric ulcers.

Scientists found, however, that if two rats are placed in the same cage and shocked, they will respond by attacking each other and continue doing so as long as they are in the cage and being shocked. When these rats' bodies are later examined, it is found that they do not experience adrenal gland growth or develop gastric ulcers. The conclusion to be drawn? Having someone there to take it out on -- as it were -- helps keep the rat healthy, whereas just sitting there and taking it will, over time, make the rat sick. (Not unlike Freud's view that being civilized -- that is, sublimating aggressive instincts -- makes man neurotic).

An interesting analogy can be drawn here between those unfortunate rats in the shock cage and our soldiers currently serving in Iraq. The soldiers regularly experience "shocks" from the insurgency, but, because they find it impossible in many cases to distinguish the insurgents from the general populace, they have to just sit there and take it rather than strike back. One wonders if soldiers in this predicament have a higher incidence of adrenal and gastric disease -- or perhaps a higher incidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

honorable death

From today's Washington Post:

The commandos were soon spotted by three goat herders, who were initially detained but later released. They are believed to have given away the team's location to Taliban fighters.

A contingent of more than 50 fighters attacked from three sides, forcing the Seal team to begin bounding down a mountainside into a ravine. After more than 45 minutes of heavy fighting, with his radioman wounded, Murphy realized that the only way he could contact his headquarters for reinforcements would be to move into exposed terrain to get a signal.

"In the face of almost certain death, he fought his way into open terrain to gain a better position to transmit a call. This deliberate, heroic act deprived him of cover, exposing him to direct enemy fire," the medal citation reads.

As Taliban fighters shot at him, Murphy made the call and "calmly provided his unit's location and the size of the enemy force" while requesting urgent support. At one point, he was shot in the back and dropped the transmitter, but picked it back up to finish the call, the official account said.

Murphy continued to shoot back at the Taliban fighters but was severely wounded. His team was running out of ammunition. By the end of the brutal, two-hour firefight, in which an estimated 35 enemy fighters were killed, Murphy and two members of his team were dead. A fourth team member managed to escape and was later rescued.

What strikes me most about this story is not Murphy's exposing himself to fire to call for help, although that is remarkable. What strikes me is that Murphy and his team decided to let the three goat herders go, even though he knew they would probably alert local Taliban to the team's presence. His other choice, of course, was to kill the men. He chose not to kill civilians and paid with his life. Compare this to some of the trigger-happy private contractors in Iraq, those who do not hesitate to pull the trigger on civilians, even women and children, if they feel threatened by them.

just suppose

Reportedly President Bush periodically meets with the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, this to offer his condolences and thank them for their loved ones' service. Imagine if one of the grief-stricken mothers were to step up to the President, say to him "You lying sack of ----, you killed my son!" and slap him hard across the face. Would she be wrestled to the ground, placed under arrest, and later sent to prison for physically assaulting the Chief Executive? Perhaps. It would be a tough call.

One thing's for certain: that mother would instantly become a heroine in the eyes of millions of Americans. Bumper stickers reading "Slap him again!" or t-shirts sporting "Give him another!" would be seen everywhere. There'd be parades in her honor. Small towns would be renamed after her. And just imagine her popularity abroad! She'd be the toast of London, Paris, Rome -- not to mention all the Middle Eastern capitals.

As for her running for political office? Hell, I'd vote for her in a heartbeat. Wouldn't you?

blackwater massacre

From today's New York Times:

The events in the square began with a short burst of bullets that witnesses described as unprovoked. A traffic policeman standing at the edge of the square, Sarhan Thiab, saw that a young man in a car had been hit. In the line of traffic, that car was the third vehicle from the intersection where the convoy had positioned itself.

“We tried to help him,” Mr. Thiab said. “I saw the left side of his head was destroyed and his mother was crying out: ‘My son, my son. Help me, help me.’”

Another traffic policeman rushed to the driver’s side to try to get her son out of the car, but the car was still rolling forward because her son had lost control, according to a taxi driver close by who gave his name as Abu Mariam (“father of Mariam”).

