1. Yet another Israeli war crime:
“Israeli Soldiers Admit to Using Human Shields in Gaza
In a report published this week by Breaking the Silence, a human rights group that publishes testimonies from Israeli soldiers, a soldier involved in the January invasion of the Gaza Strip testified that his unit used Palestinian civilians as human shields while raiding houses. The revelation comes despite a 2005 ban on the practice by the Israeli High Court.
Other testimonies reveal that commanders urged the troops to “shoot first and worry later about sorting out civilians.” The Israeli invasion killed an enormous number of civilians in the densely populated strip and destroyed many residential neighborhoods.”
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/07/14/israeli-soldiers-admit-to-using-human-shields-in-gaza/
2. A great article:
“Best Intentions: An Appreciation of Graham Greene
Only those who recognize the omnipresence of sin—recognizing first of all that they themselves number among the sinful—can possibly anticipate the moral snares inherent in the exercise of power. Righteousness induces blindness. The acknowledgment of guilt enables the blind to see. To press the point further, the statesman who assumes that “we” are good while “they” are evil—think George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11—will almost necessarily misinterpret the problem at hand and underestimate the complexity and costs entailed in trying to solve it. In this sense, an awareness of one’s own failings and foibles not only contributes to moral clarity but can help guard against strategic folly.
Whether feigned or real, therefore, innocence poses a problem. Good intentions informed by the simplistic belief that the world can be fixed and things set right only succeed in killing people.”
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2009%20-%20Summer/full-Bacevich.html
3. Another great article:
“Is Military Service Honorable?
Soldiers talk much of honor. I do not understand how military service can possibly be thought honorable. If the Wehrmacht were landing in North Carolina, yes, but I do not believe that it is. Where is the honor in bombing from the air lightly armed peasants who can’t fight back? It is cowardly, yes, and obscene, but do not talk of honor. Murder for hire is murder for hire.
We now have men who sit at screens, drinking coffee and firing missiles from remote robotic aircraft at people on the ground whom they cannot identify. Brave men, they. I could burst into a kindergarten and kill the children with a ball bat. The one is as honorable as the other.
Recently I saw on television a black sergeant in Afghanistan, probably chosen by his commander for photogenicity, standing in front of a tank or mobile gun, I forget which. He said something scripted like “This is a such-and-such unit, the most powerful fighting force in the world.” This sort of ritual cockiness is carefully ingrained. Near my barracks in Parris Island was a sign, “The most dangerous thing in the world is a Marine rifleman.” If it had said “an ambitious colonel” it would have come closer to truth.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed162.html
4. And ANOTHER great article:
“1. There is no such thing as a “benevolent” Empire.
…
2. All Empires depend on self-justifying ideology and rhetoric that is often at odds with reality. “
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/07/13/ten_lessons_on_empire
5. “Conservative Hypocrisy on Race & Sotomayor
The tactic of congressional conservatives, of portraying Sonia Sotomayor as a reverse racist for her ‘wise Latina’ comment, has so many holes in it that you could make a Swiss cheese sandwich with it.
First of all, her statement about the wisdom gained by members of oppressed and discriminated-against groups didn’t have anything to do with race. It had to do with belonging to oppressed and discriminated-against groups. The thesis that if you have that background and you overcome it, the experience builds character, is unexceptional. It would be true for poor whites in a wealthy non-white country. It isn’t about race as an essence but about the experience of being discriminated against on an ascriptive basis.
…
So the real issue seems to be that conservatives are awfully forgiving of wise old white guys who used to be either racists themselves, who had helped ruin thousands of lives with their bigotry, or who did favors for cross-burners.
But let a minority member take pride in overcoming the disabilities that come with minority status, and, well, that is unforgivable.”
6. “Implanting Microchips into Insects. US Military Develops “Cybug Spies”
Miniature robots could be good spies, but researchers now are experimenting with insect cyborgs or “cybugs” that could work even better.
Scientists can already control the flight of real moths using implanted devices.
The military and spy world no doubt would love tiny, live camera-wielding versions of Predator drones that could fly undetected into places where no human could ever go to snoop on the enemy. Developing such robots has proven a challenge so far, with one major hurdle being inventing an energy source for the droids that is both low weight and high power. Still, evidence that such machines are possible is ample in nature in the form of insects, which convert biological energy into flight.
It makes sense to pattern robots after insects – after all, they must be doing something right, seeing as they are the most successful animals on the planet, comprising roughly 75 percent of all animal species known to humanity. Indeed, scientists have patterned robots after insects and other animals for decades – to mimic cockroach wall-crawling, for instance, or the grasshopper’s leap.
Mechanical metamorphosis
Instead of attempting to create sophisticated robots that imitate the complexity in the insect form that required millions of years of evolution to achieve, scientists now essentially want to hijack bugs for use as robots.
…
Success with moths
So far researchers have successfully embedded MEMS into developing insects, and living adult insects have emerged with the embedded systems intact, a DARPA spokesperson told LiveScience. Researchers have also demonstrated that such devices can indeed control the flight of moths, albeit when they are tethered.
To power the devices, instead of relying on batteries, the hope is to convert the heat and mechanical energy the insect generates as it moves into electricity. The insects themselves could be optimized to generate electricity.
When the researchers can properly control the insects using the embedded devices, the cybugs might then enter the field, equipped with cameras, microphones and other sensors to help them spy on targets or sniff out explosives. Although insects do not always live very long in the wild, the cyborgs’ lives could be prolonged by attaching devices that feed them.
The scientists are now working toward controlled, untethered flight, with the final goal being delivering the insect within 15 feet (5 m) of a specific target located 300 feet (100 meters) away, using electronic remote control by radio or GPS or both, standing still on arrival.
Although flying insects such as moths and dragonflies are of great interest, hopping and swimming insects could also be useful, too, DARPA noted. It’s conceivable that eventually a swarm of cybugs could converge on targets by land, sea and air.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14380
7. “Ex-Clinton aides advising Honduran coup regime
Ever since the military abducted President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint on June 28 and expelled him from the country, the Obama administration has cast itself as a steadfast defender of “democracy” in Honduras.
The real nature of that defense has become somewhat clearer with the news that key former aides to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have surfaced as top advisers to the illegal regime led by Roberto Micheletti, which was installed by the coup.
…
It is inconceivable that such figures would be playing such a prominent role in advising and defending the coup regime in Honduras without receiving a green light from both Secretary of State Clinton and the Obama White House.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14381
