Why the World Should Be Watching Central Asia

Mosque at Naryn, Kyrgyzstan

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Ishaan Tharoor
June 15, 2009 - Time

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When Pakistani troops began to pummel Taliban positions in the Swat Valley last month, there were other military advances against insurgent outposts - barely noticed by the global media - taking place in valleys not so far away. In late May, Uzbek soldiers and tanks patrolled parts of the troubled Ferghana Valley following shootouts with suspected Islamist extremists and a suicide bombing in the valley's main city of Andijan. In neighboring Tajikistan, government forces fanned out across the remote Rasht Valley in a supposed attempt to hunt down a notorious militant commander named Abdullo Rakhimov. The veteran jihadi, according to some local reports, had recently abandoned Taliban allies in Pakistan to resume the struggle in his nearby native land.

While much of the focus of the U.S.-led war on terror now surrounds that theater of operations the Obama administration terms "Af-Pak," the post-Soviet 'Stans to the north present their own strategic quagmire. The tactical support of governments in the region is becoming increasingly vital for U.S. plans to bring stability to Afghanistan. Central Asian countries also sit atop a significant chunk of the world's untapped oil and natural gas reserves, assets which are eyed covetously by both neighboring Russia and China, as well as the West. Yet the region - dominated by corrupt and repressive regimes - is itself precariously poised, home to its own native Islamist insurgencies vulnerable to domestic upheaval. "There is the possibility for really unpredictable change," says Jeffrey Mankoff, a fellow for Russian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. And it's change few Central Asia watchers expect to be positive. While great powers vie for
resources and influence, countries that were once seen as a bulwark against more turbulent nations to the south and west are themselves lurching toward crisis.

Still, Central Asia exists on the periphery for most policy makers in the U.S. When not the illusory realm of Borat or an exotic waypoint of horse markets and mutton skewers, the region has been cast off as a dysfunctional Russian annex, easily manipulated by a Kremlin that still views these young republics as satellite states. From Ashgabat to Astana, the ruling elites are all holdovers from the Soviet era, and sometimes more fluent in Russian than their national tongues. "Their regimes operate," says Eric McGlinchey, a Central Asia specialist and professor of politics and government at George Mason University, "along almost pathological networks of patronage" - and ones that Moscow knows how to navigate. That close working relationship has been on full display recently in Kyrgyzstan: spurred by a Russian promise of $2 billion in aid, the Kyrgyz government signaled its intent to shut down the U.S.'s pivotal Manas air base there in January, and
reaffirmed that pledge this week despite recent overtures from the Obama administration.

Russia may be keen to deter an entrenched American presence in its traditional sphere of influence, but is more muted about China's expanding role in the region. Resource-hungry Beijing has steadily made inroads west, tying up lucrative energy contracts in Kazakhstan, while committing tens of million dollars to infrastructure and hydropower projects in impoverished Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. China has also become the single largest investor in Afghanistan, building roads through Kabul and setting up a massive $3 billion copper mine. In 2001, China formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a geo-political grouping aimed at improving economic and political relations with Russia and other Central Asian nations - as well as a vehicle for Beijing to quash support for separatists in its restive Xinjiang province, whose Muslim Uighurs share ethnic ties with Central Asia's Turkic populations. The SCO - which is set to convene at a summit in
Yekaterinaburg, Russia this week - also declared in 2005 that there must be a timeline for withdrawing all U.S. military bases in Central Asia, a clear sign of Beijing and Moscow's intent to limit U.S. influence. "Russia and China are both interested in maintaining the status quo," says Sean Roberts, a Central Asia expert at George Washington University. See pictures of Chinese investment in Africa.

That translates into a somewhat depressing reality for the over 50 million people living in the region. The world's "freedom rankings" compiled by Freedom House, a Washington D.C.-based human rights NGO, place all five of the post-Soviet 'Stans near the bottom. Independent media is almost non-existent. Human rights activists are frequently detained and tortured, and many others live in exile. Even in Kyrgyzstan, where a so-called "velvet" revolution toppled the ruling president in 2005, the subsequent government has done little to distinguish itself from the past. "Central Asians tolerate an awful lot," says Roberts. "They've inherited a mentality from the Soviet days where they don't necessarily believe in politics, or have faith that turning over the government yields a lot of results."

Yet they are hardly isolated from global events: the impact of the worldwide recession is pushing some Central Asian societies to the brink. Tajikistan, like other poor Central Asian nations, has over the years seen many of its able-bodied men leave to work in the more prosperous cities of Russia and oil-rich Kazakhstan - at least a tenth of the Tajik population of 7 million is migrant labor. Remittances sent home comprise some 40% of the country's total GDP, according to UN figures, and account for only slightly less in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Now, with the collapse of the Russian economy and the drying up of its construction boom, tens of thousands are returning to rugged homelands that offer few opportunities and to families that depended on their labor abroad. Observers in Tajikistan tell of depressed village after village where groups of unemployed men amble around. The situation "is a potential time bomb," says the International Crisis Group, a
Brussels-based think-tank, in a report earlier this year that labeled the country "on the road to failure."

Analysts fear that the deteriorating economic climate, a legacy of ineffectual governance, and an increasingly frustrated population may feed into the designs of established militant groups in the region. The Ferghana Valley, the most densely populated pocket of Central Asia, straddles the Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz borders, and is home to the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a State Department listed terror organization. Militants are known to slip easily across the porous 1,300 km boundary between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which is also a chief thoroughfare for Afghan opium into the markets of the West. According to Pakistani media, the IMU has helped contribute some 4,000 Uzbek and Tajik fighters to the Taliban forces warring with Islamabad.

The specter of an Islamist threat has often worked in favor of the region's governments. After 9/11, U.S. Central Asian strategy was dictated largely by the Department of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld. Uzbekistan, ruled its entire independent life by the iron-fisted Islam Karimov, was brought into the fold as a staging ground for American operations in Afghanistan, as well as a willing accomplice in the renditions of suspected terrorists. That cozy partnership ended in 2005 when the Uzbek army gunned down hundreds of civilians protesting for reform in the Ferghana Valley under the pretense that it was curbing an Islamist revolt. U.S. and European condemnation only led the government to turn to Moscow's embrace and throw out numerous international NGOs and foreign aid agencies. The country's dissidents receded further into the margins; the more pronounced opposition now tends to be radical and violent. "Islamic militancy here," says McGlinchey, "has
almost always more to do with the oppressiveness of the local governments than some kind of trans-national religious calling."

With the anticipated loss of Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. has again turned to Karimov's Uzbekistan for logistical assistance. Central Asia watchers in the U.S. say that part of the difficulty Washington now faces in the region stems from its own short-sightedness in engaging governments there. "The U.S. approach was one-dimensional," says Mankoff of the Council on Foreign Relations. "A lot of attention has been paid to cooperating with military and security forces at the expense of a broader relationship." The Obama administration has no dedicated Central Asia envoy nor is it willing to pursue a strong agenda for change and reform at the risk of provoking Moscow. "Many think it's a battle not worth fighting," says Roberts.

Events may soon outpace that calculus, given the alarming collapse of the region's economies and spikes in militant violence. It's unclear, though, what a beefed-up American role in the region could look like, and whether it would be in concert - or at odds - with Moscow or Beijing. Headlines in the international press tout the advent of the new "Great Game" in a region that for centuries has been at the whim of larger forces. Not many locals are that interested, though. "We waited and hoped for democratic change after the influence of America," says Umida Niyazova, a journalist and prominent Uzbek activist living in exile in Germany. "But the years since have only brought more instability."

Eating Meat Is Not Natural

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Eating meat is a relatively recent phenomenon in human evolution. And our bodies have never adapted to it.

Kathy Freston
June 15, 2009 - AlterNet

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Going through the reader feedback on some of my recent articles, I noticed the frequently stated notion that eating meat was an essential step in human evolution. While this notion may comfort the meat industry, it's simply not true, scientifically.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study (please check out the link), explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today. He explains that "the birth of agriculture only started about 10,000 years ago at a time when it became considerably more convenient to herd animals. This is not nearly as long as the time [that] fashioned our basic biochemical functionality (at least tens of millions of years) and which functionality depends on the nutrient composition of plant-based foods."

That jibes with what Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President Dr. Neal Barnard says in his book, The Power of Your Plate, in which he explains that "early humans had diets very much like other great apes, which is to say a largely plant-based diet, drawing on foods we can pick with our hands. Research suggests that meat-eating probably began by scavenging -- eating the leftovers that carnivores had left behind. However, our bodies have never adapted to it. To this day, meat-eaters have a higher incidence of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other problems."