Then Blackwater guards opened fire with a barrage of bullets, according to the police and numerous witnesses. Mr. Ahmed’s father later counted 40 bullet holes in the car. His mother, Mohassin Kadhim, appears to have been shot to death as she cradled her son in her arms. Moments later the car caught fire after the Blackwater guards fired a type of grenade into the vehicle.

This reality, juxtaposed to Prince's cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor before the House committee, his cocky self-assurance. Remorse for what his employees had wrought in Nisour Square? Not a jot. Remorse a sign of weakness, after all, and he an ex Navy SEAL, a tower of strength.

Note to self: gag reflex nearly gone from overstimulation. Must seal eyes and ears.

oil and feathers for whistleblowers

Much has been made of the mismanagement and corruption that cripples the Iraqi oil ministry. Before trying to clean up that house, perhaps we should look into cleaning up our own. The below from a NYTimes article on our government's attempt -- or non-attempt-- to get oil companies to pay royalties they owe for drilling on public lands.

Particularly striking were complaints by two auditors in Oklahoma City, Randall Little and Lanis Morris, who said that senior officials had refused to demand $1.5 million in back interest from oil companies caught underpaying, saying that requiring the companies to calculate their own bills would be a hardship. But the officials said the Interior Department could not get its own systems to do the calculations.

Mr. Little told investigators that the oil companies were getting a “free ride” and that “the taxpayers ought to be outraged.” After the auditors filed their lawsuits, Interior officials removed Mr. Little and Mr. Morris from their jobs at the Minerals Management Service and sent them to work below an entry-level technician at the Bureau of Land Management.

And the neocons wanted to hand over the Iraqi oil fields to Big Oil, expecting not a peep of protest from the Iraqi people?

Disgusting is Right

What larks, eh Pip? The Senate resolution to condemn MoveOn for exposing Petraeus as a mouthpiece for the Bush administration. Bush saying that he thought the ad "disgusting," thought the attack on Petraeus "an attack on the military itself." What a surprising response.

The Surge is working my arse. Working to what end? To temporarily displace some corner boys in Baghdad? At the cost of how many American lives, how many hundreds of millions of dollars?

I'm glad MoveOn has moved its focus back on the war. Was myself disgusted by how in the last presidential election the organization backed off criticism of the war, thinking that doing so would help Kerry win. Took the midterms to make them see what should have been obvious two years previously: It's the war, stupid!

There once was a General Petraeus
Who they said would never betray us
But the war that he pimped
Gave Uncle Sam a bad limp
And in general served to dismay us

blackwater blackguards

Apropos the presence of security contractors in Iraq, these two short poems from WWI. First, A. E. Housman's "Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries":

These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.

Now, in response, Hugh MacDiarmid's "Another Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries":

It is a God-damned lie to say that these
Saved, or knew, anything worth any man's pride.
They were professional murderers and they took
Their blood money and impious risks and died.
In spite of all their kind some elements of worth
With difficulty persist here and there on earth.

What are we to make of the privatization of combat? The fact that our government is not sure how many hired guns are running around Iraq, "somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000," none of these subject to Iraqi justice (a tip o' the hat to Paul Bremer) or the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A law unto themselves.

long silence

My long silence in this forum due to depression and disgust. Re: the war, things stand no better today than in March. So much for the Democratic cavalry that came charging over the hill last November.

Could I grow any more weary of hearing politicians say that the problem with the war was mistakes made at its inception? Like saying a gang rape could have gone a lot better if not for the fuck ups at the start. This war has been criminal since its conception. Criminal and stupid.

We continue to fetishize our mighty military. What's the point in repeating that we have the most powerful military in the world if that military is impotent in the face of this kind of insurgency? How many more of our soldiers need to get blown to pieces by IEDs, how many more fall the victims of snipers -- and how many more innocent Iraqi families die at our checkpoints -- before we recognize this impotence?

Iraq is faced with giant problems, but these are obviously not problems the American military can solve. Let's get out of there.

juxtaposition

From the NYTimes:

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman in Baghdad, confirmed a report by the Pentagon on Tuesday that insurgents had put two children in the back seat of a car loaded with explosives to get the car through a checkpoint in Baghdad. An unknown number of Iraqi civilians were hurt or killed when the car exploded, including the children, Colonel Garver said.

