Author: Brandon

Iraq may be a miserable place to be for most people over there, but at least the drug smugglers like it;

High levels of insurgent violence and porous borders have drawn traffickers to Iraq, according to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).
The board says Jordan has seized large quantities of drugs on the Iraq border.
Authorities in Afghanistan say their drug problem is so severe the country’s existence could be threatened.
Drugs are transported through Iraq and into Jordan, where they are moved onto traditional trafficking routes into Europe.
Apart from heroin and other opium-based drugs, Jordan has seized significant amount of cannabis resin and amphetamine-type pills on its borders.

Drudge is running a story about ‘controversy’ supposedly stirred up by Pat Buchanan’s most recent column, concerning World War 2. But reading the story is a disappointment, because it’s just a list of personal smear attacks by various muckety-mucks against Buchanan. Where’s the debate? If we have a controversy, I expect a damned debate too. Alas, Pat’s arguments are filled with such things as ‘historical facts’; the other side has abandoned them in an Orwellian attempt to rewrite history so that, for instance, WW2 was now fought to stop the Holocaust. Allied nations apparently knew in 1939 that there would be mass killing of Jews several years into the future, and acted to stop it. And that results in these comments by Ed Koch; “I believe that no decent human being should ever sit down at the same table with Pat Buchanan and I am shocked that otherwise responsible, respectable citizens share platforms with him on Sunday shows.”
I would prefer it if Koch were to read the column and refute the arguments point by point, but as I said, that’s impossible. Any attempt to do so would result in a self-refutation. So Koch has to stoop to smear tactics and insults, such as if I were to say that Kojak, er I mean Koch is a bald-headed stooge. I will refrain from doing so, however, since I’m above that sort of thing.

Gordon Prather saw my previous blog entry and forwarded this column on the same subject. Prather notes that while “The scare-monger battle cry is that terrorists are planning to use various weapons of mass destruction on each and everyone of you.” this is a fraud, because

Contrary to what the scare-mongers have told you, an RDD (radiological dispersal device) is in no sense a weapon of mass destruction. A few people – including the terrorist – might be killed by the high explosive. But essentially no one would be killed on the spot – or die later – from radiation.

An RDD is not a nuke. It does not contain a critical mass of fissile material – such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239. Hence, no uncontrolled chain reaction – no nuclear explosion – is possible.

Prather notes that the spread of radiation is of little significance due to its inability to cause instantaneous death, and the fact the it can be detected and cleaned. This is very similar to Easterbrook’s explanation of the inefficiency of biological weapons (see previous entry). In other words, difficult to spread in dangerous concentrations, relatively easy to quarantine and clean up afterwards. Really, conventional explosives are much more efficient killers and spreaders of what terrorists like – Shock and Awe.

In Arnaud de Borchgrave’s spotlight piece today, he mentions the need for the United States and Russia to work together on the Nuclear question;

Russia and America need each other today on several critical fronts, from transnational terrorism to the security of Russia’s 8,000 nuclear weapons and thousands of tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. A small amount of these nuclear materials would be sufficient to make a radiological (“dirty”) bomb that would render Wall Street or downtown Washington around the White House uninhabitable for years.

Actually, the threat of a ‘Dirty bomb’ has been greatly exaggerated. I first became interested in the subject of what constitutes a legitimate ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’ when I read Gregg Easterbrook’s article in the New Republic entitled “Term Limits: The meaninglessness of “WMD””(Issue date 10.07.02). Easterbrook debunks the myth of chemical/biological weapons as being any more destructive or dangerous than conventional explosives. In fact, Chemical weapons tend to immolate on detonation, and biological weapons (anthrax, for instance) tend to be very difficult to spread, except under what could be considered impossibly perfect weather conditions. The Anthrax scare following the 9/11 attacks was, at the time, blamed on Iraq by Rush Limbaugh, utterly absent any evidence of course, but the only thing close to a suspect ever named in the investigation is a former USAMRIID employee. Continue reading “Dirty Bomb?”

“We weren’t on the wrong side. We were the wrong side.” – Daniel Ellsberg

With the 30th anniversary of the end of the US attack on Vietnam, the event which is usually referred to as the “defense of South Vietnam” or the Vietnam War in mind, I was able to see the notorious documentary Hearts and Minds, by Peter Davis, which won the 1974 Academy Award for Best Documentary, and was promptly denounced by Frank Sinatra (who presented the next award).
The film is far from perfect. It is too heavy-handed; it tells us how to interpret many of the things it simply needs to show us. There’s also a distracting attempt to explain American cultural militarism by drawing a parallel with American Football, which strikes me as too easy. The movie doesn’t need to try to supply easy answers to difficult questions.
The largest portion of the film features interviews with Americans involved in the war from two perspectives; Ex-soldiers explaining their role, and ex-bigshots explaining theirs. One such soldier, a flag-waving ex-POW nitwit named George Coker, explains that Vietnam would be a great place if not for the “backwards” and “primitive” natives. Then there’s Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who provides an explanation for why the US government felt it was acceptable to murder 3.4 million Vietnamese, “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does the Westerner. Life is cheap in the Orient.”. Davis managed to secure an interview with the quintessential Cold Warrior – Walt Rostow, whose belief at that point that the attack was “worth it” is recorded for posterity. Rostow’s combative attitude and myopic view of the situation is quease-inducing, but its also somewhat amusing to see him ranting and raving about his own wrong-headedness. Continue reading “Hearts and Minds”

I had to laugh at Andrew Card’s preposterous reaction to the news that North Korea has test-fired a missile which may or may not one day be armed with some sort of nuclear warhead. Card was actually heard to say “I think they’re looking to kind of be bullies in the world. And they’re causing others to stand up and take notice.”
Wait. Was Andy talking about Pyongyang or Washington D.C.? What do you call it when the bullies accuse the bullies?
To put this in perspective, the United States government, of which Card is a high ranking official (White House Chief of Staff), has a rather more impressive nuclear arsenal. According to a story in Newsweek on June 25, 2001:

The U.S. nuclear arsenal today includes 5,400 warheads loaded on intercontinental ballistic missiles at land and sea; an additional 1,750 nuclear bombs and cruise missiles ready to be launched from B-2 and B-52 bombers; a further 1,670 nuclear weapons classified as “tactical.” And just in case, an additional 10,000 or so nuclear warheads held in bunkers around the United States as a “hedge” against future surprises.

In case you were wondering, the total of those figures is 18820. The same Newsweek story quotes George W. Bush, newly elected president at the time, as saying “I had no idea we had so many weapons.” If Mr. Card, who may or may not know how many weapons there are, but certainly doesn’t seem to care, is curious about why Pyongyang might (or might not) be developing nukes of its own, I have just provided 18,000 of them.