There is no more authoritative source on anthropological issues than paleontologist Dr. Richard Leakey, who explains what anyone who has taken an introductory physiology course might have discerned intuitively -- that humans are herbivores. Leakey notes that "[y]ou can't tear flesh by hand, you can't tear hide by hand ... We wouldn't have been able to deal with food source that required those large canines" (although we have teeth that are called "canines," they bear little resemblance to the canines of carnivores).

In fact, our hands are perfect for grabbing and picking fruits and vegetables. Similarly, like the intestines of other herbivores, ours are very long (carnivores have short intestines so they can quickly get rid of all that rotting flesh they eat). We don't have sharp claws to seize and hold down prey. And most of us (hopefully) lack the instinct that would drive us to chase and then kill animals and devour their raw carcasses. Dr. Milton Mills builds on these points and offers dozens more in his essay, "A Comparative Anatomy of Eating."

The point is this: Thousands of years ago when we were hunter-gatherers, we may have needed a bit of meat in our diets in times of scarcity, but we don't need it now. Says Dr. William C. Roberts, editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, "Although we think we are, and we act as if we are, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us, because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores."

Sure, most of us are "behavioral omnivores" -- that is, we eat meat, so that defines us as omnivorous. But our evolution and physiology are herbivorous, and ample science proves that when we choose to eat meat, that causes problems, from decreased energy and a need for more sleep up to increased risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Old habits die hard, and it's convenient for people who like to eat meat to think that there is evidence to support their belief that eating meat is "natural" or the cause of our evolution. For many years, I too, clung to the idea that meat and dairy were good for me; I realize now that I was probably comforted to have justification for my continued attachment to the traditions I grew up with.

But in fact top nutritional and anthropological scientists from the most reputable institutions imaginable say categorically that humans are natural herbivores, and that we will be healthier today if we stick with our herbivorous roots. It may be inconvenient, but it alas, it is the truth.

Link:

http://www.alternet.org/story/140643/eating_meat_is_not_natural/

EPA Withholds Locations of 'High Hazard' Coal Ash Sites

Under the stacks of TVA's Kingston coal-fired power plant, the ash spill cleanup continues. (Photo courtesy TVA)

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Public Not Allowed to Know Location of Hazardous Coal Ash Sites

June 14, 2009 - Environmental News Servivce

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There are 44 coal combustion waste sites nationwide that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified as "high hazard," but the agency cannot make the locations of these hazardous sites public, Senator Barbara Boxer told reporters today. The California senator chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the federal environmental agency.

In the aftermath of last December's spill of more than a billion gallons of coal ash waste at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston coal-fired power plant, the U.S. EPA conducted inspections of the nation's coal combustion waste sites.

Agency inspectors identified several hundred coal ash piles across the country including 44 sites that pose a "high hazard." These sites are located in such a way that if the coal ash ponds were to fail, they would pose a threat to people living nearby.

But, Senator Boxer said, "the EPA, after consulting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Homeland Security, has indicated that they cannot make the list of 'high hazard' sites public."

"If these sites are so hazardous and if the neighborhoods nearby could be harmed irreparably, then I believe it is essential to let people know," Boxer said. "In that way, they can press their local authorities who have responsibility for their safety to act now to make the sites safer."

"There is a huge muzzle on me and on my staff, and the only people I can tell about this are the senators whose states are impacted," said Boxer. "We cannot talk to any of their staffs. This is unacceptable. The committee is going to continue hearings into this matter."

Today, Senator Boxer sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the EPA seeking further information on whether the public disclosure of coal ash waste sites is consistent with the treatment of other hazardous sites.

"One of the lessons we all learned from the TVA spill is that a close look at these facilities is extremely important, and we cannot rely on general assurances that these sites are safe," the senator said. "That is why I am pleased that on-the-ground inspections have begun."

At 1:00 am on December 22, 2008, a retaining wall failed on an 84-acre surface impoundment holding a half century's worth of coal ash at the TVA's Kingston power plant about 35 miles west of Knoxville, Tennessee, at the junction of the Emory and Clinch Rivers.

More than one billion gallons of coal ash "rushed down the valley like a wave," Boxer said. Ash covered nearly 400 acres, destroying three homes and damaging a dozen others. No one was injured.

"The volume of ash and water was 100 times greater than the amount of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster," Boxer said today. "The cost of cleaning up that spill has been estimated at over a billion dollars."

After the devastating Kingston spill, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held an oversight hearing to better understand this incident and how to avoid similar disasters in the future.

"When EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson came before our committee for her confirmation hearing a week later, she committed to move immediately to address the threat posed by coal ash waste," Boxer said today, expressing confidence Jackson would act to regulate coal combustion waste sites.

"Coal combustion waste is subject to very limited regulation," Boxer said. "In fact, there are stronger protections for household garbage than for coal ash across the country."

The EPA has the authority to regulate coal ash, which can contain toxic substances such as arsenic, selenium, lead, cadmium and chromium.

"I do have great confidence in Administrator Jackson's commitment to move forward with regulations," said the senator. "I hope and expect we will have these regulations by the end of this year."

At the site of the Kingston coal ash spill, cleanup continues. On May 11, the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal agency that is the nation's largest public power provider, and the EPA signed an agreement by which TVA recognizes EPA's role and specialized expertise in responding to large-scale environmental clean-ups.

While TVA will retain its status as a lead federal agency, EPA will approve all work plans and schedules going forward.

"This agreement will continue the collaborative work between EPA, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and TVA, using EPA's expertise under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act," said TVA Senior Vice President of Office of Environment and Research Anda Ray.

"All of the agencies involved have a common goal, to meet the nation's highest standards for effectiveness, transparency, and public involvement," said Ray.

Transparency is exactly what Senator Boxer is after. The Environment and Public Works Committee will continue its ongoing investigation of coal ash waste sites and Boxer announced plans to conduct additional hearings on the 44 "high hazard" sites with the intention of learning why their locations are being withheld from the public.

Stop Wasting on the Military

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Amitabh Pal
June 14, 2009 - The Progressive

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The global arms madness continues.

A new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (one of my favorite think tanks) confirms that worldwide military expenditure is again on the up and up, with spending having increased by 4 percent in 2008.

"All regions and subregions have seen significant increases since 1999, except for Western and Central Europe," says the report (available at www.sipri.org).

The United States loomed large over all other countries, with a whopping $607 billion swallowed up by the military in 2008, nearly 10 percent more than the previous year. And SIPRI is being very conservative here, because the total U.S. expenditure was roughly $1 trillion when you add military-related costs that are not in the Pentagon budget. (See my column)

Sadly, the change of Administration has not reversed the trend. The Obama Administration has asked for $663 billion for the military for fiscal year 2010, including supplemental funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Although some wasteful big-ticket boondoggles have been cut and the budget is more transparently honest, the Pentagon is still being showered with money, even in our current parlous economic condition. Plus, President Obama has appealed for an additional $83.4 billion for fiscal year 2009 for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bizarrely enough, some of the U.S. media coverage of the SIPRI report has been focused on the faster increase in Chinese military spending. Duh: It's called playing catch up. The United States accounts for nearly half of global military spending, and China's double-digit increase was only slightly more than that of the United States. The U.S.-China rivalry is a strategic game about who can project power most forcefully. And, here, the United States has, by far, the upper hand.

The section of the SIPRI report that gave me the biggest heartburn was the one on international arms transfers. The United States, Russia, Germany, France and United Kingdom continued their gleeful dominance of the arms racket, while China and India, oblivious to the needs of their people, were the biggest importers of weapons.

"Together [the top five arms exporters] accounted for 79 per cent of the volume of exports for 2004–2008," SIPRI states. "They have been the top five suppliers since the end of the cold war and have accounted for at least three-quarters of all exports annually."

Boeing, BAE Systems (British), Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon were the largest producers of death, with arms profits for Boeing itself topping $4 billion. U.S. companies have almost a monopoly on the production of weapons in the big leagues, with almost two-thirds of the total arms manufactures of the top 100 companies being U.S. based.

Perhaps my all-time favorite quotation is by General Dwight David Eisenhower. (I even have a T-shirt with the first sentence printed on it.):

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

This is such a simple, graspable truth that it penetrated the consciousness of even a career military man like Ike. What will it take for the current crop of leaders around the world to comprehend it?

GAO: No problem smuggling secret weapons out of US

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Daniel Tencer
June 13, 2009 - Raw Story

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You've got to hand it to the U.S. Government Accountability Office — they've got initiative.

When the government agency — which has for years been holding successive administrations' feet to the fire over deficit spending and other management issues — was tasked with investigating how secure America's sensitive technologies are, it set up a dummy corporation to buy American weapons and see if it could ship them to countries known as transit points for smuggling weapons.