Meanwhile, beneath a bright sky, thousands of residents of Baghdad celebrated the first day of spring, a holiday called Nowruz, by going to the zoo.

the invertebrate & the conscience free

The war party's strategy is clear enough: whatever the opponents of the war propose as a means of hastening its end, the hawks will construe as a betrayal of the troops. What we need do first, therefore, is expose this rhetorical strategy. Make it clear that the people who put our troops needlessly in harm's way will exploit our sense of loyalty to those troops to keep them in harm's way indefinitely. We cannot allow ourselves to be so bullied. The war's opponents need to develop some backbone and take the high ground on the matter of our soldiers. It is, after all, precisely our concern for the troops -- for their welfare and that of their families -- that most strongly motivates our opposition to this war. We are attempting to save their lives, plain and simple.

***********

In a speech delivered by Dick Cheney in Sydney, Australia, he referred to the Iraq war as "a remarkable achievement." That it certainly is. In years to come historians will remark again and again on this achievement, much to our country's shame. What a fiasco it has been, from start till present! An almost-unbearable burden to those Americans possessed of a social conscience. As Neil Young puts it in song, people of conscience are "living this war every day." Happy the man who can put it out of his mind and continue with his daily routine.

snatching victory

Yesterday listening to a right wing pundit who heads an organization the aim of which is to punish those Republican congressmen who do not continue to support Bush's war. He complained about the "defeatism" that is permeating this country. He exhorted the American people to get behind the President and the troops in order to "snatch victory from the jaws of defeat."

I find the pundit's metaphor faulty. Victory is no longer in the jaws of Defeat. Defeat has chewed Victory, has swallowed Victory, has digested Victory, and is presently preparing to excrete Victory onto the dusty ground of Iraq. If we snatch Victory now, we snatch it from the bowels of defeat. A rather unsavory clot of Victory that would be.

I suggest the pundit attempt to snatch a bit of reality from the jaws of delusion. The war was never winnable. It's time to bring our soldiers home.

Surging

The word "surge" keeps cropping up, as if we were fighting the war with electricity and not human beings. --Garrison Keillor

The Bush administration tells us the surge is designed to give cover to the al-Maliki government -- enough cover to allow it to get its act together and take control of the country. But it can't be possible, can it, that anyone actually believes that al-Maliki has the wherewithal to do this? He' s a weak puppet, with Moqtada al-Sadr pulling the strings. How is al-Maliki supposed to "rein in" Shiite death squads when al-Sadar, the leader of the death squads, is more powerful than he? (It's like asking George Bush to rein in Dick Cheney. He can't and wouldn't if he could. )

Maybe in reality the surge is a desperate attempt to bring enough order to Baghdad to allow us to withdraw our troops in a calm and dignified fashion, rather than the fashion of our withdrawal from Saigon, with someone blowing a whistle and crying "Every man for himself!"

"Surge." Why do the closing words of Flann O'Brien's "The Hard Life" keep popping into my mind: "a tidal surge of vomit."

saddam's hanging

Just viewed the video of Saddam's hanging--the full hanging, from life to death. What a sordid, chaotic affair it was. As brutal as the man's life.

To what end this execution? To teach others not to be dictators? Something tells me the deterrence effect somewhat lacking . To teach our children that Justice will be done? Should the video of the hanging be played in grade school classrooms? How edifying!

Let's call it what it is, what it always is: revenge. Blood for blood. The animal satisfaction derived from the snapped neck, the upturned face, the glassy eyes. The very scene that an advanced system of justice is designed to eliminate. To break the bloody cycle of vengeance, that is the point and end of modern jurisprudence.

Does anyone believe that this execution accomplishes anything at all in terms of solving the problem(s) of Iraq? That it will hasten the return home of our troops? The effect I predict is further inflamation of the Sunni insurgency, which will result in even more deaths among American soldiers, particularly if we decide to "surge" their numbers.

Who, then, benefits most from Saddam's execution? The Grim Reaper rubs his bony palms together in gleeful anticipation.

Read Robert Fisk's lucid take on the hanging at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16086.htm