What they managed to smuggle out of the United States was astounding: Triggers for nuclear bombs; microchips for smart missiles; components for improvised explosives; even current-issue U.S. Army body armor.

And the method they used to do it was brilliant in its simplicity: To avoid export restrictions, they set up their dummy corporation inside the United States. Then, once in possession of the equipment, they shipped it overseas.

From Geopolitical Monitor:

Since most export-restricted technologies are legal to purchase in the U.S., the front company was able to purchase and export restricted technologies to states known to serve as terrorist transshipment points.

This loophole represents a serious threat to non-proliferation efforts as well as a boon to criminal and terrorist networks. According to the Department of Justice, attempts by foreign states and terrorist networks to acquire U.S. arms and technology occur on a daily basis.
Geopolitical Monitor's report links a recent spike in the quantity and quality of Afghan insurgents' weapons to the ease with which advanced American weaponry is moving around the globe.

But the report also points to "state actors" who are taking advantage of the situation. In 2006, the report mentions, a US company was fined $15 million for sending weapons microchips to China, and in 2007, one person was jailed for trying to smuggle smart bomb parts into China.

The report concludes: "The real legacy from export control loopholes will come in the form of an altered military balance between the U.S. and emerging powers such as China."

Wired for War

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The coming robot wars

Book Review by David Isenberg
Wired for War by P W Singer
Jun 13, 2009 - Asia Times

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If you want to understand why Peter Singer's latest book, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, is a tour de force, just consider some headlines from the past month.

"Study Urges Using Neuroscience to Improve Soldiers' Performance"

"Pentagon Joins CIA's [United States Central Intelligence Agency] Drone War on Pakistan"

"Mullen: Drones Future Stalwart of US Force"

"America's New Air Force"

"Engineers at the Mojave Desert base are developing a miniature missile that can be launched from a robotic plane against terrorist targets."

"In future, machines could decide when to fire weapons"

The most fascinating thing about them is not that they are appearing only months after the book's release, though that will undoubtedly help boost sales. It is that every one of those headlines reflects an aspect of the issue, each of which has its own chapter in the book. They serve as testimonials to the prodigious amount of research and serious reflection on the issue that Singer has done.

It bears mentioning that Singer, a senior fellow at the Washington, DC Brookings Institute must be making many other scholars gnash their teeth in envy. He is either the luckiest academic on the face of the planet or has an unparalleled sense of coming military trends. If he could discern economic futures as well as he does with military ones he would be giving advice to Warren Buffett and George Soros.

His 2003 book, Corporate Warriors, examining the realm of private military and security contractors, came out less than six months after the US invasion of Iraq. That book became the gold standard for academic writing and media reporting on the issue. It was also the work which inspired the writing of countless other dissertations and theses on the subject. Although the subject had been covered by others, including myself, before then, his book made firms like Blackwater and Halliburton household words. To this day one can't read a paper on the subject without seeing a discussion of Singer's "typology" of the different types of private military contractors.

That book's popularity was all the more impressive, considering it was his former PhD dissertation. A type of writing normally known for giving one bleary eyes and splitting headaches.

After that he wrote a well received book on child soldiers.

Fortunately, Singer has improved even more as a writer. Stylistically he has lightened up. His copious research is lightened by numerous pop culture references, much of it understandably drawn from science fiction, which is quite understandable, considering his subject is robots. That means references to the like of H G Wells and Jules Verne to Star Trek, Terminator movies, and, of course, Isaac Asimov. And almost all of them are highly informative and amusing. How many people knew that Wells predicted the advent of the atomic bomb?

Despite the effort to appeal to a broader audience this is not a casual book. It is a very serious book about the future of one of humanities oldest activities, war. And while war and conflict has long been a staple of science fiction the problem, as Singer notes, is that science fiction is turning into science reality. He notes the famous quote by the late English physicist and science fiction author Arthur C Clarke, who wrote the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and gave us HAL, the malevolent supercomputer (think the artificial intelligence SkyNet from the Terminator movies) that: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

While robots are not magic, the technologies that are on the battlefields today, not to mention those on the drawing boards, are at the limits of human imagination. And perhaps beyond the limits of contemporary ethical and moral limits on the use of force and rules of war.

Singer has very methodically and dispassionately looked at the past and present and has peered, on the basis of future weapons contracts, peered into the future. What has he seen? The answer is, though he does not put it this way himself is, to quote the tag line from one sci-fi movie classic (The Fly, 1986) is that we should "Be afraid ... Be very afraid."

Right at the outset, in his author's note, Singer makes some critical points as to why this subject is important. Given that many people might think this is just another book about "gee whiz" technologies on the battlefield they are worth noting.

First, "We embrace war but don't like to look to its future, including now one of the most fundamental changes ever in war."

Second, "While we accept change in other realms, we resist trying to research and understand change in the study of war. For example, the very real fear about what the environment will look like as far away as 2050 has driven individuals, governments and companies alike to begin (belatedly) changing their practices. Yet we seem willing to stay oblivious to the changes that will come well before then for war, even though, just like the changes in global climate, we can already see the outlines of the transformation under way."

Some of what Singer writes about has been known for years, at least for those who follow military technology issues. These include PackBots, used for explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), made by iRobot, the same firm that produced Roombas, the robotic vacuum cleaner. PackBots can also be equipped with a shotgun. So much for Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, the first of which says robots shall do no harm.

Another firm, Foster-Miller, produced the Talon, a ground robot which comes in EOD, reconnaissance, and hazardous material versions. Its true lethal weapon claim to fame, however, is its SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System) version. This is the military version of a Transformer toy; able to carry almost any weapon less than 300 pounds, from automatic rifles and machine guns to grenade launchers and anti-tank rocket launchers.

But is not just quantitative firepower that is remarkable; it is the accuracy and immunity to battlefield chaos. Not being affected by emotional stresses, every weapon it carries is capable of pinpoint precision, turning it into the equivalent of a sniper's rifle.

The arming of a system likes SWORDS vastly increases the range of combat military duties it can do, from street patrols and sniping to urban warfare. Considering it can drive through snow or even underwater to a depth of 100 meters feet that means it could show up in the most unexpected places.

But lethal weapons are not the only kind that robots are being equipped with. There is also ongoing work to equip robots with incapacitating chemical, acoustic, and directed energy weapons (think Star Trek phasers), and lasers.

Ground robots can come in all shapes and sizes. The MARCBOT (Multi-Function Agile Remote Controlled Robot) is essentially a toy car with a video camera. But it has been used to carry anti-personnel mines to kill insurgents in Iraq.

As of last year there were 22 different ground robot systems, over 12,000 in all, operating in Iraq. But robots aren't just for the army. They operate on the air and sea also.

Most people today are familiar with the Predator, a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) or drone, which can fly for a day and reach an attitude of 26,000 feet. Their cost of US$4.5 million each is miniscule compared to average cost of today's fighter or bomber aircraft. More importantly, they can stand stresses that human pilots cannot. Thus, the trend is that pilots will be used less and less.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks Predators were armed, both by the CIA and the US military with Hellfire missiles, and have carried out thousands of missions, and at least hundreds of armed attacks.

Aside from the predator there is its bigger brother, Global Hawk, which can stay in the hour for up to 35 hours and reach an altitude of 65,000 feet.

Systems like these are actually piloted by human controllers working back in the United States. One hour they might be at work firing a missile from a Predator and the next back home eating dinner with the family. That has interesting, to say the least, implications for military professionalism and the warrior ethic.

There are many other smaller aerial systems, used for reconnaissance, such as the Raven, Shadow and Wasp. Last year, according to Singer, there 5,331 drones in the US military inventory, almost double the number of manned planes.

Drones are also being used domestically for homeland security and for policing the border with Mexico.

At sea there is REMUS (Remote Environmental Monitoring Unit) used for clearing mines from waterways.

In short, increasingly the US military will rely on robots. Even former president George W Bush acknowledged that. "Now it is clear the military does not have enough unmanned vehicles. We're entering an era in which unmanned vehicles of all kinds will take on greater importance - in space, on land, in the air, and at sea." To borrow from the world of fashion, military robots are the new black.

All that just comes from the introductory overview. That is followed by chapters on the history of robots from ancient times to the end of the 20th century, fundamentals of robotics, and exponential change in technological trends.

In chapter five, things become even more intriguing, and ominous, as Singer looks at the robots of the future, now on the drawing board. SWORDS is scheduled to be replaced by MAARS (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System). Aside from more powerful weapons, a green laser "dazzler" and tear gas it will have a loudspeaker to warn insurgents that "resistance is futile".

And, straight out of Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, is the REV (Robotic Extraction Vehicle) which will be able to perform complex surgeries on wounded soldiers. Ironically, many of these systems are supposed to come together in the US Army's Future Combat Systems program, parts of which were recently cancelled after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suggested cutting the program's ground vehicle and giant cannon components. He argued that they would not be as useful in the military's fights against insurgencies in such places as Iraq and Afghanistan.

At sea there are both unmanned surface and underwater vehicles. Already there is the Spartan Scout, a 30 foot robotic speedboat, packing a .50-caliber machine gun. Some of the underwater vehicles mimic marine life, like the Robo-lobster, which detects and destroys mines close to shore.

But it is in the air that the military robot future is advancing the quickest. Already, the Reaper, a successor to the Predator, that is four times bigger and nine times more powerful, is deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Other drones are being developed for electronic warfare, submarine hunting, and even air-to-air combat.

DARPA (Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency) plans to field a VULTURE (Very-high-altitude, Ultra-endurance, Loitering Theater Unmanned Reconnaissance Element) drone, which it hopes will be able to stay aloft for five years at a time. People may recall that when the original Stark Trek series aired back in the 1960s the USS Enterprise was on a five-year mission.

Lockheed Martin is pitching a robotic High Altitude Airship 25 times larger than the Goodyear blimp. Such an airship could be parked in the air for years and serve as spy satellite or even airstrip for other planes and drones (like the carrier in Sky Captain And The World of Tomorrow).

There are also miniature drones that can eavesdrop into windows or climb up walls and pipes. Someday such systems may reach the nano scale, working at the molecular level, resulting in tiny missiles or nanobots destroying a target from the inside out.

Singer writes that the air force sees at least 45% of its future large bomber fleet being able to operate without humans abroad.

And for fighter jocks, like the ones Tom Cruise played in Top Gun, the news is grim. Already there UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles), such as Boeing's X-45 or Northrup Grumman's X-47, which can land on an aircraft carrier. The X-45 was, in fact, so threatening to the US Air Force's newest manned fighter planes, F-222 and F-35, that the X-45 was canceled, although some believe it still lives on in the classified "black" budget.

Robot systems are also being envisioned for use in space. The X-41 Common Aero Vehicle is a cross between an intercontinental ballistic missile and the space shuttle. It would give the United States the ability to crush someone anywhere in the world on 30 minutes notice.

And, as Singer points out, given the increasing number of private companies who are developing space travel capabilities the day may come when they have the ability to conduct military operations on their own. At that point the current private security contractors will have to change their acronym to private space contractors.

All of this is fascinating, as Spock would say, but it poses profound implications for human control over war. Policymakers always like to toss off sound bites about humans being "in the loop" but there is no reason to think that is always true at present and far more reason to think it will be far less so in the future. In fact we started removing men from the loop in World War 2 with the Norden bombsight and the gap has been growing steadily since. As Singer notes, it is lip service, not reality.

Already we have systems like the Aegis Defense system aboard US Navy warships which can operate in an autonomous mode, not needing human authorization to fire. And the sheer amount of sensor data that robotic systems generate will certainly be beyond the ability of human operators to assimilate, no matter how enhanced they are with neural implants or other technology.

Not to mention that the imperatives of warfare are going to make robot autonomy inevitable, if only because once a robot is fired at it is going to need to be able to fire back, without waiting for human approval.

By the way, that Terminator-like humanoid robot on the battlefield future is not far off. Scientists predict 2020 while soldiers predict 2025.

All of this raises interesting questions. Will robots be vulnerable in the future? Can their communications links and operating systems be hacked? And, if so, what then?

Or looking at Iraq and Afghanistan are robot systems really going to be effective in fighting insurgencies, where cultural awareness is as important as destructive power.

And, as the United States increasingly relies on robots what happens when other states and non-state actors acquire their own? Already UAVs are widely traded around the world. And, in Iraq, insurgents have captured US robots and used them back against US soldiers.

In an e-mail Singer wrote this is:

Very much a growing field. The Predator and new Reaper variant for instance is being bought by pretty much half of North Atlantic Treaty Organization [nations]. Turkey just put in to buy to use against Kurds for instance.

So what happens when other countries which are even more advanced in electronics and robotics, like Japan, start investing in military robotics?

As Singer notes the US is not the only player in this. And, as an early adopter, the US may well be surpassed by other countries which piggyback off US developments.

Because so much of robotic development is based on open source information their increased use may well hasten the global redistribution of power; not exactly the result that those hoping the use of military robots will allow continued US military hegemony.

And how does the US military field enough scientifically and technologically adept personnel, when it has trouble attracting sufficient high school graduates, which was the case until the recent recession eased its recruiting problems.

These are just a few of the questions Singer explores and it takes you barely past the halfway point.

It is worth remembering that in the history of military technologies those who have wanted to develop something simply because they can have always won over those who questioned whether it should be developed.

Singer makes it quite clear that the same is occurring with military robotics. If one walks into a lab where such systems are being developed one is going to be greeted with a shrug or a yawn. Right now, such systems are being developed in large part because doing so is "freaking cool".

Currently there is already a dangerous divide between the American public and its military. What happens when the fighting is increasingly done by robots operated by "cubicle warriors"? Will policymakers find it even easier to go to war?

Putting all other questions aside, Singer believes that Murphy's Law "Anything that can go wrong, will - at the worst possible moment" also applies to robots.

Given the stakes, that alone is sufficient reason to be having a global debate about the subject. The fact that we are not is itself frightening.

But for anyone interesting in having the debate Singer's book is a must-read.

Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century by P W Singer, Penguin Press, 2009. ISBN-10: 1594201986. Price US$29.95, 512 pages.

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David Isenberg is a researcher at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. He is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, a US Navy veteran, and the author of a new book, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq.

TOON

Death Talkers

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Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

    - "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Report, 07 April 2009

William Rivers Pitt
June 12, 2009 - TruthOut

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The much-maligned DHS report on the rise of right-wing extremism in America, released last April by Secretary Napolitano to conservative cries of outrage, appears to have been pretty much on the button.

Three days before the report was made public, three Pittsburgh police officers were shot to death by a right-wing gun-ownership extremist who believed President Obama was coming for his guns. One month after the report was made public, an anti-choice zealot named Scott Roeder gunned down Dr. George Tiller in the vestibule of Tiller's church in Kansas while his wife sang in the choir. On Wednesday, a security guard was shot and killed at the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC, by James W. von Brunn, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who filled pages on his blog with screeds about a Jewish world conspiracy and, you guessed it, Obama's so-called "false" birth certificate.

Where is all this fear, hatred and violence gaining its inspiration? I can think of a few examples.

Last March, Fox News personality Sean Hannity ran a poll on his web site asking readers what kind of revolution they'd prefer: military coup, armed rebellion or war for secession? "#3 seems most realistic," opined Hannity, "since it does present an opportunity for more homogeneous states to sort of capitalize on their homogeneity. However, it would likely lead to mass migrations of the minority partisans out of the rebel states. Of course, that may be fine with those states. Yet it seems that the ultimate paradox in any rebellion for freedom from within is that the ultimate goal is to impose the will of the rebels on everyone else through force. It seems the very foundation of representative democracy is ****tered if we accept that we exchange the power of ideas for the power of the sword upon each other. Nevertheless, I am still very interested in your own preferred form of revolt."

A month later, conservative radio host Glenn Beck accused President Obama of lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell research in order to begin genetic development of a new master race. "So here you have Barack Obama," said Beck, "going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research, and then some, fundamentally changing - remember, those great progressive doctors are the ones who brought us eugenics. It was the progressive movement and it was science. Let's put science truly in her place. If evolution is right, why don't we just help out evolution? That was the idea. And sane people agreed with it! And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don't know what eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to
wake up."

Newt Gingrich claimed recently the United States is surrounded by "paganism." Mike Huckabee claimed recently the California Appeals Court decision to uphold the Prop. 8 ban on same-sex marriage was "a miracle from God's hands." Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has accused the Obama administration of actively seeking to destroy the country by aiding terrorism and embracing socialism. The list goes on.

A pertinent section of the April DHS report:

  Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment tool. Many rightwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use. Rightwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2008 election timeframe to the present, rightwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.

  Historically, domestic rightwing extremists have feared, predicted, and anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States. Prominent antigovernment conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty. Conspiracy theories involving declarations of martial law, impending civil strife or racial conflict, suspension of the U.S. Constitution, and the creation of citizen detention camps often incorporate aspects of a failed economy. Antigovernment conspiracy theories and "end times" prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia
movement.

Where is all the fear and violence gaining inspiration? The same places it has been for a while now. Those right-wing media people keep talking, and people keep getting killed. Coincidence?

Ha.

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William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book is, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation."

Sarah Palin's Dysfunctional Organization May Be Her Undoing

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Half-Baked Alaska

Kathleen Parker
June 10, 2009

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Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and GOP "It" girl, can warm up the Republican base like a hot toddy in a duck blind. But further inside the party organization, the air is a little nippy.

Everyone seems to have a Sarah Palin story of ignored calls, mishandled invitations or unanswered e-mail. Disorganized is how one might charitably describe the Palin operation.

"Basically, it's just rude," says one political operative who is a Palin fan. "They've been running the great snub machine. That's the reason the boys in the Republican Party are unhappy with her."

That unhappiness has been building gradually in the past seven months, and it was on full display this week as the party faithful gathered for a fundraising dinner at which Palin originally was invited to speak. She was later uninvited, and Newt Gingrich took her place.

Watching the dinner-speaker spectacle develop, then unravel, then redevelop (Will she or won't she speak/attend?) felt like watching a middle-school romance in which a friend tells another friend that so-and-so has a crush on you-know-who, but don't tell anybody. A little silly, in other words. And embarrassing.

The "tick-tock" of what happened is a byzantine exercise in blame-shifting. Briefly, someone in Palin's "organization" accepted the original invitation in March, whereupon the dinner hosts issued a press release announcing that Palin would be the keynote speaker.

Yay!

But then, no, Palin had not accepted. In fact, the press release was the first she'd heard of it. The official story suddenly became that SarahPAC had jumped the gun and that Palin wasn't sure she could make the event. Enter Newt Gingrich. Then last week, so-and-so said she'd like to come, but you-know-who said, "We like someone else now."

There's more -- and stories vary -- but a common theme emerges: Seven months after the election, Palin still can't shoot straight. Unless something changes dramatically and soon, "Missed Opportunity" should be the title of her memoir.

By the time Palin returned to Alaska last fall, her popularity and fundraising ability were second only to Barack Obama's. Instantly, she was drowning in speaking requests. Boxes and boxes of invitations stacked up  and went unprocessed.

Without any effort on her part, 75,000 to 80,000 fans around the country organized pro-Palin groups. Said a frustrated Palin promoter: "All she had to do for those 75,000 people was hold an electronic town hall, and she couldn't get around to it."

Of course, it's not that Palin has nothing else to do. But her problem is the same as it was a year ago. She isn't ready. For whatever reason -- skittishness, distrust or, quite possibly, executive weakness -- Palin has been unable to make the transition from Alaska politics to the Big Game Hunt of the national arena.

Plenty of experienced people have tried to help. Veteran operatives created SarahPAC to raise money for staff to at least open mail and return phone calls. It was a Kevin Costner field of dreams: Create the Web site, and they came, all right. The PAC raised $400,000 in its first month without so much as asking.

What happened next?

Nothing.

"We couldn't get them to decide on office space," says my source. "You couldn't get them to be professional."

Palin's fiercely independent streak is part of her charm but also may be her undoing. It's one thing to campaign on an anti-inside-the-Beltway platform. But to play in the big leagues, you need people who know what they're doing.

You don't flirt and say "yes," and then say "no," and then say "maybe," and then show up expecting a bouquet. The tease is a risky business. Palin did get to walk across the stage with Gingrich -- to appreciative applause and a few whistles -- but she wasn't allowed to talk. Something about upstaging Gingrich.

Palin also managed to get in a few words during an interview with Fox's Sean Hannity, which aired Monday night during the fundraising dinner. But anyone listening to both Gingrich and Palin would find preemption concerns ludicrous. Palin may be more fun to watch, but Gingrich dominates on the battlefield of ideas.

Whether Palin can rally her resources by 2012 remains in serious doubt, even among her fans. Said yet another Palin admirer: "The problem is, she has had months to get it together and they haven't. They could have had an excellent national team and state team working seamlessly."

But they didn't.

More ’sickening’ truths about torture soon to be revealed

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David Edwards and Muriel Kane
June 11, 2009 - Raw Story

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A crucial CIA Inspector General's report from May 2004 is expected to reveal some long-hidden truths about the Bush administration's use of torture.

According to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, "This report is sort of the big kahuna in terms of what we have been waiting to see from the government's own files on torture. That report, which is long and has been described by people who have seen it as 'sickening,' apparently stopped the torture program in its tracks."

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) recently warned in a speech on the floor of the Senate that almost everything we think we know about the Bush administration's torture program is wrong.

"There has been a campaign of falsehood about this whole sorry episode," Whitehouse stated. "We've been misled about nearly every aspect of this program. … Measured against the information I've been able to get access to, the storyline that we have been led to believe … is false in every one of its dimensions."

Maddow then asked Newsweek's Michael Isikoff whether the report will fill in the mission information to which Whitehouse referred.

"We don't know how complete the disclosures are going to be," Isikoff cautioned. "Will we see the complete unredacted report? That is the key question here."

"There are three key questions to look for," Isikoff explained. "Were there harsh interrogations that began before the … legal authorizations? … Did they go beyond what was authorized? … Did it go beyond just finding out about possible plots against the United States to provide other information, such as supplying possible evidence that could be used to justify the war in Iraq?"

Isikoff noted that there are footnotes in the torture memos already released which "quote from the Inspector General's report that what was actually done went beyond what was authorized — that how waterboarding was conducted, the frequency with which it was conducted, and the manner in which it was conducted was beyond what the CIA told the Justice Department it was going to do when the Justice Department authorized the technique."

Isikoff emphasized, however, that almost none of this information is being released voluntarily. It's being slowly pried out through Freedom of Information Act requests, most of them filed by the ACLU, and "it's become trench warfare — document by document."

"The CIA and the intelligence community has pushed back hard," Isikoff stressed. "People in the intelligence community never wanted this stuff out to begin with."

This video is from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast June 10, 2009:

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/11/maddow-more-sickening/

Cheney still in crosshairs of Senate Intelligence probe

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John Byrne
June 10, 2009 - Raw Story

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney isn't out of the woods yet for his role in briefing Congress on the Bush Administration's secretive harsh interrogation program.

In a carefully worded statement to Mother Jones' David Corn for an article Wednesday, a spokesman for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein indicated that the conduct of individuals who briefed Congressmembers on the CIA's interrogation program is under review.

"The Senate intelligence committee's study includes an examination of how the committee was briefed on the CIA's detention and interrogation program," Phil LaVelle, a Feinstein spokesperson, was quoted as saying. "This includes briefings of committee leadership, and is not limited by who conducted the briefing."

The Intelligence Committee's probe has been ongoing — quietly — since March.

But "there have been no public hearings," Corn writes. "In fact, Feinstein has made no commitment to hold hearings on this subject or to release a public report when the investigation is completed. The committee said in March that its investigation would take about a year.

"The committee has restricted this part of its review and is not examining briefings provided to other committees–such as the House intelligence committee–according to a congressional source familiar with the probe." he adds. "But given that Cheney briefed two senior members of the Senate intelligence panel, the committee can review what Cheney told Roberts and Rockefeller about the interrogation program and evaluate whether his assertions were supported by the facts. That is, the Cheney briefing is fair game for the Senate investigators.

Feinstein's spokesman declined to comment on whether the committee was investigating the 2005 briefing Cheney gave Senate Intelligence Committee members.

"The committee is not confirming or denying any specific aspects of its inquiry, including the witnesses it has or will be interviewing," Corn avers.

Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess

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Some people say that George W. Bush didn't solve any national problems during his eight years in office, but that's not exactly right.

Robert Parry
June 10, 2009 - Consortium News

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In 2001, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the Fed might have trouble influencing interest rates if the entire federal debt were paid off – an event that budget projections then forecast. Nailed that one, ex-President Bush can declare.

Indeed, no one will have to worry about the "problem" of a completely repaid federal debt anytime soon, if ever.  Before leaving office, Bush had transformed what was projected in 2001 to be a $848 billion surplus for fiscal 2009 into a $1 trillion deficit, nearly a $2 trillion swing from deep black to bright red, according to Congressional Budget Office figures.

But one of the ironies of the early Obama administration is that the Republicans and their many allies in the U.S. news media have succeeded in shifting much of the blame for the ocean of red ink onto Barack Obama, leading the new President to scale back programs and to scramble politically. A recent Gallup poll found 51 percent disapproving of Obama's handling of federal spending.

That GOP success is a reflection of the Right's massive investment in media over the past several decades and the audacity of Republicans to tick off talking points regardless of reality. A steady propaganda barrage, especially when it's ineffectively countered, can create perceptions that influence the electorate and thus constrain political options.

If Americans think Obama is responsible for the massive deficits, they will be less willing to support his recommendations for addressing a host of pressing problems, from the environment to health care to the economy.

And to the degree they forget or don't know about Bush's role in the deficit problem, they are more likely to turn back to Republicans, the same people who enabled Bush with his extravagant tax cuts and open-ended wars to chart the nation into that red-ink ocean.

So, it is useful to read Wednesday's New York Times analysis of the CBO budget projections, which revealed that Obama's stimulus plan and other domestic programs account for "only a sliver" of the deficits, about 10 percent of the projected $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009.

The Times analysis by David Leonhardt blamed 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing from surplus to deficit on the business cycle, including the bursting stock-market bubbles and related recessions. The Times traced about 33 percent of the deficit swing to legislation signed by Bush, including his signature tax cuts and his Medicare prescription drug plan.

Though Bush is now out of office, continuation of other of his key initiatives, such as the Wall Street bailout and the Iraq War, contributed significantly to the deficit under Obama, the Times found.

"Mr. Obama's main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq War and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000," the Times reported. "Such policies – together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama – account for 20 percent of the swing."

Obama's stimulus bill, signed in February, accounted for 7 percent of the deficit expansion, and his other early programs, including health care, education and energy, added 3 percent, the Times said. So, the tally would indicate that Bush's policies contributed to 53 percent of the 2009 deficit swing compared to 10 percent from Obama's plans.

Yet the Republicans have scored some important political points by repositioning themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and tagging Obama as a spendthrift.

Ironically, too, in his efforts to show bipartisan continuity with the Bush administration – especially on the Wall Street financial crisis – Obama has opened himself to GOP attack lines.

Not the First Time

This is surely not the first time that the Republicans have relied on the powerful right-wing news media and the careerists in the mainstream press to turn political reality inside out.

One telling example was how GOP congressmen and right-wing operatives in 1999-2000 linked Vice President Al Gore to the compromising of U.S. nuclear secrets to China, when the secrets were compromised years earlier under Ronald Reagan. [See Consortiumnews.com's "How America Fell."]

But a striking fact of the early Obama era is that – with only a few exceptions – Washington has changed very little, systemically.

The right-wing media remains the dominant megaphone; the same inept talking heads fill the air on CNN, CNBC and – for much of the day – on MSNBC; Republicans will say or do anything to sabotage a Democratic administration; and Democrats are still mesmerized by the pleasant mirage of "bipartisanship."

The hard reality for Obama, the Democrats and the progressives is that as long as they ignore these systemic features, especially the power of America's right-tilted media, the Republicans will always have the edge in framing the issues – and thus limiting the choices for the future.

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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. He is the author of "Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush".

The GOP’s 100-Reactor/Trillion-Dollar Energy Plan Goes Radioactive

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Harvey Wasserman
June 11, 2009 - CommonDreams.org

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As the prospective price of new reactors continues to soar, and as the first "new generation" construction projects sink in French and Finish soil, Republicans are introducing a bill to Congress demanding 100 new nuclear reactors in the US within twenty years. It explicitly welcomes "alternatives" such as oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and "clean coal." Though it endorses some renewables such as solar and wind power, it calls for no cap on carbon emissions.

According to the New York Times, this is the defining GOP alternative to a Democratic energy plan headed for a House vote later this month.

But niggling questions like who will pay for these reactors, who will insure them, where will the fuel come from, where will waste go and who will protect them from terrorists are not on the agenda. Given recent certain-to-prove-optimistic estimates of approximately $10 billion per reactor, the plan envisions a trillion-plus dollar commitment to a newly nuke-centered nation.

With this proposed legislation the GOP makes atomic energy the centerpiece of its strategy to deal with climate change.

Nuclear power requires energy-intensive activities such as uranium mining, milling, fuel enrichment, plus other carbon expenditures for plant construction, waste management and more. Reactors also convert buried uranium ore into huge quantities of heat, much of which becomes hot water and steam emitted into the environment. Reactors in France and elsewhere have been forced to shut because adjacent rivers have been taken to 90 degrees Farenheit by hot water dumped from reactor cooling systems.

None of this troubled GOP hearings this week on the future of atomic energy. There were no answers to how new reactors would be insured. Since 1957 the federal treasury has been the underwriter of last resort for potential reactor disasters. Renewed in the 2005 Bush energy plan, the commitment applies to all new reactors.

So reactors licensed to operate through 2057---as would be virtually certain under the GOP plan---would extend to a full century the atomic industry's inability to cover its own risks. Neither the Obama Administration nor the GOP has presented detailed plans for dealing with such disasters, or explained how they would be paid for.

Despite the GOP's endless focus on the terror attacks of 9/11/2001, no significant structural upgrades have been made to protect the currently licensed 104 US reactors from an air attack. The new reactors will be required to demonstrate an ability to resist a jet crash, but testing that requirement remains an open issue.

The ability to fuel this new fleet of reactors remains questionable. Reprocessing used fuel into re-usable Mixed Oxide rods has proven dirty, expensive and dangerous.

The initial experience with building new reactors runs parallel. As reported in the New York Times and elsewhere, French-financed construction projects at Flamanville, France, and at Okiluoto in Finland have soared hugely over budget and behind schedule. Much of the economically catastrophic experience endured by utilities and rate payers in building the first generation of reactors in the 1960s-1990s appears to be repeating itself with even bigger deficits. The French government's front-group Areva, which is building the new plants, has sunk into serious financial and political chaos, with potentially devastating implications for this much-touted "new generation" technology.

Recent radioactive leaks in Vermont and Illinois have underscored bitter disputes over re-licensing the 104 "first generation" US reactors. Some could now operate past the 60-year mark, even though most were originally designed to operate just 30, and all have serious issues ranging from frequent leaks to structural decay, unworkable evacuation plans and much more.

Meanwhile, with the apparent cancellation of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, the industry is no closer to dealing with its radioactive waste than it was 50 years ago.

None of which seems to daunt the industry or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has yet to turn down a proposed re-licensing. Two states---Florida and Georgia---have now passed rate hikes aimed at funding new reactor construction. And Obama's Department of Energy may soon dole out $18.5 billion in construction loan guarantees put in place by the Bush 2005 Energy Plan. The DOE has identified four prime candidates for the money.

Nonetheless, since 2007 reactor opponents have three times defeated proposals for $50 billion in loan guarantees for new reactor construction. There is no indication from Wall Street and what's left of the private banking community that without heavy government guarantees, investments in nuclear power plants are at all attractive.

But while billing itself as the party of free enterprise---especially when it comes to health care---the GOP has made itself the unabashed champion of a technology that can't raise private capital without taxpayer backing, can't get private insurance, can't manage its wastes, and shows no sign of offering a meaningful solution to the problem of carbon emissions.

What the nuclear power industry does seem to have, however, is unlimited funding to push its product in the corporate media and Congress. This latest GOP proposal for 100 new nukes may not fly in this House session.

Sadly, Democratic-sponsored legislation is not nuke-free. The situation in Congress remains fluid and unpredictable, often changing from day to day. Various aspects of bills supported by various Democrats include hidden subsidies, disguised loan guarantees, counting nuclear power as "green" in proposed renewable portfolio standards, backdoor handouts and more. Sometimes the boosts are buried in obscure corners of sub-clauses that border on the indecipherable.

But surface they do, again and again. Thus far the anti-nuclear movement has done a remarkable job of blocking the worst of them. Continuing to do that will require eternal vigilance, endless grassroots action and the steadfast belief that in the long run, our species has the will and foresight to somehow avoid radioactive self-extinction.

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Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and writes regularly for www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared

Zen 'Light, Sweet Crude' Moment of the Day

Clifford Krauss of the New York Times reported recently, gas prices have risen 41 days in a row, and yet the price at the pump is still "lagging behind the increase in the price of oil."

It's Official -- The Era of Cheap Oil Is Over

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Energy Department Changes Tune on Peak Oil

Michael T. Klare
June 11, 2009 - Tomgram

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Every summer, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy issues its International Energy Outlook (IEO) -- a jam-packed compendium of data and analysis on the evolving world energy equation. For those with the background to interpret its key statistical findings, the release of the IEO can provide a unique opportunity to gauge important shifts in global energy trends, much as reports of routine Communist Party functions in the party journal Pravda once provided America's Kremlin watchers with insights into changes in the Soviet Union's top leadership circle.

As it happens, the recent release of the 2009 IEO has provided energy watchers with a feast of significant revelations. By far the most significant disclosure: the IEO predicts a sharp drop in projected future world oil output (compared to previous expectations) and a corresponding increase in reliance on what are called "unconventional fuels" -- oil sands, ultra-deep oil, shale oil, and biofuels.

So here's the headline for you: For the first time, the well-respected Energy Information Administration appears to be joining with those experts who have long argued that the era of cheap and plentiful oil is drawing to a close. Almost as notable, when it comes to news, the 2009 report highlights Asia's insatiable demand for energy and suggests that China is moving ever closer to the point at which it will overtake the United States as the world's number one energy consumer. Clearly, a new era of cutthroat energy competition is upon us.

Peak Oil Becomes the New Norm

As recently as 2007, the IEO projected that the global production of conventional oil (the stuff that comes gushing out of the ground in liquid form) would reach 107.2 million barrels per day in 2030, a substantial increase from the 81.5 million barrels produced in 2006. Now, in 2009, the latest edition of the report has grimly dropped that projected 2030 figure to just 93.1 million barrels per day -- in future-output terms, an eye-popping decline of 14.1 million expected barrels per day.

Even when you add in the 2009 report's projection of a larger increase than once expected in the output of unconventional fuels, you still end up with a net projected decline of 11.1 million barrels per day in the global supply of liquid fuels (when compared to the IEO's soaring 2007 projected figures). What does this decline signify -- other than growing pessimism by energy experts when it comes to the international supply of petroleum liquids?

Very simply, it indicates that the usually optimistic analysts at the Department of Energy now believe global fuel supplies will simply not be able to keep pace with rising world energy demands. For years now, assorted petroleum geologists and other energy types have been warning that world oil output is approaching a maximum sustainable daily level -- a peak -- and will subsequently go into decline, possibly producing global economic chaos. Whatever the timing of the arrival of peak oil's actual peak, there is growing agreement that we have, at last, made it into peak-oil territory, if not yet to the moment of irreversible decline.

Until recently, Energy Information Administration officials scoffed at the notion that a peak in global oil output was imminent or that we should anticipate a contraction in the future availability of petroleum any time soon. "[We] expect conventional oil to peak closer to the middle than to the beginning of the 21st century," the 2004 IEO report stated emphatically.

Consistent with this view, the EIA reported one year later that global production would reach a staggering 122.2 million barrels per day in 2025, more than 50% above the 2002 level of 80.0 million barrels per day. This was about as close to an explicit rejection of peak oil that you could get from the EIA's experts.

Where Did All the Oil Go?

Now, let's turn back to the 2009 edition. In 2025, according to this new report, world liquids output, conventional and unconventional, will reach only a relatively dismal 101.1 million barrels per day. Worse yet, conventional oil output will be just 89.6 million barrels per day. In EIA terms, this is pure gloom and doom, about as deeply pessimistic when it comes to the world's future oil output capacity as you're likely to get.

The agency's experts claim, however, that this will not prove quite the challenge it might seem, because they have also revised downward their projections of future energy demand. Back in 2005, they were projecting world oil consumption in 2025 at 119.2 million barrels per day, just below anticipated output at that time. This year -- and we should all theoretically breathe a deep sigh of relief -- the report projects that 2025 figure at only 101.1 million barrels per day, conveniently just what the world is expected to produce at that time. If this actually proves the case, then oil prices will presumably remain within a manageable range.

In fact, however, the consumption part of this equation seems like the less reliable calculation, especially if economic growth continues at anything like its recent pace in China and India. Indeed, all evidence suggests that growth in these countries will resume its pre-crisis pace by the end of 2009 or early 2010. Under those circumstances, global oil demand will eventually outpace supply, driving up prices again and threatening recurring and potentially disastrous economic disorders -- possibly on the scale of the present global economic meltdown.

To have the slightest chance of averting such disasters means seeing a sharp rise in unconventional fuel output. Such fuels include Canadian oil sands, Venezuelan extra-heavy oil, deep-offshore oil, Arctic oil, shale oil, liquids derived from coal (coal-to-liquids or CTL), and biofuels. At present, these cumulatively constitute only about 4% of the world's liquid fuel supply but are expected to reach nearly 13% by 2030. All told, according to estimates in the new IEO report, unconventional liquid production will reach an estimated 13.4 million barrels per day in 2030, up from a projected 9.7 million barrels in the 2008 edition.

But for an expansion on this scale to occur, whole new industries will have to be created to manufacture such fuels at a cost of several trillion dollars. This undertaking, in turn, is provoking a wide-ranging debate over the environmental consequences of producing such fuels.

For example, any significant increase in biofuels use -- assuming such fuels were produced by chemical means rather than, as now, by cooking -- could substantially reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, actually slowing the tempo of future climate change. On the other hand, any increase in the production of Canadian oil sands, Venezuelan extra-heavy oil, and Rocky Mountain shale oil will entail energy-intensive activities at staggering levels, sure to emit vast amounts of CO2, which might more than cancel out any gains from the biofuels.

In addition, increased biofuels production risks the diversion of vast tracts of arable land from the crucial cultivation of basic food staples to the manufacture of transportation fuel. If, as is likely, oil prices continue to rise, expect it to be ever more attractive for farmers to grow more corn and other crops for eventual conversion to transportation fuels, which means rises in food costs that could price basics out of the range of the very poor, while stretching working families to the limit. As in May and June of 2008, when food riots spread across the planet in response to high food prices -- caused, in part, by the diversion of vast amounts of corn acreage to biofuel production -- this could well lead to mass unrest and mass starvation.

A Heavy Energy Footprint on the Planet

The geopolitical implications of this transformation could well be striking. Among other developments, the global clout of Canada, Venezuela, and Brazil -- all key producers of unconventional fuels -- is bound to be strengthened.

Canada is becoming increasingly important as the world's leading producer of oil sands, or bitumen -- a thick, gooey, viscous material that must be dug out of the ground and treated in various energy-intensive ways before it can be converted into synthetic petroleum fuel (synfuel). According to the IEO report, oil sands production, now at 1.3 million barrels a day and barely profitable, could hit the 4.4 million barrel mark (or even, according to the most optimistic scenarios, 6.5 million barrels) by 2030.

Given the IEA's new projections, this would represent an extraordinary addition to global energy supplies just when key sources of conventional oil in places like Mexico and the North Sea are expected to suffer severe declines. The extraction of oil sands, however, could prove a pollution disaster of the first order. For one thing, remarkable infusions of old-style energy are needed to extract this new energy, huge forest tracts would have to be cleared, and vast quantities of water used for the steam necessary to dislodge the buried goo (just as the equivalent of "peak water" may be arriving).

What this means is that the accelerated production of oil sands is sure to be linked to environmental despoliation, pollution, and global warming. There is considerable doubt that Canadian officials and the general public will, in the end, be willing to pay the economic and environmental price involved. In other words, whatever the IEA may project now, no one can know whether synfuels will really be available in the necessary quantities 15 or 20 years down the road.

Venezuela has long been an important source of crude oil for the United States, generating much of the revenue used by President Hugo Chávez to sustain his social experiments at home and an ambitious anti-American political agenda abroad. In the coming years, however, its production of conventional petroleum is expected to fall, leaving the country increasingly reliant on the exploitation of large deposits of bitumen in the eastern Orinoco River basin. Just to develop these "extra-heavy oil" deposits will require significant financial and energy investments and, as with Canadian oil sands, the environmental impact could be devastating. Nevertheless, successful development of these deposits could prove an economic bonanza for Venezuela.

The big winner in these grim energy sweepstakes, however, is likely to be Brazil. Already a major producer of ethanol, it is expected to see a huge increase in unconventional oil output once its new ultra-deep fields in the "subsalt" Campos and Santos basins come on-line. These are massive offshore oil deposits buried beneath thick layers of salt some 100 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro and several miles beneath the ocean's surface.

When the substantial technical challenges to exploiting these undersea fields are overcome, Brazil's output could soar by as much as three million barrels per day. By 2030, Brazil should be a major player in the world energy equation, having succeeded Venezuela as South America's leading petroleum producer.

New Powers, New Problems

The IEO report hints at other geopolitical changes occurring in the global energy landscape, especially an expected stunning increase in the share of the global energy supply consumed in Asia and a corresponding decline by the United States, Japan, and other "First World" powers. In 1990, the developing nations of Asia and the Middle East accounted for only 17% of world energy consumption; by 2030, that number, the report suggests, should reach 41%, matching that of the major First World powers.

All recent editions of the report have predicted that China would eventually overtake the United States as number one energy consumer. What's notable is how quickly the 2009 edition expects that to happen. The 2006 report had China assuming the leadership position in a 2026-2030 timeframe; in 2007, it was 2021-2024; in 2008, it was 2016-2020. This year, the EIA is projecting that China will overtake the United States between 2010 and 2014.

It's easy enough to overlook these shifting estimates, since the reports don't emphasize how they have changed from year to year. What they suggest, however, is that the United States will face ever fiercer competition from China in the global struggle to secure adequate supplies of energy to meet national needs.

Given what we have learned about the dwindling prospects for adequate future oil supplies, we are sure to face increased geopolitical competition and strife between the two countries in those few areas that are capable of producing additional quantities of oil (and undoubtedly genuine desperation among many other countries with far less resources and power).

And much else follows: As the world's leading energy consumer, Beijing will undoubtedly play a far more critical role in setting international energy policies and prices, undercutting the pivotal role long played by Washington. It is not hard to imagine, then, that major oil producers in the Middle East and Africa will see it as in their interest to deepen political and economic ties with China at the expense of the United States. China can also be expected to maintain close ties with oil providers like Iran and Sudan, no matter how this clashes with American foreign policy objectives.

At first glance, the International Energy Outlook for 2009 hardly looks different from previous editions: a tedious compendium of tables and text on global energy trends. Looked at another way, however, it trumpets the headlines of the future -- and their news is not comforting.

The global energy equation is changing rapidly, and with it is likely to come great power competition, economic peril, rising starvation, growing unrest, environmental disaster, and shrinking energy supplies, no matter what steps are taken. No doubt the 2010 edition of the report and those that follow will reveal far more, but the new trends in energy on the planet are already increasingly evident -- and unsettling.

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Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and the author of "Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy" and "Blood and Oil".

Pentagon Travel Policies Criticized by Watchdogs

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Ann Scott Tyson 
June 11, 2009 - Washington Post

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Pentagon personnel took more than 22,000 trips paid for by foreign countries, private companies and other nongovernmental sources over the past decade, raising conflict-of-interest concerns, according to watchdog groups that yesterday released the first public database of such travel.

The trips, which took place from 1998 to 2007, cost at least $26 million and often involved companies or governments paying for travel by defense officials who were in a position to influence purchasing decisions that could benefit those footing the bill, according to a year-long investigation of ethics documents by the Center for Public Integrity and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

Defense officials say the travel was legal and took place in conformity with existing regulations, but those leading the investigation said it created relationships that had the potential to distort Pentagon spending and therefore should be curtailed.

"The Pentagon itself should be paying for these trips," said Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. He described the travel as being "riddled with conflicts of interest."

For example, he said, the biggest source of free travel was the medical industry, which funded about 8,700 trips worth $10 million for military doctors, pharmacists and others involved with the Pentagon's purchases of prescription drugs.

In one case, the investigation found that an Army doctor took at least 15 trips worth $13,000 to places such as Florida and Arizona that were paid for by the medical technology company Medtronic, and then wrote a journal article that overstated the benefits of a drug sold by Medtronic to treat bone injuries.

Foreign governments paid for 1,500 trips worth about $2.6 million. In one case in 2005, a senior official at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the Pentagon body responsible for approving weapons purchases by foreign governments, took his wife on a $24,000, eight-day trip to Saudi Arabia paid for by a Saudi prince. The prince was a commander of the Saudi national guard, and from 2003 to 2006 the Saudi government was involved in billions of dollars in weapons purchases through DSCA programs.

Another large category involved manufacturers of retail goods -- such as Nike, Sony and Mattel -- that paid about $470,000 for 500 trips, many of them by military personnel in charge of purchasing for outlets on military bases. The trips included thousands of jaunts to vacation destinations such as Honolulu, Paris and Rio de Janeiro, with spouses of defense personnel taking part in hundreds of such trips, the investigation found.

Pentagon officials said the trips were necessary, saved taxpayer money, and in the case of foreign governments were customary and if refused could have caused offense, according to the study.

"When we visit other countries at their invitation, it is common for the host country to pay for ground transportation, local security needs and officially hosted meals for the principal and perhaps one or two staff members," said Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We do the same here in the U.S. when foreign military dignitaries accept our invitation to visit," he said, adding: "All costs either expended or accepted by the U.S. government for these trips are approved."

Although acknowledging that some outside-funded travel may be beneficial, Buzenberg and others involved with the research said it has the potential to generate unnecessary spending of taxpayer money and should at a minimum be opened to public scrutiny.

"The real point of this is to shed light on a little-known practice," said Ellen Shearer, director of Medill's Washington Program. The probe into Pentagon travel followed a similar investigation that turned up $55 million in lobbyist-funded congressional travel and led to rule changes in 2007.

What to do with enemy prisoners?

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Richard Reeves – Yahoo News

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On Sept. 14, 1948, Capt. Kenneth Slaker of Lincoln, Neb., was making his sixth flight as a Berlin Airlift pilot, bringing food and fuel to the World War II enemy capital, which was blockaded on land and on rivers by the army of the Soviet Union. The United States Air Force, along with Great Britain's Royal Air Force, was trying to keep alive more than 2 million people in West Berlin, which was surrounded by East Germany and hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Red Army.

Slaker knew the way. He had flown 50 bombing runs over Berlin in 1944. The briefing this day, as the Soviet-American alliance of the war was deteriorating into "Cold War," had ended:

"The Russians say they will shoot down any aircraft that strays out of the Berlin air corridor, and that captured airlift pilots will be treated as spies. ... If you should find yourself down in the Soviet Zone, we cannot say that you should turn yourself in, or that you should try to escape. There is no published or firm policy on this, and it would be up to you or your crew as to what action you would want to take."

Both engines of Slaker's C-47 cut out over East Germany's Harz mountains. He and his co-pilot, Lt. Clarence Steber of Memphis, Tenn., bailed out less a thousand feet above the ground. Slaker landed in a potato field and was unconscious for four or five hours. He heard German voices when he came to at dawn and crawled into a forest. Standing and turning, in great pain, he walked straight into an East German farmer.

"I'm an American pilot on the airlift," said Slaker, who spoke some German. The German, whose name was Rudolph Schnabel, reached into a coat pocket and showed the pilot the discharge papers he received after two years as a prisoner of war in an American camp outside Kearney, Neb.

"Americans were good to me," Schnabel said in workable English. "Americans capture me, save my leg." He pulled up his pants to show scars on his leg, which had been put back together in an American field hospital after he was run over by a tank. To make a long story short, Schnabel recruited friends and smuggled Slaker across the border to an American checkpoint in West Berlin.

It seems to me that there is something to be learned about the handling of the 240 enemy combatants at Guantanamo by remembering how we handled more than 400,000 prisoners of war inside the United States from 1942 to 1947.

Schnabel, a corporal in the Wehrmacht, the German Army, was one of more than 380,000 German prisoners of war kept in 511 POW camps in the United States. Most of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps ended up in Texas for years, working for local farmers, building roads, being paid 80 cents an hour to buy cigarettes and beer in their own canteens. Many Texans, in fact, resented the camps, built strictly according to international law and the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners, calling them "Fritz Ritzes."

A few prisoners escaped -- it wasn't hard -- but were usually found on the main street of the nearest town, looking in store windows or at girls. Many later came back and became American citizens. When locals complained to the press or to their congressmen, according to "The Handbook of Texas": "The War Department defended its policy by pointing out the strategic reward of treating prisoners well: Enemy troops were surrendering rather than fighting."

There were also tens of thousands of Japanese and Italian POWs in the camps, mostly in the Midwest and South. More than a few American towns, Houlton, Maine, for one, invited the prisoners back in later years for joint celebrations of those years.

That is not to say that Americans are angels or that there was no mistreatment or torture or murdering of captured enemies in the past, particularly after American GIs saw Nazi concentration camps. West German investigators concluded in 1971 that tens of thousands of German prisoners were beaten and starved -- and 5,000 to 20,000 died -- in U.S. Army open air camps run near Cologne. Interestingly, those men were officially denied POW status and Geneva Conventions protections simply by reclassifying them as "disarmed enemy forces."

Now, of course, we have another name for some prisoners, "enemy combatants" -- and some argue that a couple of hundred of them are so dangerous they are not covered by any legal protections and that the United States is not strong enough to allow them to be tried or incarcerated on our own soil. Torture and illegal detention are not the tools of greatness, and if we could handle hundreds of thousands of uniformed prisoners, including 35 German generals and hundreds of fanatic U-Boat officers, we should be able to figure out how to deal with the bad guys and maybe some not-so-bad guys locked up all these years in Cuba.

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Richard Reeves is a syndicated columnist, he also has made award-winning documentary films. His books include "President Kennedy: Profile of Power."